Make success a safe place and a natural part of your evolutionary journey.

When it comes to success, most of us have experienced a life time of conditioning that ‘hard work always pays off.’ We’ve also been continually encouraged to do it faster, do it better and to expect immediate results. Much of my work in embracing a natural and holistic model of healing has been to help myself and others ‘un-condition’ ourselves to embrace the reality that for most of us, true healing takes time and the un-doing of many years of bad habits. We’ve also had to learn to abandon that insistent demand for a ‘quick-fix’ and to ignore the temptation to simply suppress symptoms and emotions and ‘push through’ or ‘get on with it.’ We’ve had to re-learn how to embrace the ‘journey’ and be patient.

Some of us have had to learn this lesson of patience the hard way, I know I certainly did. Going through cycles of being symptom-free and feeling amazing (‘Hallelujah! I’m finally healed!’) only to crash and burn in spectacular fashion with the resulting feelings of frustration, disappointment and despair. Adopting the ‘life’s a journey, let go of the outcome, the work is ongoing’ philosophy is undoubtedly a very useful antidote to this stressful cycle.

‘The Road to Success is Always Under Construction’ – Lily Tomlin

But it has occurred to me that this approach may also keep us in perpetual struggle and prevent us from living the natural flow of life as a cyclical process. While a journey is ongoing and seemingly endless, it is always peppered with significant milestones, outcomes and accomplishments. In fact, there are numerous ‘cycles’ with beginnings, middles and endings while you trundle along life’s seemingly linear path. While a journey never seems to end, it does have endings. The best example of this is a year – the year is an ongoing stretch of time, but within that year are four seasonal cycles, 12 monthly cycles, 52 weekly cycles and so on. While sometimes it might feel like Winter will never end, it always does.   

When we ignore the beauty of the cycle (particularly the stage of successful completion) in favour of the mindset of ‘always working at it,’ we are at risk of feeding that familiar limiting belief of ‘never good enough’ and perpetuating feelings of self-doubt and discontentment. We never arrive at a destination; we never feel we’ve achieved anything and we are essentially never acknowledging how far we have come. I don’t know anyone who sets a goal that they don’t want to achieve, so why then, when we get so close to the pointy end of our goals, do we shy away from the success that completion will bring?

After years of working with people on their fear of failure, I’ve realised that we’re actually much more fearful of success. It seems that we’ve deemed the success stage of the cycle completely unsafe. Somewhere along the line we’ve decided that it is much more acceptable to downplay our achievements and do the ‘humble mumble’ – ‘oh it was nothing, I’m still not very good, there’s still more work to do…’ than it is to accept a congratulatory compliment with a gracious sense of personal pride.

We’re terrified of the vulnerability that success seems to bring – the ‘tall poppy syndrome.’

The tall poppy syndrome of cutting down successful people puts us in a terrible no-win situation. We’ve been programmed to do our best and achieve our goals, yet once we’ve worked our arses off and reached the milestone, we’re expected to ‘shut up about it’ and pretend it was nothing in case someone calls the ‘Arrogance Police’. Consider for a moment, the horrendous sense of disharmony, confusion and stress this must cause your inner child who is simultaneously at risk of being shamed for ‘not trying’ and at risk of being shamed for ‘being too big for its boots’. No wonder we confront so many sabotages when we try to achieve our goals!

‘Everybody loves success, but they hate successful people’ – John McEnroe

Success needs to be a safe place, especially for your beautiful talented inner child who is dying to express itself and its gifts. Recently I worked with a horse belonging to a lovely client of mine (yes, I balance horses, cats, dogs…😊) who informed us that he wanted to jump higher hurdles and he wanted her to stop holding him back from doing so. He’d completed one level (a cycle) and was ready for more. Now I am not sure about you, but I don’t think horses are worried about being arrogant or being a ‘target’ for jealous attacks. It is quite clear that this majestic animal simply wants to do what brings him joy and to express his gift – he is ‘born to jump,’ so why hold him back? Aren’t we also born to express our joys and talents?  

The question to ponder here is: where in your life are you continuing to tell an outdated story of struggle when you could be claiming success? Where are you failing to celebrate yourself or your achievements? Why are you stopping yourself from doing what you were born to do?

Failing to celebrate your success, acknowledge your achievements and praise your efforts actually makes you MORE vulnerable to the opinions and judgements of others. If you do not heed your inner child’s perfectly natural need for attention and praise, it will quickly become dependent on the attention and praise of others. The ‘disowned’ need for your success to be acknowledged will not only make you vulnerable to external judgement, it will make you addicted to it. This is why downplaying your achievements doesn’t serve you. It only diminishes your inner child’s self-esteem, increases its neediness, and feeds its insecurity and fear of judgement.

Healthy self-belief and self-confidence come from the fair and measured acknowledgement of your efforts, strengths and talents and it is this self-esteem which enables you to withstand the vulnerability of success and weather any real or perceived storm of criticism, judgement, jealousy or attack. Self-love makes success a safe place. Consider the times you have been truly contented with and proud of yourself and your efforts, if you were to receive external criticism at those times, would you care?

True self-belief is rarely arrogance. It is an understated, quiet confidence that is built on an unshakable trust and healthy respect for one’s knowledge, experience, expertise and of course, worthiness. Being successful doesn’t require you to shout about your achievements from the rooftops, it doesn’t require you to be better than anyone else, and nor does it demand praise and admiration from others. But it does ask you be fair to yourself and the child within by honouring your efforts and God-given talents. 

There is a time in every cycle when effort culminates in an outcome and it is acknowledged and celebrated. Allowing yourself to be successful and acknowledge this success is merely part of allowing yourself to complete a cycle of learning and mark out your journey of self-expression. Success is not an ‘end goal’ but a stage in the cycle of change, a stage that is no more or less important than any other stage. In this respect, success is a logical and natural step of your evolutionary journey – it flows freely as a result of you being who you are here to be. Success is simply an ordinary expression of the extraordinary self. So WHY continue to hold yourself back from it?

If you want to get clarity on your Purpose, Mission and the Skills and Talents you must own and use in this lifetime for your success, then check out the Path of Purpose – a series of virtual workshops to help light your path.