Four years ago I was desperate to make a life change. I was stuck. Stuck where many people find themselves in this life - living a comfortable but compassionless life. The type of life where, while you're not suffering any great ordeal (no terrible disease, no crippling poverty, no social ruin), where you have enough to live comfortably, you have friends, maybe someone special, you're healthy, you're working your way up the corporate ladder and have lots of great 'stuff' in your life - those things that make you happy (shoes, clothes, cars, for me at that time it was video games - I had hundreds), it still... well it's just... insufficient. The type of life where you ask, 'Is this all there is?'
So in order to do more, to be more, to have more I join Jack Canfield's Coaching Program. I wrote two blog posts on this already which you can find by clicking: Part I and Part II (I also wrote many other posts while doing the program: see 2011 folder)
If you've read them then you know already that Jack's Coaching Program didn't provide the key. It DID provide a lot of truths and answers but what I've realized is knowing WHY you do a thing or don't do a thing isn't really enough. I understood much better why I wasn't doing those things I wanted to do. And so what? I still wasn't doing them. I still didn't know how to change. It's kind of like wanting to be smarter and you discover that you suffer from mild mental retardation (by apologies if there's a more 'correct' term I should be using here). Great, so now you know why you're not smarter. And you are no smarter for knowing it. If anything, perhaps you're more stuck because of it.
What did work for me then and what has continued to work for me since then, is relying on God.
Someone asked for an update, and since they asked, here it is. It is fitting because I started this blog to follow my path but once my path began in earnest, I stopped blogging about it. Perhaps it was more therapeutic to write about my struggles than my successes.
But I digress, 'details, we want details' the great unseen masses scream. So fine, details commencing.
Since then I proposed to the woman God said I should be with, despite the fact that we had broken up and to my shock she accepted because God had told her likewise. What? Shocking I know. Truth.
I placed her nearly forgotten book that she'd felt God had asked her to write three years earlier onto Amazon and it became a success!! We started an online group for readers and have grown that into a profitable business and bless many people every month now. Truth.
I've quit my government job (3 months ago now) and started my own business (from practically nothing) writing the books I feel inspired to write and helping other inspired authors to get theirs out successfully as well. So far, I'm getting as much business as I can handle and the potential seems unlimited. Plus reaction to my first book has been stellar and the second will be out next month.
My wife and I have bought a nice car (Lexus) and a nice house (worth over 500k) and are sending our (her/my stepson) to a private school. Things are tight at times, money flow isn't consistent and often bills need to be paid or investment made prior to income coming in, but each month we manage and each month seems a little better than the last despite whatever apocalyptic short-comings we foresee the following month. We feel favoured. And why shouldn't we be? We are doing our best to do what God has called us to do.
Are we spared hardwork, hard times and struggles? No. Why should we be? But we approach them differently now. We know, despite what, God will see us through if we just stay committed, stay on target and keep moving in faith. Ask any success guru, and they will tell you those are the keys to success (minus mentioning God).
So now that I'm achieving success, in so far as I'm living life on my terms, doing what I love (praise God) in a wonderful happy relationship with a wonderful woman I admire and adore, and paying our bills and seeing our businesses grow each month, so while not rich, in a WAY better place than I was four years ago when I joined Jack's program - living a life of compassion - what advice do I have for you?
Success - in whatever terms you define that and you need to have a really good grasp of what success means for you - is something you either absolutely must have, or you don't have it. You're either 100% committed to it, willing to do whatever it takes, go to any length, die if necessary, or it's an elusive fog, always visible in the distance but somehow not obtainable. It's not about how smart you are, how capable you are, how educated you are (although all those things help) it's really about how desperate you are for it, and how much faith you have. Oh, to be broken but have faith. That is the sweetest spot. That's when alcoholics finally find freedom from insanity and when the rest of stop trying to 'be successful' and just do it because we know, God has got our backs, IF and WHEN He sees we're truly and utterly committed and totally willing to go out of our comfort zones and out of our own understandings to do it. Yes, the key to success if often doing what any rational person would tell you is insane, stupid, hopeless and crazy. I'm not saying to do stupid, hopeless, crazy things - unless you're sure that's what needs to be done, you're will to pay whatever price to do it and you know God is in agreement with you doing it. Then, DO IT. It will happen and all those people will be left shaking their heads wondering how you pulled it off. You may not even know afterwards. You just did it because it HAD to be done. That's success.
Don't have it? Keep looking. Don't stop. When everything your trying to do breaks down and you finally go to God and say 'What do I have to do? I'll do anything. YOU tell me what do to, I'll do it.' And you mean it. You're desperate enough to do any fool thing God tells you do to (and it may seem totally foolhardy - did for me, I was sure I was tossing thousands out the door on a non-refundable engagement ring following this stupid notion God was giving me to marry some woman who didn't fit my pre-defined image of what my mate should be - God was right, I was wrong, it was a fantastic investment. And again leaving a secure Government job to start a business from almost nothing.) Then you'll find it. You don't have it because you are too comfortable to be desperate and to self-reliant to have the needed faith.
(You may say, well some people just believed in themselves. No they didn't. They believed they would do whatever it took, and then the World would reward them. They are right. God rewards those who act in that kind of faith, even if they don't know Him personally - I find they do have a relationship with God, either before or after, they find their maker in a way that they can understand Him).
