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How to be Successful in Life: Dream, Love and Compete!

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How to be Successful in Life

 

By Anubhav Srivastava ( Register for his Workshop – Build Super Confidence For Super Success!)

What makes an incredibly successful individual in any field of endeavour ? I have been pondering over this question for a few years now. It is this question that inspired the work behind the film Carve Your Destiny (http://youtube.com/watch?v=PgVrCtOhqjo) Is it the ability to take a risk? Is it ambition, a hunger to achieve agoal? Read more in part two of some tips to achieving your dreams, regardless of who you are!

The Smartphone, Tablet, Laptop or Desktop Computer you reading this article on was once only a DREAM
The Smartphone, Tablet, Laptop or Desktop Computer you reading this article on was once only a DREAM

Dream, Dream, Dream!

“I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.” – Khalil Gibran

All achievement has it’s beginning in a dream, a vision. Think about this, if everyone in the world lived on a day-by-day basis and did not dream about the future, the progress that the world has seen would be impossible. The reason why we were able to make so much progress was because there was always someone who dreamed of creating or doing something that would have an impact on the world.

Everything we see around us, cars, mobile phones and even non tangible services, at one point of time only existed in the minds of the individuals who conceived the ideas and tried to bring them to life. Steve Jobs of Apple dreamed of creating computers that were very user friendly and at the same time possessed capabilities that were years ahead of any computer at that time. Michael Dell dreamed of providing computers to customers at the lowest price possible while still providing excellent customer service.

Everyone daydreams at some point of time, so what sets these people apart from the rest? Unlike the average people who have a hazy idea of what they WISH they could be, these individuals have a very detailed mental picture of what they KNOW they can be. Instead of hoping that luck comes their way, they take the initiative and strive to make their dreams a reality.

Compete Against the Best

Dreaming is worthless without Doing and Doing produces best results withCompetition.

Now how many of you think that you are your only competition and competing with others doesn’t matter?

My view is If your goal is be physically fit, you compete against yourself. But If your goal is to be a great professional athlete, you need to compete against the best in the world. In fact I will go on to say that competition is the source of all progress of mankind. Almost everything we see today is the result of competition. When when done unethically, brings out the worst in us. Competition, when done by not compromising on principles, but with a burning desire to win, it makes us all discover superheroes inside us.

To get better, compete against those who are better! You will probably lose but you will make much faster progress.
To get better, compete against those who are better! You will probably lose but you will make much faster progress.

Let me tell you a little secret, you don’t have to beat competition by working harder or even being better at the same thing your competition is doing. You can stand out doing something DIFFERENT and OF VALUE to the market.

In the 1800’s horse carriages and the candle making industry was big. There was a lot of competition in there. So how would candle making companies compete against each other? By providing better candles. By providing longer lasting candles, By improving distribution, by lowering price. How would the horse carriage people compete? By getting faster horses, more sturdy carriages, providing better price and so on right?

And yet, ultimately that was a fool’s quest, because somebody thought different and went on to invent the light bulb, boom competition eliminated. Somebody thought different, and invented cars, boom competition eliminated.

You don’t eliminate competition by doing things better than what they are aleady doing, you eliminate them by doing things they can’t even think of doing. It’s true that if you succeed others will soon try to copy you but you will be way ahead of them because you have the first mover advantage.

Instead of Always trying to do what you love, also Love in What you Do.

“I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun.” – Thomas Alva Edison

Society has traditionally glorified “Self-Discipline” and “Hard Work” while paying little attention to intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation, by definition is a form of motivation where you do a work not because you are obligated to do it but rather because you enjoy doing it.

Let me ask you a question. What kind of feelings enter your mind when you hear the words “Self- Discipline” or “Hard Work?” Although you may have been conditioned to glorify those words, if you are like me you probably do not get pleasant feelings when you are asked to practice them. You may feel like you have an unnecessary burden on your mind because you make your own brain believe that you are going to do things you DON’T like to do. The biggest problem I see with “Hard Work” is the word “Hard.” You can never enjoy continuous success in something that you do not enjoy doing.

Now if you tend to do things better if you imagine things as “Hard” you should stick to that way. However, if you are like me, then when stop making the subconscious and the conscious mind adversaries. Train your subconscious to think in alignment with your conscious. Why create an opposing force in your mind? Do two opposite forces acting on the same thing ever get the work done? The answer is no, not in the long run anyway.

Here is how you can train yourself to think this way. If you do not like to do work long hours, start making affirmations to yourself that you do like working and it is extremely enjoyable. Are activities of watching TV, playing a video game or listening to music enjoyable to you? It’s probably because those activities require no obligation on your part and that takes the stress off your mind. Therefore start equating working on your goal as anything that relaxes you or is a form of recreation for you. Do not view it as a responsibility or an obligation. View it as something you thoroughly enjoy. If you are not a natural, it might take a while for you to get your mind to think this way, but persistence will finally get you there.

Now there are times when despite being passionate about your goals, due to some reasons, you just don’t feel like putting any effort into your plans. Maybe you have faced too many rejections and are too depressed to work! Maybe you are losing sight of where you want to be, are getting frustrated and are contemplating quitting. What do you do now when the passion seems to have dwindled? Here is the time when I actually recommend harnessing the power of self-discipline and combining with it whatever passion you have left within you. You may not really enjoy working during those times, but by combining self discipline WITH passion you still have your subconscious in alignment with your conscious mind, at least to some extent.

Reflect on the advice my humble self gave you today. These are not things I made up myself. Great authors and successful people have mentioned all the things I talked about over and over again. Think over it and decide for yourself whether it would be useful to you. If you do feel that it could be useful, start implementing that mindset right now because doing so will only make you one step closer to success 🙂

The writer of this article, Anubhav Srivastava is an author, motivational speaker and the director of Carve Your Destiny, a first of its kind inspirational documentary featuring some of the most famous personalities from diverse fields, who teach the viewers how they too can make all of their dreams come true. The movie itself has been seen on Youtube by close to 600,000 people. Anubhav has also been featured in numerous International and India Media outlets such as BBC , The Times of India, Hindustan Times, Rediff.com, Leicester Mercury and many others.

Email Anubhav Srivastava for coaching, consulting or motivational speaking queries at anubhav101@gmail.com. Facebook Profile: http://facebook.com/anubhav981

Watch Carve Your Destiny, the super inspirational movie by Anubhav Srivastava for Free at