Most of us have an idea about what success means to us, and we have a mental vision of what it will look like when it arrives in our lives. We might finally get the career recognition we have been working so hard for, earn a lot of money, find the man or woman of our dreams, start a family, purchase our own home, buy the sports car we have wanted since we were a teenager, or reach any number of other personal accomplishments. Is this success? For some of us, it might be. Perhaps you have a different vision of what success means to you.
Regardless of your personal definition of success, you likely have one thing in common with the rest of us: you are still seeking the level of success you want to attain. Maybe you have had success in certain areas, but not in others. Your career might be going great, but your relationships are lacking. Or you have met the love of your life, but you just cannot seem to earn the amount of money that would make you happy. Or everything else is great but you cannot seem to lose those last 20 pounds and get into better shape.
It is a maddening position to be in, especially if you do not understand why it is happening. You may think you are doing everything right, but circumstances just won’t bend to your will. You constantly run into obstacles, sabotage your own efforts, berate yourself for your “failures,”- and the struggle continues.
This struggle continues because of one reason, and one reason only: you are focusing your energy and effort in the wrong direction!
In this modern age, we have the misguided notion that success is some elusive quality “out there” that we need to hunt down and capture. We believe that if we say the right things, do the right things, take exactly the right steps, success will fly right into our little butterfly net and we can pin it down on a sheet of cardboard and hang it proudly on our wall.
We cannot capture success, nor can we buy it, stumble across it, or fall into it. We can only create it, from the inside out. And the only way to create it is by changing our thoughts and habits. What do thoughts have to do with anything? Everything! What we expect to see, we see. What we expect to have in our lives, we have. What we focus on the most, expands.
If your life is not what you want it to be, your thoughts have not been in alignment with it. This can be a tricky concept to understand, but the most important point to get is that it is a cumulative process.
Think of a scale. If you place a grain of sand in one of the trays, it probably won’t make much difference to the balance of the scale. But if you add another grain, and another, and another, before long the scale will begin to tilt in that direction. Your thoughts work in much the same way, and if you have enough of one particular type of thought, it will affect your quality of life.
This may sound bad, but it is actually a good thing! If we can create imbalance and lack with our thoughts and habits, we can also create abundance and success. It is all within our control.
What if you were told that just by changing your mind-set, you could begin to effortlessly attract the success you desire? What if you could not only attractsuccess, but becomesuccessful at a core level?
You can! By following the techniques success mind-set, you will learn how to transform your thinking processes and develop a true success mind-set. And with the right mind-set, there is no limit to what you can create in your life.
The important thing to remember as you embark upon this journey is that it is a process. Take your time and enjoy it. Do not expect perfection – simply relax and have fun with the techniques. Be of good cheer, they will work much better if you have fun with them, rather than getting mired in frustration or placing unrealistic expectations on yourself. Remember that a large part of success is the contentment you feel in each moment. Allow yourself to feel it now, even if everything in your life is not the way you wish it were. Soon enough, it will be.
HAPPINESS – CAUSE AND EFFECT
Are you happy with your life the way it is now? There are probably aspects of your life you’d like to change, otherwise you would not be reading this piece by a retired army officer. But overall, can you say you are truly happy? Most of us cannot, but it is not because we are still seeking success. Rather, we are not happy because we have not made the choice to be happy.
When we think of being successful, we imagine that happiness is an inevitable side effect. We may envision ourselves with the perfect job, the perfect mate, the perfect children, the perfect level of income, the perfect home, the perfect car, etc. And we believe that all of that stuff will make us happy.
However, that view is skewed. Material objects and other people cannot make us happy – only we can make ourselves happy. And it all begins with a choice to be happy. Henry Ford once said that “Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.”
THE TRUTH ABOUT MONEY AND HAPPINESS
Intellectually, we may know that money cannot buy happiness, but some part of us still believes that we’d feel better if we were rich. Yet when we really look at wealthy people, we must wonder if they are any happier than the average person. Do wealthy people laugh more, experience more joy, or have greater fulfillment in their lives? Perhaps some do – but how much of it is a direct result of their wealth?
In fact, you can probably point to a handful of wealthy people that appear to be completely miserable. Not surprisingly, some people seem to become less satisfied the wealthier they become! Perhaps they were under the misconception that money would solve all their problems, or having a large amount of money brought along its own challenges. We are sure you have heard the horror stories about people who win the lottery or come into a large sum of money through an inheritance or other means. Many of them experience a few years of heartache and struggle, and end up flat broke again. Money did not solve their problems – only made them worse!
Another reason why wealth can make us miserable is that it distracts us from what is truly important for a happy and fulfilling life. We find ourselves focusing more and more on material objects and end up feeling disconnected from our inner selves.
If you are feeling unhappy in your life right now and you are thinking that money will solve your problems, it is time for a reality check! It is undeniable that having material abundance can make our lives a little easier. Will Edwards thus sympathizes, “Believe me, I am all too aware of what it is like to struggle to pay the bills, or feel like you are living on the edge of a cliff and the ground is crumbling beneath your feet. I know the terror of worrying whether the electricity will be shut off for nonpayment, or wondering if you will be able to afford to buy groceries this week.”
“I am not trying to minimise these types of struggles,” he reiterates, “but I want you to be clear that having a lot of money will not automatically make you feel happy and content in your life.”
Money can definitely help us to enjoy a greater quality of life, but only if we have a healthy attitude toward money; otherwise it will just add bigger burdens.
Capt Sam Addaih (Rtd)