Happy New Year, everyone! And gee, I technically got this edition of the blog in within a month of the last one :-)
As you can see by the title, the word I've chosen is success. I was surprised when I looked back through the blog to see that I hadn't written about success before. I think that's because we are inundated with articles, books, blogs, emails, and TV shows about how we can be "successful" ~ and it gets a bit old, doesn't it?
The problem with all of that is that most of the time, the term "successful" is defined by the world and not by us.
I'm reading a book right now called "Permission to Succeed" and it begins with the author asking his father if it's okay if he is more successful than his dad. Weird question, eh? But as I thought about it, I thought about how many people I meet in my workshops who have never given themselves permission to succeed. And I don't mean permission to earn lots of money, get a big title, big house, big car, big yacht - although I certainly am not against those things :-). But permission to just be who we were meant to be - and to be the best at being that person that we possibly can.
As I looked back over the list of words I've written about, many of them speak to me of "success" in the true sense of the word for me. Determination, listening, encouragement, contentment, simplicity (YES!), patience, appreciation, attitude (with a capital A!), awareness, forgiveness, giving, joy, learning ~ all of those and more spell s-u-c-c-e-s-s for me.
The more of these I have in my life, the more successful I consider myself. A good book in front of the fire, a furry little friend on each side, and a mug of hot cocoa with lots of whipped cream - some days that is the perfect picture of success!
How about you? How do you spell success? And how will you find more of it in 2011?
Happy hunting!
Blessings,
Linda
