The way of assured success

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Questioner (Q): How to get success in whatever I do?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Success does not lie in doing any random thing. That’s the first, the most important, and probably the last thing. The game is not at all about picking up some arbitrary thing to do and then investing yourself fully into it, plunging fully into it, and spending a lot of energy trying to be successful. That’s not the point.

Do you know why you are doing a certain thing? Are you sure of what is worthy enough to be done? That is a moot question.

Choose the right thing to do. In that lies success — in that lies ‘immediate’ success.

Immediate success implies that you have been successful right from the moment of the choice itself; you don’t have to wait for the outcome. In fact, if you have to wait for the outcome to determine whether you have been successful or not, then you are already unsuccessful.

Choose the right option. Make the right decision. Fight the right battle. Now it does not matter whether you win or not because you are already victorious.

Victory lies in choosing the right road to walk on. It does not lie in reaching the destination earlier than others. In fact, it is a frivolous comparison. “Am I reaching there earlier than others? Am I reaching there at all?” It is not about reaching there earlier than others in a comparative sense. It is not even about reaching somewhere at all. It is about the immediate moment in which the decision is made.

The concept that we carry is that the real battle lies in the attainment of the goal. The real battle does not really lie in the attainment of the goal; it lies in the determination of the goal: what goals are you picking for yourself, and why?

If you fight the wrong battle, isn’t victory worse than defeat? What is the point in speeding down the wrong road?

What is the point in obtaining and eating huge quantities of food that your body does not need?

Do you know your real inner need? Is your decision-making aligned with your core self? That is the question to be asked. You must know who you are and what you really…