Let’s be honest for a moment,
most of us aren’t looking for answers
We say we do but we don’t really mean it.
We also say we want to be successful and accomplished
yet we rarely stop to properly define what it means.
This weekend I was honoured to give a talk at a conference
for young professionals from all over Europe.
In my talk, i shared my personal story of hardships and challenges
as well as my blind boss’s story.
The main point i was making is- we need to have a strong why.
We need to know- why we are doing what we are doing?
Why we are living the way we live?
Why do we want to succeed or to start our own business?
You see, why isn’t just the question, it is the answer.
But no answer can be found without first asking the right question.
And that’s something we rarely do.
Simply ask yourself- when was the last time you sat down,
took out a piece of paper and wrote down important questions?
You could ask yourself anything! For example?
Why do I want to be successful?
Why aren’t I already successful?
What does it take for something to become successful?
If that’s already too far ahead, simply ask:
What is success?
You see, if you go and ask around, most people won’t be
able to tell you what is success.
People who answer that success is money, fame, etc, are simply
confused and blindly repeat what society has told
them to answer.
It’s amazing how many people want to succeed
despite lacking a clear definition for the word success.
The definition i like to use for success is taken from
the brilliant Earl Nightingale who defined success as
The continuous realization of a worthy goal or idea
This definition in my opinion is powerful and when you
have it in front of you, you can properly set goals to
achieve it. The beauty of this definition is that it shows
you that success is a continuous process.
It shows you that we should not strive to reach the
peak of the mountain but simply to continue upwards
whenever we can, as long as the climb is towards a worthy
idea which deserves our time and effort.
A worthy idea is for us to define and that makes
success even more subjective.
You yourself can determine your own success by
first thinking about what ideas or goals are important
enough for you to give them everything you have.
Not having such goals or ideals is the unfortunate norm
and in my opinion it’s the source of frustration and
unhappiness that our society is currently experiencing.
If you read these words and can relate with the point
i’m trying to make, let’s do an exercise.
I want you to take out a pen and a piece of paper and
write down as many questions as you can possibly think of.
Questions such as:
Where am i heading with my life?
Am i happy or unhappy with where i am today? why?
Am i a better person than the person i was last year?
Who is the person i want to become until 2020?
What do i need to do to become this person?
There are endless questions you can ask yourself.
The beauty of it is, you don’t need to know the answers.
You can try to write down answers but that’s not easy.
We will most likely spend our entire life searching for the
right answers and perhaps we will even find some.
But before we do that, we must ask the right questions!