Don't waste your tears on people who refuse to love you.
For after you have cried, they still will not love you.
Our culture is addicted to the concept of "success." In my life, I have gone in and out of being in love with it. There is nothing wrong with being successful or pursuing success. This blog is all about you pursuing success in the area of Loving and Living Your Unique. But having the right view of success is a necessary part of attaining it.
suc·cess
/səkˈses/
noun
the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.
the attainment of popularity or profit.
But often we pursue the "popularity or profit" part of success at the expense of accomplishing "an aim or purpose." Let's deal with both parts of this second definition so that we can understand its traps.
Popularity. Starting as early as elementary school, popularity is a "big deal." We are told that we need to play nice and be nice if we want people to like us. Being nice and polite is necessary to cordial human relations. But when we use this to manipulate and control the people around us, it becomes dangerous. Many people become intoxicated with this status symbol and pursue it with abandon. The try to attain popularity by "any means necessary." They give up their true identity and self for a person that other people will "love and respect." And taken to the extreme, they become mean and ugly towards people who will not accept them.
Profit. Money is important in our world. Those with it and those without it are concerned about it - although for different reasons. "For the love of money" people lie, steal, cheat, and kill. So does that make money all bad? Certainly not! The problem is the focus on "profit" - a financial gain. If taken to the extreme, this leads people to become intoxicated with "money power." Let's face the truth: money comes with power and privileges. And focusing on obtaining money for the sole purpose of getting that power and privilege can also lead you to marginalize people who don't have it.
Success is failing your way forward.
So, what does all of this have to do with "failing forward"? Let's go back to the first definition of success - the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. Here are the traps: If we tie our "success" only to popularity or profit, we will miss accomplishing what we are truly purposed to do.
In Marsha Sinetar's book Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow, she proposes that we pursue our passion and the money will eventually come.
“You may feel like dwelling on your limits or your fears. Don't do it. A perfect prescription for a squandered, unfulfilled life is to accommodate self-defeating feelings while undercutting your finest, most productive ones.” ― Marsha Sinetar
Most of us live in a fear trap that will not allow us to totally abandon ourselves to our true purpose. We waste time trying to convince people to "love" us - popularity - thinking that this will eventually lead us to profit, success, and money.
Today, I want to challenge you to think about success in a different way. Success is about pursuing our purpose and living in it. When we give ourselves totally to our purpose, people will love us for who we ARE. We can drop the mask we so carefully construct and present to the world. And in this flow, we will prosper - physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. This is SUCCESS - being a WHOLE person.
When we focus on our purpose, failure is no longer a threat. Failure means that: I am learning. I am growing. I am adding value to the world.
You get out of the trap of pursuing the things that will never bring your contentment and peace. Take the quote below from one of the richest kings that ever lived.
Stop chasing after the wind and pursue your purpose. Stop wasting time on people who refuse to love you for who you are. Stop believing that money will solve all of your problems. Stop believing that being connected to the "right" people will make you more important.
Believe in YOUR own value. Believe that living in purpose and on purpose will lead you to a more fulfilling life in all aspects. And most of all, understand that failure is a part of the process. True success is not the absence of failure. It is learning to experience failure as a lesson and moving on.
Understand that failure is NOT about what happens to you. Failure is about what you believe about what happened. You are still here - and that makes you strong!
Make Loving Your Unique your passion. Follow it. And trust that it will get you to true success.
Fail your way forward.
I am cheering for you.
