Create Success

What is success ?

Have you ever met someone who seems to be on a permanent high, someone that seems to have great success in all areas of their life? And have you ever wondered how they do it?

And perhaps you have then thought "they must be better than me..." hence lowering your self-esteem and bringing yourself even closer to a standstill, closer to a nothing-is-going-the-way-I-want-it-to situation that will force you to face the aspects of yourself you are denying and to question your innermost beliefs?

This used to happen to me a lot. And now, although I still meet people that are very successful often, their success is less of a mystery to me. This is partly because, some of the time at least, I experience life as a fast succession of successes.

As a starting point lets realize that the distinction between success and failure is very unclear. Where does success begin and failure end? Nowhere ! This is true for all opposites - they are in essence the same and differ only in degree.

What is considered failure by one person may well be considered a great success by someone else. So what is the difference between the person who considers a given event as successful and another person who considers the same event as a failure?

A successful event is an event that accomplishes its intended purpose. Therefore the difference in between these two people are that they expect different things from the same event.

The way to achieve success is to adjust ones expectations. Or, to put it clearly, to be flexible with ones expectations.

Want success? Be flexible and creative.

If you don't decide what you are going to get from a given event until it occurs then you leave the door open for multiple helpful, positive, outcomes. Does this mean no goals ? Of course not. It just means that you don't know exactly how you are going to achieve those goals. I have found that by combining trust and non-judgment it is possible to turn almost any event into a success of some kind.

Trusting that your goals are going to be met is fundamental in that it enables you to detach yourself from the outcome of specific events. Then you can take the outcomes of all the events you perceive and get creative : start weaving them together into a pattern of success.

Try and imagine how several events can work in combination to achieve your goal. If you can't see what the events are giving to you which is helpful then you are probably not trusting enough.

To increase your trust you can spend time thinking about, and being grateful for, all your previous goals that you have achieved. As your trust grows your perception of things will grow as well. You will get more and more confident that all events are successful in one way or another.

The Magic of Momentum.

The great thing is that when one event turns out as a success you can use it to create more success. A stone that is already rolling slowly in the right direction will be easier to push forwards than one that is not moving yet. The same is true for all kinds of events.

For example, imagine you are trying to learn how to play an instrument. If you really want to be good at that instrument then you probably would like to practice a lot. However if you try and sit down and practice for 5 hours in one go on the first day, there is some chance you might get discouraged - if not physically hurt. Likewise if you try and play a very complex song on the first day you will probably get discouraged. It is far more constructive therefore to chose something simple to play and spend half an hour on it. If you choose something which is at the right level for you (challenging but not impossible), then when you come back to it the next day you will notice significant progress and you will probably automatically practice a few more minutes than on the first day. Providing you are able to keep practicing in such a way that you challenge yourself daily, yet thoroughly enjoy it, and are constantly noticing yourself progress, you will keep practicing more and more, your playing will keep improving, and you will keep getting more and more enthusiastic about it.

This is the power of momentum. If you are able to harness it, your goals will get achieved faster and faster, and easier and easier. Obviously you will have to keep challenging yourself but as you go you will build up more and more confidence and trust which make challenges easier and more fun.

Your success depends only on 3 things, and they're all yours !