The nature of achievement

Not the most well-developed post I’ll ever write, but had some thoughts I wanted to get out. And rather than overthinking it and never writing anything, I’m just going to do it.

The problem with how we think about our achievements #

I feel that, sometimes, we can be too critical of our own achievements when we compare ourselves with others. And, in doing so, undervalue our own accomplishments.

I think it’s quite common to look at what others are doing and say “they’re doing great and I’m not”, and therefore conclude that our achievement has less value.

But when we do that, we may, inadvertently, disregard the importance of effort.

Just because somebody else can lift 25kg, or can cycle 50km, it’s not really that relevant to what we ourselves achieve. And likewise in any other domain.

A personal example #

Recently, I ended up essentially housebound for many weeks. I went out one day, as I tried to recover. Literally a 200m walk up the hill, to sit on a wall in the sun. Took me at least five minutes to reach the destination. I was shaking and felt sick from the exertion. It took me 15 minutes resting on the wall before I felt capable of walking back down the hill.

An able-bodied person would do that walk like it was nothing. I mean, I didn’t even really go anywhere. But for me, the effort involved was enormous. The recovery time was huge. That was the main thing I did that day. It felt like I’d gone hiking.

Was my achievement nothing, because most people could do it in two minutes and think nothing of it? Or is it better to think of it in the context of how much effort I put into this activity?

Obviously, this is an extreme example. But I think it’s kind of instructive in how we should think about our achievements, regardless of disability-related issues.

The flip side #

We can also consider this from the other direction. When we are out cycling, and overtake somebody going slowly, are we really doing ‘better’ than them? Do we know what is in their life? How much effort they put into even going out on their bike? Or their run or hike or the trip to the gym.

It feels kind of wrong to think about it in this way, of course - we like to be compassionate to others. But essentially we’re treating ourselves as the ‘other’ in this scenario when we negatively compare ourselves to somebody who has more ability. We’re not treating ourselves with kindness and compassion.

Celebrate what we achieve #

Rather than minimising what we do by looking at what others have done, we should celebrate what we do when it takes a lot for us.

Celebrate that walk we did, that photo we took, that run we did. Or, indeed, that blog post we wrote. If we did it and it was hard, we deserve to celebrate it.

That is the real achievement: that we pushed ourselves in a way that challenged us. That we overcame ourselves and did something good that we wanted to.

Cover image #

A photo from a few years ago. Adalar (‘Islands’), İstanbul, Türkiye. Returning from a boat trip to one of the islands.