Success – Part – 4

Hard work is the fastest way to the graveyard.

A child who travels in a non-air-conditioned transport, climbs multiple floors many times a day, spends time in the non-air-conditioned room, plays till his body weeps, still has the energy to play one more game before sleep but the parent who travels in an air-conditioned transport, working in a comfortable cabin, using an elevator comes home like a zombie. All his energy sucked and waited to fall into his bed. The problem most of us are facing is not the lack of physical stamina to complete the work but a lack of mental energy. Our success depends on cataloging various kinds of work and doing a particular work depending on how much mental energy we have during that specific time.

Work that needs focus.

Be it spiritual or material, working with focus is very important for success. We might not have focus all day. So doing such work when we have more energy becomes very important. For most of us, it could be early mornings or the first session. For some it could be other times too, identifying such times and doing work that needs focus during those pockets of times is sensible. Our mind and body are fresh and we will be able to carry out such work. A student studying, an entrepreneur contemplating on his business plan an artist creating a masterpiece, or learning a new skill, of course, every one of us will be performing such jobs. Plan your work in such a way that you finish work that needs high focus when you have sufficient mental energy. Eliminating all the distractions like Notifications, calls, meetings will be very helpful. One should even avoid stimulants during such times. As we are already focused we might not need them. Stimulants might even jeopardize our state of equipoise.

Mundane work 

If performing work that requires focus is challenging because it needs mental energy, then doing mundane work throws a different challenge. We will be postponing these mundane/ordinary work as long as possible because it does not invoke curiosity. Our success depends on how successfully we manage these works too. It could be as simple as cleaning our surroundings or tax compliance-related works. According to the swabhava of a person, it could change. When such work is postponed it creates a burden on our brain. Our brain keeps a tab on such work and keeps reminding us from time to time resulting in discomfort and loss of focus. So we need to identify such mundane task, list them and do it as soon as possible. Here as we are learning to rise above our raga and dvesha doing such mundane tasks can make us a spiritual person too.

Emotion and Work.

Excitement – Most of our work is prompted by emotions which is not good in the long term. We start work or projects prompted by a dream. We see an opportunity to achieve success and start. Initially, this emotion is enough to start, but for every work or project, there will be times when we will hitting a plateau where we are improving and things can get boring. This is where we quit and take up another promising project. The new project gives us new hope and emotion. If a person is not driven by emotion he would continue his task, master the plateau, and will taste success.

Boredom – Our concentration also reduces when we are about to finish the work. Every work needs a thorough review to find ways of improvement and learning. We tend to falter in this last step because excitement dies and we prefer to do a new job than continue in the present boring job. If we are someone who generally is behind schedule, then it means that we are dependent on emotions. Here fear drives our work. Fear of penalty for not doing the work is the emotion. This might not be a good indication.

Fear – An emotion called fear, could wreak havoc in our energy levels. That is why being dispassionate or being dis attached to result becomes important.

Toxic people – One of the toughest to handle is toxic place people around us. There will be days when we would be cruising along, doing work in a jiffy, suddenly we would encounter such toxic people and they would sap all our energy.

Indecision – Another energy-draining emotion is indecision. We need to thoroughly investigate our options and execute our work. Whatever is the outcome let’s own it without guilt, learn from it and move on.

Impatience – imagine writing a blog, a new idea can give us hope of a wonderful blog and we start writing it with joy. Then when we realize, it needs more stuff and ideas don’t flow we tend to quit. We overcome such thoughts by being aware and persistent. Then when it nears the end, we tend to hurry up and finish. We might skip editing, checking for grammatical errors, adding an anecdote or humour. The difference between a good work or extraordinary work is how we finish. Here we need to be equipoised and overcome the desire to finish the job prematurely.

The secret of success – manage your energy

We all know what it takes to succeed in our life, the wisdom is there. Learning the necessary skills too is easy due to digitalisation, but in spite of knowing the insight many of us never achieve our full potential. The reason is the lack of mental energy to perform them. Cataloging of work, performing work according to our mental state, and being aware and in control of our emotions can help us in having enough mental energy to finish our work and such work will bring success and bliss to us and those around us.