External Factors

[Ritu]

I  have a very strong belief that external factors do affect our life , eg: whenever i set a target to do something i have a fear inside that " may be i wont be able to complete this"...and that stops me in doing many things...this is like a barrier , so i want to come over from this

[hinawashi]

I'm gald you came to the right place to ask.

External factors only affect your life when you turn your sight outwards, which is basically what our society wants us to do. What's even more scary is that once you fix your eyes on the outside world, it prevents you from looking inwards, and as crazy as it sounds, the important stuffs in life are all on the inside. Happiness, self-awareness, peace and joy are all inside stuffs. The beauty of all that is nothing from the outside world can take them away from you.

Now let's talk about this whole barrier thing. You have to convince yourself that none of the external factors matter when it comes to self-improvement. Fear is just an illusion. Why? Because if you fear failure, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because it's going to stop you from succeeding. If you think that success equates to attaining whatever goal you set, you're putting yourself in a trap. Personally I've thrown the idea of success out the window, because if there's a success there will be a corresponding failure, and it's better to just be myself and do my best instead of constantly fearing failure.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't set goal in life. You see, goals provide us with direction. Without goals we'd be lost. The trick to identify where you fears are at is to see if your definition of a goal has an "if" statement in it. For example, "If I lose x pounds of weight I'll succeed in my diet" would be setting yourself up for failure. Change that to "I'm going to lose x pounds of wight", period. Drop the "if" and you'll see the difference.

[Prabhaker]

6 hours ago, Ritu said:

whenever i set a target to do something i have a fear inside that " may be i wont be able to complete this

if you think too much of achieving a target successfully you will constantly be thinking of failure too. They come together, they come in one package. Success and failure cannot be divided from each other. If you think of success, somewhere deep down there will be a fear also. Who knows whether you are going to make it or not? You may fail. Success takes you into the future, gives you a greed game, an ego projection, ambition, and the fear also gives you a shaking, a trembling -- you may fail. The possibility of failure makes you waver. And with this wavering, with this greed, with this ambition, your work will not be quiet. Your work will become a turmoil; you will be working here and looking there. You will be walking on this road and looking somewhere faraway in the sky.

If you work really sincerely upon yourself, success will follow you just as your shadow follows you. Success is a by-product; one need not think about it. And if you think about it, you will not get it -- that is a condition. Don't think about success, because if you start thinking about success you become divided. Then you are not totally in the work.

[Dragallur]

@Ritu External factors definitely do have an effect, there is no coincidence that most people here are from Western developed world and probably none from Niger. But external factors are not reason to not take responsibility and not do you best in whatever you are working on. Though @hinawashi and @Prabhaker have a good advice

[hinawashi]

The same rule applies for happiness. If you ever catch yourself saying "if I do this or get that I'll be happy", drop the "if". Guess what, it just becomes "I'm happy", no matter what goes on in the external world. It sounds absolutely crazy at first but that's apparently the truth about happiness and success, because they're all concepts inside your head. So the rule of thumb is, what goes on in your head, stays in your head.

@Prabhaker That's also why we see a lot of self-sabotage around us. People seem to just give up their chance of success for no reason, but actually they prefer to fail because they view success as beyond their control and in that way failure is more preferable, because they then see failure as being "in control". Again, nobody is really in control of anything, so just throw out the idea of conditional success and happiness out the window. True success and happiness are unconditional, the conditional ones are counterfeit.They don't have value and you shouldn't be chasing after counterfeits.

[Ritu]

Thank you so much friends

[Ritu]

Hinawashi , Prabhaker and Dragallur 

I ll keep your advices in mind ...i belive that they are gonna help me alot

Thnk u guys again for your responses:)

[Nahm]

@Ritu Nothing is ever complete.

Do for the enjoyment of doing. This is development.

Why limit your abilities to the concept of 'completing' one thing.