Personal Challenge And Freedom

There is a sense that being a victim is no longer an option. You begin to take full responsibility for your life and success. At level four you realize that success is not about struggle and survival but rather about accomplishment, personal challenge, and freedom. You begin to see success as the key to a more fulfilled life. It becomes intriguing and even exciting to challenge some of the limiting beliefs, mindsets, and feelings you hold about success. Instead of judging others and comparing yourself to those who appear to have more, you are curious and wonder what it might be like to have that. You begin to wonder how it might be if you were to do something different. You start questioning your definition of success, wondering if more is possible, and you begin to listen to your inner voice for direction and inspiration. Here you are curious and less defensive. You don’t mind being wrong or not knowing. Those possibilities are no longer a threat to you. You simply want to learn.

The Man In The Mirror

Your heart begins to open, and that makes way for the creative part of your brain to activate. You acknowledge the patterns that are part of you and begin exploring them for clues to the next levels you sense are waiting to emerge. You begin to see the world around you as filled with opportunity and possibility rather than oozing obstacles. At this level you also realize that who and what you are in life is nobody’s fault, that blaming, shaming, and naming others only locks you into all the old patterns that have you stuck. You begin to realize that you are the captain of your own ship and start consciously identifying and breaking old patterns, mindfully creating new ones. Everything is shifting from fear based to heart centered, and you realize that you have always been living in a spiritual world. You acknowledge your systems and their gifts. You even understand the gifts in your limitations. The heart, head, and gut align, purpose emerges, and your highest vision for your life is now a possibility. You create community. At level five you consciously agree to become the biggest version of yourself, which brings about cohesion, humility, and responsibility for creating a wonderful life. Your desires increase, asking more of you.

Keep On Breaking The Rules

Growing yourself becomes a priority. You understand that success is actually mystical, divine, and part of who you are. Your language shifts to the language of possibility, and you use it to shape a better, kinder world. When you arrive at level six, you are an expression of the abundance of the universe in action, and making a difference is part of who you are. You have a unique voice, and you use it to move both yourself and others to higher levels of expression and choice. You integrate and honor the wisdom that all systems bring. You know how to give each its place as you make a difference in the world. At level seven you are success in action and in service. Success is now an inherent part of who you are. You see cycles and patterns as continual invitations to evolve. You are a mentor of ever greater possibilities for others and yourself. Many phenomenally successful people didn’t necessarily mean to achieve great fame and fortune.

Good Times

They started out wanting to achieve safety and freedom. Those were the first drivers, and then, as they evolved along the way, they became more and more turned on to life’s possibilities and their own potential. That urge, in turn, gradually expanded to include reaching out and helping others. When I started my career, my life was about the family surviving. When my father was killed shortly after we moved to the United States, it was pretty much all on me, and life wasn’t fun. I was in a strange country, terrified, with no support but the love of my family. I knew I wanted to be safe and free, and that drove me. But living from a desire for safety and freedom wasn’t enough. It didn’t feel much like success. Ultimately, I wanted to love what I did with all my heart. That’s when I started to understand what success fully looked like for me. When I realized the possibilities for large communities of people to create their best lives, which meant more people for me to interact with joyfully, the lights went on. That was the magic I had been looking for. That was my purpose. And with the arrival of my purpose, all the woes and excuses and fears vanished. Success is a habit. They got there but don’t know how, and they are scared they will lose it or never get there again, proving that what got them there was sheer luck, not skill. Which means even their success doesn’t feel successful. As you contemplate the success you want in your life, know that where you are now is not an indicator of your future success. You may simply not have flipped the switch yet. Now let’s address the fears and limiting sentences you carry that stall the successes you desire. Write down the scary, sad, or overwhelming sentences you have around success and failure. What horror stories do you tell yourself and then believe? Write them all down. What have you made these sentences and stories mean about you and your success? Where in your life did you first become aware of failure? Was it a specific event? Did you witness someone else in your family fail? What did it look like? Who did it happen to, and what did you tell yourself about that? How is your failure similar to that original failure, and again, what have you made it mean? How is failure perceived in your family, culture, religion, country? How are they holding you back now? Where do you feel that in your body? Where is the pain in your throat, chest, gut, arms, legs, teeth, eyes?