Success

Information Outlook, Oct, 1997 by Gloria Dinerman

Does achievement constitute success? When you harness your energy to meet a short-term objective the immediate gratification you feel through the completion of your project is soon forgotten. The applause of yesterday's audience dies quickly. It is the winning of the long-term goal that provides the impetus to reach that pinnacle in your career where you would consider yourself successful. However, a measure of people on the move is that they keep pushing that goal ahead so that they never quite attain the point of complete self-satisfaction. There's always one more rung in the ladder to boost you over the top.

Ambition fires drive. Without ambition the smartest person can languish in mediocrity. The state of being a non-success is so common to the societal norm, that people who achieve even a small flare of recognition stand out from the pack. If we are ordinary - if we don't stand out - does that mean that we are less successful or less ambitious? Probably. Sometimes that drive to accomplish more and to be outstanding just isn't there.

People refer to an overachiever as one who has gone beyond their technical or intellectual boundaries. A workaholic is driven by a psychological compulsion to strain and strive and produce to the exclusion of all other forms of activity, but regardless of whether or not there is a positive end to the exercise, he or she has not overachieved. The word is an anomaly.

We tend to think that if someone is rich that he is successful. What is rich? During the great depression, if your family was making $5,000 a year, you were rich. In today's economy, you may have a salary or a family income over six figures, and you are still considered of moderate means. If being monied is relative to the economy in which we live, then success could be relative to an occupation, an art, a profession, a society, an era.

Librarianship may be rewarding as we daily meet our short term goals of providing service to our public but do patrons look upon us as being successful? Does management treat us as successful career professionals? Do we feel personally successful or only satisfied?

An information professional may see the glimmer of success when responsibilities within the job structure broaden in scope. The more work, the more recognition, the more satisfaction, the greater the success. Is that really the path of upward mobility? Taking on more work may not necessarily be a promotion but only an expediency for the benefit of the corporate bottom line. Additional duties without commensurate compensation is not a compliment to our ability but an insult to our status that causes discontent and resentment. And yet librarians in all settings constantly and consistently produce more with less.

It would be difficult for an experienced library manager to function without self-assurance.

Here is a test to see if you are really satisfied with yourself. Suppose you are adding to your staff an assistant manager who will take over some your responsibilities and perhaps be your successor. Do you want that person created in your own image? Do you want a clone? What qualities do you see in yourself that you want replicated in a close associate? If you are pleased with your reflection and secure in your personality, then you will search out a copy so that any transition in personnel will be seamless. The work will carry on your way. Are you willing to train and to give someone the benefit of your experience so that they can profit from your knowledge and learn your methodology? The important significance of the above is that the more you like yourself, the better chance you have of becoming a success and staff selection telegraphs your tastes, your attitudes, your ego.

Success is status. Success is the spirit within. Success cannot be handed down to your heirs - everyone has to achieve his or her own recognition.

When you look ahead to future possibilities of continued accomplishment instead of looking behind with regrets, then you are successful. What you could have done has passed and the opportunity will never be repeated.

You may be a slave to success or you can be its master. So many individuals are spectators of life. It is the risk-takers that experience the highs of achievement and the pride of seeing that efforts are rewarded. They also learn through discouragement and failure. Mistakes are a given - repetition of errors is foolish. By acknowledging that a decision or any action proved to be wrong, you have made a gigantic stride toward making the next decision more positive and productive.

Enjoy your job. Select challenging outside activities. Seek success as a means to an end to get what you really want - whatever that may be. Some of us want fame, or leisure time, or money, or the ability to travel, a Swiss chalet, or independence, or all of the above.

Success is not for everyone - only those who are discontent with the ordinary.

Gloria Dinerman is founder and president of The Library Co-Op, Inc., a corporation providing technical automation, and placement services to special libraries throughout the country.