The Secret of Success - You

It is the end of January – almost Super Bowl time – the year is ticking by. You asked yourself what you’re doing differently; what happened to those New Year’s Resolutions; that motivational seminar….???

Now it’s almost February, then March, soon you feel the warmth of April…. What the hell is going on?

Start Where you Are

I’ve got some great news about how to turn things around before they turn into more unsuccessful ‘attempts.’

Start where you are. That’s it. Start where you are and not where you want to be. This concept, when you really get it, allows you to look at each instant as an opportunity and allows you to ask yourself what you do next for success. There’s the trap of constantly restarting, and that is a caution to consider, but that’s not what I’m expressing here. Consider accessing what you have available to you in this moment to move your plan for success forward. This isn’t a new concept, it’s been around for thousands of years, but it is how we apply that wisdom that determines whether or not it works for us.

The Complex Made Simple

Like many seemingly complex concepts, when you step back and get the whole view, it is so simple that in its simplicity it is deeply profound; and, let’s be honest, it’s so simple it arouses some skepticism and actually pisses us off. “You mean that is all there is to it?!”

I understand that sentiment completely and have many hours of lost of time, talent and treasures trying to understand this.

There’s a few basic principles that you will have to trust and accept to really understand this, kind of like you know what gravity does and you accept that, even if you don’t completely comprehend how it works.

What you resist, persists. The more you avoid something, the more you run into it.
Feelings are just information, but they offer unexpressed solutions about what you need to do next. (This is a big one we’ll go into in a later post.)
Your talents, abilities and gifts combine to give you your own personal toolbox to take the information from feelings, and turn them into what you you need for success, (and they offer you a never ending supply of tools to work with.)
What halts our Success?

We often fill our sense of lack “I’m not good enough” with stimuli from external sources instead of utilizing our own positive internal resources. In my book, My Private Session I equate these holes in ourselves like the holes you’ll find in Swiss cheese. Except we stuff those holes with activities, or food, or booze, or sex, or elaborate internet schemes or constant client emails; hoping that just one of these things will plug that hole and make us feel whole, or give us that thing they call “success.”

When we want to be where we are not, we tend focus on the lack of where we are instead of educating ourselves about what the present moment is actually trying to show us. I know this sounds like some metaphysical BS, but imagine that you are at the edge of the Grand Canyon (You earn X dollars per month). You are looking across the Colorado River to the other side (You want to earn Y dollars per month) . In the moment that you are standing at the edge of the canyon, you don’t want to be there, you impatiently are stamping your foot wanting to be 18 miles across the river on the other side and end up chastising yourself for not being there already, rather than listening to the internal solutions being offered to you.

Do your goals feel like that at times? Always out of reach, and always the extreme measures needed to reach them – ride the ornery donkey down the edge of the narrow trail, put on a bulky life jacket to paddle the raging river, climb out on the other side only to ride that uncomfortable, plodding ass up the trail again.

As you look across this gorge, you see only the lack of resources to get “There” and in doing so waste time fighting what is not, instead of acknowledging the resources that you have. In frustration, you then fill the canyon with whatever you choose from the outside, and what looks like solid ground suddenly turns out to be just a mirage. You take a step, you fall miles into the raging river of disappointment and regret, and there you are again, back on the wrong side of the canyon, no way to get across.

Time for a different trail.

Fill the Moment with You

When you fill the moment with acknowledgement of where you are, in this case, accepting the fact that your previous attempts are lessons in what doesn’t work, then you can be begin to fill the chasm with you – where the real answers are. This is the process of wisdom; of finding solutions rather than berating yourself for lack. And it works.

Try this exercise in just being where you are.

Stop. Breathe – three deep breaths.
Feel the feeling coming up, the awareness coming to light. Ask, “Ok, This is Not Working, thanks for stopping by. I see that what I am doing isn’t giving me the results I want. What do you have to teach me today?”
Listen to what Not Working has to say.
No matter what Not Working answers, respect that knowledge and do what was revealed to you – even if it says to “Stop” – particularly if it says, “STOP!” Allow the wisdom that follows you stopping to fill you up with answers. Honor where you are, no matter how small the change that bubbles up in that moment of wisdom. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but it offers you the opportunity to open yourself up to your own intuitive knowledge, instead of regulating that knowledge to the dustbin while letting anger and frustration take its place.

Simply you can get mad, or you can get answers. Which one are you looking for?

If you would like more information on this topic, or if you need more insight into this, I cover it extensively in chapter 9 of My Private Sessions and offer Personal Success Coaching to help you reach your goals.