How You Succeed — Or Fail — Is Up To You

Telephones can be wonderful things — but they can also be too much temptation.

Decades ago (in my 20s), I was a skilled right-hand to my corporate lawyer boss, but I had a boyfriend who lived six states away. And too often I was found to be on the phone when I should have been working.

Eventually, I was fired because of it.

My next job, for a mid-management woman in an advertising firm, ended the same way.

And the next, and the next.

No matter how good I was at my job, my bosses simply couldn’t countenance the fact that I was too often found whispering into the receiver when I should have been making meeting arrangements, or taking care of clients.

It got to the point that I had to simply take temp jobs, because my record of being let go made me a questionable hire.

If I’d acknowledged that there are times for work and there are times for outside interests, I could have structured my time differently — and probably kept my job.

But instead, when the Universe and my guides kept presenting me with a chance to examine my ideas and habits around responsibilities to others — encouraging me to find the missing puzzle pieces, as it were — I simply refused to look at the situations objectively and discover the lessons behind them.

I finally Got the Clue Brick in my 40s, when I was working for someone I very much liked and whose work I felt was important. And to this day, I am very aware of work time vs. notwork time, and I keep the boundaries tight.

But it shouldn’t have taken me THAT long to learn the lesson.

We all come into this world with themes, and specific paths and challenges. When we sketch out our blueprint in our pre-birth planning session, we know there will be lessons and roads that come to us in periodic waves. How we handle them determines how we succeed or fail.

Here are some examples:

If you have always had a roller-coaster relationship with money, how has that shaped your idea of prosperity? Do you feel you are doomed to a marginal existence? Does it make you want to make money no matter what? Does it inspire you to live more simply, so the feeling that was once one of lack now transforms into having enough?

If you are always the one who stands up for the underdog — whether or not you win — how does justice look to you? How do you want to bring it about on a daily basis?

If you consistently get overlooked for awards, disqualified in contests for odd reasons, or feel cheated out of your just due, does that make you bitter or better at being self-empowered?

If alcoholics and drug users surround you — yet you remain untainted — what does that tell you about your strength of will? How do you feel about those who use? Are you holier-than-thou? Do you wish you could help them get clean? Or do you ignore their existence?

When you find a recurring theme in your life — losses, changes, missed opportunities — take the time to look at it the way a scientist looks at different experiments. If you can determine what purpose a difficulty has in your life, you’ll figure out how to avoid it in the future, and be able to check off that life lesson as “complete.” And you might even be able to take the lessons it taught you and create from it an opportunity to help others.