The Relativity of Success
Success – it’s something everyone wants a flavor of, but only a few manage to truly achieve. Success, when seen as a life-target, can be extremely complicated. The secret to success? even more complicated. And to make things worse, everyone has their own idea of success whether it is at a financial level, geographical level, spiritual level, social level, or even at a sexual level.
Whatever your idea of success is, and no matter who you are, it’s going to be something that will put you at peace or at ease once you’ve achieved it.
For some of you, you will have considered your life complete when you achieve this level of “success”. For more ambitious people, one level of success is merely a stepping stone to a new target of success. And for some, success is in the present – these people are happy with what they currently have and don’t want anything more from life. They have a mindset which is not necessarily passive or non-ambitious but maybe one of gratitude (it better be).
Each person has an equal ability to decide what they want in life. If you think you know what Success means better than someone else, the plague of condescendence has got the better of you. Therefore, we must respect each other’s relative point of views of Success.
The Success Gap
When you dream to be successful, what you essentially want is to get from Point A (your current state) to Point Z (successful state). Inevitably, there is a big gap between these two points. It’s a gap many earthlings spend their entire life on closing in. Some close it, some don’t, and some don’t get to close it.
It’s a beautiful gap to fill, but a dangerous and scary one. Sometimes so scary, that people are afraid of slicing through it all together – these people remain closer to Point A forever and never get to Point Z.
Like many things in life, the key to filling this gap is also all in the mind. It always has, and will always be in the mindset.
The problem is that most people dream to succeed, but are not able to materialize their dreams. When you view success as a dream in your mind, instead of something that you mandate from yourself, it becomes a problem. You need to start viewing success and the goals that comprise it as a need, just like how you drink water because you need to, not because you dream to.
The human mind is amazing in that it is infinitely vast and the only boundaries are those given by you, all you have to do is tame your mind and make full use of it. The mindset is all that matters in filling this gap to success. When you decide something instead of dreaming about it, it changes everything.
Don’t dream to succeed, decide to succeed.
But before you decide to achieve something, make sure you believe that you can. Self-confidence is key. As Henry Ford once said – whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right!
The Concept of Mindset Boundaries
Up until this point, we’ve talked about reaching a certain level of success as an endpoint in life. But that’s the wrong way to look at it, and that view was presented intentionally.
In true terms, there is no endpoint in success. Remember Point Z? it was not a point of success, but rather just a milestone. There is no end to success but there is an end to goals and milestones, and the secret to success is when we never stop improving (“Continuous Improvement”) and we set new higher goals every time we complete one. Once we attain Point Z, we then seek to aim for Z1, Z2, etc. This process and state of continuous improvement can now be called success in true terms.
A lot of people see success as a destination, as an endpoint, but in actuality, it is far from this. The secret to success is by first understanding that success is a state, a process, and a never-ending journey that truly successful people like Bill Gates have shown to comprehend.
Whenever we set a goal, such as owning a million-dollar home, retiring in a first world country, or earning that Doctorate from Harvard, we create a target in our mind, a boundary if you will, that we want to reach. The thing is, these goals can become limiting boundaries if we stop striving farther once we achieve them.
To elaborate, one example is when someone sets a goal to have his/her own house and car. This is success for that person. And because he/she sees this goal as an endpoint in life, he will more likely take longer to achieve it. And when he does achieve this goal, there is nothing more to look forward to if he doesn’t set further goals. In this case, the goal acts as a limiting boundary in the person’s mindset which is hindering him/her from achieving greater highs and unlocking his/her true potential.
The Secret to Success
So at this point after reading an abstract view on Success, you most likely want a concrete answer to what is the Secret to Success.
In part, I’ve already said it but I’ll say it again. The secret to success is all in the mind. If you make up your mind to achieve your dreams and then continuously surpass and go beyond them, no one can stop you from succeeding. For most people, their mindset is their biggest obstacle to achieving success.
In summary:
Remember that your mind is an infinite space, and your mindset and imagination is what controls it. When you set your goals to success, challenge your mind and seek to achieve bigger and bigger things in life. The only thing stopping you is the boundaries and limits that you set upon yourself, and these boundaries are sometimes represented by your own petty goals. Set boundaries, but cross them and create new ones, and more new ones, and never stop going further away from Point A (starting point). Open up your mind and realize that it is your obligation to succeed, so you can help others succeed and help advance the human race. Your imagination is too vast and you’ll never run out of space, so always think big! Because the key to success lies in your mind’s boundaries.
If you found this post inspiring, go ahead and share it with your friends and loved ones, and help them live stronger too!
