THE FORMULA FOR SUCCESS: IT'S A "BE" THING

From an early age, many of us are taught that there is a formula for success; a carefully measured plan that enables us to win at the game of life. Those who follow the formula are the winners.  Those who don’t?  Well, those are the losers.   And as children/young adults, we are taught what it means to win.  We are taught to get the best grades, attend the right college, obtain the right degree, and follow the right career path.  Of course, we are told that we can be whatever we want to be, but the goal is always to succeed.  And we learn that success is primarily measured by how well we are doing compared to others; and so the size of our paycheck, our office, our cars, and our home becomes the gauge for determining how far ahead we are in the race.

Having worked for many years to be a winner, I am proud to say that I am no longer on the road to success.  Not because I have reached the highest heights in my career.  And not because I see myself as a loser and chose to give up.  At a certain point, I stopped and asked myself, “Why?” Because I asked that one simple question, I was finally able to see life clearly.  I no longer see through the lens of “what it takes to make it.”  What I now see is something that I wish someone had shared with me many years ago: “making it” is a story.  And not only is it a story, it’s a bad one at that. 

Many of us invest so much time in the pursuit of “making it” that we fail to stop and think about exactly what it is that we are going after.  All we know is that we are supposed to want it, and we just assume that once we finally get it, we will be good.  But some of us wake up one day and wonder what happened.  We wonder why we are not satisfied with the life we have worked so hard to build for ourselves.  And then we realize that it really isn’t our life.  We realize that it is the life that we were led to believe that we should want.

Just like everyone else, I could very easily justify and rationalize every choice that I’ve made.  After all, I learned very early on that there is a “right” way to do things and I made choices that I believed were the best for me according to those standards.  But at a certain point, like so many others, I began to feel disempowered and defeated.   I realized that I had not really been calling the shots in my own life.  I had allowed my parents, teachers, and mentors to be in control.  None of them meant harm, I know.  They had only passed along the formula that they had been given-a formula that didn’t include personal satisfaction or fulfillment. I suppose that we somehow believe that those things will automatically show up. And while we are all familiar with clichés like, “Success is nothing without someone to share it with” or “Money can’t buy happiness”, they mostly fall on deaf ears.  We choose to believe that the casualties of success are a result of the misapplication of the formula and a failure to seek balance.  But that won’t happen to us.  We will be the ones to get it right.

Yes, it is true that some of us have been rewarded for our diligence in using the formula.  Our names can be found on that sign on the door.  We might have the money, the car, the house, and maybe even the “perfect on paper” husband.  But for far too many of us, there is something missing.  We don’t feel the sense of joy and peace, and well….happiness that we always thought we would have once we achieved all that we thought that we should.

Once I was broken open, I finally learned that the true formula for success is having the ability to recognize the special and unique gifts that come from our own souls; nurturing those gifts, and having the courage to share those gifts with the world.  I now know that true success is measured by who we BE, not by what we have and certainly not by what we do; unless what we choose to do is done with joy.  

-Angie G.

THE HIDDEN COST OF HUMILITY

Humble adj: 1: not proud or haughty: not arrogant or assertive 2: reflecting, expressing, or offered in a spirit of deference or submission 3: ranking low in a hierarchy or scale: INSIGNIFICANT, UNPRETENTIOUS

Humble vb: 1: to make humble 2: to destroy the power, independence, or prestige of

I have to be honest. I’ve never looked up the word “humble” in a dictionary. Like many of us, I learned from my parents and other adults what it meant. I learned that it was a bad thing to be too proud or too confident or too sure of myself; that it was okay for others to compliment or praise me, but never was I to act as if I thought I really deserved it. That would just be arrogant and well…wrong. But lately, I’ve pondered the true meaning of the word and whether or not our obsession with others seeing us as being humble has done us more harm than good. I wondered if we’ve been getting it all wrong.

So I decided to look to look the word up, and as I came across “humble” in the dictionary, I was struck dumb. One definition in particular jumped off the page and smacked me across the face; “to destroy the power, independence, or prestige of.” There it was in black and white. Seeing those words before words before me, I finally understood.

Like most, my parents wanted to ensure that I would not grow up to be haughty or pretentious. Their intention was to raise me to be a “good” person, and it became clear to me early on that it was not acceptable for me to think or act like I was “something.” But, if I wasn’t supposed to act like “something”, what was the alternative? As I observed the adults around me, looking for clues as to how I should behave, I began to see how important it was for everyone to ACT humble. I picked up all the little expressions, mannerisms and sayings that were meant to convey my humility to others, and I learned that it was not important enough for me to BE humble. In order for it to be “real”, others had to see it and from what I could gather at that time, that meant that I was expected to play myself down. And if I didn’t, I would be brought down. I would be “destroyed.” Like any good girl, I played by the rules but I couldn’t reconcile the concept that in order to be “good”, or “nice” as others thought I should be, I would be required to diminish the self that I knew, as all children know, myself to be: a shiny and bright light, the fullness of which was meant to be shared with the world.

And as I look around, I see so many of us, even in our adulthood, struggling to shine- to be proud of ourselves, to be noticed, and to be adored. But we have suppressed the bright light of our authentic power and have instead settled for flimsy representations of our extraordinary selves. We wear the “right” labels, drive the “right” cars, have obtained the “right” degrees, know the “right” people, and belong to the “right” organizations. We yearn to be great, but allow ourselves to be buried by the stuff; forgetting that there is nothing that we could buy, wear, or have that could ever outshine who we really are.

In our desire to ACT humble, we have concealed our own natural, beaming light. We have become reluctant, embarrassed, or even ashamed to share what’s truly good about us for fear that we will be criticized or judged for thinking too highly of ourselves. We have camouflaged our brilliance. We have become “humble”, but at what cost?

-Angie G.

SUPERWOMAN IS DEAD......AND HER FUNERAL WAS FABULOUS!

As we grow older, we find ourselves pulled in many different directions.  There are the children, the spouse, the career, the side interests, and somewhere in the mix, there we are.  We just don’t have time for all of the “extras” anymore.  It is a sentiment echoed a lot lately by many of my friends.  A sentiment summed up in two words:  I can’t.

And what we can’t seem to do anymore is spend an inordinate amount of time catering to the whims and drama of others.  Now, it just seems like a lot of unnecessary nonsense.  Besides, we’ve got our own business to tend to.   When we were younger, we were far more likely to engage in all manner of tomfoolery; we tolerated so-called friends who really weren’t friends at all, we came to the rescue of those wayward siblings who always seemed to make it a point to find trouble, and we sacrificed for those boyfriends who really weren’t worth our time.  Granted, some stuff was serious and real, but it all seemed so crucial and necessary then.  And although the words were never spoken, we assumed that there would eventually be a return on our “good deeds” investment.  

But something changed.  We got older and we realized that it was no longer worth it.  We began to realize that all of the extra time and energy it takes to cater to others was no longer worth the extra time and energy.  Along with that realization, something else happened (well at least to some of us).  Some major event occurred in our lives and the very people that we put so much energy into were not around.   For many of us, our initial reaction was hurt or anger.  It just wasn’t fair.  We cried and complained because we had given generously and often, presumably with no expectation of recompense or reward, but the ONE time we found ourselves in need, we were left abandoned on the side of the road.  In our story, we had been used and so we vowed to shut it all down-at least for a while.  Because of course, they needed to know.  They needed to be taught a lesson.  They had mistaken our kindness for weakness.

Then came the pushback.  The pushback from all the folks that we had seemingly made dependent on our good deeds. They couldn’t understand our new attitude.  Our anger surprised them.  After all, nothing had changed for them, except maybe our newly found resistance to making ourselves available to them.  Some even went so far as to get mad and tell us that we were trippin’.  Now ain’t that something?  The nerve.  The nerve and the unmitigated gall. 

But in the midst of it all, we lost sight of the real issue.  And that is the fact that we had elected, appointed and nominated ourselves to be “Superwoman.”  We had freely signed up to be everyone’s go-to girl.  We got to be the one with all the answers.  We got to be the strong one; the level headed one, the mature one.  Some of us might argue that we didn’t choose it and that all of that greatness and responsibility had been thrust upon us.  But that isn’t true.  Despite our protestations and justifications as to why we took on the role, the fact remains that we did indeed choose it.  Something about it made us feel important or special.  We could at least be honest about that.  And for me, along with that honesty, came the understanding that my choice to give does not in any way create an obligation for those I have chosen to give to. 

Like every other real, grown-up woman dealing with life’s issues, I still have moments when it gets to be too much.  But nowadays, whenever I start feeling overwhelmed and  find myself feeling resentment towards the “takers”, I think of what my best friend told me many years ago...…“When God was going around the room asking who wanted to be responsible, didn’t nobody tell you to raise your hand”…and I laugh.

-Angie G.