What is Success?
“What the world doesn’t tell you - because it doesn’t know - is that you cannot become successful. You can only be successful. Don’t let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment.”
Eckhart Tolle
Success if often thought of as a future-oriented concept. We want to become successful and to live a successful life. We are taught to work towards success.
But I am learning a different, more holistic and empowering perspective that makes more sense to me, -
"-success is a feeling that one has in the current moment, and I am responsible for making myself FEEL successful."
Pondering this new thought as a college student has caused me to change many of my beliefs about success. I am coming to realize through being coached by me Empowerment Coach, that I can only control how I feel presently, and that I have zero control of anything in my future, and HOW I actually define "success" is the key to my present feelings of fulfillment and success.
I have always heard that I should "live in the present moment", and I have many times been able to shift my focus to do that, but to apply it to success has been huge for me.
Up until now, I have been constantely worried about my future and my future successes. I have thought about things like:
-What college will I go to? It better be good or else I won't get a good job."
-I need to get a good GPA this semester or else it will hurt my success later on."
-What career should I have so I can make enough money to live?"
I realize now that everything I have been doing is only because it is what I have been told will make me successful in the future, whether I like it or not. I look back at most of the things I have done were not accomplished because I really enjoyed it or felt fulfilled in the present moment. I don't know if I truly have maintained a feeling of success ever. I have felt temporarily proud when I got a good grade or turned in a project on time, but was this my definition of success? ....turning in papers on time and making good grades? The next day, I would be worried again, and the cycle continued, alway feeling anxiety if I was doing enought to BE successful later.
Now, I am redefining success as a state of enjoyment in the present moment. I see success as a process of learning and growing and not a future-oriented state. The future is ALWAYS away from me, so in truth, I have learned, I could never actually feel successful if success is always in the future.
DUH! This makes so much sense.
SUCCESS IS NOW! It is a belief that I am worthy and of value NOW. Success is when I have ideas and skills that I can share NOW. But the sad thing is that my educational experiences have not given me the opportunity to talk about my ideas or discover and share my most enjoyable skills. I only have had these new-paradigm opportunities by chance. Luckily I have discovered some of my passions along the way, but it has not been easy.
Of course I still want to be successful in the future, but I now know that the future is always in the future so I can't ever experience the future; I can only experience the NOW!
I have learned to take the time to develop a clear vision in my mind of what experiences I would like to have in my future. I have been coached to feel what it would feel like if I was actually taking part in these future endeavors without being attached to any outcome, because I have learned that my future could be even better than the one I can imagine right now.
I now practice focusing on the process of taking my next action steps, the next thing that I am most excited about in the moment because when I do this, I know that it is falling in alignment with the vision I have created for myself. When I DO these things, I am being successful.
Boy, what a change.
I, at times, catch myself forgetting this process and fallimg back into the status-quo of comparing myself to everyone else. But when I feel the anxiety and worry come back up, I just know that I have fallen out of the present moment into something that I can't control. The future and being better than others.
But overall, I feel more secure in my present and less stressed because my definition of success has changed to something that feels good to me now.
For example, on the first day of my Humanities class that I was required to take, something that I was not excited about, I got the syllabus of everything that was due during the semester. I at first felt a swoosh of cortisol flash through my chest as I thought about how boring the list of projects looked and how much I was going to have to study for the five exams, in addition to my other 3 classes I was taking.
I took a deep breath, and remembered my new self-coaching skills. My goal is to feel fulfilled and successful about myself now.
So I envisioned myself standing in front of a classroom of students as a teacher and this excited me. I knew I wanted to teach middle school students.
"Do I still want to get a degree at this university to get me teaching license?" The answer was "Yes".
"So am I ok with having to take this humanities class as part of the road map that this university says I need to become a well-rounded human?" ...my answer was still "Yes".
"So as a future teacher, what can I take with me that will help me guide my future students and make me the best teacher I can be?" I felt a swoosh of inspiration now come through my chest.
I then looked at the syllabus from a different perspective, not from an outcome perspective, but from a learning perspective. I forgot about my grades and proving anything to myself. I unattached myself from anything I couldn't control and I began to look for what could be enjoyable about Humanities.
I asked myself the question. "Would I want to take anything from this course and integrate it into my teaching for middle school students?" and "What about this information will make me a better educator?"
I began to get curious and inspired. I didn't know anything about Humanities, but now I had a new purpose that felt good and exciting. I knew that in that moment, this is what Dr. Hanshaw was trying to teach me about my own new definition of success.
So I kept this perspective throughout the course and picked projects that helped me answer my initial questions. Humanities ended up being one of my favorite courses. All of the philosophical questions were about life and I wanted to create learning environments more connected to each other and to life. I ended up with a B in the class, not killing myself to get an A, because I knew that the A would not make me a better teacher, but the learning question that I posed for myself would.
I did my best to use the extra time that I would have killed myself for an A, to use for self-care, such as more sleep, working out, and having fun with my friends, which were things that made me happy and rounded out my total well-being.
Learning how to be my own Empowerment Coach has changed my life in big way. I am able to get out of the rat race of stress just with working on my new definition of success. It has been profound.
I look forward to taking the entire Empowerment Education® Program now and implementing these principles with myself now and into my future classroom.
Being a part of i.b.mee. as an intern has greatly helped me shift my way of thinking about my future and the concept of success. Our Live Your Legacy camp for girls grades 10-12 provides experiences to have that same feeling of empowerment and success about yourself. This program is all about career and leadership building, and helping you to be secure in your present path. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn what you really want, and how that will in turn help you to be successful. For more information contact us. Scholarships are available so don’t hesitate!
Written by Madeline Moore - Western Carolina University Senior
