Don’t Let Anyone Steal Your Dreams

The Secret of Success is to have dreams and the drive to make them come true, come what may. Many people have dreams, but unfortunately, their dreams are stolen by dream stealers! Yes, there are robbers all around, who come to steal your dreams.

Who are these dream stealers? Sadly, they are sometimes our closest friends and relatives – our very near and dear ones. When we set a dream that may seem impossible to fulfill in the beginning, they discourage and tell us, “This dream is impossible! How will you convert it into a reality?” These people are, in fact, the dream stealers who come in from the back door and steal our dreams without our realization.

To be successful, it doesn’t matter if somebody steals your wallet, credit cards, or cash, you can still go ahead without these. But by letting someone steal your dreams, you let them steal your success too!

Success can be achieved provided you learn to bury the word “but”. “But” is a failure word. When you use “but” in your life very often, it actually stops you from succeeding. Hence remove the word “but” from your vocabulary completely!

People sometimes say, “I would have succeeded, “but” because of certain reasons, I did not do it”; “I also would have succeeded, “but” the markets were not right at that point of time”; or “I would have succeeded, “but” my family didn’t support me”. These types of statements with “but” are sure to hold us back from success.

To be successful, BURY BUT, and along with burying “but”, forget “BIBS”. We all know that bibs are for babies, but the “BIBS” I am referring to here is an acronym for “But, If, Because, and Someday”.

Many people use all of BIBS, which is another cause for their failure. Stop saying “I would have succeeded “if ” I had the money”; “I did not succeed “because” I fell sick”; and “I will succeed “someday””. Once you forget and bury “But” and “BIBS”, you will surely be on your way to success!

A simple secret of success is to write down whatever is important. Very few people have this good habit of jotting down important pointers or ideas.

For instance, at a seminar you can see two types of people in the audience. One group listens attentively and jots down the important points in their notepads or books. The second group may also listen to the seminar attentively, but they do not care to take notes of the important ideas they have heard. Two days later, the latter would have forgotten what the seminar was all about. They may try to remember the ideas, but the mind is just like the sands on a beach - whatever you draw on it gets washed away by the next wave.

To be successful, remember this simple secret – “Jot it down”. Jot down the ideas that come to your mind and jot down the noteworthy points in a meeting or seminar.

Jot down anything and everything that is important because the pen and the paper are your best friends. Long after the mind forgets an idea, the pen and paper makes you remember it from what you had written. Successful people will tell you that one of the best ways to be successful is just to “jot it down”. Jot the ideas down and soon you will be on your way to success.

I love this SOS because it’s a simple and straightforward secret that helps you succeed. Those who don’t want to plan don’t want to succeed, just as those who want to succeed make sure that they plan. In simple words, if you do not have a plan, then you plan to fail.

Can we construct a building without a blueprint plan? Can any business succeed without a plan? Can any government run a country without a plan? Has anybody succeeded ever? Ask successful people and they will tell you that if you fail to plan, then you surely plan to fail. Remember this Secret of Success the next time you want to succeed. Start with a plan and you will soon be seeing success!

Some people think that success comes from working a lot more... double or triple an ordinary person. Success doesn’t just come from working a lot more, “It’s a little difference that makes a big difference”! This is one of the Secrets of Success.

How does a horse win a race? It doesn’t win the race with a huge lead. Sometimes, just by a nose length, a horse can win a race. Do you want to succeed? Then just work a little harder than your friend, work a little smarter, put in longer hours to better your work and soon you will be ahead of others.

An Olympic champion may have won his race not because he was able to run faster than the runner who came second, but may have won by just a fraction of a second. The champion would have overtaken the runner at the second place by a difference of 0.1 seconds. Yes, that’s all it takes! It’s just a little difference that makes a big difference. That little difference decides whether you’re going to be a success or failure. What do you want to be? Do you want to be successful? Then, make that little difference, and you will see yourself succeeding!

One of the biggest failure diseases is called “Excusitis” — the deadly disease that makes us give excuses. Instead of working on success, strategizing ideas and executing plans, people look for excuses when they are asked why they did not do it. Yes, many people have a bank of excuses; one after the other they give an excuse for their non- performance.

Do you want to succeed? Then Stop! Vaccinate yourself from Excusitis! Don’t let this disease of giving excuses be a part of your life. Eliminate excuses! When you make a mistake, face the fact and admit you are wrong. Improve, change and don’t repeat the mistake and soon you will be on the way to success. Remember SOS no. 6: to be successful, “Vaccinate yourself from Excusitis” and eliminate excuses from your life.

Successful people tell us that the mind is like a monkey. It keeps jumping from one thought to another and one idea to another. The mind is attracted and distracted, but well, that’s the problem with everybody’s mind–mine and yours. All our minds are like monkeys. Just like a monkey jumps from branch to branch, the mind jumps from thought to thought. To be successful, learn to tame the monkey in your mind. Once you do this, you will learn to focus and to concentrate. Stop jumping from one thought to the other! If you have a thought, write it down, come back to it later, and don’t “jump” to another thought till you do justice to the current thought. Don’t let your mind get distracted and let it think of multiple thoughts at the same time.

People use meditation, concentration and focus to help tame the monkey in the mind. But well, if you want to be successful, cage this monkey in your mind! If you don’t, you will not be achieving success and failure could be jumping all over you.

I have been successful in my life because I implemented this secret called “Check, Double check and Re-check”. This is best explained in this small story.

Several soldiers were injured in a war. While they were being flown from the air base to their country, 90% of them were dying as they landed. The Chief General ordered to follow a process of “Check”, wherein the patients were checked before they were shifted to the aircraft. He found that instead of 90%, only 50% patients were dying. He was not satisfied and introduced a “Double Check” process. Patients were checked twice: When they were taken right up to the aircraft and before they boarded. This second process reduced the death rate to 20%. People were really impressed, but the General was not. He said, “Let's not just Check and Double Check, but also do a Re-Check”. The patients were checked thrice: Before shifting, at the time of boarding and after boarding the aircraft. Several times, critically ill patients were deboarded. This reduced the death rate to 4%. Eventually, 96% of the patients who landed were alright!

I follow the system of “Check, Double Check, Re- Check”, and it has been the backbone of my success. You can succeed too if you “Check, Double Check and Re-Check”!

Are you not succeeding? If you are not succeeding, there are chances that you are either too slow or maybe too fast. You have to be at the right pace to win the race. Therefore, change your pace!

If you are lethargic, you need to speed up your pace to get till the end of the race. Sometimes, I found that I was too fast, and then, I had to change my pace and slow down. Successful people accept that one of the Secrets of Success is the pace because it’s the pace that makes you win a race!

Find out what your pace is. If you have to run faster, if you have to work harder, or if you have to work longer, then you just have to start doing it! You have to be willing to pay the price, and sometimes, the price is just that you must change your pace to win the race!

Success comes to those who not only just dream once, but also continue to dream. When one dream is achieved, they dream another. Sometimes when the dream is not achieved, they still dream another because they know that the great dreams of great dreamers are not achieved, but they are transcended. They evolve from one dream to another.

When people stop dreaming, they stop succeeding because dreams and success go together. This Secret of Success says that the day you stop dreaming, you start dying. Yes, the body and mind start decaying, and this decay will take you to defeat and death.

Today, make a commitment to dream! Never stop dreaming till you die because the day you stop dreaming is the day you start dying.

To be successful, one has to believe in miracles. Most often, people get discouraged because to succeed, it really needs a miracle to happen, and they think that it’s not possible. The moment they think “It’s not possible…”, their efforts, thoughts, and actions become half-hearted.

Just change this attitude and believe in miracles. Just say the magic words “It’s possible” to yourself, and then the efforts are multiplied, and thoughts start getting created in areas that we never knew were possible. We get creative ideas, imagination starts working and success happens.

If you don’t believe in miracles, then you would be left with living a mundane life because you will just think ordinary and achieve the ordinary. Therefore, believe in miracles, and when you do, miracles will happen, and soon, you’ll be on your way to success!

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