Anuj was a very brilliant young boy, he always scored 100% in Science and Maths subjects. He got selected for IIT and scored excellently well in IIT. He went to the reputed University in US for higher studies on scholarship. Got a very high paying job in US on completion of MS & settled there. Married to a Beautiful Girl of his own choice. Bought a 5 room big house and 2 luxury cars. In short he had everything that made him feel successful but ……… he committed suicide after shooting his wife and children very recently. One of our common friend asked me what really went wrong in the life of Anuj?????

Through my personal contacts I studied his case and tried to find out “what really went wrong?”* I contacted Anuj’s friends and family through email and found that he lost his job due to American economic crisis due to sudden outbreak of Pandemic and lockdown he had to sit at home without a job for almost two months. After even spending his previous job’s salary amount, he could not get any job. Then he could not pay his house loan installments so he and his family lost the house. They survived a few months with less money in their account and then he and his wife together decided to commit suicide. He first shot his wife and child and then he shot himself.

After my frequent probing in this case I could conclude that Anuj was only programmed for success by his parents but was not trained for handling failures.

Based on the case narrated above the actual question, which I have tackled here in this write-up is, what are the habits of highly successful people and what are the survival skills one can cultivate to prevent failures?

1:The best success habit to impart among our children is getting trained for handling failures. First of all, I want to tell you all that if you have achieved everything, there is a chance to lose everything, nobody knows when the next crisis will hit you personally or the world at large. I want to request all the parents through this write-up, please do not only program your child to be successful but teach them how to handle failures as well. No doubt learning high-level science and maths will help them to clear competitive exams but a sound tested and tried knowledge about life’s practical situations will enhance their survival skills and help them to face every problem in life.

2:Teach them about how money works instead of teaching them to work only for money. Help them in finding their passion in life because their educational degrees alone will not help them to survive in the crisis situation rather their practical skills will take them in along way. Additionally, we don’t know when the next crisis will hit the world.

3:“Success is a awful teacher and Failure teaches you more.” This pandemic is triggering lot of mental health issues. There is a possibility of mental health pandemic in every country before this pandemic is over from the globe. Point Prevalence of mental illness is 10% but this pandemic may push it two to three times more because of various reasons like isolation, quarantine, loss of relationship, loss of loved ones, loss of work, financial hardship, family problems etc ….

Since yesterday the entire country is mourning the Suicide of a talented actor Sushant Singh Rajput, who had carved a niche for himself in Bollywood by delivering back to back stunning performances, had come a long way in his career which had started on the small screen. Suddenly why he felt like ending his life abruptly is another question which comes to our mind again with an answer that somewhere he had lesser Survival Skills to tackle the difficulties if any of his life?

At the end I wish to state here that we don't live in bungalows, duplexes or flats. We live in our 'MIND' which is an unlimited area. Life is great when things are sorted and uncluttered there. Keeping the mind messy with hatred growing, regrets piling up in corner, expectations boiling, secrets stuffed and worries littered everywhere ruins this real home. The key factor to performing well in life and in every arena, is the ability to control the quality and quantity of your “internal dialogue”. Performance is potential minus internal interference. Live in peace, not in pieces.

Dr. S H Kochargaonkar Psychologist & Counsellor