THE ART OF SUCCESS PART 1

How is it that some people achieve whatever goals they set for themselves while others stumble and crumble at every step? How is it that there are some winners and others  are losers? To become a winner it is very important to find the right answers to this question. There are certain qualities or techniques which anybody can use to achieve success and reach desired goals. The lives and qualities of successful people are the best beacon lights to success. It is not necessary that only a degree and formal education will equip you to succeed  in life. Abraham Lincoln was self-educated. He acquired his education by borrowing books and reading them under streetlights or by light of a fire. Benjamin Franklin did not attend any school. The Wright Brothers were no scientists. They were bicycle mechanics by profession. Yet they succeeded in giving the world the aeroplane. Success also does  not necessarily depend upon one’s heredity and environment. It is the result of inspiration, aspiration, desperation and perspiration. Your luck generally changes as a result of the above inputs. There is always a fierce struggle on the road leading  to your desired goal. No triumph comes without effort and changing obstacles into tools for success. No smooth sea has ever made a successful and a skillful mariner. For  achieving your desiered goal you must have a fierce and a strong desire to succeed. Success begins in the mind. Whatever the mind of man can believe and conceive  it can achieve. You should make a commitment to yourself to succeed. Do not believe that success is the result of either an accident or a fluke. Nothing is ever achieved without working for it with integrity, wisdom, commitment and a success-orientend attitude. You have to accept responsibilty for your decisions which will ultimately determine your destiny. Make your work and reaching your goals a delight. The best way to succeed is to accept and learn from your mistakes. It is a fact that luck only follows hard work. Master the fundamentals of whatever you are required to do. Keep on developing your character, confidence, values m beliefs and personality by always keeping in view the examples and lives of successful people. You willl notice that all successful people combine in themselves integrity, unselfishness, patience, understanding, conviction, courage, loyalty and self-esteem. They have both ability and character. Hence, they are successful in whatever they undertake. No success is possible unless you believe that you can succeed. Positive faith in yourself is both vital and crucial for success. This attitude will help your competence reach visibly successful levels of performance and prepare you for hard work. An optimistic approach is the sine qua non of success.

‘‘ No success is possible unless you believe that you can succeed.’’

Never look at the clock when you set out to achieve your goal. Look at the task and ask yourself whether your output can be further improved. There is little room at the top. The top is always rarefied and limited space. Only one person can be there at a time. Do not be the one who gets left  out for want of persitence, determination and commitment. Mediocres and shirkers fall by the way. Never be a quitter because a quitter can never be a winner. The difference between success and failure is only a few minutes or a few hours everyday. You conceivable opportunity. The difference between success and the strategies that you employ to achieve it. Never postpone your happiness and zest for life and work. You should make it a habit to enjoy your profession and your job all the time.

Leo Tolstoy wrote, ‘‘ People live not by the reason of any care they have for themselves but by the love for them that is in other people.’’ Have only those people  for friends, companions and lovers who do their best to bring out the best in you. They will be of unlimited worth to you. Such persons understand what life means to you and your goals. They feel for you as you feel for yourselves. They are the ones who are bound to you in triumph and disaster. They provide a purpose to live and break the spell of lone lines  A true friend is worth befriending as he will always stand by you. But before you expect others to be the right person to be your friend you must also become one. Help each other towards achieving your respective goals. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence. If you are happy, the hard journey on the road to success becomes pleasurable. Live your life king size  Just live it and never lose sight of your goal. During a congregational service once a priest asked that all those desiring to go to heaven should stand up. All arose except Abraham Lincoln who was also in the congregation. Then the priest said that all those who did not want to go to hell should arise. Lincoln still  remained seated. The priest was perplexed and asked him as to where he wanted to go. Lincoln calmly said ‘‘ I want to go to congress”.

Be always committed to your cause. Be so engrossed in your work that you have hardly any time to think of anything else. The great seceret of success is to do whatever you are to do and do it wholeheartedly. For many persons happiness remains a chimera. However, it comes to those who seek it in their work and do not specifically look for it. Happiness is not something which can be felt or experienced at a given moment. It is in a sense the quality of a whole life. It is a happy life which is a fulfilled and a purposeful life. Happiness is a state of mind. It is not an absolute or a tangible concept. It is not something which can be considered in isolation. It varies from person to person. It has a lot to do with faith, hope, courage and ideals to live by. By and large fear, uncertainty, confusion and greed are the causes of much unhappiness and failure. But we have it in our power to meet the greatest challenge of our time. Plato defines happiness in terms of harmony within the soul. He equates it with the spiritual well-being of a truly virtuous man. Immanuel Kant, a pessimist, did not not approve of the idea of happiness. He regarded the pursuit of one’s  own happiness a self-centered act motivated by narrow considerations. According to J.Krishnamurti`` Happiness is a state of which one is unconscious. It is only later when misery strikes does one realize how happy one was.’’

One need not entirely accept what earlier thinkers have said or felt about happiness. It is ultimately our own perceptions and attitude to life which matter. Two persons in similar circumstances may not exactly be happy or unhappy. They may not be on the same wavelength and their expectations  may be different.  Swami Vivekanand said that the goal of man should not be to seek happiness or to avoid misery but to go to the root of it all and master the situation which is responsible for their creation. It is absolutely necessary to overcome the negative and harmful thought waves by countering  them with good benign waves and adopt a positive approach. If the water of a lagoon is dirty, the bottom is not visible. Similarly, only when the mind is positive, clear and tranquil can it lead us to victory.

‘‘  Happiness is a state of which one is unconscious. It is only later when misery strikes does one realize how happy one was.” 

  

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