Inspiring Quotes: Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it

Vinay Nagaraju
3 min readMar 22, 2023

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Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it: This is a beautiful quote by Henry David Thoreau. In this article, we talk about the meaning of this quote across some popular themes. The most powerful meanings of this quote are around the themes of hard work, focusing on our dreams and not being distracted by fears or mere daydreaming.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it — Meaning

Who said Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it? This beautiful quote is attributed to Henry David Thoreau. He was an American essayist, poet and philosopher. His contributions are mainly in the areas of environment, natural history and philosophy. Fun fact: The page about him in wiki also talks about his friendship with Ralph Waldo Emerson — Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau

Focusing on what they want

Success is a difficult task. It demands everything from us in the nature of hard work, some sleepless nights and a commitment with perseverance and grit. Rarely do we get success on the first attempt. There is a journey of getting things wrong and then working from it based on the learnings. As Terry Pratchett says — wisdom comes from experience, experience is often a lack of wisdom.

Not being distracted by fears or failures of the past

Our worries and past failures are their own versions of reality. However, these are our own narratives and stories that we create because they haven’t happened in this circumstance. The meaning of this quote — success usually comes to those who are too busy looking for it clearly has an embedded meaning about focus. Our past regrets or worries of failure are only warnings. Success demands its work in this current moment in time. If we ignore that, we’re clearly missing a trick.

Working hard and smart

Constantly collecting feedback on how work is going. Learning from this feedback to incorporate and move closer to the goal. Working smart also means creating clear goals about what this success means. Unfortunately, there are instances where people keep working without realising how close or how far away they are from their success. A good way to maintain practicality is by defining clear milestones and outcomes for this success.

Daydreaming about success while doing nothing

Dreams are great. But we must do something about them to convert them into reality. Dreams Might transform into thoughts. Unless they form actions, these dreams are invalid. It is a constant reminder for us to think beyond these dreams and create plans to convert them into reality.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it

- Henry David Thoreau

Originally published at https://inspire99.com on March 22, 2023.

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Vinay Nagaraju

Product Director, Expertise in 0 to 1 Product Development, Entrepreneurship and Startups - Teaching and Lecturing on Technology Led Business