Can success (and happiness) be easy? | Lisa Steingold

Can success (and happiness) be easy?

Can success be easy? Why achieving the impossible is easier than you think! How many times have you wanted to achieve something but it’s felt impossible? You’ve looked at some successful entrepreneur, executive, celebrity or start-up exit and thought “I’ll never be like that”. Here’s a little secret I want to share. Success is easier than you think!

Why achieving the impossible is easier than you think!

How many times have you wanted to achieve something but it’s felt impossible? You’ve looked at some successful entrepreneur, executive, celebrity or start-up exit and thought “I’ll never be like that”.  

Here’s a little secret I want to share. Success is easier than you think! 

There are literally ONLY three reasons we don’t succeed. That’s is, just three.

We keep focusing on failure and fear and think we have no choice but to suffer

I haven’t yet found out who to complain to in terms of this fairly obvious human design flaw but as humans we focus on what can’t be done, what we don’t have, why it can’t change and how much we’ve failed. It’s what I call “the little mind”; one which keeps nattering away at you feeding you all sorts of BS.

Thanks to the more recent teachings around growth mindset this is shifting but the fact is that life, like success, like digital marketing, isn’t a pure failure or success; it’s a series of iterations. We learn what we like, what we don’t, where we want to be and a multitude of other things along the way. 

In the recent year there have been many who’ve lost businesses and jobs and this is in no way intended to make jest of such. Grief is a sacred process and when regarded as such will yield a wealth of insights but too often we induce failure by the mere fact that we focus on it 24-7.

As people, we often think we have no choice but to suffer but in actual fact we do. We just choose to focus on suffering and by doing so we create more suffering.

It’s like the quote goes “You’ve got through 100% of your bad days” so by that very fact you’re already successful. Keep focusing on your image and idea of success and follow that. Iterate daily as you learn and you’ve got a winning formula.

We think success is linked to motivation (and it isn’t)

Sometimes we don’t start things because it feels impossible and we literally cannot imagine that things could ever be different. OR we start something but then when we lost motivation, we just give it up. 

How many times have you embarked on a trajectory towards what you want to achieve after getting super motivated but then things got in the way?  

Maybe you started off the year wanting to get in shape but then kids got sick and you couldn’t make it to the gym? Or you embarked on a new training program for a sporting goal you’ve always held but then got injured? Maybe you just wanted to start eating healthier but on the first weekend after New Year, you ate pizza and decided to just give the whole thing up? 

Maybe you’ve even tried these things a few times but life always seems to get in the way and it all seems too much doesn’t it?  

The truth is that on days like New Year’s or even just Mondays we feel inspired and to feel inspired is a wondrous thing! Inspiration can take us a long way! Sometimes inspiration takes us all the way to January 18th Or Wednesday morning:-) And then something happens and we lose the inspiration. I like to say we move from our big mind to our little mind. The little mind is the one that tells you it’s too hard and it’s impossible and you can’t.  

We rely on motivation when motivation is actually finite and sometimes we run out. So what can we use if we can’t use motivation?

The difference between those who finish their “marathon” in whatever shape or form that may be isn’t that they’ve faced less obstacles. It’s just that they’ve either built enough ‘habits’ to take them through the rough times or enough tools AND they’ve learnt how to switch easily back from the little mind to the visionary one. I.e. remembering what they love.

Often it’s just about hacking our own patterns of behavior to outsmart ourselves. That’s why we have processes in business right? It makes things easy. Why not for ourselves? What if we created easy habits that made it easy. Outcomes like success, comes as a means of habit and big mind thinking. 

We think success is just not meant for us

Maybe you’ve even begun to think “maybe it’s just not for me”? 

Let me tell you something, if it’s in your heart, it’s for you! You may have to adapt but it’s for you.  

Part of being human is desire.  

Desire to be better. Desire for our dream home. Desire to lose weight. Desire to have great relationships. Desire for energy and to be in great shape. Desire for wealth. Desire for growth. And more. 

That’s the equalizer. We all have desire.

We need only act on it and ensure it’s the real one we want. Simple as that!

Mostly…

People think success is about the doing, about the how. But it isn’t. It’s about the psychology. The psychology and thinking behind what we do that essentially sets up the outcome of what we do. 

What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? You know I’m going to have to quote Muhammad Ali here right?

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”

Muhammad Ali

The Secret is that, unless you recognize the limits of your thinking, and actually move beyond them, you’re only going to achieve what you think is possible. 

If we look at the example of a caterpillar, and let’s face it, we can all identify feeling like caterpillars then in a ‘typical’ approach, the caterpillar might wonder, I wonder How I can lose weight inside this cocoon? I wonder if I can fit another caterpillar in here so I can have companionship? Some more entrepreneurial caterpillars may even ask I wonder if I could sell this place after I’m done? 

Sounds ridiculous but it’s often what we do instead of wondering what it might be like to fly even though we don’t yet have wings. What might it be like to dream something new?

Life, my friends, is short. Shorter than ever! What do you want to do with it, this one and only life? Focus on what you want!

What? Success and happiness could be easy? Fun even? Why not?

Sure, it may feel a little scary, like riding a motorbike for the first time or asking someone you like out on a date. It’s scary at first but then it’s exciting and liberating. Mind-blowing even! 

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