Why successful people get their tasks done and others fail

I’m reading Miss Anne Sullivan’s letters, which she wrote to her former warden of the Perkins Institution for the Blind.

Miss Sullivan has given an account of the progress that her deaf and blind pupil Helen Keller made as she taught her. It never appeared to me that she ever got in a hurry to teach her things, or that she overthought about the complexity of the task handed to her.

She went slow. She took one thing at a time, and once it was done, she moved on to the other.

Teaching a deaf and blind child isn’t easy. Many would say that it’s downright impossible. But Miss Sullivan didn’t let negative stories play in her mind, and she continued to do the little that she could at that given time.

If I had been in her place, I might have thought and thought about the disparity between human beings. Maybe I would have thought that fortune didn’t favour the child, and the world is unfair.

I would have got worried over the point whether Helen would be able to learn or not.

“I’m not fit for this job,” any other person would have told himself.

Or he probably had told himself that he has been given a really tough task, while others have so easy and high-paying jobs to do.

If Helen had not picked up what was being taught to her, a common thinking person would have screamed and kicked around in frustration. He could have thought bad things about her parents, telling himself that they’re living easy lives far away, without having any idea of the labour he was subjected to.

But Miss Sullivan did nothing of the sort. It was her aim to teach Helen, and whatever irrelevant thing came in the way of it, she cut it off.

The author who compiled her letters wrote that Miss Sullivan viewed the news reports published about Helen with a good deal of aversion. One reason was that newspapers exaggerated the feats of Helen, and the second reason I feel was that she didn’t want to get herself trapped by the greed of publicity.

Anything that put her away from her pupil’s learning was nonsense for her, no matter however glitter it was supposed to accrue her.

A person not serious for his pupil’s education would have got distracted by the excessive praise showered on her pupil, but she hated it and shed it no consideration.

True, she was optimistic, but this wasn’t the only thing that made her successful in educating Helen. I feel that it was her focussed mind, her natural habit of not heeding the rubbish, of doing every little thing with full attention that brought her success.

It’s often said that successful people are successful for several reasons. One of the leading reasons behind their success is that they don’t pay the insignificant any attention.

When we compare ourselves to others, telling ourselves that we’re miserable and more hardworking than others, it gives us a sense of dissatisfaction. This feeling puts us far from our core work.

When our mind kicks into gear stoking hatred, it fails to focus on things of actual significance, and consequently we’re distracted.

Oftentimes it happens that we’re pursuing a thing, and doing so we feel panicked about whether or not we’ll be able to complete it.

Times, we tell ourselves, aren’t suited to the work we’re doing. It’s not in demand, and folks who have done such a work have failed.

Or, best of all, if it had been practical, others would have done it already.

And when we get past these rationalisations, we think we neither have talents nor education nor any backing to do what we’re doing, and therefore it would be better to dump it midway. We feel it wise to take up something new rather than ruining our effort and time on something destined to collapse.

We fear folks will ridicule us. We fear that our competitors are going to overtake us…and why not?

They have more resources, less responsibilities, are in favourable positions, and they’re getting everything they need to make their work rock.

Then we think that we’re miserable. We compare our stories with theirs, and it pollutes our enthusiasm and working cheer.

Railing against the so-called cruel way of the world isn’t a sign of wisdom. It’s wiser to do the little that is in your hands without caring about anything else and sooner or later you’ll get your desires.

Yes, anything that slows down your work, is a sin, and it needs to be voted off the chart without any delay.

I think that it would be better for me to change the way I think about things.

If I tell myself that I mustn’t react to irrelevant things, that I’m not meant to give petty things attention, that I love to pursue deep, meaningful work, I’ll already see the change I dream about.

And, in fact, it’s true that meaningful work gives me real joy. Comparing myself to others, browsing shopping websites and checking my bank or email accounts etc., make me feel hollow from the inside.

Think about yourself.