Success in invariably linked with the motivation level of a person. A highly motivated individual will achieve better results and I don’t think we can argue much on that. Although I personally feel that “Success is not a relative term, it is absolute.” Success cannot be compared from one person to other. I would not say that Bill Gates is more successful than Barack Obama, because success cannot be compared. Being Successful is a state of mind, if you feel that you have achieved what you wanted to, then obviously you are successful according to most of the people. So if you wanted to be a good teacher and you feel that have become a “good” teacher, then for me you are as successful as Barack Obama or Bill Gates. But people do fail and there are people around us who are not so successful (There are no Un-Successful people for me, because they all have accomplished something in their lifetime. Maybe not what they wanted to, but they have nonetheless) as others.
I always say and have believed in “Failure means only one thing, that the determination to succeed was not enough” and determination is directly attributable to motivation. So it brings me back again to Motivation. I know from my experience and you know from yours that motivation is like a wave, it comes and goes, it is high at times and at times it is rock bottom. In the environment around us we all have things, people or events that inspire us and motivate us. These things, people or events act as a stimulus for our mind. Such motivational stimulus could be someone else’s success story, the girl next door, a brand new Ferrari, money, better social status, a challenge laid down by a competitor or just a hug from your father.
Till some time back I used to feel that all these stimulus are equally good. But that is what I used to think. Now I feel that different kind of stimulus will have a different bearing on your final achievement. To simplify things, let me classify these stimulus into two categories: the positive stimulus and the negative stimulus. I always used to think that the negative stimulus motivates me more. I was trying to draw motivation from the fact that I would love to prove those people wrong who have written me off or the ones who do not want me to succeed. But such approach of motivating oneself leads to various undesirable side effects.
Five Reasons why you should avoid Negative Stimulus:
1. Pseudo Motivation: Negative stimulus provides you with a false sense of motivation. It is more a feeling of revenge, rather than motivation.
2. Short lived: While motivation is supposed to be like a slow burning fire inside you that fuels your thoughts and actions in the right direction, the effect of negative stimulus is like a bomb exploding inside you. It may provide you with an impetus but the fire does not last long.
3. Negative thoughts: “A wrong path will never take you to the right destination”, similarly negative thoughts cannot lead you to a positive ending. A negative stimulus will fill up your conscious and unconscious thoughts with negative energy and this will lead to negative actions and eventually negative results.
4. Influences Social relations: When you start drawing motivation from negative events or people it skews your perception and you would try to find more negative things in people around you to motivate yourself. It will eventually degrade your relations with others as you would put more emphasis on their negative comments rather than positive ones. And finally when you are concentrating on all the negative people, you are attracting more such people towards you.
5. Success doesn’t bring happiness: Even if you succeed after drawing your motivation from a negative stimulus the success wouldn’t taste so sweet. I don’t need to explain this, you know it for yourself. Success is to be enjoyed, it is not meant to be a slap on someone’s face.
So next time you find yourself drawing motivation from a negative event, person or comment, tell yourself to shift to some happy thoughts.
