Can you say Aloud “I AM SUCCESSFUL?”

Can you tell me what successful people do so that I can learn from it? You are a Coach and you talk to a lot of highly successful people so tell me “What can I do to be successful?”

What is success in your mind? I asked..

Three things he said: I should be happy doing what I am doing, I should get paid sufficiently and I should be recognised!

I said, “that’s a wonderful clarity”!

So, tell me if you have to rate your current satisfaction on scale of 0 to 10 all these three parameters, where do you think you are today?

With some hesitation he said, on:

I should be happy doing what I am doing: 7/10
I should get paid sufficiently: 4/10 but I can be better here
I should be recognised: 3/10

I said, fair enough so can you now think of your complete system which includes your experience, background, parents, cousins, classmates from school and colleague, friends and families and look at your current position from their eyes?

So, now look at your ratings once again in perspective of what’s happening around today where you have a job that is pretty stable, think of your whole system which includes family, friends, cousins etc, you are working with a very strong brand and you are yet to start the family life..

Now what do you think your ratings are:

There was a silence and then a smile and then revisiting of ratings.. this time rating were:

I should be happy doing what I am doing: 7/10
I should get paid sufficiently: 8/10 but I can be better here
I should be recognised: 7/10

So, with this do you think you can call yourself Successful?

there was a doubtful smile..

The reason for doubtful smile was the Belief that “If I start calling myself successful I will start getting complacent”

How many of you live with this belief?

The rating on money and recognition (in the first turn) was given based on future expectations versus present situation!
Sub-consciously we do not give permission to ourselves to be contented because somewhere we have been taught to stay hungry..
The hunger creates an unending chase for infinite expectations and one day we realise the life has passed by in chase to reach the self-perception of “I am Successful”

While we abuse the word mindfulness in daily vocabulary, we haven’t really learnt to be mindful because mindfulness really means to find satisfaction in present without compromising on future plans or expectation.

Having goals and purpose for future and working towards them is very different from chase. Achieving goals while keeping a tab on present and staying contented with present is what mindfulness is all about. If you want to achieve something, know what goals you would like to achieve through those efforts so that your efforts becomes meaningful and purposeful leaving you with sense of satisfaction.
Being contented as nothing to do with Being complacent, detaching them in your mind to live more meaningfully can be immensely helpful in living with sanity and inner peace. End of the day that’s what everyone want from career and money.

It is always possible to be Contented without being Complacent!

Infact in order to energetically achieve your future goals, happiness and contentment are fuels. Sense of feeling contented and happy generates endorphins which provides motivation and energy to fully contribute to your efforts. Also, by taking the stalk of present and past periodically helps you calculate realistically how much effort is required in next 6months to a year and can generate a sense of calmness/settlement to achieve things in chunk. You can save yourself from huge amount of time, anxiety and irritation that comes with the chase attitude.

With consumerism taking over us somewhere the bar of what’s good enough shifts up every day making it impossible for everyone to reach the bar!

Hopefully pandemic was a good enough reminder for some of us to acknowledge that “You are already successful” and there can be more that can be achieved however let’s first get contented with what all you have achieved so far, before you take the journey towards future !

Acknowledge and Embrace the present, it’s won’t take anything from your future In fact will give you a better push to achieve what you want to achieve! Stay Safe and Stay Driven but before that start saying “I am successful” Have a good life ahead!