A couple of weeks ago I was in a conference with Javier Marigorta, expert in Personal Leadership and Human Potential and director of the Fasecuatro school in Barcelona. The presentation, entitled "What is success?" I was amazed because Javier gave me a very distant vision of what success is for me.
A new concept: Success = Life
When they ask you what success is, most of us say something like "get what you want", "achieve the goals and objectives that you set yourself", "have everything you dream of" or similar expressions. Deep down when they are asking you, what is success for you? What you are really answering is "What is life to me?".
We tend to have the will to constantly achieve goals, as in the fable of the donkey and the carrot: the donkey constantly walks forward because it believes that at some point it will catch up with it. No, I am not calling you donkeys, far from it, but who does not have the feeling of constantly chasing after some goal that throws the first stone.
We all know how high we get when we achieve that goal that we have set for ourselves. But How long does that high last?. One minute? One hour? Or, at most, one day? Also, more importantly, how have you spent on the road to achieving that goal that you have set for yourself? Not very good right? And it is that for most people it is not a simple and pleasant path, rather the opposite.
Have you ever felt self-confidence, balance, strength, energy, abundance, mental clarity, enthusiasm, confidence ...? Yes, surely at some point you have felt it. So if you've ever felt that, does it mean that that internal state was within you? Of course, because you live this state inside, it is not something that enters through the window and enters your body through the ear, but it is something that you activate.
The big problem is that you use external triggers to activate those internal triggers, which is what you really want !!! For example, The girl who says she wants a Louis Vuitton bag, he really does not want the bag itself, but what he wants is the "internal state that produces him carry that bag and take it out on the street!".
2 necessary steps to activate your internal state
Therefore, is there a way to activate that internal state, regardless of what happens outside? The answer is yes. Javier defines success not as something that must be sought or found, but as an internal state that must be learned to express. For this, it is necessary to give 2 key steps:
1º.- Know who I am ?: Without knowing it, it is almost impossible to be the master of your internal world and to be able to activate those internal states of success that I mentioned above (balance, strength, ..). If you don't know exactly who you are, activating those states at will is extremely complicated. This is a process that requires time, energy, dedication to oneself, but aren't we the most important thing we have? Why do we spend more time getting to know other people's lives, before knowing ourselves?
2nd.- Know what life is and how to play it ?: Life really is a game. And as in any game, the most important thing at the beginning is to know the rules. Isn't it true that we don't play Monopoly with the rules of Parcheesi? Well, it's what we do with life! We play with it by the wrong rules and thus it is impossible to make this earthly experience an extraordinary experience. Make no mistake, as human beings what we seek is the balance of body, mind, spirit and pocket. But for this to happen it is necessary to have precise information about what life is. Life is something very simple, deep down we are here for 3 things:
- Learn to be happy by myself
- Maintain my internal balance regardless of what happens outside
- Learn to give and express the best of myself in any situation or person
To have an excellent life experience, one condition is necessary: take responsibility for your life, your inner world and learn to play the game of life. Life is a higher intelligence that must be learned to interpret it. Where do your fears come from? And your suffering? Why is your personal economy not working? Why are the results in your relationship not good?
All this, in short, is the result of not knowing who I am within the context of what the game of life is. One of my clients always told me "I don't understand all the obstacles that life puts on me, it's unfair!" It is understandable to think this, but really, although it seems to us that it is constantly hindering us, all the situations that we experience in our own reality are the extraordinary opportunity to learn the 3 qualities that we mentioned before. Ultimately, life is pushing us to be happy for ourselves and have an unshakable internal balance. He pushes us because he knows that if he does not do it, we alone will not do it.
Each of us has our own definition. What is success for you? How would you define it?