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Making Life Happen!

Guest post by: Elizabeth J. Macarthur

Article Overview: Are you ready to learn a few more tools to help you in making life happen for you? Sometimes it takes recognzing what's standing in the way and dealing with that first to get things rolling. 2009 is almost over, however there is still lots of time left to create a few more successes before December 31st. I hope this article will both inspire you to create a few more successes this year and to support you in making that happen for you.

Making Life Happen!

As we are almost to the end of 2009, we still have time to take stock of what we have accomplished and what we would like to achieve before December 31st. Which goals or decisions have you made and actually have seen them created in your life? Or maybe, it was something you thought of last week and have made it happen already. Just before starting to write this article, I sat down and made a list of all the things that I have made happen for myself since January 1, 2009. And what an awesome list it is. It included my first trip to Hawaii and swimming with the dolphins as a couple of the highlights. It is quite powerful to see this on paper, in writing. I highly recommend that you take a moment and create your own list. Don't forget to include the small things as well. They are also very important.

Sometimes the most difficult step is in recognizing the successes. Think about, for a moment, how you would define a success for yourself. Is something only successful if it is a big accomplishment? What about the little things along the way? I had to modify my own definition of success to include it all. I also had to work hard at making it my definition of success and not someone else's or society's.

For example, in order to get this newsletter up and running and out to people to read, there were several steps that needed to happen. What I have learned to do is to celebrate all of the steps as successes along the way. This way, the continual celebrating (which may simply be an acknowledgement to myself with a smile) helps to continue the motivation to keep going forward. There are times for little celebrations and there are times for bigger celebrations.

So what are some of the things that might get in the way of recognizing our successes that we need to watch out for?

(i) One thing would be the discounting of the success, to minimize the importance of the task. We can be so good at minimizing things in our lives or even minimizing our lives. We minimize when we say things like, "Oh that thing!" or "That was too easy." or "That wasn't really much of an accomplishment." or "That wasn't really that important." or "Anyone can do that."

Minimizing is a behavior that sabotages not only our ability to recognize successes, but affects our self esteem and confidence levels as well as can stand in the way of creating more successes.

(ii) Seeking approval from others and therefore allowing others to determine whether or not we are experiencing any successes gets in the way too. I know that to some degree we are always seeking approval from others. It feels good to have others validate our decisions. And like most things, when done in moderation, it's usually okay.

However, it is when we become totally dependent on other people's validations to determine whether or not we are successful that we have crossed the line and handed our power over to them. Who are they to determine whether or not I am successful? And there is always someone willing and waiting to take on the task of making that decision, usually determining us not successful. And for the most part, this would be my doing, not theirs, as I hand that power over to them.

I have done this during different times in my life and looking back now have come to recognize that the only person I was making happy at the time was them. Even if I felt successful in something and others didn't approve, that took away my feeling of success and my confidence to judge and create my own successes. Shouldn't I be able to feel successful on my own? Shouldn't I be able to determine what is successful for me?

(iii) Not believing that we deserve to either acknowledge the successes or have the success is a very big issue. When my self-esteem or confidence was not very high, I did not believe that I deserved to be successful or even feel successful. I would feel guilty if I was feeling successful on my own.

I would say things to myself like, "Who am I to feel successful?" or "Don't get a big head now!" or "Nobody else thinks you're successful so..."

(iv) Then there was that part about not allowing myself to celebrate the successes. I used to think that it would be arrogant of myself to pat myself on the back or tell myself that I did a good job. It was okay though if other people wanted to pat me on the back or celebrate my successes. I'd have to wait for them to initiate it so that I could feel good about it.

There are lots of disempowering messages out there that we receive from friends, family, co-workers, TV, magazines, books, movies, etc that we have listened to and have taken on as our own that have contributed to us not recognizing the successes. Now is the time to do something different and to stop listening to everyone else. I invite you to make a list of some of the disempowering messages that you have experienced. I just bet you will be surprised by what you come up with.

These are some things that I have had to work on in order to make the successes in my life happen for myself that I wanted to happen, that I knew were good decisions for me. Some things that I needed to do for myself to create this was:

(i) I had to give up the negative behaviors that I was participating in like minimizing myself and my life. One thing I did to work on that was to change my self talk and start empowering myself.

(ii) I had to become really aware of when I was seeking approval from others in a way that was not supporting myself. I had to learn to stand on my own in regards to determining and knowing what my successes were and what was best for me.

(iii) I have done a lot of work on my self esteem and confidence to take it to a level where I know that I deserve to have a successful life and that I deserve to celebrate it all. Raising my self esteem also made me feel better about myself and contributed to my strength of standing up for me.

(iv) I had to learn how to make clear, concise decisions on what I wanted and hold that vision to manifest it.

(v) I have learned to give myself permission to celebrate even the small things and to know that it is not arrogant or selfish to want to do so. And it's so much fun!

Making life happen is so rewarding and empowering when I am doing what supports me -- doing what I know is best for myself and determining my own successes. When I follow my intuition -- you know, that gut feeling we get -- and my own hunches and ideas, I'm on the right track and doing the right things for me. After all, I am the only one responsible for my own life, my own successes and my own happiness.

Today you are receiving my 7th article and I am celebrating that today and hope you will join me, even if it is just a smile as you read this. This is something that I have wanted to do (my intuition had been bugging me to do) for quite some time now and am excited that it is finally well off the ground. I am making life happen for me and loving every minute of it.

So just for today, look for those little successes and celebrate them, listen only to your own intuition and follow it, make your own determination of what your successes are and start Making Life Happen for yourself!

With love and gratitude,

Elizabeth

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Article Tags: happen, life, lifes strategy, stragety, successes, tools



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