Recently, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what success means…
In particular, what does success mean to me? A friend of mine actually put a post up on Facebook last week saying, “What is success? What is your definition of success?” Mine’s changed over time…
I’ve actually got another friend, Leila Singh, who authored a book called ‘Success Redefined’ and I’m quoted in that book giving my definition of success.
“For me, success is being empowered to live on your own terms and loving the life you lead. It is having the freedom to decide how to spend your time and the resourcefulness to contribute to the world around you, empowering other to also find their own personal version of success.”
Whilst those are my words, that is not the definition of success I want to give you now.
The definition I want to give you right now is this…
Success equals serenity
When I say serenity, what I’m talking about is peace of mind. I’m talking about being comfortable in your own skin.
The first thing you need to have to achieve anything in life is complete self-honesty. It is essential to know yourself and be totally honest about who you really are.
I’m gonna be honest with you right now, this is something I never used to be very good at.
I suffered from depression for slightly more than a decade, and during that period, I believe my biggest issue was that I was uncomfortable being me.
I didn’t like who I was
Actually, I don’t think I really knew who I was, because I was so busy trying to be whoever I thought you wanted me to be. I was so busy trying to fit in that I kind of lost my own sense of self. I lost my own set of values. I lost my own beliefs about what was important in life, which meant that I never really had peace of mind.
I think that’s what ultimately led to my depression.
I didn’t even know who me was, so how could I have peace of mind?
Peace of mind requires rigorous self-honesty and accepting things as they actually are. This means seeing the reality and not making things worse than they are or better than they are.
I believe there are five subconscious rules that dictate pretty much every decision we make. One of those rules is all about untruths.
What are the things that we believe to be true that actually aren’t?
What are the things that you accept as reality, when they’re not the reality at all? All you have to be able to do is disprove something and you will know it is an untruth.
Maybe you’ve got a belief that the whole world hates you, all you’ve got to do is find one person that likes you and you’ve proved it wrong. Or, maybe you think the world’s out to get you… All you got to do is find one person who’s prepared to help you and you’ve proved it untrue.
You only have to find one thing that proves a limiting belief wrong, and suddenly you can eliminate it. When it comes to self-acceptance and self-honesty, one of the things we have to do is test our beliefs. Test our beliefs to see if they are true or not, and when they’re not, upgrade them to a more empowering belief.
