A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the problems with the “D” word – economic Depression – and other negative communications that we seem to be up against on every side. Today, I’d like to focus on a word that you should not be afraid of, even though many are.  The “S” word…. success.

I don’t really have an answer for that.  I know that it’s cropped up at times in my own life – and I think the answer might be is that it’s how we’ve been taught to think, and it helps us justify not taking positive action.  But rationally, that is stupid.  Are we always afraid of challenges?  Were we always afraid of challenges?  We weren’t born that way. If you’ve ever had children, you’ll know that children come into this world, seemingly looking forward to challenges and figuring out how to overcome them. There are not too many babies that gave up trying to walk the first time they fell after trying to take a step.  They did not give up on themselves the first time they made a “mistake” and the peas fell off their spoon – they usually refuse help and want to try again and again until they get it right!

There seems to be no “fear mechanism” in their brain of failing, or of not getting right, or of being disappointed. They “GO FOR IT!”  Over and over again.  Infants simply don’t quit.  They don’t seem to care that someone else might be laughing at them in their attempts to get something right.

But as we get older, somehow we are taught to fear failure instead of embracing success.  So we end up with these mechanisms in our mind that paralyze us at the first instance of being nervous about something.   One of my biggest fears is speaking in public. At meetings where there are more than three or four people, I tend to tighten up, begin to sweat, and feel stressed.  Yet, when I was 6 years old, I had no fear of being the “littlest Christmas tree” in a Christmas play, in front of a hundred people. Somewhere between Grade 1 and Grade 4, I was taught to fear it. And I know it’s a fear that I can get over. It’s up to me.

If we dwell on those negative things, it can affect the quality and quantity of everything else we do.  It can affect our productivity, our own happiness, and our relationships with others.  And yet, the reality for most of us is that there is so much positive stuff in our potential, our choices to be thankful for our circumstances, and for those we care about that is far more important than the negative thoughts so often dwelled upon.

Sometime ago, I recommended that we all keep a “success” journal.  A small notebook, where each week, you write out all the wonderful things that have happened to you. I need to get a “search function” on this site as I cannot find that specific post right now.  Regardless, each and everyone of us should keep a journal where we only record all the good “things.”

As I wrote two weeks ago, there have been challenging times for me personally – but in reality, those challenging times can only overwhelm me or paralyze me by the amount of negative emotion I allow to be associated with the challenges.  Sometimes, it can be difficult to cut down those negative emotions.  But by disciplining yourself to spend some time when all you do is think about all the positive things in the past week, past month, and even the past day, you might surprise yourself.

Without being too specific, here’s a few of my entries in my “Success Journal” for this week:

1. I experienced my best day ever as far as Google Adsense revenues, in over a year this past week.

2.  Although I never found advertising in the Yellow Pages to be helpful, this past week I’ve had more calls for my services from a variety of businesses – old ones and new start ups.  This surprised me, considering the economic news we all hear about.  There are people out there who are going to make effort to build a business or increase a present one, regardless of circumstance.  And some of those people will need services you can provide.

3. Our office took a long hard look at a few web properties we have with the view of what we could do to increase revenues from them. One in particular already does very well, but I wanted to see if there were ways we could squeeze even more out of it.  With some brain storming, some ideas were generated.  A few of those ideas are already seeing results.  A decision was made to expand the site with the focus on “sub-niche,” and I was very pleasantly surprised to see very quick and positive reaction from others involved in that niche.  We will be helping them, as they help us.

4. I identified another website property that has potential but not much work has been done to it.  With the uncertain economic times, this site could do quite well as it discusses something that many will not want to give up, but will want to find ways to lessen the expense.

For a couple of years, the site lay dormant with no work, effort or content added.  Traffic was minimal.  In the past three weeks, traffic has more than doubled to the site.

5.  New professional acquaintances have been made which will mean new doors will open.  I don’t know exactly when those doors will open, but I am assured that they will be.  By refusing to make the effort to take positive steps forward, no matter how small they may seem, those doors are guaranteed to not open.

6.  As a result of the above, even more ideas have been created or discovered!

Don’t be afraid of the “S” word, even in uncertain times, and don’t let the news get you down.

What have been some of your successes over the past couple of weeks?

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