Attain Success

• 
• Success is not an individual subject. It depends on many other qualities of a person.
• Be like a oyster. There is a pretty Indian fable to the effect that if it rains when the Swati Star is in the ascendant, and the drop falls into an oyster, that drop becomes pearl.
• The oysters know this so they come to the surface when that star shines and wait to catch the  precious rain drop.
• When the rain drop fall into the quickly the oysters close their shells and move down to the bottom of the sea, there to patiently develop the pearl.
• We should be like that first hear and understand and then, leaving all the distractions, shut your minds to outside influences, and devote yourselves to developing the truth within you.
• There is a danger of frittering away your energies by taking up an idea only for its novelty, and then giving it up for another newer.
• Take up one idea, and make that one idea your life.
• Think of it, Dream of it. Live on that one idea alone.
• Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body be full of that one idea.
• This is the way to success, and this is the way great giants are produced.

Seven rules of Life

1. Make peace with your past so it wont screw up the present.

2. What others think of you is none of your business.

3. Time heals almost everything, give it time.

4. Don't compare your life to others and don't judge them. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

5. Stop thinking too much, its alright not to know the answers. They will come to you when you least expect it.

6. No one is in charge of your happiness, except you.

7. Smile. You don't own all the problems in the world.

Facing Failure

1. Feeling your emotions

Notice each emotion as it comes to you. Take time to name the emotion, be it anger, sadness, fear, or shame.
• Overcoming failure is all about finding it in yourself to start again.
• First, you must overcome the sense of failure.
• The failure of a project, relationship, or other goal might initially overwhelm you, but if you acknowledge your disappointment and accept your mistakes you will be able to move on.

• 
  
• This will enable you to work through it without turning it on yourself or others.

2. Acceptance of Failure

• It will be harder to move forward if you blame yourself or others, or pretend that what happened didn't matter or didn't really happen.
• Write down or reflect on everything that happened, what lead to it and what the consequences were. State only the facts, without blame, judgment, or justification.
• If writing is not a helpful form of expression for you, find someone you can talk to. A trusted friend or family member, or a counselor, can help you move past.

3. Be Positive

• Positive reframing is all about discovering the positives in any situation, even failure.
• Look at the situation in which you feel you failed, and contemplate different ways of describing it.
• "Failure" is a subjective term. Instead of saying "I failed at finding work," say "I haven't found work yet" or "I've been looking for work longer than I had hoped." Don't attempt to whitewash your mistakes, but state them without judgment, and look for the best.
• Try using humor to encourage yourself when you are down.
• Humor is a key component of resilience: laughing kindly at yourself will help carry you through your greatest trials.

4. Diffusing Negative Thoughts

• If you keep thinking of yourself as a failure, write something like, "I am a capable person" on a sticky note and put it on your mirror. Say it aloud to yourself and you can begin to change your negative thinking.
• Avoid negative thoughts like " I am failure", This is terrible.. etc.

5. Avoid Replaying of Failure in your Mind

• Use mindful meditation to bring you back to the present.
• Mindful meditation helps you stop worrying about what happened in the past and focus on the here and now, and you can start asking yourself: what can I do differently today?

6. Bounce Back

• What happened to throw your goal off track? Could it have been prevented?
• Think about possible solutions you could have put into action, and what their consequences would have been. Were your initial expectations unrealistic?
• Try discussing your expectations with loved ones and teammates to measure their realism.

7. Set Realistic goal and Change the approach

• Brainstorm ideas and select the one that seems sturdiest. 
• Ask yourself if you have the resources to put your new plan into place.
• What new problems are likely to come up? How will you solve them? What needs to be in place before you begin.
• Avoid repeating the same mistakes.
• Your new approach should not include any of the strategies that may have caused your last approach to fail.

8. Try Again

• With your new goal set, and your new plan solidified, set out to achieve your goal.
• Take the time to reflect on your progress as your steps take effect.

Managing Emotions

Emotion is any agitation or disturbance of mind, feeling, passion, any vehement or excited mental state. There are hundreds of emotions with their blends and variation.

Distortions within

• Fear: anxiety, concern, edginess, terror.
• Anger: fury, outrage, animosity, irritability.
• Sadness: sorrow, grief, gloom, loneliness, dejection.
• Enjoyment: Happiness, relief, thrill, rapture, satisfaction.
• Love: acceptance, trust, kindness, devotion.
• Surprise: shock, amazement, wonder.

Managing Emotions:

.
• Prayer helps unburden many emotional imbalances.
• Cultivate the taste of watching nature.
• Listen to good music.
• Develop positive emotions like love, respect, kindness.
• Avoid negative emotions like anger, jealousy, guilt, fear, worry, ego, inferiority, greed etc.
• Avoid Criticizing, Complaining, Comparing, Competing in unhealthy way.
• Change yourself- Change can begin only from you and only from within.
• Never Quit.
• Stop blaming- instead of blaming darkness every where, light a candle if you can. Stop blaming; instead take action.

                                                                                                      

Making Impossible a Possible- Self Confidence

Here is a story of a lady named Jessica Cox, who was born without arms. But that has not stopped her from doing anything.

With one of her feet, she mans the controls and with the other, she delicately guides the steering column.
Her latest flight into the seemingly impossible is becoming the first Sport Pilot licensed to fly using only her feet.

Her certificate qualifies her to fly a light sport aircraft to altitudes of 10,000 feet.

She is a good pilot. She's rock solid, said Parrish Traweek, 42, the flying instructor at San Manuel's Ray Blair Airport. Legs are her hands. " When she came up here driving a car," Traweek recalled, " I knew she would not have problem in flying a plane".

s

She can swim. She writes with her legs. She learns karate. She can do all the domestic things with her legs.

Doctors never learned why she was born without arms, but she figured out early that she did not want to use prosthetic devices.

"The history of the world is the history of a few men who had faith in themselves. That faith calls out the divinity within. You can do anything. You fail only when you do not strive sufficiently to manifest infinite power. As soon as a man or a nation loses faith, death comes"- Swami Vivekanand

Working towards Success

SUCCESS IS NOT SOMETHING TO WAIT FOR; IT IS SOMETHING TO WORK FOR.

1. What to do;

.
• Your actions are yours alone.
• You choose to carry them out or avoid them.
• You are responsible for the effects of those actions

2. What to say;

• The words you speak or write should be consciously chosen.
• They have an important impact on your life and the lives of those who you come in contact with.

3. What to think;

• There are some subconscious thoughts that you may not be able to control.
•  Your thoughts, your beliefs, your ideals, etc. are what you have chosen to accept and believe in.
• So choose the better.

4. Your Work;

• Many people like to overlook this one. Never shirk responsibilities.
• Its your job and you chose it. If you stay or quit that's a choice.

5. The people you associate with;

• Your friends can either pull you up or bring you down.
• You make decision which type of friends you wish to have.

6. Your Basic Physical health;

• Decisions you make about your health, such as diet, sleep, physical exercises, check ups, etc. are in your hand.
• Take control of them.

7. The environment you live in;

• The condition of your home, the things that you possess, cleanliness etc. are what you can control of.

8. Your Fiscal situation;

• Wisdom of economy- what you want versus what you need. The choice is yours.

9. Your time;

• You chose how to spend your time in various activities.
• You will never get more time than 24 hours a day.

10. Your Legacy;

• All your actions, words, and knowledge that you share while you are living become a gift that you leave when you have gone.

Once you take charge of all these, you will be in almost full control of your life. These are the minimum things expected out of an individual these days.

 

Four steps for Happiness

        1: Focus on the things that bring you joy 

• It can be anything- reading, writing, hanging with friends, etc.
• Once you know these things, fit a chunk of time for each activity into your weekly schedule.
• Doing even a few things that you love on a consistent basis can dramatically increase your overall happiness.
  2: Stop over-thinking
• Our minds can often be our worst enemies.
• If you find yourself over-analyzing, worrying or obsessing about a certain situation, take conscious action to let it go.
• Face your emotions, talk to someone you trust for advice, do what can be done about the situation and then set yourself free from over-thinking.
  3: Take action on something
• Is there something you've been holding back on in your life?
• Perhaps you've been waiting for the right moment to say something to a loved one, or you’ve been wanting to ask your boss to take on a new project, or anything else… take a leap of faith and do it now!
• There will never be the 'perfect' moment, so stop wasting your time waiting for it.
• The universe rewards action, so do what needs to be done, today :)

       4: Follow your inner voice

• Trust yourself, listen to your instincts and believe in yourself to do the right thing.
• You are an infinitely powerful being with limitless knowledge.
• Love yourself and do what makes YOU feel good!

Courage fosters Faith

Courage is the essence of faith. Only the brave can have faith. We live in a world in which fear predominates , and next to fear is prejudice.

• The very fact that you have the courage to struggle will itself bring you nearer to your goal.
• So many are afraid of struggle. Where have you found bravery without the necessity for struggle?
• Can you claim to be the heroes if you have never entered a battlefield?
• The trouble with most of us is that we catch the lowest rung of the ladder and wait there, thinking someone else will do the rest for us. Think are you not cheating yourself this way?
• In life you must always think you are a soldier, because  you have a purpose. We are not talking of those who live a happy- go -lucky life. The cult of happiness is deadly for the soul.
• Soldiers are not sent to battlefield with the words "My Boys, I expect you to be happy". When surround by the enemies your mere goodness will not help you.

   " Courage is the resistance to fear; mastery of fear-not absence of fear"            - MarkTwain

• You have to roar like a lion, when people in the world want to browbeat you, open your eyes like a lion and browbeat them.
• Fight like a strong not like a weak, fight for the conquest not for retaliation.
• Carry the sharp sword of wisdom in your hand and advance like a hero.
• Don't be thwarted by anything. Boldness and determination are called for!

" Courage is not defined by those who fought and did not fall, but by those who fought, fell and rose again"

Will Power

How to develop will power:

• Concentrate, gather all your energies and pour them in right channels.
• You need to do very little daily to go ahead if you really want to go ahead.
• Be strong and manly. Be ashamed of any smallness within you.
• The most important thing is your own resolution to succeed.
• Your inner potential is raring you to go; open the mental and spiritual gates and it will flood the world.
• By lifting your thoughts up your whole life can be elevated.

•  You have to have many small targets. Slowly we have to build up will power.
• Suppose you are a student, you study for one hour and then you should examine yourself about what  you have studied.
• When you start succeeding these small realistic goals you gain confidence and  your will power is strengthened.

Like  Swami Vivekananda, there was one more disciple of Sri Ramakrishna by name Swami Turiyananda, he had never sat with bent back bone in his whole life. Always Upright.

•      Imagine what a tremendous amount of will power it takes to accomplish even such a small thing for the whole life.

An Ancient Story for you

 A man who has gone out of his town comes back and finds that his house is on fire.

It was one of the most beautiful houses in the town, and the man loved the house.
Many people were ready to give double price for the house, but he had never agreed for any price, and now it is just burning before his eyes.

And thousands of people have gathered, but nothing can be done.

The fire has spread so far that even if you try to put it out, nothing will be saved.
So he becomes very sad.

His son comes running, and whispers something in his ear: "Don't be worried. I sold it yesterday, and at a very good price ― three times.The offer was so good I could not wait for you. Forgive me."
But the father said, "Good, if you have sold it for three times more than the original price of the house."
Then the father is also a watcher, with other watchers.
Just a moment before he was not a watcher, he was attached.
It is the same house, the same fire, everything is the same, but now he is not concerned.
He is enjoying it just as everybody else is enjoying.

Then the second son comes running, and he says to the father, "What are you doing? You are smiling ― and the house is on fire?"
The father said, "Don't you know, your brother has sold it."
He said, "He had talked about selling it, but nothing has been settled yet, and the man is not going to purchase it now."
Again, everything changes.
Tears which had disappeared, have come back to the father's eyes, his smile is no more there, his heart is beating fast.
But the watcher is gone.
He is again attached.

And then the third son comes, and he says, "That man is a man of his word. I have just come from him. He said, 'It doesn't matter whether the house is burnt or not, it is mine.
And I am going to pay the price that I have settled for.
Neither you knew, nor I knew that the house would catch on fire.'" Again the father is a watcher.
The attachment is no more there.

Actually nothing is changing; just the idea that "I am the owner, I am identified somehow with the house," makes the whole difference.

The next moment he feels, "I am not identified. Somebody else has purchased it, I have nothing to do with it; let the house burn."

This simple methodology of watching the mind, that you have nothing to do with it..

Everything starts with a Thought !

Most of the thoughts are not yours but from your parents, your teachers, your friends, the books, the movies, the television, the newspapers.

Just count how many thoughts are your own, and you will be surprised that not a single thought is your own.

All are from other sources, all are borrowed ― either dumped by others on you, or foolishly dumped by yourself upon yourself, but nothing is yours.

Moral of the Story:

Sow a thought, you reap an action.
Sow an act, you reap a habit.
Sow a habit, you reap a character.
Sow a character, you reap a destiny..