What is Your Dream of Success?

What does success mean to you?

If you are reading this, I assume you want to be successful in some way, shape or form. But maybe you feel constrained by all the things you’d have to do, all the plans you’d have to stick to, all the goals that are worthy but, let’s face it, a bit dull.

If you feel like this, it doesn’t mean that you need to bumble along in pleasing mediocrity (though you can do that too if you want, this world is about choice). You can be more successful than you are now, you can make better choices you can have more ways of achieving your dream. Even if that dream doesn’t fit in with the rest of the world’s idea of success.

There are two things I want to say to you here, and if you detect a finger-wagging tone, I apologise in advance. I don’t mean to lecture. It’s just that so often I see people not living up to their potential and getting frustrated by their lack of progress. And this happens because they are saying to themselves, there is a success model out there, but I don’t want to be a multimillionaire so it wouldn’t work for me. They are saying, there is success coaching out there, but I’m not sure how far I want to take things, maybe it’s only for the super ambitious. They are saying I know I could change but I don’t want to...yet.

And the two things I have to say to you are:

1. You get to choose your future. You can be as successful as you want and in any way you want. If your idea of success is living off the land, recycling everything and making your own shoes then go for it. If you want to be a millionaire, go for it. If your idea of success is running your own business and still having time to recognise family members, that’s fine too.

There does seem to be an idea prevalent in the success coaching field that every client wants to be super-successful, earn millions while they sleep and have the yacht/mansion/labradoodle. Coaches market their products and services on this basis. But that can be off-putting for many people who, while they know they could do more, don’t feel up to being a multi-millionaire, get seasick at the thought of a yacht, and really don’t know what they want to do. They have the frustration of feeling they are not quite ‘there’ yet but don’t know what ‘there’ means to them.

If you don’t know what successful means to you, it doesn’t mean that the success coaching is of no use to you. But you may have to spend some time finding a coach who will value the real you, who isn’t totally tied in to the millionaire success model and who will give you time and space to discover what your dreams are.

2. You CAN use all the success coaching that is out there, just adapt it for your needs. Your success goal might be building a business, getting more clients, having better relationships, developing more muscles and less fat... and so on.

It is likely that you already know a lot about the outer steps you need to take. For example, building a better body usually means better food and more exercise; you know that already. Building a business means getting out there and finding potential clients. You know what you have to do; the thing that’s holding you back is some internal block, something that may be fear or hesitation or a reluctance to change. And it is this internal stuff that the coaching can be really good at addressing. It is this that will move you forward.

So whatever your idea of success is, or even if you don’t know what success is but you don’t want to stay stuck, find a coach who will understand where you are now, help you develop a plan for where you want to be and show you how to get there.

(c) 2010 Liz Copeland