Redefining Success: Listening to the Nudge Toward Something More

There’s a constant nudge.

“I have ‘everything’ on paper: good career, money, prestige. And even in my heart: I love my family. The work that I do is ok. But that’s just it: it’s just ok. It just still feels like something is missing, that there must be something more to life. But what could it be?”

Does this sound like you??

How could this be?

You are successful by what society says and what you have always thought, but you don’t feel it.

What is YOUR definition of success?

First, it could be that the way society defines success isn’t YOUR definition of success.

If you have never asked yourself what the word “success” means – to you – then asking yourself might be a good approach to begin to discover what is missing.

If you do this, don’t use your rational thinking mind to answer. That mind is conditioned to tell you basically what society has told you. What will be most useful and powerful is to “go deeper.”

Create a time to be quiet and still. Invite your thoughts to go on vacation a while, while you have a conversation with yourself. Relax your attention away from the thoughts.

Now, bring your attention to the area between your solar plexus and your heart, which is called the Xiphoid process. Yes, it’s a place in your body. (“Process” in anatomy refers to a projection or outgrowth from a larger body part.)

Focus there with gentle curiosity and ask, “What does success really mean to me?” Then pause and await an answer. It might not come immediately. Be patient. You will get an answer … when it is time.

You might have asked this question before but have never received an answer or the one that came to you didn’t resonate, so you gave up.

We can have competing commitments

It could be that the answer came from your egoic mind, which wants you to stay right where you are. It wants to keep you secure, which means that you would not make any change. Our egoic mind’s job is to look out for danger and keep us safe. Think of cave men and women. It hasn’t evolved much since then. Yes, it has more education, but its job has remained the same.

The egoic mind evolved primarily to protect us from physical threats, as it did for early humans. This survival mechanism has remained deeply ingrained, even though the dangers we face today are more psychological and social than physical.

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Therefore, it can limit us by over-focusing on fear and self-preservation, hindering growth and exploration beyond the comfort zones that we feel trapped in.

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As a result, we have competing commitments. Our true self is inviting us to fulfill a deeper purpose and step into a more expansive, meaningful way of being and doing in life. Our ego wants to maintain the status quo.

What might your wisdom be inviting you to?

In fact, your true self might have had such an intriguing invitation that you feel you didn’t receive an answer. What came to you might have seemed far-fetched or beyond what you think you are capable of or seemed too precarious financially. It could be something so new that you haven’t seen it anywhere else.

There is always someone who steps out ahead. Sometimes, it occurs to more than one person at the same time, such as with coaching. When I first heard of coaching in 1987 as a “profession,” relatively speaking, no one had heard of it. But a few people had begun to write articles and developed programs. All with no evidence of where it could go but they listened to a nudge.

Maybe your idea or insight is one of those. Maybe it’s a modification of a particular field that already exists, or maybe you have the incredible opportunity to bring something new into the world and it is you who has been offered that gem

This may well be the purpose and meaning you’ve been longing for. Will you allow yourself to trust it? To follow the wisdom for a while? Just to see where it goes? You can always step away.

It was given to you because you are the one meant to bring it to life – if it wasn’t yours to create, it never would have come your way.

I work with high achievers (individuals and teams) for whom settling is not an option.

·????? You are reevaluating where you are, because something is still missing.

·????? You are ready to discover what that is and make the changes.

If you would like to work with someone as you discover what is next for you and/or your team, I am available to explore the various paths that can be helpful, whether working with me or not. Message me and we will schedule a time to talk.