Choose Success | Live the Life of your Dreams

how to live the life of your dreams and choose success over failure

How do we choose success? In this post, you will discover the most important factors in determining success and how to put them to work to create your dream life. Let’s jump right in. 

 

Let’s talk about success. Ever wonder what that magic ingredient is that differentiates successful people from unsuccessful people?Are you curious whether it is genetic or learned, or a personality trait? Maybe it’s simply a blessing from God. Ever wonder if YOU have what it takes to achieve your dreams?

Let’s Define Success

Admit it, you’ve had these questions a time or two in your life. Do we even want success? And what is “success” anyway? First of all, let’s chat a bit of about this idea of “success.”

Success is:

• based on your own personal definition
• living to your full potential
• living your own personal dreams

One person’s success might be financial freedom, while another person’s might be the ability to unconditionally love all people and creatures. Everyone’s idea of success should and will be as unique as they are. Your first step toward success is to define your idea of success or define your purpose. 

You don’t have to (nor should you) wait around your whole life searching for your purpose. You can pick a purpose. You can always change it later. The most important thing is to HAVE a purpose, to live with purpose. This is the only way to end up with zero regrets at the end of your life. If you want to look back on your life with deep satisfaction then you need to think and define “success” now.

Believe it or not, many people never take the time to really think about this. That’s why statistics say that 95% of people on their dying day have ultimate regrets about their lives! 95%! This is crazy and very sad to think about. If you don’t want this to be you, you will need to do something differently than 95% of the people on this planet. You will have to become part of this small minority. Get ready to stand out.

Success in the Eyes of Our Amazing Grandmother

I’ve been thinking a lot about our grandmother recently. We were close. Her name was Alice, but we called her “Nan.” I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t treasure her. She shared plenty of wisdom with me over the years, and I can still hear her voice in my head, “All things in moderation, Julie” “If you want to keep your teeth floss every day, Julie.” “Give 10% of all you have away, Julie. At least! OK? You hear me?” “Ok, Nan, I hear you.”

She led a happy, productive, generous life. She successfully raised 3 daughters, was married 70 years, volunteered her time, had a full spiritual life, took incredible care of her health, and by all outward appearances seemed to have a wonderful life. Only once did she reveal to me her regret. She said to me, “Julie, I never did anything.” I’ll never forget it. Looking back over her life she hadn’t risked, she hadn’t reached, she hadn’t dreamed, and toward the end she had regret. She was saying this to me so I wouldn’t do the same.

“One of the saddest things in life is to get to the end and look back in regret, knowing that you could have been, done, and had so much more.”  ~  Robin Sharma

“The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.”  ~  Abraham Maslow

How to Live a Life with No Regret

Create a life that fulfills your dreams.

Create a life that when you look back on it makes you proud and happy and fulfilled.

What we KNOW about success:

• First of all, success is extremely personal.
• It is never achieved by accident. Sure you can win the lottery and find yourself temporarily in the possession of the outward trappings of success, but is it success? It turns out no, it’s not. The temporary joy does not last, and it very rarely brings ultimate happiness. In study after study of lottery winners’ long-term happiness it is revealed that they report significantly less happiness than before winning.
• Becoming the person of your dreams is as important as achieving your dreams. And here you thought all you had to do was win the lottery.
• The good news is that you already possess the ability to achieve your dreams. The choice is literally up to you.
• The level of your success will never exceed your level of personal development.
• Success is the result of risk taking.
• You have to be willing to change.
• You have to be willing to do things differently.

“Things don’t change. We change.”  ~ Henry David Thoreau

Standing in the Way of Our Own Success

Most often, we are the ones standing in our own way.  “Julie, what the heck do you mean by that? I honestly want to succeed! I’m trying everything, and nothing seems to be working.”

You are focusing on actions and not attitude. Begin with yourself, your attitude. Work on the person you are becoming. Only then can you achieve your dreams. You absolutely need to get into action, but action without self-development is an incomplete formula for success.

In order to be successful you need to start with the person inside. A great book to help you get you to where you need to be is Jen Sincero’s You are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life.

This post contains affiliate links such as this one below. It is no additional cost to you but simply helps us pay for our blog. Thank you so much. Click on the book to shop now.

In it Jen talks about how it doesn’t matter if you go after your dreams with your conscious mind. Until you are in control of your subconscious mind you will never get there.

Believe it or not, our subconscious is actually calling the shots and standing in the way of achieving success. We are born with our subconscious minds fully developed. Our conscious minds don’t fully develop until adolescence. So for all those years (and beyond) our world and everything in it is filling and forming our minds. Our core “beliefs” are formed based on everything our parents said and did, and they form our core. Society also contributes strongly.

 

The Power of our Subconscious

Most of us aren’t aware of how or why we believe what we believe. We don’t realize how truly powerful our subconscious core is. Often it is like a wall built around our potential, standing in the way of change. This wall blocks our potential for success in every aspect of our lives. The first step in breaking down this wall is unveiling what these “tapes” are saying. The first step is discovery, and then you can begin to reprogram. Many of our tapes begin with, “I can’t” or “I’m not” or “I don’t.”

Every day with every choice we make we base our decisions on our past. “I’m not a morning person.” “I am not a runner.” “I’m not an athlete.” “I’m not good at math.” “I’m no good at styling my hair” and on and on and on. Stop the tapes. First, before you can stop them, you have to hear them, so awareness is the very first step. Next, try a new tape. You don’t have to believe it at first. In fact, you most likely won’t. That’s ok. Act as if. Pretend.

I’ve done this type of thing for years. I learned it long ago. When I was moody I would put a smile on my face, just force it on there. Preferably I would look at myself in the mirror. Soon I would be laughing. Hey, it’s a whole lot better than a pity party.

The Power of Attitude

I know we’ve heard it all so much that it sounds obvious and even cliché, but attitude is everything. It’s absolutely everything.

• How you look at ANY situation is the reality it becomes.
• You have to begin by believing in yourself or no one else will.
• You must have a powerful determination in your own abilities.
• If not, every time you hit an obstacle you will waver, your confidence will waver and you will give in to your underlying belief that you.
  • don’t have what it takes
  • are no good at this or the other
  • will not succeed
  • don’t deserve success
• If you don’t first work on your underlying belief system, your system of core beliefs that you may not even be conscious of, you will never succeed because your reality will be self fulfilling of whatever you believe.
• If you don’t work on your inside your outside can never surpass what you neglect to address.
• Just because you can’t see it or feel it do not underestimate its power.

Another MUST READ is the grand daddy of them all, the book upon which all success books are based, the 1937 classic, “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill. Such amazing wisdom contained in its pages you’ll want to highlight every phrase.

Click directly on the book to purchase.

How to Achieve Success: The Miracle Morning

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle”  ~ Albert Einstein

I want to suggest you begin reading “The Miracle Morning” by Hal Elrod and practicing his Miracle Morning program to start your day. If you haven’t yet read our post you will want to, either now or when you are done reading this.

“6 Simple Habits to Change Your Life”

We hope you have already purchased the book that has started Jodie’s and my transformation. If you haven’t, we cannot say enough about it. The book is simply packed with amazing insights and so much more than we even expected.

I’m not going to keep telling you how amazing Jodie’s and my lives have become, or how we’ve changed dramatically by simply changing our mindsets, or how allowing ourselves to try to do something we’d never done before was the beginning of one breakthrough after another.

This advice (and this book) is for those who want to:

• change and grow
• break down walls and barriers
• achieve heights previously not imagined
• become the person of your dreams
• live the life of your dreams

If this is you, then we encourage you to:

• Be open to making some changes
• Start by doing something quite novel
• Set your alarm clock before the light of day…every day
• Give yourself a major wake-up call… PUN INTENDED!
• Prepare to live differently, with a new mind set and a new enthusiasm

Now that I begin each day with My Miracle Morning I’m too excited to feel tired. How amazing is that? That’s the power of mind set already at work.

It’s less about when you wake up and more about why you wake up. Do you get out of bed because you need to or because you want to? Get out of bed because you want to make the most of the new day. Get out of bed because you want to achieve your dreams and you can’t wait.

But Julie, why are we getting up early? I need my sleep if I’m going to conquer the world!

1. Wake up early because you choose to. What a concept.
2. Begin each day in charge.
3. Begin with purpose, staring straight ahead at your goals.
4.  Then get after them.

Don’t Want to Wake Up?

“You’ve got to wake up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction”   ~  George Lorimer

I’ll tell you the truth: You don’t have to get up early. You don’t even have to do “The Miracle Morning” in the morning. You can do it at another time of day of your choosing. But first thing in the morning is its ideal, strongest, most impactful time. And you will learn all the ways you can personalize and customize the Miracle Morning to fit your lifestyle when you read the book.

Why is the 6-step Miracle system so powerful? It’s because it is an organized system for self improvement and self-awareness. It’s like free therapy and a self-help class wrapped into the start of every day. And the wisest people in the world know that what you do every day matters much more than what you do once in a while.

Choose Success

I’s no coincidence that the most successful people in the world begin their days with a combination of these activities. It’s not a novel idea. It just is a bit of a secret, and Jodie and I want it to become a movement. We think 5% is too small of a percentage of people being satisfied with their lives!

It turns out, all you need to lead a life that is happy, fulfilling, and one you will never regret, is to live your life with PURPOSE. Instead of letting life happen to you, decide to take control and make it the life you choose. It is all within your power if you believe it is.

CHEERS TO CHOOSING TO LIVE WITH PURPOSE

AND LIVING THE LIFE OF YOUR DREAMS!

With love,