The ONLY Formula That Guarantees Success & Self-Satisfaction

Becoming successful doesn’t have to haunt your mental health or burn you out.

I thought I would start this article in either of these two ways:

a) I was broke once. I didn’t know what I wanted or if I could become successful. But if I can, so can you. Here is what helped me.

(No offense. But all self-help articles and books start something like this and we buy these stories like innocent people. We feel ‘Oh yes, this person went through the exact same thing that we are feeling today’ so let’s do what he/she says whether it is buying a new book or a course)

b) I love working towards my dream life. If you want to feel the same way, follow my blueprint to success.

(Oh crap! This is even worse. Do you know why? Because no one knows what their dream lives look like.)

The NO Formula of Success:

You must be thinking, after trying to sound ‘all cool and smart,’ how come I can say there is only one formula for success?

I put forward both scenarios (above) to tell you — how the world usually tries to give advice on becoming successful and how easily you buy all this advice.

The thing is, no matter how great a book, podcast, or article sounds while you are reading it, not even a single piece of advice can be implemented for a prolonged period of time. Today, you are reading this article and everything seems to be fine in your life. But then life changes, something comes up that needs your attention and you forget about what you learned about ‘how to become successful.’

For example; To give you the most honest reality check of the self-help industry, let me tell you this: Every person who is giving advice on social media (no matter how big or small), they all want two things: a) to make you feel that their advice is the best, b) they already have what you want.

To achieve both these targets they exaggerate their struggles to tell you, ‘even when they through hell, they achieved success’ then you start to compare your struggles with theirs — always concluding that ‘your problems are not even real problems because people went through much worse and they still made everything happen.’

Hence, every time you want to take a break or feel stuck, instead of honoring your needs, you blame yourself for feeling this way — thus, making the journey to success toxic and heavy for yourself.

Why Do People Give-Up?

I personally feel that people don’t give up on their goals because they are not good/capable enough to achieve what they want. It’s because the world and the person itself make their journey toxic.

Firstly, you force yourself to achieve a definition of ‘success’ that you didn’t consciously choose for yourself. Then, you force yourself to achieve success by following someone else’s advice while ignoring your feelings and personal opinions. If that wasn’t enough, you blame/curse yourself every time you fall down or feel tired. It’s almost as if you treat yourself like a Jew from Nazi Camp. Do what they say. Don’t dare slow down. If you stop, you will be beaten (mentally).

In that case, when your own heart cannot take the cruelty anymore, something in you gives up, and then no matter how hard you try or how much more you include in your to-do, you never seem to be moving ahead. Even after doing more than others, you are left behind, mentally lost and tired.

The conclusion of it all is — you make the path to success toxic for yourself by trying to implement someone else’s rules/advice. Only you know what you want, only you know what you feel on a given day, so how can you rely on someone else’s advice to become successful?

What To Do Instead — The Only Formula of Success & Self-Satisfaction:

In the past two years, I have tried to implement every routine, advice, or hack to become successful.

I thought waking up early could solve all my problems so I tried that. I tried journaling and listing the things I am grateful for. I tried the Pomodoro technique to be productive and make a clear to-do list.

But do you know what really helped me?

The consistency in ONE-THING.

For example; I believe I left my job in 2021 and since then I have been writing on Medium consistently. When I started, I had self-doubts about my writing and I didn’t have a job. So, just to make myself believe that I am doing ‘something,’ I started writing on Medium.

It’s not like I didn’t try to do anything else. I didn’t want to do a job and I wasn’t able to get any freelancing clients. However, after writing for 6 months consistently, I started receiving so much love for words that I was forced to believe I was a good writer.

After almost one year, I was able to get into the Medium Partner Program and money started flowing. Almost 1.6 years later, I gained enough confidence to publish my book — The Art of Being Alone which is now a best-seller.

How Did That Happen?

In my opinion, I didn’t do anything. I was just writing on Medium and the next thing I know, I am a published author.

That is the power of doing ONE THING CONSISTENTLY.

The problem with us is that, we try to do too much. We want to have it all and these influencers/authors/YouTubers have manipulated us into believing that to have it all, you have to do more than others are doing. You have to wake up early and do this and that.

And as we discussed, you do what they say until you can no longer feel connected to your life. When results don’t come even after all the efforts, you feel there is something wrong with you. Your self-doubts increase and your self-worth decreases. It all takes a heavy toll on your mental health and then you try to settle down with what you can get.

It’s all a vicious cycle.

If you are someone who doesn’t know what to do, where to start, or even what you are running towards, just PICK ONE THING.

Pick any one skill that you are good at or want to be good at. Practice it in public for the next 6–12 months. No strings attached. Just do your work. Give all your heart to that one thing and do it as if you are in love with it. Even when you are practicing, do it all like you are already an expert.

Don’t add more to your list. Stay restricted to that one thing and you will notice a gradual shift in your life — How the path to success doesn’t feel toxic anymore and how you are so in love with your ‘creation’ while the consistency makes you not only an expert but also successful.

Conclusion:

It sounds so simple that you might not even try doing it because the world has made you believe that success is hard and the path is tough. When someone comes and tells you that success is easy and the path is simple, you don’t believe them. You take it for granted.

Besides, eliminating everything just to focus on ONE THING sounds scary. You are made to believe that you have to do it all only then you can have it all. Hence, eliminating seems scary like if you don’t do everything then you might fail.

However, I can say from experience — elimination is the key to simplifying your life. When you eliminate the noise (no matter how hard it is), you get to focus all your energy on ONE THING that can truly bring change to your life.

The only catch is — doing ONE THING CONSISTENTLY even if everything else makes noise for your attention. It’s an art to ignore the noise and focus on the music of your work.

I will leave you with one quote from the book ‘The One Thing’ itself:

“You can become successful with less discipline than you think, for one simple reason: success is about doing the right thing, not about doing everything right.”