There are many reasons why a person may not be successful at whatever it is that they want to be successful at, no matter what that is… building wealth or attaining status or creating a feel-good partnership or getting a specific qualification or credential or being the parent that they want to be or reaching enlightenment or creating a sense of freedom in life or achieving any other specific goal. But, a big, and I mean BIG reason that many people never succeed, is that they are unwilling to choose pain for the sake of what they want. They are stuck in a state of contrast avoidance. Anything, I repeat ANYTHING you choose to succeed at, will come with a certain pain. Success is out of the comfort zone. If you want to succeed, you need to be willing to choose that pain. And you will be limited in terms of success by what pain you are unwilling to take for what you want. Now that I’ve said this, let’s dive deeper…
Most people alive today have the following subconscious goal: To get to a point where life only feels good. And to avoid anything that would make them feel bad. And one of the biggest lies that you have been sold is that it is possible to get to a point where life only feels good with no negatives and where no unwanted things happen anymore.
Contrast is one of the integral elements of this time space reality. What I mean by contrast is the existence and the perception of polarities such as positive and negative, wanted and unwanted, dark and light, pain and pleasure. Contrast is the root of both personal and universal expansion. You are meant to sort through the wanted and unwanted elements of this time space reality so as to give rise to desire. And then, to line up with that desire with their thoughts, words and actions. Doing so, causes a person to actualize the expansion. But this improved state of being will come with a new set of contrast. And so, the process starts all over again, propelling the person into the ever-expanding state of being. For example, let’s say that a person really wants to have a life in nature on a self-sustainable farm. By actualizing their desire, they may have things like a sense of independence and freedom, the peacefulness of the natural world, a life that is wholesome, high-quality food and simplicity. But they may also experience things like inconvenience, lots of labor that needs to be done in order to maintain things, a feeling of disconnection from the rest of society and a decrease in financial income.
So much of the process of expansion is about choosing pain for the sake of what matters most to you, and once you have done that, continually making changes so as to resolve or at least decrease that pain that you feel as a result of having made that choice.
Relative to most forms of success, there are also degrees of that success. And as a person sets their sights on ever higher degrees of success, they will come face to face with the fact that to continue on their path to greater levels of success, they must choose even greater pain for the sake of what they want. Essentially, they will run into their own limitations. And they will be limited by what pain they are unwilling to choose for what they want. This is the reason why there are so many sayings out there about success and sacrifice, such as: If you are unwilling to sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes the sacrifice.
Many, many people go for what they want, but the minute that doing so creates pain in their life, especially relative to any other sector of their life, they back off and un-commit to it. They limit themselves, so as to keep themselves in a state of comfort. To keep themselves feeling good.
So that you can understand this, I’m going to give you two examples.
Timothy is 26 years old. Timothy has his sights set on a more traditional picture of success. He wants to be completely financially free and to get a sense of importance by creating a cutting-edge data analysis software based off of his special talent at seeing the shortcomings of the current systems that are available. Timothy has a fiancé and a job at a prestigious financial firm. He spent a lot of his life competing in sports and feels a deep need for athletics in order to stay mentally, emotionally and physically stable. He really cares about his father’s approval. And he loves his leisure time.
As Timothy progresses on his path to the success he has in mind, he becomes aware that in order to get his software to take off, he is going to have to be open to moving from place to place as the need arises and he needs his fiancé to be supportive enough of his success to either go with him from place to place. Or at the very least, for her to let him go for weeks at a time while she stays where they currently are. Timothy’s fiancé will not do this. She has two relationship boundaries. The first is: Her partner is with her, living a together life. She’s not by herself for more than a week at most a couple of times per year. The second is: They stay where they are, because she is very dedicated to the animal rescue organization she works for. It is her purpose. The few times that they have talked this over, it has gone terribly. Because Timothy’s fiancé will not take the certain pain he has presented her with, for the sake of having a harmonious relationship with Timothy, Timothy is at a choice point. In order to succeed with his career, his partnership with his fiancé must end and he must decide to eventually look for a partner who will sign up for being flexible according to the needs of his success. Timothy has hit a limitation. Timothy is in love with his fiancé. And is unable to say yes to the pain of losing her for the sake of his career success. So, he limits his own success by staying in the job he currently has and by postponing the idea of creating his software until he can potentially find a partner who would be able to be the one to travel as the business needs arise.
Timothy’s issue is not just about his fiancé. It is about taking pain in general. He can only commit to something to the degree that it doesn’t cause him pain. Timothy wants to build relationship security with his fiancé. But when she needs him to be with her on a day that he has a soccer game planned, he is unwilling to take the pain of not doing his sports.
Timothy wants to move to a section of town where the rent is much cheaper, so he can save up the money to succeed at being even more financially free. But his father has expressed disapproval at him going anywhere that would decrease his status. Timothy cannot take the pain of his father’s disapproval, so he stays put, making it harder to reach his financial goals.
Timothy wants to be an entrepreneur. But his leisure time matters to him. So, when being an entrepreneur means taking the pain of working during a national holiday, he refuses and takes three days off instead. Timothy is playing an exhausting game where he calculates what to do and not do based off of the avoidance of taking any pain past a certain threshold in any sector of his life. Timothy will forever be limited in every sector of his life by virtue of the pain he is unwilling to sign up for in any of the sectors of his life. And this kind of extreme balancing act will only be right for Timothy if he consciously signs up to the pain of his success being limited in each one of his sectors.
If Timothy were not so hell bent on living his life to avoid pain, he might end up finding out that what is right for him is to limit his success in his entrepreneurship, so that he can have success at a feel-good marriage with his fiancé. But to choose to take pain relative to his father disapproving of him to gain success at building up money to invest. But he will not be confused about why he is not becoming a successful entrepreneur when other men are. Because he is choosing limitations based on pain that he is not willing to say yes to. And they are willing to say yes to.
Ken is also a man who has his sights set on a more traditional picture of success. He wants to be completely financially free and he wants to start a new brand of backcountry ski-wear. Ken has a fiancé and a job with a lot of authority at a sports outfitting company. Like Timothy, Ken spent a lot of his life competing in sports. In his case, Winter sports. And feels a deep need for athletics in order to stay mentally, emotionally and physically stable. He really cares about his father’s approval. And he loves his leisure time. It’s like these two men were cut from the same stone. Except for one thing. Ken is willing to bleed for the sake of succeeding at what is most important to him. And because of this, he is very good at prioritizing.
Ken realizes that in order to become the entrepreneur he was meant to be, he will need to quit his job. His father will not approve because his father was the one who used his personal contacts to get him the job. Ken decides to take the pain of his father’s disapproval and he has to sit through many tongue lashings and criticism and put up with the feeling of lack of support and disapproval. Ken realizes that succeeding at starting his new brand means moving out of the country; so as to not break the clauses of his current employee non-compete contract. He takes this to his fiancé. She sets a hard boundary that she is not leaving the country on account of her friends and family. She says she could try a long-distance relationship until he is able to move back. But Ken does not want to be in a long-distance relationship. He realizes that there is a huge incompatibility between them. If he wants to be as successful as he can be at his new ski wear business, he will need a partner who will be flexible enough to enables his success by going with him, even if that means moving overseas.
So, in order to become successful, he has to face the unthinkable for him, he has to break off the engagement. The amount of pain this causes him is ineffable. He will have to move to a different country alone. He will be starved of a sense of partnership and physical affection. He doesn’t know if he will ever love someone as much as he loves her. But he also knows himself enough to know that his drive to succeed at his new brand is so intense, that if he stays and limits himself for the sake of his fiancé, he will end up resenting her and having a style of relationship that he doesn’t want, where he has to hold himself back for the sake of accommodating her best interests. Because of this, he knows he can’t make that choice.
Being an entrepreneur means dedicating his time and energy to making his new brand all it can be. So, sometimes he has to deal with forgoing the opportunity to do sports. He hates the feeling of missing out when everyone else is he knows is getting together to go back country skiing. But it is pain he is choosing to take for the sake of the success he has his sights set on. Ken is willing to say yes to ALOT of pain for the sake of the success he wants. And as a result, he has less limits on his career success than Timothy does. As a result, unlike Timothy, Ken finds a partner who is happy to be flexible and lend her energy to his career success. And he does launch his new brand and builds it to the point where when he sells it off to one of the biggest outdoor product brands in the world, he is a truly financially free man.
During this process, the way that Ken continued his expansion in the direction of a feel-good life, was to find solutions for the pain he has chosen. Such as, working through his terror at his father’s disapproval with an on-line psychologist. And buying himself a treadmill that fits under his desk, so that he can move his body while working on the computer. And immediately joining groups of people who share the same interests in the new country he moved to. And getting massages regularly as well as getting into a friend with benefits arrangement to offset the starvation for physical touch. And giving himself leisure time only as an in-breath in response to the award of accomplishments he makes in his business endeavors.
It is very tempting to look at what is important to another person and make it right or wrong, according to what society says or according to what is most important to you and therefore what you wish was most important to other people too. But, for the sake of this conversation, I want you to put down your judgements about all that and simply realize that if you want success at anything, you will be tested regarding what pain you are willing to take, (what contrast you are willing to sign up for) in order to attain that success.
By all means, the very first thing you should do is to look really hard to find a way to make things work in a way where you don’t have to take pain (where it isn’t necessary to take pain) in order to achieve the success that you have in mind. But at the end of the day, on the road to success, every person finds themselves in lose-loses where they must be willing to take pain for what they want. And this includes you.
If you want to understand more about this topic, you can watch three of my videos titled: 1. Why You Should Consciously Choose Consequences. 2. Want to Succeed? What Pain Will You Say Yes To? And 3. The Ticket to an Empowered Life.
Each person is unique. Because of this, each person must work out for themselves what is right for them regarding how far they are willing to go with their picture of success, based off what pain they will and will not say yes to. Sometimes the pain you must say yes to, is admitting to a way that you are going to choose to limit yourself.
