A to Z of success. My self motivation.

Assalamualaikum. Hai.

Action

It’s only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on Earth – and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up, we will then begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had. – Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Getting injured wasn’t the worst thing that ever happened to me. In some ways it was even the best. Look at all the positive aspects of my life that have grown from my injuries. In the end, it’s not what happens to you that count, but what you do about it. What matters is where you are going to take your life and how you are going to make things better. – Simon Weston, in his book, Moving On

Be bold

If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll probably end up someplace else. – Lawrence J. Peter.

Be bold, Amir. When I did not turn up to work, many of my friends and colleagues texted me. Their text messages somehow gave me courage to come back to work with the help of medicine. These actually made me realise that it is normal to be nervous before going to work. Some of my colleagues also shared that they themselves get nervous too. The reason because they get phobic that they might missed something or do something that could cause another person’s life in danger. But that is how we all learn. We sometimes do mistakes, but we must own up to our mistakes and be better. Since then, I would not let my panic attack debilitate me. If nervous, just do dzikir and make du’a Allah protects us from our mistakes and forgetfulness.

Current versus future

Too often we are so preoccupied with the destination, we forget the journey. – Unknown.

Psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar explains that success is not a moment in time when you ‘arrive and are happy’. True success is about enjoying the journey towards a destination that you deem to be valuable.

2018 will be my great year because I am going to finish my housemanship by this year and will start creating my next level of journey on becoming a Medical Officer. I believe goals can be great way to find more success and fulfilment in our life. It is important to pick goals where we get genuine pleasure from working towards them, as well as from achieving them. I am now think about a particular destination that I would like to arrive at in the future. In other words, a goal that would make me very hay upon achieving it. I am now feel confident that I have set myself the right goal which is something that I will both enjoy achieving and working towards.

Some people find it hard to work out what they should aim for in life. But I believed that fulfilling success requires balance between enjoyment at the current time with payoffs in the future.

Dare to dream

If we did all of the things that we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves. – Thomas Edison.

Sociologist Robert Merton is credited with coining the term ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ in 1968. A self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation, but one which evokes new behaviour that makes that situation come true. The secret behind a self-fulfilling prophecy is that our positive (or negative) belief about a situation makes us take on a different attitude and display different behaviour to someone who has not got that same belief. So having positive belief in our capability, even if they are not strictly justified (not just yet anyway), can help us to achieve far better results that someone who has a negative or non-beneficial belief about their capability and does not even try.

At first, I am slowly giving up when tested with this kind of psychiatric disorder when I am in the second posting. Many thoughts came by as in I cannot complete my housemanship and be a good medical officer and subsequently one fine day. When I have that thought, it is very hard for me to make myself think that I can. Then I questioned myself, how do I believe that I can do something that I do not believe that I can do?

Then slowly I realised that something that is vital to achieving more success in our life is the opening up of our mind to the fact that we can do things that we might think are absolutely impossible. A belief is not a fact. We can do so much more than we think we can.

Dare to dream, Amir. You do not have to yet be capable of achieving your goal, you just have to belief that you can and act accordingly. You can do more than you think possible, you just need to believe that you can and work towards it.

Effort

What separates a talented individual from a successful one is a lot of hard work. – Stephen King.

Success was not just the result of luck or good fortune. An absolutely critical aspect underpinning our achievements was the dedicated, sustained effort we channelled towards our goal. When I find that I would like to achieve my goal but I am struggling to stay motivated and put the effort in, I will remember what the effort heuristic (heuristic generally means ‘rule of thumb’) teaches me – the amount of effort that I put in will be equal to how much I want to achieve my goal.

I keep see myself ten years in the future and the successes I have achieved in that time. How great I feel. Amir, if you goal is going to be worth it you will have to put the effort into achieving it. The more you want to achieve the goal and the more you can enjoy the achieving of it, the better motivated you will be able to put the effort into it.

Fear

 Nothing has meaning except for the meaning we give to it ourselves. – T. Harv Eker.

We will probably have heard of Pavlov’s dogs. In his famous experiment, Pavlov sounded a bell prior to giving dogs food. At the sight of the food, the dogs would naturally salivate. Over time, however, the dogs came to realize that the food would always come when the bell was rung. Because of this, the dogs learned that the sound of the bell ringing and the delivery of the food were associated. The most important finding from this study was that ultimately just the sound of the bell was enough to make the dogs salivate – they did not even need to see any food.

Joseph LeDoux is one of the world’s leading researchers on the issue of how we learn fear. He explains that, just as Pavlov’s dogs learned to associate two unrelated or neutral stimuli (i.e. a bell and food) if you experience fear at the same time as encountering a previously neutral stimulus, you can learn to associate that stimulus with fear.

So, although the thought of learning not to be afraid of something seems almost impossible, we can overcome our fears. Since I was under psychiatric follow up, I learned that there are two key ways of learning to overcome fears which are behavioural therapy and cognitive therapy. At the end I believed that behavioural therapy can enable me to unlearn a fear by breaking down the association while cognitive therapy can help my brain think of different ways to evaluate an event, making my beliefs helpful rather than a hindrance.

Goals

A goal is a dream with a deadline. – Napoleon Hill.

Have everyone ever lived by the mantra, ‘just do your best’? If so, it turns out that we could be missing out on achieving our potential. If we want to achieve greater success, research has revealed that we should set ourselves goals and more precisely that those goals should be specific and challenging, and that we should regularly monitor our progress towards achieving them.

People who set specific and challenging goals are far more likely to achieve them than people who set only vague goals or no goals at all. Amir, faster complete your housemanship

High

Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you will land amongst the stars. – Les Brown.

It is only human to worry about failure and this is a common concern that many of us have, including me. The thought of I set myself a far too challenging goal, then I open myself up to the very real possibility that I could fail. I will feel extremely disappointed and looking stupid at the same time if I fail.

Then I reflected myself, is there something that I really want in life, but that just seems too challenging to even try? Would I rather be a failure for attempting to achieve it, or a failure for not attempting to achieve it at all?

Interim steps

The secret to getting ahead is getting started. The secret to getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and the starting on the first. – Mark Twain.

Professor of Psychology at New York University, Peter Gollwitzer, has found that people who plan in advance the steps that will be taken to achieve a goal (including when, where and how action will be taken), achieve greater success.

Seemingly impossible or complex goals can be achieved one step at a time. Thus, I believed that I have the ability to achieve each step of the action plan and the end goal.

Just have a go

The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything. – Edward John Phelps.

We may know people who have hopes and dreams but frustratingly, never do anything about them. To put in another way, they procrastinate which University of Calgary lecturer Piers Steel defines as ‘voluntary delaying an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay’.

Amir, if you do not try you will never succeed. Just have a go. You may well surprise yourself with success at the end. Overcome your fear of failure by remembering that you can only learn if you try. Remember also that there will be more pain in the future for you if you do not act than there is pain for you today if you do.

Keep going

Fall down seven times, stand up eight. – Japanese proverb.

One way I learned to change how we are thinking about failure is to become more consciously aware of the way that we think and behave. If we find that we give up easily when things go wrong, start to ask yourself why. Try to uncover the belief that is making, you give up.

Every experience of failure we have is another way to help us find success. If we really want something, we will find new ways to keep pushing through the obstacles we come across. Amir, just because you have not succeeded yet, doesn’t that you won’t.

Learn

Whenever you fall, pick something up. – Oswald Avery.

They say that every rain-laden, stormy-black cloud has a silver lining, and asking myself the question, ‘What is the silver lining?’ can certainly help me to find it.

When we make a mistake, always try to find the valuable lesson it teaches us and, critically take action to implement that lesson. When my psychiatric illness relapsed, I just realised that I made a mistake by defaulting follow up previously. Then I learned a lot from the incident which I am now enjoying my work and able to go through day by day with the help of medication. I also have learnt a valuable lesson that might stop me making the same mistakes again.

When we fail at something, it can mean that we have not yet developed the ability to achieve it, so keep on developing yourself. The fruits of our efforts won’t all have been lost if we fail. We learned through the experience of trying and we may well be closer to succeeding as a result.

Amir, nobody’s perfect. Everybody makes mistakes and fails. To be successful you have to accept that this will happen and then learn from these failures.

Modelling

Success leaves clues. – Anthony Robbins.

The shortcut to learn how to do something is called modelling. It is to do with the concept of having a role model to copy. The existence of these success stories put us one step closer to achieving our own success. Why? Because whatever it is we are seeking to achieve, the likelihood is that someone else has already put in the hours of trial and effort, working out what works and what doesn’t (i.e. learning from their mistakes).

The achievements of others are an invaluable resource for us – other people may already possess the abilities we need to achieve our goal. By modelling another’s pattern for success, we will be able to create a recipe for our own success. My choice of role model is actually my colleagues who manage to finish housemanship on time.

Numbers

You have to know where you stand and where you want to go, or else it isn’t going to happen. Numbers bring clarity. – Subir Chowdhury.

 

We cannot emphasize enough the fabulous feeling we will experience when we start making progress towards our goal. It makes us feel really fired up to keep going, and perhaps to try even harder because we know that our hard work is paying off.

If we measure our progress and find that we are not on track, we can adjust our strategy and try to find a more successful one. It is far better to discover sooner rather than later what works and doesn’t. The more we measure, the more we learn.

Opportunities

Seek and ye shall find. – Matthew 7:7.

 

Start seeing opportunities to help us to achieve our goal, which were always there, but which we never paid attention to before. I told my close friend that I want to finish my housemanship as soon as possible and ask help from them to keep push me to achieve my goal. Two brains with focussed selective attention are, after all, better than one.

Preparation

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success. – Alexander Graham Bell.

Reflect back on our life and think about a time when we felt stuck (like mine is when my psychiatric illness relapsed), as though you weren’t making any progress, but then things clicked into place. Success can sometimes happen when we least expect it. We can take decisive action but then get to a place where we feel stuck. Then, all of a sudden, an opportunity can present itself based on our efforts to date, and because of our groundwork, we are ready to grasp that opportunity.

I then realised myself that action leaves a trail. I feel like my efforts are fruitless when I did not seeing any tangible progress despite I have been working really hard to achieve my goals. However, I always remember that my hard work will ultimately pay off. Even when times feel dark and I am feeling bewildered by my lack of progress, I am leaving behind a trail of work that is sowing the seeds of success. Given the right conditions, they will germinate.

Amir, the fruits of your efforts may not be immediately clear, but if you keep nurturing your dream it can blossom. Lasting success rarely happens overnight, instead there may be a process of putting effort into something for years before it finally takes off. There are many ways to prepare for success, and the better you are able to have all round preparation, the better your chances of success become.

  

Quick wins

Win small, win early, win often. – Gary Hamel.

Amir, if you find that you are getting frustrated with how long it is taking you to achieve your goal, and want some help staying motivated, you need to understand the enormous ower of a tiny little molecule in your brain called dopamine.

You will keep motivated by experiencing rewards along the path to your goal. Break your goal down into sub-goals, so that you can more easily achieve these and experience the pleasure from completing them. If your sub-goals are not pleasurable enough, add some extra rewards in. You are going to be more likely to achieve your goals if you receive a regular surge of dopamine from having a series of quick wins.

Rosenthal Effect

If you want to fly with the eagles you can’t continue to scratch with the turkeys. – Zig Ziglar.

The Rosenthal Effect shows that your success levels can be influenced by your associations with others, so make sure that they are the best so that you can become your best. Then I started to ask myself, ‘Who am I surrounding myself with on a regular basis and what impact are they having upon me?’ I learned to spot those who are supporting me and those who are holding me back so that I will spend more time with the former and less with latter.

Self-belief

It is easier to avoid the effects of others’ negativity when we question if an action or attitude is appropriately directed at us. If it isn’t, we can choose to sidestep it and let it pass. – Sue Patton Theole.

When I did not turn up to work as my psychiatric illness relapsed, I received a lot of label from people surrounding. But, I don’t have to accept another person’s label of me. Amir, have self-belief and overcome the negative labels and opinions of others – their prophecies are often unfounded and we can best overcome them by proving them wrong.

Team

There is no such thing as a self-made man. You will reach your goals only with the help of others. – George Shinn.

We always see the Oscar winners deliver their acceptance speech, they thank the many, many people who have supported them, mentored them, coached them and challenged them to develop themselves to get to that point. I believed my success is as much theirs as it is mine, and no one will be more proud of me than my team I have around me.

Success may often appear an individual pursuit, but there is a support network behind every individual. Amir, when you achieve your goals of success, please take some time to write an acceptance speech to the people who have helped you to make these achievements possible.

Under pressure

A lot of directors don’t want the pressure of a movie the size of Pearl Harbor. But I love it. I thrive on it. – Michael Bay.

Some people might automatically think that pressure is bad, but there is actually a difference between stress and pressure. Stress is when pressure causes a negative emotion. However, for some, pressure is energizing.

We all process pressure and experience stress differently according to our personality. A great way to avoid stress is to understand how you prefer to handle pressure and then play to your preference.

Visualize success

Ordinary people believe only in the possible. Extraordinary people visualise not what is possible or probable, but rather what is impossible. And by visualizing the impossible, they begin to see it as possible. – Cherrie Carter-Scott.

I always visualise myself achieve success at the end of my housemanship journey. I started to imagine who is there with me. How are they congratulating me? Are they shaking my hand or hugging me? If so, how does that touch feel? Strong, warm, gentle?

Winning ingredient

Modern society has put the cart before the horse. In the past we thought that if you worked hard and were successful, then you would be happy. Turns out we have gotten the order wrong all along. – Shawn Achor.

Happiness has on longer-term measures of success. Our happiness levels can define our longevity, improve health, improve career success, and our ability to cope. I learned that by feeling positive, we are likely to perform better at activities than if you are feeling negative.

I am now happy with my work. Thus, I enjoyed doing my work.

eXtra mile

Go the extra mile. It’s never overcrowded. – Wayne Dyer.

Going the extra mile does not even have to mean working harder. I believed that people who achieve success in life are prepared to go the extra mile and put in the effort required to do things differently.

Yes

Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will. – Zig Ziglar

Optimism is about having hope or confidence in the future, and believing that our efforts will lead to a successful outcome. Our view of events can tend towards being either optimistic or pessimistic; generally our goals are more attainable by seeing things optimistically.

Zeal

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. – Thomas Jefferson.

Amir, have great energy and enthusiasm for your goal and your hard work will pay off!

THANK YOU