Posts tagged with “Success”
The Art of Self-Soothing: How to Make Resilience More Sustainable
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” ~Micheal Jordan
I believe that self-soothing is the key to accessing all happiness and success. All things being equal, when someone is able to self-soothe, they are more resourceful and more powerful than those who haven’t learned that skill yet. Here’s why.
Great success (whether professional or personal) comes with a great deal of responsibility. That …
It’s More Important to Be Authentic Than Impressive
“The most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves is to remain ignorant by not having the courage to look at ourselves honestly and gently.” ~Pema Chödrön
All my life I’ve chased after success, as I was encouraged to do from a very young age.
When I was six, my father got me my first proper study desk as a gift for getting into a ‘good’ school. The type of desk that towered over a little six-year-old—complete with bookshelves and an in-built fluorescent light. In the middle of the shelf frame stuck a white sticky label inscribed with my …
7 Ways to Know If Your Sacrifices Are Worth It
“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” ~Henry David Thoreau
Have you ever looked at the path you’ve chosen and questioned if your sacrifices have been worth it? If you’ve prioritized the “right” things, pursued worthy goals, and ultimately, made “good” choices?
Have you ever wondered if you’ll one day look back on your life and regret not only what you did, but also what you didn’t do, because maybe you’ll feel you wasted your time or somehow missed out on something important?
If you answered no to these questions, you’re my new hero. …
Why I’m Choosing to Be Happy Now, Not When I Feel Like a Success
“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.” ~Alan Watts
I love how instant modern life has become.
When I’m hungry, without really moving, I can instantly get food delivered to me. Pizza, of course. When I’m hungry for knowledge, at the touch of a button on my mobile, I can discover answers to the questions I’m pondering. No need to head to the library to search for and flick …
How to Keep Going When Doubts and Fears are Holding You Back
“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” ~Vincent Van Gogh
I don’t think there is anything more liberating.
At least nothing I’ve experienced at this point in my life.
I’m sure it’s happened to some of you. Probably more times than you can count.
The freedom I’m alluding to here is the moment when you do something that a part of your mind didn’t believe was possible.
Interestingly, the word ecstasy comes from the Greek ekastis, meaning “to step outside of oneself.”
And when …
How Failure Holds the Key to a Meaningful, Successful Life
“Perfectionism doesn’t believe in practice shots.” ~Julia Cameron
Within each of us lurks a perfectionist. And perfectionists set themselves up for a lot of pain in life.
How so? I’ll come to that.
First let me describe how our first child took her first step. She was less than ten months old. A very bright girl, who wanted nothing less than my approval at all times.
On one occasion, a few months previous to that, she was crawling on the carpet and picked up some small thing. As she started to put it in her mouth, I called out loudly …
Why I Won’t Let the Fear of Failure Hold Me Back
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.” ~Winston Churchill
I am scared of sharks. Often when I’m floating in the ocean on my surfboard, amazed at the vastness before me and my relative smallness in the world, my mind drifts toward what may be lurking below.
I know that I am more likely to get injured during the car ride to the beach or get struck by lightning when I get there than be attacked by a shark. I also know that, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission …
How Micro Habits Can Help You Reach Big Goals
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” ~Lao Tzu
Many of us have big, grand goals for our lives.
These goals can be tied to our work, or maybe starting a family, or ideals for a new home with that family, or travel to an exotic location we’ve long dreamed about, or pretty much anything else. Oftentimes these goals can seem a very long way from where we are presently in our lives. In fact, sometimes they can seem so far away that they appear to be totally out of reach.
As a consequence, too …
The Shy Person’s Guide to Making Your Dreams a Reality
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” ~Marianne Williamson
Light poured into the studio. We sat in a circle on the hardwood floor. We did some deep breathing and then the facilitator asked us to think about what we really wanted and didn’t have yet. She instructed us to speak it out loud in the present tense, as if it were already happening.
I was at a co-working space in downtown Toronto, and this was the daily opening where we set our intentions for the day and sometimes …
We All Need to Define “Success” for Ourselves
“There’s no such thing as what you ‘should’ be doing with your life.” –Lori Deschene
How often have you thought about what success means to you?
If you’re anything like my younger self, that would be almost never. It’s not that I didn’t want to be successful. It’s just that it wasn’t something I’d given much thought to. No one ever asked me about it or even encouraged me to think about success. I’d just absorbed it from the people and culture around me, watching how they lived and what was important to them.
From what I saw around …
What Really Makes Us Feel Successful
“Congratulations on becoming successful and best wishes on becoming happy.” ~John Mayer
I was living the life of my dreams.
Or so I thought.
I’ve been very fortunate to have had some very awesome opportunities all over the world.
I’ve worked to help victims of human trafficking in the shady streets of Thailand, I’ve helped build a positive community with drug traffickers in the extremely violent favelas of Brazil, and I’ve cared for terminally ill patients who were picked up from the streets die with dignity at Mother Theresa’s famous House of the Dying in India.
I also got …
My Ordinary Checklist for a Highly Successful Life
“In this world, an ordinary life has become synonymous with a meaningless life.” ~Brené Brown
As I see it, there are two types of people out there.
There are those who read goal attainment books and feel inspired, and me.
The former will read the anecdotes about all those underdogs who beat the odds and managed to achieve wealth and prestige beyond their wildest dreams, and will say to themselves, “Wow! That could be me!” They’ll feel enlightened, invigorated, and revved up to make a change.
And then there’s me.
While I may initially pick up such a …
Failing Doesn’t Make You a Failure (and You Can Still Succeed)
“Remember that failure is an event, not a person.” ~Zig Ziglar
Take a second and imagine little you. running around like the little ragamuffin you were. Imagine as far back as you can—back when you were first able to comprehend feedback from parents, teachers, or whatever other authorities were around.
When considering the cause of low self-esteem, the most obvious answers fall under the umbrella of past abuses or failures: a parent who demanded straight A’s, an abusive spouse, etc. These are common forms of mistreatment that cause some people’s self-esteem to tank.
But for those who’ve lived fairly easy …
How My Drive to Succeed Led to Crippling Anxiety (And How I Got My Life Back)
“The only way out is through.” ~Robert Frost
The suffocating pressure from being obsessively focused on achievement and improvement led to escalating stress and anxiety over the years, but I ignored my feelings and kept attacking my goals.
Over time it became darker and heavier. It became crippling. It forced me to put a stop to almost everything in my life.
I’m a type A personality driven by a need for accomplishment. When I was in elementary school, I did my homework immediately after getting home even though my mom begged me to take a break. In high school, I …
7 Common Fears That Don’t Have to Control Us
“Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.” ~Marianne Williamson
As babies, we know nothing about the world. In the universe of an infant, there are no norms to follow, no rigid rules and regulations; no room for labeling or judging ourselves and others. We don’t yet know to disapprove of ourselves, and we’re curious to play, learn, and grow.
We are all born free spirits. Then our environment—our families, schools, religions, and political systems—shape the way we think and behave.
Fear is a learned practice. Children generally are not afraid of trying, failing, …
5 Ways Failure Can Be a Blessing in Disguise
“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” ~ Dalai Lama
Recently I received some “bad” news: After years of studying and a nerve-wracking exams procedure, I didn’t make it to the list of the lucky few selected for the upper level public administration job posts.
Having always tried to keep up with a job that made good use of my law degree, while at the same time pursuing my career as a writer, there were times when I questioned whether a law-related job was actually my true calling.
At the time, trying for …
3 Causes of Self-Doubt and How to Conquer It for Good
“Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.” ~Unknown
Self-doubt and I are old friends. We go way back, to early childhood.
Now, if you ask me, I will honestly tell you that I had quite an idyllic childhood in a loving home.
My parents raised us—my brother and me—to trust in our abilities and aim for the stars. They held me when I failed or fell flat on my face, which I did quite often, encouraging me to stand up and keep walking again. And yes, self-doubt still made its way into …
One Simple Word That Can Change Your Life (And No, It’s Not “Thanks”)
“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” ~Epictetus
About nine years back I was at the lowest point of my life.
We had been trying to start a family for close to four years by that point.
The forty-plus consecutive months of “not pregnant” verdict were starting to take their toll on me. That second line on the pregnancy test strip seemed like it would never appear. Life felt like it was a never-ending cycle of false hope that was always crushed in the end.
I wouldn’t wish that kind of despair on …
The Trap of Thinking You’re Special and Entitled to Success
“Life is not designed to give us what we need; life is designed to give us what we deserve.” ~Jim Rohn
Is there something wrong with being special?
Short answer: yes.
But why is that? Being special is… special!
That’s true, but there’s a downside most people aren’t aware of.
Before we go any further, let me clarify what I mean by “being special.”
In short, being special is about thinking that what applies to others doesn’t apply to you, thinking that you’re an exception to the rules of life that others have to follow.
It has nothing to do …
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