INTRODUCTION

It is statistically proven that about 10% of the world population controls almost 90% of the world’s resources, while 90% of the world population controls only about 10% of the world’s resources. Everybody wishes to be successful, but only a few people succeed.

On the other hand, nobody wants to fail in life, but there are more people who have failed than successful people. It’s not out of place to say success is the wish of all, but achieved by few people; failure, on the other hand, is the wish of none, yet achieved by many. The big question is why? Why are there more people who fail than those who succeed, since everyone wants to succeed?

Success is a universal desire. Everyone wishes to be successful in life, and each person believes, in their own way, that they are either already making progress or are actively working toward achieving success. But here’s the big question: If we all wish to succeed and we are all making efforts to succeed, why do we not all succeed? The answer lies in the mentality we hold toward success. Many people have erroneous mentalities about what success is and how to achieve it. While wishing for success and making efforts to succeed are important, they do not guarantee success. What truly leads to success is knowing and applying the principles of success.

Think of it like mathematics. There are specific formulas and steps to follow in order to solve an equation. A slight deviation from the right steps will inevitably lead to the wrong answer, irrespective of your intention to solve it correctly. That is to say, it is the quality of your actions, not your intentions, that determines the result you get. Success works the same way: you must correctly follow the principles to achieve it, regardless of personal opinions or beliefs.

This article is built on the premise that we act to succeed in accordance with our mentality toward success, and whether that mentality is right or wrong, we can’t help but simply act in accordance with it. It is a fact that if your mentality toward success can be changed, your actions must change to correspond with your new mentality.

WHAT IS MENTALITY?

Mentality is defined as the habitual way of thinking or interpreting events that is unique to an individual or group of individuals. It shapes the behaviors that people exhibit in response to various situations. Essentially, it refers to the mental attitudes that determine how we perceive and react to life’s challenges. When we talk about mentality toward success, we’re referring to how an individual perceives success and approaches the pursuit of it. Your mentality toward success is the true version of what you believe success is and how you plan to achieve it.

To truly understand the essence of success, it’s important to recognize the different mentalities people hold. Over time, I have taken time to carefully observe and document how people behave when trying to achieve something or in their attempts to succeed in life, and I have identified three types of mentalities in the race to success. The three mentalities are:

1. The Wisher Mentality
2. The Failure Mentality
3. The Success Mentality

Here, we are going to look at each of these mentalities, their characteristics, and how people who possess them behave. We are also going to point out which mentality actually produces success and provide practical and factual tips on how to realign your mentality to achieve the success you desire.

Nothing is as common as the wish to be successful, but remember, in every battle, unless the thought of victory and curiosity for the knowledge of how to achieve it predominate the mind, the battle is doomed from the start.

---

THE WISHER MENTALITY

The person with a wisher mentality toward success is he who makes no effort to succeed but sits down hoping to succeed. He believes success is luck and not a by-product of prolonged planning and struggle. His wish to succeed dominates over effort, planning, and action. He confines his effort to wishes and strongly believes he will luckily succeed someday.

In school, he absconds from classes and studies carelessly; during examinations, he writes very little because he has not studied much, yet somehow in his mind he believes he will pass the exams. In life, he is not sure of what he specifically wants to do or become. He wishes to be successful in life, but the majority of his activities tend toward becoming a failure in life. His effort, or the nature of the activities he engages in, is in direct contrast to his ambitions and what he desires in life.

How To Identify Someone With A Wisher Mentality Toward Success

If you possess a wisher mentality, the following characteristics might explain some of the visible behavioral traits when attempting to achieve a goal.

• He is good at procrastinating: he has a unique way of putting things off until a later time. In other words, he unnecessarily postpones what he can and should do now. “Always planning, never implementing” best describes him.

• Other people’s achievements are often his topic of discussion: he derives pleasure in discussing what other people have achieved; in fact, he is at his best moment when such topics are discussed.

• He lives in the present and always seeks instant gratification: he always prefers the fish to learning how to fish. Tomorrow never concerns him; all he cares about is today and now. Anything that holds no promise of immediate benefit is not of much interest to him. He suffers from what I call ‘future blindness’ because of his inability to see beyond today and now.

• He tends to be proud of what someone he knows or is related to has achieved: he usually brags about what someone else has achieved. “My father is this” and “my uncle is that” are popular utterances of someone with a wisher mentality.

• His ambition is unstable: his wish lacks focus. He wishes to become many things and achieve a lot at once. This is particularly so because he never considers the effort required to achieve what he wants, because he assumes somehow, mysteriously, or miraculously, he will luckily succeed.

Helpful Facts For Those Who Possess A Wisher Mentality

If you possess the wisher mentality toward success, the following facts will assist you in making meaningful changes that will positively improve your perspective regarding success and how to achieve it.

“Making a success of something has nothing to do with luck. Care, thought, and study go into making something succeed; luck is what you get playing the lottery, roulette, or gambling” (West Robert).

Success is a conscious achievement; you can’t just sleep and wake up successful or accidentally jump into success and then figure it out afterward. No one luckily becomes a professor, a doctor, a musician, or an author. Success is the product of purposeful thinking and hard work. Until you set a strong and clear demarcation between luck and success, you might be chasing a mirage or shadow. Hoping to succeed with luck is like searching for fire beneath water. Success is the achievement of a set goal or something you have aimed at; luck, on the other hand, is accidentally getting what you never planned for or aimed at.

Ask people who have succeeded to find out if they accidentally succeeded; as a matter of fact, truly successful people expect to succeed before they succeed. A pianist, after playing magnificently, confessed to his applauding audience. He said, “If you know how hard I have worked to achieve this, it wouldn’t look special at all.” Eddie Cantor, an American comedian, once said that it took him twenty years to succeed once. Successful people are like swimming geese; they appear calm on the surface but are paddling rigorously underneath to stay afloat. A renowned world boxing champion said, “Champions are made from something they have deep inside them.” Don’t be carried away by the flashy appearance of champions; try to know their struggles. It is the most profitable thing to learn from every top achiever.

Success is not an overnight event; it is a combination of several right choices and decisions and the reward of previous effort. Success is therefore not a target to be pursued; it is the result you get when you have pursued and achieved a target. I was at a life coaching program, and the guest speaker requested five people to answer a simple question: “Who do you see yourself as this year?” One of the volunteers responded by saying, “I see myself as a rich man.” “I see myself as a rich man” is a mere statement of wish. I do not wish to criticize this volunteer, but it is a fact that one cannot just become a “rich man”; you have to do something and succeed in that before you become a “rich man.” I have never seen a rich man who has pursued becoming a “rich man” as his career or target in life, but I have seen doctors, lawyers, teachers, politicians, entrepreneurs, farmers, fashion designers, builders, nurses, shoemakers, computer programmers, etc., who have devoted time and effort toward perfecting their skills and actualizing their dreams, and people call them “rich men,” and that is if, by calling them “rich men,” they mean to call them successful men and women. If your desire is only to become rich, you might never achieve your desire; instead, think of what you will do.

Luck in the quest for success is when preparation meets opportunity.

A man named Steven Spielberg dreams of making a certain film. In his effort to actualize his dream, he wrote the script. He had no producer but needed someone to finance it. While he was still looking for a producer, one day he was walking on the beach when he met a man who was willing to invest in young filmmakers. Spielberg was able to shoot his first film titled “Amblin” in 1968 with the money he received from that man, and that film he shot was honorably recognized at the Venice Film Festival, which made him known and popular in Hollywood. Today, Spielberg is a well-known and respected movie director in Hollywood. He has won several awards, including the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995. Think of what would have happened if Spielberg had not written the script when he met that producer; trust me, you will only succeed by luck if you have worked hard enough to take advantage of available opportunities. Abraham Lincoln said, “I will prepare and one day my chance will come.”

Success recedes from those who wish to acquire it effortlessly; success comes only as a by-product, a reaction, or a bonus for something you have invested yourself in.

Dennis Kimbro and Napoleon Hill said, “Success is not a product of fate, chance, or luck; it is the result of a burning desire that knows no defeat.” You will never succeed if you sit and do nothing. Success is a reaction, and for any reaction to occur, there must be an action. It looks great and attractive to see a champion receiving a medal after a contest, but the truth is that they did not become champions in the ring. They are only recognized in the ring.

Certainly, the success of tomorrow is the reaction of today’s action; if you want your future to be bright, you have to start working toward it now. Alan Kay said, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it now.” Felix G. Rohatyn said, “The choice is between doing something and doing nothing, and doing nothing never gets you anywhere.” Success and hard work are two different things but are joined together by the same head. He who seeks either is bound to find the other.

Until your ‘WISH’ graduates to ‘WILL,’ you will never be successful.

‘Wish’ is weaker than ‘Will.’ It is not strong enough to overcome excuses. ‘Will’ is eager to act and strong enough to overcome excuses and face challenges. Everybody wishes to succeed, but only those who are willing to succeed will succeed. It is quite obvious that a sleeping cat will never catch a rat. Similarly, an idle man will never succeed. In place of wishing things were different, begin to make things different and mold your life to the shape you like. Note that ‘Wish’ alone keeps you idle, but ‘Will’ gets you busy, and it’s better to be busy even for nothing than to be idle. Washington Irving said, “Great minds have purpose; little minds have wishes.”

---

THE FAILURE MENTALITY

Those who possess a failure mentality toward success are those who believe failure awaits their effort. They struggle but never believe they can succeed. The possessor of a failure mentality sees success as an exclusive party to which he is not cordially invited. In school, he attends classes and studies really hard, but during examinations, fear and anxiety cause him to forget all he has studied, only to recall it after the exam is over.

In life, he might be working toward becoming an engineer, entrepreneur, musician, or pursuing any noble ambition, but the moment any obstacle stands in his way, he gives up and moves to another thing, where he will equally be discouraged at the onset of any potential obstacle. A single word or act of criticism will make him say, “I will never do that again.” He tends to settle where there is not much criticism, no challenges, no obstacles to face, and not much risk to take. He lives somewhere below average.

How To Identify Someone With A Failure Mentality Toward Success

• His fear of failure is more than his desire to succeed: he really wants to succeed, but his fear of failure is greater than his desire for success.

• His effort to succeed is apathetic: he has no passion for what he is doing; he does it as if he is forced to do it.

• He has low self-esteem: he lacks self-confidence and genuinely believes he is inferior. Hence, he expects very little in life because he thinks he does not deserve much.

• He does not see the ultimate goal in an idea or in a project, but he clearly sees the problems involved: he focuses his mind on potential pitfalls and challenges, which cause him not to see the ultimate goal of an idea or a project, but to see all the problems involved in actualizing it.

• He is not a good initiator: he is comfortable being a supporter; he does not want to initiate something or make his idea known because he is afraid that he might go wrong and make himself vulnerable to criticism.

• He is a good discourager: when you come to him with a brilliant idea and plans, he derives pleasure in pouring cold water on them by showing all the problems involved in actualizing them.

• He tends to flee from any pursuit that demands sacrifice and risk-taking: he does not want to get involved in anything that has the slightest possibility of costing him something. He prefers living safely and shies away from risk-taking.

• He finds it hard to acknowledge his weakness: he has excuses to justify almost all his weaknesses when they are pointed out to him.

Sometimes ago, when I started learning to play the snooker game, I learned how to play faster than most people. Within a few months of playing, I played with people who had started playing far ahead of me, and I often won. But the challenge was that I only won against those I did not know how well they could play. I hardly won against players I personally considered pros or those whom I rated as more skillful than I am.

My biggest challenge was when playing against the person who taught me how to play. I never played with him and won, not because the quality of my skill was not capable of winning; I didn’t win because deep within me I didn’t believe I could play against him and win. I believed I could not win because he was the one who taught me how to play, and he had been playing for more than five years ahead of me. I unconsciously assembled a mental roadblock that prevented me from winning. I always, in the name of humility, accepted defeat even before the game commenced.

Whenever I was playing with him, I was not playing to win; I was playing and expecting to lose, and I unconsciously did everything within my power to lose, even when I could have won. I started winning against him when I was able to fully convince myself that I could actually play against him and win. From then, I stopped playing to lose and started playing to win.

I believe this story does not only apply to the snooker game. In the game of life, you will succeed only if you stop living to fail and start living to succeed.

Helpful Facts For Those Who Possess A Failure Mentality

If you possess the failure mentality toward success, the following facts will assist you in making meaningful changes that will positively improve your perspective regarding success and how to achieve it.

Those who win or excel in a race are those who truly think they can win even before the race commences.

No one can make you succeed if you think you cannot. No one can stop you from succeeding if you think you can. It does not matter what others think about you; all that matters is what you think of yourself. If you think you can, so it is; if you think you can’t, so it is. Your thoughts are your driving force and roadmap to your future and destiny. If you think you can succeed, you will certainly succeed; if you think you cannot succeed, it is also certain you will not. Henry Thoreau said, “Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our private opinion. What a man thinks of himself is what determines, or rather indicates, his fate.” It is what you picture in your mind that you will go to work to accomplish, and when you try and believe it is possible, there is nothing you set your mind to achieve that cannot be achieved.

Obstacles are like a mirage; you keep seeing them from afar, but they disappear when you approach them with a triumphant gesture.

There are obstacles in every dream or goal. There were obstacles on the way of Wilbur and Orville Wright (the Wright Brothers) when they wanted to invent the airplane. There were obstacles on the way of Thomas Edison when he wanted to invent the incandescent light bulb. Today, airplanes fly, light bulbs light, and those obstacles are nowhere to be found. Oftentimes, the obstacles that stand in the way of our goals or destinies are those which we have not yet confronted. The key to overcoming the obstacles you foresee is to start going and keep going with a winning and no-retreat attitude.

Of what value will success be to you if you have never experienced failure? In his book Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare said, “He jests at scars that never felt a wound.”

Success would not be a great and special achievement if it were easily achieved. The struggle involved before it is achieved makes it a great and special achievement. Whoever desires to succeed without facing challenges should bear in mind he will never experience the true pleasure of success. If you have never experienced disappointment and failure, or if disappointment and failure are not possibilities in what you do, it is clear that succeeding in that thing means nothing.

What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly. Maintain a positive attitude toward success even when you fail or when the going gets tough; consider it a price we all must pay before we can claim victory over failure and mediocrity. Norman Vincent said, “A successful man will never see a day that does not bring a fresh quota of problems, and success is the ability to deal with them without giving up.”

Attempting something without hope for success is like expecting failure and working to achieve it.

Dr. Court Ritcher, a psychologist, carried out an experiment to demonstrate how negative thoughts affect effort. Dr. Ritcher used two rats in his experiment. He dropped Rat-1 into a tank of warm water and timed the reaction. Rat-1 paddled and swam around for sixty hours before it finally gave up and drowned.

He added step two with Rat-2; this time, he held the rat tightly in his hand for a few minutes until the rat stopped struggling, then he dropped it into the water. After splashing around for a few minutes, Rat-2 passively sank to the bottom of the tank and died. Dr. Ritcher concluded that Rat-2 died in a few minutes not because it couldn’t swim for sixty hours like Rat-1, but because the inability of Rat-2 to free itself when he held it before dropping it into the water had convinced it that its struggle was bound to fail. Whoever lacks hope for success lacks the strength to succeed.

---

THE SUCCESS MENTALITY

The possessor of a success mentality is he who believes success awaits his effort. That is, he struggles to succeed and firmly believes he will succeed. In school, he attends classes and studies hard. During examinations, he puts down what he has studied with confidence that he will pass in flying colours.

In life, he wants to become what he wants to become, not what circumstances can make him. If he wants to be a doctor, he directs most of his activities toward becoming a doctor. When asked what he wants to become, without a moment’s hesitation, he will tell. Obstacles, disappointment, failure, and critics do not stop or scare him away from actualizing his dream.

He stays focused and keeps working toward actualizing his dream, no matter what the situation is, until he achieves what he sets his mind to achieve. He might be disappointed or unable to achieve a particular goal at a certain point in time, but he never gives up. He believes he will win the ultimate war even if he loses some occasional battles.

How To Identify Someone With A Success Mentality Toward Success

A possessor of a success mentality has the following characteristics:

• He believes in himself and has confidence in his abilities: those who possess a success mentality have confidence in their ability and tend to believe success is possible in what they put their time and effort into.

• He keeps his eyes on the goal and almost ignores the potential problems and challenges: a success mentality possessor focuses more on the goal and the positive side of an endeavor because he possesses a deep-rooted belief that whatever the problem might be, he will be able to solve it.

• He hardly gives up or becomes discouraged: challenges that cause others to give up make a success mentality possessor more determined to achieve his objectives.

• He believes he can achieve what he sets his mind to achieve by doing what it takes to achieve it: his desire to achieve a set goal is backed by hard work, knowledge, and creativity. His confidence is not baseless; rather, it is well rooted in doing what it takes to achieve what he wants.

• He is a self-disciplined individual with strong willpower: most people require supervision and constant external motivation in order to achieve a goal, but a success mentality possessor understands that external motivation might not be constant, and discipline is required to maintain consistency.

I recently watched an old clip interview made 40 years ago where Donald Trump was asked by the TV host if he wanted to become President of America in the future. He answered by saying not at the moment, but if he decided to contest, he was going to win. He said it without a flicker of doubt in his tone. Most people will pass it off as a statement of wish, but those who possess a success mentality make statements with the understanding of what it takes to achieve them and with the determination to do what it takes, make changes where necessary, and keep working until the set goal is achieved.