When we don't have our priorities right, we waste time, not realizing that time wasted is life wasted. Prioritizing requires discipline to do what needs to be done rather than going by our moods and fancies. Too much emphasis is placed on success and failure rather than doing one's best.

How do you cope with defeat and problems?

Your response to this question says a lot about your character. One of the keys to solving this mystery to success is understanding. Some people have their mind set on money, power, fame or possessions. We have to understand our priorities.

Success does not come by reading or memorizing the principles that lead to success, but by understanding and applying them.

5. Looking for Shortcuts 50*

No Free Lunch There is a story about a king who called his advisers and asked them to write down the wisdom of the ages so that he could pa.s.s it on to future generations. After a lot of work, the advisers came up with several volumes of wisdom and presented them to the king.

The king called his advisers and said that it was too long, people would not read it. They had to condense it. The advisers went back to work and came back with one volume.

The king said the same thing. They came back again with one chapter and then one page, and the king said the same thing still until they came up with one sentence that satisfied the king. He said that if there was one piece of wisdom that he wanted to pa.s.s on to future generations, it is this one sentence: "There is no free lunch."

In every organization or society, there are freeloaders. They are people who want to get a benefit without paying for it. They are looking for freebies. By and large, sometime or the other, most of us have been guilty of being a freeloader. This is typically seen in a.s.sociations and organizations. Most members are inactive. They want and get the full benefit of the effort of the active ones.

The Easier Way May Actually Be the Tougher Way

Once there was a lark singing in the forest. The lark stopped him and asked, "What do you have in the box and where are you going?" The farmer replied that he had worms and that he was going to the market to trade them for some feathers. The lark said, "I have many feathers. I will pluck one and give it to you and that will save me looking for worms." The farmer gave the worms to the lark and the lark plucked a feather and gave it in return. The next day the same thing happened and the day after and on and on until a day came that the lark had no more feathers. Now it couldn't fly and hunt for worms. It started looking ugly and stopped singing and very soon it died.

What is the moral of the story?

The moral is quite clear what the lark thought was an easy way to get food turned out to be the tougher way after all.

Isn't the same thing true in our lives? Many times we look for the easier way, which really ends up being the tougher way.

Losers Look for Quick Fixes

There are two ways of getting rid of weeds in your yard. The easy way and the not so easy way. The easy way may be to run a lawn mower and the yard looks fine for a while, but that is a temporary answer. Soon the weeds are back. But the not-so-easy way may mean getting down on your hands and knees and pulling out the weeds by the roots. It is time consuming and painful, but the weeds will stay away for a longer time. The first solution appeared easy, but the problem remained. The second solution, was not so easy, but took care of the problem from the roots. The key is to get to the root of the problem.

The same thing is true of our att.i.tude in life. Some people spread their att.i.tude of bitterness and resentment and this att.i.tude keeps cropping up in different parts of their lives. The problem with people today is that they want instant answers. They are looking for one-minute solutions to everything. Just like instant coffee, they want instant happiness. There are no quick fixes. This att.i.tude leads to disappointment.

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6. Selfishness and Greed

Individuals and organizations that have a selfish att.i.tude toward each other and toward their customers have no right to expect growth. Their att.i.tude is to keep pa.s.sing the buck without regard for the welfare of others. Greed always wants more. Needs can be satisfied but greed cannot. It is a cancer of the soul. Greed destroys relationships. How do we gauge our greed index? By asking ourselves three questions:

Can I afford it?

Do I really need it?

If I have it, will it give me peace of mind?

Greed comes out of poor self-esteem, which manifests itself as false pride, pretense or keeping up with the Joneses. The way out of greed is to learn to live within your means and be satisfied. Being contented does not mean lacking ambition.

WHERE DOES IT END?.

There is a story about a wealthy farmer who was once offered all the land he could walk on in a day, provided he came back by sundown to the point where he started. To get a new start, early the next morning the farmer started covering ground quickly because he wanted to get as much land as he could. Even though he was tired, he kept going all afternoon because he didn't want to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to gain more wealth.

Late in the afternoon he realized the condition he had to fulfill to get the land was to get back to the starting point by sundown. His greed had gotten him far enough. He started his return journey, keeping an eye on how close he was to sundown. The closer it got to sundown, the faster he ran. He was exhausted, out of breath and pushed himself beyond the point of endurance. He collapsed upon reaching the starting point and died. He did make it before sundown. He was buried and all the land he needed was a small plot.

There is a lot of truth in this story and a lesson to be learned. Whether the farmer was wealthy or not, any greedy person would have ended the same way.

7. Lack of Conviction

People who lack conviction take the middle of the road; and guess what happens in the middle of the road? They get run over.

People without conviction do not take a stand. They go along to get along because they lack confidence and courage. They conform in order to get accepted even when they know that what they are doing is wrong. They behave like part of a herd.

Some people consider themselves a shade better because they do not support the wrong; however, they lack the conviction to oppose. They do not realize that by not opposing they are actually supporting.

52*One of the important secrets to success is, instead of being against something, be for something. That way, you don't become part of the problem, but part of the solution. It takes conviction to take a stand.

Conviction Takes Faith

Faith without action is delusion. Faith does not wait for miracles but produces them. If you think you can or if you think you can't, you are right.

--Henry Ford

We all have low moments, we all fall down and get hurt. We all have moments when we doubt ourselves and get into self-pity. The point is to overcome these feelings and restore your faith.

There are three kinds of people in this world:

People who make things happen People who watch things happen People who wonder what happened

Which category do you fall into?

8. Lack of Understanding of Nature's Laws

Success is a matter of laws and these are the laws of nature. Change is nature's law. We are either moving forward or we are going backward. We are either creating or disintegrating. There is no status quo.

A seed, if it is not planted in the earth to create, disintegrates. Change is inevitable. It is going to happen whether we like it or not. All progress is change but all change is not progress. We must evaluate change and accept it only if it makes sense. Acceptance without evaluation amounts to conforming behavior, a sign of lack of confidence and of low self-esteem.

There is a lot to be said about tradition. Growth for the sake of growth is the philosophy of a cancerous cell. It is negativity spreading all over. That is not growth, that is destruction.

Growth, in order to be meaningful, must be positive.

Success is not a matter of luck, but of laws.

Law of Cause and Effect

In order to succeed, we need to understand the law of cause and effect and the relationship between actions and results.

For every effect, there is a cause. The law of cause and effect is the same as the law of sowing and reaping. The law of sowing and reaping says five things:

We must have the desire to sow. Desire is the starting point.

What we sow, so shall we reap. If we sow potatoes, we are only going to reap potatoes, not tomatoes.

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We must sow before we reap. Sowing takes place before reaping; we must give before we get. We cannot expect the fireplace to give us heat before we put in the fuel.

Some people are constantly looking to get before they give. It does not work this way.

When we sow a seed, we do not reap a fruit--our harvest is manifold. If we sow a positive seed our harvest will be manifold in the positive, and if we sow a negative one the harvest shall be manifold in the negative. It is not uncommon to see people going against nature's law.

A farmer knows that we cannot sow and reap in the same day. There is always a period of gestation.

It is like the law of physics. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Most of the time people are trying to change the effect while the cause remains. Either we feed our mind with positives constantly or negativity automatically fills the vacuum.

Many ancient sages have said what James Allen said in his book As a Man Thinketh. A man's mind is like a garden. If we plant good seeds, we will have a good garden. But if we don't plant anything, something will grow and they will be weeds. That is nature's law.

The same is true in our lives. I would go a step further. Even if we plant good seeds, weeds will still grow. The process of weeding goes on forever.

If you put water in a gla.s.s and put it in sub-zero temperature, it will freeze. That is not surprising, that is nature's law. In fact, that is the only thing that will happen.