Forgetting Stuff?

How many long pending tasks do you have that are not too important but are also nagging you at all the wrong times?

All of us have these… Like recently, I took on the responsibility of changing my dad’s mobile plan. It’s not too important, not work related and definitely didn’t top my priority list because dad wasn’t in a hurry either. When I was at my computer or near my phone, I wouldn’t remember to do it. And times like while eating, just before sleeping, while watching TV etc. this thought would nag me…

The solution? I wrote it down on my white board! “Blackberry Plan”

The best way to make sure something like this is done is to write it where you can see it. Whenever you remember something small that’s interrupting your normal thought process, write it down. You can use a white/black board like I did. You can also just use a simple post it. Write down the phrase and stick it to your computer screen / desk / wall next to the bed / wherever convenient!

Taking care of the small seemingly unimportant details ensures a smooth journey on your path to success. Never let “I’m too busy” become your excuse for forgetting!

Obstacles

Life is a mixture of good times and bad times. Many times we get to do the things we like to do and many times we are forced to do the very things we were dreading!

Similarly the road to success is filled with fun things; all the beautiful flowers of paradise but you also get thorns and road blocks. Many times, even though you are doing what you love, you will encounter difficulties. This is the way of life…

When you embark on your journey, brace yourself for the difficulties in advance. Prepare yourself well enough to face all the challenges that are thrown your way. If you start your journey expecting it to be easy, you will be in for a big shock and quite a lot of delay. Once you come across a road block and then try to get over it, it gets all the more difficult.  It’s like a 200 meter dash. If the runner is just running a normal race and suddenly a hurdle is thrown in, she stops, and jumps over it. Then, she has to start running and picking up speed. However if the runner was running a hurdle race, she would be prepared for the hurdle. She would then just jump over the hurdle without having to stop or change speed too much.

When you prepare yourself mentally for hurdles and fill yourself with the confidence of overcoming them, you are like the second runner. When the obstacle comes, you will be able to jump over it with greater ease!

Success - Various Forms

It is very important to be successful in life for just about everybody. I’m sure you have an idea of what success means to you… Have you given a thought to what areas in life you want to be successful in? Is it work? Or family? Or Spiritual?

True success is when you can achieve all forms of success. And the true way to success is to work toward all these goals!

Below are all the various forms of success. If any more come to your mind, do add them in your comments

·         Career success

·         Success in relationships

·         Success as a good human being

·         Successful family

·         Spiritual success

·         Success in the roles you play: Sister/Brother/Parent/Child etc.

·         Success in friendship

·         Success in sports

·         Success in leisure

·         A vacation that is successful

·         Success in keeping your mind engaged

·         Successful pet owner

·         Housekeeping success

·         Financial success

·         Success in charity

·         Social service activities related success

·         Success in the stock market

·         Second income success

·         Successful at being happy always

The list can go on…

Make sure you are focusing on all the important aspects of your life!

Computer Class Endeavor

Einstein is famed to have said “Genius is 1% brilliance and 99% hard work”

To achieve success in any field, you have to make the effort! Having big ideas and ambitions is all great, but the true test comes when you actually have to work towards that idea.

Many times successes seem like fluke. The stupidest of ideas go out there and become successful… what is not so apparent is the amount of work the ‘idea bearer’ might have put in to make even that stupid an idea work! It’s all about how much you are willing to do. How much are you willing to stretch yourself to ensure your idea succeeds?

Let me give you a simple example. I moved to US from India in 11^th grade. I wanted to take a computer class that 11^th graders normally take. It was a 1 semester course – nothing big. The teacher asked me how familiar I was with a computer. I had been using a computer for 3 – 4 years then and knew the basic MS Dos that they taught me in school and Microsoft programs like doc and PowerPoint. I probably knew more PowerPoint than every student in the school because playing with ‘ppt’ was my favorite pastime. Then he asked me if I was taught how to type. In school, they never taught anyone to type. We just picked it up as we went. I said so… and he refused to let me take his class.  All the other students learnt to type and were very fast. I used only one finger tap each key and that took forever – I would slow down the others. He asked me to take the lower class and then take his class the next semester. It took all my negotiation skills and promises to learn and prove in order to be allowed in.

Back home, I did all my assignments on the computer to practice typing. Googled out ‘typing’ for tips to type faster; even offered to help my dad type out his stuff in order to practice. All in all, I made through the class with flying colors.

My little computer class endeavor was a success. And it was a success due to the effort I put in!

Automatic Success

Ever wish that you sleep with a magic stone under your pillow and wake up in the morning to be a successful person? Ever wish there was just one thing that you could do to become successful instantly? Well I have a solution that comes as close as it can get! A four word phrase that when followed can put your ‘success path’ on auto pilot. As long as you follow this mantra success is automatic – “Do What You Love”.

When you love your job, you never get bored. You won’t be looking at the clock willing it to move faster.  You will enjoy most aspects of your job, and will deal with the trying aspects with patience. Your stress levels will go down dramatically because doing what you love generates happiness. Even the effort you put in for your work won’t seem like much. (Do you ever consider the strain on your eyes while watching a movie or playing the PS3?).

When you love what you do, you give it all your attention and effort. You try to do the best you can and you enjoy it wholeheartedly. Then how can success stay far behind?

When you do what you love, you propel yourself forward in autopilot mode on your path to success!

The First Step

To achieve Success in life, you must be able to define it. I don’t mean the dictionary.com definition from my previous post J

To achieve ‘success’ you must first tell yourself what the word means to you. Not to your friend or your mom or your teacher… but what it means to you personally. Is success having a good job? Is it being settled in life? Is it touring the world? What is it that you want to do that will define your success?

The first step is to have a goal. How will you get anywhere when you don’t know where you want to go? You need to have a set destination, only then will you strive to reach it and only then will you be called ‘successful’. And it’s not just a direction mind you. A destination!

If you say, “I want to make it big in music”, this will be the direction. It’s like starting from New York by road and saying, “I want to make it far out West”. You could be heading all the way to California or Oregon. Or maybe Montana or Idaho is far enough. Either way, you make it far out west! Which of these destinations will you call a success? And is reaching the destination enough; or do you want to reach it in a particular number of days? How do you want to reach it; in any particular state of mind or with any particular company? Only once you answer all these questions will you have a ready goal to achieve. And when you achieve it, success!

So let’s define success in the above example again. You could say “I want to record 10 music albums and rule the hit singles charts” Now that’s more like a goal. That’s also more likely to be a SUCCESS

What's that?

You must be successful in life! Everyone says that... Every other person you talk to is so hung up on either their own success or on someone else’s ;)

So what’s the deal? What is this ‘SUCCESS’? Is there actually a definition? Well I did some googling and here is what dictionary.com has to say about it –

1.      The accomplishment of an aim or purpose

§  - the president had some success in restoring confidence

2.      The attainment of popularity or profit

§  - the success of his play

3.      A person or thing that achieves desired aims or attains prosperity

§  - I must make a success of my business

4.      The outcome of an undertaking, specified as achieving or failing to achieve its aims

§  - the good or ill success of their maritime enterprises

If you notice, all the definitions actually just say one thing – when you achieve your aim, you are successful. This is very true. Every individual defines his own success. What can be considered a successful life by one person maybe just a mediocre one for someone else. Your own definition of success depends on what your priorities are and based on those priorities, what your goals are.

For example, if a person’s priorities lie towards his work and career alone, becoming the CEO of his organization may define his success. Even if his marriage breaks up in the process, he might still feel his life is successful. On the other hand if a person’s career and family are both priorities in life, the same situation would leave him in shambles because what’s a post without family to share it with?

For students, doing well in the area / subject of your choice is success. I was a very enthusiastic and participative child in school. I would always be ready for whatever the teachers threw at me; I took on posts of responsibility and won recognition for my leadership. But I never ranked among the top scoring students. My grades were quite good but not the best. However I always felt successful and so did my teachers and peer. I was always considered one of the best students – in spite of my ‘lower than best’ grades. This is because grades were never a priority for me and I guess my behavior made that pretty clear.

A friend of mine on the other hand focused on nothing else but her grades. She didn’t participate in anything else, but she always got the highest grades in school. She was always ranked 1^st. She thought she was successful and so did everyone else around her – including me. In our own right, both of us were, however if I was in her place or she in mine, we wouldn’t have felt successful.

The bottom-line is success is what you make of it. It is what you define as ‘SUCCESS’