How to be successful

Did you see those social media post during lock down, ‘if you don’t come out of lockdown having learnt a new skill (etc…) then you’re just lazy. I’m paraphrasing but hopefully you get the gist.

These posts do so much more harm than good. They encourage the idea that in order to be successful you have to be constantly on the go doing new things or ‘pivoting’ to the next great idea.

For some people that approach might work. For the vast majority though it’s not realistic, and it’s surely not the message we should be sending people — work so hard that you basically burn out, or put so much pressure on yourself that you’re continually in an impostor syndrome mental state — nothing is ever good enough?

For many COVID has been some sort of purgatory — worries over money, worries about getting children properly educated, relationships challenges. And then some bright spark piles on the guilt saying that they should have achieved more!?

In actual fact, nearly everyone, if not everyone, has probably moved through the change curve at some point in the last few months. Adapted for business, this model was based on studies by Elizabeth Kubler Ross in the 1960s. She identified that patients diagnosed with a critical illness go through 5 stages. Crucially, they may slip back a stage or forward. It’s now recognised as the process for any major…