How Do You Spell Success?

How Do You Spell Success?

Quick, off the top of your head, can you name three successes you’ve enjoyed in your life? How about three from yesterday? What are your criteria for success? Do you need to win something, or get acknowledged by us? Or do you determine your success by how you feel?

It can be a tricky thing, measuring our success. We get all sorts of rules as we grow up for what constitutes success. Some of them support us, and some really don’t.

Years ago, when I was struggling with the whole concept of success, I found myself thinking about the bad day I had. I was praying for a miracle to snap me out of my blues. The thought I had was along these lines:  What if, during my bad day, I was protected from all sorts of other things that were a whole lot worse than my bad day? What if I didn’t get hit by that turning car? What if I left the bar just before the two crazy guys started to fight? What if I stopped just before the mugger got to me? Well, you get the idea.

It was a small shift in my point of view, but it worked. It also gave me a cartoon movie in my head, where anvils and pianos fell on the sidewalk just behind me, and those grates in the sidewalk for delivering waited until I passed to open. It made me feel lucky.

That sense of being lucky can be a nice part of feeling successful. Especially when we take responsibility for our luck. So much of being happy is about feeling fortunate. An old friend used to talk about feeling lucky, or fortunate, with a sense of shame, like she was lucky, but didn’t deserve it. She dropped the last part, and has been enjoying great success in all areas of her life.

Why am I fortunate? What makes me successful? Why am I lucky? How do good circumstances find me?

What would your day be like if you kept your eyes open for all the luck that surrounds you? What would your day be like if you kept finding nice treats, happy coincidences, serendipitous events all day long? What if finding that nickel made a difference? Or getting an email from your old pal you hadn’t heard from in a while? What if you felt like finding that parking spot, or a coupon on the shelf for something you needed was just for you?

As we start looking for good things to happen, we find them. All over the place. And things will often work out for us in ways we might not expect, but in ways that we like.

You can call it luck, or the Law of Attraction, you can call it living each day successfully.

When we start to expect those nice things, it shifts our mood. We get a bit more smiley, and we find that people smile back at us. Sometimes, a smile from a stranger can feel like a miracle. We start expecting nice things, and we find ourselves doing little nice things, just because it feels good.

How do I spot good things? What makes me notice little kindnesses? How do I see that my life is sweet?

Loosening our definitions of success can create a big shift in our point of view. Some days, I may count getting dressed before 3:00 being successful. With that attitude, I may find a pocket of motivation or inspiration that I might have missed if I berated myself for lounging around so long.

How have I changed from judging my success on old criteria to finding successes every day?

(c) 2014 Pam Guthrie all rights reserved 02062014

Finding Change

Finding Change

What are you looking at? In your mind, I mean. Are you looking at the past, with feelings of sorrow, shame, or regret, confusion, or the blues? Are you looking at the future with feelings of fear, or anger, anticipating the worst?

Maybe you are looking at what’s wrong with stuff; your kids, your partner, your job, your house, your appearance, your health, your finances. It seems like the list is endless. And I bet you feel terrible. Poor lil punkin.

Stop it right now. You heard me.

You deserve to feel good. You deserve to feel light and happy. You deserve to look at your whole life with a smile.

So how do you do that, when everything sucks?

I know it’s really irritating to hear this, but accept this one thing, and your life will start getting better right away. It’s like magic. This single change will start a chain reaction that will make your daily life easier, your relationships nicer, help you find meaning and purpose, satisfaction, and contentment.

All you have to do is change one thing: your mind.

Decide you are going to focus on the good stuff in your life. Decide you are going to stop living in the shame or guilt of the past, or the fear and worry of the future. Decide you are going to practice spending some time being present, being aware. Decide you are going to relax, let things flow, trust you have the resources, or access to the resources you need. Decide to stop looking for crap; crappy behavior, crappy events, crappy circumstances.

Why do I choose to look up? What makes me decide to see the positive? Why would I choose to be happy? Why do I change my attitude?

Now the amazing stuff happens. You will start noticing the tiny lights in the darkness of your life. You will see a little sweetness, a small kindness, a silver lining. You will remember why you love your loved ones. You will see the child in your face, and you can choose to love her or him all over again. Or maybe for the first time.

You will begin to see how things are right. You will start to feel like things go your way a bit more often, You may feel like your luck is improving.

Why do I change my mind?

We are infinite beings with incredibly powerful minds. When I choose to look at the world as a horrible place, I am denying myself, and the world, the miracle of my true self. When I change my mind, and choose to accept what I am, who I am, how I can be, and how my life can be, I being my journey of awareness. I start to spend more time living my natural life. It is easier for me to take care of me, and of you, and of the other things that matter to me.

Why am I so great?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 12022013

Reeling Tyche

Reeling Tyche

The last few weeks have been full of car, um, situations. It’s been super interesting to me for one important feature, namely, I have felt extremely lucky.

On the one hand, it culminated in $800 worth of repairs. On the other hand, it could have been as much as $2300 if my shop weren’t so honorable, and thrifty. On the third hand, two of the things that went wrong could have been deadly.

I am so lucky.

It got me thinking about luck, our attitudes about luck.

I used to think that luck, like happiness and connection, came from outside me. I really did.

I thought that there was some force like, Tyche, the blind goddess who reels and staggers around whomping into folks and changing their lots in life. Some people always seemed to get whomped goodwise, and others always got whomped badwise.

Heh.

Turned out I was wrong. Again. I love all the crappy stuff it’s turned out I had wrong.

Luck isn’t a blind and tipsy goddess, luck is an attitude.

Why am I so fortunate? What makes things go my way? How do things always work out for me?

When I am all focused on how awful stuff is, that’s what I sort for, that’s what I put energy into, and that’s what I notice I’m getting. I start scanning my world for awful, I scan my body for aches, pain, and dis-ease. I scan my activities for draining, or abusive. Oh, yes, I do. And I am one unlucky sombitch.

When I start running Creative Questions that imply good fortune, things shift. I sort for good things. I seek silver linings, I notice how good I feel, I see nice things happening for me, I notice all the things I do that are fun or rewarding. I feel so blessed.

And the more I do, the more I do. Feel lucky, that is.

So it turns out I am my own lucky charm.

The day the car stopped dead in the parking lot, not on the freeway, not in the middle of the busy street during marathon celebrations, I had twenty minutes sitting in the car in the rain, to think about my attitude. I could easily have gone all pissy. My plans for my day were shot. I knew a new alternator was gonna cost.

And then I remembered that I had drawn the “Playful” card, and decided to have fun instead. And I ended up noticing how lucky I’d been, the rain cleared so I could do my errands shanksmare, and felt satisfied at the end of the day.

I am the only one who can decide how my life goes. Things happen to everyone. I decide if I will be beaten by them, or thrive.

How have I changed from wallowing in adversity to showering myself in blessings?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 10272013