For his highly influential self- help book Think and Grow Rich ,Napoleon Hill interviewed several successful people of his time for about 25 years and concluded that his biggest tip to succeed was ,“Whatever Your Mind Can Conceive and Believe, It Can Achieve”. An entire self help industry has sprung up from his book. Despite people applying positive thinking in their life, they are as dissatisfied as ever. In this article, we’ll talk about Swami Vivekananda’s tips on how to succeed in life.

 

Why concrete goal setting is important to succeed in life

 

Human kind is a goal oriented specie. Our goals give direction to our lives. Without concrete goals to attend to, we often feel lost and wasted. No wonder why many people have reported that they feel most sad and depressed during weekends. Even the most ancient scriptures of human civilization, i.e : Vedas, have espoused by the fact that a human mind can’t remain empty. Therefore if you don’t fill your mind with positive goal oriented thoughts, self sabotage will take over the mind.

However, the pursuit of goals often leaves us constantly feeling dissatisfied. If we have set  big goal for ourselves, then we are bound to face numerous failures on our way. The repeated failures often makes us lose heart and give up in between.

Every year you can find a lot of people signing up for a gym membership in January. They all join with concrete goals in mind, such as having a chiseled physique like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s in his prime, whereas others just want a flat belly. However most of them quit within the first few months. This phenomenon is as true for life as it is for the gym. We have big lofty goals in childhood, but when life hits us with a ton of bricks, we just lose sight of our goals and decide to settle for much less.

To succeed , one needs to set concrete goals so as to have a direction in which we can direct our energies towards. However goal setting is just a prelude to the bigger picture. The key to achieving success is how we conduct our actions. In his powerful book, Karma Yoga, which is the detailed science of doing work, Swami Vivekananda laid down the secret of success as follows :

 

Swami Vivekananda on the secret of success

 

“Whenever failure comes, if we analyse it critically, in ninety-nine per cent of cases we shall find that it was because we did not pay attention to the means. Proper attention to the finishing, strengthening, of the means is what we need. With the means all right, the end must come. We forget that it is the cause that produces the effect; the effect cannot come by itself; and unless the causes are exact, proper, and powerful, the effect will not be produced.

Once the ideal is chosen and the means determined, we may almost let go the ideal, because we are sure it will be there, when the means are perfected. When the cause is there, there is no more difficulty about the effect, the effect is bound to come. If we take care of the cause, the effect will take care of itself. The realisation of the ideal is the effect. The means are the cause: attention to the means, therefore, is the great secret of life.”

 

How you can apply Vivekananda’s philosophy to build your dream physique

Suppose we join the gym and our goal is to look muscular. Keeping our goals in mind, we have to plot the means through which we can achieve our desired goal. We can plot down the tentative path by answering the following questions :

Do you want to look big and muscular  or do you want to be chiseled and muscular ? Once you have decided what kind of physique you want, next determine what should be your daily calorie intake ? Now decide the break down of macro nutrients :carbohydrates, proteins and unsaturated fats you will need daily, to fuel your physical growth. How much budget can you allocate to sustain this diet for a long term ? How can you add foods that you enjoy having which are healthy,nutritious to your diet, so that you can stick to your diet for the long term.

Check out :

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Once you have allocated budget for your diet, with the remaining budget decide on the gym you can afford. Once that’s done, find a training plan which fits your goals. While deciding on a training plan, ponder on the questions like whether your plan should focus more on compound exercises or isolation exercises ? How many rest and recovery days should you have per week ?

Once you have decided on the initial plan get the ball rolling. Jot down your progress on a journal, in terms of strength improvements, body weight change, etc. It’s important to note that you shouldn’t get too fixated on having a perfect plan from the word go. Your plan will always be a work in progress. Therefore analyze your progress every few weeks and improve the plan on the fly.

In order to succeed it’s as important to be develop detachment towards our goals as it is to develop a lazer sharp focus towards them.

 

In order to succeed in life practice detachment

 

Swami Vivekananda adds, “We also read this in the Gita and learn that we have to work, constantly work with all our power; to put our whole mind in the work, whatever it be, that we are doing. At the same time, we must not be attached. That is to say, we must not be drawn away from the work by anything else; still, we must be able to quit the work whenever we like.”

This is a lesson that we often overlook while chasing our goals. If we don’t learn how to detach from our goals, then we’ll develop a feverish pursuit of the goals. This often starts affecting us in other areas of life. We start venting our frustrations on our loved ones thereby making us feel more bitter towards ourselves. Also, the power of detachment helps us come up with fresh for achieving our goals.

 

To summarize, here are the tips that will help you succeed in life :

1. Set a concrete goal for yourself.

2. Once you have set the goal, set it aside with the conviction that it will be achieved.

3. Now formulate an initial plan and start executing it.

4. Record your progress in a journal.

5. Gauge your progress monthly and see how can tweak the plans to get more consistent.

6. Develop detachment towards your goals.

 

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