3 Secrets For Taking Control of Your Life
& Creating Success
Here’s a question for the ages: What is success? For some it’s landing the six or seven figure job, for others, finding the perfect mate, for my wife it’s getting the kids to bed on time… but what is it really?
Success has less to do with achievement and more to do with response to the outcome. I have seen people land the “perfect” job and be miserable, or marry their dream girl/boy and get divorced. I have even seen my wife get the kids to bed on time and be frustrated because it was a battle every step of the way.
What if you sought a $250,000/yr job but landed one for $150,000, is that considered success? What if you fell in love with someone whose qualities were different than the list you created of the perfect spouse at age 14, is that failure? What if the kids are in bed 25 minutes late, but they go down happy and my wife walks out of the room smiling and feeling satisfied with motherhood? How could that be anything but success?
This brings me back to my original question, what is success? Success is being the captain of your own ship. It’s about being in control of your life while utilizing the talents of your “crew,” members such as fear, doubt, excitement, passion, intellect and gut; valuable crewmembers one and all, but none the captain. It includes confidence and happiness, but ultimately the captain embodies fulfillment, happiness and awareness.
One obstacle to such success is the doubt that they are worthy of happiness or worthy of their dreams. I meet so many people who believe they don’t deserve what they desire. “Sure, I’d love to live in a house like that, but that will never happen for me.” “Of course I would like to fall in love, but with my track record I’m lucky to fall in like.” “You just don’t know my family; we don’t get breaks like that.”
To overcome this obstacle you must believe in your dreams. You can dream all you want, but dreaming is not succeeding. Ironically, dreams can become an obstacle of success. There is a client of mine who thrives in the dreaming phase. She thinks, “as long as I am dreaming I am full of potential and people believe in me. But the second I step out, I may fail. Then I lose not just the potential, but also the dream!” The truth is you will only become what you believe is possible. If you don’t believe it, you can’t become it. Believing is the keystone to becoming, achieving or succeeding at anything in life. So ask yourself, what is it that you truly believe about your dreams and your potential? Answer that and you have glimpsed your definition of success.
Another obstacle is the “all-or-nothing” syndrome. This is the issue of thinking the next decision in your life is the most important decision of your life. Another client was so paralyzed by the fear of making the wrong decision she was unable to make any decision about what she wanted to do with her life. She wanted to change the world, but felt that a step in the “wrong direction” could ruin her whole future. Rationally she understood that wasn’t true, but functionally she couldn’t get past the block. The secret came in reframing the outcome. What were once viewed as mistakes became building blocks. This is in the spirit of Thomas Edison who said he didn’t fail 1,000 times to invent the light bulb; he simply found a 1,000 ways that didn’t work. The shift is subtle, but the impact is profound.
The gift in any step you take is the knowledge you gain once you have discovered the outcome. The challenge comes in using that knowledge. The question is: Are you letting the outcome of yesterday’s choice stop you from making tomorrow’s decision? As long as there is life, there are dreams and possibilities and your new tomorrow will be based on your beliefs about your new today, which goes back to obstacle one; what do you believe.
The last obstacle is the notion that one’s perspective is the absolute, true and only possible perspective. One of my clients was convinced his boss was jealous of his intellect and was determined to stand in his way of advancement into management. As we began to reframe his perspective and develop new ways to see his circumstances, he discovered a new approach to his superiors. Since he wasn’t getting what he wanted thinking they were jealous of him, he began to approach work as an experiment. He started asking what kind of “tests” he could run to validate or disprove his perspective. Then literally within one conversation the course of his relationship with his superior changed. By approaching his boss from a different perspective, an obstacle became the catalyst for advancement. Understanding and trying on new perspectives is huge. Determine any perspective you have that seems absolutely, positively, infallibly true, then turn them around and ask what if the inverse were true? How would you behave in this new perspective and how would it impact your experience? Change your perspective and you can change your world.
Success is not about a destination or the realization of a goal, that’s achievement. Success is about a frame of mind. It’s built upon happiness and shaped by the level to which one is willing to wake up and be conscious of their life and their being. Success is a state of awareness that provides a person with the power to weather any storm and to take control of all their ships of life: Relationships, Friendships, Leadership, Companionship… Find your happiness and you will be successful at everything you chose to try in life.
(C) Copyrighted 2006 All rights reserved by Steven Fulmer
