7. Accomplishment
Accomplishment is the fifth and final component to be added to Martin Seligman’s most recent theory of well-being. It’s a pretty broad category, covering everything from achievement, competence and success to progress towards goals and mastery at the highest possible level. These concepts have been studied individually in psychology for decades, but collecting them together under the heading ‘accomplishment’ within positive psychology is new.
As I mentioned in Chapter 1, positive psychologists don’t always agree on definitions of happiness and well-being, nor what should be included in well-being theory and what should be left out. Seligman’s original model of ‘authentic happiness’ consisted of three components: positive emotions, engagement and meaning. In the intervening years, scientific research and debate has inspired him to revise this by adding two further components, relationships and accomplishment.
Accomplishment is included as one of the facets of well-being because like the other components, it is something that humans pursue for its own sake. Even though we all know people who are high achievers for extrinsic reasons, such as increased power, status or pay, accomplishment per se is intrinsically motivating. Nurturing accomplishment on its own or together with any of the other four facets, says Seligman, will lead to higher well-being.
We will now look at several different exercises to increase your sense of accomplishment.
The Wheel of Well-being revisited
Take a look back at your response to the Wheel of Well-being exercise in Chapter 1.
Which activities have you done recently that contributed to your sense of competence, mastery or achievement? They may be connected to your work (paid or unpaid) or your personal life (e.g. parenting, caring, hobbies).
Do you get a sense of accomplishment from the things you do day-to-day? If so, from which activities in particular?
Which activities can you do more of to increase the feeling of accomplishment in your life?
Record your responses in your well-being journal.
In your well-being journal, draw up a three-column table. In the first column, assign a block of rows to every decade of your life: 0–10, 11–20, 21–30 and so on. Taking each decade in turn, in the second column make a list of all the things that you achieved in those 10 years which made you feel proud then, or make you feel proud now as you look back on them. How you define achievement is up to you. Include all your achievements, big and small. Don’t forget that achievement isn’t confined to traditional measures of success, such as money, status or qualifications. When you think you’ve exhausted all the possibilities, spend at least another 5 minutes on this. Think about all the jobs you’ve done, whether paid or unpaid, all the clubs and groups you’ve belonged to, as well as all the formal and informal learning you’ve done.
The chances are that there are far more achievements on your list than you first imagined, and many that you’d completely forgotten about. Now identify the natural abilities, interests or strengths you used to be successful (see Chapter 9). Write them down in the third column. Consider whether any patterns emerge.
Finally, ask yourself how you can use your abilities, interests or strengths this week, at work or at home, in a new way. Record your ideas in your well-being journal. Commit to doing it every day for at least a week. Notice the effect on your well-being at the end of the week.
Accomplishment savouring
Pick one prominent accomplishment from the list you made in the previous exercise, plus a different accomplishment that you haven’t thought of in a while. For 15 minutes, reflect on them both, savouring the memory of these achievements (see Chapter 20 for more on savouring).
For each achievement recall what happened, when it happened, and what you did to make this success a reality. What skills and abilities did you use? What setbacks or challenges did you have to overcome? Who else was involved? What exactly makes you proud of this accomplishment? What positive feelings arise now, looking back on it?
You can also do this exercise with a partner, friend or colleague, taking it in turns to share your two chosen accomplishments. As your partner talks, ask them questions to help them savour their chosen accomplishments even more. Look for ways in which, in the future, they might use the abilities, interests and strengths revealed by their accomplishments.
Accomplishment anchor
You can also use your past successes to give you confidence, spur you on to greater achievements and give you a boost of positive emotions when you need a little psychological pick-me-up. This is an idea adapted from positive psychologist Barbara Fredrickson.
Take your accomplishment portfolio from the exercise on page 65. Over the next 20–30 minutes, find something to remind you of each of the most significant accomplishments. Reminders could include photos of the award ceremony, a sporting trophy, a certificate of achievement, a letter of appointment, a school report, a congratulations card or email from a dear friend, a copy of a sponsorship form showing how much you raised and so on.
Keep these mementos together where you can easily see them, save a digital photo of them on your phone, or create a mental snapshot in your head. When you feel like you need a boost, spend a few moments looking at them, reminding yourself of your significant achievements.
How to increase your level of goal achievement
According to Seligman’s theory, achievement can be summarized as follows:
Achievement = skill × effort
He suggests that the skill and effort elements have certain characteristics which are needed for higher achievement:
- Speed of thought. According to well-being theory, if you have already acquired a lot of relevant skills or knowledge about a particular task, you won’t have to waste brain power on the basics. This leaves you more able to think quickly, and with time left over to devote to planning, checking and being creative. These, of course, are the hallmarks of superior performance.
- Rate of learning. Clearly the faster you learn, the more information and knowledge you can acquire per hour spent on the task. This will also put you ahead of the game.
Becoming an expert
In terms of effort, research by psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and colleagues suggests that it takes a minimum of 10 years (or roughly 10,000 hours) of deliberate practice in any subject to become an expert. By ‘deliberate practice’, Ericsson doesn’t mean practising those things which you already know how to do, but putting sustained effort into the things you can’t do very well, or even at all. In other words, in order to become an expert, you have to put yourself outside of your traditional comfort zone, which requires substantial self-motivation and self-discipline.
Since very little is currently known about how to increase our speed of thought and rate of learning, the one thing we can all do to improve our rate of accomplishment is to spend more time on deliberate practice.
If you’re serious about becoming an expert in a particular field, Ericsson and colleagues recommend two other tips:
- Find a coach or mentor who can provide the level of challenge and critical feedback necessary to keep improving your skills
- Spend time observing a ‘master’ at work, then copy their techniques.
The role of competence
In Chapter 15 we will talk about competence as one of the three basic psychological needs which increase self-motivation, goal achievement, and well-being. When it’s accompanied by perseverance, competence (by which we mean feeling confident, effective and masterful in what we do) makes a good recipe for accomplishment at any level, big or small.
There are several strategies you can adopt to increase your competence in a particular field. One way is to get regular constructive feedback about how you are performing. The feedback might be inherent in the activity: you can tell straight away whether or not you’re playing the piano or playing a game of squash well, for example. Or you may have to wait for results, or seek feedback from someone else. If you don’t get regular positive and constructive feedback about the things you do, how might you acquire it? Can you identify a mentor, for example?
Another way to increase your competence in relation to your goal is to find ways to improve your skill-set. You could do this by gradually making the goal more challenging, so that you have to strive a bit harder every time you do it. People naturally shy away from stepping outside their comfort zone, but remember, this really is the only way to learn new skills. So when you’re feeling uncomfortable, just remind yourself that this is a sign that you have the opportunity to learn something new!
A third method is to undertake specific skills training, either through work or in your spare time. Finally, as Ericsson suggests, you could find a role-model to emulate.
So, those are some of the ways to improve your competence, and increase the probability that you will tread the accomplishment pathway to well-being. You might also like to look at Chapter 14, in which we talk about the role of effort and persistence, which are so essential for goal achievement.
- According to well-being theory, accomplishment is the fifth possible pathway to well-being, alongside positive emotion, engagement, relationships and meaning.
- Accomplishment includes things like achievement, success, competence, mastery, and progress towards your goals.
- Accomplishment can be measured both objectively and subjectively.
- As well as leading directly to well-being, accomplishment can increase your sense of well-being indirectly, for example increasing your positive emotion through reminiscence and savouring your successes.
- Skill and effort are the two main contributors to goal achievement, and you can increase both of these.
- Psychology research suggests that regardless of innate talent, considerable effort is required to become an expert, so practise, practise, practise!