Success

What If You Were Actually Serious?

Often times we spend our days fantasizing about what we would like life to be like. We think, this year I am going to get fit or get out of debt or finish that novel or get that pay rise. We tell ourselves that we want to be more organized and efficient, however, for the most part these things remain simply fantasies.

Life gets in the way and our plans do not come to pass. We have a halfhearted attempt here and there but as soon as the initial motivation has worn off we just give up, using one of our many pre-prepared excuses. I don’t feel like it, I’m too tired or sick. I have more important things that I have to do. We blame the weather or the current financial climate or other people or situations.

The truth is we are our own boss and we are accountable to ourselves. This is very difficult because we build our lives around what is comfortable and what feels good. Change feels uncomfortable and hard. We often tell ourselves that we lack the right conditions or the right information or the right contacts but the reality is we actually lack the courage to change.

But what if we were actually serious about the things that we want to do? What if we were actually committed to doing what we set out to achieve. Just for today what if we asked ourselves two simple questions;

If someone was serious about _____ , they would do _______________.

If someone was serious about _________, they would not _______________.

Then apply these sentences to yourself. For example, if someone was serious about losing weight they would stick to an eating plan and exercise each day even if they didn’t feel like it.

If someone was serious about losing weight they would not eat snacks that were not in their plan and they would not sabotage themselves with excuses.

If I was serious about losing weight I would stick to an eating plan and exercise each day even if I didn’t feel like it and I wouldn’t eat snacks that were not in my plan.

Now decide if you are serious. If you are, make it truth for you: I am serious about losing weight. I stick to my eating plan and exercise each day. I do not eat snacks that are not in my plan. I do not make excuses or sabotage myself.

Follow up with action and the action will be easier.

Apply these two questions to any area where you are stuck and needing direction and watch your life turn around.

Personal Integrity

Sometimes in our busy lives it is possible to get side tracked, over whelmed, manipulated or swayed by those around us. Sometimes this is so subtle that we do not even realise it, or maybe it is blatantly obvious but we have become desensitised to it over many years. When you find yourself getting angry or gossiping incessantly then chances are you have been brought into someone else’s agenda. When this happens it is easy to get involved or even to get over involved. It is easy to want to solve other people’s problems so that they do not need to bother you with them. It is easy to be offended, upset or hurt when actually you do not really feel these things. It is easy to take a stand out of principle and start fights simply because you can and because you feel you should.

When you find yourself in these situations, STOP for a moment and get your bearings. You have been swept away in something that is not your responsibility and is not for you to resolve. Ask yourself the only valid question in this situation “What would a person with high personal Integrity do?” Why this question? Because you are a person of high personal integrity remember?? You have always had an incredibly good moral compass and now is the time to dust it off and pull it back out. Do not get caught up in who said what or who is right and who is wrong or what needs to happen to make it right. Do not get caught up solving the mystery of who is telling the truth and who is manipulating you. This is a waste of your valuable time and energy. The reality is that everyone has plans and everyone has an agenda. If your plans and your agenda match theirs then you are likely to get on well. If your plans and agenda are different then someone is likely to feel manipulated.

By acting with integrity you cannot help but to do the right thing. You cannot help but disconnect yourself and untangle yourself from all of the tiny details that are derailing your ability to think and get back to what is truly important.

No more distractions, no more details, no more thinking about what others need to do. Look only to what you need to do to maintain a high level of personal integrity. Cut the gossip. Cut the leading questions. Step back and give others a chance to work through their own circumstances.

Have compassion for the circumstances of others but remain firmly planted in your own life. Be concerned only about what you are doing.

Remember that in many cases you are more respected for standing back than getting involved so investing time coming up with your own best plans for others is counterproductive to your own stress levels.

Practice genuinely staying out of the business of others and remaining committed to your own life. Help out only if or when it is required and then do it willingly. Sometimes this is the only responsible path.

Surfing

The hardest tests are the ones we deny ourselves. Not because they are actually hard, but because we push them so far out of our reach that it hurts to travel so far to retrieve them.

You are so afraid that you will not be good enough that you purposefully fail so that you will be permitted to give up.

You are terrified of going backwards and you are terrified of going forwards and yet you are not stuck because life is going forward whether you permit it or not.

So now you get to choose.

Give yourself permission to take what is rightfully yours, get organised so you have some sense of control and embrace the changes around you,

Or, Suffer.

You can be a mother at 70kg or you can be a mother at 90kg. Either way it is happening.

You choose.

You can have the highest level of qualification or you can regret not being organized.

You choose.

You can put up with a bad situation and suffer for it, or you can stop being scared, stop playing it safe, embrace the changes that are coming and whole heartedly dive in.

You choose.

All of these experiences can be magical depending on how you allow yourself to receive them.

You do not need to be sick to enjoy these changes, as life does not accept your excuses.

Life will not go easy on you because you are sick or because you deserve it. You have to choose to meet life on your feet, not on your knees or face planted on the ground.

The ocean waves do not stop coming because you have wiped out, and you cannot expect them to.

It is not the world’s job to change around you or to accommodate you, it is your job to change and adapt to your circumstances.

You can give up and be wiped out by each and every wave or you can damn well get up and learn to surf!

Even though it’s cold and wet and difficult, when you have learned how to do it you will love it. Nothing will be out of your reach and every test will become easy.

It’s your life. It’s your choice.

The only way to fight fear is with action.

You are only afraid of what you want.

What you want is worth fighting for.

You can have it all and hate it or you can have it all and love it.

Your choice.

You choose.

Give Me A Go!

Have you ever looked at what someone else was doing and achieving and wished that you could do something similar? Have you ever looked at someone with great talent or resources and felt that they were wasting it all by not using them to their full potential, or even worse not using them at all?

Have you ever found yourself thinking ‘Give me a go! If I had that talent or that ability I would appreciate it and value it, and use it to its full potential?’

Well now is the time. We each have our own unique talents and abilities but we do not recognise them because they come so naturally to us.

Those who are good at maths do not think that they are good at maths; it’s just that it is not a problem to them.

Great ideas and great potentials are sprinkling from the heavens on a second by second basis and there is always room for these potentials in the world. The universe looks for people who are prepared to take an opportunity and run with it. You do not have to be ‘special’ or ‘chosen’ to make the most of yourself, you just need to be willing to turn up and say “Give me a go! I could do that!”

The more people that plant the ideas that fall from the sky, the more beautiful our world becomes.

So, make the most of yourself. Make the most of the things that you don’t think much about because they come easily and naturally. Being good at something is not always about practice and hard work. If you like to cook then cook, if organising is your talent then use it. Believe it or not there are millions of people out there who can’t do what you can do and there are just as many people out there who wouldn’t want to!

Life is not a competition, it is an opportunity!

Make the most of what you already have, and then be committed to catching, nurturing and claiming the opportunities that come to you.

Be one of the ones who does appreciate the opportunities they have been given, be one of the ones who does use their talents and skills to make a difference.

Instead of watching others change the world, get out there and give it a go for yourself!

The Real World

When you believe in the illusion that is the ‘real world’ you lose not only your hopes and your dreams but you lose yourself.

We have all of these rules and ideas about what it means to be successful, and yet isn’t being true to yourself and believing in yourself more important?

If you do not know what your purpose is, at least be open to the idea that you have one. 9-5 jobs, climbing an imaginary career ladder might not be it.

Is it not more important to make an impact in the world, to be able to speak freely and with a clear voice? Is it not more important to find out everything you can about yourself and what makes you, you, and then seek to be the best you that you can be?

When other people expect you to conform to the beliefs of an old, out-dated world, it is OK to say no. It is OK to productively occupy yourself whilst you discover more of who you are. It is OK to share your life with others and accept that others are just trying to find themselves too.

So, do not seek to justify yourself to anyone. Do not seek to please those who force you into conventional roles. Allow your true, honest, real, self to shine through.

Do not stop dreaming, do not stop hoping and do not stop searching for the life that you know is hiding just beyond ‘the real world.’

Owning Your Dreams

What if just by owning your dreams you could make them happen? What if all you had to do was write them down and they were guaranteed?

We all have that creative potential within us. We all have our greatest desires just waiting to be identified and claimed.

Take a few moments now to write down your 3 most important desires. Know that at this point in time you don’t need to do anything but identify them and claim them as your own.

When you have identified them, feel that you have already achieved them.
Begin to Remember the Future.

Spend as much time as you like basking in the contentment and satisfaction of this remembering and know that in the coming days, that success is coming to you because, all your desires needed from you, was a place to come home too!

We each have our own cup of success. Your cup has your name on it and it is related to your unique attributes and abilities. No one else is able to take your cup. It is yours and yours alone. It waits just for you. The great travesty is not that someone else might take it, but that you might go your whole life without taking it for yourself.

People by their very nature are competitive and jealous. While some people thrive on this, many of us seek to avoid these situations, and so we forfeit our desire for success. We only realise how much of ourselves we have given up when we see others claiming their success and we feel angry, jealous or resentful. We automatically ask ourselves ‘what makes them so special? It’s not fair, they have it easy’. We begin to make excuses as to why we have not achieved our own success and blame ourselves or others for this perceived ‘failure’.

Our level of frustration and anger is directly proportional to our sense that we could do or achieve the same level of success ourselves.

For example if you aspire to complete a marathon and have been training for this but not confident to enter and a friend goes out and does it, you may feel very frustrated that you could have done this yourself and that you ‘should’ have done it yourself.

The frustration may be less if you are not athletic at all but you just generally wish that you could be successful not necessarily at the same thing.
So what do we do about these normal but difficult feelings?

The easy answer is that we make a choice. We either let our feelings affect our friendships and relationships or, we inspire ourselves to seek our own success.
When we feel envious it can actually be transmuted into an energy of inspiration.

We need to acknowledge that these are our issues. Other people do not need to stop being successful just because it might affect us and we in return do not need to avoid success because it might affect other people’s feelings towards us.

When we accept our own abilities and talents then we no longer need to receive these jealous messages. When we feel successful, the success of others becomes something that is welcome and embraced.

What this means is that your inner self is calling. It is saying let’s do it for ourselves! We can do it and we deserve to do it.

When we are angry we are propelled to stand up and say ‘no more’ I choose to do things differently. I will not put up with my life the way it is. I am going to go out and get what I want!’

This is a brilliant energy to work with.

Through our experience as we live, learn and grow, we change. We develop different skills, talents and abilities and we unlock within ourselves potentials that can now be accessed.

You may find that when your circumstances change that you can now access other options. Remember and embrace this. Check in with yourself regularly to see what you can do now.