I’ve tried in the past and just can’t do it
Let us begin at the true beginning. A lot of us have lofty goals and we wish to go to the next level of ourselves. But we find time after time that as the weeks, months, and years passed, we actually haven’t been able to get to where we want to be. Why is that?
Before we talk about the nitty gritty details of how to achieve success, it’s important that we define it first. Defining important things clearly is something that we often overlook and yet it is so critical. Defining love or success, for example, is something we have to think about first before even beginning our pursuit.
What does success mean?
Defining Success
1. Base it on Core Beliefs
Success might mean something different to different people. And for Muslims, you might refer to our books in terms of our obligations. And if you’re not Muslim, you might have your own core beliefs. And that’s also something you might refer back to in terms of what you want to stay true to. Our definition should help give us a sense of where we want to end up, what we value most in our lives, and the things we don’t want to compromise in that journey for success.
2) Personal Passion
Besides the basic things that drive us in terms of obligations, we also have personal passions. These are things that excite us, things that we want to excel in, and things that we have to ask ourselves “Do they fall in line with our core beliefs? And, how do we achieve them without compromising those beliefs?”
A Life Lesson: If you Don’t Define Things
I know of some marriages that have ended up badly when couples didn’t define things. It literally was their ruin. I wonder how things could have evolved differently had they took the time to determine if they were even speaking the same language to begin with.
One of my relatives who was going through a bad break up and almost lost their marriage. They said, “…oh he doesn’t love me, oh she doesn’t love me” and they constantly felt like the other person was shorting them for what they do. So I had asked them this question, “Did you ever define what you meant by love?” And, they said they kind of know what love is. But I asked again, “Did you actually sit down and say ‘I feel that you love me when you do this. Or, this is what I think love means to me.’ Did you actually have a conversation?”
Oftentimes, It’s Not What You Think It Is
I suggested to them to go back and try to have that conversation for a minute. It might be eye opening. And it was!
One person was saying, “I love you and it makes me think that you love me, too, when you remember to call me, or ask me if I ate, or ask me if I’m feeling well today.” So for this person, they have very specific checkboxes of what they thought it meant for someone to love them and to show their love. Meantime, the spouse goes, “Whoah! That is not at all what I thought.”
Success could be different things to different people
That whole experience, and that conversation, opened up the idea that if we don’t define things right away, it’s really hard to go forward in success. The situation requires us to sit down and ask ourselves, what does success mean?
Elements of Success
1) Success means fulfilling my obligations
We are on this earth to worship Allah, and to fulfil our haqq (or right) because on the day of judgment, we will be asked about if we fulfilled other people’s haqq and ours. For instance, am I giving my children their rights? Am I giving my husband, my neighbor, my sister, or my mom theirs? So success to me means being able to fulfil the obligations laid upon me.
2) Passions of the self
We also need to think about whether or not we’re making strides in the things we’re passionate about. So for example you’re an artist and you want to take that into a career level, you might want to say, “To me success means in 5 years, I’ve done XYZ in that field. It’s the same thing if you’re a photographer, an accountant or whatever it is that you personally feel excited about. Your passion is your contribution to the world.
Write it Down
I would actually sit and literally write this down in a journal. It’s different when you just think of it for a few seconds in your mind and when you think of it in your journal. Totally different. Take the time to not skip this step.
In a journal, define these two things:
1) What are my core beliefs?
What is so important to me that I don’t want to compromise? Consider your belief system, the way you were raised and what you hold to be true. Write them down so that they can be realized on paper.
2) How do I define success?
Again, when we talk about success, for everyone it might be different things so I cannot tell you my generic definition of success. That wouldn’t be fair. Success just needs to be defined by you. If you don’t actually sit down and define what that means, you might circle along your plan or path and find that you end up in a very different place than you initially thought you might go.
The Upcoming ‘Success’ Topics: What’s Next?
Now that we have defined success, we can begin to focus on how we can begin to reach our life goals and build a better version of our self.
