By Ustaz Mark Bang
Do you set the wrong goals and go after the wrong things? Only you can tell. If you chase the wrong things, you will find that it is difficult to come up with the motivation you need to work on the goal.
For instance, most people associate success with wealth. When you are rich and wealthy, it means you’re successful. While wealth is only one part of success, it is not the whole equation. There is no point in being the richest person in the graveyard. You want to be successful in every area of your life—finance, career, relationship, personal, spiritual, love, etc. What is more important is for you to align your life’s values with the things that you want to achieve. You don’t want to blindly build a business, spend 18 hours working on it, put in 10 years into it, and only find that the business is not what you want. Stop chasing the wrong goals. Dig deep into your heart and ask yourself, “Is this what I really want?” And if you find out that your goals are not what you are really looking forward to achieving, perhaps you need to refine your goals.
People want things to be quick and easy. They prefer to enjoy the instant gratification rather than sacrifice their leisure right now to work for the better future that they want. Many people have big dreams, but only those who are willing to put in real work can make a difference. Don’t just say or dream about the success you want; do it. Take action right now. Delay gratification and work on your goals. When people get to choose to watch a movie or to work on their dreams, they choose the easy and comfortable one—watch the movie. This is why a lot of people are not creating the results that they want. They prefer to play games, to sleep, to have fun, and to enjoy life rather than taking the hard route and working on their projects. When you choose to take action, there are risks involved. But don’t worry about the risk. Yes, you may fail. And yes, you’re afraid of rejection and the uncertainty, but you have to tell yourself to press on. If you are not taking the risk and you continue to do what you have always been doing, you will get what you have always got. You can’t build a multi-million-dollar business and want to enjoy playing golf for 4 hours a day. There is an opportunity cost involved. We only have 24 hours a day. If you use 4 hours to play games, it means you lose 4 hours to build the success that you want. Hence, learn to delay gratification and work on what is truly important to you and your life right now. It is alright to take a day or two off, but make sure you’re making progress and are moving forward.
Some people can never succeed in life because they lack the commitment and determination. They don’t take the necessary action, and whenever they face a problem, they choose the easy way out—give up. If you read success stories of extraordinary people like Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Michael Jordan, Lionel Messi, etc., you will discover that these people face tremendous difficulties and setbacks on their journey. However, they did not give up. They choose to hustle and press on. They are committed to what they want and are determined to reach their goals.
Dyslexia is a learning disorder. And if you are diagnosed with dyslexia, you will probably think that your chances of success equal zero. But that didn’t happen to Richard Branson. Instead of looking at dyslexia as his weakness, he looked at it as his greatest strength in building his business. The same thing happened to Les Brown, who was labeled as educable mentally retarded. He thought he couldn’t amount to much in life until one of his teachers came around and told him these words that totally changed his life: “Don’t let someone else’s opinion of you become your reality.” No matter who you are right now, as long as you have the determination and are 100% committed, you can achieve success in life. It may not be easy, and it can be really hard, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible.
Yes, if you don’t learn from the mistakes you make and the failures you experience, you can never move forward. The reason is simple. If you don’t learn, you will continue to make the same mistakes. And by making the same mistakes again, you’re bound to be stagnant at where you are. Extraordinary people learn from their mistakes and failures. Like Thomas Edison. He understood that failures are necessary because he treated failures as feedback. When you do something and it doesn’t work out, there are only 3 ways to deal with it: You stop trying and give up on it. You continue to do the same thing and get the same failure again. You improve your strategy and try again until you succeed. So, which one do you think successful people opt for? Of course, the third option. In your journey to success, you will for sure make mistakes. And you will experience failures. If you don’t fail, perhaps you’re not trying hard enough. But that doesn’t mean you should shun away from failure. In fact, failure is important because it serves as the feedback to help you improve—to become a better person worthy of success. Many people are afraid of failure. They worry that if they fail, they’re doomed. But that’s not often the case. Remember this quote from Tony Robbins: “Success in life is the result of good judgment. Good judgment is usually the result of experience. Experience is usually the result of bad judgment.” So, as you can see, mistakes and failures give you experience. And the experience is what makes you better. Therefore, don’t be afraid of failure. Instead, be afraid of not trying. Be worried about staying in the same place again next year. Have the courage to step outside of your comfort zone and do something different, my friend.
If you don’t up your skills and knowledge, how are you going to win the competition? Imagine if Michael Jordan or Lionel Messi refused to train and practice; do you think they could accomplish the amazing feat they did in life? That’s not possible. But that’s exactly what is happening to most people out there. They wanted to be successful, and they wanted to achieve greatness in life, but they refused to up their skills and knowledge. They don’t read books to expand their knowledge or keep themselves updated. They don’t attend classes or courses to upgrade their skills. Yet, they want to do better. If you don’t improve yourself, you can’t produce better success than where you are now. You are exactly where you are now because of what you know and what you’ve done.
And to move to higher ground, you need improvement. You need to update your information. You need to boost your skills. And you need to do something different. That’s how success is created. If you don’t improve yourself, you can never be successful. Period. “Public Staunchest Ally.”
The writer of this article is a human rights activist, writer, and professional teacher.