“When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe then you’ll be successful” — Eric Thomas

One of the biggest barriers in life is learning how to deal with the want to succeed in a healthy way. Personally, I disagree with the bolded quote above. I feel as though this quote perfectly embodies everything in which has prevented me in times from living in a free way. For me, when you want to succeed as badly as you want to breathe all it does is make it harder to breathe. All the expectations that come with wanting to succeed so badly make it hard to enjoy life or do something so involuntarily like the whole action of breathing. Wanting to succeed so badly puts you on the path of being extremely successful in self-destruction. You may reach what you have always wanted with this mentality but it will come with a cost and is what I like to call “self-definement”.

“Self-definement”: the way in which somebody views their own selves.

To me, self-esteem is very different than “self-definement”. My view on “Self-definement” is that it is more of a static way of perceiving yourself; whereas, self-esteem is very dynamic in the way it often fluctuates with mood. “Self-definement”, to me, is more deeply embedded than self-esteem in the way it is how someone would define their own selves and worth at any given time possible.

When you want something to happen so incredibly bad it often becomes a part of you in which it is hard to take away.

Ideally, you want every part of your life (family, work, sports, school, etc.) to be balanced equally to create a well-rounded being. When you want something “as bad as you want to breathe” it starts to overcompensate and take over other parts of your life that should be equally important.

This concept can be explained visually by looking at the pie chart located on the right hand side.

To me, each slice of the pie chart represents the percentage in which the “item” persuades your life and your own self-definition. In other words, it is the percentage of your life that you voluntarily give to the particular “item” in order to allow it to define you. When you give one part of your life more power you are allowing yourself to be defined by it; however, when all parts of your life are equal you are not allowing yourself to be defined by just one aspect of your life.

From my own experiences I have learned that giving one area of your life more priority than another mainly leads to these three things:

a) lessening the successes you achieve in other areas of your life

b) taking the enjoyment out of the activities in which you love

c) allowing all your satisfaction and pride to derive from only that area of your life

From my own experiences I have come to the conclusion that when you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe then you’ll NOT be successful, because, in my opinion, this is an unhealthy mindset. This is a major sign that wherever you want the success to come from should be the same thing in which you stay away from OR build a healthier relationship with.

Breathing is a necessity of life which means it is a thing that a person must have in order to survive. So, when you say you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, you are saying that without it you could not survive, which is often contrary to reality.

With this mindset, you are feeding your brain that if you do not accomplish every single goal you put on yourself in that particular field than you would be incapable of surviving and that is a sign and form of addiction.

Addiction: the need or strong desire to do or to have something, or a very strong liking for something.

When you view almost anything on the same pedestal as breathing you are in one shape or form addicted to that particular thing.

If you think of your life as a pie chart it should look something like this:

Living a balanced life, in my opinion, will open these doors for you:

a) the ability to feel free and not be defined by one particular area of your life

b) the ability to appreciate all areas of your life from a healthy perspective

c) the ability to really come to terms with yourself and understand all of which you are in order to see that you have so much to offer the world

From my own experiences, when I do something without any conditions or expectations of myself it ends up turning out the way in which I could only have imagined; however, when I focus solely on the outcome and whether or not I was successful, then all it does is eat away at everything that makes me authentic. The passion for what I love quickly fades away because all I am focusing on is being successful— that I can’t even breathe properly.

Now I am not saying you do not have to work incredibly hard to achieve success. What I am saying is that there is a way to do just that but in a healthy and balanced way that does not take away your ability to breathe.