It is not based on what you say, wish, hope, or intend to do at some time in the future. Success is only based on what you are doing right now in this moment.
In its simplest terms, happiness is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal. It is only when you feel that you are moving step-by-step toward the accomplishment of something that is important to you that you feel genuinely fulfilled and happy.
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
—Confucius
Time Slips By
They take the first job that someone offers them, put their heads down, and say, “If you want to get along, you have to go along.” Then, one day, they lift up their heads, look around, and find that they are sixty-five years old. They have finished their useful work life, their bank accounts are almost empty, and they are looking forward to many years of surviving on limited savings, pensions, and Social Security.
This story from writer Joseph Campbell illustrates this point.
Campbell writes about going out for dinner at a small neighborhood restaurant. At the next table, a husband and wife were sitting with their ten-year-old son.
Referring to the food that had been served to him, the son said, “I don’t like it.”
The boy’s father quite sternly told the son, “That is your dinner. You will eat it.”
The little boy replied, “I don’t want to!”
At this, the father became angry and blew up. He said loudly, “You don’t want to? You don’t want to? I never did anything I wanted to in my whole life!”
Just like when you pull the lamp cord out of the socket and the lamp goes out, when you say “I am responsible,” your negative emotions switch off and go out instantly.
It is amazing how many people stay in a bad job, unhappy relationship, bad marriage, or a difficult situation of any kind because they are so concerned that people will be critical of them if they decide to get out of the situation and walk away. When they finally do muster up the courage to walk away, they are often surprised that no one really cares. Nobody is thinking about them at all.
Napoleon Hill wrote in Think and Grow Rich: “People only begin to become great when they decide upon their major definite purpose in life.”
“Live as if you were going to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were going to live forever.”
—Mahatma Gandhi
The antidotes to doubt and fear are knowledge and skill. The more knowledge you have on any subject, the less doubt you have about your ability to succeed. When you become an expert in a subject, you develop such high levels of self-confidence that you are soon willing to take on bigger and bigger challenges and accomplish more and more in that area.
The antidote to fear is skill. When you have taken the time to plan, prepare, and practice over and over, you eventually come to know, deep inside, that you can do this particular job and eventually anything you put your mind to.
One of the things you can do to increase the probabilities of financial success is to cast a wide net. Keep upgrading your knowledge and skills and gathering more information as if your future depended on it, because it does.
Take good notes when you are learning new things. A Chinese proverb says, “The palest ink is stronger than the most powerful memory.”
“There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose.”
—Elbert Hubbard
Nelson Mandela said, “Do not judge me by my successes; judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”
Knowing how important persistence is to lifelong success, I practiced this preprogramming on my children as they were growing up. Throughout their young lives, I said the same thing to each one of them, over and over: “I know one thing about you. You never give up.”
No matter how many problems or difficulties they had, or how many times they were disappointed in themselves and their results, I would listen patiently and then say, “Well, I know one thing about you. You never give up.”
And it worked. My children are now happy, healthy, self-confident adults, busy and active with their families and in their work, and they never give up. It is not a part of their worldview. Quitting never occurs to them.
At a certain age, they took over their programming from me. Instead of having to say “you never give up” to them on a regular basis, they simply began to say it to themselves. “No matter what happens, I never give up.”
How do you become unstoppable? You simply repeat the words “I am unstoppable!” to yourself, over and over. Then, no matter what happens, refuse to stop until you have achieved your goals.
As a wise man said, “Don’t go out and have a good day; instead, go out and make it a good day.”
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