There was a boy filled with dreams, he was young and ambitious, yet nothing seemed to be working out for him. He failed his university exams 3 times. After a while he started applying for jobs and was rejected by 100’s of jobs including KFC. He applied to Harvard Business School and was rejected 10 times. Despite of so many failures, there was no deterrent for this ambitious boy.
In 1995, he took a trip to the US. This was the turning point in his life because after this his life was never to be the same again. He was intrigued with the internet and saw lack of Chinese presence on the internet. So he started his company called China Pages, to build websites for the Chinese companies.
Four years later he founded a company that we all know of, as a business to business market place called Alibaba. Today the same young ambitious boy, is one of the wealthiest men in the world today - Jack Ma.
And what exactly is the relevance of this story? We view success from a very narrow paradigm. We feel successful are those people who are rich and famous. And we want to emulate that success. And because we do not know what went into it and we’re unable to do so, we often feel like a failure.
No university in the world teaches us how to be successful and what is the mindset that is required to be successful.
So now, let's try and define what success means to each of us and how can we attain success with the right mindset.
Answer this question for yourself - at the end of X years I want to be Y. Come up with your version for success.
Now that you have successfully defined what success means to you, Congratulations and give it up for yourself.
However, if this new reality of you will happen after 1, 2, 5 or 10 years then are you going to spend this time waiting for success to happen? And there will be many days when you feel it’s just not possible and you cannot do it. So some days you will be happy and some days you will be miserable.
How to feel successful everyday?
Isn’t that a great thing that can happen to all of us? Feeling successful and satisfied maybe 80% of the days and maybe a 100% for some people who have that kind of a mental makeup.
Success is owning your life and taking it in the direction that you want it to be. And you can own your life, if you own your day. Success is a journey, and if you fall in love with the process & the journey you will reach there some day.
In 1995, he took a trip to the US. This was the turning point in his life because after this his life was never to be the same again. He was intrigued with the internet and saw lack of Chinese presence on the internet. So he started his company called China Pages, to build websites for the Chinese companies.
Four years later he founded a company that we all know of, as a business to business market place called Alibaba. Today the same young ambitious boy, is one of the wealthiest men in the world today - Jack Ma.
And what exactly is the relevance of this story? We view success from a very narrow paradigm. We feel successful are those people who are rich and famous. And we want to emulate that success. And because we do not know what went into it and we’re unable to do so, we often feel like a failure.
No university in the world teaches us how to be successful and what is the mindset that is required to be successful.
So now, let's try and define what success means to each of us and how can we attain success with the right mindset.
Answer this question for yourself - at the end of X years I want to be Y. Come up with your version for success.
Now that you have successfully defined what success means to you, Congratulations and give it up for yourself.
However, if this new reality of you will happen after 1, 2, 5 or 10 years then are you going to spend this time waiting for success to happen? And there will be many days when you feel it’s just not possible and you cannot do it. So some days you will be happy and some days you will be miserable.
How to feel successful everyday?
Isn’t that a great thing that can happen to all of us? Feeling successful and satisfied maybe 80% of the days and maybe a 100% for some people who have that kind of a mental makeup.
Success is owning your life and taking it in the direction that you want it to be. And you can own your life, if you own your day. Success is a journey, and if you fall in love with the process & the journey you will reach there some day.
Here are 8 ways you can own your each day and move forward -
1. Be an early riser - Just a few days ago I went for a talk to Chandigarh from Delhi. I started early morning, reached there gave my talk, travelled back and still had about 2-3 hours before I sleep. The whole notion of being in my bed and then to another city and then being back to my bed made me realise how much time do we have in day. A 24 hour day is really long and seldom do we utilize it and make the best use of it. When you wake up early, there’s a lot that you can achieve in that day. Plus you feel great waking up early and you feel in control of your day.
2. Early wins - Admiral William Mcraven gave a brilliant speech called Change the world by making your bed. Sounds absurd? How can you change the world by making your bed? And the answer to this is fairly simple. When you make your bed, you create an early win for yourself in the day, which sets the mood for the rest of the day. So you need to create an early win for yourself daily, it could be making your bed, setting up your room, watering the plants in your house, brushing mindfully. Anything at all, that makes you feel like you have won right in the morning along with giving yourself a sense of completion. This can be your daily morning ritual.
3. Planning - How many of you plan your day ahead? What is not planned or scheduled is never done. And the best way to plan is not to make your to-do list very exhaustive but add about 5 to 6 things that you achieve in your day. When you plan your day, you have clarity of how you want to spend your day and the fact that you would be making progress towards your overall goal.
4. Exercising - Exercising releases endorphins that put you in a good mood. It makes you feel great and also helps you to keep a check of your body weight. It also keep your mind and body fit, that helps you to function at peak levels. We all need some minimum dose of exercise to be able to stay healthy and fit.
5. Thinking time - Just 5 minutes a day can you spend time with yourself, without reading, without writing, without doing anything else, just 5 minutes. And in these 5 minutes you need to reframe your thoughts to positive one’s. Think about where you have reached, what’s so good about today, what’s good about your life. Just 5 minutes you just have to sit with yourself in a moment of quiet and reflect about your day.
6. Learning time - It is said that about 10% of your daily time should go into learning new things. And even if you cannot spend 10%, you should at least spend an hour of new things everyday. Learning can come in different ways, it can come from reading news, from listening to podcasts on the go, from watching videos, doing courses, reading a book, talking to someone who can add value to you and a lot more. The times are changing so drastically that you need to pick up new skills to be able to stay relevant. So no matter how busy you’re incorporate learning time into your daily routine. Everyday reinvent yourself.
7. Personal time - Everyday you need to also spend time with your family and friends. It could be sitting at the dinner table with family and talking about how good your day was, or talking to a friends or spending some quality time with your near and dear ones. When you spend a happy time with the people you love, it gives you a good closure for your day after hard day at work.
8. Consistently executing - And the last thing that you need to do everyday, is to be consistent. Consistency is the mother of all mastery. Wherever it is that you have to go, take small steps everyday that are making you reach closer to your goal. If you just ideate and not execute then that’s also going to be problem. There is a beautiful saying by Martin Luther King Jr - “If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”
If you own your day, and feel successful having lived a full day as per what you like, you are gradually moving closer to success.
Success is owning each day and making progress towards your goal. It is enjoying the journey and not just the results.
Also how many of you want to be as rich as Bill Gates? and how many of you want to put in 18 hours of work a day? There are always lesser amount of people who want to do the amount of work that it takes to succeed.
Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Dhirubhai Ambani, Ratan Tata they all have a large number of failures behind their successes.
So the next time you meet someone who is doing well for themselves ask them, what is your story and what failures made you into who you are?
There is no recipe for doing well, but if there were to be one it would be doing well consistently each day and living through the failures.
- Tanya Kathpal
Want to get published on EMN and join the community? Here is an opportunity to join the Board of Young Leaders Program by Eat My News. Click here to know more: bit.ly/boardofyoungleaders
Want to get published on EMN and join the community? Here is an opportunity to join the Board of Young Leaders Program by Eat My News. Click here to know more: bit.ly/boardofyoungleaders
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