Managing Your Self
Lesson 7: Success
1. What is Success?
2. Three Parts of Success
3. Awareness
Exercise One
4. Free Will
5. Commitment
6. Responsibility
7. Career Choices
8. Motivation
9. Personal Power
10. Perspective
Exercise Two
1. What is Success?
It's a new day; it's a new world coming. Yesterday and tomorrow are rapidly diverging. Those who wish to succeed in the future must leave behind the major illusions of success of the past: ego, greed, blind ambition, and the grip of tradition — how things were done yesterday. Trying to keep things the same today as they were yesterday is not the basis of greater success. "Success" in perpetuating old illusions is nothing more than failure in disguise.
Sudden change can be traumatic, when past frames of reference no longer pertain in the present. For example, take someone from their horse and buggy of a hundred years ago, put them in a space ship and send them to the moon, and notice their stress level rise (possibly fatally). Due to prior inertia (habit, conditioning, choices, beliefs, and commitments), people are locked into a rather inflexible mind set, and certain expectations that their reality is not going to change very much. But, that's just an illusion.
Most people are locked into mistracking with a rapidly changing reality. Again, it is often the most "successful" ones, the experts, authorities, and leaders who carry the most weight and momentum from the past, who will fail to track with a totally new reality to the largest extent. Change produces completely new criteria for success. Of course, there are those skeptics and experts who believe (or who want you to believe) that things will stay the same, that the future will be more of the same, and that what they haven't yet seen with their eyes can't possibly be true. But, unprecedented and (to them incomprehensible) change will come.
The criteria for success have evolved to keep pace with exponential change. Long ago, it worked to try to keep things the same (stable). Hundreds of years ago, with the Industrial Revolution, people began to learn to accommodate rapid change. In recent decades it has been best to initiate change (to innovate). Today, with such rapid change, the only thing that works is to anticipate change.
Things are changing too quickly to get lost following yesterday's thinking or trends. What is needed is true awareness and vision. We are entering a new phase where change can not be anticipated by those who are heavily invested in past or present trends (the experts, authorities, and leaders). They have, unfortunately, only learned to look at, plan for, and accommodate change on the micro level, with no long-term vision for success. Instead of being more aware, they are more shortsighted. The "new" criteria for success include fundamentals they have not mastered: awareness, integrity, trust, responsibility, patience, and a commitment to what is right, good, and true.
Mathematically, because change is occurring at an accelerating rate (the "curve" of change is exponential), any trend line ("tangent to the curve") from the past or present is destined to rapidly diverge from reality ("the curve"). This means that expectations you might have (which take the place of true awareness) are increasingly likely not to occur in reality. This relates to education, work, investment, business, relationships, culture, health care, and so on. All of these environments are changing rapidly, and unexpectedly.
Be aware of this. And notice, again, the absolute necessity for true present moment awareness, and the need to learn to be centered in your self, in your inner awareness, in the truth. Any tendency to try to hang on to old expectations (i.e., conditioning and programming) will keep you from aligning with reality. The nature of change is such that "change" is going to be more often interpreted as "chaos" by the unaware person. The more rapidly and unexpectedly things change, the greater the need to manage change outside by managing within.
Increasingly, yesterday's assumptions and expectations will be seen to be based on superficial conditioning, programming, unawareness, and a mindless unquestioning belief that all of our needs — including the need to think for ourselves — have been provided for by others. The rapidity with which illusions of "success" and "prosperity" disappear will be shocking. It will not work to ignore change and what is occurring around you, like the proverbial ostrich hiding its head in the sand. The key to managing your self (and everything else) is to be aware, see what is happening, understand why, and find a stable place to stand within you.
2. Three Parts of Success
The most important thing about success — just like problem solving — is you. The three elements of success are: you, your situation, and your experience of your situation. Success is subjective; you find or assign value, meaning, and purpose to what you do, and experience a given level of fulfillment, within you. There is no external measure of success, no matter what your society, peers, family, friends, or authority figures say. It is not about money, position, power, materialism, or anything else outside you. It is how you experience your situation.
Most people pursue success the same way they "solve" problems: they try to change everything outside themselves, and nothing within themselves. They look at their situation and see how they can "improve" it, most often by getting more things, having more things be the way they like, getting approval or esteem from others, and so on. That has very little to do with success.
You could have everything you ever wanted, and be unhappy. You could be a billionaire and have very little self-esteem. Or you could be way down on the economic scale, and be very happy and successful, and have a great sense of self-worth. It is all about you. It has almost nothing to do with anything outside you.
To experience greater success, you choose to change. You change you, or you change your experience of your situation — your self-talk, your thoughts, your perception of your options, your interaction, your level of involvement, the actual choices you are making, what you choose to find value or meaning in, and your choice of how you react. Those things are within your control.
Why is one person happy with a hundred dollars while another cannot be happy with a hundred million? It is because of what they are telling themselves. The unhappy ones are judging their own worth as a function of how much money they have. And because this devalues their own self, the more money they have, the less self-worth they may feel, until they feel they can't get enough money to feel okay about themselves. And, yes, this happens all the time to the very rich.
It's not about the money or anything external, it's what you are telling yourself about it.
In a sense, we are all successful. If you don't understand how all of your choices have been successful — have managed to get you right where you are, here, now — you may not realize how to be successful in a different way. We all make successful choices at every moment of our lives, to do what we do. We do what we choose to do, and we don't do what we don't choose to do. Even if you feel as though you are being forced to do something which is not your choice, the fact that you give in to that pressure, is still your choice. You always have choice.
The first thing to change if you want greater success is your own thinking. You have to tell yourself the truth about how you are already successful; that even if you are doing things which are not in your own best interest, or which do not serve you, you are successfully doing so. The idea is to choose to be more successful at the things that do serve you — not your ego, not your desire to be approved of by others, not the expectations of others, not your accepted programming, but simply you. It is a choice you make.
Changing or controlling every situation or circumstance so that it suits you — or trying to — is only ego. Simply being who you are, with no concern for how everyone else thinks of you, is a greater success. As long as you are judging your success by artificial external measures, you will not have a real sense of self-satisfaction.
Success depends upon little more than true inner awareness, knowing what your purposes are — realizing deeply what needs to be done and why — and then choosing to do what you know to be right, good, and true for you. There are no external "measurements" or indicators of success, least of all the money, recognition, or approval of others. Success is experienced entirely within you.
Success requires a true sense of purpose and inner awareness. What is often called "success" — that is, performing well at something that has very little real meaning to you — is much more like failure. It is missing the essential first step of success: being aware within your self, being inner-directed, knowing the power of choice and free will, and pursuing your own true purposes. You cannot be "successful" at living someone else's life. You must truly be you.
3. Awareness
The most fundamental thing that works for you is your own consciousness. Your consciousness is the basic awareness you have, by which you are able to be "present" and experience, here, now — and respond appropriately. The true basis of action, knowledge and understanding, arises from this consciousness.
Consciousness is like a light, illuminating everything you experience. The more aware you are, and the more clearly you discern what you see, the more progressive your choices will be. The less aware you are or the less self-directed you are, the less workable your choices will ultimately be. Behavior patterns structured around ego and emotion decrease connection with the true inner self, and feed blind ambition.
Anything that diminishes your awareness of reality, or feeds illusions, is ultimately very self-destructive. Many influences in society overshadow or reduce consciousness, producing instead an ego-emotional "high," feeding illusions and self-delusion (drug addiction is the classic example). Whatever reduces, distorts, or blocks your awareness (such as past conditioning, programming, emotion, alcohol, drugs, etc.) defeats you.
Acting out conditioning and programming, and being unaware, has no role in true success. The idea is not to gain the world or the world's approval or acclaim — and lose your self in the process. Success is being true to yourself, always.
Instead of relying upon past impressions, conditioning, habit, and "hopes for the best," have the courage to question things, to look for different possibilities — not to just do what everyone else does. Awareness and perspective can be expanded, to realize what your best choices in life truly are, here, now.
Many people live in the past; it determines their present. If your awareness is caught up in thoughts, feelings, or desires from the past, or reactions to things from the past, learn to center your self and bring your awareness back into the present moment. By expanding your awareness, within, you can bring more of the quality of consciousness into your outer activity and the choices you make. Awareness means perceiving deeply, having insight, or clear vision.
Consciousness is a simple, uncluttered awareness of reality. The very willingness to be more conscious of what you do, and what you are choosing, opens your awareness to better choices. Not being conscious of different aspects of your reality robs you of the power to change them.
People, places, situations, events, and other things in your life can overshadow you, oppress you, or render you less aware. The process of making your own self unaware is called denial. Learn to deal with things you have difficulty with, rather than ignoring them or denying them attention. Denial only makes you less able to manage or cope.
Awareness changes over time, daily, and throughout life. For many people, it declines. As a child they were more alert, playful, joyful, loving, creative, free, and happy. Or at least there were moments of that. Over time, they lost perspective; their vision narrowed; they lost sight of what matters most. You need not.
The less you rely upon old and unconscious patterns of choosing, or past habit, conditioning and programming, the more aware you will be in the present moment. Self-awareness — taking a good look at your self — is non-judgmental. It is simply seeing what is so. Then, you can choose from there, from a place of greater awareness.
Exercise One: Take a moment to look around you. This
is an exercise in awareness. You are aware of things outside
you and you are aware of your inner experience, as well.
Notice that whatever you pay attention to, focus on, or seek to
be more aware of, really does
grow in your awareness. Find one thing to focus on,
in your environment, and keep your attention on it. Notice
everything you can about it. And, listen to what you are
hearing, seeing, feeling, or sensing within you, on a more
subtle level than the outer senses.
What thoughts, feelings, or
inner sense do you have about it. Do you sense
beauty, naturalness, form, structure, function, shape, design,
color, purpose? Do you have any sense of joy, peace,
understanding, compassion, and so on? You may wish to
practice this exercise in awareness, daily, in different
environments, with a different focus. It may be helpful to
do this exercise somewhere out in nature, or to close your eyes
after you have focused for a while on something, to see what
your inner impression is. As you practice this exercise,
your awareness will grow.
There is really no such thing as being too aware. It is just a matter of learning how to deal with what you see in the right way. The more conscious you are, the more empowered you will be to make progressive changes. But you have to see them first.
Everything you do is a product of your own consciousness; everything in your life/work benefits from more consciousness on your part. Greater consciousness is like the difference between being unconscious or asleep, and being awake and alive. This is why you need to seek more clarity, alertness, and awareness of real possibilities in activity. Consciousness gives you true creative choice.
4. Free Will
You have free will — the potential to exercise choice continuously. The extent to which you truly demonstrate free will, and true creative choice, is basically a matter of how aware you are. Choice also depends upon how free you are from habit, past conditioning, programming, or indoctrination in the present moment.
For most practical purposes, most people demonstrate very little free will or true creative choice, in the same way that they seldom have a true, original, creative thought. "Choices" which they make are determined by other mechanisms. One of the most common choices, today, is called "denial." It is the choice to render oneself unaware or unconscious of whatever one wishes not to deal with. The more habitual or addictive your behavior, the more unquestioned your thinking, the less choice you truly have.
Choice occurs continuously, at each and every moment. Choice is more subtle than the reasoning you do in making a decision; choice is simply choosing in the moment, at each moment. Here, now. By choosing, you exercise your preference as to what you wish to enliven in your experience, what you wish to put your attention on, at any given moment. Your choices then govern your attention and shape your awareness. The more fundamental the choice, the more far-reaching its effects in your life. Some of the biggest choices we make are often unquestioned, unexplored, unconscious, or unchallenged.
To a large extent, what you may experience in life, and the people and things you fill your life with, are entirely of your own choosing. You make countless choices each day, small and large — most of them unaware, mindless, or habitual. And you live with your choices. Everything is a choice; you choose to either accept it or refuse it in your life, consciously or unconsciously.
Responsibility is inherent in every choice; you are accountable for whatever you choose or do not choose, in your life. Every choice you make to "not care," to not question things, to do whatever makes you feel "good" — or to distract yourself from what is right, good, or true in reality — diminishes your awareness. Choose what is right, consciously, or you will make lesser choices unconsciously (or consciously).
Be more aware of what you are doing, and question the value of it — why you are doing it, or doing it that way. This empowers you to choose otherwise. Unless you question your own thoughts, feelings, and desires, you might simply accept them as true, and act on them. But, that is not truly being conscious. Practice discerning, choosing what truly serves you, what is most creative, progressive, expansive, what allows growth and success in life/work.
Choose to keep and value, acknowledge and appreciate, what works for you. Don't abandon your choices unless you are sure they are no longer right, good, and true for you. And, do not hold on to any of your choices after their "time" has passed. Choose what you know to be right, within your own self, understanding that you are responsible for your choices, always. If your choice doesn't take you where you want, or you learn something, you can then choose differently.
There is enormous power in choice, but first, you have to be aware that you have choices to make. In other words, consciousness must be introduced into the process of choosing. Unconscious choices tend to be limiting, habitual, uncreative, and even destructive. Rather, learn to be conscious of your choices — because what you choose does get enlivened in your experience, whether you are making your choices consciously or unconsciously. And, you remain responsible for your choices, either way.
It is much easier to be conscious about choices by allowing some quiet time to center within the self before "choosing." In other words, the more calm, clear, and connected you are with your inner self, the more conscious your choices will be. Further, choose to bypass common habitual thinking, the thinking, desires, expectations, pressures, or demands of others, past conditioning or programming, ego, and emotion — and instead rely more upon your own true self.
5. Commitment
Commitment means accepting responsibility for your choices — and being consistent in your choices. A commitment is the choice to honor a choice you have made; it's a choice to keep the larger perspective. It is trusting your self and your choices.
Commitment is what takes choice from the level of desire to completion. You simply can't abandon true workable choices, or be inconsistent in your choices, if you want to see them manifested in reality. If you don't make a commitment to your own choices and purposes in life, life holds little substance or meaning.
Prior to making a clear, conscious, commitment, your choices can pull you in different directions, and render your actions ineffective. But, within you is the creative intelligence to organize your choices in life/work — such that they are all going in the same direction, in accordance with your purpose.
What is necessary is to make a commitment, and to rely upon your own choices, to empower yourself to proceed in life. Otherwise, you hold yourself back. When you make and keep commitments, you do what is true to you, what you know in your heart to be right; you express the willingness to align yourself with reality.
Commitment comes from choice. The result of making a commitment is having more ability to choose what is right and good and true to you. Commitment does not diminish this ability, in any way. Rather, it increases your ability to do so.
It is misleading to think that commitment traps you or binds you. Rather, it frees you to move in the direction you have chosen — freely, effectively, wholeheartedly. Having commitment allows you to truly progress in life/work.
Until you make a commitment to your choices, they simply remain intangible possibilities, or perhaps cancel each other out. As soon as you make a real commitment, and stick with it, all kinds of possibilities will begin to manifest in accordance with it, in ways you might not have expected.
Remember that your commitment is what will make your life choices manifest in the world — in reality — in ways that you could not anticipate or expect. Commitment is getting past self-doubt, worry, indecision, fear, or whatever tends to hold you back; it means learning to draw upon true inner resources.
If you have a difficult time with committing to something, anything, you may have a problem with being unable or unwilling to do what is really right. Often, the ego pulls you towards what satisfies it, contrary to what you need to be committed to, or what you know in your heart is right.
Realize that commitment is not arbitrary, just as choice is not arbitrary. And, making a commitment to your choices does not make them right. Both choice and commitment require you to look deeply within your self, to choose what is right and good and true, to follow higher principle, to fulfill higher purposes.
Learn to get free from programmed loyalties, limiting past conditioning, and old habit patterns. And let that be your first, true, commitment to your self.
6. Responsibility
Responsibility is the acceptance of yourself as the accountable cause of your experience in all areas of life and work. Responsibility is not about burden or disappointment or having a hard time; it's about personal empowerment. It is a willingness to see the means by which you either accept or change your life.
The reality is that you live with your choices, unless and until you choose otherwise. This is your responsibility in reality; you do make those choices.
You are responsible for yourself. You always have been, are now, and always will be entirely responsible and accountable for yourself, including your experience in life — everything you have ever chosen, experienced, and truly intended. Accepting that responsibility is the basis of real progress and growth in life.
Do you accept responsibility in your life?
You create your life out of your own choices, including your choice not to accept responsibility for your life. If you do not accept responsibility for your own choices, and your own reactions to what occurs outside you, then you disconnect yourself from the power in you to be, do, or have what you truly want. You may think that you are merely affected by whatever happens outside you, but, you are often the cause.
Realize that what you experience and what you do about it is your choice and your responsibility. You are the source of, and the only real cause of, your experience. You choose continually, where you want to be, when you want to be there, and what you want to do there. You make of your life what you will.
You choose the way you want things to be, for you. No one else chooses for you. You make these choices at every moment of your existence, and then you experience the results; your entire experience is generated from there. You have created your life by your choices, whether you are aware of it or not.
The power and freedom that come from accepting responsibility for your own life is not available to you until you really know it, and act from there. Responsibility is not a great burden that you are stuck with, but a relief from the false burdens you may have carried with you through life.
Life has purpose, value, and meaning, only as it relates to your own self. Learn to find your way through the outer conditions in life, back to the inner source of meaning and value. Realize how your outer experience relates to you.
When you do accept responsibility for yourself, your entire experience and your entire life, and accept responsibility for everything being exactly the way it is in your life, you experience your self as the source of your experience. You begin to allow yourself a far greater state of being, a certain wholeness.
And, you make far better choices in your life, from there.
Consider accepting responsibility for your life and work — all of it. Feel what that would be like, accepting the creative source of your whole life, in you.
Accepting responsibility doesn't mean that you have to figure out everything in your life, with your intellect, or feel oppressed by the magnitude of responsibility. Instead, it means letting go of trying to control your life and figure everything out — and just letting your self be.
Accepting responsibility means accepting the necessity to act in a way that is true to your self. It means giving up the worries, doubts, and fears which cloud your way and confuse your choices. It means accepting commitments and accepting the responsibility for keeping them. And, it means accepting responsibility for fulfilling your own purposes in life.
Responsibility is the acknowledgment that you can make a difference in your own life. It is a choice you make.
7. Career Choices
A career is work. It is an alignment with your purpose in life, such that you have an ongoing means of fulfilling it, by working at it. Your inner needs and your outer activities must be consonant with each other. Notice that just making a commitment to a particular choice — including work — doesn't make it right.
Many people make career choices by completely disregarding the simplest things: what makes you happy, what is in harmony with your self, and what will allow you to grow, to express your creative intelligence, to unfold your greater potential. A career must suit you — you can not fit into a career.
You can make career choices in accordance with your highest purposes, rather than what appeals to or caters to your ego or emotions. Look at your self honestly; and find what there is within you to give, what really expresses your own self — not anyone else's expectations of what "success" might be for you.
Realize, a career is just a further opportunity to learn to choose what is right for you, what is good for you, and what is true for you — in a larger sense.
How would you define your career; in what capacity do you serve, and how does it serve your own purposes in life? Does your career let you fulfill your higher purposes in life?
Three main factors — happiness, suitability, and challenge — provide a basis for career choices.
It may sound too simple, but it can't be emphasized too much: do something at which you are happy if you want to be happy with what you are doing. This is the most important factor in career choices; next comes suitability — the degree of harmony between your outer activities and your inner abilities.
Most people spend most of their time running around trying to satisfy their egos — not their purpose, not their true desires, not their dreams — but others' expectations of them, to get approval. Learn what suits you, your own inclinations, talents and abilities — your true self, not your ego — and do it.
Do something which suits you, which increasingly makes use of your own particular talents and abilities, and which lets you fulfill your true needs, hopes, and dreams. Appreciate what your true needs are; don't chase after the unfulfilling desires, fantasies, or illusions of your ego, and lose your self along the way.
Take inventory of your talents and abilities — what you have to offer. We all have gifts to offer. If you do not have intellectual sophistication, perhaps you have simplicity. If you do not have skill with technology perhaps you have people skills. One is not "better" than the other. They are simply different aspects of ourselves, different talents and abilities we each bring with us. Maybe you prefer to be outdoors in nature, rather than in an office. Maybe you prefer working with animals rather than people. There are endless possibilities. Look around.
Find what is right for you. You could be a very successful doctor, but if your heart is in music, that may be a better choice for you. The final determinant should not be income level, but what you will be happiest at. People often spend years — or a lifetime — doing something other than what truly speaks to who they are, and only realize that later on.
Another possible factor in making career choices is challenge. Consider whether you might need some challenge in your career, something that will allow you to continue to realize more of your true potential. Challenge is simply the opportunity to more fully know and demonstrate who you are, and what greater abilities are within you. There is always more to you than you might think.
Challenge does not mean stress or worry, but a responsible upward path to knowing yourself and the greater abilities within you. Be aware that when you act in accordance with your purpose, you will face challenge. Open yourself to a greater awareness, larger perspectives and understanding, not ego excitement.
Remember, challenge does not mean doing what gives your ego a charge, the thrill of recognition and pridefulness, or a feeling of superiority. Such activities in life/work only challenge how large you can inflate your ego, and do not serve your higher purpose in living. Your purpose in life is much simpler than that.
8. Motivation
Motivation means getting your self moving — by connecting with your self, by centering in your self, and acting from there. It is a process of looking within, to recognize the value of what you are doing, in terms of your own self.
When you do not feel motivated or can't seem to make things work for you, you lack creative flow — which has to originate within you. Perhaps you haven't yet found a true sense of purpose or the dream in your heart; or you may be doing something that is not true to who you are; or the reward for doing so does not seem worthwhile. External rewards are a poor substitute for inner purpose.
The typical limited approach to motivation is egotistical, selfish; you perform those actions which give you external rewards, or pride. You experience worth from outside you, often by receiving recognition and approval from others. In this way, even your success is defined in terms of things that are outside you.
Motivation is not a matter of external prodding, but rather a process of getting in touch with what motivates you within your own self, to fulfill the purposes that are most important and true to you. This actually means taking any emphasis off of external things which only excite the ego or selfish desires.
External rewards cannot provide true motivation; they only serve to draw out, or excite, the lower nature, the lower self, or ego. Your higher aspirations, and your higher self, are only motivated from within the self when you find reason to act to fulfill your larger purposes in life/work, and don't hold back.
Neither success nor motivation is a matter of conforming yourself and your activities to the extensive expectations, demands, pressures, or programming of the world outside you. Any sense of "motivation" that comes from selling your self out is a very great delusion, which you will realize, sooner or later.
Until now, you may have never questioned your motivations, but rather only sought reinforcement for them. You may have acted solely out of conditioning or past programming — and imagined that "motivation" meant surrendering your will to the will of others, to the desires of others, to the motives of others.
Realize, your conditioning and programming have a tendency to determine your actions — to be your "motivation" — unless you learn to free your self from them. They may have an appearance of "working for you," but they diminish you in reality.
Your purpose is not to accept external programming, or to conform to outside pressures, demands, expectations, or the thoughts, feelings, desires, or will of others, but rather to learn to be motivated by what is right in your heart. Being motivated is a process of inner inspiration, in which you call upon your greater abilities to fulfill your own higher purposes in life/work.
Motivation, fulfillment, and purpose in life, are not about getting — but about learning to give of your self. Only then, do you receive, in accordance with what you give of your self. The flow of your life must be from within, from within the self — your life must not flow from outside you, programming you.
The problem with external, artificial, motivation is that it never reaches your self — you may never feel that what you are doing is for your real self, for your own purposes, regardless of any "rewards." Realize that the only true motivation is what is true to your self, what is right for you, not your ego.
The best motivation is to always seek to do what is right, good, and true.
9. Personal Power
How much power do you feel you have? What limits your power, and how do you give up your power? Power — the ability to be, do, and have what you want — is about knowing that you can. But it is important how you go about it. Personal power means nothing without integrity. Without personal integrity, power is more a corruption or abuse of power.
Integrity simply means being true to your self. Personal power comes from creativity, intelligence, and integrity — within you — and the choices you make as to how to manifest what you want in the world at large. Creativity gives the ability to flow through life's various situations; intelligence brings order to creativity in your actions. And, integrity is a choice you make to use your creativity and intelligence with truth, love, and simplicity, to do what is right, good, and true, as best you can. Integrity is not situational; you need to hold to that place of integrity at all times.
We most often lose integrity when we start being clever or expedient or egotistical or selfish. We imagine that we can do things any way we wish, without caring about the more subtle or gross influence of our actions, on others or our own self. That is not true personal power. It is giving in to weakness, and being ruled by ego.
The way to have true personal power is to not give your power to others, or to the ego. The way to express your personal power is by your will, your word, and your actions. It is focused by your will, commanded by your word, and manifested by your actions. This is how power flows from within you, to fulfill your purposes outside you.
Will power mobilizes your intent and energy. It is a matter of being aligned with your higher purposes, and keeping your perspective in fulfilling them. Personal power has forward directedness — based upon knowing what you really want, knowing that you can have it, and being entirely committed to having it.
The first step in getting back your power, is to realize that you gave it away, and continue to give it away. You have given up your power in every choice you have made — and continue to make — which caters to ego or pride.
You further give up your power every time you resent or judge others or your self. Resenting and judging others, in order to feel superior in some way, comes from a lack of connection with your own self, a lack of power in your self. And it only reinforces your ego, separation from your self and your own power.
Everything you do to get the approval of others, to get their attention, to get recognition or fame, to prove that you are better than someone, anyone, weakens you in your self. It only feeds the ego and keeps you disconnected from your self — and from the power to simply do what is true to your self.
When you are being true to your self, and choosing to act in accordance with your higher purposes in life, you will be empowered from within your own self. Then, all of your actions will help you to find greater fulfillment of your purpose, which will serve you and others, too — this is how to have real power.
Practice being in a place of power, being calm, centered, and clear. And learn to act from there. Practice the centering exercise daily, to build up a reserve of inner strength and resilience, so that you can draw upon that in times of need.
10. Perspective
Perspective is a combination of awareness, understanding, and personal philosophy. It is more than each of these, separately. Perspective allows you to see beyond the boundaries of a given situation or problem. While it is possible to solve a problem, or go through life, without a larger perspective, this cannot truly be considered "success." All problems and situations in life are within a larger context, and unless you have some perspective on that "greater reality" all of your "solutions" and "successes" may be seen as failures in a larger context. The most common examples are the choice of work, career, relationships, and belief system. Most often these are "chosen" without much true awareness, true freedom of choice, true understanding, or true perspective. Instead, we tend to choose what we are most familiar with, what is obvious, what is available, what does not require any great stretch of the imagination or understanding.
These days, people attend college to basically get a job. There is little or no seeking after the meaning of life, no desire for greater understanding or perspective, just the narrow-minded pursuit of a job or career — which is most often devoid of any true purpose. The criteria for "success" becomes whatever works, whatever works in this world. And all true perspective is lost. In this way it is easy to become part of society, part of the machinery of institutionalized existence, and entirely disconnected from the ground of our being, who we truly are, and what we are really doing here. This takes perspective, without which there can be no true, lasting, fulfillment. It may be possible to find some short-term satisfaction materially, mentally, emotionally, physically, or sensually, but certainly not spiritually. Ants are quite successful at making their ant hills and dwellings. Watch them sometime. You will gain perspective on the lives lived by the mass of mankind. They are oblivious to anything beyond their little world.
Success is most often defined by what material things can be found, gathered, and used, to meet the "needs" of the individual and to keep the society functioning smoothly. This applies to ants, mice, and men. But, you may ask, is there not something larger than this, something greater? If you are familiar with Plato's allegory of the cave, you may realize that all activity in the busy, swarming bee-hive of human existence, takes place in a very narrow, closed, dark, and unaware space, far removed from a Greater Reality. Is there not something greater, something Higher to aspire for?
Those who have spent their lives pursuing what they thought would bring them happiness have, in the end, most often been disappointed and disillusioned to find that what they were looking for was not to be found in the world. It was to be found within them. All of the job hunting and resume gathering, all of the lateral and upward moves, all of the pay raises and job promotions, all of the money, pride, recognition, and advancement led not to where they truly wanted to be, but rather away from their simple inner being, their true self. They became what they were not, and were rewarded for that by the world in which they moved. They were shakers and movers, unable to find inner peace. And those who still put on the false smile glued on the faces of the rich and infamous, who must pretend at every moment that they are having a good time, seen in a greater light, are just bigger failures. They have become products of the world, products of problems, products of products, products of everything outside them, and orphans of the spirit. "Be in the world but not of the world." That is true perspective, based in true awareness, true understanding, and a true philosophy of life. If you do not have or live with such perspective, then where do you live, and what are your "successes" in that greater light? Perspective is needed in each and every moment, not just as some sort of afterthought later on when you have time for it.
In our society, with its accelerating pace of life, we want what we want now, right now. What is wrong with wanting what we want, now? Many things take time, and if we refuse to allow time for what we want, we may not pursue what ultimately matters most to us, just because we didn't want to spend the time, or wait for the results.
Success requires a larger perspective, and a longer view.
Exercise Two: This is an exercise in
awareness.
Rather than pursuing whatever you want, from a place of
ambition, striving, desire, ego, or externally-derived
motivations, this is a chance to see what you
really want — from within you.
Take a moment to close your eyes, and feel what it would
be like to have everything you ever wanted, everything you ever
needed, everything good and right for you. Success is
connecting with, appreciating, and experiencing the highest
good for you. The first step, is realizing that
it truly is there for you. If success is defined in
terms of what is most true to who you really are, how could
that be separate or removed from you? It cannot be.
Success must be right there, within you. Your highest good
is as close to you as your own breath, closer. Now.
Ask yourself, if you had a chance to be who you truly
are, with innocence, love, peace, and joy, what would you want
to
do with your life? Are you willing to do that?
What does success mean to
you?
It is important what you cast your vision upon. Do not let it stray so far from you, that it is no longer part of who you are. And do not keep your vision so close to you, that you cannot see beyond obstacles. Success is a balanced perspective that includes awareness, responsibility, commitment, conscience, and a sense of your true personal power.