The Money/Success Paradox: What’s Your Soul Path Truly Worth?

First – we have to understand that sadly our society puts a higher value on some skills than others. This has nothing to do with our self-worth. Nothing to do with goal setting or how good we are at what it is that fuels our soul purpose. If your soul purpose just happens to be stockbroking, being the CEO of a major corporation, plastic surgeon to the stars or a dot.com entrepreneur, then it is highly likely that yes, the money is not only following you, but sticking to you like hundreds and thousands to a fresh-dipped toffee apple. If however your soul purpose is say, working for a NPO digging irrigation ditches in Africa, creating arts or crafts, working with animals, children or the disadvantaged as examples – then the big bucks might prove elusive.

Success

But what are we really talking about here? We have to understand that true success has nothing to do with money. Yes, we all need to be making enough to take care of our needs and our loved ones if we have dependents. But real success has got to be self-defined. Not what society deems successful. Don’t get me wrong – I applaud people who follow their true calling. People who work towards their goals and receive all the trappings that society believes defines a ‘successful’ person. The corner office, professional accolades, financial benefits. Without people who follow their calling along these paths, our society would grind to a halt.

We’d have no jobs. No economy which creates more jobs. And nobody paying in enough taxes to support our social infrastructure! But we need to understand that being ‘successful’ and making a lot of money at what makes us passionate do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. Or that just because someone works as say, a carer because their soul calling is to support people, they are no more or less successful than that CEO who is on the cover of the financial Times and earns a seven-figure salary.

True soul calling

We are all now living longer than ever before. Because of this we are all going to be staying active and working for much longer than our grand-parents or even our parents. It therefore makes sense to find out what our true soul calling is rather than spend our most productive years doing something we don’t like! Many of us will end up having more than one career in our lifetimes. This can come about due to our searching for meaningful work or else through us evolving and our original path no longer holding the satisfaction it once did. So, we have to re-think what success means as part of this. Success means being able to do what feeds our souls at any given time – not just what feeds our bodies.

So, don’t let success be defined by how much you get paid for pursing your passion. Yes, the money will follow. But so long as you feel a sense of achievement at the end of the day, don’t let the amount you receive influence how successful you feel. Equally the Universe can have an uncanny way of rewarding those that follow their heart, sometimes financial miracles occur if we think outside the box. Most of the people I know who do what they love get taken care of by the Universe. Follow your bliss and never get so busy making a living that you forget to celebrate how successful you actually are!

“All Labour uplifts humanity and has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence Martin Luther King Junior