What drives your actions? Are you afraid of success? Afraid of failure? Do you live your life in a New Age flow? Do you take action based on alignment with Spirit? Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference.
When I am acting based on fear of failure, I am a perfectionist. I drive myself hard, stress, get lots of advice, and worry whether I’m doing everything right. I used to consider myself a failure for every little thing I did “wrong.” I even judged myself for forgetting to return my library books and having to pay a fine.
As I cleared away the fear of failure, I started noticing another fear driving my actions: the fear of success. These two fears often operate together. Since I was afraid to fail, I kept hiring people who I thought had the skills or time to help me. This was supposed to ensure that I would not fail. However, the fear of success made me unconsciously hire people who weren’t in alignment with what I wanted. There’s nothing wrong with hiring people, but not when the hiring comes from fear.
Fear of success has also kept me from taking action. I tell myself things like, “There’s not enough time. I don’t like doing this. It didn’t work in the past. I don’t have enough money.” These stories can keep me from getting done the work I need to do. Fear of success or failure is also what often drives the people who say, “I’m just going with the flow.” Usually going with the flow, when stated like this, is a way to keep yourself from success or failure. If you don’t do anything, you can’t succeed or fail. If you have no direction, you don’t have to consider yourself a failure when you don’t reach your destination. There is no destination.
Every successful I have manifested is by aligning myself with Spirit. On the surface, this alignment can look like any of the fear driven actions. Under the surface, it is love and choice that is in control. I can stay up late to meet a deadline because it feels like the mostly loving choice, not because I will be a failure if I don’t. I can relax and miss a deadline because I am taking care of myself, not because I am afraid of success. I can go with the flow and still have a destination in mind. I can change the destination or the path at any time if I no longer feel I am where I want to be. At every moment, I know where I am headed. There are no right or wrong actions. There is no success or failure.
My blog and newsletter are getting out late this month. I could call myself a failure for getting them out late. I could say that I am sabotaging my success by getting them out late. I could tell myself to chill out as I was just going with the flow. Or, I can align myself with Spirit and check in to determine, “Yes, getting this blog out late is completely in alignment with myself. There was no need to drive myself to get it out, and I didn’t procrastinate. I spent my time in the appropriate place. Everything will work out fine.”
One way to start shifting judgments is by creating new stories. 15 years ago when I returned my library books late, I told myself that the fines I had to pay were helpful to the library because they could use the money. Eventually, I have started letting go of any stories around what happens in my life. Now I can just stick with the facts and tell myself, “I returned the library books late.” I don’t have to justify any of my actions to myself or anyone else.
Of course, any action I take has consequences to look at – sometimes definite ones and sometimes only possible ones. Returning the library books late meant I had to pay a fine. Returning them on time would have meant postponing something else or taking time to better track the due dates. This is a minor story and a minor judgment, but starting with the small judgments, makes it easier to tackle the large ones.
If you are aligned with Spirit, any choices you make and any resulting consequences will be acceptable. Don’t let anyone and anything stand in the way of you making the choices that are right for you. Always act out of love and not fear.