We all have been deceived since our childhood. Yes, it is true! We all have been lied about the idea of “Success” in our minds.

Society makes us believe that the best Education, high-ranked jobs, bank balance, happy marriage or plenty of love opportunities, respect, status, and maybe even fame contribute towards success. This misinterpreted idea has left many people to cope with a miserable and meaningless life. For instance, people like single parents, high school dropouts, unemployed graduates, bankrupt business owners, all lose the purpose of their lives in times of adversity. They believe they cannot acquire a reasonable identity or value in society if these materialistic opportunities do not come their way. However, TRUE SUCCESS is the feeling of freedom and fulfillment, that everyone desires instinctively. It means to achieve freedom in all aspects of life be it financial freedom or freedom to align education and job with passions or simply be free to love without any social limits. True success manifests itself when a person attains a sense of fulfillment concerning their believes, actions or simply their being entirely.

So how to be truly successful in life? How to live a life upon your choices and wishes without the fear of failure? How to gain strength in hard times when nobody seems to care for you? Or How to become a hero of your life? In this post, I am targeting all the key lessons of Life which can help you grow successfully in your academic career, businesses, relationships, or on the entire spectrum of life. If you learn these lessons and implement these to transform your attitude towards life, you can surely outperform others who do not practice these. Some of these motivational and life-changing lessons have helped Stephen William Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA (8 January 1942 – 14 March 2018) to find meaning in life while lying in a wheelchair. As he kept himself motivated for what he believed in and thus he became successful, so what kept him motivated? These 5 lessons constitute the answer to this question which can motivate you to make your life successful.

Lesson #1: If You Cannot Mend it BEND IT!

“Oh, you won’t understand my situation.”

“I am stuck.”

“There is no way out. I have no option left. I am in a miserable hopeless condition.”

These are the thoughts and words you may remember from past experiences or present scenarios of life. One thing I must assure you that these close-ended thoughts are all lies. No one faces misery that has no way out, instead, every adversity brings hope and opportunity with it. All you need is to keep your mind open and embrace new opportunities. And if there are no available options that can lead to the success you must create new ones.

Here comes the lesson of “Bend it if you cannot mend it,” which means if you get stuck in the vicious cycle of adversity be it poverty, chronic disease, coping up with a natural disaster, death of your loved ones, or any other accidents, you must know that adversity is itself an opportunity. An opportunity to grow stronger than yesterday.

I agree, it’s not easy to focus on positivity when you’ve suffocated with complete darkness all around. But anyone can be strong and optimistic enough to see light in the dark. This light is not around you; it is in you. You are your light. Only your courage can lift you after a great fall. Only your faith in yourself can bring down all the odds against you.

Just see how Hawking struggled to chase his dreams and pursued his desires when he could hardly move his body. The key is that he encountered the first punch of life in the face of physical disability but instead of focusing on disabilities, he decided to focus more on his spiritual and mental abilities. And this is how he bent the rules of life by spotlighting the positives rather than negatives. As Hawking advises other disabled people that “My advice to other disabled people would be, concentrate on things your disability doesn’t prevent you doing well and don’t regret the things it interferes with. Don’t be disabled in spirit as well as physically.”

He worked hard in science because it was his passion and it gave him self-fulfillment. Science was his inner light which lightened up his way when he was all drowned in the dark period of life. He was crazy enough to believe in himself. Are you crazy like him? If not, then what is stopping you.

Remember that, you can always find hope in seemingly hopeless situations, and turn any situation to your advantage. All you need is your inner strength or your inner light. But the question is where to find that strength? How to be passionate when you don’t even have any passions? How to provoke that lost fire in you to reach the maximum potential? Well, the answer is in that adversity and misery which you experience in life. All that pain, all that hurt can make you a challenger and a hero. Here’s how:

Lesson #2: Cure of Pain is in Pain.

Everyone on the face of the planet has to experience pain in life be it emotional, physical, or both. So be ready. Its’ coming and It has to come. No bed of roses whatsoever.

But wait, it doesn’t mean that you cannot live a happy and successful life. All you need to do is to change the perception of pain.

Pain does not, always, means loss and something that should scare you. It is an opportunity to enhance the level of your capabilities. It can make you limitless, only if you manage to grow taller than your problems. Your problems can scare you, injure you, push you away but cannot win over you. These can only win if you give up on yourself.

So how can you avoid being disappointed with yourself? Or how you can build up strength to bear the pain? Here’s a tip: Cherish your being every day by recalling all the “Heydays” of your past, in which you appeared as a challenger, achiever, and hero. It can be a memory of any smallest achievement in your mind.

These memories will remind you, your strengths and capabilities which can give you the energy to cope with your pain and rise out of it. Probably this is the theory that makes doctors recommend joyful laughter therapies for cancer patients, so they can forget about pain temporarily and feel the joy out of good humor-based content.

The opportunity of pain lies in the fact that the more you experience it today, the lesser it will be in the future. You must respond to it in a welcoming manner, That’s all.

In the recommendations of Tim Ferriss, it is recommended to lie-down in the middle of a crowded public place like a supermarket or a coffee shop. You’ll feel embarrassed, but this experience will enable you to deal with embarrassment and discomfort in the future.

Essentially, if you experience more pain life you grow stronger than those who live on the bed of roses. Therefore, there are plenty of chances for you to succeed in life as you are not scared to take challenges and risks. Consider the difficulties of life as increasing levels of video games, if the intensity of difficulty increases, that’s a signal that you are succeeding in the game. Taking pain will be fun then.

Lesson #3: Survival is for the Fittest but who is the fittest?

From the views of British naturalist Charles Darwin in his Evolutionary theory, it is presented that organisms who adapt best to their environment are the fittest and most successful in ensuring their survival. The theory holds substance not only in terms of physical survival but also in terms of spiritual survival.

But the question is how to be fittest for success in life?
The idea lies in the Darwinian theory itself, such as the “ability to adapt to the changing environment” is a key to become successful in whatsoever aspect of life.

Take the example of famous Colonel Harland Sanders who began selling fried chicken on the roadside in Kentucky during the Great Depression. Life punched him right in his face with one misery after another, but he kept on changing himself as per needs.  He could not secure a reasonable job in his 20s and 30s and then he tried his luck in multiple business ventures which eventually failed. Moreover, his secret recipe of fried chicken was rejected 1009 times. Regardless of all these failures and rejections, he did not stop to undertake a new struggle. In short, he kept on changing his mindset unless he ended up with a successful business in Kentucky in the name of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

And wait, there is another side of the picture. There are very few people like Colonel Harland who adapt to change. Therefore, few are successful in the world whom we can count on. What about the rest of the millions of people who resort to suicides after failure? I am sure everyone, since childhood, is educated about the importance of perpetual struggle in life. Then where do they make mistakes?

Well, in between failure and getting back up, there

is this key factor called ‘Acceptance’ of reality which is denied by most people. And they fall into the vicious cycle of blaming and complaining about the failures. They reject the harsh reality of shame, pain, loss, failure, guilt by bashing others and get consumed with the thought that how could they possibly change what happened in past. So, they remain stuck in past, which impedes their future success.
The bottom line?

After having a hard punch from life, people should not hide the scars or avoid facing the mirror. Otherwise, in such a state of denial, people cannot heal, anyway. “Acceptance” of an injury is a key to initiate your journey towards success. In this way, you become aware of your available resources and make the best use of them in the best possible ways. And turn lemons into lemonade, but to do that, you can’t be pissed off at the lemons, go into denial about the existence of the lemons, or get depressed because you’re tired of making lemonade. You just have to grab a lemon and squeeze it. That’s all.

Conclusion

At some point in life, our trials will become unbearable and extremely painful. Where we will begin to lose our hopes and courage. Where we might feel sad, disappointed, tired, exhausted, or maybe even numb. But all these feelings are not bigger than our strengths. We, humans, are capable of withstanding a lot of pain and pressure. We can adapt to tons of frequent adverse changes as we did in past.

All that we need to pass through the hard times of life, is a good positive perception towards pain.

Pain is an option to grow stronger rather than becoming weak. The strongest and successful people are not born golden spoon in their mouths but they are the weakest people who chose to fiercely fight every battle in life. Eventually, their victory biggest battles of life make them the strongest and the most successful people on Earth.

These are my 3 motivational lessons of life that help me to pursue my ambitions with passion and perseverance. These lessons cannot only make you successful but people of value, as per Albert Einstein’s suggestion: “Try not to become a person of success but rather a person of value.”

These lessons help me get through my painful struggles in life, but these lessons might not be the only lessons for success. I love to learn constantly as time passes by and I would love to know What are your Motivational Lessons of Life Which Led You Towards Successful Life? Don’t forget to share your experiences and struggles with me as they are great sources through which I can gauge with you and talk more about your specific struggles in life.

Thank You.

Regards,
Maham Arshad