Achievement

Achievement can mean many things to many people across all cultures, ages, backgrounds and social status. In essence, achievement involves an act of accomplishing a task, a goal or achieving something through courage, determination and skill. A dictionary definition of achievement may not provide a glimpse of the effort and intention required for someone to attain their target nor the personal sacrifice required to reach their allotted goal. Achievement is personal but it can also be local, national or international such as scoring a winning goal in a local football cup competition or a gold medal in the Olympics.

For most people, achievement is deeply personal and can be associated with self-development development, self-improvement or pursing one’s hobbies. Personal achievement can be measured in passing examinations, learning to speak another language or learning to play a musical instrument. Here it could be argued that achievement involves the experiences learned along the way in addition to any certification which recognises such attainments. When pursing achievement an individual learns many things about themselves and develop attributes such as perseverance, inner strength and tenacity. Self-esteem, self-confidence and self-motivation are also improved through the process of achievement.

celebrating academic achievement

Achievement can also be celebrated in wider society such as passing examinations, gaining a university degree, or being promoted at work. This means achievement is recognised and validated by external sources such as exam bodies, continuing professional development courses or work progression routes. This can mean increased social status, increased financial renumeration or public recognition such as winning an accolade of some sort. However, if external recognition is the basis of achievement, the lack of personal fulfilment may form internal disaffection and, therefore, the need to for more external validation which can have negative consequences for the individual concerned.

It is important to consider that achievement is rarely a straight-line process and journey. There are setbacks, disappointments and outright failures which are part and parcel of the achievement experience. Consequently, overcoming obstacles, barriers and setbacks are what makes achievement all the sweeter, character building and more rewarding when it occurs. Learning from mistakes, overcoming obstacles, adapting to new environments and persisting in the face of adversity are essential for building character, inner strength and resilience. These newly found attributes help individuals to overcome challenges in the future. People in all walks of life have faced moments when defeat is staring them in the face. Yet somehow, somewhere they conjure up the wherewithal to overcome defeat and go on to great success. Therefore, setbacks provide the opportunity for growth and propel people to their goals.

physical achievement on an assault course

Achievement and its meaning can change over time and today in the modern world achievement may not necessarily be defined by material wealth, social status or celebrity status. Many people now seek to define achievement as something more personal, creating greater work-life balance, enhancing their sense of well-being and contributing to local comminates, their local environment and wider society. Volunteering, joining art groups, poetry societies, local football clubs or helping out in hospitals are all forms of achievement on a personal level and are celebrated as such by the participants.

Ultimately, achievement is highly personal and is a highly individual experience. Such a journey is formed by personal values, societal influences and the different challenges and obstacles people confront along the way. Whether these achievements are large or small, public or private accomplishments is irrelevant as they are all successes that are highly personal to those who undertake them in the first place. All achievements add to an individual’s esteem, help to build a meaningful life and encourage people to achieve their potential. Engaging in achievement activities allows the individual to develop the capacity to grow and inspire themselves and others to attain and improve their skills. This allows people to acquire resilience and develop an inner strength that creates self-confidence, inner satisfaction and a sense of achievement. What more could anyone ask for?

Achievement

Be in no doubt, you’re in with
a shout, you’re going to succeed

Aim for the sky, no obstacle too tough
or too high, you’re going to succeed

You’ve done the hard yards and played
the right cards, you’re going to succeed

Give it your best shot, let it have all that
you’ve got, you’re going to succeed

Believe that you are strong, that you can
do no wrong, you’re going to succeed

When you cross that line with your best
Finishing time, you know you have succeeded

Thanks for reading and please leave a comment as they are always appreciated.

Dermot

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Achievement

I’ve just finished reading Geraint Thomas ‘According to G: The Autobiography’. I’m half way through Hunter Davies’s biography of George Stephenson. I love the radio programmes The Life Scientific by Jim Al-Khalili and Desert Island Discs.

They are a few of the things that came to mind immediately I started to think of achievements. Everyone else will have very different answers if asked to name what they admire or even just consider is an achievement. There will be thousands, millions of choices.

So, is there any sort of judgement as to what may actually be an objective sort of measurement of an achievement. I was tempted to go for the Guinness Book of Records but does cycling backward with a violin count? That was by Christian Adam. He managed to cycle 37 miles (60km) in five hours and nine minutes. That feels more like an accomplishment. And a bit silly.

I eventually decided that a real test of an achievement is to be awarded a Nobel Prize. It also gave me the chance to look up the facts about the organisation behind the prize as I know little about it.

a Nobel medal

When the Swedish businessman Alfred Nobel passed away in 1896, he left behind what was then one of the world’s largest private fortunes. In his last will Nobel declared that the whole of his remaining fortune was to be invested in safe securities and should constitute a fund "the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind"

The will specified in which fields the prizes should be awarded – physics, chemistry, medicine or physiology, literature and peace – and which criteria the respective prize committees should apply when choosing their prize recipients. According to the will the Nobel Peace Prize was to be awarded “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.”

Alfred Nobel’s will also declared that the Nobel Peace Prize was to be awarded by a committee of five persons selected by the Norwegian Storting (parliament). The Storting accepted the assignment in April 1897, and the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Storting was set up in August of the same year. Oddly enough no one seems to know why Norway.

Alfred Nobel

The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901.

Physics: Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
“in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the remarkable rays subsequently named after him”

Chemistry:Jacobus H. van 't Hoff
“in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions”

Physiology or Medicine: Emil von Behring 

“for his work on serum therapy, especially its application against diphtheria, by which he has opened a new road in the domain of medical science and thereby placed in the hands of the physician a victorious weapon against illness and deaths”

Literature: Sully Prudhomme 

“in special recognition of his poetic composition, which gives evidence of lofty idealism, artistic perfection and a rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect”

Peace: Henry Dunant 

“for his humanitarian efforts to help wounded soldiers and create international understanding”

Frédéric Passy
“for his lifelong work for international peace conferences, diplomacy and arbitration”.

Economics was added in 1969 but I’m not counting that.

Nobel Prize ceremony

So, between 1901 and 2025, the Nobel Prizes and the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel were awarded 633 times to 1,026 people and organisations. With some receiving the Nobel Prize more than once, this makes a total of 990 individuals and 28 organisations. I’m not listing them all but what a sum total of human achievement.

Curie

A unit of radioactivity
corresponding to
3.7×1010 decays per second

named after Marie and Pierre
whose idea of a good night in
was stirring tons of black pitchblende

well it takes all sorts
and I suppose if you get
something named after you
it should take years of effort

the men in Stockholm
awarded them a prize
even if at first they
didn’t acknowledge women
especially women who charmed
with the blue light of radium
tucked in their pocket

his half life mourned
she doubled her own
finding a sort of art
on the bloody walls of X-Ray units
chiaroscuros of bone from the front lines.

First published in the French Literature Review, 2018

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Achievement

 “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.”

That is one of my father’s sayings that he was fond of using. I don’t think I ever thought of him as a wise person, but, of course, he was, in his quiet way. He had an easy-going, generous nature, which caused him to be taken advantage of sometimes. Everyone was worth another chance. For the summer seasons, he employed extra staff in the pub and it always included the same barman. The man was reliable, helpful, knew his job, but he was soon ‘on the fiddle’ and it would only be a matter of time before Dad had to sack him, again. I don’t think he worked a full season, which was probably May Bank Holiday until the end of the Illuminations. My dad gave him the opportunity to earn a wage with the promise of the man’s honesty and set himself up to be let down, but he always gave the man that chance.

Writing was always my thing and Dad’s encouragement never faltered. It’s sad that he passed away before I could share my published work, tiny amount but still an achievement to be proud of, and he would have loved the Haunted House in the Illuminations which included my story and poem.

Three of our grandchildren are in Beavers and Cubs, one nearly ready for Scouts and currently rehearsing for the Gang Show. My job is sewing their achievement badges onto uniform jumpers. It makes me proud to see the rewards of their interests and hard work. They can be equally proud over something they didn’t think they could do. After years of doing this for our own Cub and Brownie, then Scout and Guide, it’s nice to do it again for the next generation.

Last Saturday, our 8 year old, footballer grandson, was chosen Player of the Match and awarded a trophy. A fine achievement. Watched by his enthusiastic grandad, the pair of them came back frozen and wet, one with muddy legs. My husband thought he’d finished with junior football at pitch side nearly thirty years ago.

I was having an in-depth chat with my dad, asking for an opinion or some advice. I would have been about twenty-five, certainly under thirty, with a few things on my mind and unsure what to do, nothing to do with my writing ambition.

“Life is what you make it.”

Another of his little gems. He was right, as always. There’s usually a journey to reach an achievement. I’m still travelling.

I found this poem,

Don’t Quit

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the fund are low but the debts are high,
And you want to smile but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.

Life is strange with its twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many failures turn about
When we might have won had we stuck it out.
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow –
You may succeed with another blow.

Success is failure turned inside out –
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
You can never tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit –
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

                                                            Edgar A. Guest 1881-1959

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Goal!

Final Score: Blackpool 1 Barnsley 0

What a goal! It was worth freezing in the rain for that winning thriller that brought a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye. Thank you, Jordan Brown - sorry, Barnsley.

A football match can work me up into a passionate frenzy, as those who were with me when Manchester United won the Treble can testify. I was born in Sale into a Manchester family of MUFC fans. My grandfather had known one of the Busby Babes and often spoke of the Munich air crash. Like many girls my age, I had a teenage crush on George Best. I cried when he died. I cried when England's David Beckham got sent off in the World Cup - petulant boy. I was so cross with him! I wept with joy when Ryan Giggs scored 'that' goal. Tears streamed when Sir Alex Ferguson stepped down from management. Love him or hate him, it marked the end of an era. The Fergie Years, probably an unmatchable achievement, would go down in history.

Attending Bloomfield Road, supporting my home team, I manage to keep my lady-like composure most of the time, even when I don't agree with a referee's judgement.

Away from football, personal resilience and strength has taken a hit recently and as we work our way back, plans have had to be rearranged, new goals have been set. A newly decorated lounge has given us enough confidence to continue those skills into other rooms with the aim of our house being ready to go on the market early next year. I will complete the grandchildren's Christmas jumpers by mid-November. My birthday will pass quietly. Christmas will look after itself. We will bounce back, eventually. 

Sadly, I will miss Tuesday evening's home fixture against Luton. I'll be supporting from afar and hoping for Blackpool goals. If Jerry is playing, I hope he is kind.

A poem that gives me inspiration,

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

'Cause I walk like I've got oil Wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I beat in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear

I rise

Bring the gifts that my ancestors gave

I am the dream and the hope of the slave

I rise

I rise

I rise

                             Maya Angelou

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Walls - Bricks and Ice Cream

Watching ‘Countryfile’ on Sunday evening, I was spellbound by the on-going discovery work at Vindolanda, a Roman fortress near Hexham in the north-east of England and close to Hadrian’s Wall. If my memory serves me right, Hadrian’s Wall stretches from the Solway Firth on the west coast for eighty-four miles to Wallsend on the east coast and for all the times I’ve travelled to Scotland, I’ve yet to see a stone of it. I should make the effort. Many times I must have been in touching distance. Perhaps a detour to Hexham is needed?

Last week, we were on the ‘Nine of Us Went to Butlin’s and Survived’ tour. Some of us are still shattered. Some are mentally planning a return and others are in awe at the magical time we shared making memories. Two grandchildren, aged 7 and 6 were watching others on the climbing wall and were keen to have a go. The others were too young, but could cheer loudly from the side lines. I watched, heart in mouth, then, as they gained confidence after two or three attempts, I began to relax and film them. The one I expected to climb up like a rat up a drain turned out to be more timid, though he did well. His cousin, watched, figured it out for herself and got on with it. Girl power! Neither of them reached the top, but they smashed it for themselves and as they basked in their achievement, I was able to breathe normally again. Of course, they were harnessed, helmets on and fastened to safety lines, but nannas do worry.

Almost thirty years ago, we had an extension built to give us a workable sized kitchen, an improvement to the tiny space we had. Somehow, I made New Year’s Day roast dinner for fifteen people in there. Physically I’m a bit bigger now and I doubt if I’d be able to turn round in it. We’ll never know. Watching each step of the new kitchen come to life was exciting. The walls took shape, the windows – one in the wrong place, but I could rearrange the interior plans – everything was massive and amazing. It ceased to be fun when it was time to link into the house. Being October, it was chilly when the outside wall was taken down and no amount of covering and protecting saved everywhere else from the debris involved. This was the stressful stage that had me almost climbing the nice, new walls.

‘Wall’s’. I could recognise the ice cream sign long before I’d learnt to read. Williamson Park in Lancaster was my stomping ground when I was four. I would roll or run down the grassy hill below the Ashton Memorial to be caught in my dad’s arms and swung round. A little bit further along the path was a wooden kiosk selling ice cream and drinks. I would have a cornet, Dad would always have a wafer. Sometimes he let me have a small bottle of Lucozade, but usually it was ice cream with the promise of a drink of blackcurrant and lemonade from behind the bar when we got home. Oh, the daft things that reside in my memory. We had a pub near the railway station, my aunt and uncle had one in the town, soon to be joined by my grandparents who had retired from their pub in Sale. Sweet times.

I found this poem about Hadrian’s Wall,

The Great Wall of England
A poem for kids by Jon Bratton and Paul Perro

When the Romans conquered Britain
Thousands of years ago.
They built towns in England and Wales,
They didn't want Scotland though.

The Scotsmen and the Romans
Did not get on at all.
To stop the Scots from stealing sheep
The Romans built a wall.

It stretched from Solway Firth in the west
To the Newcastle in the east.
To build it they used many stones,
Millions, at least.

The Emperor who was in charge,
(Hadrian was his name)
Did lots of things during his reign
But the wall gave him lasting fame.

It took fifteen years to build it,
Things took longer back then.
Hundreds of horses pulled the carts
There were thousands of working men.

They built forts and towers as well
They built them very tall,
So the Romans could see the Scots
Who tried to sneak up to the wall.

The Romans stayed in Britain for
Hundreds of years, altogether.
I wonder why they stayed so long?
It couldn't have been the weather.

That the wall was built to last
Would be a fair thing to say.
It was built thousands of years ago
And is still standing today.

Indeed, from all around the World
People come to see it.
There's always a tourist around
You can almost guarantee it!

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Finding Ambition

At some point during 1996, I saw a news article about the Newbury bypass protests: pictures of houses built in the trees, home-made tents on the ground and banners asking for protection rather than the destruction of more than 10,000 mature trees. I told my parents that this is what I wanted to do when I was older...

I never managed to make the ambition of my twelve-year-old self a reality. By the time I got older, the certainty and confidence of youth had been washed away and I found myself within a place of no ambition...

But things change, people grow, and ambition is certainly not singular.

Over the last few years, I have reconnected with my ambition, compiling a mental list of things I’d like to eventually do: learn Latin, take a photography course, travel, own a small vegan coffee shop selling delicious vegan treats, write great poetry. They are things that will never bring a great deal of wealth, but is not my ambition to be wealthy. Yes, it would be nice to be comfortable, but if I were driven by money then I probably wouldn't have ever wanted to be a poet...

As Robert Graves once said: There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money, either.

Perhaps some are surprised that (in terms of poetry) my ambition is to write great poems rather than achieve publication. But in a world of internet, ebooks and social network sites publication isn’t an affirmation of quality or greatness... Yes, to have a pamphlet / collection of my poetry published would be wonderful, but to be able to write great poetry would – in my eyes, at least – be a far greater achievement...

Maybe it is an unachievable ambition – but it is one I’ll follow, despite its lack of guarantees. 

Thank you for reading,

Lara

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