Let’s say someone had a running career that included PRs of 3:56 for the mile, 13:15 for the 5k, and 27:30 for the 10k. Let’s also say that this person never won a national championship, or made an Olympic team or set any records – as unlikely as you might think that outcome would be if you run that fast.
Would that be considered a successful career?
Such a set of times would not be accomplished without significant focus, training and commitment and arguably with a goal of wins and scoring team slots. So it is likely that this imaginary person could face a frustration of not “making it.”
In a similar regard, those of us with more modest goals – break some time barrier for the local 5k, get in the next faster wave for the big annual road race in town, make the varsity squad, win an age group, etc … are likely to face coming up short. And with that is the question as to if we were successful or not.
It has been my observation that the more energy we put towards the goal, the more that the actual outcome is perceived as important. As a result, we see things like the happiness of coming in second trailing to coming in third.
It is hard to really absorb that it was the process of what you put into it that determines some portion of that success, even if we know it is true. I often hear people say “the quality of the process dictates the quality of the outcome.” I am not sure I agree with that, or at least it is not wholly accurate.
It is also interesting to me where we place this consideration of success. We see a PR in a race as a point of success, but we’d scoff at the idea of someone claiming they set a PR in their parenting. And that is because we consider that a single outcome there does not matter – and that it is the overall process that is important.
Yeah, so classic “journey v. destination” stuff.
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