Be Passionate

What is the deepest desire of your heart? Is it a great rewarding job? Or maybe it is to have freedom from financial constraints? Or maybe for some it is to be able to give back to the community or the environment? What is it that you desire the most out of life?

PASSION. The 7^th and final key to success. Deep within your heart, there is a desire, the pursuit of something, and object or a career, which would bring you all the happiness, success and fulfilment that you really want. To find your passion, all you have to do is to identify your own unique purpose in life. Sounds easy doesn’t it? It is.

You can achieve whatever you want in life, be the person who you always wanted to be and do the things you’ve always wanted to do. It sounds a bit too much, too bold, but all this is achievable. The question is why aren’t we all living this dream life?

Well apart from the obvious, which is we’ve been told since we were kids that it is impossible for us to live our dream life, the other reason would be, as Abraham Maslow called it, looking after our physiological and social needs. It’s probably what our parents and grandparents went through. They went through life with very little opportunities. Their lives were consumed with the whole business of “making a living”. For most of them, they were never concerned about their own “higher needs”.

Some people today are already in pursuit of their higher needs. They have already started to achieve the basic human need of respect, recognition and responsibility. For them, it means pursuing an interesting career rather than just a job. But for most of us, there is still an inner emptiness. Quite often, they realize this when they have reached the peak of their careers. They get to the top, and realize that they are still unsatisfied, there is still a feeling of emptiness within themselves, they are not HAPPY. As Steven Covey put it, they climbed the ladder of success and when they got to the top, they realized they were climbing the wrong wall.

To achieve success, you must be bold enough to go even higher, achieve what Maslow calls “self actualization”. Becoming the person you were meant to be and living the life you were meant to live. For this, you need PASSION.

So,

COMMITMENT, AN OPEN MIND, PERSISTENCE, FLEXIBILITY, FAITH, THANKFULNESS AND PASSION

These are the KEYS TO SUCCESS.

Be Thankful

I love writing. I’m not really a good writer. Although I have written a book, a coffee table book and it has been published, I’m not really that great. I think that was more a case of either the publisher published the book, or miss a deadline and get condemned by their client. So, I’m not really that good. I guess in Malay, we call it “syok sendiri”. I love writing about anything. Doesn’t really matter what the subject is. Thus, the reason for this blog. This blog isn’t just an avenue to promote myself (Once again, the “syok sendiri” part). It’s also therapeutic. I get to say whatever I want. Anyway, all this isn't really relevant.

Back to the topic at hand. Not to worry, we’re almost done with the e-book “7 Keys to Success”. After this, there’s only just one more piece to the puzzle and then you can go on your way to achieving your dreams (that is if you decide to take my advice and give the 7 keys a try).

The sixth key to success is probably the most under rated one of all 7. But I believe it is the most important one. A lot of us go through life thinking that we deserve everything that we have. We worked hard to get to where we are now and that everything we have now or anything we get in the future is all the result of our hard work. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But, in most cases, we forget to be thankful. We forget that somewhere along the way, we’ve had help from time to time, people, events and circumstances have come to our aid to help us get on our way.

So, this is the 6^th key to success, THANKFULNESS. I remember a time when I used to look at my life, my past and where I was at that moment in time and think, I deserved better. I’d spend a whole lot of time just complaining about the way my life was and never be THANKFUL about what I had. I never really saw the fact that even though I wasn’t financially successful, nor was I successful in my career, there were a lot of other things that I should have been thankful for.

I guess like me, a lot of other people don’t see the relevance of being THANKFUL as a key towards success. Those of you who follow the “Laws of Attraction” would say that this is one of the most important aspects of the “Laws of Attraction”. It is the key to unlocking your ability to attract the people, events and circumstances that will put you on the path towards success.

But a lot of people will be very sceptical. How does being THANKFUL affect your ability to be successful? 2 Psychologists, Mccullogh and Emmons, decided to put this theory to a test. In their study, 3 groups of people were asked to keep a journal. The first group kept a journal of their daily lives, everything that happened to them during the day. The second group was asked to record anything that was unpleasant that had happened to them throughout the day. While the third group, was asked to keep records of all the things they were thankful for throughout the day, a GRATITUDE JOURNAL.

The results of this study were pretty amazing. Those that kept the GRATITUDE JOURNAL were found to have experienced high levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism and energy. They experienced less depression and stress and were more likely to help other people. They also exercised more regularly and were making amazing progress towards achieving their goals. So let this sink in for a while:

• A Grateful Heart Cannot Be Cynical
• Gratitude Is Fundamental In Maintaining An Optimistic Outlook
• The Exercise Of Thankfulness Activates The Law Of Attraction

So, I guess I should start here. I’d like to thank God for the life I’ve had. Although it has been a challenging life, I have learned a lot from it and I look forward to the challenges in store for me in the future. I’d like to thank my parents and my family. If It wasn’t for my parents, I wouldn’t be here right now. And to the members of my family, thank you for being there for me when I needed it. I’d also like to thank my friends. They know who they are. Thanks for sticking around. There are a whole lot of other things that I should be thankful for, but that would be for my GRATITUDE JOURNAL.

COMMITMENT, AN OPEN MIND, PERSISTENCE, FLEXIBILITY, FAITH, THANKFULNESS