HOW TO BE SUCCESSFUL

 AND NOT TO WORRY SO MUCH ABOUT IT

In 1980s in New York, a young talented guitarist was kicked out of his band, apparently because the other band members were jealous of all the attraction he alone was garnering. Puzzled, upset and mostly angry, he determined to take revenge of this injustice, by forming his own band and making it more successful than the one he was kicked out of. And so he started working very hard, assembled a team of the best musicians, wrote hundreds of songs, practiced day and night, trotted around the world, winning awards. This young guy was Dave Mustaine, lead guitarist in the legendary heavy metal band Megadeth. And even after this success, in an interview, he admitted to be deeply unhappy and attempting suicide. Because unfortunately, the band he was kicked out of was Metallica. Metallica was way bigger than Megadeth and this always bit Dave. Albeit all his wealth, stardom and fame, Dave was inherently unhappy about his success. And the reason was that he had a wrong metric of success.

How we define success for ourselves is increasingly becoming more important than how much of it we achieve. Humans are apes. We all like to think that we are all intelligent and sophisticated with our technology and designer clothes, but the basic instinct of all of us is like those of apes – to compare our success with that of others. And that is the root of all our misery. So when you started reading this passage, you might’ve thought that you might get a step to step guide to becoming successful or a brilliant story of someone successful, who you can follow to become successful. Unfortunately, this article is not going to be about it.

What does success mean to you? Take 3 minutes and think of an answer. Be honest to yourself, there is no one to judge. Does success to you mean having a comfortable life with all the luxuries? Or to be filthy rich and famous? Is having a good and healthy marriage and a very content relationship with all your family success to you? Would you say you’re successful if you are able to give back to the society or your country? Or you could’ve had something like, ‘happiness and a content life’, which is a super hit in interviews. Whatever it was, does not matter. Whatever your goals, they are all yours to decide. I am not going to be condescending about that. Dream of whatever you want, no matter how selfish it might sound. What is very important though, and the whole point of this exercise is not to identify what you want, but contemplating what you’re willing to do to achieve those goals. Everybody enjoys what feels good. Everyone wants to have a carefree, happy and easy life, making boatloads of money, have amazing relationships, look perfect and be popular and well-respected and admired by others.

Everybody wants that. It’s damn easy to want that.

So setting goals, as asked to do by many coaches and experts is a mere futile exercise if you don’t ask yourself, “What struggle are you willing to go through?” or “What kind of problems do you want in your life?” Because joy and happiness doesn’t sprout from daisies and rainbows. You have to endure struggle for it. And it mostly isn’t a one-time investment. It’s continuous. You want a gorgeous physique – you need to sweat it out at the gym and restrain your taste buds. You want an amazing relationship – You’ll need to invest energy and time into it and face the insecurities, inhibitions and take efforts. Nothing worth having comes easy.

So, how to be successful? To be honest, I don't know. Nobody does. People can tell you things that might help you, but to achieve what you want, there's no blueprint. But one thing that I can tell you is that you'll have a lot of problems and lots of challenges. It is intuitive and yet we fail to see the obvious. If there's a blank dot on a white paper, unlike what people preach - to focus on the white part instead of that small tiny dot, I'll suggest you focus on that very dot. Don't see the dot as an adversity, but as a challenge. That's our survival instinct that has helped us live through all the ages. Focus on problems and enjoy solving them. Don't run away from them. And if you choose the right set of problems, I'm sure you'll reach where you plan to.

-Insights from 'The subtle art of not giving a f*ck'