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The desire to have everything we want, effortlessly, is a childish desire.

In truth, as adults we actually wouldn’t enjoy that as much as we expect. As adults, we enjoy being challenged, we enjoy stretching ourselves, learning new things, rising to the occasions and discovering that our best is much greater than we had dared to dream.

As babies, we are small and helpless, and we genuinely need to be given “something for nothing”. As adults, getting something for nothing makes us feel small and helpless all over again, which triggers an even greater desire for more something for nothing.

Ironically, the truth is in everything the supposed “overnight successes” say, if we just knew what to listen for.

Without exception, the people who attain great success in a short period of time are not doing what they do with the goal of achieving great success in a short period of time. If you make success your goal, you have already failed.

These people are doing something that they would do whether it made them money or not - and in many cases they were doing it for free for a long time before it began to pay them anything at all. Rather than pursuing some notion of “success”, these people were expressing their own passions.

The danger in falling for these fairytale stories is that we say to ourselves “if I just do what they did, I will become succssful and wealthy, and then I will be able to do want I really want to do.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Doing what you really want to do will lead you to your personal success faster and more directly than imitating someone else who appears to have the life you want. Every success story has unpredictable twists and turns - events which happened at just the right time as a result of something apparently unconnected to the quest for success.

Following your inner drives will take you to success more surely than following in someone else’s footsteps.

That’s not to say you won’t have mentors - of course you will. But you won’t choose them because they are hugely successful. You will find them because they will be teaching something that you want to do.

For many, the hardest step in the journey to success is the first step - knowing what you want. It certainly was for me!

We’re coming up to the New Year.

Instead of making yet another resolution about making more money, why not resolve that 2009 is the year in which you make contact with your inner compass, and start to follow it?

You may find that is the key to living happily ever after …