How to be successful in life
By Mani Jack, M.J.
I
am writing this article so that the young generation will try their best not to
repeat the critical mistakes made by those who failed to manage their lives
well before so that they will enjoy a better life as there are basically three
types of persons in this world; the one who learns from his mistakes, the one
who learns from his and others’ mistakes and the one who never learns from his
and others’ mistakes. If you can’t be the second one, being the first is one is
good enough.
1. Invest in yourself.
It
is impossible for you to help others if you don’t help yourself first. If you
look at the current trend of the world today, it is all about expertise. If you
are very good in what you do, you will be able to make or attract money. If you
work for others, everyday is supposed to be the day for you to learn. Give
yourself at least 10 years before you think of setting up your own business or
be an expert in your company. An expert will always be well paid. If you do
business after working for at least 10 years, you will know who to contact,
what to prepare and how to run that business. On the other hand, force yourself
to consider reading as a permanent habit as you must know about what is
happening in the world today. If you love cooking, reading will help you to
improve your recipes and cooking skills. If you love drawing, reading will help
you to understand the current demand. If you love to fix cars, reading helps
you to find new and economical ways to fix a car. If you love to sing, you will
be able to find new ways to market yourself. If you love to teach, reading will
help you to find new approaches or technology to improve your teaching skills.
If you love to bake cakes and cookies, reading helps you to improve the
ingredients of your creations. If you love science, reading helps you redefine
your perspective. Last but not least, reading makes you a greater person in
silence.
2. Avoid unnecessary debt.
Debt
is inevitable but there are two types of debt. The first one is used to make
money while the second causes us to lose money. If we keep losing money due to
debt, we will fail in whatever we do because debt will take away our happiness
and retard the growth of what we want to do or achieve in life. If you know
that you are still learning about how to manage your self-discipline as long as
money is concerned, stay away from credit cards and personal loans. Master your
subject or passion first. Be the asset for your company or organization. Be
patient. Learn as much as you can first about money because money is a bad
master but the best worker. The banks can either build your income or take away
every penny you have. You don’t have to have everything that your friends have
because every person has a different family background. Even if you come from a
rich family, if you don’t learn how to manage your money well, your family
empire will be destroyed by your destructive spending habits. Debt is very
dangerous because it will affect you mentally, physically, emotionally and
spiritually. Study the ones who fail to manage their money well. Look at the
quality of their lives and ask yourself this question. Is that the life that I
want to live for the rest of my life?
3. Be honest with yourself.
If
you come from a poor family, don’t pretend as if you are rich by forcing your
parents or yourself to wear branded items just to please the imperfect society.
If you continue to pretend to be someones else just to please everyone
(actually no one really cares), that pretentious character will become your
habit. The worst part is, that habit is very expensive because you will
continuously force yourself to be “perfect” in the eyes of the fake society.
Even if you come from a rich family, wealth doesn’t last more than three generations
if financial intelligence is absent. It is okay to wear the brands that you
like but wear them when you are financially ready and if it makes you happy as
your happiness must have nothing to do with others’ opinion or judgement.
4. Embrace your strengths and
weaknesses.
No
one is perfect. No matter how hard you try to be perfect, you will never be
perfect. Even if you think that you have already achieved perfection, that
definition of perfection is exclusively yours to define. It has nothing to do with
anyone else because each of us define perfection in our own unique ways.
However, it is not wrong to try very hard to achieve perfection as long as we
don’t force others to accept our version of perfection. On the other hand,
telling ourselves that we have achieved perfection could be dangerous because
it may cause us to be trapped in the comfort zone which may cause us to stop
improving ourselves. The weakness that we have might be a blessing in disguise.
Trying to delete the weaknesses will cause us to be very stressed. We can
always improve our weaknesses but we decide the amount of time that we need to
improve the weaknesses because trying to improve them overnight will give us
unnecessary nightmares.
5. Appreciate your gift and
develop your talents and the hidden talents.
Everyone
is blessed with a gift (a skill that you are born with), talents (interests)
and hidden talents (skills that you thought you never had). Let me
give you an example. When you are born, you love drawing. At school, your
drawings have become everyone’s reference because your drawings are so perfect.
Even your teachers have to admit that your drawings are better than their
drawings. That is your gift. As you grow up, you will have
interest in computer specifically in HTML. You are willing to spend money to
learn more about HTML. As time goes by, you can call yourself a website
developer. That is your talent. However, talent needs hard work
while a gift doesn’t need hard work but appreciation. On the other hand, while
you’re busy improving yourself as a website developer, you suddenly fall in
love with nature. You begin to take pictures of nature. When you post your
pictures online, some people would say that your pictures are as good as the
pictures taken by the professional photographers. That is your hidden
talent. You will always be able to find your hidden talents as long as
you keep your minds and hearts open to possibilities and as long as you are
willing to learn something new. If you combine your gift, talents and the
hidden talents, can you imagine how powerful will you be? You will be a
great man or woman as you have so many things that you can offer to this world
and at the same time you will be able to develop your active and passive income
as long as you offer the best quality in your services and products.
6. Learn about money.
Money
and oxygen have shared the same status today because both determine the rate of
our success today and tomorrow. Some people say that money cannot buy
everything but no one is willing to transfer all of their money from their bank
accounts into your account. Money becomes our enemy if we spend it blindly. On
the other hand, money becomes our best companions when we learn to invest
wisely. It is never too late to make peace with money because every day is a
day to start all over again. You are very lucky today because information about
how to invest your money is just a click away when internet was created.
7. Keep your good friends
while making new friends.
Anything
can happen in your life. Sometimes your best friends become your worst enemies
today. Sometimes, your enemies become your good friends today. Sometimes
stranger becomes your family. Whether we like it or not, that is life.
Nevertheless, true friends will stay despite the changes that happen in the
world every day. Good friends are important because no one can be strong
forever. We need second opinions on our plans, predicaments or lamentations but
we decide whether the second opinions are suitable or otherwise. I know we need
God but I believe that God has assigned his angels to help us in the forms of
friends and acquaintances.
8. Embrace changes
Whether
we like or or not, changes will happen every day. The best book to help you to
be prepared is the book entitled Who Moved My Cheese. Comfort zone is dangerous
especially for those who are working in the private sectors. It is more
challenging for those who are doing medium and small businesses as they have to
think beyond ordinary as they have many types of commitments and deadlines that
they have to meet. The changes can be good or bad. If it is bad, it depends on
the quality of our emotional intelligence. In other words, how we respond to
the changes will determine how well we adapt to the unexpected changes. That is
why we need a support system in the forms of emergency plans, good friends,
supportive spouse, supportive family member and our savings to help us face the
changes. If we can maintain the best quality in us despite the changes, I
believe we can consider ourselves as successful even though we might not do
well in certain areas of our lives.
9. Believe in the presence of
the god/creator/universe/mother nature
As
we move into the world of technology, we can see that we have more free
thinkers in this world especially when we manage to become the creators.
Sometimes, the skepticism among the scientists is too much as science depends
on physical evidence. Scientific investigation has limitations because no
matter how perfect the technology is, we need at least 300 days to reach Mars. Even
the nearest star system is 4.3 light years away (http://earthsky.org/space/alpha-centauri-travel-time ). We get old in the
blink of an eye in the first chapter of exploring the outer space. In other
words, we have to acknowledge the presence of superpower that governs the whole
system no matter how skeptical we are as everyone, when the time has come, we will
have to say goodbye to everyone as we enter a new world after death. Science is
important but it must not deny the existence of the unseen world because as
time goes by, scientific investigations and creations might allow the lucky
generations to see what we couldn’t see before.
….…Thank you for reading…….
