Not everything is best achieved through direct pursuit. Sometimes the harder you chase something, the further it slips away.

the medium of archery

In Eugen Herrigel's "Zen in the Art of Archery," the Zen master tells his student, "I cannot teach you Zen directly. It must be taught through a medium, and my medium is archery."

The student—a German philosophy professor—wanted to learn Zen directly. But it couldn't be done that way. The master couldn't just hand it over: "Here's Zen, enjoy." It had to come through the craft. Through the discipline of the bow.

Maybe when we're working to be more successful in our jobs, in our art, in our pursuits—the path isn't chasing fame or dollars directly.

the grades will follow

I remember my mother used to tell me, "Focus on learning the material, and the grades will follow."

She was talking about grade school, but it stuck with me. Focus on actually learning—not gaming the metric. I ended up doing better because I understood the material. The grades followed.

service as strategy

So maybe it's the same with work.

One of the best ways to succeed in a job is to be of service within it. Instead of directly trying to succeed at the job or "be good at it," what if the goal was to develop the virtue of being helpful to others? Not discarding your responsibilities, but having an attitude of service—wanting to make your colleagues' work easier.

From that posture, it becomes easier to identify opportunities. "Oh, everybody is struggling with this problem at work. Perhaps I can be the one to help solve it." Or, "I can step up to fix this issue that nobody else wants to fix." Or simply, "Someone needs a helping hand with a project."

You find yourself more generous. And those things might get you moving further in the organization—or at least stabilized and doing well in it.

knowing when

There's a time for direct pursuit—blinders on, locked in, chasing the thing itself. Sometimes that's exactly right.

But many goals can't be achieved that way. They have to come through something else. Service. Learning. Practice. A medium.

Knowing when to aim directly and when to aim elsewhere—that's the wisdom.