Seven Steps to Success

Have you discovered the most powerful success technique on Earth as yet? Are you ready to take some steps that could change your life? Do you wish to enjoy success along with limitless energy? Are you interested in experiencing creative rushes? Do you want to think like a genius and solve problems quickly? Do you wish to double your ability to learn and release all stress in the process? All this may sound like some sales pitch to you. No, I am not selling anything. I am just asking you to follow some steps that I have been following with great satisfaction. It won’t cost you anything but a little attitudinal shift.

Someone rightly said that when life hands you lemons, make lemonade. So, in these uncertain times of worry and financial concerns, it makes sense to use all available tools to rise above any situation that life may have handed you. Let us look at these tools now.

Don’t make your heart ‘set’ upon something: - When you set your heart upon achieving something, you are opening yourself to a probable upset. On the other hand, if you stay ‘open’, you release the desire to control those things over which you have no control whatsoever. Then you just concentrate on doing your best and letting go of the result. Isn’t this what Lord Krishna propagated in Gita? It is time to revisit this timeless wisdom. As you release your fixed expectations from yourself, you can breathe a sigh of relief. ‘Unknown’ is a great territory. Once we ready ourselves to explore it, we discover some powerful aspects of ourselves that we didn’t know existed. Yes, we are more powerful than we give ourselves credit for. When you push through your fears, you are ready to explore and use this incredible power that is available to you.

Stop ‘hoping’, start ‘wondering’: -Watch your words. How often do you use the words, ‘I hope’. If you are like most people, these words form a regular part of your vocabulary. Now, whenever you want to say, ‘I hope’, replace the words with ‘I wonder’. Instead of saying, ‘I hope I clear the CAT’, say, ‘I wonder if I will clear the CAT.’ Speak these two sentences out aloud; verbalize them. Feel the difference in their energy vibrations. The second sentence is definitely more positive. While uttering the first sentence, you are part of the drama, but when you vocalize the second sentence, you have detached yourself from the outcome. (Gita, anyone?) It is like watching a good play and wondering what comes next. Hopes have a chance of getting dashed but wonder is another ballgame. It opens up new possibility of growing and learning, whatever the outcome may be.

Trust: - Once you realize that you do not have much control over what happens in your external circumstances, you are left with just two choices. You can think of yourself as a poor little thing, a victim at the mercy of outer events or you can choose to develop trust in your innate capabilities. You can choose to think that come what may, you will take the best from all situations; trusting yourself and the Universe. One easy way to develop trust in life is by deliberately shutting off negativity in any form. If you repeat the mantra, ‘Whatever happens in my life, I can handle it’ as often as you can; you will eventually believe in it. And if you really believe in your own capability to handle everything in your life, nothing can deter you from your path. In future, whenever you are bogged down by any ‘what ifs’, go ahead and chant this mantra. You will feel powerful, confident, and peaceful.

Role models: - Do you have any role models? People who have achieved success against all odds? Look for such heroes in your environment or your history books, and then tell yourself, ‘If they could do it, why can’t I?’ Yes, if others can learn and grow from their experiences, so can you. You can learn and find strength from anything that you do in your life. The trick lies in seeing all situations in life as a means of learning and growing. Once you release your need to experience things in a certain way, you can learn from any thing that happens to you. All situations carry inherent learning opportunities. Just embrace the situation and find the gift.

Affirm: - Affirmations play a great part in our growth process. One of my all time favorite affirmation is, ‘Everything is perfect the way it is.’ You see, the fact is that at any given time we cannot see the larger picture; the ‘grand design’. The whole picture is a mystery until it is revealed to us, and that happens only in retrospect. We look at our past and exclaim, thank God this did or didn’t happen at that time! When we affirm that it is all happening perfectly, we begin looking for ‘good’ in every life situation. And the truth is that whatever we look for, we find it. Sometimes we can find a great deal of good in a most hopeless situation.

Focus on success: - While going through the rigmarole of our daily existence, there is a lot that we take for granted. From now onwards please start taking note of your little successes. In my workshops, I ask all participants to make a ‘win list’ at night. This win list includes all the things that you know you are going to do the next day. Simple things such as getting up, wearing slippers, going to the bathroom, brushing your teeth, bathing etc, are part of a win list. All you need to do is that after performing each task on your list you just tick it. It is something like a ‘to do’ list but unlike the ‘to do’ list, ‘win list’ contains all those chores that you are certain of doing, so there is no scope for failure. It may sound like a simple tool, but it is very powerful. With each ‘tick’ your brain registers a ‘win’. It gets used to appreciating your successes. By noticing these small successes, life becomes successful. Remember, being successful is a habit.

Take positive actions: - As we get involved and take positive action, we re-affirm our faith in ourselves. Ask yourself, ‘What must I do now?’ Make a list of all that comes to mind. Do not censor anything. And then immediately begin to take action. At the end of it you will feel powerful and successful.

So, live these secrets to creating a fulfilled life and EXPECT success!!
Advanc’edge MBA, April 2009.

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Healing from Insecurity and Stress

What is it that makes us feel secure in life? Educational credentials, well paying job, decent bank balance, comfortable home, or happy understanding family?? What is your pick? People have a tendency to cling to all kinds of goals and aspirations in order to feel secure. Some cling to career goals (when I do an MBA, I will feel secure), some have financial goals (when I earn 20 Lakhs per annum, I will feel secure), while some harbor relationship goals (when I get married, I will be secure). In these uncertain times, it makes sense to ask ourselves, what are we clinging to, in order to feel secure? Many a times we achieve our career goal only to find that our relationships are in a mess. Or we achieve our relationship goal and find our finances going all awry.

The other day a friend of mine asked me, “What do most people want?” The answer just came, “A little bit more.” Yes, this is the punch line. Most of us are never satisfied or secure. ‘A little bit more’ eggs us on. But the fact is that true security cannot be found in the outer world. This global recession is here to teach us this universal truth. It is time for us to find security in the present moment, in the here and now, even though everything seems to be going wrong in our lives. Most of us see ads like ‘the complete man’. We see pictures of young, good looking, successful people and feel, ‘this person has everything’. Yes, there are a few lucky people who achieve all their goals or so it seems. But the truth is that these achievements still fail to make them feel secure. Security cannot be found by fixing everything in our life from the outside. It is an inside job.

What does this insecurity do to us? To say the least, it produces stress in our lives. An excess of stress blunts our sensitivity to the very process of living. In the present times, stress is affecting every level of our society. It is resulting in us changing our friends, our jobs, and our life partners more often than ever before. Now thanks to global recession, we are being asked to adapt to an insecure world. How do we do that?

We need to listen to our inner guidance in the middle of a chaotic and insecure world. This will help create inner peace and tranquility. Detach yourself from your pre-occupation with jobs, families, and friends as attachment causes you to imagine all sorts of fearful and negative outcomes. Live in the present moment. Remain committed and involved with your work and your families but realize that you are not dependant on them for your security. Instead become more dependent on your inner guidance. When you develop faith in your intuition and depend upon it to guide you, you will be led to a peaceful foundation in a turbulent world. Living intuitively will help you unfold your wings.

Fear of this new world order makes us more stressful. It fills our minds with all kinds of negative thoughts. We start worrying about how to earn enough money. We start doubting our capabilities. We start conjuring up images of catastrophes. We imagine that something terrible might happen. These worries produce more stress. The excess stress impairs our performance and our judgments. Letting go of our worries and entering an unknown future makes the transition much easier. Learning to completely trust the inner calling takes us to just the right place for us. When we take the risk of letting go of our past conditioning, we discover freedom. We escape the worry trap.

When we start taking our first few steps into the unknown, it may seem very frightening, but our persistence assures us that our inner guidance can be trusted. This assurance makes us relax. We become comfortable and choose new directions with inner confidence.

Sharing our thoughts with close friends and family members helps, but we need to completely take responsibility for our lives. We must let our intuition guide us in becoming a participant in making important decisions that affect our lives. How do we connect with our intuition? There are many ways, but I will share the one that works for me.

Sit in silence at a regular time every day. Closing the eyes helps in the process. Ask your higher self for guidance and then ‘listen’ to the answer. Do not filter anything; listen to all that comes to your mind. After opening your eyes, make an entry in your personal development diary (if you do not have one, please make it NOW). Thank your higher self for the insights and ask this part of yourself to help make the inner changes in you. Over a period of time you will not only develop a sense of peace and security, but also receive guidance for taking actions. These inspired actions will lead you to your life’s path.

Listening to inner guidance will help simplify your life. Dada Vaswani of Pune tells this lovely story. In a handloom factory, each worker was told, “If your threads get entangled, call for the foreman.” One day a new worker’s threads got entangled. She tried to disentangle them, but only made them worse. Finally she asked for the foreman. He took one look at the threads and said, “Have you been trying to do this yourself?” She nodded her head in affirmative. He said, “Why didn’t you ask for me?” She timidly replied, “But I was doing my best.” The foreman quietly said, “No, you were not. In future remember that doing your best is sending for me.”

This is exactly what we do in our own lives. While we think that we are doing our best, we complicate our lives. Now the time has come to call for our inner guidance, and that is the best thing we can do. We can be healed of our insecurities and stress by following our potential. It may lead us to a different life path from the one we are used to but it will definitely take care of all the complications that have entered our lives without our being aware of them.

So go ahead, turn to your inner guidance, relax and EXPECT the very best from life!!!!

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