{"id":174,"date":"2009-09-21T11:19:18","date_gmt":"2009-09-21T11:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/09\/the-secret-to-my-success.html"},"modified":"2009-09-21T11:19:18","modified_gmt":"2009-09-21T11:19:18","slug":"the-secret-to-my-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/09\/the-secret-to-my-success.html","title":{"rendered":"The Secret to My Success&#8230;and Satisfaction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I came up for air this morning after a week of juggling final book edits, beginning a new semester of teaching, attempting to get ahead of my studies, and trying to get into the groove of a new school year for Martin and Ian. As a result, the house is a bit of a wreck and my plans for organizing my room, my papers and the bills have mostly gone undone. Things are not exactly how I want them and I, while I have a clear vision of how much smoother things might go if I could just get a step ahead of things,\u00a0that just doesn&#8217;t seem to be in the cards.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Instead, it seems that the second I get &#8220;caught up&#8221; something new is added to the pile. Like a modern-day Sisyphus, I can&#8217;t seem to get the stone of my daily responsibilities over the crest of the hill. Yet, unlike Sisyphus, I am not feeling condemned by this truth today.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Earlier this month I posed the question: &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/09\/calm-within-the-storm-and-keeping-our-priorities-straight-is-it-possible.html\">Is it Possible to Keep Our Priorities Straight?&#8221;<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Rereading the post, I think the question I was really asking may have been: &#8220;Is it Possible for Me to Get Everything to Run Precisely According to My Ideal?&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Of course, these are two very different questions.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Scanning Facebook and Twitter this morning, I came across a few posts that led me consider my relationship with success and satisfaction.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Mark Batterson, a Pastor from Washington D.C. Tweeted that &#8220;<span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';line-height: 17px\">success is trying harder and trying longer than anyone else. with the Holy Spirit&#8217;s help, of course!&#8221;\u00a0<span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-family: arial;line-height: normal\">and blogged about his\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/evotional.com\/2009\/09\/definition-of-success.html\">definition of success<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Stephen Brewster, a marketing executive in the music industry, blogged about <a href=\"http:\/\/stephenbrewster.me\/?p=754#comments\">not being satisfied with mediocrity<\/a>.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>As I read these pieces and considered having more on my plate than I could ever &#8220;successfully&#8221; complete, I recognized something profound that has changed in me over the past several years.\u00a0Where success and satisfaction once walked in lock-step in my life, they appear to have shaken free of one another, converging and diverging without rhyme or reason. There was a time not so long ago when satisfaction once came only when I was successful &#8211; and my bar for success was so high that I rarely, if ever, achieved it. \u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I can see now that that success is not always satisfying and that satisfaction can come without it. While this realization might cause some people to slow down, I find the freedom to enjoy the journey toward success to be liberating&#8230;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Would love to hear what you think&#8230;\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I came up for air this morning after a week of juggling final book edits, beginning a new semester of teaching, attempting to get ahead of my studies, and trying to get into the groove of a new school year for Martin and Ian. As a result, the house is a bit of a wreck&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spiritual-growth"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Secret to My Success...and Satisfaction - Flirting with Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/09\/the-secret-to-my-success.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Secret to My Success...and Satisfaction - Flirting with Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I came up for air this morning after a week of juggling final book edits, beginning a new semester of teaching, attempting to get ahead of my studies, and trying to get into the groove of a new school year for Martin and Ian. As a result, the house is a bit of a wreck&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/09\/the-secret-to-my-success.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Flirting with Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-09-21T11:19:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joan Ball\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Secret to My Success...and Satisfaction - Flirting with Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/09\/the-secret-to-my-success.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Secret to My Success...and Satisfaction - Flirting with Faith","og_description":"I came up for air this morning after a week of juggling final book edits, beginning a new semester of teaching, attempting to get ahead of my studies, and trying to get into the groove of a new school year for Martin and Ian. As a result, the house is a bit of a wreck&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/09\/the-secret-to-my-success.html","og_site_name":"Flirting with Faith","article_published_time":"2009-09-21T11:19:18+00:00","author":"Joan Ball","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/09\/the-secret-to-my-success.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/09\/the-secret-to-my-success.html","name":"The Secret to My Success...and Satisfaction - Flirting with Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-09-21T11:19:18+00:00","dateModified":"2009-09-21T11:19:18+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#\/schema\/person\/581859119d5895db46006b4beb0c1f27"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/09\/the-secret-to-my-success.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/09\/the-secret-to-my-success.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/09\/the-secret-to-my-success.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Secret to My Success&#8230;and Satisfaction"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/","name":"Flirting with Faith","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Joan Ball","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#\/schema\/person\/581859119d5895db46006b4beb0c1f27","name":"Joan Ball","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6b5\/6b5b96362ce68b986f37a822881ca1f5x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6b5\/6b5b96362ce68b986f37a822881ca1f5x96.jpg","caption":"Joan Ball"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/author\/jball"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}