Since the results I sought following the ways I had been taught were eluding me, I had to review my concept of success. In fact, I have become bored silly with the marketing ideas that Internet teachers insist will ensure my success. They won’t if they do not reflect me or speak to my spirit! Very few of them spoke to this truth.

I found out I had to ask myself the right questions to get at the heart of what I truly believe, think and do relative to success. Once I shifted my responsibility to serving my highest sense of self, everything fell into place.

What is your achievement-success experience? If you find your outcomes are not what you would like, you can heal your approach to high achievement. On my journey, I began to understand healing as an ongoing physical equivalent to the build-up of material success. It is a priority to consciously heal any pain, injury, surgery, loss or setback that stops me from loving living. (Like the recent rash outbreak related to being a landlord, which I thoroughly dislike.) By the same token, it is paramount that I provide for my physical needs–feed-clothe-shelter and treat myself with the best that the good earth offers, to the extent that I can.

Healing involves success and vice versa.

Yet this is what most people express when they ask for transformative lifestyle support: I want to get better, and to get richer. I want to be healthy and to demonstrate the Law of Attraction is a fact. When I have the money and wherewithal to go anywhere and do what I want whenever I want, success will be mine.

I tell them this is only partly true. In this take on success, I do not see myself.  To expand it a bit, success isn’t quite the same as whole, complete and able–in a word, healed. Many financially successful people lead miserable lives and are literally owned by others. Michael Jackson comes immediately to mind, but we need not look so far afield. He was more “successful” than he was in a healing state, though he kept trying.

The nuclear family is a starting point for our ideas of success. This begins with the “man and wife” or committed spouses of future successful children, and a future, successful society to match. (No need to discuss gender; just  achievement conceptions.)

Women everywhere believe the men in their lives “should” financially support them. If they do, the men are viewed as successful. The quality of the soul of the man, or of his spiritual direction and foundation, are hidden within woman’s emotional love of the man. The soul or spiritual quality or lack of it doesn’t rise to the surface until value differences become apparent.

Differences in values make life situations appear unsuccessful. Each individual has an internal barometer by which they measure compatible values, and that barometer maintains a predetermined level of pressure that the union can stand. The relationship with another sets off a warning signal; pressure too high– I’m going to bail out instead of weather this storm. However, it is self-estimation and regard, or lack thereof, that may be the core of a high- or low-pressure conflict.

I am stunned by how my idea of success is bound up in my upbringing–from great, great grandparents to aunts and uncles and of course my own parents and how they interacted. Everything from handling money to making it, goal achievement to friendships, dating to raising children, lifestyle, attitudes and more was affected and strongly influenced by the core values I saw and learned. Some of these values had to be released to allow my soul to grow. This required –and still requires– a lot of forgiveness, mostly of myself.

Take a moment to really feel your deepest thoughts and think about your deepest feelings and what they reveal about you. There are ways of “being yourself” that speak volumes, depending on “the other” you are interacting with (significant other, family, neighbors, colleagues, society, nation). Fearing another’s reaction to your change in outlook is the number one “sin” against loving living.*

1. Is your idea of success aligned with hard-wired beliefs you learned from family or school?
2. Is loving living only meaningful or valuable to you if it involves a new wardrobe, vehicle, academic degree or home?
3. Do you wish your friends and loved ones expressed different ideas of success?
4. Can you continue to support traditions, memories and thought patterns that no longer jibe with your spirit?
5. Do you feel lethargic or have unhealthy thoughts about your future (present!), and don’t know why?

There are no right or wrong answers. If Yes is your response to three or more questions, you may want to create a new definition of success for yourself. Make sure you include healing your spirit and growing your soul.

*Can you be the perfect being God made when you prefer “them”? What is your god-concept, anyway? This is a Name, Praise and Expand discussion in the Nine Principles for Loving Living arsenal.