The title may seem way too cliche but by studying the Zen, how the subconscious mind works, failing and hitting the rock bottom three times myself, and studying the successful people in history, I have realized a thing or two about getting success and would like to share my findings with you my readers in this article. If I condense all of my findings in one sentence, it will go along the line of something like this: Focus not on the success or the result, but on perfecting the art. Now, you may be wondering “Whoa, whoa, whoa, if I am not thinking and doing it to gain the end result then why I am doing at the first place.” Wonder not because your wonder will be answered if you would finish reading the article.
If one would study the well-known successful people in the history of human kind, then a consistent pattern emerge; that is, these successful people all focused on the art, not on the results. For example, Steve Jobs, he concentrated all his effort on revolutionizing the tech-world, his success to him was measured by how revolutionizing the product he spreaheaded, not by how much material wealth or power he gained. He was a borderline psycho-perfectionist, demanded perfectionism from his workers to the point for many it was impossible to work with him. Now, look at how he did and how much he still influences modern tech-world even after his passing for many years. All his focus was on his products and wouldn’t release them to the public unless he is satisfied one hundred percent. Then, all the wealth, fame and power followed. Another great example, Kobe Bryant. In his interviews, he would always say that he was obsessed in mastering the craft, the game of basketball. Obviously, he wanted championship trophies, multiple mvps, but his main focus was always on mastering the art of basketball. Then, the success followed him: 5x NBA champion, 1xMVP, 2xFinals MVP, 18x All-star, 4x All-star MVP, 15x All NBA, 1x Oscar. Alexander the Great, his father who was the king of Macedonia was assassinated when Alexander was only around 20 and there were multiple occasions where others tried to assassinate Alexander before he becomes the king but he was one step ahead of his competition, killed all of the plotters, gathered his army and started his 10-year conquest of invading the Persian Empire when he was only twenty years old. All his focus was on conquering the world, not the power or fame; thus, he perfected the art of war and battles. He was a phenomenal leader on the battlefield, he would actually lead the charge in the front. Usually, he was outnumbered at least 1:2 and was battling on unknown territory; yet, managed to win all of the battles and conquered the whole Persian empire. Nikola Tesla, he didn’t give a shit about wealth and fame and only focused on his scientific inventions and applying and introducing his inventions to the world. We wouldn’t be enjoying our today’s technology if it wasn’t for him. And, the list the historical and legendary figures and their deed go on.
Now, let me explain why focusing on perfecting the art brings success while chasing the result would usually bring shortcomings and failures based on how our subconscious mind works. The main drastic difference between the two is this: when one is only focused on perfecting the art, his focus is undivided and all of his energy is being spent on only one goal whereas when one is focused on the end results such as money, fame, power, comfort…etc, one’s focus is divided and energy is scattered all over the place. Then, how do these two different approaches and mindsets bring different results? Well, it has to do with how our subconscious mind works. Our subconscious mind works like a computer software/program. A computer program like for example Matlab, doesn’t know what is right/wrong, what you actually intend/not intend…etc. Whatever you put in, it produces it. If one puts in a buggy code full of typos and wrong values in Matlab, then the program would compute completely wrong value/result. My thermodynamics instructor used to say that if you put in trash in the program, you would get trash back meaning if you put in wrong values and wrong equations, you would get wrong results and answers for the engineering design because the program doesn’t know what you are actually trying to achieve, what values you want to put in…etc. This is exactly how the subconscious mind works. If a person is constantly thinking about problems, failures, anything that is counterproductive and destructive, the subconscious mind doesn’t know that these thoughts are bad; to the subconscious mind, everything is neutral, it doesn’t have its own discerning ability. Whatever one may put in in one’s subconscious mind, the mind automatically seeks every possible method of achieving whatever the task and belief it was given to achieve and make it reality.
Let’s explain the above paragraph with an example of an average student. When an average student is in an academic institution and studying, her focus is usually not on perfecting the subject she is taking, but on getting good grades or on just getting by. You see, good grades is just an end result. She is not focusing on the art of perfecting the subjects, her subconscious mind is only taking a command: get good grades or just get by. When this happens, then there are many different approaches to fulfill the command of getting good grades and the subconscious mind entertains all of these different approaches. For example, to get a good grade, one can study the whole subject, pull-off an all-nighter, cheat during the exam which is the easiest yet the most unethical, propose any kind of favor to her instructor in exchange for a better grade, many more ways or just ignore the goal and quit on herself on the idea of getting good grades because the task may seem too daunting and the energy and focus is all over the place. This is why she is finding it hard to focus on studying since all the other and different methods of achieving good grades keep coming into her mind and making her lose her focus on studying. Meanwhile, the exceptional student is not focused on getting a good grade. She is solely focused on perfecting the subject she is taking. This mindset and attitude will not only fail to bring her success but also brings work ethic and undivided attention and focus. She would be studying and doing her best digesting all the new knowledge and putting it into use all the time not just before the test or the deadline of a project. As a result, success follows her, she would be acing her tests left and right effortlessly since she has been only focused on perfecting the art. It’s as simple as that. When the attention and focus was on the end result, her subconscious mind comes up with various different ways of accomplishing the end result which in turn renders her focus and attention divided and as a result, she couldn’t gather herself to accomplish the goal and make her produce mediocre result, meanwhile when the subconscious mind was only focused on one goal of perfecting the art, her attention and focus gained clarity, did all she can to perfect the subject, then as a result, excellence followed. Therefore, to get success, it is must to for us to feed the correct values and information into our subconscious mind so that our expected result can be brought; otherwise, if we would give it faulty values and information then it would produce trash.
From a different perspective, this main idea of not trying to force the result and just enjoying and perfecting the art is the main tenet of Zen philosophy. In the book titled, Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel, the author articulates his point and finding that the goal of an archer is not to hit the target/the end result, but the art of archery lies in being completely in sync with the motion of executing the whole process of shooting the arrow, focused on the moment by moment, all muscles relaxed, strength and muscles only used when necessary, and ultimately dispersing his sense of self and becoming the bow, arrow, and the target himself meaning there is no difference between him and other objects — the bow, the arrow, and the target. By entering this mode of selflessness, then the archer achieves the flow state, the one hundred percent focus, the zone, the effortless effort mode where things are happening to him rather than he is making it happen. This erases his focus on achieving the end result/hitting the target and renders him completely in the moment and there is no single ounce of energy leak. In Japan, during the national competition of archery, competing archers are not only scored on how precisely and accurately they hit the target but also on their forms as well. Therefore, it can be said that Zen also promotes the idea of only focusing on one thing which is perfecting the art and being completely immersed in it instead of going out there and trying to accomplish a certain end result which would make the archer’s energy and attention divided and create a mediocre result.
For the last few years, I have been trying to successfully build my business up and failed three times already. During my cadet years at the United States Military Academy West Point, I have failed a lot too. I failed academically, couldn’t achieve my desired GPA, militarily I was neither the best nor the worst, and the same can be said about my physical development too. My cadet career is the prime example of not great, not bad, just good enough. Don’t get me wrong, I truly tried for excellence but whenever I came short of my expectations I felt down, got stressed over and over again to the point everything seemed meaningless and pure torture. At some point, I was even entertaining the thought of committing suicide because I was perceiving and experiencing everything about my life as hindrance, annoyance and pure torture at the academy; it was that tough. I wanted all of these negative feeling to end; and to end it, suicide seemed as a viable option. Fortunately, I overcame and graduated from the Academy in 2016, fully prepared to become an army officer and with a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical/Mechatronics Engineering. And, the last time I failed to achieve my end result with my current business which was a few months ago, that thought of suicide resurfaced. I wanted all the pain to end. But I laughed at myself and said relax, “We have overcome worse than this, we can overcome this and actually thrive.”
These moments of hitting the rock bottom were truly humbling experiences, made me realize what’s important and what is not in life and taught me what I was doing wrong. As far as my personal business is concerned, the main reason why I wasn’t getting the result I wanted was simply because I was too focused on the end result/the wealth and materialistic gain of having a successful business. Instead, from the beginning, my focus should have been solely on perfecting the art/my business. Currently, as much as I want to go back in time and start all over again my cadet years or my business with a correct mindset and attitude, without these experiences of hitting the rock bottom, I wouldn’t have realized the importance of being in the correct mindset at the first place, I wouldn’t have realized what is important and what is not in life and I wouldn’t be the person I am today. So, my reader, you don’t have to believe in my theory of success but actually, I want you to go out there and try this theory, experiment with it, fail, fail, fail, gamble everything on the line to the point your whole mind is only focused and dedicated on the goal of perfecting the art not on other things such as partying, chasing girls/boys, friendships with fake people, checking social media, others’ thoughts about you, having fun and good times, activities that produce instant gratifications, money, fame, social status, constant feeling of fear and anxiety, release yourself from all the bullshit and focus only on one thing: perfecting the art. If your focus and clarity on perfecting your craft is SOOO dominant and you are completely dedicated, then all the bullshits mentioned above disappear anyway. Get into the zone, the flow of life, ride the wave, make your whole existence the zone. Thank you for reading, thank yourself for taking a time to read this~ Good luck!
