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At certain times each of us wonder why we are not having the success that we expect. Or incomes, free time, relationships, and family life seem lacking. So what went wrong? No-one has a 'one size fits all' answer to this but if we look under the surface we can see a vein of gold to mine and process.

In his book 'The Way of the Wizard', Deepak Chopra quotes the Persian poet Rumi: 'You are the unconditioned spirit trapped in conditions, like the sun in eclipse'. Deepak is conveying the message that as human beings we are limited by time and space. This explains our struggle to define and attain success in this world. Our spirit, the true power of our very being, gets pushed into second place by our physical nature. This is the human condition it seems, and when it is recognized, we spend the rest of our lives trying to (re)connect with our soul or spirit.

We are not helped by the early socialization and education that we receive. We are strongly encouraged or forced to conform to the standards of the society in which we live. So we take on community norms with regard to success, money, education, right, wrong, and so on. In this process, the individuality of the human being is lost as we receive rewards or punishments for compliant or rebellious behavior respectively.

The brain's goal is survival, as so purposefully told in Jack Canfield's 'How to Build High Self-Esteem'. Survival is not congruent with non-conformity, so we join the group and we belong. We are conditioned to conceive, believe, and achieve according to society's standards without too much creativity. We are an average member of the community, more proficient in some roles and less in other. But average is not exceptional. An average color would be beige or grey, average temperature is neither hot nor cold. When we look at history, great people were often seen as heretics, eccentric, or just plain crazy.

If we want to be exceptional we must change our conditioning. We do this by examining every ingrained idea that we have. What is our belief about money, love, work, family, education, and play for example? How do we define success in each of these areas? Is that working for you (One of Dr. Phil's favorite questions)? In his book 'Spiritual Marketing', Joe Vitale asks us to identify what is blocking us from our success and then he suggests some great methods to remove the obstruction(s).

Robert Kiyosaki, in his 'Rich Dad' series disparages the education system for not preparing us to succeed in the real word. Kiyosaki talks about his poor Dad having traditional education system 'avoid failure at all costs' type values whereas his rich Dad educated him about the 'real world' value of learning from failure.

Bob Proctor, in his CD 'What Would You Do If Your Yearly Income Became Your Monthly Income' tells us that we need to become non-conforming and to think outside of the box. Otherwise we are just repeating something that someone else has taught us. He suggests that we must not be afraid to take action just because our circle of friends and family might not agree with us. We must learn to think for ourselves.

The bottom line then is that if we want to be truly successful and find real happiness, we must allow our spirit to shine through onto the world. We are unique and perfect in our own way and that is a great thing. We must, of course, want to learn but we must choose our teachers wisely. Our teachers will only be able to share what they have themselves, so if someone has the success that you want, learn from them. Study them and apply what works into your life.