This article is written by Ramanuj Mukherjee, CEO, LawSikho.

To succeed as a lawyer, you need 4 qualities. Actually, you need these to achieve any major goals in life.

Aspiration, Desperation, Inspiration and Perspiration.

Even if one thing is missing, you will find it hard to succeed.

Good news is that all these 4 qualities can be cultivated. The more you practice these habits, the easier it gets for you to deploy more and more of these qualities, and therefore pursue success like an unstoppable force. From just concepts, these must become a habit for you.

How is that going to happen?

Let’s start understanding what these are and why they are important.

Aspiration

When I used to take classes for CLAT coaching, I used to begin the first class of every batch by asking the aspirants about why they want to become a lawyer. Some used to say it’s the money, some would say because they think lawyers are very powerful and they want to become powerful themselves.

Some would just say that their parents wanted them to become a lawyer hence they were forced to take it up.

I pretty much knew in the first class itself as to who would probably crack the exam. The people who were going to crack, the look in their eyes, their body language, everything was different from the rest.

What was that factor? Aspiration. Those who aspired to get into a top law school worked with amazing focus and single-minded ferociousness.

Tony Robbins says that people are not lazy. They just do not have goals that do not inspire them.

Most people set achievable, easy, small goals, and then do not find any motivation to chase those goals.

A part of mastering your life is to understand what motivates you and to self-motivate oneself continuously to push against barriers and pursue growth rather than comfort.

However, everything starts from setting ambitious, big, scary but highly rewarding goals. You are far more likely to work hard towards such ambitious goals, and forsake goals that are not very big or rewarding.

If you decide to lose 5 kgs, I don’t know if you will follow through. That sounds like a mechanical, boring, arbitrary number to chase. Sure it’s an improvement, but does it connect emotionally? Is it something that will excite you in the morning? Is it worth dreaming about all night? Is it worthy of putting on your bedroom wall, so you can fall asleep while you are looking at it?

Say you set a goal that you want to wear a dress that you always wanted to wear but cannot fit into anymore due to gaining excessive fat, on your next birthday. Or that you are going to climb Mount Kilimanjaro on 1st January 2020. Or that you are going to an amateur karate competition in 3 months from now.

Such a concrete goal is far more likely to keep you motivated and keep you going even during bad times.

This is also why a lot of men talk about 6 pack abs or the warrior body. The image in their mind inspires them much more than a gym routine can.

Close your eyes and imagine you being so fit that you could walk into a Hollywood movie set. Imagine everything. Imagine what you are wearing, the appreciation of people around you, you are looking amazing standing in front of the mirror, taking it all in.

Now if you keep doing this once every few hours, you will soon be burning with the desire for looking that great. You will be ready to do anything to get there. That is the aspiration.

What would happen to you if you set such goals and created an aspiration to become an amazing lawyer? What would that look like? What would your average day be like? Where would you live, what kind of matters will you work on, how much will you be charging per hour?

Such goals are very powerful. They are visceral. You need to visualize these goals, again and again, until your body, mind and soul is aligned to get there at any cost.

Also, aspiration must be kept alive. You cannot feel it once and then let it go.

Put up posters in your bedroom. Keep reminders next to your work table. Set your password with your goal.

Keep your aspiration burning. It is the most important fuel, and without it, you will find the journey very very hard.

The good thing is that even if you have only a little of it, you can get started and then gradually increase that aspiration. Grow it like one grows fire, by feeding it again and again. By giving it attention, by focussing on it time and again and feeding it with new images, new thoughts and new ideas.

And that brings us to the next quality.

Desperation

Aspiration once fuelled sufficiently, becomes desperation. In all things in life, desperation is not necessarily good, but desperation in matters of self-improvement and big goals is very good.

This is because desperation helps you to focus on what matters right now in exclusion of everything else.

Your life is not conducive for success. You have TV, internet, social media, porn, music, movies, people asking for your attention and help and thousands of types of entertainment to distract you from your goal. Especially our new generations have grown up as entertainment addicts, whether we realize that or not.

Apart from digital media, there are tons of situations in our lives, from our own urge to socialize and procrastinate to people disturbing our peace intentionally or inadvertently when we are trying to get work done. There would be many, many obstacles every step of the way.

Those who succeed do not succeed because they have all these obstacles removed from their path so that they can run freely, but because they scale those obstacles and learn how to succeed despite obstacles.

This does not happen without desperate focus and continuous pursuit. Aspiration can fade away or forgotten when you face a fire fighting situation, but desperation gives you the overwhelming drive you need in order to attain incredible levels of success.

Smart people often put themselves in desperate situations.

Once Asian Paints brought in a new consultant at the top, they wanted to grow their business faster.

The consultant asked how long they take to introduce new products. He was told that the company launched only one new product every year.

The consultant then told the management to announce that the company will launch one new product every month for the next year, taking the total of new launches to 12.

That was insane, and everyone in the company protested. This was unachievable. There would be disasters, we have never done this before. We have not even planned anything properly! We will ruin the brand with sub-par products!

The management, however, went ahead with the announcement. Catalogues were updated with new products to be launched in the next one year. Information was given to dealers, distributors and retailers. Pre-orders were registered.

The company had no choice but to deliver. Or face serious ignominy. They had thrown the hat over the fence, and now they had to scale the fence to fetch it. Going back without the hat wasn’t an option at all.

All 12 products were launched on time, and record-breaking sales growth was registered.

What can we learn from this corporate parable? That creating desperate situations, in which you have no option but to succeed, works.

It is called burning the bridge strategy. It worked for ancient war generals. It works for me too.

When I started iPleaders, I was able to earn a very good sum from consultancy. I decided to stop it altogether and focus all my time on online courses at a time when it did not give me income security. However, that left me with no option to fail! I had to succeed in the online course business. The leap of faith worked out. But it also worked because I was desperate and had no easy way out, not even in contemplation.

That’s how I prepared for law entrances too. I had no back ups. If I didn’t make it, I would have been in grave trouble. So I prepared as my life depended on it.

You should push yourself into desperate situations from time to time, and that would make you a tougher person.

How can you do that?

Say yes to opportunities even if you don’t know how to do something. Take it up and then go learn how to do it.

Chew off more than you can bite. Stretch yourself. So many of you save all your time for studying but in reality, don’t even study. Commit to several projects and then work like crazy to make it happen.

You will never realize what strength you have inside you until you find adversities and overcome them. Rather than waiting for a crisis, smart people put themselves into a creative crisis that forces them to grow.

What kind of creative crisis can you create in your life?

Many people say that they do not have time to go to the gym, or to start a new business on the side, or to just take up a course. Fine, you don’t have time. What you actually mean by this is that you would not be comfortable if you made time for such intense tasks. Maybe you will have to sleep less. Maybe you will have to become more efficient. Maybe you have to push your boundaries and go where you have never gone.

So commit to it. Pay at the gym for the next 3 months. If you don’t show up, the money would be wasted. Take up some clients on the side. Now you have to deliver! Announce a new project and make sure you cannot back out. Join a course and make full payment, now you have to take the value from the course!

That’s how you create a creative crisis in your life. Please take advantage of it!

Inspiration

Aspiration and Desperation are internal. What about our environment?

That’s where we find inspiration. Our internal state is not always reliable. Things will happen around you that will disturb your ideal internal state from time to time. How do you counter that?

That you have to do by surrounding yourself by inspiration. You either have distraction and de-motivation or inspiration and motivation in your environment. You can choose what you want and plant it there.

Spend some time on this. Plan your environment. Where do you sit and work? Where do you sleep? What people do you meet? That’s all part of your environment. Design an environment that supports your aspirations.

I follow certain pages on Instagram because when I open my social media for a dose of procrastination and social media addiction, that is what stares me at my face. These people and quotes and their images remind me of what I want to achieve in my life. It invokes aspiration and makes me more desperate to reach my goals.

Initially, it wasn’t like that. I followed random facebook friends and ended up staring at some random holidaying pictures or other irrelevant things that didn’t contribute in my life.

Fierceness matters. What would inspire you to be fierce, unstoppable, relentless?

Can you surround yourself with those things?

What about books? I surround myself, everywhere, with books that inspire me. If I go back to my home in Kolkata, there will be books on the table on which I usually sit that I want to read. I have already strategically placed them there.

There is always one book on my bedside table. There are a bunch of books on the table where I sit and work. There is a book on my office table, and I tell people off if they ever move things from my table.

There are several books on my phone that I am really looking forward to reading.

Why is this necessary?

That is because I want to be inspired by these great people who have written amazing books filled with inspiring ideas. There is only one way to stay inspired, and that is to surround yourself with inspiring things.

Or inspiring people. Do you have mentors, peers, family members, friends who always inspire you? Do they discuss the amazing things you can or should be doing?

Do you follow inspiring channels and pages on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter rather than pages that make you anxious, worried, scared, jealous or unhappy? Please do. Take 10 minutes and go see what you follow that does not inspire you but agitate you.

It could be some friends, family members or some politicians, and definitely, some journalists posting things that seem important, but makes you anxious, angry, worried. Promptly unfollow them, and follow the people whose work, words and ideas truly inspire you to do your best.

Life is too short to live an uninspired life.

Perspiration

Just like me, you have also probably heard this many times – success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. I don’t agree with this.

If you have done your work with aspiration, desperation and inspiration, perspiration part gets easy. It becomes fulfilling. Every day I do not work, I feel restless, useless and as if I am wasting my time. I want to jump back into my work and do something amazing.

Big actions happen effortlessly when everything’s in place. So take action put align your aspiration, desperation and inspirations. A significant part of your perspiration should go towards putting the above things in place.Perspiration without that may not be as successful.

However, there is a big difference between actions and thoughts. If you are only thinking and not taking action, nothing will happen. Thoughts do not move the needle. Actions do. So you must keep an eye on the actions you are taking as well.

It helps to form habits and routines. Your most important work should become routine – something that you do by reflex.

What do you do first thing in the morning? Could you do the most important task first? Say your most important task is to write. Or read. Can you start your day with that for an hour?

What part of your work can you turn into a routine? Writing emails and articles for LawSikho subscribers have become a routine for me since the last 6 months. I feel strange if I do not write for a day! And that has really helped LawSikho’s marketing and lead generation processes.

By the way, perspiration becomes much easier when you have a structured task list or a guided pathway. This is why school level athletes or cricketers with coaches always do far better than those who do not have coaches.

The coach plans the strategy and figures out what has to be done when. The coachee just follows. The reduced cognitive load ensures that the work actually gets done.

Do you have people in your life who can play that role for you?

I have a coach who has two calls with me every week. I have to plan my week’s work, targets and discover whatever is stopping me from getting there and then when I attack the work, I have a crystal clear path before me, just waiting to be executed. This increases my chance of actually doing the work that I am supposed to do.

Course curriculums at LawSikho are designed based on this principle too. We give you two assignments every week, and a total of 100 in a year (if you are doing a year long course). All you need to do is just go through those exercises. To solve the exercises you will have to read certain materials, use certain templates and go through various videos. You are already informed about what exactly you need to do. This increases the likelihood of your learning.

Imagine doing that week after week.

If you are singing every day for an hour, under the guidance of a coach, following a well planned strategy, how much better will you become at singing after 3 months? After 6 months? After a year?

So if you practice legal skills like drafting, research, due diligence etc, in the same way, could anyone stop you from becoming an extraordinary lawyer?

Yes, so that’s my success mantra – revealed to you. Aspiration, Desperation, Inspiration and Perspiration.

What goal are you going to attack first?

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