SUCCESS IS A BELIEF SYSTEM

SUCCESS IS A BELIEF SYSTEM
By
Bill Cottringer

“Success is what you get from doing what you are doing to get it.” ~ The author.

By now most of us realize we have moved into total overload—too much to know and do and too little time to get it all done. One special area of overload with great interest to me concerns the topic of “success.” A Google I-net search on this topic is nearly up to 400,000,000 ‘hits.’ If a person wants to learn how to be more successful and tries consuming all the helpful information about success now available on-line and in the book stores, how many lifetimes would it take a person to click, read and apply? I can’t begin to imagine.

What I do know from studying and experiencing the topic of success for over 40 years now, is my inevitable conclusion that success is an entire belief system way beyond smart principles, beneficial habits, solid truths and clever secrets. And without the necessary belief system in place, all the best principles, habits, truths and secrets are just unapplied abstract ideas.

The real problem today is the huge gap between the belief systems of the success gurus who have built up them up over decades of study and experience and those of ordinary folks who are trying to make this popular transition from successful surviving of life’s everyday challenges to successful thriving into their unlimited potential. And trying to communicate what needs to be communicated, which will close this gap, is a serious problem that is getting drowned in the overload.

The real task of trying to teach success to others is that you are really trying to convince the person to give up an entire belief system that may have given the person just enough successes to keep it going. Nobody is going to surrender a belief system until they are on their death bed. And even when a person gets uncomfortable enough with facing and owning the failures of their current belief system and are ready to hear about a new one, communicating the belief system and proving that it works, is a monumental challenge.

An important paradox in human nature is the one that leads us to quickly embrace a belief system about something with minimal evidence, but resist giving up a current belief system already in place, despite compelling evidence and reasons to do so. Such a paradox seems to be getting in the way of dealing with the current overload and transition from surviving to thriving.

Let’s start with a definition of success that doesn’t limit what it can mean:

Success = “What you get from what you are doing to get it.”

Now this obviously opens the door to what exactly “it” is. Possibilities can be anything from money, material comforts, power, influence, recognition, happiness, contentment and wisdom; to self-actualization, peace of mind, spiritual enlightenment, wholeness, a sense of significance in making a difference, or leaving a legacy. (or all of these things if you are really greedy!) Obviously how you define “it” determines what belief system, choices and actions you implement to get more of it.

At this point in my own life, there are certain transformations going on with parts of my belief system which appear to be highly related to success as I choose to define it:

My definition of success: “Using my talents to leave each situation I come into a little better than when I first became part of it.”

Here are some important shifts that are taking place within me, helping me to upgrade my whole belief system to be more successful, as I define it.

1. Gradually replacing a win-lose mentality with a win-win one.

2. Believing more in the value of intrinsic motivation than extrinsic—doing something because it simply feels good and right to do, rather than what beneficial consequences I might get from it.

3. Putting back together the many things I took apart in my mind to understand them better—reconciling “opposites” which are often just two different sides of the same coin. This process starts by questioning the extreme polarizations our dualistic minds artificially categorize things into—right or wrong, good or bad, true or false, useful or useless, etc.

4. Learning to fit in first and then gradually changing what I am fitting into, for the better, from inside out.

5. Removing the safe space between the reacting observer part of me and the pro-active participating part in fixing broken realities and creating better ones.

6. Giving up personal desire for future personal gain, and replacing it with knowing my pure purpose in doing something and feeling successful in carrying out that purpose now.

7. Paying more attention to my feelings--how they interact with my thoughts, beliefs, choices and results and how that sequence can better occur to be more successful in carrying out my purpose with my God-given talents.

8. Sorting through the mountains of overload and doing what I can to simplify and use time smarter to get more done that matters most.

If you are not completely satisfied with your current sense of success, then I suggest the following:

• Redefine what success is for you and forget about what the rest of the world says.

• Then look for successful “experts” who define success similarly and explore the belief systems they have embraced to achieve this particular definition.

• Finally read good books and participate in programs that teach the necessary beliefs that lead you in the direction you are choosing to grow in.