Never give up just because the expectations are too high. Never give up just because the opposite of success is failure and you assume that failure is worse than success. Success and failure to the subconscious mind are quite similar and the process for them both is us moving away from or core, what makes us tick-be it making it big or crashing and burning but both require us to navigate back to our core in order to truly function and continue to live fully.
For many of us once we feel success and then that exact feeling is not replicated afterwards we feel then that we are somehow a failure. But what we have not yet understood is that success and failure do essentially the same thing to us, as I said before they move us away from our core, our deep set passions and can essentially distract us unless we can understand that after either takes place we must work to make our way back home (or to our core). Doing so allows us to be reminded of what we love most and why we are essentially doing what we are doing. Is it really for the success, fame, and acknowledgement? Or is it more about truly being in your element and doing what you love, being who you truly are and living out your passions. We are taken off course when we allow ourselves to focus more on the success and failure and then soon forget to remember that those are not the core of who we are, they are not the core of why we are doing what we are doing, the core is that which we simply cannot function without doing, being, living.
I asked myself this question and when I did this, I what I came to realize is- why I do what do is because I can’t not do it; I cannot not be this person that I am day I and day out; the days I am feeling less than, the days that I am feeling more than essentially make me do the same thing-work harder. I use to get down on myself over all the imperfections, the screw ups and the appearance of me not making it, but with time, effort and due diligence, faith and a shit load of perseverance I was able to ingrain in myself that I do what I do not because I want to be successful, but rather I know no other way, I cannot not do what I am doing and cannot not live how I am living right now.
The people that I most respect in my life, my field and my journey are not the ones have all the fame, are the most successful, wealthy or have it all; but rather the ones that time and time again make it back to their core, make it back to their core in a noble, trustworthy, humble-ass kind of way. You can be confident and not be boastful, you can be failing or succeeding and either way these people do not alter who they are, why they do what they do and love what they love based off these two things, they merely continue. My grandfather was a hugely successful man, had a great business, well respected by his peers, a loving family, and a nice modest home. But when you met him you didn’t meet his success you met his passion for life, his dedication to do what he loves, his work, his ability to help others his never ending compassion for all living beings. I can relate to him on multiple levels, he and I being both business owners I look back on my knowing him growing up and try to remember his presence and how he carried himself back to his core over and over again, having many a times lost his ass to people that did not share the same core values and compassion that he did. But never did it taint who he was and how he acted in his life, he just continued and usually worked even harder, but not be even more successful or at the fear of failure (considering he started literally with nothing) but rather to feed his soul from a very deep level.
So what can I gain from him and the understanding of success and failure? Well for starters when you get shot away from your home based-your core, by either success or failure, what will you do if anything to get back to your core? That success you experienced is but a blip in your life and will not last forever; sad is the person that does nothing more after experiencing one shot of public approval. Equally, miserable is the person that after one small hick-up of failure, a blip in their life, that they never choose to navigate back to their core and do everything they can to begin again.
If you love to teach then keep teaching, if you love yoga then keep practicing yoga, if your life calling is writing then keep at it, if you love music don’t let a single person tell you that you will never make it doing what your core being was put here to do.
Success and failure are merely experiences in life and neither one is good or bad, but if we stay in either one too long and never make it a point to navigate back to our core being, our home base, then how will we ever have an experience again? For the reason that once we experience success it is easy to fear that we will never be able to outdo ourselves thereafter, and if we have experienced failure, then we fear that we will never have success afterwards. But those outcomes are only in our head and are reasoning we experience when we have moved away from the core of who we are and why we do what we love. So if you are not doing what you love, then the first step is to start doing so.
Namaste!