The more complex the task, the higher the success we desire, the longer it takes.



This is not because it is the nature of life to be as frustrating as possible. Rather, it is because we have to go through a process of progressively eliminating errors until we arrive at success.

While on the surface, most of these errors may appear to be a result of improper techniques or insufficient information or inadequately applied knowledge, the main source of errors lies in our own thinking.

It is our incorrect opinions, beliefs, and blind-spots that keep us locked into patterns of self-destruction.

If someone aspires to wealth, it is not the absence of a profitable enterprise that keeps them impoverished. Rather, it is their thinking. They first have to overcome their resistance to wealth. They hold in mind antagonistic beliefs about money, work, and opportunity. It is these beliefs that keep them in a state of scarcity. And this scarcity then reinforces itself as proof of their inadequacy.

If someone aspires to health, they hold in mind resistance to what it takes to bring the body into a state of self-repair. If what they are doing to get well is not working, there is an error in their thinking about it.

Similarly, if someone aspires to a good relationship, it is rarely that they cannot find the right person or that the person they are with has all the wrong characteristics. It is more often that they project their own repressed hostility on someone else. The result of not expressing love is the experience of not being loved and appreciated.

We are our own worst saboteurs of success.

No one, in fact, does a better job of making things worse than we do.

Change is possible at any moment, and massive change is possible as small changes continue over time, but despite the always present possibility of imminent relief from our troubles, we are in the habit of perpetuating them.

What makes positive progress so difficult is that our shortcomings, which are so obvious to others, appear to us to be almost invisible. We do not see the error of our ways, but prefer to hold the view that untoward circumstances have afflicted us. By disclaiming responsibility, we alienate ourselves from the positive action that will lead to a meaningful solution.

We are so much in the habit of being ourselves, so used to our troubles, that we seldom even entertain the possibility that a better way is available. In fact, if you look at your troubles, you will see that year after year, they are always the same cluster. Like hamsters spinning on a wheel, we don't know how to get off.

How, then, do we get out of our own way?

Before we even begin to look for a way out, we have to find a way in. We have to look at the situation that is causing us grief and through persistent self-inquiry ascertain what we believe about it. This is not an easy task. Sometimes, we have to break through the armor of our own self-justifications by finding someone who is willing to tell us what is wrong with us.

Change is possible through self-growth and new learning. It happens only when we reach a point of total frustration and refuse to put up with our own self-imposed limitations. Only when we make change a must, a dire necessity, can we summon up sufficient will to break through the logjam in our thinking that has locked us into a wretched situation.