Over the years, somebody on the internet somewhere coined a phrase that perfectly summed up the struggles of modern society in most parts of the world: “first world problems.”
You’ve heard it before – those minor inconveniences (“There’s no WiFi on this plane!”) or even luxuries that can be viewed as negative (“This hotel puts too much orange zest in their mimosas!”). Here’s one that we don’t spend much time thinking about: “I actually have achieved my goals. What now?”
Doesn’t sound like a problem? What if you’ve dedicated your life – every fiber of your being, late nights, early mornings, weekends, all your precious free time and energy – to reaching this goal?
Working towards a goal can be difficult and stressful at times, but ultimately, a goal gives you a purpose. When you achieve it, you could really risk losing the very thing that has kept you going all these years.
In this episode of The School of Greatness podcast, I sat down with bestselling author, blogger, and internet entrepreneur Mark Manson to talk about the dark side of success and how to handle it.
Who is Mark Manson?
Mark Manson is not your average self-help coach. He gives advice (that doesn’t suck) to people who are tired of feeling hopeless, empty, and confused about this crazy thing we call life. His blog is a precious resource, housing articles, videos, podcast episodes, and even courses about how we can become happier people and achieve our dreams.
Mark knows a thing or two about achieving dreams, too: his book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: The Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life, was (and still is!) a massive worldwide bestseller. More than two million copies sold in its first year, and right now, that number is around seven million and climbing! Nothing prepares you for success like this.
Of course, Mark got to celebrate a little bit. He went on some trips, bought some fancy toys and gadgets, and played Zelda for months on end, but this was only fun for about a month. Mark found himself in a spiraling depression, asking himself, “What now? What’s the point of all this?”
Mark had to wade through some difficult answers to that question.
In this episode, we talked about how he managed that success – as well as how he’s worked through various failures in his life.
Everything is F*cked – A Book About Hope
Mark always wanted to become a successful author, but after writing a worldwide bestseller, it was as if he had nothing left to accomplish. How can you beat that? He could write more books, but chances are, they wouldn’t sell as many copies as The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. In other words, he was living in the shadow of his own success.
Achieving your dream only to feel purposeless in the end doesn’t seem worth it.
Luckily, Mark didn’t stop here. “What got me out of the fetal position,” he says, “was just accepting that I’m probably never gonna have a book that does that well. I’m still gonna do very well. My other books sell very well and can be great and can help a lot of people. You can’t get too attached to that number because you’re gonna torture yourself for the rest of your life.”
Accepting your success is the first step to overcoming the slump. So you accomplish your goal – Great! Celebrate that! But once the celebrating stops, accept your success, be proud of it, but ultimately let it go. It’s time for a new dream to take its place. When we don’t have a dream, we don’t have a mission or purpose in life.
Mark continued to do what he does best. His next book Everything is F*cked is (ironically) a book about hope. He decided to write about what he was struggling with – feeling hopeless in the shadow of his own success. “The material world is totally not the point,” he said. “It’s a side-effect.” In other words, making more money, increasing those numbers, and taking fancier trips – that’s just a never-ending pursuit to beat yourself. It’s hopeless.
In his new book, Mark also talks about how media and technology shape our perception of the world, making it seem like everything is going to hell when it actually isn’t. He includes psychological research showing that technology takes advantage of our flaws instead of helping them. It’s so easy to hide behind social media and assign blame. It can really turn us against each other. When you check Twitter, you might be tempted to think that the apocalypse is upon us – everyone is at each other’s throats – and this is when the hopelessness comes in.
Thankfully, Mark doesn’t stop here either.
Developing a Sense of Values
The first thing Mark says to do when you’re experiencing hopelessness is to develop a sense of values. For you to have a vision of hope, you need to focus on something worthwhile and valuable.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be something extraordinary or ridiculous like becoming the prime minister of Czechoslovakia or setting a Guinness world record. It could mean spending more time with your family, helping kids at a local school, or consistently exercising three days a week to reach your fitness goals.
It’s also common for us to think of a LOT of values we want to pursue, but sometimes, this can be just as hopeless. If you want to accomplish too many things, then you might end up doing nothing at all, because you’ll be overwhelmed by the pressure of doing so many things at once.
Mark urges you to choose the value that is most important to you and make it the central focus of your life.
What is more valuable than what you have today? And I’m not talking about money here – what is something in your life that, if you achieved, would honestly make you happier?
A Goldilocks Amount of Pain
No one likes to be stressed. But when you’re not experiencing any sort of pain in reaching your goals, then it’s likely that you will find yourself just as hopeless as when you started.
In this episode, Mark and I talk about what he calls the “Goldilocks amount of stress and pain” that we all need in our lives. Anything that’s valuable demands sacrifice. If your goal is to exercise and lose weight, but your heart rate stays at static 100 BPM as you walk idly on the treadmill while looking at your phone, then you’re not exactly taking the steps needed to reach your goal.
Mark explains that this moderate amount of pain is just what we need to stay motivated and empowered in order to achieve our goals. Here’s a paradox – by most metrics we’re safer, healthier, and living longer in human history, yet everyone is freaking out. Anxiety and depression rates are higher than ever, and “everything is f*cked.”
If you’re too pampered, you essentially remove a sense of value from your life and that removes a sense of purpose. Losing a sense of purpose means anxiety, depression, and a crisis of hope. Mark explains that with the more comfort and luxury we experience, the more we have to be selective in choosing our discomforts, our stresses, and our sacrifices.
On the other hand, if you go to the gym and destroy yourself for hours to reach your fitness goals, you’re gonna get injured and it’s gonna backfire. If you have too much stress or pain then you damage yourself. Listen to your body, heart, and mind to find the amount of sacrifice that’s healthy and works well for you.
Mark Manson’s Genius Meets Will Smith’s Legacy
Mark Manson has definitely undergone some stress. He recently went on a speaking tour, covering 14 cities, and admitted to feeling “mortified” about the idea, but he was pushing himself, his skills, and his ideas to continue reaching his goal of inspiring people across the world.
Also, no big deal, but famous actor, comedian, and music artist Will Smith came knocking at his door, saying, “Hey man, I want to write a book [about] my legacy and I want your help.”
Talk about some serious pressure, right?
Will Smith has a lot to say about success, stress, and achieving your goals. He’s been in the entertainment business since he was 17. He’s been at the top of music, TV, film – basically everything. In this episode, Mark shares a story that Will Smith shared with him, about pushing yourself and enduring an insane amount of stress.
In the early 90s, Bad Boys was Will Smith’s first feature film that really gained him some popularity. The studio was unsure that the film would sell internationally, so Will volunteered to go to several different countries for premiers and hundreds of interviews. He’d do all this on the weekends while filming Fresh Prince of Bel Air! The studio started giving him much nicer offers and more attention, and what he learned is that being an actor is not about the movie -the movie is only half of the job as an actor. The other half is selling it to people.
How do you keep a crazy lifestyle like this up? Will Smith had an answer:
“You know what the trick is? What you do is you bite off more than you can chew, agree to do more than you think is possible, and then you just go and do it.”
What if you spent those hours binge-watching Netflix into hours of community service? What if you don’t walk at the gym, but run? What if you stopped daydreaming about your goals and instead worked toward achieving them?
Balance is important (remember Goldilocks?), but so is sacrifice.
And second, don’t succumb to the pressure of achieving your dreams all by yourself. Developing healthy relationship habits with people you trust is vital in order to maintain balance. We need people to be happy. It’s that simple.
Why You Should Listen Right Now…
Sometimes, you achieve your dreams, but are left feeling empty. Sometimes, you feel so overwhelmed by your dreams that you can’t get off your couch. Sometimes, you may look at all the political unrest, the news reports, the social media posts, and everything seems hopeless. I know I do sometimes. If you’re feeling hopeless, this episode is for you
As a best-selling author, Mark Manson has a lot to say about achieving success but also processing success. Ultimately, you’re never going to reach a place in your life when “you’re done,” because lounging on a desert island is not satisfying in the end. There are always new values to pursue, new people to meet, and new risks to take, and these things give us purpose.
Mark’s definition of greatness is “giving a 100% for whatever you value, whether it being the best mom the world has ever seen or the best preschool teacher or lawnmower man” – That’s what matters!
Zelda also matters, too. Mark wants you to know that Zelda is a great game, but it shouldn’t be a lifestyle. Don’t remove the challenge in your life: Embrace it. Learn how in Episode 793.
To greatness,
