Preparing for Success

You have just won the lottery! Congratulations! This is exactly what you’ve wished for and you finally won! You are so excited. But, are you prepared? Do you have a great financial advisor picked out? If not, how will you choose one that you can trust? Do you know how you’ll invest the money so it lasts and makes money for you to secure your future? Do you know how you’ll upgrade your life and how much it will cost for each improvement? Have you envisioned how you might use the money to better mankind or the earth? Do you know how to think like a millionaire?

You’ve finally been selected for that promotion you’ve wanted for years. You are so excited: new title, fancy office, fat paycheck, and one of your perks is your own executive coach! (Okay, so I had to plug that one in.) Everything you’ve been working for has finally paid off. Are you ready for the hard work ahead? Are you ready for the increase in responsibility? Have you considered how you want to be known in this new position – your new brand – and how you want others to treat you? Have you developed your delegating, organization, and time management skills so you don’t find yourself working 60 hours a week? Are you able to communicate your vision and the outcomes you seek clearly and effectively? Are you intimidated by titles and high-powered individuals or do you have the self-confidence and the ability to speak up for yourself when you have something to share? Have you learned how to handle your emotions with style and grace or do you still get ugly when you’re frustrated or angry?

Perhaps instead of money or title, you’ve just met the man or woman of your dreams. You are so happy, so in love. Are you ready to be in love, in joy, and in happiness every day for the rest of your life? Are you ready to give up the single’s life and stop “searching” and complaining about how hard it is to find someone…? Do you have the “space” in your time to spend with this person? Are you prepared to let go of control, of having things your way, and are you open to explore new possibilities that includes someone else? Are you willing to accept someone as they are without trying to mold them into someone you think they should be? Are you ready to embrace partnership and commit to creating an extraordinary relationship? This means, you have to be an extraordinary person and partner. Have you done the personal development work and are you willing to continue to work on yourself as you grow in love with this person?

Whatever it is you think you want, you need to prepare for success. Whatever your vision for success, while you are working on achieving it, you must also grow yourself into the kind of person you need to be in order to manage that success.

When you finally get what you want, you find yourself in new territory. What you had was familiar; whether it was comfortable or not, it was within your comfort zone and you were accustomed to living that way. When you achieve something new, be it a degree or promotion or new relationship, you have to “be” different. People struggle with this so much because mostly we know how to “do”. But the reality is that if you have not experienced true love in your adult life and it finally knocks on your door, how will you recognize it? Will you be able to embrace it and then maintain this new way of life? If you’ve been broke for 30 years and now you’re rich, can you handle the wealth responsibly so that wealth becomes your new way of life? What if you were finally healthy after 10 years of an illness? You will need to accept health as a new way of life and live differently now that you are able to be more active. Or what if you were finally thin after being overweight for 25 years? You’ll be a different person; how will you handle the looks and attention from others? Will you be ready to embrace the “thin you”? Can give up the emotional baggage that comes with holding onto that excess weight and learn to appreciate your body and feel good about yourself?

It’s not easy to suddenly manage millions of dollars when you have spent your entire life in survival, accustomed to barely scratching by, living paycheck to paycheck. Very often, winners lose their money within a few short years and revert back to their pre-wining status.

It’s not easy to suddenly embrace the joy and excitement of newfound love when you’ve been looking for so long. Creating a fabulous, mature, adult relationship requires time and energy to make it special, to set high standards for both parties to aspire to so that it remains respectful and exciting over time.

When you are prepared to receive the success you desire, you are more likely to attract it into your life, you are better able to receive the good things that come to you, and you are less likely to sabotage it when it arrives.

Josie wanted freedom. She wanted fun. She divorced her husband and moved to a warm climate, something she dreamed of all her life. She bought a home which increased in value within a week. She met a man and found new work that suits her perfectly. Recently Josie called because she was having difficulty adjusting to “happiness” and “freedom”. She has released herself from the prisons she had created after escaping her youth and is now living her life doing what feels good to her. It’s new and anything new takes time to adjust to. It would be easy for her to run away but she is adjusting and by reaching out to me, she declares her commitment to the new life she is creating. Through our conversation, she is able to accept that this new life is what she has always wanted even though it has taken her 50 years to get here.

“Happiness”, “joy” and “freedom” are often elusive because people simply are unfamiliar with the experience of these states of being. Do you know what “joy” feels like? Can you imagine living “in joy” each and every day? How would you be different – how would your life be different – if you were experiencing joy each and every day? If you can imagine it, you can create it. Success starts with giving yourself permission to reach for what you want and getting comfortable with the possibility of your dream becoming reality. The only thing standing in your way is you.