the Success Principles ~ Principle 16

Principle 16 of Jack Canfield's Success Principles is Be Willing to Pay the Price. Ooh, good one. This changes things, doesn't it?

Ages ago Laini wrote something on her blog that really stayed in my mind. As an artist, she hears lots of people say, "I wish I could draw." And her response was something along the lines of, "Do you wish you could draw, as in your Fairy Godmother taps you on the head and *poof* you can draw? Or do you mean you're willing to sit down and practice and practice and hone a new skill? If it's the latter, I guarantee you that you can draw." I am paraphrasing, but I hope I've captured the point.

Canfield identifies some common price tags associated with dreams: money, time, effort, the willigness to be awkward while you learn and develop. If you don't make the investment, how will the universe know that you actually want it? How will you know?

The good news is that if you are willing to invest those things (and more), you are way ahead of the game. For all the people who say, "I want to write a book," how many sit down to the task? How many stay there long enough to finish? How many find the courage to submit it? At each of those junctures, some people decide it's not worth the cost. If you are willing to pay the price, you will move through those stages and find that the competition gets smaller, the universe supports you and your confidence grows as you know you are committed and moving towards your dreams.

And deciding that something is just too darn expensive is also a gift. It allows you to let go of things that are simply not worth the price to you. Maybe you wanted to be a dancer on cruise ship and every year your heart fills with yearning and you wonder why you never pursued that dream. If you look at your garden or your boyfriend or maybe your little one that's just starting school, you realize that you chose something else, that when it came down to it dancing on a cruise ship was not worth the cost of a sense of home or these relationships or whatever else you chose instead. And now you can discover what part of that dream you can work into your current priorities, at a price you can feel good at investing. Do you want to perform? travel? express yourself? What form might it take that honours your choices and priorities?

The beautiful thing about recognizing there is a price involved is that you get to decide whether you're willing to pay it. The choice is yours.