Hurdle / Challenge:
I struggled with the traditional definition of success. When I was much younger I defined success in terms of money and fame – I didn’t make either, but more importantly, did not find much inner motivation to go after them. I gravitate more towards meaning and purpose. But even ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’ can be elusive, and evolved and changed as I aged.
Path to recover:
-I started defining ’success’ in terms of developing good habits and a continuous process.
-Process of contributing to the lives of others. Interestingly, habits and processes are something I have control over.
-I had to tame that emotion, that senseless inner drive that takes you down the rabbit hole of mofame (my word for money & fame or mon-am-e). Few things that helped me tame this inertia are the following:
-I became more purpose driven. So I was able to avoid emotional reactions to events or things that did not contribute to that purpose.
-I started to control my touch-points with my social connections and friends. For example, avoided gatherings where I knew the competition and showing off lays under the social pleasantries.
-Avoided activities on social media like Facebook. Deliberately slow to pick up, and only joined groups (such as Viber or WhatsApp) when I knew I would not be overwhelmed by it.
Any advice for people who may be struggling with similar challenges:
- Go for meaning and purpose over money, fame, recognition.
- Compete with yourself – try to maximize your potential. Don’t compete with others, collaborate. These are cliche but very true. Develop personal protocols, policies, codes and processes to implement this in life.
- Be spiritual. Meditate – don’t drown yourself in the noise; i.e., the social noise.
- Always try to contribute to the lives of others. Focus on meaning & purpose, habits and process. Don’t focus on what you can be, but focus on what problem you want to solve.
Written by: Abu Sayeed
