By Naveed Ilyas Saya, Senior Trainer and Consultant
It is never too late to take charge of ourselves. What exactly we want to do in life? What is success to us? What is our vision for ourselves? Is finding your path to success and happiness difficult?
Here are a few things you can do to get back on the track to success.
Build productive habits
First thing first, if you think sitting on a damp couch munching on junk and binge watching a 10-hour long Netflix series will bring you the “success” you’re looking for… you’re wrong. The characters you envy on the screen or the billionaire you see on Instagram and wish to be like, didn’t turn into that by spending their time being a couch potato. They fixed themselves, found productive habits, enhanced their effectiveness (deliberately) which eventually helped them to be the best version of themselves.
You could find small constructive activities like reading 10 minutes a day or running a mile a day. Key is to develop a habit and be consistent with it and you are bound to witness a change within yourself.
Do what you love
One mistake we make is surrendering to social pressure while choosing a career. Our society deems certain careers worthy of more respect and financial stability therefore hordes of students end up making very similar career choices, irrespective of their strengths and personal interest. God made you unique so don’t expect yourself to be cut out of the same mold as others.
Figure out what you’re best in, what your passion is, what you enjoy doing the most. It doesn’t have to be Math or science it could be video gaming or dancing or something as simple and complex as listening to people. And try and be the best in that, because even if you don’t succeed, you’ll have fun failing and won’t think twice before trying for the 100th time. And the most important, at the end of the day, you’ll sleep with a smile on your face. Do what you love or start loving what you do! Excellence is not possible if we don’t fall in love with what we do.
Find the right people
We are who we are with. Surround yourself with people with no goals and toxic lifestyles who waste hours blaming the world for their problems, and you’ll never be anything more than what they are.
You are always an average of the people you hang out with. Deliberately DELETE people from your life who bring negativity or are just wasting their life and have no vision whatsoever.
Find people who make you invest in your future.
Find people whose visions are aligned with yours.
Find people who don’t just grow themselves but help you grow alongside them.
Save up and invest
Even though, money isn’t the only factor to measure but it definitely plays a huge role. We understand buying the latest gadgets may bring happiness but we tend to not invest in our future. We want to spend 300,000 on a phone but spending 20,000 on our education and training sometimes seems too expensive. We need to fix our definition of investments and expenses.
A specific product can be an expense or investment. It depends on why we buy a product or service.
Buying an iPhone for showoff may be an expense but to manage all your work and make your productive is an investment
Doing MBA with least amount of effort and barely passing is an expense and total waste of time. But if this helps you to achieve what you desired and brings you closer to the vision then it is definitely an investment.
So next time, always think… Is that an expense or investment?
It’s never too late
Gone are the days where age or education was a barrier. Today we see 7 and 70 years old breaking world records in body building, information technology, social media and science. Nothings seems impossible anymore. Lets’ take charge of our lives and make things go our way!