Spiritual Success by Gopika Kapoor

Today our Guest blogger, Gopika Kapoor  talks about her new book, Spiritual Success. Her previous articles like 5 Learnings I want to share after being a parent for 9 years, Ponder over this now than wonder what went wrong when they are teenagers! and Because I am worth it  have been a popular read for parents.

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Gopika Kapoor, the author of well known books like Spiritual Parenting: Wisdom (and Wit) for Raising your Child in a Stress-free and Spiritual Environment. Today she talks about her new book,Spiritual Success which will be out next month.

The  New Successful

I’m really excited my latest book Spiritual Success is open for pre – order now. I’ve written this along with my husband Mohit (which as you can imagine, was challenging!), and together we’ve explored how to achieve success, follow your ambition and create a balance between work and the rest of your life – all by following spiritual principles.

This got me thinking: what are the images of success we are passing down to our kids? How are we teaching them to define what is successful, and how to achieve it? There’s really no doubt about the fact that our generation of kids are way more ambitious, hard working and multi-faceted than we were; but they’re a lot more stressed out as well.

We all want our kids to be successful, but like Mohit and I have written in our book, we usually tend to define success by other people’s standards. We feel successful only if we have beaten someone else. We view our achievements only in comparison to others. The concept of being successful for yourself, of challenging yourself against your own self, thereby raising your own bar of excellence exists with only a few people. And they are the ones who are truly successful – beautifully combining a holistic and seamless sense of accomplishment, well being and abundance in every aspect of their life.

So how can we teach our children to incorporate this holistic idea of success into their lives? The first thing we have to do is teach them that there is abundance in the world. In other words, there is enough success for them and everyone else. The simplest way to do this is to celebrate every other kid’s success along with theirs. Remember that we are our kids’ biggest role models, and when they watch us being genuinely happy and cheering when any child participates and wins, they will learn to do the same.

The other thing is to de-mystify competition. I attended a talk by Partho, a great teacher from the Aurobindo Society that made so much sense. According to him, if our child has won a game, race, etc. but has not learned anything or been stressed throughout it, she would not be a winner. If on the other hand our kid has come last but has enjoyed every minute of the race, then she has actually won. Once we talk to our kids about this and get them to understand it, they will figure out whether they have won or lost for themselves.

So the next time your kids win a tennis match or come first in a race, why not ask them how they felt about it. This will give you an idea of how to teach them a more holistic concept of success. And while you’re at it, remember to cheer for the other kids as well!

Gopika thank you for this lovely piece and wish you lots of luck with the new book.

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