In my early adult years – those years when I started my career and it was taking off, and those same years when Deanna and I were starting a family and experiencing the natural chaos that comes with four children in the home – one of the more difficult attributes to grasp was to be at Peace.

Through my life experience & study, I have selected 10 attributes that I believe are key for living successfully. I am not defining success for you, other than to indicate it involves being healthy physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. Your goals, dreams and every day rhythms are yours, and increasingly exhibiting these 10 attributes will ensure you successfully live them.

This lack of peace that I often felt was an outcome of being anxious, or perhaps a better phrase is feeling stress. Stress, and the anxiousness it can cause, is natural when we:

• feel that our success rests solely in our own effort,
• define success and perfection to be the same thing, or
• place our focus on one aspect of our life and consider other priorities a distraction.

The presence of peace, on the other hand, feeds on itself. We rest well when we are at peace. We cut ourselves a break when we are at peace. We make rational decisions about where we invest our precious time when we are at peace. We build better relationships when we are at peace. And all of this leads to being at peace. A beautiful circle. So how can you get caught up in this circle?

Accept help. Find a mentor, seek coaching and/or counseling, seek knowledge through reading & listening, and if you are a person of faith, pray. The need for all of us to have help is at the very heart of why I founded Healthy Rhythms Life Coaching. The wisdom and discernment that comes from experience – both successful and not – is meant to be shared, and I stand at the ready to share mine with you.

Accept failure. Fear of failure is paralyzing. As a father, I fell woefully short of perfection (okay, not just as a father, but this is the example I’m sharing). Far too many times, I allowed myself to wallow in self-abasement which caused me to not take steps to become a better father. A great moment for me happened when I allowed myself to recognize that my father was not perfect either but was still a great Dad who helped form the man I became. That became my vision for myself. And, thankfully, as a grandfather I get a complete do over.

Accept multiple priorities. You may have a #1 priority, but you do not have only 1 priority. In my Life Roadmap process, we together identify those 4 or 5 top drivers that form the areas of your life that will receive focus. Properly building rhythms that address all these priorities is the path to being at peace.

One last thought on this topic; be a Peacemaker. In any setting, work, family, or social, seek to be the voice that stands out from the others, for peace. In our society today, just like it has been throughout history, divisive cultural topics bring out the worst of humanity. Successful people, though, are people that are attractive to others who themselves land all over the spectrum. Speak (or type) truth not falsehood, love not hate, compassion not animosity. When you’ve done this, you will be at peace.