What is that common quality that all successful people definitely have?

Of all, the one which truly stands out is that of persistence. The determination to keep pushing. Pushing hard in the quest for their goals. May what come, they are always there, going hard as ever, striving towards their goal. For them, it doesn’t matter where they are now. What matters is, where they want to be. The end goal.

I’ve seen people grow. Strength to strength. All of their starts were all about following their passion. A passion for excelling in what they love.

Indeed, the knack of truly finding what you love is in itself remarkable. It isn’t based on what the society tells you is ‘the thing’ to go after but what your heart truly wants.

Some are lucky enough to find what they are after. Sorry, not ‘lucky’, strike that. They possess the clarity to see themselves become what they want to. A ‘clear’ picture.

Others spend ages trying just to find their true calling and along the way pick up excuses to remain just there.

Coming back to persistence. The differentiated quality that propels and separates the ones who succeed and us. Us, the ones still running the race to find out, whether we are worthy or not.

I know of people whom the world laughed at when they started. And in the general parlance, they were not good at what they were doing. You can say the world was justified in making fun of them. Only, that they persisted in continuing to follow what they aimed for. Becoming better day by day. And then, they were able to convert those very people who hated them to be their fans. This isn’t a one-off story. Neither I’m making this up to prove anything.

And I’m not even talking about guys who rose to fame on the back of bad publicity. The Dhinchak Poojas of the world. For the sake of not going wayward on what I want to convey, let’s exclude this kind as well.

The point I’m trying to make is, that if you find that one thing you truly want. Go after it. Don’t worry whether the world is going to laugh at it or not. Don’t worry whether you’re good right now or not. Focus on working hard to get where you want to. The end goal should be the one you have to be after.

And it’s going to take a lot out of you. You have to put your best foot forward. Every day. Every hour. And every minute to get there. It’s not going to be easy. Not all of us are born with an already polished talent. Talent, IMHO, itself is just a spark and it all depends on us to give it shape it into a fire and light up the world.

People surprisingly negate the hard work and persistence and attribute success solely on someone’s talent. That brings us back to the drawing board of putting all our hopes on whether ‘we have it or not’. It doesn’t matter whether at this point we have it or not. What matters is, whether we are ready to put that extra effort into making it happen.

I’m not writing this to preach and tell YOU on what you have to do. This is a #NoteToSelf on not stopping the hard work.

The idea of conferring the reason for success to ‘talent’ is bogus. You either work hard to get there or you don’t. Talent means nothing without persistence to work towards achieving your goals.