Let me begin by asking you a point-blank question: What on earth is your ultimate goal in life?
When I ask young people as to what they want out of their lives, I get strange answers. The answers I get are: I want to be a writer, I want to be a pilot, I want to be a doctor, I want to be an engineer, I want to be a lawyer, and so on, and so forth. I take them on, and explore further by asking: ‘if you become a writer, pilot, doctor, engineer, lawyer of whatever it is that you want to become, would you consider that you have achieved the ultimate goal of your lives?
Suddenly, they realise that becoming a writer, pilot, doctor, engineer or lawyer is just the starting point. Then I pose the same question to them again: What is the one thing they want in life? And, the answer I get from most of them is even more confusing. They say: they want SUCCESS.
If your answer too is ‘Success’… if being successful is the ultimate goal of your life, you are making a big mistake. You are making a blunder. Because, whether you like it or not, every success is just a milestone. It leads to further success and more milestones. But that is not your destination. A milestone cannot be your destination. Your destination is farther away from all these milestones.
All of us seem to be obsessed with success. We want to be successful in life at all costs. ‘But, how can we be successful when we do not have a clear destination and a roadmap to our destination on our minds?’ I ask them. Then I find them scratching their heads, thumbing their noses, and twiddling with their fingers.
In our obsession with success, we try out a hundred-and-one things. We succeed in some of them and fail in some others. Then we don’t know where to go from there! That’s because success is not the ultimate destination of our lives. Success should not be the ultimate destination of our lives. Our ultimate goal should be something else. At the most, success may be considered an important milestone to our ultimate goal. That’s about all.
So, what should be the ultimate goal of our life? Ask yourself this simple question: What do you do when you become successful? Where does success lead to? When you answer this question, you would be closer to the truth.
Alright, I ask again: Where does success lead to? Success leads to happiness—doesn’t it? Now, I ask you again: What should be your ultimate goal? Happiness—right?
Why make success the ultimate goal of your life when happiness is the culmination of success—when you are doing everything to make your life happy? If you gun for happiness and make it your ultimate goal, you will focus on things that make you happy. By doing that you will create many success stories on the way.
So, change your mindset and rewire your brain to this discovery. The moment you do that, you will suddenly find yourself on the fast track to success. More importantly, you will be on your way to the ultimate goal of your life—Happiness!
Once this realization dawns on you, you will find that success is only a by-product. You real goal is HAPPINESS.
