How We Succeed Or Fail
Telephones can be wonderful things – but they can also be too much temptation. Maureen was a skilled right-hand to her corporate lawyer boss, but she had a boyfriend who lived six states away. And too often she was found to be on the phone when she should have been working. Eventually, she was fired because of it.
Her next job, for a mid-management woman in an advertising firm, ended the same way. And the next, and the next. No matter how good she was at her job, her bosses simply couldn’t countenance the fact that she was too often found whispering into the receiver when she should have been making meeting arrangements, or taking care of clients. It got to the point that she had to simply take temp jobs, because her record of being let go made her a questionable hire.
If Maureen had acknowledged that there are times for work and there are times for outside interests, she could have structured her time differently – and probably kept her job. But instead, when the Universe and her guides kept presenting her with a chance to examine her ideas and habits around responsibilities to others, she simply refused to look at the situations objectively and discover the lessons behind them.
We all come into this world with themes, and specific paths and challenges. When we sketch out our blueprint in our pre-birth planning session, we know there will be lessons and roads that come to us in periodic waves. How we handle them determines how we succeed or fail.
Here are some examples:
If you have always had a roller-coaster relationship with money, how has that shaped your idea of prosperity? Do you feel you are doomed to a marginal existence? Does it make you want to make money no matter what? Does it inspire you to live more simply, so the feeling that was once one of lack now transforms into having enough?
If you are always the one who stands up for the underdog—whether or not you win—how does justice look to you? How do you want to bring it about on a daily basis
If you consistently get overlooked for awards, disqualified in contests for odd reasons, or feel cheated out of your just due, does that make you bitter or better at being self-empowered
If alcoholics and drug users surround you—yet you remain untainted—what does that tell you about your strength of will? How do you feel about those who use? Are you holier-than-thou? Do you wish you could help them get clean? Or do you ignore their existence?
When you find that there is a recurring theme in your life – losses, changes, missed opportunities – take the time to look at them the way a scientist looks at different experiments. If you can determine what purpose a difficulty has in your life, you will know how to avoid it in the future, and be able to check off that life lesson as “complete