Mastermind for Success – Week #2
(These are notes from a 12-week Mastermind Course I am taking at Christ Universal Temple using Jack Canfields book, “The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You are to Where You Want to Be”)
This weeks class was very eye opening, as is to be expected in any self-development course, but this week we begin with some very hard truths as to how we should be owning our own faults.
Principle 1: Take 100% Responsibility of Your Life
“You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself.”
– Jim Rohn, America’s foremost business philosopher
I am not at all surprised that out of the 64 principles of success in this book, this is #1. I do not believe there is anything further for an individual to reach for before he, or she, has taken responsibility, sole responsibility for their life. Wow! We are completely responsible for the outcomes we produce, by the actions we take, or do not take. This is a challenging for most to accept because as Rev. Gaylon McDowell stated in class:
“We have been conditioned to beat ourselves down with negative thoughts as it pertains to the circumstances we find ourselves in. We continuously blame everyone else but ourselves and we hold others responsible for where we are in our own lives when we are the architects! YOU are the Director of your own movie.”
How profound, but yet, so simple.
Conditioning is a real problem and it’s one that most of us can’t avoid. It’s also something that most people blindly ignore, but it is the simple awareness that everything you’ve been taught to believe about how you are supposed to live your life is either working for you, or not working for you. For most, it’s not working. So to understand that our conditioning and socialization plays a big part in how our perceptions have been molded is key. We understand that we all have been raised in a certain way, but that our upbringing at this stage in our lives as adults, is probably not serving us the way we would like.
We have to do some very key things if we want to be on the path to greater success in life:
1. Take 100% responsibility for EVERYTHING
2. Give up ALL of your excuses
3. If you don’t like your outcomes, change your responses
4. Understand that everything you experience today is a result choices you’ve made in the past
5. If you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you will keep on getting what you’ve always got
6. You have to give up blaming
7. You have to give up complaining
8. You either create, or allow everything that happens to you.
9. Pay attention, your results don’t lie
Jack Canfield provides a very interesting formula in his book:
(Event + Response = Outcome)
The basic premise behind this is that every outcome you have experienced in your life, no matter what it is, is the result of how you chose to respond to it. So for example, if you were in a long-term relationship with someone who you didn’t treat with love and respect, and the individual chose to end the relationship it is probably acceptable to say that you were the cause.
Event = Your long-term relationship
Response = How you treated your partner during the relationship
Outcome = Your partner choosing the end the relationship
The book goes into great detail in how your views affect your actions in response to certain situations, but it’s fair to say that the notion of altering your responses needs to begin with altering the way you think. This is more of a mental exercise in disciplining our thoughts more than anything else. Again, consider conditioning and socialization. Consider your values and beliefs. Most people don’t have a clear set of values that they use to guide themselves in how they live. Even if you do, it takes discipline to live a truly regimented life that keeps those beliefs front and center.
Principle 2: Be Clear why You’re Here
“Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in life has a purpose.”
– Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D., Psychiatrist and author of the classic “On Death and Dying”
Rev. Gaylon McDowell describes finding your purpose as being the equivalent to finding who you are in God. Most people are living lives that they truly do not want. They are just going through the motions from day to day. No excitement, no fun, very little joy, and fulfillment. We talk to these people everyday. They are our family members, they are our friends, and most likely our girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, or husband. This person could also be you!
The thought that you should stop what you are doing right now and ponder on your life purpose and what you should be doing is daunting. It’s scary to think of what it is you truly want in life. However, through finding your purpose, that one thing that you wake up to do every morning, most of the questions that we often ask ourselves will be answered once we’ve connected to purpose.
“When you are in your purpose you are in your power, when you are in your power you are in love, and when you are in love you are in God.”
– Rev. Gaylon McDowell, Associate Pastor, Christ Universal Temple, Chicago, IL
Finding purpose IS finding God. Finding God, as challenging as that may sound to some, is the key to finding everything you want in life. Even for me this statement seems beyond my comprehension, but I know it to be true. Think about everything you’ve tried to do on your own without keeping Godly principles in mind? How well has that worked out? This is why understanding why you are here is important. Without clear purpose and understanding of purpose we will wonder through life doing any and everything under the sun, just because.
Finding purpose also means finding what you love.
What is it that you love to do? Your giftedness is already showing you your purpose! The question is, are you paying attention?
Think about the things that you do, naturally–that bring you joy. It could be something as simple as writing. You do know that their are people who make a living writing, right? If you were very skilled at writing, do you think that it would not be possible for you to become a millionaire just by the words you write? Think about it.
Here are a few things for you can do to seek out your purpose:
1. What were you put on this Earth to do?
2. What’s the “why” behind everything that you do?
3. In seeking your purpose think about think about what makes you happy.
4. Make a list of the times in your life that you can remember when you were most happy
5. What brings satisfaction and joy to you?
6. During these moments of joy and satisfaction, who are you being?
7. Write down what spirit gives you at the time it comes to you so you won’t forget.
Stay in Love, and Peace.
