Fear of failure is one of the greatest challenges on the path to success and is a common companion for small business owners - especially during the early years of building their dream.  The best remedy for transforming this fear and freeing yourself from the grips of failure consciousness is redefining success.

Too often when setting out to realize a dream - be it designing a successful business or creating a fulfilling partnership - success is narrowly defined by achieving the end result. The path to realizing the dream gets little acknowledgement and is mostly looked upon as a series of duties one must perform in order to enjoy the prize.  But what if the real treasure is found along the way?  What if the joy and happiness you seek in the fulfillment of your vision is in the day to day steps you take to get there?

This is what we discovered when we set out to transform our life and marriage seven years ago.  Our hearts and souls were longing for something more but we didn’t know what that something was. We needed to shift our perspective, to look at our life through a new lens, and we discovered that the best way for us to do this was to start having more fun.

You can’t create a beautiful vision when you feel burdened, and you definitely cannot achieve one if you are exhausted and burned out.  If you want to tap into what is possible for your life and find the energy you need to fulfill your lofty visions you need to create an internal and external environment that is conducive to inspiration and receptive to your dreams.

This can be simpler than you think.  For us this meant - first and foremost - making time for play.  When you engage in playful activities you free yourself from the burdens of accomplishments because the objective of play is to have fun.  For adults (and sadly some children) this goal can be a little uncomfortable and take some getting used to. For those of us who feel that every moment in life should be focused on productivity, it is helpful to remember that twenty minutes of hearty laughter is profoundly restorative to our bodies, hearts and minds.  Think of the last time you laughed robustly with a friend, sides aching, tears streaming down your face…and remember the deep quality of peace, joy and fulfillment that permeated your being when you stopped.  Perhaps this experience is unknown to you, if so it’s not too late.  Joy is alive in the center of your being and when you make an effort to find this joy the pathways for getting there will begin to open before you. 

We started small, setting the intention to have more fun and choosing something easy that we could jump into right away.  Our first step was to take something we enjoyed - going to coffee shops - and find a way to make it feel more special and fun.  We decided to bring games with us and to order special drinks (the kind with silly names you don’t make at home) and immerse ourselves in playing cards and board games like gin, backgammon and cribbage. 

We could have done this at home but that didn’t feel as fun; we needed to make playing an event: to do something with the specific intention of having fun.  Soon we made it our mission to find the best coffee shops for playing: those with great light, comfortable chairs, good music, nice décor and a friendly staff.  It was a great past time and definitely part of our commitment to have fun.  We made it our weekend adventure to head out to different towns and scope out the local coffee shops.  It was like treasure hunting, we looked up towns and followed maps to find new places to hang out and play games.  Once we had a handful of favorites we made appointments with each other to go there and have fun.

It truly was a simple pleasure, quite cost effective for the amount of pleasure it brought, and something else happened we hadn’t expected: our playful attitude was contagious.  Without fail whenever we went to a coffee shop and quietly set up our table with games and settled in to play others would find their way over to us.  Some would stop by to watch us play on their way in or out, ask questions about the games, and express appreciation for the fun we were having, and some would wish us luck - “may the best player win”.  The staff would light up when we came in and enjoyed asking us who had won the days round.  It was astounding to see how engaging a little bit of play could be, and how inspiring our play dates were for others.

It didn’t take long for us to realize that we weren’t the only ones that needed to lighten up a bit.  In our fast paced world filled with daunting to do lists, adults, (and sadly more and more children) have lost the ability to play.  Having fun is truly a lost art form and yet the very foundation needed to build a joyful and successful life.

When having fun became part of our definition of success the new life our hearts were longing for began to take shape.  Playing games together led us to other activities we enjoyed: concerts and plays, bike rides and walks; these led to travel and inspiring conversations with strangers and the discovery of what we love. 

We found our passion in the midst of play, and rekindled the flame of our love in our adventures to have more fun. Simply setting the intention to increase our experience of joy led us to have more fun, and the time we spent playing opened our eyes to greater possibilities for our future and gave us the energy we needed to pursue them.

This commitment to enjoy the journey has become a foundation for our life and work, a guiding principal in everything we do, and because of this we have not only been able to accomplish great dreams but to enjoy the process of realizing our achievements!

The truth about manifesting dreams is that it takes time; how long is different for everyone.  No matter the length of the path you travel, all those who have achieved great success personally and professionally agree: how you travel on your journey is what sustains you and really matters in the end. 

Remember this and make a point of expanding your definition of success to include cultivating joy along the way. Celebrate every effort made, find time for relaxation and play, and soon you will feel the fulfillment of your dreams manifesting every day.

 

© 2010 Heidi Noh-Kuhn, Dare to Dream Visioning

Tags: joy