In this month’s monthly musings, I wanted to discuss a topic that so many business owners and entrepreneurs find difficult and uncomfortable to discuss openly.
The topic is that of success and feeling significant?
Whether it’s success in your life, finance, or your career and your business?
The word itself conjures up a myriad of emotional responses. From dread, fear, failure, and loathing, to excitement, fulfilment, and gratification.
Stop for just a moment and ask what success means to you.
- What mental pictures do you create?
- What language do you hear?
- What physical expressions are you aware of?
Most people spend their entire lives chasing a form of success that they can identify with. Most do not know how to recognise their success and remain unfulfilled.
We are so busy chasing the next thing and then the next, and dare I say the next that we miss our stream of successes. Your success is reflected everywhere you look.
One of the purposes of The Monthly Musing is to ground yourself once a month and review your progress … so let’s do it
Stop and just listen first.
- Just what do you hear?
- Now, without moving your head, what do you see around you, how wide is your peripheral vision, how distant is the horizon?
- Take not of where you are positioned, sitting, standing, or laying? Can you feel textures of fabrics next to your skin, pressures where your body touches and supports you and perhaps you have become aware of the temperature of your body?
The reality is …You have created all of this, yes you. Everything that is around you are the result of your actions and decisions, and hard work.
Q: Now in this state of heightened awareness you might dare to ask yourself “what is my purpose in life”, am I on the right path?
This question will open the window onto the landscape of what success your way looks like.
If your success is determined by having peace of mind, a heart-centered and spiritual life that’s amazing, but it doesn’t preclude you from having ambition or desire for financial freedom or from having recognition.
I remember having a successful female entrepreneur on one of my training courses. We were working on visions and values for her business, and she faltered at saying she wanted to be ‘rich’. When we explored her paradigms, it was apparent, that she felt embarrassed by wanting to be rich and to have enough money to travel and have nice things. She had been given at a young age, the belief that this was greedy and that people ‘without’, were the salt of the earth, humble and good people.
What are you measuring yourself by…
The most traditional way to measure the quality of one’s life is to evaluate success by listing accolades, achievements, and acquisitions. After all, in its simplest terms, success is getting what you want, and most people want some level of wealth and to become someone, thereby, gaining status/recognition.
And this is where our shyness comes in and we start apologising for wanting this. Where does it stem from, because you weren’t born with this shyness?
I am guessing that a high proportion of children have been taught to
- Wait your turn?
- Be nice and share?
- Do not ask, wait to be offered?
- Do not be greedy?
- Do not show off?
You may have heard saying as I certainly did in my family
- Filthy rich.
- Come the revolution.
- Pride comes before a fall.
- How the mighty fall.
Most people get the same results year after year because they keep recycling the same thoughts. So, if you are continuing to operate with the paradigms you have been given then it is almost certain you will continue to achieve the same results.
UN-FILTER and start to love why you’re doing it.
What are your next steps towards finding significance and success…is becoming UN-FILTERED?
Be courageous by saying what you want out loud, don’t think about being politically correct just start saying it in the mirror?
Go back to our early exercise of getting grounded. As you say what you want, consider what might change.
- What will you have that’s different in your surroundings?
- Will you hear different things?
- Will you experience a different feeling?
- Will this equate to being significant and achieving success?
You may find you have already achieved ‘significance’ and ‘success’ and now it is just turning the volume up!
And finally…
If you find yourself pulling back or any resistance at all to what you truly want, it is likely you have some unconscious paradigms to shift. And that’s ok. It just means you must take more time to focus on yourself.