Basic Steps to Success

There are four basic steps to achieving any "success". That’s it, only four. Does that surprise you? It did me. What I was even more surprised by was what these four "basic" steps entail.

Over the next four weeks, I’m going to share each one of these four steps with you, starting this week with:

Step One ~ Becoming Aware

What is awareness? Most people spend much of their lives thinking, living and reacting to their circumstances unconsciously. They don't know, AND they don't know that they don't know. They live in ignorance based on belief and value systems given to them by other people. Their whole world becomes a reflection of these systems, so it appears very real to them.

THIS is why so many people struggle: They attempt to navigate through life with ideals that are not based in TRUTH. It's only as they go through life and have each belief disproved (by repeated difficulties) that they begin to contemplate that what they have always believed might in fact be incorrect.

This "awareness" of truth then opens the mind to begin to receive different answers to the problems they face.

"When the student is ready the teacher appears". A person may now become aware of opportunity that has been there all along but that he/she couldn't previously "see". As we become aware of different possibilities, we open ourselves to options that previously seemed impossible or out of reach.

The difficulty with "awareness" is that it exists outside the common paradigm of how we normally think. Accordingly, until a person is ready for "change", he/she cannot recognize (a.k.a. - be aware of) the opportunities for success that lie right before them. Oftentimes, this opportunity for growth will actually seem more like the exact path we DO NOT want to go down, can't go down or even think about at this time. Even so, this opportunity will remain in the shadows, always waiting for us to embrace change and become aware. Although the opportunity may take on various forms while we ignore it, it will always remain, simply waiting for our decision to change, adapt and grow.

Life is set up in such a way that making this change is an unavoidable conclusion. Meaning: Whatever "opportunity" is presenting itself is required action for us to move toward great success. That means our lives will reflect who we become.

Understanding that the thing we desire most often comes wrapped in a different package than expected is a critical element to becoming aware. This means changing how we think about our circumstances and seeing them from an entirely different perspective than we ever have before. (In other words, from a place of increased awareness.) Focusing on just this one piece has increased people's incomes, improved their health and brought love into their lives. Yet, increasing our awareness means releasing what we are attached to most within our circumstances, starting with what we believe about our situations to be true. Easier said than done, is it not? And yet, it simply begins with the decision to accept that your current level of awareness is not the whole truth.

So ask yourself:

What in your life right now doesn't seem like an opportunity for growth, but if looked at from a different perspective (and greater awareness) could be the perfect next step towards achieving that which you ultimately want? WHAT IF you explored the great mystery that is right in front of you, reaching out for you to grow?!?

Simply by increasing your awareness around the opportunity that exists for you RIGHT NOW will lead you directly into the second step for achieving any success you desire...

Basic Steps to Success
What in your life right now doesn't seem like an opportunity for growth, but if looked at from a different perspective (and greater awareness) could be the perfect next step towards achieving that which you ultimately want?