Achievement and Success

Achievement and Success.

Thought provoking, isn't it?

Last night we were at speech competitions. Abbie was entered into an Impromptu class... and the topic was Achievement and Success. She did a brilliant job of it, talking about two aspects of success she had. Then she talked about an aspect of success she hoped to achieve!

Sadly, she didn't win, but she still did very well. :-)

But that's not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to get into this whole  idea of 'achievement and success' a bit more.

What exactly are they? Are they different?

Well, to illustrate my point, I have chosen several dictionary definitions that show it well.

Note: This is not the extended definition, just extracts from it, I wanted to illustrate my point and so chose the ones that would do so convincingly. Sorry if that offends you. :P


a·chieve·ment
  [uh-cheev-muhnt] 
noun

Act of achieving; attainment or accomplishment: the achievement of one's object.

And success?

suc·cess
  [suhk-ses] 
noun

1.) The favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors; the accomplishment of one's goals.

2.) A performance that is marked by success, as by the attainment of honors: The play was an instant success.


So... what do we get from that? Well, as I see it, we can take the two definitions (assuming they are correct, of course :P) to be quite significantly different.

An achievement is something that is just merely achieved. And success is going that step further!

Here's a question for you today. Do you seek to succeed at everything you do? Or do you just want to achieve it?

Achievement is okay, but we want to aim to do our very best, not just to achieve!

Achieving is standard. Success is magnificent.

We don't want to just barely scrape through the exam with a pass mark... that's the 'achieved' attitude. Why don't we focus more on having a 'succeed' attitude, trying our hardest to do our best, no matter how hard it may seem.

Anyone else think that is a good idea?