In our modern society success is measured on how much we achieve, how much we have accumulated and more specifically the financial wealth we have created. On the contrary if you aren't successful you are considered a failure. We are exposed to this concept every day, in every aspect of communication globally, you need a better car, a bigger house, be on fashion trend, have more money, create a bigger business, be more famous and have more likes on Facebook or Instagram, the list is endless.
Every day you are told you are not enough right now.
Even at an educational level if you don't pass then you fail. How is this way of learning still happening in this day and age? We have one learning system that fits all, where the expectation is that everyone has an equal opportunity no matter how you think. Read Article: Literal Vs. Lateral Minds.
Imagine if you were taught who you were, your strengths and weaknesses at a very young age then shown how to use your gifts, then everyone would be "successful" as they would be at their best.
So many people go on from schooling with the belief that they will amount to nothing as they weren't successful in school.
Even the most remote Eastern Cultures have succumbed to this way of living and most of the world will do anything to gain their success. But what is success? There are no definitive rules that advise you on how successful you are, the only way you can measure success is either based on your own perception, which is different from person to person, or if you compare yourself to others. What we don't realise is that every time we compare ourselves to others, we in turn judge ourselves as not enough, because there will always be someone who is deemed more successful. Therefore in this model success is a constant moving concept where you can never be at your best as you are judged on the person next to you. Our success model is more about who is standing next to us in a moment, rather than who we are as a person. It's no wonder with so much focus on succession that the world has become extremely narcissistic.
The emptiness of our societal success model
It is very easy to fall into the societal success model conditioning, as it's deemed the only way and communicated with so much fear. eg. you won't have enough money when you retire. So most of us hop on the rat wheel and work towards success. Interestingly, when you live your life in this success model for long enough you realise that it's an empty feeling when you get there. Have you ever dreamed about something you wanted for a long time and once it arrived you are on to the next thing. The time you get that big new house you worked so hard for and once you achieved it you were searching for more?
Over and over again we accumulate with little satisfaction and even less purpose. The societal success model is not only an illusion, it is the biggest distraction in discovering who you are.
For Example (True Story)
I was talking to a man in his late 40's who was struggling in every aspect of his life. We were discussing his past and he was telling me about how he used to design and produce merchandise for clients. As he was talking I recognised in his body language and enthusiasm in how much he enjoyed using his creativity to resolve problems. Unfortunately overtime with global access to manufacturing in China, his clients went direct to the manufacturer and cut him out of the equation. Not sure what to do with his life he decided to become a real estate agent. This decision was based purely on making money and it was clear when I asked him if he enjoyed real estate, he didn't show the same enthusiasm, instead he showed no interest in it. But he was in a contradiction, whereby he was telling himself that everything was great because now he had money, but his actions displayed the opposite. The conversation between his creativity and his job in real estate was vastly different on every level. When he fell into the societal illusion and chased success he forgot about himself, lost his purpose, ignored his strengths and overtime lost the love for life.
What if I told you, you were already successful?
Imagine if you were told you were already successful and that money, belongings and fame played no bearing on your success. How would you approach your life?
What if you were told that in every breathe you are successful, because it's another opportunity to discover yourself. What if the only purpose in life is to grow and all choices you make are only for you to discover you. By becoming more aware of ourselves, we become more aware of the world around us. The more truth we see and accept of ourselves the more truth we see in everything. The deeper we go into our universe, the deeper we see the universe.
As the universe is endless, so is the universe within you.
Then success is in the achievement and not in the achievement of things.
Imagine if you saw through the illusion, where everyone once told what to focus on and you started to focus on yourself. If you knew about yourself on the deepest level, your energy, emotions, thoughts, body and your behaviours, your life would change for the better exponentially and here's why:
- Strengths and Weaknesses: The more you are aware of your strengths and weaknesses the easier is it to make choices that best suit you
- Responsibility: The more responsible you are with your emotions, the more you will see irresponsibility in others
- Truth: The more true you are to yourself, the more you will see the truth in others and in life
- Acceptance: The more accepting you are of your darkness, the more secure you will be in life
- Emotions: The more curiosity you have with your emotions, the more knowing and understanding you will have of others
- Connection: The more connected you are to you, the deeper connection you will have with others
- Trust: The more you know yourself, the more you can trust yourself. In turn, you are more trusting with others
Finding your life purpose is finding yourself
The hardest thing to do in life is to understand yourself. With our eyes we can only see ourselves completely in a mirror, with our fingertip we cannot touch our fingertip. It's easy to superficially see everything in others than ourselves. If it was easy to know everything about ourselves then we would already be at our destination and we would stop growing, if we stop growing then we are dying.
Maybe nothing changes in life for you with this concept. Maybe you start a new business and have 20 employees, maybe you buy a big house. But what changes is the purpose, if you ask yourself what is the purpose in every situation and how am I going to grow from this experience, then everything is on path for you and not on the path we are told. You finally become the leader of your own life.
