“I work really hard but I just can’t get ahead.”
“Just when I think things are going well, something terrible happens.”
“I’ve been following my dream for over a decade but I’m still no closer to achieving it than when I started.”
“I can’t catch a break.”
“Life is against me.”
“No matter what I try, I always fail.”
Have you ever made any of the statements above or something close to them? Does it sometimes feel like life is against you? Do you want to throw in the towel because you just can’t find your way to happiness? Does it feel like you are being blocked from achieving your goals?
I get a lot of emails from people who share their personal stories and situations with me. One thread I see in many of them has to do with not achieving goals and feelings of being blocked from achieving goals. People want to know what they are doing wrong and/or how to turn their situation around.
Here is what I tell them…
Life is not against you, sometimes you are against life. I’m talking about the life you intended for yourself before you incarnated. I’ve touched upon the concept of planning your life before you are born in three blog entries:
Picking Our Parents and Our Life Circumstances
Destiny vs. Free Will
Like Rats in a Maze
But let’s talk about a practical application of the fact that you had plans for yourself and your life before you incarnated. Let’s say you incarnated with the goal of helping people feel empowered. You feel you can make a real impact on our planet by teaching people how to empower themselves. That’s your message. The medium (the manner in which you express your message) is entirely up to you. You could decide to become a life coach, a writer, speaker, blogger, psychologist, teacher, minister, personal trainer, psychic medium, or any number of other careers. But once you incarnate, you forget your message, though it’s encoded into your energy and can be found if you know how to look.
Now, you’ve got your higher self and your spirit guides who still remember what you wanted to do in this lifetime, and their job is to keep you on track. So what happens if, through social conditioning and some badly aligned choices, you end up going down a road in the maze of life that isn’t going to lead you to what you want? Like you decide to become a dentist, stock analyst, secretary, Wal-Mart employee, or graphic artist. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with your choice but it’s just not going to lead you where you intended to go. What do your guides and higher self have to do to get you moving back in a direction that will lead to you empowering others? That’s right… they have to put roadblocks in your way.
Roadblocks come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they involve tragedy (car accident knocks you out of commission for months and you lose all kinds of time at work) and sometimes joy (you meet the girl of your dreams but you have to leave your cushy job at Wal-Mart to move to Nebraska with her). Sometimes they involve synchronicities like when a book at a bookstore just drops off the shelf as you walk past and it’s titled, “Empowering Yourself and Others.” Sometimes it means deals will fall through, your car will always be in the shop, or you’re always sick.
The point is that when you feel like you’re the fly trying to get out the window and you can’t see why you’re being blocked, consider that there may be another way to get where you’re going. Turn around and look for a window that’s actually open. Look for an open door. Look for someone waving at you screaming “Hey, buddy, your destiny is this way…” (metaphorically speaking of course). When you’re trying to go in one direction and you’re being constantly blocked, consider that a higher part of yourself knows you’re trying to go in the wrong direction. Pause for a moment and consider what you’re trying to achieve and why. Maybe it will dawn on you that you’re going the wrong way.
There are a lot of things in life that can distract you if you’re not careful like money, cars, and hair restoration products. 😉 Don’t be distracted from your life’s purpose. Tune in to your higher self and your own game plan and then align yourself with that path. It’s much easier to let the current move you along the rapids than to constantly try to battle to go upstream. After all, the song doesn’t say, “Row row row your boat gently up the stream.” You’ve got to go with the flow and let your boat move easily and gently down the stream. This doesn’t mean being lazy and just letting things happen to you. It means you need to discover your true north, turn your boat so you’re facing that direction, and stay the course until you arrive at your destination. When you’re finally going with the flow and heading in the right direction all kinds of things in your life will suddenly become easier. You’ll know you’re headed in that right direction when you stop saying, “Life is against me” and start saying, “Life is easy when you go with the flow.”
Steve and I have both experienced this to be true. Although we worked very hard in our chosen professions for years we didn’t find true success until we aligned ourselves with our true norths. Now we row our boats merrily, living lucidly in life’s dream.
Instead of the quotes at the beginning of this entry, you’ll be saying:
“Getting ahead is easy when I’m living my life on purpose.”
“Life’s little missteps can’t derail me from achieving success.”
“Every year my dreams take me to new heights I never dreamed possible.”
“Great things just seem to fall into my lap.”
“Life is working with me.”
“I am succeeding every day that I stay aligned with my true north.”
