Success and Happiness - Finding the Missing Piece

byAWill871815

172 followers

5 years ago

Hand in Hand

I'm not sure why it took me so long to realize this. But one day it just clicked and I had this moment where I decided I was going to do something about it. What I am referring to here is the fact that success and happiness are not mutually exclusive, that they instead go hand in hand. For whatever reason I had it in my head that I could only have one or the other and the idea of having both was very surreal to me.

My Backstory

It's only when I started tracing my steps did it click. I started thinking about my accomplishments and choices...going to college and after one semester changing my major to something I thought I would enjoy more, but then once there realizing I still wasn't enjoying what I was doing. Student loans were stacking up though so I told myself just to stick to it and get it over with; by 2010 I graduated. So I got a degree in a field that I didn't enjoy and along with that had over $100,000 in student loan debt, but wait, I was successful right? I mean, I graduated from college with a bachelors degree so I should be proud... yet I wasn't.

After college the impeding pressure to find a job was weighing heavy, yet I had no desire to find one as I wanted nothing to do with the field my degree qualified me for. So I joined the Army in 2011. At least I could buy myself some time, serve my country, get some extra skills and experience, and also pay off some of my student loan debt...surely that would have made me happy, but no it didn't. Of course, it's in my nature to do my best in any situation I find myself in so to others I would have appeared successful. I aced my PT tests and promotion board and moved up quickly for the short time I was in but again was not happy. I wanted to be in control of my own life and anyone who has been in the military knows that that is one luxury you don't get to have.

So by 2014 I did my time and got out and felt I was ready to transition back into the civilian world and welcomed a job with stability. I managed to lock down a job before my active duty contract was up and prepared to settle in and enjoy the ride to come. I of course welcomed the new set of skills and really put forth the effort to learn and understand everything my job entailed. It wasn't long though before I quickly became overwhelmed. Stress was high, I was wearing many hats and the go to person to solve highly visible problems that always needed to be fixed ASAP. Work hours weren't consistent and my weekends always involved going in to work. Once again I was very successful at what I did, at least to everyone else I was, but not myself.

Because of that successful image I portrayed I was offered a promotion and new position within the company...of which only to find out still was high stress, still was taking my time away from my family, and lacked the daily structure that I desired.

So fast-forward to present day, I am still with the same company but only now have moved from Georgia to Texas and have the ability to work from home. Now that sounds like the life doesn't it? I admit it has its pros I am still struggling to find the motivation to do my job related activities...I just do not enjoy the content of my work.

Finding WA

It wasn't but 2 weeks ago that I found an ad on Facebook which started my whole journey into the world of digital marketing. Although this was not a WA ad, it did lead me to research where I eventually found WA. It was at that point everything just clicked. I was interested, excited, eager, optimistic, driven, setting goals, learning, dreaming of it, waking anxious to keep going, HAPPY!

This is the first time in all of my adult life I have found something I can do professionally that makes me happy and I know that this was the missing piece I was looking for all along.

So never give up, never give in. Always strive to do something that truly makes you happy because success without happiness is the worst kind of failure.