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15 Steps on Road to Success Quotes From 13th Century Mystic [Rumi]
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Discussions about, and search of, the right steps to take on the road to success is not a new phenomenon. Individuals over centuries have attempted to reach success. And many of them were very good at doing so. Today we will review the teachings of a 13th century mystic and see what he discovered to be the secrets to taking the right steps on road to success.
Rumi Introduction
Rumi was born as Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī. He lived in Persia during the 13th century, from 1207 to 1273. Rumi received a theological education in Syria where he studied Sunni Islam. He was a scholar, a poet, a dervish, and a Sufi mystic. However, he is considered a successful man not because of the education he received, but because of the impact that he was able to make during his lifetime and beyond.
Rumi’s words and works transcended national borders and religions. Different types of people were and are his admirers, not because he understood a specific religion or science, but because he understood people. He understood the driving forces of humanity and was able to relate this knowledge to us in the most profound form of communication, poetry.
You may even consider this as the ultimate success, that 800+ years after his death he is listed as the “best selling poet” in the United States.
15 Steps on Road To Success And Inspirational Quotes from Rumi
- Do What You Love
- Fly Don’t Crawl
- Make Your Own Path
- Don’t Give Up
- Trust Your Instincts
- Discover Your Life Balance
- Know What To Ignore
- Work On Self Improvement
- Practice Gratitude
- Be Silent and Meditate
- Pray When You Are Down
- Learn From Your Pain
- Stop Worrying
- Be Open to Change
- Trust That You Have What You Need
1 Do What You Love
Let the beauty of what you love be what you do. – Rumi
The first stepping stone on the road to success is to do what you love. Hold the eyeroll for a second, and let’s unpack this further.
You were born with a specific natural ability, or abilities. These are defined as your strengths, these are the things that you love to do.
Therefore, to begin the road to success you need to discover these strengths, and work on improving them.
Discover Your Strengths
To discover your strengths, you need to do some introspection.
Journaling is an excellent way to practice introspection, along with regular daily and quarterly reflections. We covered some excellent ideas for reflection and journaling prompts in Effluo Reflect and Review section.
There is no right time for introspection, it is something that you should practice on ongoing basis. You will change with time and new experiences. You need to understand how you are changing.
Improve Your Strengths
The second reason to discover your strengths is to know what you should work on. By understanding your strengths, you will also weed out your weaknesses. There is a power in knowing your weaknesses, so you can delegate them and not waste much of your energy on them. Focus working on your strength.
If you choose to work on your weaknesses, and ignore your strength, you will end up in mediocre at best.
And yes, you must choose. You cannot work on everything at the same time. By focusing on everything you will improve nothing.
If you choose to work on your strength and delegate your weaknesses, you will be exceptional.
2 Fly Don’t Crawl
You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life. – Rumi
To lead a life of success you need to dream big. Do not just settle for anything. The only reason that you may be settling is because of fear. It keeps you in your comfort zone. Throughout his works Rumi speaks of love as the ultimate power. This brings courage, calmness and audacity to dream.
Once you discover your strength, you discover your wings. Do not hide them, work on developing them. Dream big.
Any big dream is achievable, it can be broken down into smaller steps and successfully achieved. Our Effluo Quarterly Planners do just that. They help you discover your potential and take you step by step towards achieving your dreams.
3 Make Your Own Path
It’s your road, and yours alone, others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you. – Rumi
This has to be one of the best success quotes ever written. It can be looked at from so many different perspectives.
Do Not Compare Yourself To Others
If this is your road you no longer need to compare yourself to others as they have their own roads. There is no one road for all. You have your own route and for you it’s the right path.
Do Not Copy The Lives of Others
Yes, we do study the lives of great people to learn from them. However, in no way should you look a life of a great historical figure and try to copy it. It will not get you far. You should look at lessons that they learned and apply them to your life. This will make your application unique to you and you alone.
Likewise, do not try to copy the lives of people that you follow on social media. Pull out the parts that you like and apply them to your life, but make them your own. To quote Pablo Picasso “good artists borrow, great artists steal”.
Do Not Let Anyone Tell You How To Live Your Life
Do not take unsolicited advice on what you should do and how you should live your life from just anyone. If you ask for an opinion from a person you admire and respect, then they have the full authority from you to give you their opinion. However, often, you will hear opinions from people who you never consulted for an advice. Typically it’s a good rule of thumb just to say thank you and move on.
Whether it’s a person you admire that is giving you advice, or not so much, remember, in the end it is your decision whether or not you choose to follow that advice. Remember that this is your road to success.
As Rumi wisely stated, no one can walk your road for you.
You were created for this life because you are strong enough to live it.
4 Don’t Give Up
You’ve seen my descent. Now watch my rising. – Rumi
Whenever you step on road to success and begin a journey of following your dreams, you will face a long road of trials with occasional unexpected turns. You will step out of your comfort zone, you will put in the hard work, and face a great deal of stress. With all of that you may stumble, make mistakes, or fail.
Rumi in his wisdom knew that, and reminded us that it is not about the fall, it is all about the rise. With each mistake you become better, stronger, wiser, a.k.a. develop ‘thick skin’.
What you once looked at as an experience of trial, second time around may be your achievement. Look at your rate of failure as your rate of growth. The only way to grow and become better is to go the extra mile and try new things. Do not be afraid to fail, and if you do then don’t give up. Rise.
Therefore, Rumi, in this amazing quote states that it is not about the descent, it is about you rising again.
5 Trust Your Instincts
Your heart knows the way. Run in that direction. – Rumi
The road of life is a big road with many turns and detours. Rumi reminds us that you already know where to go, but you need to learn to listen to yourself.
Have you ever done something knowing deep inside that what you were doing was not right for you? That is exactly what Rumi is talking about. Whatever you do, be certain that you will be able to say that you truly followed your heart.
6 Discover Your Life Balance
Life is a balance between holding on and letting go. – Rumi
Life is a balance. You cannot focus on everything at once. If you do not learn to prioritize things that are important to your goals you are putting yourself on a long road of disappointment.
Unsuccessful people typically focus on the unimportant, urgent things. These little things, yes they might be urgent, take them further away from their life goals. Instead of being the driver they become the passenger of their own life. This endless battle for life balance with urgent tasks driving your decisions can lead to a life of failure. The key is to find the balance by prioritizing the things that you find most important.
You probably heard about work life balance. But what does that even mean? Have you ever stopped and asked if your work should be part of your life? Why separate the two? Do you not live during your work? Life is so much more that work and looking for ways to balance it.
Define what that means to you and complete the Life Balance Wheel exercise to evaluate not just work, but your social environment, your relationships, your spiritual life, etc.
Realize that what you consider as life balance will be different from people around you. It will also change within different periods of your life. It is a great idea to complete the life balance wheel exercise on quarterly basis to determine if you are living to your definition of life balance.
Our Effluo Quarterly Planners do have a life balance wheel exercise in the beginning of each quarterly planner. You can also download the free Life Balance Wheel PDF for your reference and use.
7 Know What To Ignore
The art of knowing is knowing what to ignore. – Rumi
Part of living a balanced life is knowing when to say ‘no’. All of the little things you are tasked with come with extra cost. This is a very expensive cost as it is preventing you from living out your goals and focusing on the right things.
When you are consuming information, stop and ask yourself how it is serving you in your pursuit of the goal. Is this something that has direct impact on your path?
Ask yourself if the information you gathered can in any way be influenced by you. If so, make the necessary action steps. If not, it is OK to ignore the information.
You are in control of what information you chose to keep and what to discard. Similarly you are in control of what goals and tasks you choose to agree to and not agree to perform.
Be very selective with your time and energy.
8 Work On Self Improvement
Yesterday I was clever so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise so I am changing myself. – Rumi
You may not be always able to change the circumstances around you, however you are always in control of how you choose to react to the circumstances. To be a successful person you need to start working on self improvement.
Best place to begin is to find out your strengths and work on developing them. Be aware of your weaknesses and learn how to remedy them.
Sometimes just having an awareness of your weaknesses can prevent you from a downward spiral of self criticism. If you always focus on what you cannot do, you will not get far. Instead, just focus on your strengths and become an unstoppable force to be reckoned with.
Likewise, as Rumi reminds us, do not try to change the world. Begin with yourself and everything else will follow. If you are content with yourself, you will radiate self confidence and calmness. People will automatically be drawn to you. You cannot fake this. Authenticity is key.
Self awareness and self improvement are necessary steps on road to success. They provide you with self confidence and help you discover your strengths.
9 Practice Gratitude
Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed every corner of your life. – Rumi
When you begin your road to success remember the importance of gratitude.
Do not ignore the good things in your life. Focus on all of the things that are present around you and be grateful for them. Have the appreciation of earth and its gifts, of technological developments and the benefits your reap from them, of your relationships, etc.
Make a practice of regularly documenting what you are thankful for. Try not to repeat what you wrote the day before, and so many things will open up in front of you. Live a life full of thankfulness for what you have.
Likewise, do not forget to be grateful for people that helped you along the way. If you had someone support you in times of extreme stress, repay them with kindness. If someone gave you an idea for an amazing business, include them in the profit sharing. You will only grow as a human being and this practice of gratefulness will make you more successful.
10 Be Silent and Meditate
The quieter you become the more you are able to hear. – Rumi
The real strength of your personal character may be your ability to sit in a quiet space alone with your thoughts. In quiet time of prayer and meditation on your thoughts is when you can hear yourself the most.
This practice of silence is very powerful.
First and foremost you will begin to hear your own thoughts and pay attention to what truly drives you. You will then have the ability to evaluate your thoughts and determine if they are truly yours or just echoes of opinions around you.
Second, and just as important, by becoming silent you will begin to listen to people around you. Every person you meet has something to share. Just imagine how fulfilling your life would be if you spent the time learning from them. You can learn a best way to do something, or what not to do. You are part of a community and were not meant to go through this life alone.
Stop and listen to yourself and to people around you. You will be amazed at what you can learn.
11 Pray When You Are Down
When the world pushes you to your knees, you’re in the perfect position to pray. – Rumi
On your road to success you may be pushed down. Rumi kindly reminds us that when you are pushed down to your knees, you are in a perfect position to pray and seek for strength from God.
This is a good time to stop and reassess your situation. You can seek guidance from God and you can evaluate your situation. In other words, you are in a position to regroup, so you can rise again.
The real test is not how you drive on a good road, but how you handle yourself when the road gets tough. Every time you are down on your knees, use it as a stepping stone to your subsequent rise.
12 Learn From Your Pain
These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them. – Rumi
Don’t ignore your pain, acknowledge it. Don’t ignore your failures, learn from them. Very often God will allow certain trials in your life to make you better, stronger, and wiser. Trust that He has your best interests in mind.
Olympic athletes are not born being elite athletes, they are born with the potential to become elite. It is their training and the hard road of pain and trials that gets them to the mastery levels.
Use your hard times as stepping stones to a better and improved version of yourself. Because you need to be ready to live the life of your dreams.
13 Stop Worrying
Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? – Rumi
Rumi reminds us that worry is the enemy of success. In tough times our thoughts of worry and stress may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. In this powerful statement, he asks, why do you stay in prison when the door is wide open?
You may find yourself paralyzed with fear and worry, when you can clearly move on. Think back through your fears, how many of them were manifested into reality? Take the advice of this very wise mystic and be empty of worrying, go through that open door to find your potential.
14 Be Open to Change
When someone beats a rug, the blows are not against the rug, but against the dust in it. – Rumi
You cannot reach success by being the exact same person that you are right now. On this road to success you will need to change. Majority of successes and stories about success are riddled with times of tests and trials. Do not shy away from something just because it feels uncomfortable. Try new things, do not be afraid of failure, celebrate your successes and learn from your failures.
Remember, you are a changing growing being. You are not perfect, and to reach your dreams you need to be willing to change. That means, you need to be willing to change your opinions, to grow and be willing to accept others for who they are.
15 Trust That You Have What You Need
You wander from room to room hunting for the diamond necklace that is already around your neck! – Rumi
Finally know that you have what it takes to reach your dream. The only thing that can prevent you from reaching your dreams is your attitude and set of beliefs. If you believe that you will not make it, you will not. If you believe that you will make it, you will.
You truly have what it takes to reach you definition of a successful life. Don’t look for it in others, there is no secret routine that will make you successful. Like an Olympian who was born with the potential to become great and was not afraid to go after that, you can reach your greatness by using what you were gifted with.
You cannot reach greatness by copying others, by pretending to be someone you are not. Be yourself, and use that gift to benefit others.
Summary of the 15 Steps on Road To Success And Inspirational Quotes from Rumi
Rumi was able to discover the secrets to living a fulfilling life because he learned the key to life, that is love.
Love yourself, love the people around you, be grateful for what you have, and you will have an amazing life.
Rumi died in 1273, it is said that people of all religions including Christians, Muslims, and Jews came to his funeral. They all agreed on one thing, that he deepened their faith and appreciation of life regardless of their religion.
Put the following 15 rules to live by, as a guide for yourself and see the difference they will make in your life.
Steps on Road To Success
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