omeone asked me in an interview recently what my greatest achievements are. Aside from learning how to tie a jelly snake in a knot with my tongue, I have two no brainer answers I trot out whenever someone asks me this. The things I’m most proud of in my life are maintaining a significant weight loss for over 10 years and creating this blog you’re reading. Once I sent off my answers in an email, I realised they aren’t really achievements at all because I haven’t ‘achieved’ them. There’s no past tense, I’m not done with either of these things. These supposed ‘achievements’ aren’t finished and neither of them will ever be finished. I work on both of them every day and have done for almost a decade. It’s highly likely that I will work on both of them for at least the next decade, the weight loss one I’ll be working on for the rest of my life. It felt a bit weird that I hadn’t actually achieved my achievements and that technically speaking, I kind of never would.
It made me realise that you don’t ever really finish the important things in life. You can finish a report, you can finish an assignment or you can finish a session at the gym but you can’t really finish the big stuff. The important stuff, the life changing stuff.
There’s no box to tick that completes the journey to happiness, weight loss, a successful career, a functional marriage or a good life. How do you know when you’re done? When can you relax? The answer is, you can’t.
I felt strangely comforted by the thought that longevity and commitment is almost always rewarded. Sometimes it’s nice to know that slow and steady does win the race and that things that come too quickly or easily – money, weight loss, career success – don’t always stand the test of time.
That’s not to say that good things can’t and shouldn’t happen quickly because for some people they do and that is excellent… for them. In my experience though, truly good things don’t come to people looking for a quick fix. Good things come to people who work hard. Consistently and continuously. It sounds boring but I’d rather work for a long time on something that has a higher and more steady rate of return than work on shorter term, riskier goals that end up being a waste of time or give me very short lived pleasure.
If you’re struggling because amazing things don’t seem to be happening in your life, I want to tell you they probably are. As long as you’re waking up every day and working towards the things that matter, you’re winning. The best things in life are worth working for and the really, really awesome rewards take ages to surface and when they do surface, they require a lot of maintenance. Which is rather excellent because otherwise, what’s the point in all this? I don’t want to finish anything until I’m a very, very old lady.
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P.S If you’re a blogger from Adelaide, and you’re stuck in your blogging journey I’d love to help you!Â
25 Comments
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So true. I have also learnt that ‘overnight success’ takes a minimum of at least two years…and when you’re there you’re too busy too understand that you’ve arrived!
P.S.Have fun in Adelaide. Laksa at the ‘Asian Gourmet’, Adelaide Central Market, is a must. Lot’s of cool little bars and restaurants on Peel and Leigh Streets and drinks on the roof deck at 2KW is worth the lift ride…was just there a few weeks ago.x-
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Oh thank you so much! I shall! I’ve got a fantastic tour guide so I’m sure I’ll be taken care of! 🙂
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Love this! One of my favourite quotes is ‘It will all be alright in the end – so if it’s not alright, then it’s not the end’. Great reminder that, just as you say, the really important things are never ‘finished’.
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Oh I love that quote too! That’s totally it, you can’t be done until you’re actually done.
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Love this! My 81 year old grandfather said something a few months ago that really resonated with me and speaks to exactly what you’re saying here. We were discussing finalising his estate planning and he said “I don’t like to tie things up neatly with a bow- if everything down here is perfectly sorted, the big guy upstairs might think I’m done down here!”
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Love that! You can’t ever let whatever god you follow know you’re done. This is why you’ve just got to keep moving and make more good goals for yourself!
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I hate being asked what my achievements are – managing to raise a child to the age of 2 and a bit without knowing what I’m doing? Growing my hair long again? Finding a pair of new size 12 Review pants at Savers?
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Review pants. For real. No one can top that!
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Very very true and I guess why the ‘journey’ will mostly be more important than the ‘destination’.
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I’ve found when I get to the destination it’s not a destination at all!
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“It made me realise that you don’t ever really finish the important things in life.” – holy quackers girlfriend, nailed it! x
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I’m adding quackers to my List of Adorable Things Sonia Says… right after ‘gank.’ x
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So thought provoking! The only thing I like to be able to say is that I finished my degree. But I’ll never be done raising my child (and any future siblings) and I’ll never be done with blogging/writing (I just don’t know how I ever could give it up). Sometimes I like that the stuff I love is more of a slow burn. I think our big life goals are filled with lots of little ‘achievable’ ones, but we’re never done and I like that. I hope that in my old age I will still think of new things I am yet to master.
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That’s another thing I like about this mentality is that you’re life isn’t over because you’d didn’t achieve something by a certain age. It’s never too late to try something new!
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Great post!! It’s a real thinker.
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xxx
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Love this Carly. Will have to remember to dig this one out next time I go for a job interview and are asked that question! Its always asked! Really got me thinking! Xx
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Oh good! Sometimes I have these weird thoughts and I wonder whether or not they’ll translate effectively so I’m glad this one pulled off!
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I think I asked you that question and I loved your answer because tying a jelly snake with your tongue is an achievement. I think you’re spot on when you say that some of these achievements are never “finished” or “done” but that’s not to say they’re not achievements so far. Your blog is a perfect example of an outstanding achievement, just because it is going to continue and evolve, doesn’t make it any less of an achievement. I see achievement is a bit like the present perfect tense in grammar; it’s an action that started in the past, has continued to or is still important now (and is likely to continue into the future.) I think that’s the thing about life, we are never done!
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You did ask that question! And also just for the record, it’s really freaking hard to learn how to do. It took me like three weeks to get it right.
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You know, I think you’re right about this. I hope you’re right. It’s the waiting and the working towards that’s the killer though. When I used to be a teacher, we had to tick boxes for where kids were with different skills. One of the boxes was “Working towards achieving” and it used to make me feel so sad when I had to tick that box. It felt very ambiguous, and parents (and kids) seemed to just want to know where they were in the order of smartness. I wanted the box to say something like “He’s here and he is trying and we’ve built a rapport and he turns up clean and happy and he’s confident. You’re raising a good kid. And all of this is helping me help him to learn and stretch his brain. We’re working towards achieving heaps of things this year. Just sit tight and wait.”. But I guess that wouldn’t fit on the report cards, would it.
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Oh I totally love that! And I also think it’s hard to be achieving at everything all at once. You need to pick what to concentrate on.
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Okay….it’s time. We need to see the jelly snake tying trick ‘how to’s’ blog post. With vid??? Enjoy Adelaide. Ax
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There already is proof of it! I’ll make it into a how to one day. 🙂
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So I had to Google jelly snake; on this side of the pond they are a bit shorter and are called gummy worms.
