You Are Tremendously Successful

Our greatest glory is never in falling, but in rising every time, we fall. - Confucius 

To be successful, you must have an idea, a dream. It is important to act and put the idea to use. Having an idea only and not acting on it is no different from daydreaming. What separates successful people from the rest is that the former act and make their dream a reality, while the latter dream indefinitely. 

Success is a relative term. Everyone is successful. Don’t let anybody define your success for you. Don’t let people dictate to you and tell you what you can and can’t do. Whether you believe that you can succeed or not, you will be right in both instances. Once you tell yourself that you can succeed, your actions will be geared towards achieving your goal. Once you tell yourself that you can never succeed, there will be no action on your part, as you will not even try to achieve your goal. We are all born to succeed. We all have potential. All we need to do is to release the potential, failing which we will go to our graves with our music still within us. One American Hollywood star once said he could not tell anybody the recipe for success, but he could tell them the recipe for failure: trying to please everyone. 

You are the architect of your life. You have the right and the power to design it the way it suits you. You are only answerable to the higher power on judgement day. You won’t be asked about other people’s lives but about yours. You will account for what you did and achieved in this world. When that day comes, will you have impacted other people’s lives positively? Did you use your success to make a difference in life? Or did you not care about other people? 

Your success should help other people. There is a saying that money is the root of all evil. I do not believe it. I  believe that money can be the root of all evil if it is in the wrong hands. Money can do miracles if it is in the right hands. The most common examples of this are people like Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, and Bono, whose philanthropy continues to touch the hearts of humanity. 

One of the reasons we don’t feel successful is we like comparing ourselves to others. We are all unique human beings. There has never been, and there never will be, any two people who are alike in all respects. Even identical twins can never be the same. They may look the same, but they are different in many ways. One of my favourite authors, Louise Hay, said, “No two snowflakes are alike”. Barry White’s song, ‘You’re the First, the Last, My Everything’ explains it nicely: “…there is only one like you; they could not have made two”. 

I once came across a motivating quotation by Eleanor Roosevelt where she said: “Comparison is a thief of joy”. This is profound and a good lesson for all of us. I would like to quote the wise words of Maya Angelou when she said: “The problem I have with haters is that they see my glory, but they don’t know my story…” It is true that we see somebody having achieved success in whatever form but sometimes we don’t know what that person has had to go through to achieve what they have achieved. It may be possible that if we knew what they have had to go through to achieve whatever they have achieved, we might not want to be where they are after all. So don’t waste time comparing yourself to other people. Remember the only person that you should compete with is the one you see in the mirror; that is your competition. 

Sometimes when people see others doing well in their own fields, they feel less successful. Every person is good at what they do. People who are trained in different fields can never excel equally. For instance, if you are not trained as a surgeon, you can never surgically operate on a person or an animal. We all are talented in our ways. So, don’t feel overwhelmed when you see another person doing what you can’t do. Even people in the same field may be gifted differently. The best thing to do is concentrate on what you are good at, what you are trained to do or what you are used to doing. 

If you are a cleaner, be the best one. Feel proud of what you are doing and do it with love and pride. If you are a specialist in a particular field, do it well. Excel. Concentrate on no one but yourself. Know your dreams, goals and ambitions. Do everything in your power to attain what you want and to improve on what you are already good at. 

Don’t compete with anyone; compete with yourself because you know your strengths and weaknesses. Your only competition should be with the one you see in the mirror. Competition is a useless exercise; you try to compete with one person, then they do far much better or worse than you and then you have to look for somebody else to compete with all the time. It is an energy drainer and exhausting. 

We must follow our call. We must make sure that we do what we are meant to do on this earth. If we don’t follow our call, we will follow other people’s calls. To follow your call, you must be strong and courageous. You must be determined. Never let yourself lose hope. As the Bible says, have faith as small as a mustard seed. You can still move mountains.

Read more in Never Give up on Success: You, Success and Tough Times by Euphodia Liza Tsatsi, published by Reach Publishers and available in leading bookstores and online.