Are you on the winning team?

Now ‘winning and losing’ is something we have known at the outset in childhood itself. Being the winner oneself is just one dimension, even cheering for the winning team is imperative; else you’re a ‘loser’. When we spend those large sums of money on attending live games, or betting on racing horses, it’s your respect at stake not the horses’! We gamble, and if we lose, we lose the game, the bet, probably some money, and apparently our self-regard too! What an irrational world this planet has become!

Psychology of success

When a ladder is placed inside the cage of mice or guinea pigs; their instinct is to climb it; to be at the top, to rule, to conquer, and to be the accomplished one. The animal kingdom (man is an animal too) seeks triumph. We are humans; the nevertheless superior animals; we like to climb every ladder and be at every summit to leave our mark. The joy of beating classmates, the pride in crushing foes, competing with friends too occasionally, becomes a pattern of achieving; and that achievement is presumptively termed as success.

Scoring the goal

In football when a goal keeper defends a goal, it’s a point, but in the bigger picture that defense helps the team and makes it a win. Real victory lies in the eventuality rather than the number of points. Of course, not overlooking the fun in the game. In the endless pursuit for goals, pleasure is lost, desires left unfulfilled, and wants unmet, amalgamating into a concoction called monotony (versus life). It is presumed that nothing short of fulfilled dreams is ‘success’.

Roles

Shakespeare rightly said, “All the world’s a stage and you must play your part”. As actors, we switch roles every minute at times. A parent begins the day with waking up the kids, catering to their needs, feeding them and sending them off to school. Next comes the role of a spouse; further on at work; that of a boss and/or subordinate with responsibilities and deadlines. A bad day at work disrupts the gentleness in behavior that evening. The parent and spouse roles get critically disordered with unrequired emotional expression (anger, irritability, restlessness). Maybe work succeeds. But there’s failure in the spouse and parent role.

Success Rules

Winning is not a mandate for success. There are several teachers around if you wish to learn. Failure is the best educator. The more often you miss the mark; you enhance your awareness of paths that don’t work. Making mistakes is not as sinful as repeating them. The SUCCESS rules guide one to the path to actualization.

Seed

Even weeds don’t grow without a progenitor. Neither does fungus. Nor a flower.  The seed for success ought to be sown painstakingly; with persistent nourishment and nurturance for attaining the goal. If you don’t know what you want, you’re very less likely to achieve it.

Unbutton

All those wrong paths that have misled you ought to be abandoned. If the same

Methods are not generating results, there’s got to be something wrong with them (it cannot always be bad luck!) Unzip, unbutton, remove the mask and accept reality. After all if you don’t learn from mistakes, how else will you?

Change

The sphere is transforming every millisecond. The roles may be the same but requirements have changed. The Flynn effect has made all successive human beings more intelligent. There is more competition so you need to enhance the endurance to accept the changes gracefully and with poise.

Cognize

Hard work always pays. However, when clubbed with intelligent planning, it becomes a recipe for success. The more you think about the things you want to be, better will be your strategy to get you there. When you think of an idea, and then dream it, brainstorm it, apply it, modify it, reapply it, it usually becomes real

Endure

When bricks are thrown at you, you can allow them to break you, or use them to build a wall to safeguard yourself. It was never easy for anyone. And it never will be for you either. Success is never final. And failure is never fatal. It’s the courage to continue that counts. The will to move ahead takes you there.

Sweat

J.Paul Getty’s idea for success: rise early, work hard and make oil. Simplest of words; yet the loftiest value in them. No influential parents, inheritance, education, or financial backing can assure victory. Expending physical as well as psychological and emotional energies takes one towards fulfillment of dreams.

Struggle

The desire for success should be far more powerful than the fear of failure. Success itself is a movement form failure to failure without losing hope and enthusiasm. Bill Gates in fact said that success is a lousy teacher. It makes you believe that you cannot lose. Resoluteness marks the guarantee for success.

Squeeze that lemon

Unless you squeeze, you won’t get juice. If you overdo the squeezing, you sense the bitterness of the rind. Allow yourself to rejuvenate lost energies. Self-beating may be stimulating but may bruise you. Be just, be realistic and be nice to yourself. After all who else matters?