Upward is Not Always Forward

Largely, we’re sold a hazardous notion of success that is usually represented in a promotion or some version of reaching the next step. We’re always climbing and climbing, very few of us stop to ponder if that’s actually what we want. Or more pressing, if it’s even what we’re suited for. In reality, there is plenty of success and enrichment to be found in what we’re doing rather than chasing what we’re not, so when I say “not suited”, it’s not a shot on the ability to move upward so much as I am questioning the actual need to for some.

After all, upward is up. It’s not better, it’s just, up. If you’re relatively unhappy where you are then perhaps the answer is to move upward. But perhaps it isn’t. Perhaps there is room to be explored to simply move forward with what you’re already doing.

Placed into the context of a career, I’ll use the popular example of a salesperson. This is not typically a position aligned for upward growth as you continue to make more money in the same position the better that you do. For many, the next logical step is to become a sales manager when in reality, managing people and selling a product bear very little similarities. The skills one needs to be successful in selling do not guarantee the same skills when it comes to managing. In fact, they might even clash. Someone who is so upward driven may move into a sales manager role and absolutely hate it, make less money, and be far less professionally fulfilled.

Is that really growth? Is that really success?

So many careers are positioned this way. The world can’t be possibly shaped to continuously force our focus only upward, and diminish forward progress, can it? Wouldn’t we all go mad if we couldn’t put down roots in the place we actually exist, and strive to perform and succeed to the fullest of our abilities?

-Dave