Off late I’ve been reading a lot about the life stories of successful people and the one thing that struck me was that everyone without exception had a failure story to tell. Almost all of them talked about how they went into bankruptcy, some more than once. Others talked about how they had life changing experiences due to a physical condition or some kind of accident in their lives and how they overcame it to build and lead a successful life. When people like you and me read or hear this we look up to them with awe and feel motivated to become like one of them. But then slowly for some reason the enthusiasm seems to fade away. For most, it fades away within hours or a day at best, for a few others it lasts a few days and for a very small portion it may last a few months.
This got me wondering if one needs to go through a terrible illness or extreme penury to have a life changing experience. Do ordinary people like you and I who have a pretty normal healthy life have a chance of experiencing the same kind of success? I looked around and searched (and I know my search is far from complete) but could not find many examples of ordinary people like you and me who have made it as big as the others. Now this does not mean that we are not successful. We are in our own ways; however you know the kind of people I’m talking about when I say successful people. If you look at any field you will always see that there is a stratum of people who are the “elite” in that field. They have achieved a degree of success which you and I dream and aspire.
So I wondered what it that makes these people “special”? Are they gifted, talented or were they just plain lucky? I continued with my study and the more I read about these people and the more I heard them speak, there was a common thread which emerged. What I found out is that everyone spoke about the same things. There were a lot of common words and phrases they used. I’m not here to tell you that the secret to success is in following your passion, doing what you love, having a vision, setting Goals, relentless hard work and so on and so forth. Rather what I realised is that all of them without exception had one thing in common. All of them live their lives Inside-Out.
What is inside-out living? Most of us have a comfortable “outside” life. We have a steady job/career, a decent income to have a good living, a happy family and no serious health issues (although this seems to be changing off late). We have a comfortable home (some have more than one) to live in, a rejuvenating friends circle, we take 2/3 annual vacations, go shopping and spend on things which we want but may not use and so on. There are no obvious reasons to worry in life and overall we feel that we have a “good” life. This is why when anyone talks to you about changing you don’t feel the need to change, because Life’s good! Isn’t it? And we are all right. However when you start looking at your life and start developing a better understanding of yourself, you will slowly realise that all of us live a second Life. A life which is your best guarded secret. It’s a life which we live but are not aware. Even if we are aware we do not pay much attention to. It’s the “Inner Life”. It’s a life which is lived in a world which exists only inside us. It’s a complex combination of thoughts, feelings, emotions, internal talk which we go through every day.
Our internal lives today are far more complicated and challenging than our external lives. The reason for that is that in our external lives it’s very easy for us to blame someone, get angry at someone and generally take action. However when it comes to our internal lives we often feel “stuck” with the internal conflict, constant doubt, fears, insecurity and a wide range of feelings and emotions. You will often see this in situations where you have your inner voice which tells you that you should do one thing but you end up doing something different. Think through all those times when you heard someone inside you telling you to pursue your dreams, take that leap, help someone but you stopped yourself because you thought it was not practical or it was too idealistic. Get Real! You told yourself or worse you listened to people who either did not have the vision to see what you saw or discouraged you. There’s a famous African proverb which says “If there’s no enemy within, the enemy outside can do you no arm”. This is so true when you reflect back at your life and see that it was You who talked yourself out of something which you wanted to do. Now don’t get me wrong here. I do not intend to say that you are unhappy with your lives or you are all miserable. Far from it. Most of us are quite happy and contended with our lives and enjoy a relatively good life. The point I’m trying to make is that there is much more that you and I can do with our lives. There’s a lot more we can achieve if we manage ourselves better and learn to better manage our minds, thoughts, feelings and emotions. Life takes a completely new meaning when you start doing that.
So what did these successful people do? They discovered that if they wanted to change the world outside them, then there was only 1 corner of the world that they needed to change…… Themselves. All these successful people worked and continue to work on themselves (either with the knowledge or without it) , constantly improving them and developing their inner self. Most of us work very hard. The problem is we work very hard on our jobs and not on us. So what does it mean to work on you? Well that’s a very broad subject and there’s a whole industry which thrives on self-help, personal growth and development. For now I suggest you go through a simple exercise to ask yourself the questions below and once you have the answers decide to take action!
Take inventory of the things you do today and change those which are not adding any value to you or don’t support your growth and development.
1. What kind of books do you read?
2. What’s the first thing you do in the first 30 minutes of your day? It’s widely accepted that reading something motivational or listening to or watching something which inspires you first thing in the morning changes how your day will be. Don’t trust me with this?. Try it and experience it for yourself. Just make sure you do it at least every day for a month to see the results.
3. What kind of things do you listen to or watch on TV? Do you read the newspaper everyday morning and then watch the same news on TV again. We are all aware of the proverb “As you sow so shall you reap” but yet don’t pay attention to what we are sowing. Make sure you are sowing the right seeds into the land of your mind.
4. What kind of friends and relationships do you have? Do they nourish and charge you or are do they drain you out and deplete you?
5. What new skills have you learned in the last year?
6. What beliefs are holding you back? Why do you have these beliefs and do you think there is anyone whose example proves your belief wrong?
7. Do I have my Goals written down? It’s very important to have your Goals written down. As weird as it might sound they have a strange way of coming true. I am the living proof!
8. What are the things I’m clinging on to from the past? Pain, Sorrow, Anger, Hatred, Resentment anything which is negative has a tendency to keep taking you to spend time in the past which as we all know that is a complete waste of time.
Once you have gone through the list, decide to Take Action! To start with list down 5 things which if you had the courage you would have liked to do. Now for each list down 5 small things you can do towards reaching that goal and then go ahead and Do It!. Remember that you don’t become successful by doing great things. You become successful by doing things in a great way!
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