By Books Author Denise Turney (www.chistell.com)
Success is an experience that you should have. After all, you weren’t created to suffer. You were created to thrive, live in joy and peace and to succeed. Yet, if you’re not living a successful life, something is blocking you. The key is to discover what’s blocking your success. But how do you do that?
To begin, get clear about what you think success is. Why is this important?
What You’re Striving For
If you’re not clear about what you’re striving for, you may never know if you achieved your goal. Depending on your childhood programming, life experiences, and perceptions, you might think that success is having a lot of money. Or you might think that success is feeling powerful, with the ability to order people around, watching them adhere to your commands.
Owning luxury possessions, frequently traveling abroad, dating influencers, and earning graduate degrees are other ways that you might define success. Surprisingly, some of the world’s wealthiest achievers do not focus on money when they define success.
Define Your Personal Success
Mark Cuban is quoted in Business Insider as sharing that, “To me, the definition of success is waking up in the morning with a smile on your face, knowing it’s going to be a great day.” Warren Buffet, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, shares that he measures “success by how many people love me.”1
On the other hand, poet, author and actress Maya Angelou shared that, “Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”1 Working hard, doing work you love, helping others, and following your inner guide or higher self are other ways that wealthy achievers define success.
Counter this with leading goals many people have. Among these winning goals there’s the goal to lose weight and to break free from procrastination as reported by Psychology Today.2 Additionally, life is meaningful to many people if they have a happy, loving family.
So Many Success Definitions
Working a job you love, being materially stable, and having good mental and physical health are other ways that people find meaning in life according to Pew Research.3 The range of success definitions is broad.
On top of that, only you know what makes you feel successful. As simple as it may seem, it’s very important that you get clear about what success means to you. For instance, if you believe that success is having millions or billions of dollars and you gain this financial status only to feel unfulfilled, sad or depressed, you could feel traumatized and confused, even as you look at your hefty bank account.
This has happened to far too many people. Celebrities and business leaders aren’t the only people who pursued “success”, achieved “success goals” and found themselves feeling empty. Don’t let this happen to you.
Uncover What Success Means To You
Sit down, pull out a notebook, and describe the life you think will cause you to feel satisfied, happy, loved, and peaceful. Think about what causes you to feel fulfilled, truly fulfilled. Include that in your success definition. Also, write down what you believe must happen for you to think and feel that you are successful.
For example, do you believe that you must sell enough books to land on the New York Times bestseller list five or more times, launch a multi-billion-dollar business or lose 30 pounds to be a success? Or do you believe that you must earn a doctorate degree, land a political position, raise happy, responsible children or discover a medical cure to achieve success?
What You Must Do To Achieve Success
Take your time thinking about and writing down what you believe you must do to achieve success. As a reminder, include what causes you to feel fulfilled, truly fulfilled. Leave out the latter, and you may feel that your success is being blocked when it isn’t (even after you’ve achieved a lot).
Next, write down specific actions you could take to gain this experience, not once but over the long term. Aim to list more than 100 actions that you could take to achieve your success goals. Why?
Despite your best efforts, there will be setbacks. Not every action you take will yield good fruit. Building out a wealth of actions can keep you motivated, focused, and free of ongoing frustration. When one action doesn’t produce the result you want, you’ll have another action to implement.
Removing Success Blocks
To remove success blocks, you’ll also have to take an honest look at yourself. For starters, do you honestly believe that you deserve to be successful? If not, why not?
And how do you think success would change you or change your lifestyle? Do you think that success would alter your identity? How?
Even more, if you achieved success do you think that you would become like other successful people who lost their way? Search your mind deeply, thoroughly, for answers to these questions. What you discover during the search might surprise you.
It might surprise you to discover that you’re afraid of success because you believe you’d fall into an addiction, become rude and obnoxious, get stalked or become unable to trust family or friends, experiences that have happened to others but that don’t have to happen to you. That’s right.
You Deserve Success
You do not have to relive or repeat anyone else’s life experiences. That includes your parents’ and other ancestors. There is no requirement to repeat their experiences unless you choose to do so. More importantly, you don’t have to live above or beneath the level you perceived your parents as having lived at.
This is your life. Your parents and ancestors, everyone, has been gifted with a life to create or develop as they desire. Talk about a gift! Give yourself permission to partner with the Creator to design a life that will open you up to love, light, peace, joy, and success. You deserve to live a good life. You really do.
Resources:
- How Rich, Successful, Powerful People Define Success – Business Insider
- What Are the Most Popular Goals in the World? | Psychology Today
- What Makes Life Meaningful? Views From 17 Advanced Economies | Pew Research Center