How Can We Be Truly Unstoppable?

The truth is, no matter who we are and what we do, each one of us wants to become massively successful in every field we pursue. But what actually determines our success? Is it hard work, luck, or something else? Some people will argue that there is something called “destiny” which decides things for us, and we don’t have any say in that. But then, how come are there so many live examples before us, of great people, of amazing personalities broadcasting the idea of how they have managed to achieve everything they set their minds to? I am going to mention here some of the things which I feel everyone should think about at least once in their lives, if they have ever wanted to be truly unstoppable!!

I’ll start off by saying: “forget about goals and focus on systems instead”. Confused? Let me give you an example. Let’s say that X decides to go to the gym every day. Now, X is looking forward to looking good after a couple of months. That means, the real goal is to look good. Going to gym is just a process of how X is going to achieve his real goal. After a couple of months, when X starts feeling that he’s done a good job in training his body right, the desire of hitting the gym is going to slowly vanish and before X realizes of what’s happening, he starts hitting the gym less than usual and then one day, bam! X doesn’t feel the need to go to the gym anymore since he now has the body he’s always craved for. Now, he might visit gym once per week, but he has lost that strong motivation that he had in the beginning, because he ACHIEVED HIS GOAL. What? What am I getting here into? The problem is, we all are so goal oriented that we just want to be done with everything once that goal is achieved and move on. Do you think X loved going to gym every day as much as he loved visualizing creating a great body for himself? Our happiness as human beings is dependent on whether we are able to achieve our short-term goals or not. We are in love with goals which are temporary, goals which will keep changing. Once achieved a goal, we are now unhappy again because the goal is changed and now, we must work hard to achieve something else. And this just goes on and on.

That’s why I say (or rather James Clear in his book Atomic Habits does) that goals restrict your happiness. A systems – first mentality provides the antidote. When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running. So, if X fell in love with hitting the gym regularly rather than with a great body, he wouldn’t have to wait for months to feel satisfied. He’d feel satisfied every time he’d hit the gym and I am guessing he’d be going to the gym every day, all his life.

The idea behind me saying all of this has a larger purpose, which is: True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with that habit is if it becomes a part of your identity.

So, the goal is NOT to read a book, the goal is to become a reader. The goal is NOT to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner. The goal is NOT to learn an instrument, the goal is to become a musician. The goal is NOT to just go to the gym, the goal is to become someone who is obsessed with being healthy. The goal is to change your identity.

This is how great habits stick and pave a way for you to become a better version of yourself and truly unstoppable. There are also other methods to make a habit stick like a) Making that habit obvious b) Making that habit attractive c) Making that habit easy d) Making that habit satisfying, but I am not going to go in detail about these.

The second most important thing worth discussing with regards to becoming truly unstoppable is, accepting that progress requires unlearning. All my life until now, I have only told myself that:” I am not good in programming; I can never be good enough at it” only to realize that I was wiring my brain to adapt to this. And, then I used to wonder all the time of why I could never ever ACTUALLY be good at it. Because my brain had accepted that above statement of mine and transformed that to a fact and then it didn’t even let me try! Such negative statements like:” I’m terrible with directions” or “I’m not a morning person” or “I’m always late” are only repeating stories (which I am guessing you’d have repeated for years) which become facts over time and define who you are as a person. And then, we resist anything which contradicts this identity of ours, which we ourselves have created. It’s time to make new stories and repeat them as many times as it takes to create a new identity; something which we really want to become. It’s worth remembering that it’s not going to happen overnight, but it’s definitely going to happen one day. Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs and to upgrade and expand your identity.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” When I was 13 years old, I acquired a fear of life-threatening diseases. Google calls it Nosophobia. Every time I’d get flu or something, I would start getting a panic attack imagining the worst and I’d always tell myself that it’s fate to live in the fear of something all my life. It was only recently that I started discovering how to get rid of this fear (though I haven’t been able to become 100% successful yet) and it was through consciously guiding my thoughts. So, every-time I start feeling anxious about a disease, I consciously make efforts to tell myself “This fear has got nothing to do with the reality, you are perfectly fine” and I have realized that it was in my hands to create my own fate. I wouldn’t call it “in my hands” but rather “in my head”.

I have always wondered of why some people are so popular and richer than others, and though I can’t exactly be defining some formulas to be popular or rich, simply because there is no defined formula to be successful. I was strucked with an idea that changed my life. Because of how we are wired, most people will spend all day chasing quick hits of gratification. The road less traveled is the road of delayed gratification. And if you are willing to wait, like really wait for the rewards, you’ll face less competition because most of the people would have given up until now and you will end up getting a bigger payoff. The payoff is often so huge, that you might even forget how much you had to wait to get it. Success requires you to ignore an immediate reward in favor of a delayed reward.

I really don’t think that to be truly successful or unstoppable, we need to be the most talented or the most intelligent people. We need to become the people who have a greater control over their minds, so that they can be directed to derive power to attain whatever people actually want. That is why they say, nothing is impossible. You just need to trick your mind into doing things.