How to be an Achiever not a Doer

SUMMARY

If you have reached a point when you have worked on so many areas in your career and home life and yet you feel “a bit of a lack of accomplishment,” or you are just starting your career and yet you believe that you will not achieve anything at all, then this episode is for you. How do you become an achiever and not a doer? Achievers are also doers, but achievers have not simply done tasks and finished activities. They have added value to their organizations through their actions, results, improvements, successes and the like. Opportunities brought about by the digital world and the massive open online courses give no excuse not to achieve anything or stop being an achiever. I share my tips using the 7 unique letters in the word achiever: aspiration, courage, honesty and humility, investment, energy, validation, and having reasons instead of excuses.

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

TRANSCRIPT

Today I really want to give you a short training on how to be an achiever and not a doer. Don't get me wrong - achievers are also doers, right? What i really wish to help you today is to help you improve if you have reached a point when you have really worked on so many areas in your career or your professional life or your home life, you have climbed a corporate ladder, you have really raised wonderful kids, you have managed well your home, and yet there is a certain feeling of "a bit of a lack of accomplishment."

I've heard that from a former student of mine, now still a mentee and she would come to me once in a while. And I've also found this being asked in Google search; how to become an achiever and how to be less of a doer and being an achiever.

Perhaps yes we many of us are achievers but we get into a point of feeling the same - a bit of a lack of accomplishment. A listener  upon hearing this can easily dismiss that perception of a bit of a lack of accomplishment by saying "don't mind it, perhaps it's one of those days that you feel down, so just have a good rest tonight, we all deserve a good rest and tomorrow is another day." I really would like to share with that reactor a lesson i learned from a mentor of mine from postgraduate school: we always have to treat someone else's subjectivity as our objective reality. The person is being subjective but that for us as someone helping that person is already an objective reality.  That's my point of departure.

This episode is really for you if you are just starting in your career and you feel there's so much to lose just fulfilling your dream. You feel you're giving up so many things, that you start a life of achievements with really feeling dejected because you are not really going for your dream, you are following somebody else's dream, probably your parents dreams.

This episode is also for you if you have accomplished so much but now you are tired and you're stressed. And yet you feel a calling to do more for your future grandchildren perhaps. You could achieve more although right now the reality is you are already exhausted, but there is that calling inside of you. You know have still a mission in life. 

The common feeling i want to address  here is the tendency to want to do a lot because you are capable of achieving but you are not sure if you will still achieve anything.

This episode is also for you if the politics is making you really wanting to do more for nation building. But at the same time you feel incapable, you don't think that you can achieve anything else You know there's not much change that's going to happen.

I want to describe to you the opportunity that is possible for you right now you my dear achiever friends. This digital world which is rapidly expanding, It grew very much during the Covid-19 pandemic. There are new rules of the game for the achiever type like you.

If you have for example written a book or a textbook you can find that now you have to really check that book, revise it so that it's more applicable to a post-pandemic world or to a world that is affected by war like in Ukraine and Russia.  There's really a lot of opportunities to shift from being a doer alone to being an achiever. When before you think you could never start a business because of all the capital involved, well in this digital world your only capital would be what is inside your head:  what is your knowledge, what is your expertise, what is your experience, what you have achieved so far. Imagine to what extent you can utilize your learnings to really help impact the world.

Another huge opportunity before us that has also reached so much expansion during this pandemic time relates to the massive open online courses. Education is literally at your fingertips basically using your mobile phone. If at this point you think that you are just dragging your feet working in a career that's not really your choice - it was your parents choice or the choice of other people for you- then this is the time. Nw there's a reason that you can still achieve something because you can start another career. Dedicate some time every day to study what you prefer. Because it is online is cheaper overall - no plane ride, no rented place, no higher cost of living in another country. And you can still get degrees from well-known institutions.

So if really at this point you feel you have not achieved anything although you are doing many tasks day in and day out, I want to help you be an achiever.

Something happened to me two years ago that i wanted to share to you. I applied for early retirement in August 2019 to be effective at the end of the semester which was December 2019. It was customary to have a send-off party for the retiree. 

In that send-off party I and everyone in the audience were shown a video which was not exactly new to me. I credit Ms Jien Guimare for that lovely presentation. Many of the photos in that video presentation came from an interview that Ms Rebecca Bustamante did of me in her show Self-Made. But at the end of the video what surprised me to see was these words you: Dr Caparas, you have left behind a legacy of achievements. 

Legacy of achievements. I was not thinking of that then at my age (52). Legacy seemed to me applicable to someone who's 80 years old. I was just trying to be good in whatever i do. So at the same time seeing that phrase legacy of achievement, I got afraid that the legacy has ended right then and there in the academe, inside the academe because the future was unknown.

Hence, even if I sounded confident when I told the audience what i was going to do- "I would be a YouTuber, you better subscribe to my channel - I literally was just trying to sound confident. Why? Because the future for me then which was online education was like a road i never traveled.

It was like walking the streets of London (and this is a real experience for me on a winter morning) and literally you don't see anything a meter away. Nothing was visible. I walked looking at my feet always and making sure I was still in a concrete ground and not in the clouds. Everything was fog and mist.

The future was frightening like everything was in a fog. I could just sound confident but it is all cloudy future to me. Two years after starting my YouTube channel in March 2020, I have already edited 90 videos, over a thousand subscribers, and 120 000 views. Now I know this is my future. It is clear, no more fog and mist.

I was viewing a hyper-lapse video of a political rally last Sunday. It was an aerial view of the  Leni-Kiko and #pasiglaban rally crowd. The crowd got bigger and bigger. It was in a hyper-lapse video that could not be photoshopped. I have done that before, setting up the camera and making sure it is powered as it can take ages. But it was really wonderful to see the crowd getting bigger and bigger until it reached more than a 100 000 people along Emerald Avenue in Pasig City here in Metro Manila. 

I really thought that time that 100 000 was like the number of views I have gotten in my channel. It was like so nice watching the quantity of views in terms of actual people like in that street rally. And literally the fear that I felt two years ago was turned into acts of gratitude to God for the future that suddenly became clearer. Hence, I also challenged myself to reach not just 120 000 views but 120 000 subscribers. Two years ago probably it's impossible but now two years after starting the channel knowing my way around and feeling more confident, I know i can achieve that goal.

How do you become an achiever and not a doer? When you Google-search this you will get into websites of career counselors and those who help people write a better resume. One site indeed.com comes first in the search engine results. It says that while both resumes of the doer and the achiever might include the same basic information, they usually focus on different aspects of previous jobs.  The doer resume focuses on tasks that have been completed while the achiever resume shows how you brought value to your organization through your actions.

I must also mention here what another author distinguished in the resume skills and the eulogy skills. I can also think of the resume accomplishments and eulogy accomplishments. That's very important for me whenever I speak to remind people that there are eulogy accomplishments as much as resume accomplishments. In your eulogy people won't speak so much about your successes or your academic degrees, but your accomplishment as a person as a friend, as a father, a mother, or a daughter.

Another caveat is in order. I refer to being an achiever in both public and personal lives.  Sometimes your accomplishments can fit in a Facebook long bio but they do not get captured in your gravestone. So remember that resume accomplishments could be different from the eulogy accomplishments. I really think i should be clear about the achiever that i have in my paradigm because there are achievers who get into work-life conflicts (and that's a favorite topic of mine) they get sick, they are burnt out. I am talking about a balanced achiever - someone who is not obsessed about one type of results only like the external and published public accomplishments. He or she is an achiever in many facets of life: family life, relationships, spiritual life among other things.

So how do you become an achiever and not a doer? I am helped by seven letters in the word achiever but i will not repeat the letter e. Let's talk of seven letters only:

A- You have to have an aspiration. The dictionary defines an aspiration as a hope or an ambition of achieving something. Aspirations are not created equal. There are high aspirations like to help educate the young people especially in accurate history. (If you're viewing this from the Philippines you will think Dr Caparas is in election mode. That's okay.) Someone could also aspire to have her company as a proof that all women could actually put up successful entrepreneurial businesses. The doer could focus on short-term targets like I will finish this class by 3 p.m. or I've got to have the printer deliver this printed documents by the end of the day. The doer could be the very good executive secretary who is like a trusted travel agent focused on having all the flights of her boss within the month of May booked by March 15 .

A famous achiever that comes to mind is Mother Teresa, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, the founder of the Missionaries of Charity which by the time of her death had already100 missions in 100 countries. I just recently read two biographies of St Teresa of Calcutta and I was extremely impressed of her aspiration that is "never to say no to Jesus" (to her God). So at 86 years of age having accomplished 110 missions in 100 countries, that aspiration of "never say no to Jesus" is simple yet it was super compelling for her and for everyone in her congregation. That aspiration differentiated her from a doer. Probably a doer would really just go work: cook for the poor but what is really your end in mind.

The aspiration could also be called a legacy vision. I've read somewhere- keep in mind your legacy vision. I thought that for that author she is appealing to people at a certain age so she would remind them to really think of their legacy vision, their mission.

C- C is for courage. An achiever seeks courage more than comfort. Do you know anyone who lives a comfortable life and is an achiever? I can't think of anyone. An achiever is really someone who has decided to for an aspiration-driven life of accomplishment. She is prepared to meet challenges and obstacles and difficulties. She is always challenging herself and the word never is not in her vocabulary.

Let's take the simple goal of trying automation. A doer will not think beyond the task even if it could be made more efficient with automation. She could be asked: perhaps you can try this or that but the comfortable doer will settle with doing the things as they are. The doer will already be immersed in their routine and that person would really not want the changes that can put her out of balance in her daily grind. She might say: why do we have to go online when we are doing well with manual tasks, doing these things registering people. She cannot see beyond the current inefficiencies. Well that's relatively speaking because right after automation is done, the manual things are already inefficient. why spend several hours doing something that a computer can do in a second. 

On the other hand, I really admire the achievers who have the courage to automate, to really keep trying until they master a computer program. There is really an acceptance of a world that has radically been changed by internet and computer. They are always adjusting. It is already an achievement to have that courage to adjust in an automated world, not yearning for the past, not yearning for the usual grind. She won't say why do we need a remote control when I can just walk there to theTV and change channel. She knows this is a different world. Automation could be confusing for a doer but these are really accomplishments  for an achiever to minimize time. Again, never is not in the vocabulary of an achiever who thrives in a world that is constantly changing.

H- H for me is honesty. The achiever refuses to lie. If she only got a certificate of attendance, she does not say that it is a diploma. I am not referring to one political candidate alone because i have also seen professionals really getting into this sort of accrediting organizations where they have to pay to get additional achievements basically by being there in the site. Sometimes we can really criticize someone who's saying he graduated from oxford whereas he did not, but we have to be careful. Check again your resume if you included some achievements there that the payment is really not commensurate to what you're advertising in your resume.

This is really just a sisterly advice to other professionals. Go back to your resume and remove from those the ones that you have paid for in order really just to appear accomplished. If I were you, I would really just focus on the real academic degrees and perhaps if there are accreditations, include only the ones that really went into into exams, or strict compliance. Don't go for just basically paying something to that organization so that you would appear like a member of an exclusive community whereas it's really not that accurate.

H is also for humility. The achiever knows that really there is never a time that he or she can say, well I am already perfectly accomplished in life. The humble and and honest achiever sees something to improve especially when really thinking of the aspiration. He can be very accomplished in skills but perhaps we are lacking in soft skills. 

I - I for me is investment. In all of this you've really got to invest in something, say a membership fee to a distinguished group. Of course I have mentioned earlier that there are many free massive open online courses. But for you to achieve, you might need to pay for courses that can provide transformational results. Successful people will not just pay something to have a fast-track degree because a real degree means time and effort.  You need to invest money if you are looking for community, accountability and enhanced opportunity. 

E - There are actually two Es in the word achiever but i will only make use of one e. The achiever brings energy to the goals or tasks at hand. I know many influencers who are shy (I could really sense that they are shy) but they just bring so much energy into their teaching. Energy for me is critical to someone who wants to achieve anything.

V is for validator. Don't look for that word in the dictionary i just invented it. I'm seeing that the achiever checks or validates the accuracy of anything that she has. She has to validate all data not only in this world of fake news but always. She trusts two or more forms or sources of information to help her draw out a decision, especially major decisions. We cannot be 100% certain with only one source of information.

R- The achiever has more reasons than excuses. I've read many biographies of great people in the last five years. They are not perfect but they were honest with the times that they gave justifications for not doing something courageous or really committing some mistakes. I remember the one i'm reading right now is the autobiography of Bishop Fulton Sheen and he enumerated many mistakes in life.

If you like this, you can help my channel by clicking the like button. You could also share this episode to three friends who are doers so that they can go beyond that activism and really start with the end in mind. And that is really my end wishing for you: that you start with your legacy vision, you start with your mission, you start with your aspiration. You make a difference today and I challenge you: always be good.