Push or Pull

I was right there in the classroom yet lost in my own world, then suddenly a discussion took place which intruded ruthlessly into the dreams I was having.
The professor was talking about what motivates a person to perform better the "PULL" from within to excel OR the "PUSH" from the external world to perform one's best.

If you give it a thought, the obvious thing is that both are important, after all our personalities are a reflection of both the environment in which we are brought up and our own self (soul/mind/ brain etc.). However I feel its the pull which is far more important than the push, not that the push doesn't make a difference, it definitely does , but a sincere pull is far more effective. Its like doing something which we really want to do against something we are forced to do . All of us in our childhood had subjects which we did not like and those which we loved, and our scores were mostly better in those subjects which we really wanted to excel in. Of course some of us would say, "what about the external factor called dad who used to be after us with a cane forcing us to perform better "? Well even in that case we would not have performed better until we ourselves really wanted to do so. isn't t?


Consider students in a college ( say a B school :) ), we here are constantly under pressure to complete assignments and make presentations and I know for sure that even if Professors put tremendous pressure on us to make the best presentation, yet we pour in our efforts only for those presentations which excite us , where we want to excel and the rest are mere formalities which we have to fulfill in order to get the degree.


I did my engineering from a descent engineering college ( one that was not perhaps as famous as IIT or NIT, but was descent enough to get all the 1000 students a job at the end of 4 years ) and now I am Pursuing MBA from a reputed college in Pune.I see a big difference in the attitude of the students , the one's in the small not so reputed college are aware of the fact that they have to put in that extra effort to achieve their dreams and this comes from within ,and their performance increases multi fold, whereas those here in a reputed college tend to take the "brand name" of the college for granted . As a consequence they do not give in their best and perform much lesser than what that could have done despite the external pressure form faculties to perform better.

Let me tell you about a dear friend.

He hails from a small town in Bihar, educated in a school where the vernacular language was the mode of communication yet today he is working in a MNC in Bangalore, a job for which million others in metro cities are still dreaming of.
His oratory skills could challenge any convent educated student.

That said the question is how did he do this ? The answer is simple - sheer will power. It is his PULL that brought him accolades. There was no push involved, no external factor compelling him to do better, but the desire to excel and the passion to succeed which elevated him to a position that many of us envy.

We spend a lot of time pondering over what is that is lacking in our life which prevent us from being successful. Well its alright to think and find the gaps in our life and fill them, but we should not be obsessed with these gaps and keep pondering over them. Instead we should focus on the ample opportunities in front of us and that would make a lot of difference . Not only would it make our life more positive it would also prevent us form wasting time in pondering about what we lack in our life :). The pull from within would come only if we look at the opportunity in front of us that promises us success and not by pondering over the external push factors which we lack.