Friday

Issues

Gulf News Hit the bull's-eye and you are a success.       Hit or miss By Hina Navin, Staff Writer Published: February 29, 2008, 00:30 Success can be a rat race for some and a leisurely walk through Opportunity Lane for others. It can mean owning a super yacht or meeting the emotional and financial needs of the family and keeping them happy as long as you can.   It depends on how you look at life. Lifestyle, ambition, upbringing, and most important, attitude, all these come togther to define success but every definition is a standalone. Though it is easy to define success in a general terms, it is hard to measure it in a precise way. For a student who has always been an average grade earner, passing exams is an achievement. For a student who is consistently brilliant, not having come first is a disappointment.   "How a person defines success depends on his attitude, outlook, approach towards life, health and many more factors," says PMK Sanjeev Krishnan, yoga trainer and founder of Rhythm of Life Program and Rhythm Yoga Center and Oriental Yoga Sanctuary in Dubai. Success is also about valuing what you have worked hard to achieve, says Krishnan. "If you take look upon a challenge as a burden, it will lead to stress, but if you take it up as a challenge as an opportunity to prove your worth, you will associate it with success

When Krishnan talks of success being an inborn trait, he refers to the famous quote in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night: In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. "But it is not just an in-born trait. Nor is it limited to one or two areas. It can be developed by adopting the right attitude and a healthy understanding of it in all its aspects." Emma Bradley, Dubai-based jeweler designer and homemaker, shares Krishnan's views.

"It can be an inborn trait for some, but it still requires the right steps, determination and an element of luck.

For others, success is all about sheer hard work and sacrifice. Yet some people may never achieve the success they desire."

How to achieve success?
For Krishnan, a lot o it has to do with achieving harmony with oneself.

"Every individual," he says, wants freedom, success and happiness. But he has to know the art of management that includes all areas of his life."

In yoga, for example, he says, being in harmony with life is a vital principle. It includes everything we involve ourselves with in our lives.

"Any person who is agitated, irritated or frustrated with himself cannot give peace and happiness to others, nor will he achieve true success (at harmony with himself) .

Take the example of a five- or six-year-old child. He is in a yoga state, where he is content with the outer and inner worlds.

As we grow and expose our self to external stimuli, we lose this ability to remain in a state of contentment," he says.

Bradley also agrees that success is about achieving a balance. "I measure it by a happy family life, good health and furthering my career (in her case as a designer).

Success is about contentment and fulfilment whether at the personal or professional level.

I also associate success with how I feel about myself and my ability to enjoy life."

Professor Dr Faisal K. Taha, director of Technical Programs, International Center for Biosaline Agriculture, Dubai, says,
"Success is achieving what you have set out to achieve - be it in your personal life, as a family or in your career.

It is about being at peace with yourself. There isn't a specific recipe for success and it is not inborn.

However, the environment in which you are born and observing people around you do help in defining your idea of success. Often, children born to successful parents follow their footsteps."

Equally, just because the parents were successful it does not follow that the children will achieve the same heights of success. History is full of such examples.

"Successful people are achievers; they set themselves specific goals
and pursue them. They do what it takes to get there and in the process even if they have to endure pain, frustration and sleepless nights they do not give up."

That in turn makes them happy and happiness as we all know is the most wanted thing in the world.