One evening, in a chat with one of my new mentees, she gave me this question.
‘Why I cannot be like them, achieving a lot to be proud of?’
I sighed.
‘Have you done your research on how they can achieve that many? Have you found out things they had to face before they got those achievements? Have you observed their habit driving them to that level?’ I continued.
I heard no reply.
—
If those achievements fall freely from the sky then we will never witness winners. Everybody will just become everybody. Flat and bored.
We witness us differently because we are taught to develop our senses on how we respond everything that comes on us best we can. And all start with a question.
Let me start with mine.
Do you know that success is started with a good habit?
A good habit will drive one to earn life.
Surely, it’s pretty much common knowledge we all already know.
Here comes the ‘but’.
But how many of us work with that words strategically? Which one we have started with, a good or bad habit?
The first one will indeed make us living and experiencing successful life, but the second one will make us just dreaming about it, and soon make us sleep. The later one, by times, will kill us because we will keep on dreaming, not even waking up.
A good habit precedes a success.
Some of us articulate success with a set of measurement called ‘comparison’, using it to see how much or how far we’ve earned something compared to others. It’s not about making our own plans nor our own paths to the success itself anymore. It’s now about getting what others get that we haven’t gotten. It’s a big mistake.
Many feel like they are so unfortunate not to get this or that. Convincing themselves that they are bad or unqualified enough to get those so called achievements.
In some talks I made with my new mentees, I was told that success is marked with certain and fulfilling accomplishments that will be seen mostly as the common standard of achievements accepted to where we live in. It’s just like we are told to get them for a pride, for the public eyes.
It’s weird, isn’t it? If that standard is the only one to measure to see whether we are successful or not, why not making it as a 100% measurement? Like how those we call successful people live their lives; literally in the way they spend every minute of their time. Some of the many things on the list are like building their plan and effort, creating their network, making friends and getting enemies, facing problems and finding solutions, expanding their critical thinking, doing their hobbies, etc.
More, if success of getting lots of achievements is just a matter of words and thoughts after examining others, then why bother to wake up every morning and walk our feet out of the door to do all those activities we plan? Well, it’s because there is something we have to or wish to get. It is called a ‘goal’. Our goal is not someone else’s goal.
Our goal needs us to act; develop a course of action to sharpen us and get us closer to our goal, in the process it will create a habit. This habit is divided into two, good or bad habit. Both will be formed by time. Both will give result. The result we will like or the result we will hate. It’s for us to decide.
Our habit is not the others’ habit or vice versa. That means the comparison that was asked earlier has no foundation and gives nothing for improvement.
In life, action is the most powerful weapon for successful people living their dreams or just dreaming their dreams. It differentiates and puts distance the result we’ll get. It differentiates and puts time frame uniquely from one to another to arrive at the finish line.
Making a plan is easy, but making it into action is a more challenging task, and only ones with high determination will be ready to face the falls in the path of success.
Falls can only happen when we get up, walk, or run. To get up, walk, or run we need to build strategy, we need to build good habit. Then maintain the phase. It’s not a one-time action for success to come.
We need to learn, understand, apply, apply, apply. Then repeat them all from the beginning… And on.
We are not robots with a mechanical system that moves awkwardly and is programmed with certain patterns to run. We are humans with beautiful brains to think and digest what to do now to survive and for tomorrow to secure our lives. We are given the ability to move dynamically, to step as far as we can. That will happen only when we start to do one thing and escalate it to become a habit that will drive us to achieve what we aim for. The habit that won’t kill us but bring us success in life!
So, which one have you started with?
With my tea cup
DC