Simple formula for success

The new year has begun and there is already a lot of work to do. There are 3 print advertisements and a website for Aero, a shopping cum answers site for PM, a massive redesign of AI and the exhibition stall’s graphics for Acumen. All of it needs to be done within the next 8 to 10 days! My biggest problem is lousy time management. If I make a timetable, then it means I ll definitely not do anything according to in actuality. I have a very nasty habit of doing nothing till the last moment. Some call it working under pressure. But this habit stops me from creating some really great work. My clients like what I create but I m never satisfied with it beyond a few days. I think the reason for this is lousy time management skills. Being an artist or a programmer or a good singer or anything that you may be, is not enough!

In fact I had made a list of things required for someone to become tremendously successful in a particular field. Here I mean a field directly related to some form of creativity like acting, film making, music, computer artistry, performing arts etc. The following things are a must and you WILL find at least 75% of these attributes in anybody who’s made it BIG in a creative field:

• Talent. (Most of us have this)
• Willingness to put in excruciating hard work. (Few of us have this)
• Perserverance (Most people dont even know the meaning of this in the true sense)
• Time Management Skills (Few of us have this)
• An effortless, steady resource of funds (Very few of us have this. With this you can seriously experiment with your art without hassles to create something unique. But many a times, pseudo-artists with financial resources start falsely identifying themselves as true artists, thus creating nuissance for us)
• Lady Luck (This can be the proverbial women behind a successful man or simply luck)
• Decent family background and upbringing.
• A foolish or ‘real’ belief in the self. (You must believe in yourself, at least foolishly, this helps the third point in this list)
• Some amount of cunningness. (Surprised? This is the most important element to make it really really big! You may have noticed that some people are really deserving but they have reached nowhere, the reason for this is the lack of this last point. It is a serious contradiction to art but it is true. All super achievers have some amount of cunningness in them)

I am sure there are some points that can be added here. But more or less these 9 points are required to come in the public eye as a successful person. Not all are necessarily required. 50% of this is good enough to keep you decently happy, the bills are paid and you have a life. Less than that is called struggle and more than that is called gifted! Also the degree to which you have the above points will make a difference. If you are decently talented but are not so keen on hardwork then please count both of those as ‘one’ point.

So how many points are you? If its not a very pleasing number then you know what areas you need to work on!