Do You Have Faith to Achieve?

by Ruben Camacho

On my way back home, while waiting at the airport, I was thinking about the master class I had just given. There was this marvelous young student, who, like many others, had come with a great desire to learn, to improve, and to play very well. Nevertheless, and also like many others do, he carried with him a sense of uncompromising severity with himself, an obsession for not getting one single note wrong, and feeling of being extremely demanding of himself. As I heard him play, he reminded me of myself when I was a young musician. He had clearly assimilated the belief, “No pain, no gain.”

Many people are convinced that achievement only comes through great effort and self-discipline. It’s something we’ve heard all our lives, something we don’t usually question or challenge. But sometimes we find ourselves in a situation in which the tremendous effort we are making doesn’t seem to be enough.

Jesus and Nazareth, Buddha, and other spiritual masters have spoken of the importance of faith in a divine source, and yet it seems we don’t want to listen. Yet, I believe faith is a factor that makes all the difference in our ability to achieve the results we desire.

The importance of faith is also mentioned by great scientists, including William Atkinson, Albert Einstein, and Alexander Bell. In many of their writings, they articulate the idea that one must believe in order to see, not see to believe, as we are usually conditioned.

If you focus on learning or achievement from a perspective of faith, with a clear purpose in mind, the path you need to take becomes shorter and even enjoyable. With faith, you can lose that incredible pressure that being so demanding with yourself generates, and you can achieve wonderful results. Working on any project with faith, and even love, we can achieve more with less wear and tear, and even enjoy the process.

Faith and love can transform your work into joy.