I was tempted to title this post, Selfishness. But I realized I’m not really describing selfishness.
Being self centered, we are focused on our own needs, desires, goals and aspirations. Selfishness, by contrast, is that same focus, but at the expense of others. The selfish focus on win/lose. It’s toxic and cannot be tolerated in any environment.
Self centeredness is different, it can prioritize, “my success, my win….,” but not at the expense of others. But self centeredness, while not toxic like selfishness, can be very limiting.
The concept of WIIFM, What’s In It For Me, can be both selfish and self centered.
It’s human nature to be self centered, to be concerned about what’s happening to us, before anything else. We constantly focus on ourselves. What we do on a day to day basis, how we spend our time, what we want to achieve and our goals. These may be getting certain jobs or roles, our comp plans, our careers, our personal success, our dreams and aspirations. We do everything we can to achieve these.
But something we lose in our obsession about our own success, is that we can never achieve our goals/dreams without the support and help of others. We can’t achieve our WIIFM, unless we consider at “What’s in it for others?”
Anything we achieve is dependent on others. Making a sale, leading an organization, growing our careers, growing our earnings, growing our status. Without the support and help of others, we will fail to achieve what we want. In fact we fail.
We are not alone, we do not exist in isolation. We achieve our goals with and through others achieving their goals. And, perhaps, this is where the true joy of accomplishment is.
When we forget this, we move from being self-centered to selfish. And, while we might get success in the short term, it’s difficult to continue this on an ongoing basis. The people we depend on for success are no longer interested in supporting us because that support comes at the expense of their success.
But I wonder if our obsession with being self centered limits us?
What if we proactively help others succeed? What if we helped them grow and achieve? What if our mindsets looked at shared success?
Might we accomplish much more? Might we create deeper relationships with our customers, colleagues? Might we build stronger organizations and communities? Imagine a world where we genuinely recognize that success is shared.
