Two Important Ingredients to Help You Stick to Your Path for Success

Reading time: 5 minutes

Most often, people feel that extraordinary level of success is not within their reach. I disagree. If one lives a purpose driven life, over time, extraordinary success in whatever area such person focuses upon is just a by-product.

However, in order to stay committed to your path, certain ingredients are essential. Let’s look at two such ingredients today.

Ingredient #1 – What Stands in the Way, becomes the Way

Most people will remember the late actress Lalita Pawar as the one-eyed vamp who played the role of the evil ‘Manthara’ in Ramanand Sagar’s “Ramayana” (which aired on Doordarshan back in the 1990s).

What’s amazing about Lalita Pawar is not her convincing portrayal of Manthara (which surely was), but rather her success in real life despite the obstacles in her way. More specifically, her defective left eye.

Few know that she was not born that way.

When she was 26, during a shoot for a film called Jung-E-Azadi, a co-actor was supposed to slap her in a scene. Unfortunately, the co-actor went a bit too far in character. As a result, he slapped her so hard, that not only did it leave her with a burst vein in her left eye, but also kept her away from the camera for the next three years.

Lalita Pawar could have played victim. She could have rejected the unimportant ‘character’ roles. She could have blamed her circumstances. No one would have cared if she did any of that. And she would have faded out of memory.

The famous stoic Marcus Aurelius has written: “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

And this is exactly what she did. She took action. Undeterred by her obvious physical limitation, she simply transitioned into character roles, which were widely appreciated and gave her much fame later in life, including a best supporting actress Filmfare Award.

You must do the same. Make what stands in your way … THE WAY.

Look at Dashrath Manjhi, who literally chiseled down an entire mountain to create an easy access road to his tiny village in the state of Bihar. Was it hard, “Oh, yes!” Did it take time “Of course. It took more than twenty years”. For Manjhi, what stood in the way (i.e. the Mountain) literally became the way (i.e. the Road). People felt he was crazy, but it was Manjhi who built the road.

The Stoic author Ryan Holiday has written an entire book dedicated to this topic. He’s aptly named it “Obstacle is the Way”. The key message of this book is that successful people are successful not because they did not have any obstacles in their path, but because they had the courage to face each obstacle and overcome it through their grit and perseverance.

What do you do when you face challenges? When you face big obstacles for once-in-a-lifetime opportunities? Do you quit? Or do you say, ‘Bring it on?’ Ultimately, what you do in the face of problems is what will ultimately determine whether you will succeed; or fail.

As they say “Quitters never win, and Winners never Quit”

So, the question is how do you develop this mindset?

One technique that you can learn is to embrace every small challenge that life throws at you, and to accept full responsibility to deal with such challenge.

Let’s call this your “Net Practice”. So:

• if you are stuck in traffic, instead of swearing at fellow drivers (and consequently spoiling your mood), consider it an opportunity to calm your mind;
• if your spouse is irritated after an extremely bad day at her workplace, instead of yelling how your day was worse than hers (and consequently ruining the evening for both of you), consider it an opportunity to be at her service which will give you an opportunity to strengthen your marriage;
• if a customer criticizes, instead of getting scared (and consequently losing confidence), find out what you can change in your product or service, so you can give a better customer experience the next time;
• if your domestic help doesn’t turn up (without prior notice), and you must now do the dishes, instead of losing your temper (and thinking about how you will give her a piece-of-your-mind the next day), consider it an opportunity to build your empathy muscle. After all, she’s also a human and will have problems in life.

Remember, Things do not happen to you. They happen for you.

As you start practicing in the proverbial nets, you will gradually get to see a whole new world. You will then agree with me that life is a reflection of who we are. Situations simply exist. They are neither good nor bad. It is we who put colour in them.

Building resilience is similar to training your muscles. The change is slow, but with practice, your resilience will grow bigger and stronger. Eventually, bigger and greater challenges in your life will no longer scare you.

It is said that Edison failed hundreds of times when he was trying to perfect the light bulb. Each failure only fueled him to find another technique which could potentially work. And when someone asked him “Aren’t you tired of all this failure?” Edison replied “Where have I failed? I just know hundreds of ways that don’t work!”.

It is then not surprising that he could easily cope with seeing his entire life’s work being gutted in flames.  

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However, you may still complain that Life is too hard. You may have a high motivation to begin with. But the motivation soon dissipates, and it becomes extremely difficult to stay on track consistently and over a long period of time.

And this is what brings me to the next important ingredient.

Ingredient # 2 – Find Your WHY

Friedrich Nietzsche famously said “He who has a WHY to Live can bear almost any HOW”

We looked at Lokmanya Tilak’s resilience in a previous blog. Tilak’s overarching WHY was to get Swaraj for his motherland.

Tilak had boldly declared “Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it.” In order to achieve this higher WHY, he could go through any HOW. A tussle with the Government, no problem. A six-year prison term in Mandalay, bring it on!

Swami Vivekananda has famously said “Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, and live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success; that is way great spiritual giants are produced.”

Few would know that it was Tilak who went to UK to try and convince the common British citizens for the Indian cause. He must’ve thought, “If the citizens of Britain force their government to grant freedom to India, the British government will have to fight on two fronts.” You see, a strong WHY can also lead to out of the box solutions!

This concept is so important in personal life and in business that author Simon Sinek has written an entire book on “Finding your Why”. In the book, he says that we can find our ‘Why’ by answering the following question: “To (how you can help people i.e. your contribution) so that (impact you want your contribution to have).

Simon Sinek’s WHY is “TO inspire people to do what inspires them, SO THAT together we can change the world for the better.”

The way he achieves his WHY is by writing books on leadership because that’s a great way to inspire people. Sinek argues that once you find your WHY, that becomes your North Star, and every decision you take will be aligned with that WHY.

In short, each decision will be aligned with making your “Boat Go Faster”.

Once you find your WHY, it will be easy for you to realign your priorities in such a manner that should you get lost, you can almost certainly find yourself back on track.

Concluding Thoughts

Studying lives of successful people will give you the necessary short-term motivation to elevate your own life and the strength to face the obstacles in your path with courage. Knowing your WHY will help to keep your tank full for the long haul.

I urge you to get a regular practice in the nets to build your resilience muscle, and also to work on finding your WHY so that you are ready to face the obstacles in your path, whatever they may be. All the very best.

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^{Cover Photo by Johannes Plenio from Pexels}