The heart of success continuously beats.
The key to succeeding lies in creating the habit of continuous flow.
The heart beats day by day, periodically resting between each beat.
In creating a new habit, achieving our goals, or trying to improve ourselves, our internal muscle still proves our best guide.
Mimicking the heart’s routine is simple: taking little steps each day, every day, toward our goals will give life to our projects, dreams, and ultimately, us.
Simply put, in achieving our goals, doing a little bit each day is much better than doing nothing at all.
For marathoners, nobody goes from sitting on the couch to running a 5K in 24 hours without proper training. And a marathoner doesn’t go from a 5K to the Boston Marathon in two weeks. Each day, every week, and for multiple months, we must train hard toward our goals.
By pushing the limits of what we think we are capable of doing an inch or two further every day, we will eventually reach our 26.1 mile marker.
Many small steps lead to the end of a long staircase.
For writers, the smallest task of writing one page a day adds up quickly. At the end of one’s first year of writing each day, 365 pages will surmount to a sum total greater than nothing at all. Even mumbled, jumbled pages covered in barely legible fonts and scribble are a much better choice, and ultimately closer to writing that dream book than thinking about doing it all year long. At the end of the day, doing is all that matters.
“Practice makes permanent.”
Great success in life, becoming one of the select few who are known and remembered to have put their selfish ways aside choosing to commit to working for the greater whole of humanity, means committing to a cause that never allows one to fully retire.
Retirement is selfish.
Our work’s purpose must stand for something greater than our own financial security blanket. Real purpose stands for something greater than our own gain and prosperity. Helping others, being of useful service, and giving back to the world are greater challenges than getting up, getting dressed, and going to work.
Trust me, there’s a good reason Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Mark Cuban haven’t retired yet. It’s not a secret. Being of service to others is indefinitely more important than fulfilling our own needs and wants.
Success starts with finding the right path, purpose.
It’s easier to find than you think.
Start by figuring out how to fulfill the needs of others. Ask questions like, “What does humanity most? What services do I have to offer? What can I do that is useful to other people?
Then, consider how you define prosperity. You may need to reconsider how you define well-being.
Ask, “What is really important in my life? What does quality of life mean to me? How do I define being successful?
Write down theses questions and answer them, one by one.
Finally, imagine ways that accomplishes both answers, emphasizing more attention on the first prerequisite questions than the easier ladder questions. Always remember, just because you want something doesn’t mean others will give it to you. Everyone wants what they want.
Instead of focusing on traditional forms of retirement that consider old age a worthy cause to call it quits, we need to reach for some higher purpose or reason to live. Our bodies do not need twenty to thirty years of rest at a retirement home waiting to die. We only need to recover a little from the course of the day to prepare for tasks of tomorrow.
Finding work that is carefully considered, calibrated with meaning & mindfulness, done with deep-seated purpose, and fully-enjoyed will give us the joy, enthusiasm, and will to work until our final breath. If you cannot find work of this kind, create it.
In the body, the heart’s purpose is to act as a pump that recycles and replenishes blood cells with oxygen. Sometimes, it beats faster or slower depending on our activity, but the average heart lives a healthy life and finds enough rest between each beat to keep it going for many years.
Unless we impair our heart’s natural ability, it will function healthy and whole-heartily to the end of its days.
Our work is quite the same.
Realizing our true potential requires daily rest and periodic relaxation in between bouts of hard work. We work, rest, and continue on working. The beat of our work will vary from time to time speeding to tachycardia or to a slower, more meditative pace. Either way, it beats.
As the heart enriches the life-force of body, our work must do the same.
Can you feel your work’s heartbeat? What is its purpose?
How does working enrich your life? How are you enriching others? What is more important to you?
Does your life gain additional meaning from your work?
Truly succeeding in life depends on the alignment of our hearts with our purpose.
Every project we participate, support, or partake in should keep in mind our personal values, morals, and ethics.
Having a purpose is standing for something. We must trust our beliefs.
If our work is not leading us somewhere greater than thoughts of retirement or to any bigger questions than “How much do I need to save before I can quit this job?” Then, it time to reconsider where your heart really is.
Purpose gives meaning to our life. Work should do the same.
Purpose is the constant, continuously-spinning balance wheel.
As our physiological well-being depends on our heart’s health, our personal well-being depends on crafting purpose and combining it with our work. Both need to be explored and integrated to reach our full potential.
Success is not about the end result, but in the continuation. The journey is better than any ending imaginable. Without the hard work, how could we ever appreciate what we achieved?
It’s not about making it to retirement, but see how long we can keep enjoying our work.
It’s not about dying, but seeing how long we can enjoy being here.
We are all destined to die. I believe this to be one of fate’s most gracious gifts.
Without death, there could be no concept of life.
Where is the motivation to do everything we want to do, accomplish all we want to accomplish, or to runway and fall deeply in love without the threat of disappearing?
All of us share the same dark destiny. It grins from afar.
But, we have the chance to smile back.
Our greatest revenge on death is making the choice to live a life that is worth living.
Live a life that is meaningful, joyful, wonderful, giving, selfless, and willing take action towards higher questions in life.
In the end, our will to live becomes a fight for heartbeats, the few extra ones, those that might not make a difference to us, but to someone else they mean the world.
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Image: Flickr
I would love to hear about your purpose in life, drop a comment up top and let me know.
Need more help with your true purpose, let me know.
