The Secret Cost of Success..

A simple Google search, in 0.66 seconds, displays nearly 1.1 billion results for the short phrase "the true cost of success". What this says to me as a Social Media Expert is, not only are people searching for the secrets to success, but they have a burning desire to know what it's going to cost them to achieve the success they desire.

While it's true that there is a cost to success, what's not so common is the fact that the cost isn't as high as we were made to believe. Most of us learned—from successful people we dislike or broke people who've never even come close enough to the sweet aroma of wealth to inhale her deeply into their lungs—that to achieve success we must cheat, scam, swindle, and slight others. But this couldn't be further from the truth.

Blindly following this misguided ideology is liken to siding with a villain from a movie who believes the only way he can be happy is to annihilate his nemesis. So, with his beguiling concept swirling around in our minds, we go on believing that in order to be happy in life, we must eliminate our adversaries.

We're good people, though. We believe firmly in karma and we don't want success if the cost is that high. So, we resign ourselves to believing success just isn't for us and we decide to make peace with poverty—but, not really. Some complain about it daily because poverty is unnatural to who we really are and we can never shake free of limitations like this until the points we discuss today are known.

Regurgitating toxic patterns of thoughts about successful people being a bunch of crooks, day in and day out, triggers the Law of Cause & Effect to serve us the appropriate effects of these negative thoughts, which is—you guessed it—more of the opposite of success.. poverty.

Why? Well, the short answer is wherever you put your focus—whether you like it or not—is where your energy goes. And where your energy goes, it returns to you with matching people, things, and circumstances. Before long, you accept poverty, struggle, and sacrifice as your only choice in life.

This becomes an unfounded "life lesson" we teach our kids, it's what we gossip about with our friends, it's what we see all over social media. It permeates our entire life and becomes a part of our reality. And after some time, we confidently proclaim to the world that we know success is unattainable unless you're willing to be a crook and we hold every successful person we see to that illogical standard.

But when we stop to consider what's really responsible for who achieves success and why, we quickly find resonance in logic. Success is the outcome, which means, by Law, there must be an effect. The Universal Law of Cause & Effect states,

"Every single action in the universe produces a reaction no matter what."

Some call this law Karma. Karma is commonly known as "what goes around, comes around". This Law is frequently mistaken for the Law of Attraction ("that which is like unto itself is drawn"), meaning any two particles of Matter who vibrate at the same frequency will be drawn to one another.

Now, if you're unfamiliar with the Universal Laws that keep our earth consistently spinning on its axis, it's critical that you begin researching it if you desire to be successful. We'll cover this topic at length in a future article and you're encouraged to dive deep into learning everything you can until then. Remember, YouTube and Google are your friends.

In any case, there are many Universal Laws (primarily identified by Sir Isaac Newton). Cause & Effect is a Universal Law in the same manner that Gravity is a Universal Law. The Law of Gravity says,

"Every particle attracts every other particle in the universe with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers."

This means everything (all forms of Matter) in our universe has an attraction-based component (vibrational frequency or energetic pull) that draws us to one another to varying degrees depending on where we are and where what we're wanting to attract is (vibrationally speaking). Vibrational distance and physical distance are dissimilar concepts.

Although talk relating to atoms and energy can be a bit of a challenge to understand, this is good news. It means the cooperative components for success do not care what caliber person they are attracted to, the same as gravity is impartial to the serial abuser or the innocent child that steps off the same steep cliff. The outcome is always the same.

In order to achieve success, you do not need to expunge your enemies or crush your competition. You don't need to be a crook. There are good-natured successful people all around the world who've become successful by simply learning to do things in a 'certain way', no swindles included.

And if they can all do it, then it stands to reason that every one of us has the capability to learn how to do things in this 'certain way' to achieve our own level of success as well.

Every successful person has learned to do things in this 'certain way'. Some use what they've learned for good, some use it for what many interpret as "bad", but the underlying fact remains the same: the Universal Laws are infallible and anyone can work in harmony with them to achieve greatness—regardless of the purpose—and that means you can learn, too.

The Art of Pivoting

In order to achieve success, there must be consistent attempts to release & replace every thought that causes you to feel any emotion apart from joy (at the tippy top of the Emotional Scale). Familiarity with the Emotional Guidance Scale can help pinpoint where you are emotionally, where you prefer to be, and which emotions you can move upward through step-by-step in order to get there. We call this practice The Art of Pivoting.

We call it an Art because, like anything in life, it requires that practice precede mastery. After all, Rome wasn't built overnight. We call it pivoting because if you can imagine facing the negative thought, then envision yourself pivoting to look at something that feels better to you, you can begin to feel for the better emotion until you reach your destination: joy.

This practice may come off as simple or easy and if that's your feeling at this point, we invite you to give it a try. The next time you notice you're thinking about something that causes you to feel anything other than a positive emotion, practice your pivot by choosing a thought that feels better and feel for a better emotion.

For example, let's say you think about how broke you are right now. How does that feel? Take a look at the chart. How does that thought feel to you? What about number 10. Frustration/irritation/impatience. Probably. It's frustrating to want to buy something or pay a bill or eat and not have the money to do it.

But it's not like money can't come to you. You've had money many times before and that's a clear sign that you can have money again. As a matter of fact, if you had three-hundred thousand dollars right now, what would you use it for? Paying bills? Buying a home? Upgrading your vehicle? Taking a trip? Blessing friends or family? Donating to a charity?

It's not that money doesn't exist. There's plenty of money in this country alone and they're printing more dollars constantly. It's safe to say there's at least one person who's financially secure enough right now to not care about the state of the economy.

That kind of financial stability has to feel good. Imagine if you were doing something you really love as a career. What would you be doing? Hold that image in your mind and feel for the emotion. What does it feel like?

Now imagine that career brought $2,500 every day into your account. That's roughly $75,000 each month. Would that kind of money change your life for the better? If the negative thoughts resist this practice, that's normal. We must nip it in the bud at the onset.

Like a mighty oak putting down deep roots, this negative thought around money has gotten comfortable in your mind and will attempt to fight to stick around. But poverty feels like hot garbage to you now and you prefer how good success feels.

Just say, "cancel! cancel!" and move your focus back on $75,000. Imagine it in your mind now. Take a blank check and write it out to yourself. Affix the filled out check to your mirror, wall, or vision board where you can see it every day. Ask yourself how you would spend it?

What type of home would you buy? Where would you live? What kind of car would you want? What's the year, make, and model? What color? Where would you take a two-week vacation? How would you get there? By cruise ship, bus, plane? What activities would you participate in? Who would you take with you?

If you can feel joy pulsing through you right now then you've successfully practiced The Art of Pivoting by moving up the emotional scale and it was easier than you initially believed it to be; it actually feels really good.. and it's supposed to.

If you didn't quite make it to joy but managed to feel hopefulness or optimism, even for a moment, you still deserve to be celebrated for moving five steps closer to your goal than before. Always celebrate your achievements and affirm aloud to yourself that feeling good feels good.. because it's supposed to.

Long gone are the days when humans believed ourselves to be inferior clumps of flesh & bone sent here to struggle and suffer in an impossible attempt to to prove our love for a sentient omniscient Being. We are loved.. unconditionally so, and all things do work together for our Highest Good (even when it doesn't look like it at the time).

Although you may not see it right now, you can feel that a change is coming. There is nothing under the sun that's excluded from the Divine Order. The sooner we accept this fact, the easier it will be to learn how things can get better in our life.

More and more people are waking up to the realization that we have more control over our life experiences than we were taught. As we "awakened" one's achieve our individual levels of happiness & success, we're accepting the honor of teaching others—who are beginning to seek these same answers—the secrets we've learned; the infallible truths you're learning today.

Prioritize Self-Care

A good friend of mine who frequently blesses us with his Divine wisdom & incredible enlightenment far beyond his years posted a status message. He said, "sometimes self-care looks antisocial." What he means is when you decide to prioritize yourself, most times it requires isolation for a period of time.

During this alone time, others may begin to feel as though you care nothing for them. They may call you selfish, become angry with you, and decide to cut you off, forever labeling you as "toxic". This decision may also threaten to damage and even sever some relationships with your spouse/partner, family, or friends.

These possibilities alone are enough to cuff most people in their distasteful situational patterns, but they make no real effort to change. So, they begrudgingly attempt to continue justifying pleasing others while neglecting themselves only to find they're incapable of managing the discord they feel. This is the natural order of things.

Only those who are willing to pay the cost (take the risk) of truly peering inside their own soul to connect with their Inner Being to the exclusion of all else will reap the reward of wisdom, enlightenment, and true joy. Feeling good is of infinite importance.

Once alignment with the soul is accomplished, all else is suddenly as clear as the magnificent sun lighting up a cloudless day.

When you're hungry, practice turning your awareness inward, asking "yourself", 'what would taste good right now', envisioning yourself tasting a variety of options, and subsequently following the positive impulse you feel without any hesitation.

When you're bored, your awareness is, again, focused inward as you search for a thought and feel for the subsequent positive emotion as an indicator of which direction to move in or what action to take.

Though this practice can never be perfected—because the things we don't want are the very things that bring us the clarity of what is wanted—it can be permanent and I've made it into a game I play regularly.

The primary goals of my game are to dedicate a maximum of fifteen minutes each morning as soon as I rise, to quiet my mind. And once I've moved into my day, practice maintaining that good feeling for as long as possible. I can't stress enough that this takes practice (aka time).

The sooner you learn to understand the purpose of negative emotion and begin to enjoy this journey into self-awareness on purpose, the better off you'll be. Trust me!

So, the plan of action for achieving this goal consists of practicing 3 key things daily:

1. Focusing your awareness inward (to ask) and then reaching for a thought you anticipate will feel good,

2. Feeling for the resulting emotion (the answer) to determine which feels best, and;

3. Taking immediate action (receiving) once you've chosen the best-feeling thought.

The first sign that you're on the right track is an immediate upward shift in your emotions. Celebrate when you feel good. Say it aloud, "I feel good right now." Permit yourself to bask in that good feeling and milk it as long as you can, allowing more good-feeling thoughts to be drawn to you.

If at any time you find yourself wrestling with negative emotion and feeling worse, give up; take a nap. This will neutralize your energy and position you to quiet your mind once more and focus only on what feels good in that moment.

Be kind & patient with yourself. Your journey is your own and may not look like anyone else's. If you can choose to withdraw from society for at least fifteen minutes a day to quiet your mind, if you can decide that feeling good is your top priority each day, and if you can commit to celebrating your progress no matter how small, you'll incrementally get better and better at stepping into your innate power.

Practice Makes Habits

Remember that practice doesn't make perfect; practice makes habits. If you can admit you have developed some habits that aren't truly serving your Highest Good, then you open the door of opportunity to release and replace those habits with better ones.

Bear in mind that this is a lifelong journey we all take at some point or another. Our Creator's love for us is unconditional and for that reason, never just leaves us in a terrible situation (although it can feel that way when you find yourself at rock bottom).

On the contrary, that negative situation is the result of a chronic pattern of negative thoughts (regardless of the subject matter) producing enough negative emotion in you that, as you've just learned, draws (or attracts) to you every form of Matter that matches its vibrational frequency.

You've also learned that you can begin to shift the momentum of negative energy through The Art of Pivoting. This takes time. If the energy produced by your emotions was a train that had taken time to reach a speed of 100 miles per hour, stopping that train suddenly will cause a hell of a wreck.

The best way to get positive momentum going in place of negative momentum is gradually. Ideally, you want to slow down the negative momentum first. This happens by leveraging The Art of Pivoting.

Experts agree that our minds can only focus on one thing at a time. If we're focused on something that feels negative, we essentially give it permission to become a part of our reality (whether we are cognizant of this or not) because, remember, our Universal Laws are impartial and infallible.

These Laws work whether you realize it or acknowledge it or not. And today, you learned a few critical tips for working in harmony with these Laws. With consistency & a burning desire to feel better, in time, you will observe the results of these practices. First, by how you feel, and then, by what manifests in your life.

The cost of success suddenly doesn't seem so high any more. We were never taught the specifics of what that cost consisted of. If we were told we had to sacrifice negativity to embrace a more positive life, heaven knows how many of us would have been successful a long time ago.

But since we can't rewrite the past, we can start right now with what we have to create a better future for ourselves and generations to come. We can practice feeling good & maintaining our balance no matter who or what is around us. We know we can control what we think, how we feel, and what we do all for our Highest Good.. and now you know too.

When you know success only comes to those who do things in a 'certain way', you position yourself to be inspired more, rendezvous with what you want more, seek out signs & clues more, and choose to feel good to the exclusion of all else.

And since feeling good is at the root of every desire we ever have, finding a way to feel good right now is what will create the magnetic pull that will attract to you all the success your heart desires. It is Law.