Success: It’s All in Your Head

I woke up this morning and wished I were sick. Not horribly sick, just bad-enough-cold-that-you-lie-in-bed-and-watch-movies sick. I wondered for a few minutes why I wanted this. I realized it’s because what I really wanted to do today was loaf around. The weather is beautiful.  I don’t feel like writing. I don’t feel like thinking strategically about my clients’ businesses. But just hanging out makes me feel guilty. If I’m sick I have an excuse but if I’m well I’m being lazy.

Looking back on the past 20 years being sick has been a massively important escape hatch for me. In college, after midterms. In my 20s during career upheaval and holiday insanity. I’ve barely been sick at all in 2+ years. Life is good. I’m healthy. I haven’t needed the out. But I wanted it today. Successful people, I thought, get out of bed and go…succeed. They don’t wander around in their pajamas watering the basil plants. This led me to Google “how to define success” which led me to Forbes.

It’s a pretty annoying article, the upshot of which is: men and women aren’t as different as you might think, we all want money, and women tend to answer surveys with what they think they are expected to want rather than what they actually want.

So, what did I do today (since I’m not sick) that leads to feeling successful while, essentially, hanging out?

1.  I went running this morning. Again, that weather. Exercise makes me (and anyone) feel better. Any exercise. Walking. It produces chemicals in your brain that make you happy. This is true. Also, I listen to crappy hip hop while I run and don’t think about anything except Taio Cruz lyrics.
2.  I worked from home. It’s prettier here. I had lunch with my kid. I made tea when I felt like it. I stayed in my running clothes.
3. I redefined “work” for the day. I talked on the phone with people. A cheese maker from Georgia, about his farm. A web site developer, about how to present an event I produce. A cheese maker from Vermont, about his 2015 budgets. My neighbor, about the area. I basically gossiped with people for 4 hours about their dreams, their goals, their industries. All that gossiping is actually very important and valuable information. But I’m not going to synthesize it today.
4. I did write, but I wrote this instead of my book. This is different writing, about whatever I want. But writing is a habit, a muscle that atrophies if unused.
5. I deposited checks and looked at my bank statements. Feel, acknowledge and count your money. Direct deposit and debit cards are great conveniences but they distance us from what we earn. I feel more excited about my money when I take the time to realize it’s there.

I am alone in my house, unwashed, with 2 hours left in the “work day” and I feel totally successful. That’s how I define success—by how I feel. No matter how much money you have, you always want a little more. When you get accolades from everyone you meet, the conspicuous silence of that one holdout is the loudest voice. Being successful is figuring out what makes you feel good, and how you can incorporate those things into your life so that you, in fact, feel good.

I gotta go water some basil plants.

Manifesting Financial Abundance is Possible

There may be no more loaded topic for me than that of money. My mother tells me that as a very small child I used to hold pieces of glass chandelier against my ear lobes and fancy them enormous diamond earrings. I spent most of my life wanting money because it was so often in short supply, and then feeling like I was a bad and shallow person for doing so.

Here's the deal with money. It may not make you happy, but it makes life easier. Gretchen Rubin has a great post on The Happiness Project. Without a doubt, when debating leaving my job, money was my #1 anxiety. I was the primary earner in my marriage. I felt secure seeing those numbers appear in my checking account every week. More than secure, frighteningly, I felt validated and approved by those numbers. They proved my value, my worth, and my currency in the world. My salary showed that I had "made it." A primary reason why my career in cheese was a "dream job" was because I had created a career writing, talking, knowing and educating about cheese, something I'm really passionate about, AND got paid well for doing so.

The six months after leaving my job were fraught with fear about money:

First, I had to justify: I worked very hard and saved a lot so I could build a responsible cushion for this time off. Second, I fretted: what if we couldn’t pay the mortgage? What if my cushion ran out and I couldn’t find another source of income? Third, I self-flagellated: our country was in a recession and millions of people can't get work. I threw a perfectly great paycheck out the window to “follow my heart.” Fourth, I tightened like a sphincter: I will micromanage my spending and eat brown rice 3 meals a day for 5 days because it saves money. Fifth, I coveted: from a kid's allowance to someone's lottery winnings to my best friend's inheritance. They all had what they needed and I didn’t.

Now, if money were a person, would it want to hang out with me? Hell, no. Because I was a defensive, worrisome, berating, tight-ass, jealous person. If money were a person it would go out of its way to avoid me at a party. And the thing is, it will work that way if I work that way.

Then, I performed this manifestation ritual for financial abundance.

This ritual is incredibly simple. All that I am required to do is have faith. Shift my thinking. Have fun with money. In other words, simple and potentially impossible.

Money can be acquired in 2 ways. It can be earned. It can appear by methods other than your work. I desire both kinds of financial abundance.

Name the number. How many dollars? How many cents?

Name the date. By when do I want to manifest this money?

And then, get myself, energetically, in the place where money would want to monopolize me at a cocktail party. Where I think money is fun, delicious, and available. Where money flows easily, in and out of my life like ocean waves. Where I have deep, unwavering trust that the Inner Me can get with the Outer Universe and make this thing happen. The main way I've been accomplishing this is through a series of affirmations at night before I go to bed, or when money appears in my life, or when money goes out of my life. Some of my favorites are:

I will always have plenty, and some to spare.

The effortless way of life is the best.

I can have wealth, everything I need, and plenty to spare.

Wealth-Success.

The feeling of wealth produces wealth.

By day and by night I am being prospered in all of my interests.

Wealth is mine, and always creating in my life.

I like money. I love it. I use it wisely, constructively and with gratitude. Money is constantly circulating in my life and I release it with joy. It returns to me multiplied in a wonderful way. It is good and very good. Money flows to me in abundant avalanches. I use it for good only, and I am grateful for my good and for the riches of my mind.

And then, of course, comes Gratitude. Gratitude for the flow in. Gratitude for the flow out, which is not a loss of money but a gain of important things that I value, that bring me joy, that improve my family's life. Gratitude for all that I already have. And, gratitude to myself for believing, for participating, and for honestly naming my desires.

My financial manifestation ritual covered a four month period. Money, in fact, appeared as if from the air. The total manifested was within $20 of a number I had named in a fit of daring and seeming insanity. It did not feel like luck. It felt inevitable.