When you decide that you want to start making positive changes in your life, you have to dig deep.

You need to start challenging the thought patterns and habits that are currently not serving you.

Think about this:

What does success look like to you?

How we define success can shed some light on the unexplained feelings of disappointment, uneasiness, aimless and the feeling that we don’t measure up.

Let me explain.

If someone was to ask me what my definition of success was, I would have no problem coming up with things like: meaningful relationships with my family, being happy and content etc.

Yet, each of us usually have core beliefs that are buried so deep that we don’t even think about it. These core beliefs sometimes serve us (without thinking we try to be honest, without thinking we help someone who is having troubles), some of our core beliefs do not serve us and left unchallenged can wreack havock.

For me, I realised that deep down I wanted to be amazing at something. I wanted to have a clear purpose and passion about something. Without this, I felt that I wasn’t successful.

We may uncover that we believe that happiness only comes if we are a certain size. Or that we think we need the perfect home to be happy or reach a certain point in our career.

It is fine to have goals. The danger I am talking about is: if our sense of worth and feeling of success is reliant on achieving that goal.

What a huge burden!

This thinking is unhelpful, unrealistic and unreasonable.

President Dieter F Utchdorf talked about the classic tale Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and how it relates to us:

“People all over the world desperately yearn to find a golden ticket. Some feel that their entire future happiness depends on whether or not a golden ticket falls into their hands. In their anxiousness, people begin to forget the simple joy they used to find in a candy bar. The candy bar itself becomes an utter disappointment if it does not contain a golden ticket. So many people today are waiting for their own golden ticket—the ticket that they believe holds the key to the happiness they have always dreamed about…..The lesson here is that if we spend our days waiting for fabulous roses, we could miss the beauty and wonder of the tiny forget-me-nots that are all around us.

This is not to say that we should abandon hope or temper our goals. Never stop striving for the best that is within you. Never stop hoping for all of the righteous desires of your heart. But don’t close your eyes and hearts to the simple and elegant beauties of each day’s ordinary moments that make up a rich, well-lived life.

The happiest people I know are not those who find their golden ticket; they are those who, while in pursuit of worthy goals, discover and treasure the beauty and sweetness of the everyday moments. They are the ones who, thread by daily thread, weave a tapestry of gratitude and wonder throughout their lives. These are they who are truly happy.”

I realised that my golden ticket was finding my passion and purpose. Subconsciously, I had developed a core belief that if I was outstanding in a certain area, it was proof that I had found my passion and purpose. Not attaining this lofty goal made me feel like something was wrong with me. Now that I have recognised and named what is going on, I have been able to challenge it and I can see it for the nonsense that it is.

So, I am re-writing my definition of success. Success is no longer limited to one end goal. I can have successful moments every day! Living a life of gratitude and joy is all about celebrating the successful-everyday-moments.

This morning, I knew in my heart that I was where I needed to be. My son asked me to walk him to his class when I was dropping the kids off to school today – I can’t even remember the last time he asked this of me. When we got to the outside of his class, he asked me to bend down to his level, which I did, and then he gave me a lovely kiss.

I was feeling a little bit under the weather this morning, and that moment with my son has buoyed me up, recharged my batteries and made me so happy. Choosing to be with my son this morning and sharing that special time with him – that is what success feels like to me now.

The last few days have been an interesting journey for me. I have uncovered some of the reasons why I had stalled and become stuck.

I am starting to understand why I stopped creating anything and why I have moments when I feel sluggish even though I have had enough sleep.

First of all, there is nothing more effective at draining your energy than believing that you do not have any. (I am not talking about people who are actually sleep deprived. I am talking about when we use tiredness as an excuse to not engage in life.)

We justify not starting a project or perhaps even engage with our family and friends because we tell ourselves we are tired. When in fact the act of telling ourselves we are tired, makes us feel tired!

How many times, have we felt tired, but have been able to talk ourselves into doing something? Just as we can talk ourselves into having the energy to accomplish things, we can talk ourselves into being tired. We can also convince ourselves that we may not have enough energy for activity X, Y and Z, but we sure can participate in sedentary activities. <—–Which also drain our energy.

On the flip side, the more time you give to things which you are passionate about, the more energy you feel and time seems to fly by. Accomplishing things also energises you.

So what is going on? Why tell ourselves we are tired? What is the pay off here?

The pay off is that if we are tired, we do not engage. If we do not try, we do not fail, look bad or feel rejected.

The thought of failing provokes such negative feelings that it paralyses us and prevents us from fully engaging.

• The solution lies in making small achievable goals so we can start feeling successful. Also, changing our core belief to one that views failure as a learning opportunity can strip us of any debilitating beliefs that stifles our creativity.

What about this idea of rejection? How does that fit in?

We may be apprehensive about getting engaged because we could end up feeling rejected or feeling pain. This is not usually physical pain, it is more like emotional discomfort. It is the kind of discomfort you feel when you put effort in to cooking/making something and one of your children say “YUCK!!” or you made something that didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to – you think: why bother putting that effort in for a negative outcome.

It is the kind of discomfort that may come from putting in an effort with relationships (friends, family etc) and the outcome does not match your expectations. For example, you may have invested time with your children, but they end up getting upset at you for not playing the game properly or for reading only 2 books when they wanted 4. It may be with your friends who keep cancelling on you at the last minute. It may be with your spouse who you have shared your difficult day, but isn’t empathising with you like you would them to.

We may avoid growth opportunities because we have already pictured in our heads the pain of rejection. (Imagine if the above celebrities stopped trying!!)

So rather than feel that discomfort, we may back away from engaging fully in activities that may lead to a possibility of discomfort.

You probably can see straight away how this would adversely affect our lives and the lives of those around us.

We may feel safe and in control by not engaging, but this will be at the expense of enriching life experiences.

• The first step out of this damaging cycle is to really accept that the best things in life usually come with joy and pain. Childbirth comes to mind straight away!! Having children can be trying BUT it is also amazing! I believe it is the gift that keeps on giving. Having close relationships usually means that at some point you will disagree or be unhappy with the other person BUT hugging a computer or your smartphone does not feel the same! Nothing beats a deep and meaningful conversations or just a fun chat with those you love. The rose was made with spikey thorns, but does it mean we appreciate the beauty of it any less? Accepting that life is a combination of good moments and bad moments helps us to manage our expectation and stop viewing life through skewed lenses. We need to view life in 3D – full color – high definition!!

What an amazing life we would live if we believed the following:

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