Rethinking Traditional Success Part 5

When you start being honest with yourself about your values, your hopes and dreams, you realize that the true measure of a successful life should be how happy you are with it. It should not be measured against someone else’s standards, or how well you completed a checklist of what society thinks is the best path in life. It is only through this self-honesty, self-acceptance, and radical authenticity that you can finally start to listen to yourself. Suddenly you stop caring about what everyone else thinks is right, and you realize what’s more important is finding what’s right for you.

Yes, there are other people in your life, and I know you all have responsibilities as well. I’m not talking about being selfish here and doing only what matters to you. I’m talking about taking care of yourself to the point where you’re able to contribute meaningfully to the lives of the people around you. If you are miserable, resentful, and full of contempt for having to live a life that you struggle with for someone else’s sake, you’re not doing them any favors. You can’t pour from an empty cup, only once you’re in a place where you’re taking care of yourself can you truly be there for others.

Now, I want to ask you these questions again. Be honest with yourself, for real this time. Do you love your life? Do you like where you’re at and where you’re headed? Do you enjoy what you do with your life every day? Not every day will be a good day, but overall are you happy?

Does your life light a fire within you that motivates you to keep travelling the path you’re on, come hell or high water?

I’m not asking you if you have enough money, though I’m confident I can help you succeed financially. I’m not asking if you have a big house or a fancy car, because those status symbols aren’t really for you they’re for other people to see. I’m not asking if you have the most prestigious job or title, because that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. I’m asking you if you wake up every day dreading the idea of trudging through even one more minute of it. I’m asking you if you hate what you do for the roughly 25% of your life you spend at work. I’m asking you if you’re able to practice happiness, no matter how the ups and downs of life treat you. I’m asking if you’re really living your own authentic life, or someone else’s idea of it.

Hopefully by now you’ve realized that you don’t have to live the cookie cutter, American dream, “norm”, whatever you want to call it kind of life. You may be realizing for the first time that this is not what you wanted and asking yourself how you got to this point. These things are important to learn from, but not to beat yourself up over. I am not in the business of making people feel bad about themselves, I am here to help you overcome the choices that have led you here. To help you make progress towards a more authentic, fulfilled life which you can actually enjoy.

You have the freedom to be you, and there’s no obligation to be like anyone else. Many people learn this and start to realize they don’t even know who they are. They’ve spent a lifetime simply following everyone’s advice on how to live their life, never really stopping to think if it’s even right for them. We need to begin to unpack ourselves and unlearn these limiting beliefs.

How exactly does that work? Well it starts with what we’ve just discussed, and you’ve already taken the first step. Becoming aware of yourself is imperative if you ever want to be fulfilled in life. How can you play the game if you don’t know the rules or the score? You need to spend time getting to know yourself and identifying these limiting beliefs and patterns as we’ve just started to do. Why are you on the path you’re on? Whatever brought you to this place in your life, was it truly what you wanted or was it out of obligation?

This line of thinking likely leads you to some difficult questions. Ones that you don’t know the answer to, or even how to start finding it. Those questions may also come with difficult answers, ones which you won’t like. I know it’s not easy, but this process is so important, and facing these difficult questions and answers is going to help you do more growing. Many of us find it hard to deal with the reality that we have made mistakes or failed at things. The truth is that these mistakes and failures are exactly what we need to learn and get better. Developing a growth mindset where you view these setbacks as opportunities to learn is a major key to practicing happiness and enjoying fulfillment in your life.

Failure is an important part of life, we cannot learn and grow without it. The hardest lessons I’ve learned, the ones that hurt the most, the ones where I felt like there was no point in even trying anymore because I had messed up so badly are the ones that have helped me the most in my life. If you commit to a mindset of learning from your mistakes you will no longer be doomed to repeat them. Yes, it’s hard. Yes, it requires patience, practice, and self-forgiveness. However, remember that it is only through failure that we can truly learn to succeed. This perseverance to learn from failure and keep moving forward has been credited as the most important factor to the success of everyone from Michael Jordan to Chris Pratt. Because at the end of the day, it is the sum of our successes that defines us, not the sum of our failures.

You don’t have to become an NBA player or famous actor to find this happiness and success (though if that’s what you want to do I fully support you!) You can, however, learn from the mindset of those who have achieved greatness. You can examine the patterns those mindsets create and use them as you travel down your own path to fulfillment. Before we can get there, though, we must examine the patterns your current limiting beliefs have created in your life. These patterns of actions are a result of how we’ve been trained to think and must be revisited to determine whether they still serve us. Slowly but surely, we all have the capability to change our patterns and eventually our lives. It does start, however, with changing our minds.

Thanks as always for reading,

Aaron Frank