Can you imagine working really hard to climb a steep mountain, only to discover when you get to the top that you feel disappointed. It’s nothing like you expected.
Now imagine working hard all your life to achieve success, and discovering when you get there that it’s not what you were looking for. Not because you don’t want to be successful, but because you took the wrong path.
I believe many people who struggle with success know inside themselves that they don’t want to go in the direction where they think success lies, and so they resist it, even as they try to get there.
We have patterns in our subconscious that run our life, until we change them by consciously putting different patterns in there. Many of us programmed our picture of success a long time ago, often influenced by parents, teachers and other older people. This is our ‘default’ program.
If you can step back and look at your default program you may find it is not very appealing. When I started thinking about this recently, I was shocked to realise my default picture of success included endless To Do lists, working 16 hour days, never having time for myself and various other unattractive characteristics. I experienced all of this when I was a lot younger and don’t ever want to go back there again.
The thing is if you don’t consciously define a better picture of success the default is likely to be the direction you go – ‘by default’. Think how much time that subconscious program is running in your life. If you are not successful yet it may be running the majority of the show. Is it any wonder you are struggling?
If you want to feel more inspired about your future try this:
Relax for a few minutes and then feel into your default (subconscious) picture of success. This is likely to be a picture that is already quite old and out of date. Write down as many of its characteristics as you can.
Look at what you have written and wherever you find aspects you don’t find appealing change them for something better. Use this to create a new, more attractive picture of what success might look like for you. Make sure it suits you and your uniqueness, and is not what other people expect of you.
Just doing this simple exercise helped me to clarify a more appealing direction. I found over several days that various negative aspects of my default picture kept popping into my consciousness. Each time I changed them to something more inspiring.
I realised that much of the resistance people feel towards success is because they do not even want the version of success that is in their default program. It is often very out of date and rarely suits the individual. Aiming for something you don’t want is exhausting and drains your spirit and energy.
It takes some courage to define what real success would be for you – and you alone. You may find you want something other people would not easily accept, or that seems almost impossible. But if it is sincerely what you want it feels terrible to deny it.
Going for what inspires you will give you energy. And enjoying getting even half way up the right mountain is much more satisfying than struggling to the top of the wrong one!
Photo by Paolo Lentini on Unsplash