Do You Allow Yourself To Succeed?

Got Recognition?

It is surprising just how many people simply don't recognize their own successes. I know this sounds funny, but think about it, do you always acknowledge your accomplishments? And just how important is this? And what is it saying about us if we don't give ourselves our props? Do we not deserve recognition and respect from even ourselves? What will be the consequences if we never acknowledge our own successes? Is this a setup for failure? I think we all get so involved in our efforts from time to time that we tend to forget the little things like giving ourselves a pat on the back once in awhile. But if this behavior becomes a habit, it can easily become a negative force designed to sabotage success.

The number of ways we humans find to interfere with ourselves is apparently as limitless as our ability to deceive ourselves into believing things that simply aren't true. I know this sounds crazy but we all know it is true, we just refuse to address the reasons why we do this. Obviously we have a vested interest in something that supports and requires this kind of behavior. But why do we have to be all sneaking up on ourselves? Where and when did we lose the courage to live life honestly and straight forward?

The Pluses And Minuses

It is pretty bad when we are all too ready to put a mark in the minus column and yet reluctant to put one in the plus column, even to the extent that we will put a plus in the minus column. Go figure! The idea that we might not support ourselves and our own efforts is grotesque but more common than most of us realize. The simple act of recognizing our accomplishments is a sign that we believe in ourselves and our success. Why would we believe otherwise?

Sadly, there are so many people who have sustained damage to their spirit to the point where they find it difficult if not impossible to feel right about feeling good. And such a basic core position is a recipe for consistent failure even when we succeed. Because we simply filter out the successes and focus only on the failures. We are the enemy of our own success because our basic beliefs won't allow us to succeed. The longer we let these thinking and behavior patterns run, the more difficult it will be to replace them with more constructive ones.

Getting To Know Ourselves

The good news is that any negative behavior that we allow to become habitual, we can replace with new and different behaviors. The challenge here is in discovering and identifying the negative behaviors that need changing. Most of them have been established long enough that they have become unconscious and automatic behaviors. We don't even recognize them even when they are running. So how do we get a handle on them?

We need to become more aware of ourselves. That means that we must learn how to monitor our thoughts and actions and this takes some mental discipline. Developing mental discipline is not the easiest task in the world. It takes time, effort, commitment, perseverance and patience among other attributes of good character. Becoming aware of ourselves to the extent that we are able to discover our weaknesses and strengths is not impossible, but we need to first find the courage to love ourselves and believe in ourselves. We need to touch our own hearts and know that we are just fine and that it is our birthright to have all that life has to offer and success is natural to our species.

Meditation is one of the best tools for self awareness. Also creative visualization, and affirmations are good aids to self awareness and self discovery. This all assumes that we are not aware of ourselves in the first place and each individual must evaluate their own condition. But most of us have long ago abandoned self awareness in favor of a kind of self imposed ignorance because of what we think we might find if we go looking into things too deeply. But are we willing to sacrifice our success for this strange form of security?

There is a great free e-book that explores success failure and power here.