How is success measured? Is it related only to money, or can personal progress and overcoming difficulties be considered successful? Each of us has his or her own definition of the essence of success, but it doesn’t matter how we define it when many of us are still struggling to reach it and sometimes find ourselves giving up altogether.
To lift ourselves out of the dust and return to our path of success, sometimes we need guidance from people who went through journeys similar to ours and who can help. Author and spiritual mentor Robin Sharma is an excellent example of a person who has taken many paths, and whose approach and perseverance have led him to succeeding in them in an inspiring way. His 10 smart tips for success will certainly help you succeed in life.
Like many spiritual teachers in the modern era, Robin Sharma went lived a unique life until he earned this title. Born to parents of Indian origin in Canada, Robin wanted to succeed in his environment, and so he completed two degrees in law, following which he became a lawyer. In time, Robin's work did not satisfy his spiritual needs, and he decided to change the course of his life and began to write. His writing led to one of the most successful spiritual books in recent years - "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari."
In the book, Robin describes the life of a lawyer who has had a heart attack in court, a crisis that brings him to seek meaning in life and to reveal secrets that many of us never decipher. The success of the book was not long in coming, thanks to the fact that Robin successfully combined spiritual elements from the East with Western and modern principles of success - a combination that many people related to. Today Robin continues his work as a writer and teaches many people how to achieve the success they aspire to in any area.
Finding the balance between the spiritual and the material led Robin to formulate a number of rules for success that draw inspiration from his own experience as well as from people he admires and values. The following 10 rules will inspire you with a thought about life and its purpose and will help you achieve success as you define it, and this is exactly the secret of their magic:
Our world is full of people who have a variety of ideas and knowledge they have acquired over the years, but here is where their success usually ends. A head full of knowledge and ideas is essential, but worth nothing if not implemented and applied, just as we see them in our imagination. Do not be one of those people who sit at home with a lot of useless knowledge, feeling frustrated that they aren't moving towards the success they have defined for themselves. Instead, be like the people who got up from the couch and did everything in their power to implement their ideas and to express the knowledge they had acquired.
"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark," said Michelangelo. Robin Sharma uses this powerful sentence to show that there are many people who settle for mediocrity and do not try to reach goals that seem too high and far away. This may be due to fear of failure and inability to reach the goal, but think about it: If you set yourself big goals and try to reach them, even if there is little chance of success, is it not worth the effort? The very experience will teach you man things. That small journey you’ll take will be a success in itself.
Sharma recommends that you write down your plans and your goal for success on a single page of paper and look at it every morning to give yourself a kind of visual motivation. When something is in front of you every morning, it is hard to ignore it, and if you see your goal in front of your eyes every day, it will be hard to ignore it. This simple method can do wonders for the excuses we tell ourselves in order not to do anything on the road to success because it creates a kind of daily nagging reminder that we have something important to aspire to, which like we said before, is really hard to ignore!
When we feel a lack of desire in our lives, we often do not have the energy to try to achieve what we want. It is important that you remove the black cloud over your head, look at everything you already have and realize that you already have many things you can be passionate about. Appreciating what you have will allow you to feel better with your life and achieve what you want with a smile on your face.
A dangerous phenomenon of success is the forgetting of the people around us as soon as we breathe the air at the top. In order for this not to happen to you, try not to act at all times only for yourself, but also for the people around you who express support for you. Our lives are short, and Sharma emphasizes the importance of acting for others, not just for ourselves, for humanity and compassion are a success in their own right, and it is important to always remember those who surround us.
The word "failure" is particularly jarring when it comes to striving for success, and many people prefer not to try at all than to take the risk and fail along the way. Despite this fear, we must remember that failure is an inseparable part of success, and you must not let it get you down. The fear of failure can trip you up more than anything else, and therefore it is not particularly wise to focus on the small defeats on the way to great success.
Robin Sharma advises developing "tunnel vision" on the road to success so that it can be reached. When you set yourself a goal that you want to achieve, it is important that you focus on it and on the person you want to be so that you are not distracted by the diversions that come your way.
Laziness is a trait that many of us will not admit to having, but we must not give in to it when trying to reach a certain goal. Hard work is the way to succeed in life, and for that, you will have to sacrifice one hour each morning. You can get up earlier, or plan your day in a way that allows you to do so. Once you’ve chosen the hour you’d like to invest you must divide into three 20-minute segments.
The first 20 minutes you will need to devote to a strenuous workout that will increase your heart rate and make you alert. Besides these benefits, the workout will also release hormones that will make you feel energetic, focused and happy, which will help you achieve your goals. Take the next 20 minutes to plan what you need to do on your way to success. You can, for example, build a quarterly plan for the three months ahead, and record and fix every day what you need to do in the coming days.
The last 20 minutes should be dedicated to learning the things that interest you, and the world of success. You can do this by reading biographies of successful people, reading a newspaper and keeping up with the day's affairs, or anything else that will give you more knowledge than you had yesterday.
When you strive for success, there is no such thing as too little an achievement, since every action you succeed in advances you towards your goal. Therefore, it is important that you do not underestimate the small daily successes you reach, but take a few moments to express enthusiasm and joy for what you’ve achieved and what you have now but did not have yesterday. Celebrate your big and small achievements, and realize that every little step you make is more meaningful than its momentary size.
