How do you know when you are successful? What clues do you need to demonstrate that you know you've made it whether you've reached a life goal or just completed an important project? With regard to how you feel, should there be a difference in feeling between the sizes of your achievements -- small, medium, large, colossal?
No doubt there will be an intensity difference. You can't expect the same level of intensity across an entire range of possible successes. But the intensity of your experience should not alter the emotional experience itself. For example, if you are pleased with something you've done you can be exhilarated or quietly thoughtful, but the fact that you are pleased does not change. Only the expression and emotional intensity of your being pleased changes.
With that, here are five key emotions that will let you know you've succeeded -- not that you're on your way, but that you have actually reached the success you intended.
Ease/Comfort With What You Are Doing
Once you've succeeded at something you know what you're doing. What was once a struggle in the learning process becomes a graceful implementation. Why graceful? Because you've become confident in your ability to deal with what life brings you. You've done it and furthermore you know you can continue, and that's what brings the comfort; that comfort is the source of your ease.
Patience With Yourself and Others
Patience is tied to your confidence because in knowing that you can handle what life brings you, you can deal with whatever comes your way. No need to panic. You know you will take the time to see things through because things take time. Success is about quietly and steadily persevering or being diligent, especially in the details.
Trust of Yourself and Those With Whom You Work
Trust is an issue of reliance. You can count on yourself to come through. You can rely on your own integrity, your strength, your ability and the ability of those you work with. You can be sure, within your experience, that what's needed to be taken care of will be. So you can relax and be confident of your own expectations, of your vision and the choices you make, and you can know that the world will support you and your intentions.
Compassion With Yourself and Others
There's no need to measure yourself against others, or against any extremes. The locus of control of your life is solidly centered within you. There's no longer any need to seek perfection. You can assess all of the factors that make up any moment, and take the time to think critically and evaluate as deeply as you need, because you know what you're doing. Your gut and your heart can lead the way.
Satisfaction That Comes With Success
Very deeply within you, you know you belong where you are. You live with a confident acceptance of your talents and your limitations without any need to grasp or seize to prove to yourself that whatever skills and talents you possess won't fade away. In other words, your success is not just a one-off. You can let go of unwarranted self-judgment that you've wasted time. You haven't. All those moments, even those in which you were doing nothing, have come together to make you who you are. And it is you, all of you, the whole of you that is now successful.
These emotions are part of every success you've achieved, even the small successes on the way to a large accomplishment. Watch for them. They are the brick and mortar of enjoying who you are and who you are becoming.
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Jim Sniechowski, PhD and his wife Judith Sherven, PhD have developed a penetrating perspective on people's resistance to success, which they call The Fear of Being Fabulous (TM). Recognizing the power of unconscious programming to always outweigh conscious desires, they assert that no one is ever failing -- they are always succeeding. The question is, at what? To learn about how this played out in the life of Whitney Houston, check out their sixth book What Really Killed Whitney Houston.
Currently writing as LinkedIn Influencers and working as consultants on retainer to LinkedIn providing executive coaching, leadership training and consulting as well as working with private clients around the world, they continually prove that when unconscious beliefs are brought to the surface, the barriers to greater success and leadership presence begin to fade away. They call it overcoming the fear of being fabulous.
