The Delusion of Denial

(I’m posting this early, since tomorrow is Christmas Eve.)

God, don’t you wish you were born so lucky, like Oprah, the Rock, or J.K. Rowling?  Of course the only problem with that logic, is that none of them are any luckier than you are.  (And might actually be a great deal more unluckier than you.) 

We love to make excuses for other people’s successes, crediting them to luck, circumstance or simply random breaks.  But how little we actually investigate enough to learn the many obstacles ultra-successful people actually had to overcome.

We also idealize these people’s lives, thinking that the reason they are successful is because they don’t have, and never had, many of the weaknesses that we suffer from ourselves.  Big mistake...

This is the delusion of denial, where we look for “evidence” to validate our own lack of success.  It’s one of the worst lies we can tell ourselves.  Because it puts you in a prison of mediocrity.

No one succeeds because they don’t have weaknesses.  No one.  So if you’re trying to eliminate all of your weaknesses, so you can become healthy, happy and prosperous – you’re in for a rude awakening.  Very rude.

You succeed because you find your unique strengths and gifts.  Then you build on them by setting goals and developing habits around those gifts.  And then there’s the part motivational speakers always forget to mention…

Paying the price.

Oprah getting fired as a newscaster.  The Rock getting down to his last seven bucks.  Rowling getting enough rejections to wallpaper her bathroom.

Paying the price doesn’t mean finding the clear no-resistance, no-obstacle route.  It means staying the course on the route that has the resistance and obstacles.

The things that really matter – success, health, strong relationships, prosperity – have a price to pay.  And they don’t ever go on sale.

-RG