You Achieve What You Believe

What really creates the results we achieve in our lives? What makes the difference between people who seem to have it all together versus those who continually struggle and strive for more? Is there really a secret to success that some of us are missing?

Being a Coach and Entrepreneur has taught me a lot and is still teaching me a lot about what it takes to make a success of your business and your life. Each time I come across another strategy, another idea, another webinar or another podcast, I have to confess, I find myself thinking, "Yes! I need this! This is going to help me achieve what I want to achieve!"

Don't get me wrong - I think all of these things are really wonderful. I am a total sponge for new information and learning. I am always open to learning from others and I actually think it gives us an amazing opportunity to save ourselves days, weeks, months and even years. But there is something I've noticed as I've travelled on this journey towards freedom and success. It is a powerful lesson that seems to keep presenting itself to me over and over again as I continue to work towards my ultimate goals.

I love to tell the story of how I ended up buying my own house for the first time, mostly because I believe it so perfectly illustrates the lesson to which I am referring.

I had been working in a full time position for a number of years when my ex-husband and I separated. After living in houses for the past 20 years (most of them we had built ourselves), I ended up moving into a basement apartment. I had kept my share of the equity in a bank account for the purpose of buying a home, and was looking forward to the day when I would be able to once again own my own property. After 2 years of living below ground, I began to get a little anxious.

With the help of my real estate agent, I began to look at some houses in my area. I wanted to find something close by which would enable my children to stay in the same school, as well as staying close to their father and our extended family. Before too long, I found the perfect sized house in the area that I wanted, just around the corner from where I had been living. When I called up my real estate agent, however, I found out that the home had just recently sold and I was crushed.

The search became more intense. I poured over websites and real estate magazines and newspapers, trying desperately to find a home where I could settle down with my children and again attempt to create a happy life for myself and for them. I wanted to be a home-owner. I wanted to have my little piece of sanctity and stability. I wanted a place to call home.

A few weeks later, I found myself sitting at my desk at work, feeling completely overwhelmed and stressed out because I still hadn't found a home. I had allowed myself to become totally absorbed and almost obsessed about reaching this goal. I found myself questioning everything about the way I was thinking and feeling, and as I did, it began to dawn on my how silly it all was. After all, I could afford to wait. My money was sitting safely in my account, my children and I had a roof over our heads and there really wasn't anything that was creating any kind of urgency - it was all in my head.

Right then, I decided to let it go. I told myself that when it was time for it to happen, it would happen. There was no point getting myself worked up or becoming frantic over finding a house, and I knew that when the timing was right, the universe would make it happen and the house would appear. I took a nice long deep breath and let myself relax, and for the first time in weeks, I began to feel totally at peace with where I was.

Ironically, just as one might expect, I received a call from my real estate agent about a week later, telling me that the deal on the house that I had looked at had fallen through, and the house was back on the market. I couldn't help but chuckle to myself, because I knew that I had learned a powerful lesson about trying to rush the things in your life over which you believe you have any sense of control. It is a fool's errand, and laughable I'm sure - to the powers that manipulate the universe.

There have been, over the years, many instances that I can think of where this same principle presented itself to me in an effort to teach me about patience, trust, psychology and faith. I'm not really sure why it is that it seems like such a hard lesson to learn, but I strongly suspect it has something to do with our desire for control. In our continuous drive for growth, achievement and success, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that it isn't ours to have.

The thing that I've noticed over time, with regards to the majority of struggles we face in our daily lives, is that the way that we feel about where we are always boils down to one thing and one thing only - and that is the way that we choose to interpret everything around us.

Every single event in my life - every moment that I can remember about how I felt and what has caused me pain and suffering - I can sum up to the way that I was thinking about where I was and what was happening at the time. It wasn't WHAT was happening that caused me the grief, but the way that I was choosing to view it, to think about it, and to interpret it that caused me pain. If I told myself a disempowering story, it was bound to leave me feeling disempowered. The opposite is also true.

When you think about it, every element of our lives can really be boiled down to this one universal and unbending truth - that "as we think, so shall we become." These words, as quoted in the famous book by James Allen, "As a Man Thinks" have stood the test of time. He recommends us to "stand watch at the gates of our minds", because the one thing that we do have complete power over is the way that we choose to think.

What is it that constitutes happiness or sadness for you? What causes you to become angry or resentful or frustrated or lonely? It is your thoughts, your opinions, your beliefs and your attitude about where you are and what is happening that cause you to become disempowered and unhappy. It may be a leap, but it is a valuable lesson for us to understand if we want to be able to empower ourselves into a different experience of life.

We ARE more than we believe we are. We are more CAPABLE then we could ever imagine. We have more POWER available to us than we could ever comprehend. We have a depth of RESOURCES that is bottomless and we have been given more CAPACITY to love, to give and to succeed than we could ever need. Imagine what we could undertake and accomplish if we truly grasped the truth about our own ability!

Nothing in my life looks the same when I choose to view it from this perspective. Nothing seems to be too unattainable; nothing seems too far out of reach, too difficult, too painful or to unbelievable. When I choose to see through this lens of greatness and gratitude, I find glory and grace.

The further I choose to move away from victimhood, the more amazed I am at how my perspective begins to change. I begin to get some understanding of just how much we barricade ourselves into emotional upheaval and distress. With just one small shift in our thinking, we have the power to alleviate all that drama and set in motion a completely different energy and emotional state.

My real hope here is that I have been able to capture the essence of the lesson which has taken me so long to learn - that we are already everything and we already have everything which we could ever want to have or to be. If we can heal our thinking, we can heal our minds. We can heal ourselves, our bodies, our families, our communities, our planet and each other, and we can heal our lives.

There is nothing in our lives that does not allow for improvement, and yet in so many ways, we have already achieved the perfection that we seek. I firmly believe that we just haven't really come to grips with it as of yet.

If you would like to have some help crafting a vision for your life or eradicating your limiting beliefs, please contact me to find out how you can take advantage of my complimentary, one-on-one, Coaching Consultation Session. This free session can help you get to the core of your deepest desires and give you the opportunity to create a powerful and impactful purpose driven plan for 2017!

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About the author

Tamara Dodgson is a Certified Strategic Intervention Coach and Life Strategist, trained by Robbins Madanes. She has spent the better part of a half century studying, researching and learning about personal growth and development, self-help, spirituality, leadership, success, achievement and philosophy. She is a writer, philosopher, life coach, mother, fitness enthusiast, nature lover, book fanatic and divine being of infinite possibilities. She is also the proud author of "Designing Your Life - A Guide to Help You Consciously Create Your Future" and has recently released a new educational program called "2017 - Your Year of Transformation." You can connect with her on Facebook at Forward Coaching & Consulting Services, on her website at www.tamaradodgson.com, or via email at coaching@tamaradodgson.com.

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