Best Perspective For Success In Closing The Gap That Matters Most
By
Bill Cottringer

Success is not—
What you do,
What you get,
Or what you have;
But what you attract,
From being who you are.

“Success is a certain sense of progress accumulated from making all the right little choices in becoming your best self, so that you can share that best self and your success with others.” ~The Author.

I used to think success was what you got from what you did to get it. In other words, if you wanted to be rich, then you had to work hard and find the right ways to make a pile of money. Or if you wanted to win an academy award for the year’s best acting performance, then you had to work hard for several years before to acquire superior acting skills. The same formula has always been a prerequisite for being an elite athlete, winning politician, influential financial advisor, A-list grocery check-out clerk, or a great stay-at-home dad.

Although this winning formula may have worked at the beginning of our success quest, the competition nowadays is too overwhelming for such a simple solution to pull us to victory. Today success is more what you attract than what you get, from being the best you. To get here you have to close the gap between where you are now as the real you and where you can be as the ideal you, which you are growing into. This gap is something everyone calls “wanting more.” But, more is always elusive like chasing butterflies. The more your wants are, the more frustration you end up with in trying to capture them. The finish line ahead always keeps moving ahead, seemingly just beyond your grasp.

We are all unhappy about the way the world is today and this gap is the collective one we are all trying to close individually; but the sad news is, without many results. Fortunately there is a good reason for this failure and a genuine solution waiting in the wind. Unfortunately it isn’t free and always leaves the prevalent “something for nothing and immediate need gratification” mentality dissatisfied and unfulfilled.

Any attempts to change the realities you don’t like from an attack position do not net genuine, long term success. Success starts to be attracted when you make an important change in perspectives—changing what you are seeing about yourself and who you are becoming. Or in the slightly modified words of Jim Rohn, “Behold your potential but beware of your limiting capability.” Personally, I wish I had discovered this transformational perspective about 60 years ago.

Closing this gap that matters most—between your current unfulfilled success and the abundance you know in your bones is within your potential—starts with a major stop. You have to stop trying to pursue goals that are supposed to bring success and start looking at the choices you have made, are making, and will make, that define your character. This is who you are becoming on your way to closing the gap between the your real and ideal selves.

Some lucky few people discover the right perspective about success early on. Good for them. But for most of us it is a long, painful and difficult journey full of frustrating failures and too much dismal light at the end of the tunnel. Below are a few affirmations to consider making which may speed up your own success quest and eliminate some unnecessary failures and frustrations along the way in painlessly closing the gap that matters most:

1. No matter where you are now on this journey, the best starting point is where you are right now and the opportunity is the same for us all. Affirmation: I will start looking for the closest place to where I am to take a foot forward towards the right success perspective, wherever my feet are now. Caveat: And I will look down to see where they are first.

2. Trying isn’t necessarily a noisy way to not do something; it may be the only starting point. Affirmation: I will not put off trying to see what I haven’t been noticing all along about the right success perspective. Caveat: I won’t quit on the first trying failure.

3. It is not the things that happen that matter most, but rather our reaction to these things. Affirmation: I will notice the choices before me that will be the best reaction to both the things I like most and least. Caveat: I will try extra hard to catch the misses.

4. A dear friend once reminded me of an important reality: “If you don’t have an open mind, are you sure you have one?” Affirmation: I will open my mind to see what I really need to see that is making up the gap between where I am and where I really want to be. Caveat: I will work on knowing the difference between where I want to be and where I need to be.

5. The most important change anyone can make is with a perspective how things are and how they could be. Affirmation: I will begin to question my current assessment of how things really are and how I imagine how they could be. Caveat: I will not be bound by any self-imposed limits about my capability everyone else reminds me of.

6. Sometimes you have to stop seeing what is in your way to see past to the real object ahead. Affirmation: I will keep moving forward to move past the blur so that what I need to see is in sharp focus. Caveat: Blurs can be tempting as being the real thing, but I promise to know better.

7. It is always better to be late than to never appear at all, as life generously gives both permission and forgiveness for this time delay. Affirmation: I won’t wait too much longer to be who I was born to be and start attracting the success I deserve, hopefully starting this moment or the next. Caveat: I know I need to know what time it is and to not let myself go past the point of no return between opportunity and danger.

Try any of these seven helpful hints on getting to the right perspective about success to attract more.

Author's Bio: 

William Cottringer, Ph.D. is Executive Vice-President for Employee relations of Puget Sound Security Companies in Bellevue, WA and also a business and personal success coach, sport psychologist, photographer and writer living in the mountains of North Bend. He is author of several business and self-development books, including, Re-Braining for 2000, The Prosperity Zone, Getting More By Doing Less, You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too, The Bow-Wow Secrets, Do What Matters Most, “P” Point Management, Reality Repair Rx and Reality Repair. He can be contacted with comments or questions at 425 454-5011 or bcottringer@pssp.net