Success Is Less About Proving to The World
And more about proving to yourself
Admiring my physique in the mirror after a punishing workout and bone-chilling shower is my latest guilty pleasure.
Call it narcissism. Call it vanity. But it’s a testament to over 4 years of grueling hard work and determination — thousands of gym hours, healthy meals, and sacrifices.
In my early days, I’d wear choking clothes, roll up my sleeves, constantly flex and blabber about working out. Not to mention the sheer delight I used to find in snapping pictures.
It was my form of screaming to the world, “You mocked my soft skinny physique and ridiculed me for being weak. What are you going to say now? Ha!”
Success was vengeance, right?—Be it money, fame, power, or anything else, it’s about proving to the world that you’re capable of something.
Or so my foolish past self thought.
None of that now. Having deleted my fitness “micro-influencer” Instagram, I barely take any photos. When I go out, it’s almost always with a full-sleeved shirt — and if it’s not hot, I’ll throw on a jacket or pullover.
Being past the stage of seeking validation, at least in the fitness department, I’ve realized that genuine success is an internal feeling.
An affirmation to your own self that you’re capable.
The Pulsating Core of Self-Confidence
Confidence isn’t a feeling, trait, or mystical thing that only a select few possess.
It’s a skill — one that demands nothing but hard work.
Confidence with nothing to back it up is delusional arrogance — and truly confident people can instantly sniff it out.
In middle school, I had been skinny, wimpy, bad at sports, and painfully shy. It was working out that built my self-confidence — the process of building my physique more than the actual physique.
Even if I were to lose my physique and revert to my middle-school self, my confidence wouldn’t vanish — unless you wipe my memory of the entire experience.
The act of doing something, not the result, builds your confidence in it.
Go out and approach 100 women. Write every single day for 2 months. Hit the gym for 6 straight months. Run a half-marathon. Build a company from scratch.
No matter how many rejections, how bad your writing, or how bankrupt your company, you would have gained confidence.
A high-school dropout with 6 failed startups under his belt is leagues more confident than a Harvard MBA grad just hitting the field. The reason?
Experience — the pulsating core of confidence.
Like how every rep in the gym strengthens you, every attempt at something makes you more confident.
At Its Heart, It’s a Numbers Game
The beauty of just doing is that probability benefits you — even with the worst of odds, at least a few of your attempts will be successes.
“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Even if you’re socially inept to the point of retarded, talking to 100 strangers will yield at least a handful of memorable conversations.
When you do something repeatedly, despite obstacles, you’re “proving” to your mind that you have discipline and perseverance. So forget succeeding,
Just the act of trying to succeed puts you ahead of most of the world.
Can you optimize the numbers? Definitely — if you do your initial learning, analyze every failure, and embrace (harsh) feedback, you can decimate the number of attempts necessary.
Take approaching women. As a mumbling and foul-smelling unkempt couch potato, you’ll creep out 100 women before 1 gives you even a minute of her day.
But if you work out, eat clean, shower regularly, groom well, and work on your communication skills? — You might bag a date within your first few approaches.
Finally, Success Is a Feeling to Privately Relish In
No one will feel the same sense of elation and pride at your success as you will. Not even your doting mother or loving girlfriend.
Because only you have been witness to every fleeting thought and passing second of the journey.
It’s like an exotic dish — you can hear people swoon about it, watch others eat it, read expert reviews, but unless you try it yourself, you won’t get the exact feeling.
But almost every success starts because of external motivation—be it the pain of losing a loved one, compensation for being bullied, or insatiable hunger coming from an impoverished family.
It’s only along the way that genuine passion pops into the picture — and that is when you go from good to great.
