The Law of Succes

Success is hastened or delayed by one’s habits ~ Yogananda (from The Law of Success)

I have a little tiny book (1/2 the size of an envelope and 34 pages long) called “The Law of Success” published by the Self-Realization Fellowship. It is some of the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda about one of the Universal Laws...the law of attraction. I keep it in my purse as a reminder to stay on my path.


This little book is amazing because in a short 34 pages (1/2 hour to read) Yogananda pretty much says everything you could ever need to hear about becoming successful. The page that it always falls open to for me has the quote from above, “Success is hastened or delayed by one’s habits”. I love this quote because it goes directly to something I teach in the cleanse about choice-making, not to mention it is what I need to hear everyday personally to stay on my path.


During the Elemental Cleanse, you receive a “self-assessment guide”. These are questions you can ask yourself to see if you are nutritionally sound. One of the questions, however, asks if the choices you are making are in alignment with your life’s purpose or dharma. I know this seems like a weird esoteric question, but it is really really important.


You see, if you do not have the body, the stamina, the vitality, the clarity, the energy and the drive to realize your life’s purpose, you will never achieve enlightenment (think happiness). On your deathbed, you will look back at your life and wish that you had done some things different. In yoga, that means that you will need to come back and do it all over again. I don’t remember being on the other side, but I hear its pretty awesome and I personally don’t want to come back and be on repeat. Even if reincarnation is bogus, I still don’t want to be on my deathbed with regret. Your habits or poor choice making can keep you stuck in an endless cycle of suffering.


Look at the habit of sugar. One day you wake up and have a Coke. It tastes pretty good and you get a little rush. Sugar is highly addictive, so the next day you crave another Coke. You get one. Years go by and you have put on 5, 10, 15 or more pounds as your sugar cravings have intensified and perhaps you’ve gone from 1 Coke a day to many. With the chaos of the sugar and caffeine buzz comes other poor choices in food and routine. Now you don’t feel or look so great.


Your mind begins to obsess over the fact that its tired and not sleeping well. You become grumpy as your loathing for yourself intensifies. You push the people away that you love because quite honestly, you find it hard to love yourself. Oh sure, you have happy moments and even achieve some success, but there is always a little something holding you back. You are always kind of hopelessly wishing that things were a little different. You imagine that your life would be so much better if you lost some weight and felt more vibrant.


What you probably never pause to think about is that first bottle of Coke and all the choices that came after. Now we can’t do anything about that first bottle. What we can do, however, is create a better habit starting today. Skip the Coke. Let your first word to your habit be NO. Success is a series of good choices. Let’s not stop at the Coke. Let’s Skip that glass of wine, that bag of chips, that lunch date with the friend who criticizes in such a sweet manner you never see it coming and that voice in your head that tells you you are not what you wish to be. Let’s skip the late night TV, the hard rock radio station and heck, go ahead and skip the nightly news. Let’s skip the negative self talk too while we are at it. Heck....give up negativity all together. Quite honestly, it’s boring.


Here are some good choices for you to do instead:

Drink water with lemon and ginger. Take your multi-vitamins. Go to bed by 10 pm and get up by 7 am. Read something spiritual and inspirational in bed. Go for a walk outside in nature. Buy a fish to take to work with you to calm you down at work. Listen to soothing music. Color a picture and hang it on your fridge. Pick a personal affirmation and say it in your head all day instead of thinking thoughts. Try out some yoga...pick a new class. Get your nails done. Go shoe shopping (my favorite), make a list of all the wonderful qualities you inherited from your mom and dad, go to the grocery store and only leave with fresh ingredients, cook a healthy beautiful meal for yourself to take to lunch, eat breakfast, find a spiritual workshop to motivate you, connect with a friend and spend an evening with them at home cooking and talking about life, read some poetry. Journal. Day Dream.


From Yogananda: Weaken a bad habit by avoiding everything that occasioned it or stimulated it without concentrating upon it in your zeal to avoid it. Then divert your mind to some good habit and steadily cultivate it until it becomes a dependable part of you.

I love that guy.......