Been thinking that you need to sacrifice happiness for a few years at least until you succeed in your career or business? Perhaps you know someone who is extremely successful but cost them their health or relationship in becoming so. You thought you would have to replicate their way of working in order for you to become as successful as they are. But you keep thinking you will be different when you become successful. Because you think when you achieve success, you will definitely be happy.
Does Success Bring Happiness?
The research in science shows that it is not a success that brings happiness but it is the other way around.
What does this mean?
Most people who start their own business or become an entrepreneur dream of the time when they eventually achieve success. They imagine their lives will be easier, fulfilled, affluent and full of happiness.
Most people put the maintenance of their health, their mental well-being and even their relationship with their loved ones on hold until they achieve success. They end up delaying living a successful life for years. Meanwhile, they burn themselves out with stress by trying to do everything.
The reality of delaying happiness and fulfilment by overworking is that when success finally happens if, at all, it comes at the expense of health or relationships. They may find themselves disconnected from the loved ones to enjoy the success with. Then you wonder what all those years you struggled were for. You didn’t want your life to be left behind when you became an entrepreneur. That was exactly the reason you got away from the rat race and started your own journey as an entrepreneur wasn’t it?
Working Hard to Bring Success?
To most people entrepreneur journey is not an easy ride and success does not come rolling in straightaway. Many hours may have to be invested into the business before you can see the fruits of your labour. But you carry on believing that one day, very soon, that your business thrives and all the stress will be over. Meanwhile, you lock yourself away from your family, stop socialising with your friends and postpone pursuing your hobby that is unrelated to your business.
That is because we are programmed to believe that hard work brings success. I do not deny that just wishing for success to arrive without taking any actions hardly brings success. Of course, success is a result of ‘hard work’. As a life coach, it is our job to help clients set goals and take actions towards achieving them. But firstly my client and I need to be talking the same language and defining what ‘success’ and ‘hard work’ mean before we begin.
However, just constantly taking actions with future goals in mind does not necessarily make you more productive. Likewise, just focusing on the future doesn’t help success to happen more quickly. You may feel a sense of achievement when certain milestones are achieved, but it may be only temporary.
Did you know that possibly the fastest route to success is by being happy first?
It is true that a lack of money and income affects the level of happiness in people. People who are in financial difficulty are more stressed and unhappy in general.
But,
there is a scientific proof that financial success mainly comes as a result of being happy.
‘Happiness can fast track success, not to mention well-being’. Says Emma Seppala, the author of The Happiness Track.
This sounds like a paradox but not an unsolvable one.
The trouble with being unhappy because of not having enough money is that one tends to be less generous to others. This is not only in monetary terms but emotionally as well. This is more so when one experiences financial hardship. One tends to be in a mindset for taking more from others rather than giving value in order to receive. At the same time, his or her self confidence gets low, disconnection with others occur and feeling of isolation begins. Blaming external forces for the circumstances becomes the norm. This then causes good energies to be repelled, and so the negative cycle begins.
It is time you switch your way of thinking and start believing. When you find happiness and fulfilment, your energy frequency will change and success will start flowing to you naturally.
How do you find happiness and well-being first when you are not yet successful?
Finding Happiness Before Success Arrives
That is where the ancient Japanese zen wisdom comes in. The word, ‘zen’ has now become widely used in the English language. In the west people interpret its meaning as something in the line of letting go of what cannot be controlled. Other times your image of Zen may be a Buddhist monk sitting in front of a Zen garden meditating.
While these are elements of Zen philosophy, it it is not the whole story. It may not be very clear what this all means to you. I would like to explain how this can relate to your success in business and everything else you have been doing.
On this site, you will learn that
Japanese philosophy is not only about meditating in silence or not reacting to life’s struggles but it is how you see the core of your being and how that translates into your daily life.
In recent years, even Japanese words like wabi-sabi have been understood as a way of life. This is about seeing the beauty in the less perfect world which you are also part of.
By understanding the simple fundamentals of viewing your body, mind and soul as a whole rather than separate things you need to work on externally, you will begin to realise how to bring harmony and balance into your life to achieve this.
This does not mean you need to lock yourself in a monastery for weeks or go on a strict detox. Trying for a sudden transformation like that rarely gives you a lasting change on your well being. A couple of weeks later you will be back to square one because that experience was too far fetched from the reality of your everyday life.
At the end of a wonderful vacation, some of us mutter that the holiday is over and we have to get back to ‘reality’. But when you learn to tune in to the right frequency of energy, soon there will be no need to feel this distinction any more.
Is This All About Zen Meditation?
You may have adopted part of the eastern philosophy and are already practising meditation. But meditating every morning and night while for the rest of the waking hours you abuse your body in some ways cannot contribute enough to your well being as a whole. It sounds like common sense but adopting bits of wisdom here and there might make you feel less guilty but it may not work as a long term solution. It may not make actually transform your life.
Instead, learn simple practical Zen lifestyle that can be adapted to your daily life in bringing harmony. I am calling this way of life ‘
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Yumi Merricks
Zen Coach