Know what you want to succeed

 In a study conducted in the Yale University in the 1950s, they asked the graduating students if they had a goal written down with a specific plan to achieve the same. Only 3 percent had such written goals. In the seventies the researchers interviewed the surviving members of the group. To their astonishment, the three percent with written goals were then worth more (in financial terms) than the entire other 97 percent combined! It was also found that these 3 percent people were happier enjoying more peace of mind and joy in comparison to the others.

Those who did not have specific goals before their minds must have had been in a fog of confusion. They went one way and then tried another and later a third and so on. They took up a job and then retreated and went for a totally different one. They were not focused.  They dissipated their energy here and there without steadily climbing up in any profession or job.

Only when the mind has a defined target it can focus and direct all its energies until the intended goal is reached. Without a defined goal its resources are dissipated and squandered.  A key part of this is to know what you want in life, what you want in 5 years or ten years from now. This is a must to enable your mind to move you in a particular direction.  The chances that you win or lose in life very much depend upon your ability to decide what you want and imprint the same in your conscious and subconscious  minds. Spend an hour or so now to make a map of the road you want to travel in your life. Decide what you want in crystal clear terms and figure out how you will get them-now.    

Failure breeds failure: defeat the vicious cycle

Suppose you have a belief that you are incapable. As you believe in your inability, you are not going to use your inherent abilities to the full in the given task. You have already asked your brain to expect failure. You will take minimal action just to show that you have tried, that too half heartedly without employing your real potential.  The result (failure) is a foregone conclusion and it reinforces your failure-belief system further. No wonder, failure breeds failure. Those who have met with failures for some time will not believe they can produce success and more failures result. 

If you believe you will succeed, you get excited and energized; you will try to use your potential to the best and the outcome will be positive.  Each new success generates more belief and breeds more success. But positive beliefs may not guarantee success all the time. Those who succeed in life do face failures. But the empowering belief system makes one more resilient to face a failure with his resources and defeat it every time to ensure his eventual success. Lincoln who had to face a chain of failures, is a classic example of how positive beliefs enables one to bounce back each time he falls and succeed eventually. Any good political leader will have has this nature.

How can you change your belief system? Do one thing you thought not possible for you. Bring one success and it will make you review your belief system. Say your relationship with your wife is not all that good. You are often screaming at each other and life has turned out to be a hell. Your belief that you cannot have a good relationship is getting reinforced each day and you expect the worst. All that you require is to somehow snap this vicious cycle. You decide you will figure out a way. Resolve not to find fault with anything she does for say, one week and appreciate a good deed.  In a day or two there will be positive vibes in the family. The yells and screams will get replaced with smiles and nice words. By the end of the week your relationship would have improved, and you would experience a new bliss you have never thought previously possible before. These positive empowering experiences will change your former negative belief system and you can build on it with fresh positive results and proceed to have a fruitful and happy life.       

     

5 ways to guarantee success

Everyone of us wants to be happy,  appreciated, keep good relations, make enough bucks and be a success in whatever we do. Here are 5 things which will ensure your success 100%. Let it be a check-list and go through them before going to bed. If you can say yes to all of them for 2 months uninterruptedly ( by which time a habit would be established) and you just make sure the momentum is maintained to guarantee your success.       

1.       Body physiology has a lot to do with what you are going to become (Antony Robbins feels success is 80% physiology, and 20% emotions). Take care to sit, stand, walk erect holding your head straight or slightly inclined up  and ensure your movements are brisk and at a faster pace always.

2.       Do what you are supposed to do today itself and do it the best way you can. Let your attitude be; ‘ do more than you are paid for.’ Learn everything about your present  job aiming at a higher position within a particular period.  

3.       Be always smartly dressed and groomed at home and at work.

4.       Do at least one help to someone without expecting anything in return a day or make sure you have a small win before you retire.Try to make your dear ones happy each day in whatever way you can including little sacrifices.

5.       Spend your free time  learning more about your job or profession and make sure you invest  time in yourself each day to add value to yourself in the market place.  

Will you succeed? Answer one question

There are many tests in the net to find out whether you will succeed or not. I have given one in a previous blog of mine too. They are all elaborate and cumbersome. Here is a plain simple one that will enable you to know instantly whether you will win or not.

How do you spend your free time (before and after regular work hours and on holidays)? Tick the correct answer (the most generally applicable one) after reading the questionnaire once.

1. I spend most of the free time at home or elsewhere (Watching TV/movies, drinking or with friends)

2. I spend all of it with my family and kids

3. I learn the subjects for the university course undertaken maintaining my present job

4. Working after hours in the office and during most of the other free time, I try to think/know more about my job, related innovative technologies, market, and future direction from the net or from other sources.

5. I spend most of it for taking a new diploma or learning a new skill and improving my knowledge base so as to improve my career or profession

6. Spend some of it for entertainment, some of it with family, some of it for pleasant reading and watching TV

7. Works on a second job to save more each month. (Every month I do save a good % of my income). 

8. I do not know how time flies. I have a feeling that I have no spare time

9. I am always hard pressed for time. My work is never finished

10. Sleeps, hears music, reads favorite books and watches favorite programs

If you have ticked 3/4/5/7 (any one) you are bound to go up and if two of them are applicable simultaneously, your success is almost certain.  You need to have adequate sleep and spend some time with family. But the rest of the free time should be invested for your future. As Dhirubhai, the founder of Reliance  (pictured above) said, '60 minutes of an hour,  24 hours of a day, 7 days of a week, and 12 months of an year I had Reliance in my mind.'  

More the failures greater the chance to succeed

Look at the politicians who fail in a general election. They had devoted a lot of time planning and working for months or years spending their resources. Failure does not discourage them a bit; they take it in their stride and they start scheming for the next event. They analyze their mistakes and shortfalls,  take corrective steps and move on;  they never give in. They resurrect and win handsomely in a short while. Mrs. Gandhi the Indian PM was defeated in the 1977 general elections and her party was routed. She was arrested by the ruling coalition and put in jail. But she plotted her come back, worked day and night and she won the next general election. In about three years she was the PM again.

 They never succumb to despair or frustration even for a minute. This is a great lesson we have to learn from them.  They find opportunities in everything, including defeats. It is known to us all how Edison won after 10,000 failures. Lincoln conquered defeat after defeat which haunted his life throughout and eventually became the president of the United States.

Demosthenes had stammering; he overcame the affliction with years of persistent efforts (he practiced speaking with a pebble under his tongue). He is acclaimed to be the greatest orator ever lived. Narasimha Rao wanted to be the Indian Prime minister. The Nehru clan was so overbearing and the position of PM was appropriated naturally by them. He had to wait and  wait serving as a minister in the Indira and Rajiv cabinets. He eventually became the PM after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and that too without a majority for his own party.   

It is known to all how Helen sans eyes, ears and speech became one of the greatest ladies ever lived.  The spider in the story had a number of falls but succeed he did. More the failures you are given to endure, greater is the chance you get what you want.

Love and success

Behind every successful man there is a woman. Well, can we say behind every success there is someone from the opposite sex? It is not common that we  hear behind every successful woman there is a man.  Still, more likely than not, there is a man or two behind the woman.  The men of greatest achievement are men with highly developed sex natures; men who have learned the art of sex transmutation. Love can make you do anything for your loved one. Love is intense and passionate. When stricken with it, you excel in whatever you attempt and go much beyond your normal powers. You overcome seemingly impossible obstacles.  Everything seems brighter, happier and more wonderful when you're in love.   

According to napoleon Hill, sex desire is the most powerful of all emotions and sex energy has the power to transmute mediocrity into genius.Sex-energy is the most potential energy .When one is driven by it, he/she acquires special powers hitherto unknown to him or her. Sex transmutation is simple and easily explained. It means the switching of the mind from thoughts of physical expression, to thoughts of some other nature. The men of greatest achievement are men with highly developed sex natures; men who have learned the art of sex transmutation.

If you don’t love someone deeply, -it can be your mother, sister, father, husband, wife, or fiancée – then in all probability you would lack that magnetic force which would be otherwise available to you. It is known to all that a speaker would perform better if there is someone he/she loves in the audience similarly an athlete’s performance will be enhanced by the desire to show his worth to the person from the opposite sex present among the spectators. When one is not driven by the emotion of love, the driving force diminishes. In the absence of one’s desire to please someone from the opposite sex no one usually achieves great success. 

A castrated bull loses all its charm and magnetism. It is very difficult for an impotent person to go up in life. 
Every successful person transmutes sex energy into the achievement energy. It is good to have someone for whom you feel like conquering the world. That person need not be extremely beautiful or endowed with noble attributes. He or she should be able to drive you forward. He/ she can be an unassuming wife or husband but you feel like making her or him a princess or prince. 

You can be lucky too.

Generally people do not know how much they can accomplish. They think that only a few are destined for success and all the others are just unlucky or destined to be mediocre.                                                       ‘There is a grey cloud over my head,’ they say. Or ‘I have been set like this.’ They feel they have effectively no control over their lives. They go wherever the river of life takes them. 
                               

There is no luck or ill-luck. Luck comes when your thoughts and actions are streamlined to what you want. Ill-luck comes when you idle away your time, do your work perfunctorily and accept whatever life doles out to you. The truth about luck is contained in the following verse of a famous poet:

"He worked by day and toiled by night;  He gave up play and some delight;  Dry books he read, new things to learn. And forged ahead success to earn;  He plodded on with faith and pluck,  And when he won men called it luck.”  

The world fails to see the efforts and toil one does before he triumphs. No one is doomed to failure. It comes as a result of intense desire, full-time focus and controlled thoughts. There has been a conventional belief that you have to earn success either by doing hard work or by doing always good. This is no longer true. It is all vibrations. When you think and believe something with all your heart, all your soul and all your body you will get it. When you see your goals as already achieved in your thoughts, feelings and emotions it will become a reality very soon. 

Secrets of success

 1. "One of the biggest things that holds back people in life is the limiting belief about what is possible. We are always talking about how we cannot do this or how we cannot do that.  It is  really surprising to see that what we believe actually came true.  Think and say all the time I will achieve my goals. There may be doubts creeping in occasionally. Through an effective intervention you can drive that negative thought away and affirm you will win again and again. Everyone has got doubts and worries. Do not consciously entertain the same. You have to bring your mind to an unwavering state where you simply believe that you will get your goals. What you believe will eventually come true. we are surely only limited by our own thoughts

2.     Put in black and white what exactly you want and develop a workable plan for the same. (It's very important to begin with a clear definition of what "success" means to you.) You take at least a small step towards the target each day. Without a small win you do not retire (anything constructive you do to attain your goal is a win.)  The essence in winning is in taking action.

3.   .    Take failures or set-backs as challenges. As you move forward, the road may not be smooth or trouble free. Have the grit to overcome each obstacle and keep on going on.

4.    .   Get all the facts, all the details about what you want to achieve. Make it a point to learn something new about it every day. Update yourself on the subject and become an expert on the same.  Analyze and learn from your mistakes.

5.      .  Remain laser focused on your goals and surround yourself with positive people and thoughts that you will succeed. Idling away the time is the common cause of all failures.

6.      .  Become a person of integrity and honesty. Without this no one can succeed in anything.

7.      . Become different and stand out from the crowd. We all need to start seeing the world from a different perspective. It comes from learning new and exciting things that force us to stretch our minds and move outside our comfort zones. Do not be afraid to do what you believe in irrespective of what others will think. You need not confirm to the crowd culture. Most people fear risks and are reluctant o try new things or tread unfamiliar grounds.

8.       Become connected with others. No one is an island. Have friends everywhere who will help you achieve your goals. 

9.       I think it's also important to get over fear of success itself. For many, their deepest fear is not that they are inadequate but they are afraid of being successful. Many of them feel they don’t deserve it. Hence a majority are content with what they have or how they are. There is no greater sin than this.  We all deserve success irrespective of what we have done or how we have grown up. No one needs to hate or reprimand oneself; there has been a number of early childhood and genetic influences beyond your control.   You are not responsible for the way you have been molded. But from hereafter you take charge.

10.   You must realize and come to terms with, and find a way to turn into a positive, the reality that any long-term goal  worth acquiring--whether it's playing an instrument, writing, or making fine furniture--entails a long, exhausting period of not being very good at it. If all you have in mind is the endpoint at which the world acclaims your skill, then you'll never make it through the wilderness of mediocrity. You may think it is not worth it. Long-term, persistent hard work only pays off. Alright you care about the end point but you have to find a way to enjoy the journey.

99% of the readers will agree with this post; but not even 1% will actually take the needed action. That's why we have the successful and the unsuccessful. Know that Time will not wait for anyone; start now with your life journey. Don't wait for opportunities to come to you. The person who grabs opportunities usually wins. You may say superb article! But what matters in life is how much we implement these thoughts practically. Remember the high price of success is bought with sweat, blood and tears. Success is all about applied knowledge powered by positive thinking. And as a passing remark let me mention you will never know where you are going unless you know where you have been already.

A simple secret to success

Quitting is the easiest thing to do. But if you persist you will win. Anyone will. EVERYONE CANNOT BE SUCCESSFUL LIKE THE BIG ONES. BUT ANYONE CAN EXCEL IN WHAT HE DOES. The person who never does anything never makes a mistake but he never succeeds.    
Excellence comes when one takes pride in what he does. If he is working to make a living he will not do his work excellently. As Martin Luther king mentioned in his famous speech,
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep the streets so well that the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, there lived a great sweeper who did his job well 
All of us have the qualities of success. If anyone feels he does not, then he does not want to succeed. You can be a Success in whatever field you are in. Just try to be like that street sweeper. Big success involves a lot of risks. You may not know every step forward. You may not even know the faintest outline but still you make a calculated risk and move forward believing in your eventual success. You may have heard about the farmer who never cultivated anything as he feared a drought might destroy his crop and kept his land barren. There are those who worry about getting hurt if they go out. They will end up sitting indoors doing nothing.
If you are afraid to proceed to do something, the only way to overcome the same is to go and do it. Confidence comes by doing things. If you make a mistake along the way, admit it and correct yourself so that you do not repeat the same. Failure is certain if you repeat a few, same mistakes.
Successful people believe that they will win and go the extra mile. They create small, wins every day. They do more than they are paid for.  Winners do whatever they are supposed to do and then some more and then some more. Even small achievements require a lot of focused thoughts and work. You do not have to be highly intelligent or have high academic qualifications to succeed. You only need to have a disposition to do more than required of you. Have you ever thought, ‘why highly educated and highly qualified ones fail in life?’They do not apply whatever they know in a focused way and they do not want to do more than required of them. No wonder, the world is full of educated derelicts. ALL SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE ARE PERSISTENT UNTIL THEY SUCCEED. Remember Edison failed 10,000 times before he succeeded in finding out the tungsten filament. Abraham Lincoln was a failure in almost everything he undertook. Still he became the president of USA and he succeeded in emancipating the blacks. There must be hundreds of such examples around your neighborhood if you bother to study the successful ones.  Winners overcome and bounce back when faced with difficulties. Losers don’t. 

The Road Map to Success

When I was a young poor boy, I used to dream about becoming somebody. But I did not know where to reach nor how to go about it.  There was some amber that burnt inside compelling me to go forward: I had to be somebody in my life at any cost. When I was 15, I had completed grade X and it was time to join a college for further studies. But my people could not even afford me a square meal, let alone send me for higher studies. I was working too to meet the bare necessities of life.    

Everything seemed so dark. It was then the diocesan priests admitted me into their seminary as an aspirant for priesthood. I did not care much for religion or God but there was no other way to keep myself afloat. But as soon as I was there, I started devouring English like a hungry destitute eats food. Later, the proficiency in English and the good accent I had developed opened avenues I had not dreamt of.  

I could not follow my innate interests (which I realized much later): speaking, writing (both fiction and non-fiction). And instead  I leant construction engineering (I am in a way grateful to it as this fetches me a good income even now) even though I was better cut out for the other things mentioned. If there was someone to guide me at an younger age to focus all my attention on what I enjoyed doing, perhaps I could have done much better later as an author and speaker. Now I know we succeed when we devote all our time and all our resources on one particular line. Dabbling in so many unrelated subjects will make us a jack of all trades and we will not be able to excel in any one of them.

From self help books and from the lives of a number of highly successful people, I have learnt a big lesson: success comes after relentless efforts and concentration on a single target. Lucky are those who land up in pursuing what they enjoy from an early age. To succeed at anything we need a few essentials: 1.  A clearly defined profession and goal (not vague, not unclear) which will be in harmony with your innate aptitudes and talents. Let your profession and goals harmonize with your inner you. Listen to the still voice, the inner guide within. Let your inner instincts and the reservoir of intuition guide you in your choices. As a rule, by the time you are in your early twenties you will know what work or profession you enjoy, what harmonizes with your inner you.  Chose a profession in which you have a passion which is like a hobby.

One of the timeless secrets of a long happy life: pursue a work that you can enjoy. The common denominator of the happiest souls is that they all loved their work. It was fun for them. They did not work a single day. It was all play and work. The truly successful ones simply pursued their goals without knowing whether they were working or playing. 

This is the greatest criteria you should bear in mind.   Not the pay and perks.  Not the management and the working climate. Not the scope for promotions or personal aggrandizement. Not the pension or the distance from your home or anything else.

It need not be a regular job; you follow what your mind is after. It can be photography, singing, painting, bird –watching, animal or plant love, nature conservation, fashion, movie direction, sculpture, selfless service,  whatever.

The question is: ‘Will you enjoy doing it? Will you be able to develop a passion for it?’ This should be the only guiding principle in choosing your work or goal.  2.  An intense passion to get there. This is not a desire but an all consuming obsession so much so that you devote every bit of your emotional energy pool to attain it. It cannot be a vague desire or a passive goal which you are entitled through the present occupation. This should be a goal you have consciously chosen after considerable deliberation and inner search which you will reach in any case, come what may. For developing an inner passion there are three basic requirements:

a.        You have an intense desire to get there. b. The target is sufficiently big enough to motivate you  

c.        Your inner you like the profession and the work associated with it.  

3.       Think it and dream it more than half the time you are awake. 

The last of the three requirements above, is very crucial.  Earlier, you were told to work or act continuously until you get what you want. But let me change the prescription: you don’t have to work at all; just think about it, at least half the time you are awake and action would follow. But thinking about more than half the time awake is not all that easy. Our minds drift from one subject to another, from one thought to a totally different one, just like frames come into focus one after another in a movie. 

Focus success

When I was the CEO of a construction company someone walked into my office holding a paper. 

“Sir, I want a job. Here’s my bio-data.”

“What job,” I asked

“Any job, I just want a job.”

No corporation has ‘any job.’ They have specific jobs. No one is going to give ‘any job’ to anyone.

If he were a construction engineer, labor supervisor, mason, carpenter, plumber, surveyor, crane operator, steel fixer, cleaner, tea boy or an accountant I would have been interested. Nobody wants a person who has no particular skill.

There is a tendency for many of us to be a jack of all trades. Even professionally employed people dabble in things they are in no way connected with. Imagine doctors and Engineers reading politics and getting involved in heated discussions about the current politics of the state and the nation. It is OK to get to know what is going around but to dissipate one’s energy in an area they are not connected with defocuses one’s  mind. They do not get time to update themselves on the latest trends, discoveries and developments nor are they able apply their minds on what they are engaged in. They pull on perfunctorily just for the pay. They will be contributing, less if not nothing, to the job.

I met a few of my engineering college classmates after 15 years. They were all employed in the Public Works Department (PWD) of the state with good pay and perks. They could make a few bucks in other ways too. They were supposed to ensure quality in and timely completion of buildings, roads and bridges. 

‘After leaving the college we have not touched a book or read anything on engineering.. You are lucky as you have to read to teach the students.’

They followed the PWD codes of practice and they were not all that bothered about the new standards of quality or the latest developments and innovative methods.  They had to sign the attendance registers and do the bare minimum to get fully paid.

This could be the way many of the government departments function in the developing societies. Employees lack focus and they are inefficient.   

To succeed in anything we have to use our minds totally and fully. If we learn to focus on what we are concerned with or what we want to accomplish in life we can dramatically improve our productivity and the results.

New Year Resolutions

2012 has just arrived. An old year has been rung out and a new one rung in. The new year gives us all a lot of hope. We can forget all our mistakes and shortcomings. We can dream and restart in right earnest. 
The past is past; let the us bury the past. Here is the freshness of yet another year. One where we can keep our resolutions and promises we have made to ourselves.
Have you made New Year resolutions? Like we did last year and the year before? Let them not become nasty reminders of the broken promises we made to ourselves. Let us not make any for the sake of making them. Let us make them only  if we intend to carry them out, come what may.
Let us resolve to go a little more to love our dear ones, spend more time with our kids, love more our partner, forgive their shortcomings, ignore their bad habits, sacrifice our egos a little more, go that extra mile to make him/her happy. Let us learn to give more and help more. After all life's pleasures lie in loving and giving. Let us resolve to invest in ourselves: learn a new skill, acquire more ideas on what we do or get a fresh diploma; start dreaming for a better job with a higher pay. Let us resolve to bring down our fab by 10 lbs or whatever, start exercising every day and make ourselves fitter in mind and body.
We have just 366 (its a leap year!) days before another year comes whistling by. Each day, each hour and each minute is important.We have the same time Mother Teresa, Michelangelo, Helen Keller or Leonardo Da Vinci had. The quality of our life is decided by how we spend each minute.. Let each minute be fruitful and happy.  Let us resolve not to waste a single minute of a single day. Let us make this year of the 80-100 odd years we have on this planet a memorable one which we will truly live.       

What are you now?

Many thinkers stress that we make what we are. That we are totally free to grow and develop.
But do we have the same opportunities, the same  IQ, and emotional level?
Does one's early childhood affect one's growth?
French philosopher Rousseau said all are free and equal. Are we that equal?
There are many born blind, crippled, deaf, mute and feeble minded or with the propensities for sicknesses and mental disorders including madness.
A child born in a nation like USA, UK,Germany Norway, Sweden or Australia have millions of times better inopportuneness to develop and grow than one from Somalia, Ethiopia , Bangladesh or India. The latter may not even survive childhood. They will not go to school and will be malnourished and sick.
One's biology, the structure of the grey matter (both inherited)  and early childhood experiences  do affect one's responses and behaviour. Success very much depends on one's EQ and EI which, in turn, are nurtured in the early days of one's life.  If  parents do not love you or if they fight all the time leaving you to fend for yourself, you will not develop like another one who is loved,, accepted and given proper care.  The home environment has a say in determining how you grow, keep your relationships, interact with others and meet life's challenges. Parents and home make your personality, complexes (inferiority, superiority or any other), security or insecurity, emotional stability or instability and decide the patterns of social interaction. The inherited biology (of the grey matter) and home environment draw a clear blue print for your life. As there are billions of permutations and combinations in what one gets though the genes and the types of homes, each individual has a totally different potency to develop and grow or fail.
In an ideal condition, one gets a good physique, an above average or high IQ, good biology and brain structure coupled with well settled, loving parents in a good social set-up. Contrast this with a poor child born with a low IQ in a slum to quarrelling parents!
Think about yourself and see how your lineage and home environment have influenced your life.
Why are most people average or failures? The majority have a poor  IQ, EQ, and SI(social intelligence) and they lack the material means to thrive.  

How many have the persistence like Edison, Colonel Sanders, Henri Ford  or the will of Nelson Mandela, Gandhi or Martin Luther King?
How many can overcome failures like Abraham Lincoln,? How many of us can challenge adversities like Helen Keller?
How many will dare like Mark Ingles (a double amputee who scaled Mount Everest)?
How many of us has the IQ of Albert Einstein?
How many can sing like Jim Reeves or Michael Jackson?
How many can paint like Picasso or Michael Angelo?
How many has the bodily adornments of Elizabeth Taylor, Britney Spears or Brad Pitt?
The great ones seems to be more born than made.
We need not be envious of those who are lucky (they did not ask for it) or lie down licking our wounds. The world is not bothered whether you were born poor or rich, with high or low IQ, in a home of love or strife. It wants you to win; it goes with the winners only. No arguments please. No questions entertained. That is how the game of life is played.
Who wants to know your history? The world does not want to know where you plan to reach.What are you now? That is all what counts. If you don't want to come up that is your problem. There might be some  limits for you but you can, by sheer work, reach at least the top of that limit.