Summary of the book "The Success Trap" - By Amina Aitsi-Selmi

Key Concepts in this book:

1. It's all too easy to fall into the success trap in today's dynamic workplace.
2. High achievers may appear to have it easy, but success comes with its own set of issues.
3. A mindset shift is required to break free from the success trap.
4. You can reconnect with yourself once you've broken free from your restricting beliefs.
5. Make the most of your issues by turning uncertainty into opportunity.
6. You can profit from an entrepreneurial mindset even if you're not a traditional entrepreneur.

Who can benefit the most from this book:

• Successful people who still feel unfulfilled.
• Professionals heading down a path they’re not sure about.
• Freethinkers stuck in predictable jobs.

What am I getting out of it? Learn how to get out of the success rut.

A decent job, a good wage, and peer recognition. Isn't that fantastic?

Sure, why not? But none of these things – none of what we commonly refer to as "success" – are guaranteed to make you happy.

In fact, obtaining this level of achievement may be detrimental to your health. You may begin to lose sight of what you really want out of life, your genuine goals, or – to put it bluntly – what "success" means to you.

Because success in its most common form is a snare. It's now time to break free.

Dr Amina Aitsi-Selmi, the author, accomplished exactly that. Her career path turned away from health policy and toward coaching. There's no reason you can't find a new way, as you'll see in this summary.

• You'll learn how success myths trap us in the wrong career.
• How to fight goal addiction.
• And what to do once you've escaped the trap in this summary.

1. It's all too easy to fall into the success trap in today's dynamic workplace.

The workplace in the twenty-first century is unlike any other time in history.

Wages are staying the same while the expense of living continues to rise. Artificial intelligence has the potential to eliminate jobs. And global happiness is at an all-time low. People ranked paid labor as the second worst thing for their well-being out of 40 activities in a 2017 survey. The only thing that could be worse? Being sick and confined to a bed.

The turbulent, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world of today is volatile, unpredictable, complex, and ambiguous. There's even an acronym for it: VUCA. It also relates to our professional lives. It's no surprise that when people believe they've discovered something valuable, they tend to stick put. Staying still, on the other hand, can be problematic.

The essential message here is that it's all too easy to fall into the success trap in today's dynamic workplace.

It may seem weird to consider success as a trap. However, what appears to be prosperity frequently conceals more serious issues.

Assume you've found steady, well-paying work. You soon adjust to a lifestyle that suits your financial situation - you buy or rent costly real estate, go on exotic vacations, and so on. However, this creates a dependent on your employment, and you stop evaluating if it makes you happy as a result.

However, it isn't always about the money. Take, for example, Xena, a successful doctor with a background in policy and research. She appeared to be determined, capable, and poised for success on the outside. But she was struggling with a strict working culture and questioned whether she was genuinely making a difference on the inside. She felt trapped on a standard job path.

Xena was enslaved by the success myth, which holds that a career should be nothing more than a series of promotions. Others are enslaved by job myths, such as the belief that you must be busy all of the time or optimize your output. Financial incentives can also entrap you, whether through a high income or the golden handcuffs promise of a future pay increase.

So, what do you do if you're stuck? Eventually, Xena took the plunge and went it alone, choosing a comparable field that was a better fit for her.

This summary will assist you in doing so, but first ponder the following key question: Why do high achievers, in particular, struggle with these issues?

2. High achievers may appear to have it easy, but success comes with its own set of issues.

Diana was the quintessential high achiever. As a hospital consultant, she was following in her father's footsteps, and her career was off to a great start.

It wasn't long before she was recruited by a prestigious hospital and promoted to a management position. She received numerous accolades and prizes, and she even found time to run a few half-marathons along the way.

However, something didn't feel quite right. Was she really living her life to the fullest? She felt like she was on top of the world, but what was next? Is there another peak to climb?

Success was wonderful, but it didn't bring happiness.

The essential message here is that while high achievers appear to have it easy, success comes with its own set of issues.

Of course, career crises do not simply affect top achievers. Plus, being a high achiever isn't in and of itself an issue. Strangely enough, a career crisis might feel most intense for people who achieve the most.

Achievement is a compulsion for many successful people. They accomplish one goal and then move on to the next — there is no time to take a breath and admire their accomplishments. There isn't always time to think about things like health and relationships.

Worse yet, when successful people begin to feel unfulfilled, they frequently feel guilty. Doctors are particularly adept at this. Questioning their personal satisfaction can feel ungrateful when their job has a high status and is believed to be doing excellent.

Imposter syndrome, which is the widespread feeling that you aren't good at your own profession, is another challenge that successful people confront. It's something that everyone from Michelle Obama to Meryl Streep has suffered with. Finally, successful people may find themselves becoming what the author refers to as rescuers: people who aid others to the point where they believe they don't deserve it.

All of these issues combine to create the high achiever paradox: people like Diana who appear to have won the race to be a successful professionals but lose their happiness in the process. Not to mention the fact that exceptional achievers are particularly vulnerable to burnout.

How do you break free from the success trap, perceive it for what it is, and resolve this paradox? First and foremost, it necessitates a shift in mindset.

3. A mindset shift is required to break free from the success trap.

Having objectives is beneficial. A clear vision is an important part of achieving success. The difficulty is that successful people can become overly focused on their objectives. When you're used to always having a goal to achieve or a promise to uphold, the whole process might become goal addiction.

Goal addiction is similar to other addictions like as smoking or eating chocolate. Goal addicts will go to any length to acquire their fix, even if it means sacrificing their happiness or family life.

How do you break free from your goal addiction? Only through altering your mindset will you be able to achieve your goals.

The main point here is that breaking free from the success trap necessitates a mental shift.

Creative flow, sometimes known as being "in the zone," is the polar opposite of goal addiction. When you're in flow, you're completely immersed in an activity for its own reason. You're able to come up with innovative answers to issues and, more importantly, enjoy the process.

By the way, finding a creative solution does not necessitate composing poems all the time! Simply tackling work with spontaneity and playfulness, as well as a willingness to take risks, can be considered creative.

Slowing down to speed up is one approach to assist yourself in making that create change. When you have so much on your plate that you don't know where to begin, don't dive right into your to-do list. Take a deep breath and take a step back. It's never truly time management - it's always choice management.

Another thing you'll need to do to get into a flow state is doing some mental self-reflection. People who feel stuck sometimes have conflicting thoughts, such as wanting to earn more money while yet wanting to spend more time with their family.

This type of mental snag stands in the way of your flow state. To break free, you must first accept the existence of these opposing beliefs. Only then will you be able to make meaningful decisions about what you want to accomplish and where you want to go.

Self-awareness is the key to breaking free from the success trap. It's not about fleeing to join the circus; in fact, it may not necessitate many exterior changes. It's about getting out of a mindset where you're so focused on your objectives that you're not paying attention to what you're doing. And adopting a more creative mindset in which you have genuine control over how you spend your time.

4. You can reconnect with yourself once you've broken free from your restricting beliefs.

Developing self-awareness entails examining the preconceptions that may be holding you back. You'll be able to reconnect with what genuinely matters to you if you do so.

Here's a terrific way to get your thoughts moving forward. Simply ask yourself five questions, the first of which is: What are your current thoughts?

Consider a lawyer who is stressed and unmotivated. She believes she should know her life's purpose, but she doesn't believe she does.

You might think that finding a sense of purpose would be the answer. However, a closer examination of her beliefs may disclose a different result.

Breaking free from your limiting beliefs allows you to reconnect with yourself, which is the main message here.

The second of the five inquiries inquires into how your thoughts bind you. The lawyer feels inadequate when she thinks she should have more of a purpose, which causes her to postpone and worry.

The third question asks if you want to believe that bad though. No: I choose not to believe I need a sense of purpose, the lawyer might profit from expressing. Making that decision can seem like a huge weight has been lifted off your shoulders.

Question four needs you to generate and engage with an opposing thought. I don't need to know my purpose, the lawyer might argue. Could this be the case? What does it feel like to visualize it?

Finally, question five prompts you to assess your immediate plans. After all, the lawyer might decide to stop obsessing over a sense of purpose and instead be open to new experiences as they come. The practice has helped her see that it was her initial question that was trapping her, not the absence of an answer to it.

This type of self-reflection allows you to reconnect with yourself by challenging your limiting assumptions. Then, now that you're more aware of your motives, go a step further and develop a list of which activities drain you and which energize you. Consider how you want to spend your free time.

Last but not least, accept. Being fully receptive entails recognizing your achievements as well as your feelings about your profession and life. This may appear to be a simple task, but high achievers typically struggle with it since it requires them to move from a doing to a more passive state.

But it'll be well worth the effort if it helps you break free from the success trap.

5. Make the most of your issues by turning uncertainty into opportunity.

Remember how VUCA stands for "volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous"? The workplace is dynamic, uncertain, difficult, and ambiguous for everyone, including successful people.

But, of those four massively disruptive forces, uncertainty is the one that keeps people sticking to what they know.

Why take the risk of quitting your job when the job market is so unpredictable? Why take a chance on launching a business when technology can disrupt everything at any time? In today's society, there is so much uncertainty that it can be overwhelming. It also prevents you from taking chances.

A shift in attitude, though, can turn an uncertain future into an opportunity.

The main takeaway here is to turn uncertainty into opportunity and make the most of the obstacles you're up against.

One of the reasons you may have fallen into the success trap is that it feels secure. A ship in port is secure, as the saying goes, but that's not what ships are meant for! Looking beyond the security of what you know and embracing the possibilities of an uncertain world can help you break free from the success trap.

Another mindset shift is to turn uncertainty into opportunity. Consider how it might play out in this scenario. Athena was a highly accomplished surgeon who looked to have her sights set on a prestigious medical career and was working tirelessly to achieve it. However, her desire for certainty along this well-defined path was preventing her from considering other possibilities.

Athena abruptly understood one day, while working on a funding proposal that would have allowed her to take another step up the ladder, that truly pursuing what she loved would not include this particular step at all. In fact, it would necessitate a shift into a new, more research-oriented position. Furthermore, she was in a position to take the financial hit.

Athena's mental transformation had far-reaching ramifications. She instantly saw a world brimming with possibilities. She developed new connections, began new conversations, and discovered that more alternatives began to arise. Rather than attempting to eliminate uncertainty from her professional life, she understood that embracing it could lead to a more satisfying path forward. She continued to work in medicine, but in roles that allowed her to do more of the things she enjoyed.

The entrepreneurial mindset is a two-word term that sums up Athena's way of thinking about the world. In the final concept, we'll take a look at that.

6. You can profit from an entrepreneurial mindset even if you're not a traditional entrepreneur.

You probably don't consider yourself an entrepreneur unless you own a business. But perhaps you should.

The entrepreneurial mindset isn't just about starting your own business. It's a philosophy that you can apply even if you work for a company. Or, for that matter, if you're looking for a change of career.

It's about attitude, not business plans, and it's the best way to thrive outside of the success trap in the uncertain yet opportunity-filled world you'll find yourself in.

The takeaway here is that you may profit from an entrepreneurial mindset even if you're not a traditional entrepreneur.

There are three different categories of business owners. The first is the traditional entrepreneur, who is a business founder who is passionate about bringing something new to the market and has the energy to come up with and implement wholly new ideas.

There are also intrapreneurs or organizational entrepreneurs. These are persons who, although working as employees, bring a creative and dynamic perspective to their jobs. You may still use your particular skills and interests as an intrapreneur, and you can even take on leadership roles. You're merely doing it for a pre-existing organization.

Finally, there are personal entrepreneurs, who are motivated by a desire to take action and contribute to problems they care about. Personal entrepreneurs are self-motivated people who like making a difference via their job and are adept at managing career transitions.

But keep in mind that whatever path you take, don't be dragged back into the success trap. For example, once the author established her coaching firm, she was persuaded by some experienced coaches to launch a franchise, which would allow her to make a larger profit. But she quickly understood that this wasn't the best approach: she preferred to work alone, so she declined.

It's not about a relentless emphasis on money, and it's certainly not about a desire for material achievement at all costs to have an entrepreneurial mindset. It's about looking around and discovering new channels and opportunities for your unique talents and passions.

It's completely understandable to fall into the success trap. It's human nature to desire safety and success, and the volatile, unpredictable nature of today's workplace further adds to that desire. However, possibilities are all around you; all you need is the correct mindset to recognize them.

The fundamental message in this summary is that what appears to be a success on the surface is frequently more complicated when you delve deeper. Workplace success comes with its own set of issues, and it's easy to fall into the success trap. You may create a more rewarding profession for yourself by turning away from a goal-oriented, win-at-all-costs mindset and reengaging creatively with your particular talents and interests.

Here are some suggestions you can put into practice:

Determine your genius zone.

High achievers excel in their fields. They've probably gotten really good at it over time. It's possible that you'll have numerous zones of greatness. But what is your genius zone? Is there one thing you do professionally where you really shine, where you check all the boxes and make the most of what you have to offer the world? Try to pinpoint your brilliance zone, because doing more of it can only be beneficial.