SEEKING SIGNIFICANCE
You can be successful but not significant, but you cannot be significant without being successful. Poignant, isn’t it?
Significance is the quality of being worthy and special. Everyone is different so everyone wants to feel special in some way. Significance is not a desire but a need that people cannot live without. We all have this need to feel unique and different.
If you have ever watched parents or siblings when a baby has just come home from the hospital, you can see that the baby gets lots of attention. It can be asleep in a crib, opening its eyes, or doing nothing all and everyone is still fascinated. To all mothers and fathers, their baby is the most beautiful thing in the world. Why? Because their baby is special to them.
The desire to be special starts at birth and is essential to physical and emotional development in babies. This was investigated in a study conducted on babies in an orphanage. It was found that those who were given care but not attention did not developed physically and emotionally due to lack of touch and attention. Babies who had a replacement mother figure, (regardless of gender) who gave them attention developed properly.
The search for attention is part of everyone’s life. It starts with a mother’s attention at birth, moves on to fighting over it with siblings at home, and continues on to every social interaction, at school or at work.
The problem with seeking significance is that it can reach a point where we depend on it. We have to get it from other people but being so special and unique makes it very hard to connect to others.
People will do anything to be unique; they will do good things and even bad things to get attention. School is a great place to see how this works. Kids in school seek attention in a good and bad ways. Some children excel in sports or subjects, while others are trouble makers or bullies.
When I think about my life and those of my clients, I realize that we all have our unique way of being special. It is not really always a conscious decision but can be an unconscious choice as well. Think of the “role” you were given or chose as a child in your family system. Were you the “pacemaker” or the “black sheep” or the “trouble maker” or the “perfect child” and so on. How did that role change as you grew up and entered into the adult world? Or did it change?
It is important to recognize that there are different ways to find uniqueness. Each can help us get a sense of significance and identify ourselves as either a child or a grown up.
How do you fulfill you need for significance? Here is an exercise to help you find out:
• Think back to your childhood and ask yourself what you did to get attention.
• What do you think you excelled in?
• What did others think you were good at?
• Think about your siblings and friends. How did they satisfy their need of significance?
SIGNIFICANCE REQUIRES BALANCE
A lot of people who believe they are successful because they have everything they want. They have added value to themselves. But I believe significance comes when you add value to others—and you can’t have true success without significance. I came to understand that success is: knowing your purpose in life, growing to your maximum potential sowing seeds that benefit others.
The big question is: Once you’ve learned something, do you have a heart to share it with others, or do you hold it for yourself? Success is indeed a journey, but if you stop at adding value to yourself, you miss the reward of significance.
Here are a few of my observations about the journey to significance.
1. This journey takes time. It is a process that requires patience and commitment.
2. Success is usually the steppingstone to significance. There has to be a certain amount of success in people’s lives before they are willing to take the step to significance, where they ask themselves, “What else is there in life beyond professional and monetary success?”
3. Pursuing significance takes us out of our comfort zone. Significance is not attainable in a natural way. Let me describe to you the difference of what I think natural and unnatural is: I don’t think you glide or fall into significance. You don’t wake up one day and say to yourself, “I’m significant.” Significance takes us out of comfortable territory into uncomfortable territory.
4. Once significance is sensed, nothing else will satisfy. I think Katherine Graham put it best: “To love what you do and feel that it matters—how could anything be more fun?” I know a lot of people who love what they do but don’t feel it matters much. And I know some people who don’t love what they do but do feel it matters. But when you can love what you do and feel that it is making a difference in the lives of others, now you have the right combination.
Five Differences Between Success and Significance
1. Motives: With success, my motives may be selfish; with significance, my motives cannot be selfish. Significance and selfishness are incompatible. In my experience, motives matter because:
2. Selfish people seldom find significance. When you help others, you help yourself. When you help yourself, you may not help others. As Solomon wrote in Proverbs 23:7, “As [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
3. Influence: With success, my influence is limited; with significance, my influence is unlimited. Here’s an anonymous quote I found that will help illustrate: “When you influence a child, you influence a life. When you influence a father, you influence a family. When you influence a leader, you influence all who look to him or her for leadership.”
4. Time: Success can last a lifetime; significance can last several lifetimes. People who desire significance value time. They evaluate what they do with their time, and they invest their time wisely. M. Scott Peck said, “Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.”
5. Focus: Success asks, “How can I add value to myself?” Significance asks, “How can I add value to others?” My evolution from selfishness to significance went something like this: What can others do for me? → What can I do for myself? → What can I do for others? → What can I do with others, for others?
6. Reward: If I pursue success, my joy is the result of my success; if I pursue significance, my joy is the result of others’ success. Very frequently I’m asked what motivates me. I learned some years ago where the success of other people is a higher reward to me than my own success. I helped others find their success which made me feel valued, significant and fulfilled.
Dr. Kathie Mathis, Psy.D, NCP, DD, CAMF-IV, CBIF, CDVA