New Delhi, July 28 : Most humans tend to aim high but run into a mental block when it comes to striving to achieve their aspirations. One needs to dissolve the apprehensions and scepticism that causes such blocks to tap one's true potential and be prepared for whatever life throws at you, says Anand Saxena, who served in the Indian Army for 32 years before retiring as a Major General and has now written a book detailing nine mantras that prove the importance of creative visualisation and positive affirmation in taking you to your goals.

"Dissolve blockages and resistance from your mind. We seem to have an inability to honestly believe that our grand vision or goal will indeed be a reality. While we wish to achieve something and even take action towards achieving that goal, we remain apprehensive or sceptical about whether we are really capable of achieving it," Saxena told IANS in an interview for his book, "Nine Mantras For Happiness And Success" (Redomania).

"There seems to be a mental block, an underlying resistance in our mind, which doesn't allow us to unfurl our true potential. I have detailed the alchemy of dissolving all blockages and resistance from your mind so that you can tap the pure potentiality of your being. I also suggest ways to be prepared to be ready for whatever life throws at you.

"The nine mantras are tangible scientific evidence to prove the importance of creative visualisation and positive affirmations in realising your goals," he added.

"It is a fact that all of us eventually seek happiness and want to avoid unhappiness in life. Success for us also denotes the achievement of glory and joy in the chosen field and yet, most are or perceive themselves to be unsuccessful. Just look around, we find that bulk of humanity is unhappy or unsatisfied with what they have or don't have.

"Why does this happen? It is my firm belief that success indeed leaves clues as also successful persons do. In my quest for clues to this profound question, I read scriptures of all religions and life stories of hundreds of successful persons from all walks of life. I also read lots of literature/books on success and its principles by prominent authors. Some precepts started to become clear to me due to this twin-pronged study as if a heavy fog had lifted," Saxena said of his research in writing the book.

He also looked back on his life and introspected. There were areas where he had emerged very successfully while in many other areas, he had only achieved mediocre success or even failure. The jigsaw puzzle fell into place for him once he compared his successes and failures against the mantras gleaned from his study.

The book thus contains the essence of our scriptures, the life-stories of 79 successful (or otherwise) organisations, persons, products and his real-life (and near-death) experiences over the last 52 years, for 32 of which he was serving the nation in the Artillery and the Army Aviation Corps.

"I am not an achiever extraordinaire, but a common man like you and therefore am convinced of the power of the 'Nine Mantras' for happiness and success. I have divided the book into nine simple steps, referred to as Nine to Fine, which has helped me achieve success and happiness. Many of these steps were taken unknowingly at that time but have been thoughtfully remembered and collated in one place, to provide a blueprint for happiness," Saxena pointed out.

What, then, are the nine mantras?

1. Dare to Dream...Big. Whatever you wish to manifest in your life must be manifested first in your mind and the Universe will deliver your dream to you.

2. Concretise your Dreams. Set tangible goals that will be your loadstar on your voyage of success and provide you with a definite benchmark against which you can measure your progress towards your dream.

3. Persevere. There is nothing called failure. Failures or perceived failures are bound to be there along our journey to success as they are the lessons you need to learn to embrace success. Success is 10 per cent inspiration and 90 per cent perspiration. Innate talent is there in a few and can help one to go up to the starting block, but the grand achievement is "Talent plus Preparation plus Perseverance". One should never give up -- the end in the road as seen from far may turn out to be only a bend and for your good.

4. Have a Positive Attitude. The ability to take the inevitable reverses in your stride and remain optimistic about the eventual outcome is an ability that is worth its weight in gold. This positive attitude can be the critical difference between outstanding success and miserable failure.

5. Normal is Passe. Dare to be Different. Aryabhata, Thomas Alva Edison, the Wright Brothers, Steve Jobs, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, all brilliant innovators and creators, had one thing in common: They looked at an issue differently and asked themselves, "what do I do which can help humankind or improve their lives?" Learn the nuances to be "hat ke" (different).

6. Continue to Grow and Reinvent Yourself. Truly successful people do not only achieve success but also retain it for a very long time. Enduring success can't be a one-shot phenomenon; it needs deliberate efforts to repeatedly look at yourself, your organization and competition and take firm and resolute steps to keep improving.

7. Winning and losing are habits, develop good habits. Eighty per cent of the tasks or work that we do is out of sheer habit. Even successful people must be doing a lot of activities daily that directly contribute to their success, out of habit. Conversely, those who find the going tough also must be doing a lot of things wrongly as a matter of habit. By following the discipline of consistent, good habits over the years and decades, successful people experience the power of compounding, which further turbocharges their performance. Learn the methodology of forming good habits and forgetting bad ones.

8. Be Happy: it's intrinsic. Happiness is directly correlated with success. Whenever we compare ourselves with someone else, we are bound to feel unhappy. On every parameter of life, we are going to be inferior (as per our perception) to some other person in the world. If we seek happiness extrinsically, we will invariably fall short, but if we are intrinsically happy, the circumstances of life will fail to ruffle us.

9. Visualisations and Affirmations. Every manifest human-made thing that we see around or every superhuman feat that human beings have achieved, was first created in the mind of someone. That man (or woman) was convinced, in the core of his/her heart, that whatever could be visualised could also be achieved or created -- this is the power of positive affirmations and creative visualisation at work.

There you have it. All that is now required is the 90 per cent perspiration to make it work!

'Dissolve mental blockages to achieve your true potential'