"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see"

"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters, compare to what lies within us"

"The Most Important Things In Life Aren't Things"

LIFE'S ELEMENTS

Success: Success is a relative term, measured and defined differently for everyone. For one person, success can mean making a million dollars, while for another, success is just making ends meet in a crunch.

Success is the meeting of a goal, in whatever form it takes. Generally, we are a goal-oriented culture, constantly setting ourselves up to achieve: Start a new project, get that promotion, find the right people to work with- the list goes on indefinitely.

BEING-IN-CONTROL

Staying Power

In your process with your ongoing enterprise, you may find yourself exasperated, frustrated, or even bored.

This is natural considering that you may want things to happen more quickly than they do or would prefer more participation in the process than is appropriate.

We are all somewhat addicted to excitement, and when things are going smoothly, we may get restless.

This is a dangerous state, since we can create by our own need for something to do. Most of us have experienced dramatic problems in our lives, and while they are often unpleasant experiences, they do lead to resolution, relief, and sometimes even gratification. Unconsciously, we can create problems just to stir up and to have the satisfaction of resolving them.

You can choose to create an atmosphere of serenity, tranquility, and balance in your life or work. There is no point in creating tranquility if you think it precludes you from being successful.

For those of you who are looking for ways to keep yourself busy without creating crises, you have a number of practical options.

You can paint the walls of your space, choose a color that enhances your mood or feeling of your enterprise. You can use plants, with a focus on the kind of plants that add to the feeling of energy or vitality you want.

Changing furniture around shifts your energy both physically and psychically, which can give you a sense of movement and renewal.

If your goal has nothing to do with a physical space, you can divert your attention away from worrying yourself into a crisis by taking more practical steps within yourself.

Staying power is linked to the notion of tranquility. It requires you to be patient with the process of your enterprise while maintaining belief and optimism.

Staying power is much easier to attain when you create the energetic opportunity for space and change within yourself. It is rather like opening your goal to its fullest potential, but instead of concentrating on your goal, you are focusing on yourself.

Life Cycles Of Energy

Everyone has natural cycles of energy. There is spring, summer, fall, and winter period for us all, and this effects our projects and our path to success.

Everything has a beginning and a middle, and everything has an end, for as much as we all hate to admit it.

It is that ending, or winter part, that now needs to be addressed. Even in a long-term ongoing enterprise, when you know that an ending is improbable, there will be times that are leaner, inactive, or simply less productive.

This part of the natural cycle is by far hardest for all of us to deal with. Even if you are essentially lazy or at ease with doing nothing, this is the kind of nothing that can be very uncomfortable---because it is out of our control.

We are accustomed to controlling things that cause us discomfort. If it is too hot, we put on the air- conditioning. If it is to cold, we use heat. Got a headache! Take some aspirin. We are so used to problem solving that when something is out of our hands, most of us don't know how to deal with it.

We are simply not taught how to go through fallow times or times when it is best to do nothing rather than push. But fallow times come anyway. When you start working with them instead of against them, they can become as gratifying as those big bursts of initiating energy. When you push against them, however, you can exhaust yourself and still have no tangible results.

I find it is practically against my nature to "not do" anything. Don't think that you're the only one who gets afraid or frustrated when things slow down.

Working with fallow energy may seem like a paradox- how do you "work" in a time of inactivity? This kind of working is an inner experience, nor an energy of outer manifestation. It is learning to let things be, to tolerate stillness, to use inactivity as a way of regenerating.

Until next time Let's enjoy life as life is suppose to be enjoyed. Let the higher power that is in us to direct us into our NOW.