…and Let your Hairs Wave in the Air

A lot has been written and said about ways and processes to handle failure, depression, criticism, stress and other negative emotions and feelings but little has been written or said about ways or processes to handle success, glory, fame, limelight or appreciation. Probably, many thinkers and philosophers considered the latter as positive emotions and therefore didn’t feel any need to have a process to handle it. If you look around you will find many people who live their entire life gasping and celebrating one moment of glory or one successful act or outcome. There are many others who begin to grow reversely or begin to move backward after they taste success and feel those moments of glory and fame. One major reason for this is the inability of those people to handle success or appreciation. They are not matured enough to handle success and appreciation or probably they begin to feel that all the glory, or fame or success, or appreciation that they are getting is a permanent fixer of their life, whereas the fact is that, that moment is a time which will pass away. Certainly that is the one thing which is common between good times and bad times that it is not permanent. It just passes away.

So, does that mean that one should not celebrate the success or should not feel happy about all the good things that are happening in their life? They certainly should but at the same time one should not lose the focus. Remember, the basic rule of our world is that the one who is successful is celebrated and admired and if you want the celebration to continue and if you want to continue to bask around the fame, glory and appreciation associated with your name then you must continue to get results or continue to do acts that gave you your first glimpse of fame, success and appreciation. As they say, it is very easy to be successful and famous and also hear people singing rhymes of appreciation and admiration but it is very difficult to sustain that or continue to get that, day after day, month after month and years after years. That is why I say, “Keep your feet firm on the ground and let your hairs wave in the air”.

…when you taste the success

1) Be humble and thankful – Accept it humbly, with kindness and thankfulness. It is always important to be thankful to all the people, not only those who are appreciating or admiring you but also those who helped you to reach where you are. Not all those people might have helped you positively and many might have criticized you or demoralized you but in one way or another they helped you to become whatever you are. So, be thankful. Let the credit go where it belongs to and add doing so will not discount your hard-work, determination and passion.

2) Don’t lose the focus – Growth in life is a continuous process. Although you may have a vision for yourself and dreams to follow and therefore it doesn’t matter what you have achieved, there will always be more to achieve. There will always be new avenues to cover. You have just taken that first successful step towards your goals and dreams, journey is still pending. There are always three stages of growth and success – Local, National and Global. Don’t let your miniature achievement distract or divert you from performing at a bigger stage and achieving more.

3) Keep yourself prepared for the tougher competition – As you will begin to climb-up the ladder of success, fame and glory, you will realize that though the crowd around you is filtering out but the competition is intensifying. As discussed above, there are three phases of journey, local, national and international and your competitors at every level will at least be as skillful and competent as you are. Keep yourself prepared for the same.

4) Don’t let your new friends pull you down – In your journey, you will meet different kinds of people, some will walk with you for a while, some will be pulling you down and many will be pushing you down. The one who were with you at one point of time will be jealous of you for your achievement and success and will try to pull you down, maybe by pretending of being nice to you. And those who are above you will be scared of you and your arrival and therefore will try to push you down, maybe by their acts of pseudo glorification and appreciation, so that you lose your focus. I won’t say that one must identify right kind of people to stay around because that in itself is a very time consuming process but rather keep your focus on your goals and dreams and don’t let any negative thought distract you. After all, it is your journey and you must take it.

5) Don’t undermine those who are less appreciated or not as successful and famous as you are – I agree that you are better than many other people because what you managed to achieve they couldn’t but that doesn’t give you any right to look down at them or insult them. Do remember that though they are out but they have not lost yet. Tomorrow, they might turn out to be better than you. Losers are those who quit and accept the defeat not the one who keeps on trying. Remember that story of the Hare and Tortoise?

6) Tomorrow will be a new day – Whatever you did today or you achieved today, you got appreciation for that, and were paid in the same coin and you celebrated it too. However, tomorrow will be a new day, new tasks and new rewards and do you think you will be able to repeat the feat again? Doing it once could be a fluke but repeating it again and again over the period of time is an achievement and success in every possible sense. Don’t just sit and bask in the glory of your past achievement or successes but repeat it. There are many artists who stopped working after creating, what they thought was their masterpiece because they were too scared and they thought that probably they couldn’t be able to repeat what they have achieved yesterday.

7) Keep a check on your ego – There is nothing wrong in being proud of whatever you have achieved, after all you worked hard for it but don’t let that feeling of pride outgrow your own size or the size of what you have achieved.

Conclusion

If you look around and pick any country or any profession be it sports, business, entertainment, research, art, or politics etc, you will find many people who rise like a storm but the very next moment they fall flat on their face kissing the dust and this happens because they were so engrossed in celebrating their first few moments of appreciation, fame, and success at higher level that they just could not see anything beyond. Therefore it is important that “Keep your feet firm on the ground and let your hairs wave in the air” and keep your focus on the goal.

By: Unknown