The Seven Ingredients of Success Ingredient One: Peace of Mind
Any factor that you would consider important to your happiness can be placed in one of seven categories. These Seven Ingredients of Success are consistent with all of success and happiness.You must start with your vision of a perfect future. You begin unlocking your inner powers by “seeing” your life exactly as if it were already perfect in every respect. Your first job is to create a clear picture of where you are going. This image will serve as a benchmark against which you can measure the process of transforming that image into your reality.
The first of these seven ingredients of success, and easily the most important, is peace of mind. As martial artists, inner peace is a phrase we’ve heard often. Inner peace is the highest human good. Without it, nothing has much value. You usually evaluate how well you are doing at any given time by how much inner peace you enjoy.
Peace of mind is your internal gyroscope. You experience peace of mind when you are living in harmony with your values and convictions. If, for any reason, you compromise your values, then your peace of mind is the first to suffer. Peace of mind, or harmony, is essential to your relationships with your students, friends and family members.
The wonderful truth about peace of mind is that it is your birthright. It belongs to you. It is not just for the lucky. Peace of mind is central to your very existence. Achieving inner peace must be a central organizing principle of your life. It must become the primary goal to which all your other goals are subservient. In fact, you are only successful as a person to the degree to which you can achieve your peace of mind.
The very idea of achieving my happiness caused me a good deal of anxiety at one time. My religious background had drummed into me the idea that my happiness was not a consideration for my behaviors. I was told that happiness was merely a by-product of living my life to make others happy. If I experienced any happiness, then I was just lucky. If I didn’t, then that was my lot in life.
The very idea of setting happiness as a specific goal was described as selfish and uncaring. A major turning point came for me when I learned two concepts. First, if I didn’t commit to achieving my happiness, then others wouldn’t. If my aim in life were only to make others happy, then I would always be at the mercy of the feelings of others, whoever they might be.
Second, I discovered that I couldn’t give what I didn’t have. I couldn’t make others happy if I was miserable. I couldn’t make others happy unless I could be happy first.
You experience peace of mind when you are free from the destructive emotions of fear, anger, doubt, guilt, resentment and worry. In the absence of negative emotions, you enjoy peace of mind. The key to happiness, then, is to eliminate systematically the negative people, situations and emotions that make you unhappy.
Herein lies the rub. The obstacle to eliminating the negativity that interferes with your happiness is your attachment to the negative people and situations that cause it. Your rational mind provides several clever reasons why you must continue your existing situation.
In future columns, I’ll show you ways to control and eliminate your negative emotions. For the moment, though, project forward in thought and imagine your ideal life. What combination of ingredients would be required to be perfectly happy? Don’t worry about what’s possible or not possible for you at the moment. Free your mind from all limitations and be perfectly selfish.
Define your life exactly as it must be to enjoy the peace of mind you desire. What would you be doing? Where would you be? Who would be there with you? How would you spend your time? What would your school look like if it were absolutely excellent in every respect? What would you do more (or less)?
When you set peace of mind as your goal and plan your steps toward that goal, according to whether it helps or hinders your attainment of that goal, you’ll do and say the right things. You’ll find yourself operating from a higher set of principles. You’ll feel wonderful about yourself. Peace of mind is the key.
