Second Nature?

You know,  there is nothing new that anyone can teach about how to succeed, how to become a great person, yada yada. Between a self-improvement book of half a century back and a similar book now you'll probably find no significant difference except the metaphors used to explain the concept and the examples put up to substantiate it. Oh, yes, everyone will give you a different 'program' to ensure that you do as they say but that's about it.

AND, truth be told, that's about all that they can do. Tiru says here that

Kadanenba nallavai ellaam kadanarindhu saandraanmai merkol bavarkku - Tirukkural

Doing all the right things are duties to he who wishes to progress on the right path - Loose Translation

THAT, in short, is what differentiates those who only wish to succeed and those who actually succeed. The problem is not always the fact that the former receive the wrong advice. The problem is in how well that advice is imbibed and implemented.

It sort of reminds me of my attempts at morning exercise. Being the sort who hates this concept of waking up early, it has always been a chore to get up at 5.30 AM and do all that pranayam, yoga, walking and so on. Every day morning found me reluctantly getting out of bed, after a mental tussle about taking just that day off. After a couple of weeks of pushing myself to do it daily, I found that I was doing it every day just like I was brushing my teeth - almost unconsciously. AND then...well, I go out on a holiday, take a break from this routine, come back and...you know how it goes. Tomorrow always seems a better day to start exercise than today.

THAT intervening brief interregnum where it had almost become second nature to get up early and exercise...THAT is what Tiru is talking about. When you imbibe advice and live by it, as though it is second nature, you are most likely to succeed. AND when you do not let failure make you deviate from that path ('I have been doing this exercise routine for three weeks and lost no weight at all, so what's the bleeding point of doing it' syndrome) - what they say 'doing it as a duty' also means do it with the same diligence despite not getting the expected fruits thereof - then success IS the most probable result.

Which accounts for why good advice doesn't change from time to time (Except, of course, is someone is advising you to learn manual record-keeping. Advice as applied to character IS different from advice related to skill-development or career choices. To ask you to be determined is always good advice; good advice about what work you need to be determined about...THAT will change from time to time) and, yet, successful people are always only a few.

To preach, you see, is not quite as difficult as to practise.