The Performance Paradox: Finding Success By Letting Go Of Achievement

"When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you'll be successful." - Eric Thomas

There are two assumptions baked into traditional self-help.

Assumption 1: To achieve great things, you must strive for success. Never settle.

Assumption 2: Contentment comes from getting what you want. By achieving more, you'll become more content with your life.

If we were to simplify these assumptions, it would looks like this:

Discontentment --> Achievement --> Contentment

In my experience, the opposite is true. The higher your level of contentment, the more you'll achieve over time. I call it the Performance Paradox.

Let's examine each assumption one at a time.

Assumption 1: To achieve great things, you must strive for success. Never settle.

This assumption actually positions contentment as a barrier towards achievement.

If you're satisfied with what you have, there's no reason to set goals or even work to change your situation. Right?

It's true that discontent can be motivating in the short term. I call this type of motivation "unhealthy ambition" because it causes a number of unpleasant side effects. But we'll get to those later.

Fortunately, there's another form of ambition. Have you ever achieved something accidentally? Almost as a byproduct of a different intention you set, like wanting to have fun or help someone else? That's a different type of fuel. I call that "healthy ambition."

I used to associate contentment with complacency. I worried that by feeling content, I'd stop wanting things. But there's a difference between complacency and contentment.

Complacency is contentment without intention.

Intention is what drives change. By intention, I mean the level of thought and effort you put into each moment. It's focusing on the process of achievement and not the outcome. It doesn't matter how how many goals you set. It only matters what you can control in each moment. A helpful mantra for this is “High Intention Low Attachment.”

For example, let's say you want to grow your business. Setting a specific goal and timeline doesn't always help because it's like trying to predict the future. Instead, you could ask yourself questions like: What are more successful entrepreneurs doing that I'm not? What is preventing my business from growing? What could I try in order to overcome those obstacles? And then take action.

The short way of saying it is: Just do your best. No drama needed.

So let's add some nuance to Assumption 1: To achieve great things, you need to do your best.

Now let's move on to Assumption 2.

Assumption 2: Contentment comes from getting what you want. By achieving more, you'll become more content with your life.

It's easy to assume that once we get what we want (the relationship, the business, etc.) then we'll be content.

But this rarely works in practice. Contentment can't be achieved externally because it's an internal state of being.

Think of it like this: The life you currently live is made up of things that you once believed would be enough. Whatever you achieve, you take your same dissatisfied self into the new reality.

To truly find contentment, you must learn to want what you already have. Otherwise you'll always be striving for more. As soon as you build a six figure business, the goal post moves and now you need a seven figure one.

Let’s update Assumption 2: Contentment comes from wanting what you have. By achieving more, you won't become more content with your life.

Weirdly, it often works in reverse.

Let's look at why contentment may actually be the key to success.

The Surprising Influence of Contentment on Achievement

By focusing on what you already have, you can find a sense of peace that isn't influenced by external circumstances.

Turns out, this really comes in handy on the road to success.

Remember how earlier we talked about the negative side effects of unhealthy ambition? Here are a few of them:

• Burnout

• Relationship problems

• Stress and pressure

• Health problems

• Performance anxiety

• Depression

• Fear of failure

Striving for goals and beating yourself up about not accomplishing them can be motivating in the short term. But over the long term, it hurts your performance. It's sort of like driving with dirty fuel. You may still get to your destination, but eventually your car is going to break down.

When you focus on contentment first, you're using clean fuel. You get rid of all the pressure to succeed (and the stress it creates). This allows you to focus, be more productive, change directions, take risks, and be more creative.

Think of all the energy you waste when you identify with your goals. This type of attachment, or grasping, is a signature of unhealthy ambition. When your self-worth is on the line, it feels like you need to reach your goal or you won't be okay.

There’s such a thing as being too motivated. In psychology, it’s called the Yerkes-Dodson Law. Performance decreases beyond a certain level of stress.

Contentment helps lower stress.

Plus, if you're already content before the achievement, you're playing with house money. Whether you achieve the goal or not, you're content. It avoids the whole backwards logic of "Never be satisfied so that one day you can achieve your goal and be satisfied."

3 Habits That Help With Contentment

So, if contentment is the key to achievement, how do we become more content?

Here are a few things I've found useful:

1. Mindfulness. I prefer seated meditation for this, but you can use other practices like yoga as well. Mindfulness helps you understand that everything is enough in the present moment. This allows you to loosen your grip on goals.

2. Journaling. I keep a notebook next to my bed. Each night, I write down things I'm grateful for and things that I'm proud of that day. This trains your brain to focus on what you already have instead of what you don't have.

3. Accept that you'll be "okay" no matter what happens. Getting what you want doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. Failure is usually tolerable, if not preferable because of the growth it creates.

Once you've experimented with these three strategies, you can go deeper. Therapy, coaching, and plant medicine are all avenues to explore. Especially if you suspect that trauma is getting in the way of your contentment.

The Secret To Success? Chilling The F- Out

So, here's what we've learned:

1. To achieve great things, you need to do your best.

2. By achieving more, you won't become more content with your life. Contentment comes from wanting what you have.

This leads us to the performance paradox:

The more content you are, the less attached to the outcome you'll be. And the more you'll achieve in the long run.

A little mantra that I've been using recently is, "Do your best, and let go of the rest."

It’s funny. The more content you become, the less you'll care about achievements and goals in the first place. You'll just be happy with whatever life gives you.

You may worry that contentment will make you soft. And, in a way, you do get soft -  you become more flexible and compassionate. Less tense and angry.

You finally start to enjoy your life.

But wasn't that the point anyway?