Define Success: Achieve Success

If you went out to buy a television set, and didn’t really know what the best one was, oh, you had a general idea, but no clear picture, what would you end up buying? You would most likely end up buying something based on what others believed a good TV set should be. Might work for you then, might not. It might even be a great TV set, but the purchase might also not be very satisfying, because others don't know you as well as you do, what you like, what you don't like. Sound like a lot of speculation and guessing? It is, and that's exactly how most of us approach our success. We go out into our lives without a clear definition of what our success is, as defined by us, and then depend upon others to tell us what it should be, when truth is, they're out there definitionless too, asking others what their success should look like as well! If that isn't a schematic for no-satisfaction, I don't know what is!

What's the solution then? The solution to what? There you go again. Why is this a problem? Why is not having a clear definition of what your success should look like a problem? Why is running around asking, and being asked about success, by people all of which do not know, a problem? Because to do this does not feel that good. It's confusing. And most of all because you have an idea already, that if you're successful, it should feel good. So the first definition of our success is that: it should feel good. Now that's a broad definition, but an excellent one, because we certainly can train ourselves to get in touch with our feelings, and in doing so, have a constantly functioning, highly accurate, internal meter that tells us instantly when we're being successful. A successful life feels good!

The real problem is, most of us are not in touch with how we actually feel. Drinking our brains out sometimes seems like a good idea, but in this case the mind is not connected to the body, and truth is, the body doesn't like being poisoned all that much. You know, heaving, headaches, and health issues. No moral judgments here at all, simply observation. Poison a body, and it will tell you through how it feels, that it doesn't like it. No success there! And drinking is just a hugely obvious cause and effect reaction. There are a million more examples, some very subtle, of things we do that do not feel good, yet seem like a good idea. Or if not a good idea, at the least, idea or not, we still do them, and they don't feel all that good. These are all examples of how we are not connected in the triad of body, mind, and heart. How about when we get angry at another person, and then more critically, stay angry with them over time? Does that feel good? Yet we do it all the time along with a million other similar things.

We do stay angry, frustrated, and upset, all the time, and over time, get cancer over it, headaches, and on and on, with the physical symptoms of our disconnect between body, mind, and heart. Heart, for us by the way. The heart to feel that what we're doing doesn't feel good to us, and isn't all that good for us, after all, because we're the only ones who can determine how we feel anyway, in any one moment. And people live this disconnect all the time! And it's not that getting angry, or having any other initial reaction is wrong, bad, or even preventable at times, but staying angry is certainly something we can minimize. We can usually minimize our reactions, after they occur, by paying attention to how we feel, and then taking actions that would serve to modify the situation that upset us in the first place. And the first place we often have to look, is in our own judgment systems. In the judgments we have of others, and even more subtly, of ourselves. Starting with our judgment that there's something wrong with getting angry when we get angry in the first place!

Here's a task you can take up that will show you just how much we judge ourselves. People who are in constant judgment of others, and then more importantly, themselves, don't have very nice expressions of their faces. They often look sad, pained, or unhappy. Just go out to the Mall and sit down in one of those comfy orange chairs, and simply look into the faces of those going by you, as they strive to ignore the "dangerous" people they pass, refusing to look into the eyes of strangers. Don't do this for too long though, just long enough to feel the disconnect people have with themselves, and with others. An illusionary disconnect, because we are all One. All from the same Source, all from the same planet, and all from the same one race: human.

Whew! That's a lot of thinking about what it means to be successful! Yet without clear thought, we will not reach a place of truly knowing what our definition of success is in a way so that we can clearly write down goals that the achievement of will satisfy us. Goals, by the way, that may be as simple as to "feel good starting right now." Because while success can look a certain way, it's way more important how you feel about it. And that's the point. To so define what success means to us, and us alone, that we can then clarify what means and methods we will have to take up in order to then be successful. And it's going to take the whole, complete, and entire triad of body, mind, and heart, to do this. Having done martial arts for over thirty-eight years for my body as I also practiced getting in tune with the heart/mind connection, it was hard not to realize the importance of connecting the whole triad. In the online seminar I present to participants, this is a lot of what we do: get people into their bodies first.

I get them into their bodies first, because if they're not there at home, they're not going to be able to define what feels good to them, and if they can't define what feels good to them, how are they going to really be successful? If you have any method of quieting down your mind, not making it go away, because you'll always need it, and it'll always be there, but simply quieting it down, then the invitation is to use that method that resonates with you. Meditate, stare at the clouds, sit quiet, breathe, do whatever you have to in order to relax into feeling the body that you have, and in turn, the heart place that drives that body. There a quite a few very effective processes in the seminar I do that allow participants to make this triad connection. It isn't always easy, because we've been so trained to look "out there" for that which we need, but truth is, it's "in there." Our satisfaction is in you, and in me, and right now. Without this connection, without being at this feeling place where you know what makes you feel good, people can make money, they can achieve status, whatever that is, they can raise entire families, have careers and accolades galore, and yet still feel like a failure because they have never connected the triad, and have never in advance realized just exactly what their own personal definition of success is, and how to truly achieve it. And how can you ever achieve something that you have not defined?

And if you haven't defined exactly what it is you're going after, and yet go around living an entire life pursuing it, can you see what a recipe for dissatisfaction that is? Certainly, we all can. Yet we all do it. Initially, at least, until we learn something different. What we learn then, is that to pursue clear goals that we define as those that we feel good about, and in turn, will make us feel good in the achievement of them, is what true success really is. And when we do that, what happens? Our lives feel good along the way of the achievement of those goals, not only at the completion of them. And in fact, even in the incompletion of them, when we are feeling good, our lives are successful! Because we truly don't really "complete" anything, life goes on, and on, and on. There's always more. We are already whole, and complete, there is nothing to add to us, only all this junk to clear out that we've accumulated. Junk that is in the way of our feeling into our lives, and realizing just how worthy and powerful we truly are. A lot of the work I do with people is designed exactly for this purpose, to clear out the energy we have tied up maintaining the junk, and instead, direct it over to the practice of sustaining our success. From maintaining, to sustaining. Simple. And most of us? What we cherish most of all, is feeling good! Regardless of what we love to do, regardless of what others think, and regardless of anything really. Now that's real success! Our voice, our choice!