What makes someone successful?

If you’re like me, you’ve read “Think and Grow Rich“, “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and just about everything else you can find to try to discover that single secret that takes you off that endless treadmill of trying.  I’ve been reading for well over 20 years now, and although I’ve reached a certain level of success (a lot of people would probably be very happy where I am right now) I haven’t quite got to where I want to be.   I’ve chased down everything I could on the Law of Attraction, Internet Marketing, Mindset Manuals, Paraliminals, Hypnosis tracks, Brainwave Entrainment, EFT – you name it I’ve probably tried it in the course of my quest, but I still felt like I was seeking something.

Part of the answer came to me a few weeks back, when I wrote the post on Valuing Your Inner Wisdom, but another clue came from watching a video of two of my favourite people, David Wolfe and Frank Kern.  As I watched them kidding around, taking themselves lightly but totally enjoying themselves, it occurred to me that they were both living in the here and now.  Neither of them was thinking about later, tomorrow, or retirement.  They were just there. In the moment.

Funnily enough, when the reflex thought came up that they didn’t have to be thinking about the future – they’re both very successful now – I wondered.  Is this one of those horse and cart things?  Maybe it’s not that they don’t think about the future because they have success now.  Maybe they have success now because they haven’t mentally created their success off in the future – and spend all their mental energy trying to live there.  Like I’ve been doing.  Online, anyway.  (At work I’m very successful, and yes, that’s in the present – and it does keep on feeding off itself and growing to more success.)  This feels like one of those “Ah-ha moments” again.

It fits with why gratitude is so powerful.  It brings you back to what success you have in the moment.

It fits with the law of attraction.  They created their success in the present, not in the future.

It fits with why “opportunity-seeking” is so seductive – it makes future promises.  Once we’ve taken action to create that possible future (by buying) and it’s up to us to take those scary steps to bring ‘future’ into ‘now’, it’s all too easy to be seduced along another future path – because we don’t want to live in the here and now.  We’re not satisfied with it.  It doesn’t live up to our hopes and dreams, and taking steps to make it happen means taking a chance that we could close the door to that wonderful future, if it goes wrong.  Isn’t it much easier to keep living in your thoughts, and in your dreams, and keep chasing the rainbow?

Here’s what I’m going to do, and I invite you to join me.  For the next week, in the time I have outside work, I’m going to focus on how successful I already AM.  From that point, I’ll be finding some way to express that gratitude, and give back to others, help others on their journey as I’ve been lucky enough to be helped.  Each and every day I want to find someone I can help, and help them.

I figure by the end of the week I should at the very least FEEL more successful.  Even better, I should have shifted my success focus from the future to the here and now.  As an experiment, it’s going to be fun!

Anyone have something they need or want help with to start me off?

Did you ever see that fantastic Monty Python skit where the crowd is yelling out “We’re ALL individuals” and “We’re ALL different”, but then a lone voice calls “I’m not!”

I love that sketch.  It’s an all time favourite.

Being an individual is an idea that we treasure so much that it’s all too easy to turn a blind eye to the fact that in many ways, we are exactly the same as everyone else.  We don’t like to think that we can have buttons pushed to make us react.  We don’t like to think that there’s not a lot we can point to and say: “That’s my own, unique, contribution to the world.  Nobody else could’ve done it.”

The sad truth is that for many of us, the struggle to make ends meet, and the pressure to live the way everyone else expects us to, will leave us realising at some stage that we’ve ended up in a job we hate, married, with kids, and a feeling that there’s no way out and nothing left of ourselves to express – a feeling usually labelled as “mid life crisis” and exploited all too well by sports-car salesmen.

There’s one big lie that perpetuates this situation.

We’re taught to believe that the little things we do, don’t count.  So, we put off writing that best-seller, composing that opus, painting the masterpiece or building the taj mahal.  We don’t have time right now, but we’ll get to it later…  It remains a treasured dream for the future, but we never take steps towards it in the now.

The authors, composers, artists and builders of the world can tell you, though, that their best work wasn’t the first one they did.  They started off with small steps, getting better along the way.

Being on that journey myself, I can also tell you, the later you start, the more you have to allow yourself time and space to re-discover your authentic voice or style.  We learn so well how to smother it in the name of conformity.

On the bright side, re-discovering it can be a lot of fun!  A lot like being a kid again, and with good reason.

The best and only way to discover what is you, and what is conditioning by society, is to push against that conditioning.  You have to be like the toddler who discovers the word “no” – and all of a sudden refuses to co-operate with authority.  (For any parents out there, take heart – this is a critical part of the journey to independence.  You DO want them to eventually grow up and leave home, I presume?)

This is where you have to let go of the lie.  You need to find little things where you can buck the trend with minor consequences, as you build up your confidence and ability to take the risk of the bigger steps in defiance of conformity down the track.  If the world is saying “no, you can’t blaze that trail because nobody’s ever done it before”, it’s going to take a lot of strength and will to say “Oh yes I can, and I will.  Nothing you can say will stop me. I’m outta here – goodbye.”

To develop that much willpower, you need to start small.  The little things you do WILL matter, long term, to the way you shape yourself and your life to be.  Want a few ideas on how to buck the trend?  Well, you know your own life and situation best, but a couple of examples to get you thinking:

• Everyone has lunch somewhere between 12 and 1?  Who says you have to?  Why not arrange to go at 2, and have a lovely short stint before you finish up and go home.
• Lunch is for eating?  Well, since eating at your desk doesn’t seem to be a problem for a lot of employers, why not have several small snacks at your desk through the day, and take your half-hour or hour lunchbreak to find someplace to meditate, lie in the sun, or even snooze instead?
• Even something as little as choosing a bright outfit to wear, when everyone else is in blacks, greys or navy, can make you a bit more comfortable standing out, and blazing your own path.  (It’s funny – I did this at Uni when I got sick of seeing everyone in denim & black or white t-shirts, and within a month everyone was in bright colours and I had to go to wearing black to look different again!)
• Is there a corporate uniform you’re stuck with?  Well, surely you can get away with accessories?  If you can’t even wear a hair comb that stands out, maybe you can start by wearing something very different UNDER your clothes, and just enjoy the knowledge privately…

The point is, there are lots of small ways you can start to flex that independence muscle, and begin taking steps along your own path.  It’s not easy to leave the well-worn track, and I’m not going to pretend that it is – but how many of the people you admire and respect have earnt that admiration through being good conformists?  Once you climb the walls of that rut, you have a whole wide landscape in front of you to explore, so why not go for it?

You, and every other person out there, has something special and unique to offer the world.  I’m convinced of it.  The tragedy is that we’re taught not to share it.  In the immortal words of Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

So, what will you do to strike your first match?

I’ve said it – and heard it said – repeatedly.  A two day weekend is just not long enough to get everything done.

Five days of work is too much.

The five day working week is a leftover from the days when there was one breadwinner, who usually had someone at home taking care of the non-work side of their lives.  That’s very obviously not the case anymore.  As women entered the workforce and families shifted to having dual-incomes, prices went up accordingly until now you really need two incomes just to get by.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against women in the workforce.  I believe women have a very valuable perspective that’s important to include in any workplace – especially when it monopolises so much of your waking life.  My point isn’t that we should go back to single breadwinners, but that we need to do something about the fact that everything OTHER than work is getting crammed into less and less time, there’s no longer an option for most people to get by on one income, and with the time that takes up, it’s people’s lives that are falling through the cracks.

We live in a time of change.  America voted in Obama, Australia voted in Kevin Rudd, and they both offered a platform of change.

Here’s one change I think is long overdue.  Let’s revise what’s considered standard in the working week.

Think about it.  If a working week becomes 3, or even 4 days, then you automatically have twice as many jobs.  If the government was to offer companies reduced payroll taxes so it’s no more of a burden to have two employees covering 6 (or even days, than it was to have a single person covering 5, and they get more work done for their employment buck.  Having a well rested employee is also a big bonus for productivity.  Even if they just make it easier for people to take up job sharing arrangements, it’s a win/win.

On a personal level, I know that as a single person, it’s all but impossible to fit everything I need to do into only 2 days.  Of course it doesn’t help that I travel to and from work, and put time into this and other sites online, but I’d dearly love to have another option besides the all or nothing choice – work or quit.

On the weekends we do have public holidays or some other reason for a 3 day weekend, I come back much more rested, having got through enough of my other commitments to be happy with it, and I cope much better with the 4 day week either before or after (although the first day is usually a mad rush to catch up for the 3 days off).   Work wouldn’t be so mutually exclusive to having a life if I could maintain that on a regular basis.  Even better if I could jobshare and work a 7 day fortnight, and have no mad catchup at all!

How about you?  Would you drop your days and/or hours if you had the option?  I know some companies had employees volunteer to drop their hours so they could retain more jobs when the Global Financial Crisis was threatening to close them down, but what about if it was a lifestyle choice rather than a necessity – would you do it?

Travelling to work by train gives me time to fill, and I love using that time to read.  This last week I’ve been reading a book called “How to Love Yourself to Success” from a membership to the Amazing Lifestyle Creation Formula program by David Gikandi (author of A Happy Pocket Full of Money).

I’m getting all kinds of A-ha realisations as I read through it.  I want to share one with you.

I’m reading about what empowers your fears, and the fact that what you fear is always in the future.

• You don’t fear what’s happening now,
• It’s impossible to be afraid of things already happened
• The only things you can fear are future possibilities.

This is a key.

If you want to disarm your fear, a simple technique to do it is to bring it forward in your mind until it’s as though it’s already happened.  It’s no longer in the future, and that disempowers it.  This transforms it from a vague worry about the future, into a here-and-now problem demanding solution.  Once you find, or even start looking, for that solution, your focus is no longer on the fear, but past it to what you’re creating beyond.

Powerful stuff.

I realised, in thinking through the process, that it’s not just timing that empowers our fears.
When we fear something happening, we’re not actually fearing THAT, but the unknown consequences that might happen after it.

There’s another key.

If you take the time to think through the best and worst that could happen if your fear comes to pass, it’s no longer unknown.

You’ll probably find that it’s also no longer scary.

More and more as I read this book I’m coming to understand how powerful your mind is.  It really does create your reality.  While you focus on something you’re afraid of, you’re stuck in fear.  When you shift that focus to what lies beyond it, or to the side of it, even if you’re looking at the worst possible scenario, that fear loses its hold on you, and you’re once again free to take action and choose your course.

Is your mind focused on the reality you want, or stuck dwelling on the reality you want to avoid?

If you’ve ever watched the Matrix, you’ll be familiar with the idea that our limits are imposed by our minds.  They have power because we believe in them.

Recently I was pointed to a video clip on you-tube that demonstrates this in the most incredibly inspiring way.

I love that they point out that his Mum’s done such a great job in never imposing limits on him in the name of “protecting” him – and the results speak for themselves.

Our fears, even if we hold them in the name of love and caring, are one of the key sources of our limitations.

• If your parents were constantly afraid of you falling, is it possible that the way they treated you might have something to do with your fear of heights?
• If they loved you so much that they kept you home and closely vetted your friends, can you see a relation to your shyness and fears about social occasions?
• If they never let you near ovens or heaters in case you burnt yourself, do you find yourself worrying about the chance of a fire even today?
• Could the tendency to enforce “children should be seen and not heard” – especially when company was around – have something to do with why public speaking is as scary to most people as death?

Limit-free thinking is fearless thinking.  For ourselves, the more risks and challenges we push ourselves to meet, the more we grow and experience, and the richer our lives become.  For others, especially the ones we love, allowing them to make their own mistakes is the hardest (and rarest) form of Love. That’s why I think this mum deserves a medal.  (Although from the smile on her face when she says there’s nothing he can’t do, she already has the best reward you could get…)

What limits have you picked up from the people who love or loved you, that are holding you back?  Can you think of one fearless thing you could do to push through them and free yourself from that particular limit?  Take that step towards living limit-free!

We’re all chasing it.  We’re all supposed to want it.  But how many of us actually know, clearly, what “success” is?

Most of us have a vague idea.  We’re brainwashed from a very early age to believe that it involves having lots of money, lots of power, lots of stuff, leisure time whenever we want it, looking like a model, if not a super-model, being constantly happy, in a loving, supportive relationship etc etc.  We also know what it’s supposed to EXclude – successful people don’t have to work for a living, don’t have to diet, don’t have to budget, don’t argue at all with their significant other, family or friends, never have a bad hair day, and never feel depressed or down.

The only candidates I can think of for success, then, are Barbie and Ken.  You can’t get much more superficial than a couple of hollow plastic dolls.  (By the way, if you’re dieting in the hope of looking like Barbie, you should be aware that she physically doesn’t have enough room in that waist of hers for all the bodily organs we come stocked with.)

Now, what about the people we think of as successful:

Oprah: she’s got the power and money, I don’t know about having lots of stuff (she keeps giving it away on that show of hers), but super-model looks aren’t part of her appeal.  If anything, the fact that she struggles like the rest of us with her weight is part of why we love her.  I’m pretty sure she also has bad hair days (even if she does have a stylist to help) and occasionally argues with people, too.

Donald Trump: He’s supposed to be successful in power and money terms, but he’s also been millions of dollars in debt.  I wouldn’t class him as a super-model, but maybe that’s why he likes to surround himself with them.  Loving supportive relationship?  Well, if you believe the press he’s had several of those, but you have to wonder why they keep ending if they’re so fantastic.  Oh, and leisure time?  From watching his TV show, I get the feeling it’s not part of his personal vocabulary – and that budgets definitely are!

Barack Obama: A bit new to the public eye, at least down here in Australia, but while he definitely has the looks and power, I have no idea about the money side, and for the next few years at least, it seems like leisure time is going to be a bit hard to come by.  I can also be pretty certain that, on the assumption he’s human like the rest of us, he will also have bad days and arguments – and from the recent special on the number of M&Ms being consumed in the White House, he and his staff certainly don’t seem to believe that success involves super-model type diets, either.

Bottom line is that what we’re taught to aspire to as the ‘default’ definition of success is unrealistic.  Each of these people, though, are massively successful by their OWN definitions.  They decided which things they were going to pursue, went after them, and reached them.  Would they have done that if they’d still been trying to fit someone else’s idea of what success should look like?  I don’t think so.  That default definition leaves you chasing down 10 different roads, all going in different directions, and probably giving you a net result of not moving anywhere at all.

So what IS the definition of success, then?

Like the definition of beauty, even though there’s plenty of people who want you to believe that they have the single most valid definition, I don’t think there is only one.  I think there’s as many definitions as there are people who’ve thought about it – and that there could be (and probably should be) at least as many definitions as there are people.

I know what my definition is – my ideal successful life involves leisure time, travel, helping lots of people, being fit and healthy, and loving myself regardless of what size that ends up being.  I want a circle of close friends I can share anything with, and call with exciting news.  I want to be able to help my family and friends out, as well as give generously to charity, without having to scrape together the cash to do it.  I want mentors I admire, and who stretch me to constantly keep growing and giving.  Most of all, I want my life to have a bigger meaning than just me – I want to make a difference on as big a scale as I can reach, teaching people to unlearn all the programming and rediscover the value they have in themselves.  I want to touch lives and leave them empowered, loving and believing in themselves again.

I may not be anywhere near the scale of an Oprah or a Barack Obama, but on those terms I’m already fairly successful.  Not 100% there, but close.

That’s MY definition, though.  Not yours.  Do you know what your own ideal successful life looks like?

If you haven’t thought about your definition yet, maybe it’s time to go down the local coffee shop with notepad and pen, buy your drink of choice, and paint the picture of what success means to you. Even if you already have one, there’s no reason you can’t re-visit it and check out whether it still feels right.  As you’ve grown, your thoughts and dreams could have too.

This is more than just an exercise – it’s a vital step if you ever want to have a hope of achieving your dream life.  Doesn’t it make sense that it’s a lot easier to hit a goal when you know where you are on the field, and exactly which of the goal posts around you is the one you’re aiming for?

I have a computer full of e-books, more courses than I could probably get through in the next 20 years, audios that could fill the next 30 years after them and more hardcopy books than some local libraries.  I love learning.  I may very well be an addict.

One thing I haven’t done much of, though, is live events.  Not for lack of wanting, but there aren’t too many local to me here down in Australia, and usually I don’t find out about them until after the event.  Yesterday, I got an emailed invitation to a live course.  For a change this one hadn’t happened yet.   I decided I’d love to go.

Then I discovered it was over $3,000.

Even so, I found myself trying to think of ways to come up with enough money to attend.  I wanted to so badly.  It was on a topic dear to my heart – repairing our beliefs about what we’re worth.  I started wondering if I’d get my tax money back in time.

Then I realised what I was doing.

The truth is, courses will always keep coming along.  Books will always be available, audios and videos are not likely to stop being produced anytime soon.  Many of them re-hash the same ideas we’ve heard, read or watched before.

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that chasing learning for it’s own sake is futile.  Learning something new is fundamentally useless unless I take action to apply it.

Today I realised there’s another part to the equation. The ideas we most love to hear are the ones we already know.

I realised that the attraction of learning is not necessarily always the idea of growing in a new direction.  Sometimes it can be as simple as wanting someone outside us to lend their authority and weight to our own knowledge.  We already know what we should be doing, but we don’t honour that knowledge unless it comes from an authority figure – someone (anyone) outside of ourselves.

Why do we find it so hard to believe in our own authority?

I’ve got as many, if not more, experiences than a lot of these people I listen to and buy from.  The results I’ve got are in some cases a lot more spectacular and/or profound than what I read in these sales pitches.  But still I’ve felt compelled to listen to what they have to offer.  What’s worse is that I’ve silenced my own voice to do it.  I’ve given other people’s words more weight than my own.  Why?

I choose, here and now, to elevate my inner wisdom to a higher level of authority.  I commit to spending less time seeking sources of knowledge outside myself, until I’ve fully explored where the wisdom and experience I already hold within my own heart can take me.

Anyone else want to take the same pledge?

Life has a funny way of reinforcing the lessons we’re meant to learn sometimes.  I got some great lessons while I was on holidays on the Gold Coast, and my mind wasn’t occupied elsewhere. (There’s another lesson it itself)

One of the most powerful messages I got was on the second last day, just before we shifted hotels for the last night.

We’d decided to wander down to the main Mall in Surfers Paradise for breakfast.  The night before, when we’d been wandering around, we’d checked out what was on offer and there was one cafe that had a special on, a choice of several full breakfasts for $10.  One of them was vegetarian, so it seemed perfect.

After a leisurely morning, we strolled up and got there a little after 7:30.  A few other places were open, so we checked their menus, but nothing particularly different stood out.  Then we got to the cafe, and they didn’t even have their menu board out.  There was someone in there busy setting up, and he saw us, so as we wandered over to the next cafe and checked their menu board, we saw him come over to set his out too.

He also set a few chairs across the entry, obviously to close it off until he was ready.

The special looked good, and the opening time listed was 7.30, but by this time it was quarter to 8, and he was still fussing around with table napkins and menus on each table (even though nobody could get in to them). We had a choice.  The cafe next door was still setting up, but were happy for us to come in and sit down, and even order, while they did it.  The first place obviously didn’t want anyone in until they were fully set up, so we were left standing outside waiting.  The question was, did we want to wait who knows how long for him to get it perfectly set up, or did we want to eat next door, who would serve us now.

We went next door.

It was a lovely breakfast, the staff was wonderful (she even moved out of the way so we could see what she was writing on the specials board), and by the time we finished there were 3 other tables filled and enjoying their breakfasts too.

The first cafe was by now perfectly set up, but even thought the chairs had finally been moved out of the way, it was empty.

I realised that here was a perfect metaphor for one of my biggest hurdles to running an online business – and from what I read it seems to be fairly common too.  Perfectionism.

Online or offline, in business, you can’t get customers in through closed doors.

If your doors are closed because you’re waiting to put finishing touches on something, ask yourself how many customers might be perfectly happy to sit in and wait while you finish setting up, or even place an early order if you let them, and how many are seeing your closed doors and walking away to the competition.

Worth a thought, isn’t it?

You’ve not seen much of me for the last two weeks. If you follow me on twitter you’d have the details of last week’s why, but this week has been purely and simply a holiday.  More of one than I expected!

We went away for a short break.  I’m in Queensland writing this to you now, and enjoying amazingly warm weather for Winter.  (Except when we went up the mountains this morning, but that’s another story.)  This trip has been needed for probably way too long, and it’s a great celebration of what I achieved with last week’s mammoth effort.  Before you ask, no that’s not me in the picture (I wish!)

I’m loving how much more freely both my mind and body are moving, now they’ve had a chance to re-charge.  We’ve taken bushwalks, walked through shopping centres, paddled on the beach and done pretty much everything else we could fit in, including lounging around a bit.  Today, after a short trip up to the Gold Coast Hinterlands, we came back and I had some time to myself, as I like to do.  I was planning on reading a bit.  Instead, I had what Oprah likes to call an “Ah-Ha Moment”.

I started thinking about the things I wanted to do for my website when I got back, since the internet connection at the hotel was down (or I’d probably have been there instead of immersed in a book).  Suddenly, my mind felt like several different thoughts, some of the separate paths I’d been trying to juggle, and a few things I was only looking at trying, just clicked together into a single, unified path that just felt amazingly RIGHT.  Not to mention incredibly motivating and exciting as well.  I think it’s what Steve Pavlina calls the Path with Heart.

As I thought over that “Ah-Ha” realisation, and how well it melded everything I wanted to achieve, it occurred to me that it probably wouldn’t have happened without the rest and time out I’ve given myself this week to just recuperate and chill out.  Having reached a goal last week, I felt free to let go and enjoy for a while, and it seems like that freed up some circuits or something.

It’s funny.  We all accept and acknowledge that life is a journey, not a destination.  We know, even if we don’t actually do it, that we’re supposed to be enjoying the steps along the way.  But what about the rest stops?

When you go touring, do you drive solidly until the car runs out of juice?  Or do you plan it so you have interesting places that you reach, take some time out to enjoy, then jump in the car again to head off for the next stop? When you get back into the car after a break, don’t you feel re-energised for the trip, and have a clearer picture of where you’re going next?

Why don’t we treat the journey of life the same way?

Maybe that’s why we’ve lost touch with how to enjoy our journeys.  All our ‘rest stops’ are being saved up for the final destination.  We’re not giving ourselves those quiet moments to savour where we’ve gone, celebrate the stage we’ve reached, and refresh our thoughts of where we want to go next.  Then, when our motivation naturally drops without those little reinforcements, we end up detouring wherever any interesting sign points us.  It’s way too easy to head off in a whole new direction at the next interesting sign, abandoning each mini-journey without ever having reached the finish points they’re pointing to.

Are you driving through life with a clear plan in mind, or at least an idea of where your next stop is meant to be?  Or are you (like I’ve done in the past) following each and every signpost that looks like somewhere we might want to go, only to be detoured by the next one that shows up?

They say the first step is in acknowledging what you’ve been doing.  As a second step, (planning your whole life trip is probably a bit too much) why not try just following ONE path (no matter how short or minor) to the end, and celebrating with a rest stop when you get there.

After this last week, I can tell you, it feels amazing!

If you haven’t seen the Spiderman movie, you may not recognise the quote:

With great power comes great responsibility

It’s true, I’ll admit.  But nobody ever talks about the reverse side of it – that taking responsibility GIVES you power too…

One of the things that annoys me most is when people insist on playing the blame game.  No matter what it is that’s happened, it’s someone else’s fault and they’ve got a finger ready to point if you ever ask “why”.  In fact, a lot of them don’t wait for you to ask, before they start pointing it.

I don’t know or understand the reasoning (maybe someone can enlighten me?) but it seems to me that this is a very dis-empowering thing to do.

• If you don’t have control or ownership over your own actions, then it’s not within your ability to change them – or to change your results.
• If the things that happen to you are because of circumstances outside yourself, then you’re a victim of life, with no option but to suffer what life throws your way.
• If you refuse to admit you have any control of your own life, then you either drift aimlessly through it, or someone else takes up the reins for you – and it’s a pretty sure bet they won’t be putting your interests and well-being above their own.  (It’s called ‘emotional slavery’ and if you’ve ever seen it happen, you’ve seen the first cousin of cult brainwashing at work.)
• Your dreams will remain just that; dreams.  If you never take action towards them, how can they ever happen?

On the other hand, if you DO take responsibility for your life – no matter how hard it is initially – things become easier.

• You can use feedback when things don’t go the way you want them to, and put things in place so it doesn’t happen again
• You can set and follow your own direction towards your own dreams
• You can choose how you react to external circumstances, so you follow the path that’s best for you.
• You may appear to be under the control of someone else (like if you work in a dayjob), but you know that in the end, you’ve chosen to be there, and you always keep the final choice to fire them and leave.  No one can EVER force you to stay against your will.  Sure there may be consequences if you go, but you know that and weigh it up as part of your decision.

I’ve had many people say “but what about victims of famine, disease, rape etc – are they responsible for their situation?”

There’s two sides to my response.  Firstly, whether you think you’re responsible for the situation you find yourself in or not, you should at the very least admit that you ARE responsible for yourself.  You choose how to react.  You choose what to make of it – including the emotional overtones you give it that can either blow the situation up into a full scale soapie drama, or neutralise it down into “no big deal”.  You can also say “well, there’s gotta be some good I can pull out of this.

I’ve seen cancer victims who have used the disease to spread the message to enjoy and appreciate life, and who always wear a smile.

I’ve seen rape victims who’ve turned their situation into a wake up call to empower themselves and work tirelessly for victim rights.

I’ve seen homeless people who take their situation and turn it into the motivation to achieve huge success.  Just think of how many people you’ve seen on Oprah who’ve once lived on the streets, in a car, or in a trailer.

For that matter, even the footage of starving kids overseas often shows them smiling and playing.

I’ve been through some of these situations myself, and I can say first-hand – it’s only once you decide to take ownership of your response to them, that you have any hope of healing your heart and moving forward.  Making the additional step of looking for the good is an incredibly empowering experience, and in my case at least, a path to finding happiness you can keep regardless of what happens to you.

The second part of my response? Well, personally I believe that my current circumstances are the result of my thoughts, actions and choices, and so I have responsibility for my situation too.  That gives me the power to change the direction my life goes at any time.  Yes, I even accept responsibility for the lousy things that have happened to me – because that way I know I can learn from them and they never need happen again.  But that’s just me.

What do you believe?