“I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, diligence, and the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time”. – Charles Dickens
The above heading is taken from Benjamin Franklin’s quote, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”. It is true that if you do not set goals beforehand or plan ahead in life, you cannot succeed in life. Life in itself is a preparation for many a battles. Life is always a battlefield and only the ones who wins, remains in the memory, fable, story and legends of the people, from generation to generations, passed on as folk lures. Did we meet Alexander the Great, Hercules, Tarzan, but we heard so many fascinating stories about them, did we meet Akbar, Rana Pratap or Ashoka, still we talk about their eroics. I do want to emphasize on the fact that these individuals remain etched in our memory for their success and for their bravery but for also never giving up while facing hardships and situations which were beyond their control or situations which were not normal thus what we do, we prepare to tackle the inevitable to win and conquer over them. What is inevitable in life is to face test, challenges and calamities, we all human have to face them in equal measures, be it king or pauper, all have to face the wrath and turbulence of time, but only those who survive are the ones who are well prepared. Those who believe it’s all destiny are correct partially but we can and we should give our share of toil, labor and sweat to prove to ourselves that, we deserve this success and also we have earned it, in hard way. Even if we are not successful then also we can at least take solace from the fact we have tried our best and we could have not done anything better. There are many people who have succeeded suddenly and then failed to live up to expectations, many might feel they are flash in the pans, it is not the case then they would not have succeeded in the bigger stage, but what faltered them was they were not prepared for the success or they took the success too casually or easily, this is a classic case of “Failing to Prepare is Preparing to fail”, syndrome. The success brings with it, lime light, entourage, fans, expectations and responsibility, again if you are not prepared for it, then you might fail to live up to the expectations and thus again reduce to or get lost in the darkness of anonymity. The best part of Life, that it is not static and it does not come with any syllabi, thus we complain when we are not able to make the best of an opportunity, this is the reason, we should always be prepared and we should always have plan A, B or C, many a times destiny has bigger things stored for us, than we can ever think of.
People who are able to sustain their success in their life and career are no doubt more prepared and more pragmatic, they act not react. It is not that Life does not throw those challenges, situation and difficulties, only these people are better prepared. They also have concern of performance and success, they are eager to succeed and will more and more effort to sustain this success, hence they will be always prepared. The very logical and relevant examples of this are in present world, students preparing for IIT-JEE, Medical entrance or IAS exams, the successful candidates who have qualified in one shot are few, and far in between, it means they are hugely talented, hard working and focused but people who have cleared in few more attempts are mentally stronger and tougher as they have withstand failures, poor mental and financial (in some cases) constrains, ridicule and criticism of all to win over their challenges and conquer the unconquerable. What make them stand out is the following:
- They accepted their failures, which is most important to achieve success.
- They never blamed anyone else for their failures, not got depressed.
- They learned and accepted there is a better way to prepare and they will have to prepare in the other way, so they can get coveted success
- They gave their all again and again till they achieved it.
Thus the first thing they had to do was to plan, if the plan is not right or appropriate, just execution can never be good enough to give desired result, also if the plan is not accurate then execution will leave something untouched, something un attempted thus will reduce the chance or odds of success. Thus anyone who plans well gives himself chance of succeeding as it will make person, strive in the right direction. Anyone who has prepared a plan in right place at least knows the destination and will make more scientific and strategic effort to reach the destination. Compare this with a person who is working hard but without prepared plan, his efforts will not only be chaotic but also will be full of loose ends, as he will have something or other missing from his list of things to do or things to cover. Then we will find the person without any plan will have some bright idea which will some time distract or keep him away from his daily schedule, as he maverick Trier than constant pursuer. more of a this person will also succeed and also will do well but when a person with plan works hard, he has more settled approach, more stability, more fall back on his plan and hence the chance improves and there is method and credibility than chattiness to be successful.