Personal Development

In this 4 part blog series, I’m going to share with you about the Triangle Theory for Success and in the first post, I briefly talked about the 3 corners of the triangle that you need to keep in balance in order to help you in the attainment of success.

It is very important for you to know how to tap into each aspect of life and fully utilise it to help you achieve the goals that you have in mind. And the first corner that I’ll be touching on in this post is the Mental aspect.

The mental aspect of the Triangle theory is targeting the optimum capacity and functioning of your mind such that you are able to control your thoughts and feelings as well as obtain and maintain your mental well-being at its very best.

Why is this so important?

Our minds control the functioning of our body, heart and spirit such that whatever we believe in, think and cognitively process and evaluate will influence our actions, behaviors, values, beliefs and spirit. We are always affected by the way our minds think. Whether we look at a situation as a failure or an opportunity, all results from the way we process the information that we have in our minds. And how we evaluate the situation may just open or close the door to our success.

In order to attain success, it is always good to model after those who have attained success in their lives. So, look at all the successful people out there – Warren Buffett, Donald Trump, Walt Disney, Oprah Winfrey etc.. Frankly, if there’s a common thing about them, it is the way they think. They are always very positive and able to turn situations around whenever the circumstances call for them. Think they got their success overnight? No! They are also human beings who have experienced bouts of failures but at the same time, have been able to re-evaluate and process information and jump at opportunities that appear before them.

Successful people always occupy themselves with positive energies and do not let stress, failures and negative feedback weigh them down. This is something that I am most impressed about them. Their resilience as well as ability to reappraise negative situations and be able to change the way they react and adapt to their environments immediately, are what keeps them going on their pursuit of success.

Thus, when you enhance the mental aspect of your life, you’ll be able to rebounce back from failures, see failures as opportunities and regard threats as challenges. You will look at things differently and will think out of the box or creatively. In fact, when you are able to reappraise things differently, you might come up with fascinating ideas which can help you achieve success earlier.

So, how do you achieve that same tenure and ability? How do you enhance the mental aspect of your life?

Firstly, you need to surround yourself with things that help build you as a person.  They can be people, working environments and even the things you read. Look at the people around you – are they people who are positive, optimistic and happy? Remember “Birds of the same kind flock together”, hence if you feel that you are not in a group that is as charged and motivated as you wish it to be, this might be a factor of hindering your drive towards success.

Now, I’m not asking you to stop hanging around with the group you are currently with. I’m asking you to find people who are able to build you to become an even better person. Find a mentor or find a friend who is driven towards success as much as you are. Before you’d realise, you’ll be attracting a lot of other people who are equally driven naturally to you. Those whom you associate or hang out with really can impact the way you think, feel, act and behave. So, you want to be successful? One good way will be to try hanging out with successful people.

Next, make sure that the environment you are working in allows you to function optimally in the mental aspect. Make sure that you are in an environment that is challenging you to pursue even greater results and goals. You have to be always on the go in order to keep alert of the situations and opportunities around you. If your environment is not stimulating, you might find yourself just losing all creativity, interest, ideas and dreams.

One good habit that you might like to start on is by reading inspirational books and magazines to spur your spirit. There are many in the market and in fact, there are many free ones online. Reading such books will ignite your desire to achieve the best in your life and you need to make sure that you continually feed on positive and inspirational material in order to keep your dreams and goals towards success alive. Success does not always happen overnight. Sometimes you get disappointed with your progress and it’s always good to have something to trigger your drive again.

Before I forget, always remember to let your mind breathe. The mental aspect of your life not only needs to be charged but at the same time, it also needs to recharge. Find activities that enhance your mental wellbeing such as going out with friends, going for concerts, exercising etc. You will find that doing so can help you destress and be able to cope better with the demands of the work towards success. Overwhelming yourself will only serve to decrease your abilities in concentration and idea generation which might hinder you from achieving success earlier.

I hope that you have benefited from this post on the mental aspect of the Triangle Theory and how it is important to enhance it to achieve success and as well as the steps to do so. There’s nothing I’d like more than you actually applying it in your life and seeing the results from doing so. Like I said, success does not always happen overnight. So do be patient when adopting the ways to enhance the mental aspect because your success in doing so might take some time before you’ll begin to see the fruits of your labour. 🙂

Remember to check back on Part 3 of the Triangle Theory! 😉

I’ve been getting a lot of questions by people who say “How does (Some succcessful person) strike a balance in mental, physical and spiritual aspects of his/her life?” and they go envying the life and the achievements of the person. Frankly, I’m also one of them. I always go on thinking how do people get it ALL? Not that I’m jealous of them (note that jealousy is a very negative affect), but I’m interested to model after them to get that perfect balance in my life too. Thus, I thought of the Triangle Theory for Success where in order to achieve success, there must be a balance between mental, physical and spiritual aspects of one’s life.

I like to think of our lives having a shape of a triangle where the 3 corners are the mental, physical and spiritual aspects of our lives. And each of these aspects have equal weightage of importance and should either one of them be lacking, there will be a tilt and the balancing of the triange will be affected. In order for you to be able to achieve success, you need to have all 3 corners in sync and be able to tap into the powers of each aspect to work to your advantage.

So, are the mental, spiritual and physical aspects of YOUR life in balance?

First, let me explain the 3 different aspects.

In my opinion, the mental aspect of life is being able to control your thoughts and feelings and obtaining and maintaining your mental well-being at its best.

How do you achieve that?

By surrounding yourself with those things that help build you as a person and being around people who are positive, optimistic and happy. Before you’d realise, you’ll adopt a similar mentality with those whom you associate or hang out with. Then start reading inspirational books and magazines to spur your spirit and ignite your desire to achieve the best in your life.

In addition, get involved in aesthetic activities such as visiting mueseums, concerts etc. and learn to take a breather from the stress of family and work and constantly recharging yourself and your energy.

Next, the physical aspect of our lives would be to lead a healthy lifestyle and have a healthy body. You need to start putting in effort to eat right and healthy and start exercising regularly to make sure that your mind and body are constantly moving to prevent ‘stagnation’.

Lastly, the spiritual aspect of our lives is being able to achieve spiritual balance in whatever we do and believe in. There’s a need to ensure that we grow as a person and spiritual growth is dependent on the individuals, meaning what works for you may not work for another. Growing spiritually in depth depends on factors such as how deep your faith is, how much time are you willing to put in to seek knowledge in the area as well as your calling to your faith.

So, think about it, how much do you want to achieve success? How are you going to achieve this balance? 

Whoever told you everything is easy! Remember you’ll need to put in enough time and effort in order to achieve this balance! So start working towards that today!

Now that I’ve shared with you the 3 aspects of life that are important for you to strike a balance between, in the next few posts, I will tell you how to tap into each aspect of life and fully utilise it to help you achieve the goals that you have in mind. I am sure that after striking this balance and fully making use of your talents and abilities that are uniquely yours and yours alone, you’ll be all set to achieve the greater things in life.