A Fulfilled Life Is About Setting & Achieving Goals

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Welcome back to Success with Srini. Today on the podcast, I want to extend the same thought I had yesterday. Yesterday I talked about how to go from fear to freedom I talked about, you can achieve financial success, you can attain all kinds of material success, whatever success you always thought about, you could, but then once, after attaining that success, if you continue to stay in fear, then you have not achieved the freedom. And this is all about attaining freedom, all this life, the pursuit in life is to attain freedom. So, I’ll extend the same thought a little bit today. And we’ll talk about goals. And we’ll talk about obstacles. Okay, you have goals, you’ve identified goals, you have written down your goals somewhere, maybe you read you should? If not, because I’ve been driving that on this podcast for a very long time you need to have your goals written down somewhere. Now that you have your goals in place, the question is, as you’re trying to get to those goals, you are encountering obstacles. And if you’re truly you truly are going after your goals, it is expected that you will be faced with obstacles. There’s no way out. It’s not simple, there isn’t a is a simple path to any goal that’s worth going after. So there will be obstacles questions have become says, How can you go after the goals? When do things become tough? Here is what I have seen personally, people who sustain or survive, or just stay with their goals are the people who really know what they’re after. And people who quit, are those people who were looking for a reason to quit? Honestly, they never were committed to begin with.

So everything starts with you precisely knowing why you are doing something that you are doing. I have a clear objective for doing this podcast. I have cleared objects between everything I do. So I have it in my mind. I know what I’m going after. And because of that, there are many obstacles. By the way, there are many obstacles, but then I’m staying on the course because I expected these obstacles. I’m committed, I know the end outcome. And I’m going with the process along with the flow. It’s also important that people have goals that are all over the place. Okay, it goes back to the point where do you know exactly what you’re going after? Do you know exactly what it is that you are trying to achieve? And the big goal part is okay, you probably figured that out already. You probably have written that down. But then do you have all the short goals leading to that big goal? That’s the question. I have been insisting here on this podcast to have your short-term goals, very short and precise. Don’t write long, big descriptive goals for your short-term goals. That precise, the singular, like one-liners. And you know, you got to get them done. And you will get them done. So I have goals that I’ve set for today. And I want to get them done. And they are one-liners, I’m not writing a whole long descriptive paragraph about what I want to achieve today. I don’t have time, and I’m going to get them done. So precise, short goal descriptions for short term goals, they quickly can be achieved, they should be and they add up to that bigger goal, which which is drawn out like maybe three or six months down the road. Now, as I’m pursuing these goals, as I’m pursuing these things that I need to get done, I’m also infusing elements
of everyday life into it.

For example, one of my goals was to go climb Everest. And for that one year, for one full year, there were multiple short-term goals that I had to achieve. And while I was going out for the short-term goals, I was infusing my life. Every part of my life was about this, this whole process of climbing mountains, I was watching videos, I was reading books, I was reading the stories of people who achieve these mountains. You know, I was studying every element of a mountain, literally, I mean, climbing, hiking, running everything that I could consume information, training, coaching, whatever I could consume, I was everything every moment of my life was about the climb and people who know me during the time they know me how I was loving every moment of my life, just in that frame.

Now, while I was doing this, I was also constantly talking positively of myself, not allowing any other negative talk to come in not allowing anybody around me to talk to me negatively, and none of that stuff. And I was constantly reflecting upon my efforts to reinforce order, and persistence in myself. So what I mean by that is, I would go back and look at my last four or five days’ performance and say, Okay, I’ve done this, today, I’m would improve this, or today is going to be better than that, or at least I’m going to meet the standards that I achieved five days ago. So kind of reinforcing by reflecting upon the past effort, so that I stay constantly positive along the way. Now, these are some ideas, how you how to deal with obstacles, and along the way, many came in specifically for the average project, many things came in the middle, I’ll tell you, there were days when I woke up in the morning, and I like, Nah, I can’t do this. I just want to go sleep for a couple of more hours, but I had to wake up early 435 o’clock in the morning, and then push myself no early morning cardio, then come back, rest and then have some diet and then go back and do a little bit of strength training in the late morning, then come back, sleep, whatever, and then go back in the evening and do some lifting and all that so and alter the alternate the schedule, do strength training in the morning and cardio in the evening and cardio in the morning and all that so all kinds of permutation combinations. And there were obstacles along the way.

But here’s the truth, life will throw more obstacles your way. And Ryan Holliday said, the obstacle is the way if you have obstacles, that means you’re doing something meaningful, in my personal experience, you are challenged. That means something about you is right. That’s why you’re challenged. You’re facing heartburn, you’re facing heartbreak, you are emotionally down, that means you’re doing something right. Right, something right. The key is to stay focused. If you take your daily goals, or your life goals, to take a life goal and make them a part of your daily life and use positive self-talk you will become unstoppable. That’s the truth. Take a life goal. Make them part of your life, and you become unstoppable. And you have positive self-talk. So life goals. Take your life goals, make them a part of your daily life, and use positive self-talk. And you’ll become unstoppable. I hope today’s podcast episode is helpful if it is, you know this, I keep repeating myself. Keep asking the same thing they did write a review, share it with a friend or a family member who you think you believe will benefit from this. And if you have a question for me, you know how to reach me.

That’s all for now. I’ll catch you again tomorrow with another question may be from one of the podcast listeners or maybe one of my own ideas. We’ll see. Stay tuned.

Do Things That Frighten You

Here is the complete transcript of the podcast

Welcome back to Success with Srini. Happy Tuesday morning to you today on the podcast episode, I’m telling you to do something that frightens you, something that scares you do it, because a part of this life, that the purpose of this life is to become stronger, the purpose of life is to become happy, become fulfilled, get all the joy to become successful, all that is good. But then a part of this life is also to grow, to become stronger, to become internally powerful. And in order to achieve that, we need to overcome fear.

Now, every successful individual at some point in time had to deal with fear, and we’ll deal with fear. Everything that you want is on the other side of fear. I read a book called The Power of focus many, many years ago. And I talked about this book numerous times on this podcast on my radio shows at my seminars. And in that book, Mark, Victor Hansen, less weight. And Jack Canfield. There’s a quote in that book that says, everything that you want in life is on the other side of fear. So fear is everywhere. One of the biggest obstacles, internal obstacles that we have to deal with is fear. So now that it is there now that I can’t avoid it, let me learn how to deal with it. As simple as that. The biggest difference between someone who is wildly successful and someone that is not is the courage to take significant action over and over again. Now that we agree that we have to deal with fear, let’s talk about how can you start taking significant action. Not before I go there, I’ll tell you something I personally, have always, always wanted to do things that frighten me, I don’t know something about me, there’s a part of me if I, if I’m not, at any point in time, become comfortable. I’m very uncomfortable. If I become comfortable, and very uncomfortable, if I’m not in a hustle mode, at some level, not extreme level, but at some level, if I’m not in hustle mode, then something is amiss. So I’m constantly challenging myself. I’m about example, there are numerous incredible examples all over the place. And one of the best ways to find examples is to study successful people, like go to the library or, or get books on success, people who have done it and have gone through this process. And you’ll start to see that they have dealt with fear for everything that they achieved, that dealt with fear, they did things that frightened them, and they took massive action, significant action to get to where they got to. Okay, so let’s get into the steps quickly.

The first and foremost thing is that you need to decide to succeed once you decide to succeed, you will do whatever it takes people don’t commit to things and commitment is the fundamental requirement for any level of success any kind of outcome has to proceed with commitment. So I lose weight, I will probably do this I may come I may show up I may not show up. This Indecision is a dangerous thing you commit when you commit you are also committing to success but also you’re committing to failure as a part of that process, you will encounter failures at the part of the process you will encounter doubt you will encounter some level of uncertainty along the way but then you’re committing, that means you’ll stay the course. So fear is part of that. That’s the point and you will encounter fear and then you will deal you learn to deal with it because you committed that’s where you start. The second part is there is an element of risk in everything. I’ll tell you I’m recording this podcast there is an element of risk. You know what? Numerous times I have recorded podcasts for 20 minutes and 15 minutes and later I found out that I did not press the record button. I did not press the record button crazy. And so Wow. Okay, so before that I was before looking let me check if I did press the record button on this one. Yeah, it’s recording. Okay. I’m just checking I’m just checking like fear God and you see that that fear got in.

So prior to thinking that I was recording I probably did like three or four takes and then doing all those stakes I was recording but the last one which was and I deleted those recordings because I was not happy. And then I did the final recording thinking I was recording. I went like 15 minutes through the whole process and then no recording. Okay, so there is an element of risk in everything that we do. Whether you’re getting a phone call, you’re making a presentation, you’re talking to someone, there’s always an element of risk, even for driving unit walking, even if you’re standing inside the house, there is an element of risk. Risk is everywhere. Sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes you feel it, depending upon your understanding event to Everest, people were asking, you know, why go Everest, it’s risky, or less risky because that’s what you were told by the media. But once you educate yourself, you diminished the risk, because you now have the knowledge. That means there is an element of preparation. So every time there is a risk, every time there is some fear, understand that there is a lack of knowledge, there is an element of lack of knowledge. So you educate yourself, let’s say you want, you’re scared of taking an exam. But you know, you have to, and there is a fear. And as a part of that preparation, right, as a part of that fear, you prepare yourself. So the only way to deal with exams is to prepare, and you need to study and you need to ideate, you need to indulge yourself whatever, right, so you got to do what you got to do. And when you do that, it diminishes the fear, and you feel good, you don’t sweat. Now, despite your best preparation, despite your best effort, it’s in dealing with the unknown, dealing with fears dealing with uncertainty It is sometimes you really don’t know how much you have to prepare.
It’s very hard to comprehend. In that situation, you need to learn to go with the flow.

And going with the flow means you’re not anxious about what’s going to happen. And you’re also not predicting in your mind, that’s not going to work. Because I don’t think I have what it takes, or I did not prepare the right way. None of that stuff, you just go with the flow. So you do your preparation, you practice, you prepare yourself, you know that you have to deal with some uncertainty center is amounts certain amount of risk, you go with the flow, you don’t judge yourself in or out of it. Well, you should judge yourself in but not all of it. A part of this process also involves that you always focus on good outcomes. When the pressure is high, when the effort is high, people start to think about the negative outcomes or unfavorable outcomes. It’s very important to think about good outcomes. I recently was involved in a project that dragged off for 18 months, dragged out, we thought we had a win, then we had a loss, we had a win that we lost, we never got the outcome. And it took forever because of one thing or the other. And there were a bunch of us involved with the project. And eventually, after 18 months, we hit the start line, as we got to the finish line, but then that is the start line. And all through while everybody was expecting things will not happen that there going to be some negative outcomes, we stayed focused. When you expect the best, it’s easier to take action. Then while you are dealing with the unknown, while you are dealing with the expected outcome and applying yourself through the process, it’s important that you do two things. One, you learn to relax. Sometimes it is important to detach from the outcome. And only focus on the process sometimes. And sometimes it’s important that you shut yourself away from everything, everybody will be saying some things to you. By the way, our friends do tell us things to us. Oftentimes, they have they want positive from us, but they are they have a negative tone. You need to learn how to filter this out your loved ones, your friends, your family, your extended family, your extended friend circles, they all tell you things, they probably have good things, and they want good outcomes for you, but then the tone is negative. Sometimes the media does things to you. It’s unnecessary to read negative stuff and you’re focused on a positive outcome in life if I’m trying to lose weight and I’m trying to be in the best diet possible and I wake up in the morning and I want to go work out and do things like that. But then I’m listening to some media outlet saying the whole world is coming to an end. Okay, there’s a war there is chaos you know all that so I’m not interested in that. The economy is going to collapse. One country is collapsing other countries are being attacked. Yeah, I get it. I have compassion. I have a concern. And I’ll deal with world affairs when I have when my mice in a scheduled time. Once a week, maybe once every three days, but not a time, when I’m focused on getting to an outcome that I’ve set for myself, for my personal growth, I will not. So engaging in the activity with your fullest self is important.

Now, despite how big of a challenge you have, in front of you, regardless of how big of a fear you have within you, that’s part of how big of an obstacle you have. And regardless of how big of a risk you have, you’re dealing with, I’ll tell you something, understand that you are enough. And only you can solve it. This is an important part of the mindset thing. You are enough. And you have all the resources within you, you are resourceful. You have the capability. And you are doing everything. So important thing to have in mind is a realization that you are enough. I’m sure there is a possibility that you are listening to this podcast for the very first time, this whole podcast, you’re here for the very first time, or maybe you are a subscribed listener to this podcast. If you haven’t listened to anything that I ever said, and this is the first time you are listening to this podcast, I’ll tell you this. The only way you could ever achieve freedom is through freedom, people achieve financial freedom, relationship, freedom, spiritual freedom, and all kinds of freedom people achieve. I’ll tell you true freedom is when you conquer your fears. If you haven’t heard or listened to any of the podcasts here, this is probably the most significant statement I ever made on this podcast.

If you do not conquer your fears, other freedom that you have today doesn’t mean anything. I’ve seen rich people, immensely rich people constantly living under fear. Or somebody is going to put my property some good somebody is going to steal my money, somebody is going to take away the suspect they’re the kind that gets doesn’t work. Unfortunately, what kind of a life is that where you’re constantly worried, constantly anxious? Fear. So the message is on this podcast is this, you got to do something to overcome your fears, whatever fears you have, and the only way that you can overcome your fears is to really do things that frighten you. And again, throughout this podcast, I’m suggesting that you start and you start with that knowledge that no matter whatever that is that you’re trying to accomplish. on that path, you’re going to encounter multiple different setbacks, multiple risks, multiple unknowns, and multiple fears. But then the only way that you can get the freedom is to deal with the fears. And there is no shortcut.

I hope today’s podcast is helpful. If it is do me a favor, write a review, and rate this podcast. If you know someone who you believe will be benefiting from this podcast, then, by all means, do share this with them. Do you have a question? For me. The direct line to this podcast is 888-818-0404. Message me, and I’ll respond to you. That’s all for now. Wherever you are, be safe, take action. And I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Bye now.

How to Overcome Loneliness and Isolation?

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It’s a Monday morning happy start of the week to you. Today, in this podcast, I started with a question that has come in from a very long-time listener of this podcast and also a seminar attendee, a workshop attendee of mine, and also a very longtime listener of my radio show. And the question is Srini, what are your recommendations in dealing with isolation? And loneliness? Phenomenal question. I think everyone can relate to this question in some shape, or form. Because all of us have experienced loneliness and isolation. At some level, you are super successful in everything that you’re doing, you have a certain kind of loneliness on the very top. If you are yet to become successful, and you’re left in the middle, you have loneliness, you may have some isolation.

So we have experienced this at some level. And the truth is this. In order to create any level of success, any level of happiness fulfillment, there has to be an element of you developing a deep affinity towards isolation and loneliness. That means you fall in love with it, you can’t isolate it, you can’t say, How can I avoid this, when you avoid it, it means you are depending on something external to you, or you’re depending on something else. So these things we cannot avoid, these things can be put on us or these things can eventually develop the tennis, this isolation, and loneliness. So I would rather fall in love with this idea. Yes, at some point, I will be lonely. Yes, at some point, I’ll be isolated. So let me build that muscle within me that courage within me to deal with it. I would start with that, with that mindset. Now, I have had people ask me this question. I wish I had a better network. I wish I had a bigger friends circle. I wish I was spending more time networking with people. Maybe I could have avoided the situation? Through? Yes. If you spend a lot of time with your friends. And if you build up a good social presence and things like that, yes, it’s possible that you will feel less isolated, less lonely. But here’s what the data has shown. People who post on Facebook every day, and people who are very active on social media are equally as lonely as those who are not doing it. So I don’t know the answer to that. Right, just being socially more present, will take away loneliness. But the counter to that is that nobody, not nobody should ever go through life alone. And at any point in time, you should have a list of people who you can call and kind of rest your concerns and your challenges on their shoulders. In other words, cry, right? You should all of us should. And that is why one of the recommendations I have is every time somebody calls me and says I am going through this challenge. I’m going to this problem. Should I do some hypnosis? Should I do counseling and all?

My recommendation to them is, first of all, did you talk to someone who is much higher in your perception? That means you give them a bigger stage in your thinking. Maybe your parents, maybe somebody who is much older, seen life and has better wisdom, according to you? Did you talk to them about your problem? And then they’re like, yes, some people say yes, they did. And some people say they don’t. And they will not. And my second question usually is do you have a friend with whom you share this problem? Some people say yes, and some people say no. And then well, if you have difficulty sharing with your friends, you have difficulty sharing with people who have a little bit higher leverage. When it comes to your life, then yes, maybe it makes sense to go talk to a professional at that point. But usually, the majority of our issues and concerns go away, if we have these social structures in place. So yes, it helps. So that you feel less isolated, less lonely if you can get your emotions to result with people who you love and care about. And primarily, if you have friends who can help you. That’s awesome. It’s a great place to start. Now, the question is this. Let’s say you don’t have these things in place. Let’s say you are very lonely. Do you understand that? Yes, these things need to be in place. But then you have not done that yet. Where do you go from here? How do you restart this? Well, one of the recommendations, and again I’m making that here on this podcast.

First is, that you need to talk to at least two family members on a weekly basis. Not your immediate family, extended family. Family is someone who you may probably meet they live maybe once or twice in their entire lifetime, they’re extremely far away from you make an attempt to connect with them. And I do this, I did that throughout the COVID. Last two years, I reached out to so many people on WhatsApp and you know, friends and faraway friends, and just had conversations with them just kind of went back revived some old memories, and kind of told them that I’m there, and kind of got an assurance from them that they are there also do that at the family level, but also at friend level. Some friends whom you have not spoken to, for many, many years, reach out to them and have some conversations with them. This is not to get something from them. That’s not the point. The point is, that you are learning to expand your social presence. So your social network has to grow for you, or it has to grow, and then you need to feel good about yourself doing it. So it’s kind of a practice for you to do it. without expecting anything. That could be many secondary gains from this, the primary gain is that you are engaging in an activity that is expanding your reach. But the secondary gain would be that you will end up getting a best friend out of it. Or you may get some, if people get some referrals, people get some business, whatever all that’s all those are unnecessary, at least in this context, not something that we need to talk about. But then there, there are always some gains. And there could be losses too. But that’s not the point. The point is that you are connecting, and you are getting into the habit of connecting, that’s the most important part.

Now the good friends you have, we all have friends, the good friends you have, most of the time people don’t do, which is having a real-time connection with good friends. That means they only tell a few things, peripheral things they say they say they never really get to the depth of any conversation. And if you do find yourself in that situation where you are not really carrying on, call your friends, your friends, but then you know that you’re not having deep conversations with them. That means it’s not a real contact, you’re not making real contact you’re contacting but not real contact, that needs to be fixed. That needs to be addressed. And you need to have real-time contact with them. And that has to be steady over a period of time. So make sure that the people who you talk to, you’re driving conversations deep. And you’re doing that frequently. And over a period of time. Hopefully, this helps.

Now, again, if we expand this conversation, see you have some passions in you, you have some hobbies in you, maybe those have not been explored. Or maybe you do that in isolation. Why not go join a club or create a band, let’s say you, you do music, create a band, spend some time once a month, right with your friends. Again, the idea is to expand the social circle, not to really become you know, amazing in the activity itself and meet other people, like-minded people. And then you take the same concept and go into a neighborhood. There are people in your neighborhood who are like-minded, and whom you do not know you never met maybe, maybe you need to have a conversation with them. The goal here is to find common interests and do things with them that otherwise they love doing and you also love doing and finding that commonality. That’s the idea behind this. Now, you do these so you take your activity into the neighborhood, you take your activity into some clubs, you take your activity into your family, you take this activity into France, the hope the only activities that you are trying to become more social. If you do this there is no way you will find yourself lonely. And you do that real, not for the sake of doing that means you drive it deep.

If you do it, I don’t think you’ll find yourself lonely. That would be my advice. That would be my suggestion. And again the are so many such things you can do in each segment of life, for example, I’ve seen this happen. And my clients tell me this to people, they hike with some of their friends, they go on vacation with some of their friends, they go to movies with some of their friends, none of these friends are common. Like, they don’t do the same activity with all their friends, there are different groups they do this with. Fine. That’s how it is. That’s how it is, right? Whatever it is, the more you do this, the more frequently you do this, the more depth you drive into this, and the lesser the chances that you’ll find yourself lonely. Now, I’m not saying this, because you can completely avoid loneliness because this is a state of mind. And you could be in the greatest of company and still find yourself lonely anyway. So I would rather build my friendship but the loneliness, I expect the loneliness. I expect isolation. But at the same time, from my side, I will do everything to make sure that I’m reaching out and building my network and I’m acting social and accommodating other people in different aspects of my life with an idea that I’m doing my part. I’m doing my share.

Hopefully, today’s podcast is helpful. If it is do me a favor, read it, write a review, and share it with your friends and family. You have a question for me 888-818-0404 is the number where you can call you can text and I will use your question as your voice question as I’ve watched drop in my podcast and I’m going to answer your question. That’s all you are off to a great start for Monday. And I will see you tomorrow. Tuesday. Thank you Take care. Bye now.