At 25, I totally believed I was destined to be a failure.
I had zero clarity about what I wanted to do with my life.
I had no direction. No goals. No vision.
Everything was cloudy. A complete blur.
But as an introvert, my mind never stopped seeking.
I read book after book. From psychology to astrology.
Self-improvement, human behaviour, spirituality, religion. You name it.
I attended seminars, applied the methods.
But, nothing worked.
I saw people around me getting ahead. Starting families. Getting rich and successful. People who had not even read a single book after graduating. And yet they were making thousands of $$$ every month.
And here I was, staring at walls, thinking about the purpose of my life.
I was a mess.
What was I doing wrong?
I was smart. Intelligent. Hard working. Yet I just couldn’t make it.
What was stopping me from reaching my highest potential?
And when I finally found the answer, it completely changed my life. Instantly. It felt like it had been right there all this time, staring at me, while I was out looking for answers.
Here’s how everything changed.
The night at the library
I had a friend who was a librarian.
So he used to let me stay at the library late at night.
I was going through one of my lowest phases.
Anxious, depressed, and unemployed.
It was around 9 p.m. I was walking through the philosophy section. Hoping to find some hope. And I saw this very thin book called “Self-reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
I liked the title, so I pulled it out and started turning the pages.
And suddenly this one line caught my eye. It hit me like a bolt of lightning. It turned my whole world upside down.
Like a big mental blockage melted in my brain.
Here’s what it said,
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men – that is genius.
I read it again, and again, and again, and again.
I finished the book in about an hour. Took a long deep breath. Tears of joy rolled down my cheeks.
At that moment, I knew I’d make it.
The Secret to Reaching your highest potential
It took me many years after that awakening at the library to truly grasp what I felt.
But, you can understand it right now. All you need to do is pay attention to what I’m going to explain.
You may find it the exact opposite of all the advice that you get out there, but trust me, if you think about it in silence with a calm mind, you’ll get it.
And it doesn’t matter how old you are right now. Or what you want to achieve. This applies to all aspects and phases of life.
Let me explain.
When Emerson said,
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men – that is genius.
What is he really saying?
In simple words, he’s asking you to empty your mind.
Look, the thing is, we are filling our brains with more information than we can process.
More information we can digest.
More information we can make sense of.
And that is the real reason for your mental fog. This confusion that never leaves you.
I was making the same mistake. Instead of focusing on my own skills and developing them, I was chasing the next big thing.
In psychology, it is known as the ‘shiny object syndrome’.
As an introvert, you are highly sensitive to new things. Your mind is super active. And it will keep chasing the next big thing.
That’s why you have to pause.
Stop right here.
Think and ask yourself,
“What do I want?”
“What am I good at?”
“What are ‘my’ skills?”
Authors, YouTube gurus, and self-help coaches will keep on giving something new every week, but you have to be aware enough to ask yourself,
“Do I even need this shit?”
The biggest problem with self-help is that it tends to make you believe you have issues that you really don’t have.
Read that again.
Do you?
Of course you don’t.
You are not improving yourself, you are only chasing the next dopamine hit.
You already have something special inside you. But you can only discover it when you remove all these outside distractions and influences, sit in silence, and think deeply.
Take all that attention from outside and focus it inside.
Explore your own mind. Dig as deeply as you can.
You don’t need more information, facts, or methods, what you really need is to practice what you already know.
To believe what you know in your private heart is true for all.
If you want to make more $$$, stop watching hustle videos, and develop your skills.
If you want to find a partner, stop reading dating tips, and meet people.
If you want to be peaceful, stop taking mindfulness seminars, and meditate.
If you want to be more productive, stop downloading productivity apps, clean your room and fix your routine.
You don’t need more, you need less.
It’s all about action, action, and more action.
If you’re hungry, you don’t read the food menu, you get your ass in the kitchen and cook.
Everything else works the same way too.
To sum it all up,
Everything is imagination.
What you imagine is what you get.
If you imagine, I’m not ready, and that I need 10 more videos and 20 more books before I start, that’s how long it will take.
But, if you imagine, I’m ready, that I don’t need more information, that I believe in myself, and I want it right now…
Trust me, my friend, you will get it right now.