How to try hard without fear of failure? || Acharya Prashant, International Psychology Summit (2023)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant?  Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...    Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?  Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...   Video Information: 16.02.23, International Psychology Summit Conference, Delhi   Context:  ~ How do I stop being afraid of failure?  ~ Is fear of failure a mental illness?  ~ Why do I fear to change?  ~ What causes the fear of failure?  ~ How does one stay motivated?  ~ How to know our real purpose?  ~ Why can we never fulfill our resolutions?  ~ Feeling exhausted after a day's work?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00Good evening sir, my question is how do I face the fear of physical or psychological

00:15pain when I am trying to level up my efforts. So it's in context of putting out a great

00:19effort and maintaining the consistency in putting the great efforts.

00:25Great effort towards what? Towards anything may be physical, may be intellectual.

00:29You cannot put efforts towards anything and expect the whole thing to go soundly and healthily.

00:39Let me give you an example. So let's say in gym if we pick up some weight, a heavy

00:45weight we picked up and first set goes on well but I am scared of you know again putting

00:50up the second set of the weights because I'm scared of the pain I have to go through again.

00:57So I become sort of… It all depends on the reason you go to the

01:03gym for. See if you will talk to gym owners, they will tell you that the dropout rates

01:14from gyms are unbelievably high and that's the reason they try to lock you in through

01:23long term membership programs. They will say two months a high amount, six months

01:32a comparatively lower amount on a per month basis. Come on you, enroll for a year and

01:39then you will get a good deal. Why do they need to do that? Because they know very well

01:44that unless you lock yourself in for a year, you are likely to drop out by the end of the

01:51first or second month. Why does that dropout kind of thing happen? Because we do not really

02:00know what we are going to the gym for and that's the reason why there is then demotivation

02:09and lack of energy. Do we have clarity of purpose? Do we have a goal worth striving

02:26for? And if you have that kind of a compelling and beautiful goal, the goal energizes you.

02:39The goal keeps you on track. The goal makes it impossible for you to drop out. Now without

02:48having a goal of that sublime quality, if you still want to keep striving, it will become

03:00very difficult for you and that's the reason most people find themselves short of energy

03:08and enthusiasm. Please think why most of our resolutions go unfulfilled. I resolve

03:21to do this and at the moment of the resolution, it appears also clean and straight. Yes, obviously

03:34I am going to do it. Just two days later, you find your mind is elsewhere because whatsoever

03:45you are trying to do does not really arise from your deepest inner clarity. It comes

03:52from some kind of an influence from somewhere and influences are aplenty. If you can take

04:03up the gym because you are influenced, you can equally well drop out of the gym because

04:10you are influenced. Got carried away by one wave and entered the gym. But the ocean of

04:24life just keeps waving endlessly. Another wave comes and drags you out of the gym. Did

04:37we really enter the gym on the legs of our own solid clarity? No, we were swept in and

04:48if one thing can sweep you in, the other thing will definitely sweep you out. The

04:56same thing happens with most other things in life. Enrolling for a course, entering

05:07into a relationship, signing up for a job. How much clarity do we really have? Or basic

05:20daily things like deciding to lose some weight or learning to play guitar or learning to

05:33swim. It all lasts a maximum of 14 days. And life keeps presenting us with such evidences

05:51and yet we do not bother to stop and ask what's going on. Are these desires even mine? All

06:00targets are desires, right? Are these desires even mine? And if my life is a continuous

06:10sequence of actions aimed at desires, then is even my life actually mine? Or am I living a

06:24random life? A life that has no root in the within. Then in some sense we are not even alive.

06:40You can call it as the myth of life. We are not even alive. Why not? We are not alive because

06:56because there is no solid inner center called the I. I know that is that is not there. It's

07:06intriguing and beautiful. Vedanta calls the ultimate truth as I, Atma. Think of it. Why

07:20should such a peculiar name be given? Why should these two be equated? How can Satya and Atma be

07:30one? But that's what if there is no unconditioned self within, then there is only falseness in

07:40entire life. I'm not sure whether the answer is addressing your query at the granular level. But

07:54I'm trying to provide a framework within which all such queries can be seen. People say but I

08:05don't feel like going to my workplace. That's because that is not your workplace at all. You

08:13have just incidentally landed there. And now you are trying to just drag the dead thing on. In

08:30marriages they call it as the seven year thing. After seven years you feel terribly tired of your

08:38spouse. And then there are either divorces or extramarital or many other things they start

08:47happening. That's because the fellow was not your spouse at all. It's like being drugged and wedded.

09:01How is that fellow your spouse? Aren't we all living in a perpetually drugged condition?

09:10So questions to think of. Not sure these are answers in the conventional sense.

09:30Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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