I listed the elements that go into “Success” in yesterday’s post with the proviso that I shall elaborate today and I do so now.
PLAN while others are playing
It is simply amazing that this simple rule is hardly on the agenda of people who want to succeed. ‘Plan your work and work your plan’ needs to be drummed into our psyche if we need to be successful. It is obvious that this requires the top most priority, yet it does not. The message is loud and clear, you can play or plan while your competition is playing.
STUDY while others are sleeping
I remember my school and college days when this used to make the difference between the students who consistently scored high grades and those who did not. The former studied as number one priority and played or relaxed or slept as low priority activities. The same observation can be made about real life situations when we are grown up.
DECIDE while others are delaying.
Being indecisive is a perennial problem with most of us. We worry about losing or failing and hope that by deferring a decision, the problem itself will disappear. If you see around us, the most successful people are inevitably decisive. They will also make mistakes, but will shrug it off and keep moving.
PREPARE while others are daydreaming.
This is a corollary of what we have seen about studying when others are sleeping. This advice talks about exactly the same thing except that it expands the scope of activities to include all that one needs to do in any undertaking.
BEGIN while others are procrastinating
This advice is a corollary to being decisive. Being decisive is not enough. One has to act on whatever decisions one takes. If action is not taken, the decisions will remain just that. Here again, due to fear of failure one tends to postpone action hoping that the situation will resolve by itself. Such procrastinating will not achieve anything leave alone lead to success.
WORK while others are wishing.
Sitting with a fishing line on the bank of a river, will not be enough to catch fish. You need to bait the hook, look for likely places where fish may be feeding etc. So, with all the wishing for success one may have, unless one is willing to work towards a sought goal, nothing is likely to be achieved.
SAVE while others are wasting.
It is the first thing that anyone does in turning around any loss making enterprise. Cut all fat and become lean and mean. This is what saving instead of wasting means. All resources are scarce. Wasting resources of any kind is a crime. In all walks of life, we need to look at economizing, in effort, resources, action, and speech. Such economizing results in maximizing the effectiveness of all inputs that goes into any endeavor and will provide the platform for successful outcomes.
LISTEN while others are talking.
Information is also a vital resource. By talking you are wasting your energy, dissipating knowledge and missing opportunities to learn and gather more resources. You will do exactly the opposite while listening.
SMILE while others are frowning.
We need other people to be part of lives to achieve anything. We cannot individually do everything and achieve desired results. If this is accepted, we need to project an aura of joy and hope rather than dismay, stress and dread. Frowning achieves the latter while smiling achieves the former. People will cooperate effectively with each other when there is a cheerful and conducive atmosphere. It is therefore vital that we project such an atmosphere by smiling.
COMMEND while others are criticizing.
Following what we have seen about smiling, it is natural that when we are dependent on others to achieve whatever that we need to. We need them to be motivated to participate willingly with us and this is more likely to happen when we commend others rather than criticize them. If we criticize, they are likely to switch off and stop taking initiatives and play safe. This will be counter productive. When we commend them on the other hand, they get enthused and motivated to do more and better.
PERSIST while others are quitting
We come to the last of the advices, which is the most powerful of the whole lot. Most failures on record are due to just the failure to persist with one’s efforts when most needed. How often have we heard of failures just because some one gave up at a critical time? It is persistent effort and not any other factor that will result in enduring success. The use of other elements like strength, intelligence etc may achieve short-term results. It is persistence however that will produce long term and productive results.