The Breathing Prosperity blog

…the tough get going!

Don’t you just LOOOVE phrases like that? I’ll bet if you are like the majority of people, you DON’T. In fact, pithy little success sayings like that may downright annoy you. They make you feel worse about yourself, not better. Are there really people who love these sayings, and who actually feel inspired by them?…YES!

Why is it that many people, however, feel annoyance or irritation when they hear such things? Let’s see if I can come up with some answers. Below are some common ‘success’ sayings and the internal thoughts we have found they bring out in people:

• The Only Time You’ll Find Success Before Work is in the Dictionary…you think “But I don’t WANT to work for the rest of my natural life just to get success. So what, now I’m lazy AND unsuccessful?…”
• The Distance to Success is Measured by Your Own Drive…you think “So not only is it FAR to success, but I also have to keep being hyper-motivated to get there…what’s wrong with me? I must be a loser – all I want to do is sit on the couch. Forget success – let the crazy people who want to work all day and night work for it.”
• Success is Not Something you GET. It’s Something you ATTRACT by the Person you Become…You think “OK, so I’m no good the way I am now. I have to ‘become’ soemthing better just to meet someone else’s defintion of success. Well, forget it. I am just fine the way I am, thank you very much.”
• Success is When Preparedness Meets Opportunity…You think “What opportunity? Prepare for what? How am I supposed to even know this stuff? I hate metaphors and vague sayings…I need someone to tell me what to do, specifically.”
• Success is a Journey, Not a Destination…You think “OOOOKKKK….I am not sure what to do with that. Sounds like a load of bull…my journey does not seem all that much like a ‘success’ right now…”

Basically what we see here is people feeling they are ‘separate’ from success…as if it is something far away that has to be reached and is very difficult.

The solution to this problem? Change your mind. Until and unless you do, your thoughts and your results will remain the same. Decide to create and define your own values, your own definitions of what success or happiness mean to you, and question everything! Question why things annoy you. Question what makes you tick, where you got your opinions from, what you want out of life, what will happen when you look back in 10 years and what you want things to look like – for you. ONLY YOU can answer this stuff for yourself, and much as the ‘easy’ road seems good right now, it will not have been so easy when you look back on it. 

I can tell you for a fact that when you get on your OWN true path to success, you will have so much motivation you won’t even NEED the posters, and you will smile at them rather than be annoyed by them. They will serve to confirm what you already think and know…like all life’s ironies or catch-22′s, when you need these little sayings they just annoy you, and when you are on your way and they apply to you, you don’t need them anymore.

It really is a journey…knowing that each moment and each choice you make can be a success by your own definition makes you feel great all the time, which is a success in itself, and isn’t ‘somewhere out in the wild blue yonder’…

The going will get tough, but you don’t need pithy sayings to keep you going…you need confidence in yourself, in your dreams and in your ability to create them. Work on THAT!