On Thursday night of this past week, I found myself sitting at the pool, reading a book, and enjoying a great evening. I stopped and thought to myself “life is good”. I began thinking to myself how did I get so fortunate? I have a job that I love, a career that challenges me, I have two businesses that I own, I have amazing friends, a supportive family, and I life that I look forward to seeing how each next chapter will unfold. I believe that I am blessed but I also know that I work really hard. And because of the hard work I put in, I grateful for the rewards that the hard work provides.
I work with clients who are unhappy with the way that their lives are going and they feel stuck and don’t know where to go. They are in careers they don’t enjoy, they are in toxic relationships, they are not where they thought they would be at their point in life, etc. I often hear clients say “I don’t know how I got here”, “I thought I would be farther along in my career”, or ” I ‘m just know where I thought I would be”. The answer is simple, you are where you are because you put yourself there. Every decision that you made or every decision you didn’t make, every time you went left instead of right, every time you chose to do something else, you created that path of the life that you are currently living.
When people are unhappy with the way that their life is going they love to place blame on others, on things, on their environment, etc. for where they are when in fact it was them that got themselves there. Once you understand that you are 100% responsible for the direction your life goes in and creating the path you want to take, you can either see this as a good thing or a bad thing. You have 100% control over your success which is a good thing but you now know you have no one else to blame when life doesn’t take you down the road you want. Are you ready to take on the challenge and responsibility of creating the life you want?
People think that success comes with luck, that people are in the right place at the right time, that success is handed to only a certain few, or whatever other things they think but are not true. People who are successful don’t depend on luck. They work hard, they make decisions, that at the time may not seem like the most popular or most fun, but they know that with each little step they are putting themselves on the path that will take them where they need to go. People who are successful don’t think in the short term. They don’t think about instant gratification and instant reward, they think about how what they do today will impact their goals for a year from now, five years from now, then years from now. People who are successful know that collaboration, team work, authenticity, and vulnerability are all par for the course. And most importantly, success comes to those who don’t give up. Success comes to those who struggle, who are tired and worn out, who are scared, and fail and keep getting back up to achieve what they set out to achieve. They don’t lose sight of what’s important and what success means to them.
What does success look like to you? Are you making decisions that will help you achieve the life that you want? If not, what are you waiting for? Start living the life you want. Life is too short not to be happy and too long to be miserable. Choose happiness.