Good morning! I hope your day is off to a great start.
I slept a little later than normal today. It happens, especially when you don’t use an alarm clock. I haven’t used one in the past 20 years. Which is probably no big deal, because I never woke up to one before that. I was late for everything. But two days after I stopped smoking, I started waking up all on my own, and early. Real early. There’s something to be said for the ability to exchange oxygen.
But that’s a topic for another day. Today I want to continue with some of what we’ve been talking about this week – this idea that we all deserve the success we desire. Dreams are where it all begins, and dreams are often where it all ends. There’s a whole cemetery full of unfulfilled dreams, and it lives within the minds of everyone who ever let one of their dreams die.
To be fair, some dreams need to die. Some things we want may not be in our own best interest, or in the best interest of those we care about. Some can be downright destructive. And others may seem attractive on the surface, but the more we think about them, the more we realize it’s probably not what we really want. So, it’s no great loss when those dreams fade away.
But the greatest obstacle to achieving our dreams isn’t money, or skills, or even just plain luck. We can earn more money, build more skills, and change our own luck. But it’s hard to do any of those things with that nagging voice in your head that says you’ll never attain your goal because you don’t deserve it.
This is often the result of mistakes of the past, or even choices we made over the years that have led us to where we are now. I never went to college. I got my technical training in the Navy. But when I look at all the successful people around me, most of them have an advanced degree. So, what makes me think I deserve their level of success?
I’ve made a lot of mistakes over the years. Most weren’t simple mistakes – they were just bad choices. Things I did with the best of intent, but knowing deep down it wasn’t the best thing to do at that point in my life. And we paid the price for those mistakes. One bankruptcy, two foreclosures, a failed business, and all the heartache that goes with it. Why do I deserve anything better?
It all begins with how we perceive our own value, and that begins with how we perceive those around us. If I look down my nose at everybody who’s ever suffered financial loss, who have lived in poverty most of their life and keep making the same mistakes, my perception of those people becomes my perception of myself. It’s like that big mirror just keeps popping up every time I form an opinion.
That’s one of the reasons I scrubbed my social media “friends” list a couple of years ago. It wasn’t so much that I got tired of all the negativity, politics, and downright despicable comments from others. I got tired of how it was affecting me. Because every time I caught myself thinking any negative thoughts, I automatically associated myself with my opinion of those other people.
The first step in improving our opinion of ourselves is improving our opinion of those around us. That doesn’t mean we have to agree with everything they say and do. It doesn’t even mean we need to like them. But unless we value others, we can never value ourselves. And valuing ourselves is the foundation of knowing we deserve something better.
You probably wouldn’t pack your golf clubs and drive three days to reach an exclusive members-only country club, knowing the whole time you don’t qualify for membership and couldn’t afford it even if you did. It’s that way when we begin chasing a goal that would elevate us to a level we’re not sure we deserve. Maybe we should just be content to stay right where we are and make the most of it.
If you’re happy where you are right now, that’s okay. Nobody says you have to change a thing. But make no mistake – whatever level of success you’d like to achieve in life, you deserve it. Don’t worry about the past. You can’t change it, and we’ve all made mistakes. But you can change your future. The success you deserve tomorrow begins with what you do today.
You are a person of unmeasurable value. You have gifts to share with this world that you may not have even discovered. And you deserve the best this world has to offer. It all begins with how much you value yourself and others. Because, when you can reconcile in your mind that anybody else is deserving of success, you automatically put yourself in the same category.
That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!
© 2019 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved
Dave Glardon 