Have you ever found yourself struggling with something you genuinely thought would be easy? Perhaps you’ve done something similar before. You know you have the ability. You may even have a good plan and plenty of motivation. Yet somehow, this time, you keep running into a roadblock.
Or perhaps you’re working toward something that matters enormously to you and doing almost everything right, but progress remains frustratingly slow. It’s tempting at times like these to simply try harder. But what if effort isn’t really the problem?
What Does Success Require From You Now?
I think we sometimes make the mistake of viewing success as though it were a fixed formula. Develop the right qualities, work hard, make good decisions, and success should follow.
Life is rarely that simple. Success isn’t a fixed state. It’s an ongoing relationship between who you are, what you’re trying to accomplish, and what life is asking of you right now. At one point in your life, motivation may be enormously important. At another, you may have all the motivation in the world, but stress is interfering with your ability to think clearly. You may have a wonderful opportunity in front of you, but lack the confidence to seize it. Or perhaps you have confidence and enthusiasm but no clear strategy for turning your vision into reality. Something you expected to find easy can suddenly hit a roadblock because the circumstances are different—or because you are different.
At any particular moment, one inner resource may make an enormous difference. Sometimes it will be a combination of several. We rarely know in advance exactly which ones we will need, but we do know many of the basic inner resources that support success—whatever success may mean to you.
Your Success Doesn’t Have to Look Like Mine
We tend to hear the word “success” and immediately think about careers, money, achievement, or status. Those things can certainly represent success, but they’re only part of the picture.
For an entrepreneur, success might mean building a thriving company. For an employee, it might mean earning a promotion, becoming better at what they do, or finally finding work they genuinely enjoy. An artist may define success as having the courage and freedom to create something meaningful.
But what about the stay-at-home parent who wants to raise happy, confident children while somehow maintaining a sense of self amid the demands of family life? Or the caregiver who needs strength, patience, perspective, and the ability to care for themselves as well as someone they love?
A student may be working toward an education and the life it could make possible. An athlete may be striving for a personal best. And someone who has retired may be discovering that success now means something completely different—remaining engaged, healthy and curious, pursuing interests that were postponed for years, or creating an entirely new vision for the decades still ahead.
A student, caregiver, artist, athlete, entrepreneur, employee, parent and retiree can all be successful. The destination changes. The inner resources that help us reach it remain remarkably similar.
Success isn’t about reaching somebody else’s destination. It’s about having the inner resources to reach your own.
Building Your Inner Toolbox
This is why I think it’s useful to look at success from another direction. Instead of asking, “What am I doing wrong?” perhaps a better question is, “What inner resource would help me most right now?”
- Do I believe in myself?
- Do I genuinely believe I deserve the outcome I’m working toward?
- Am I motivated to take action and follow through?
- Can I manage stress well enough to think clearly and maintain perspective?
- Do my beliefs about prosperity support me or quietly get in my way?
- Am I supporting the physical and emotional wellbeing that allows me to participate fully in my life?
- Can I develop a strategy and translate my intentions into action?
- Do I have a clear enough vision of what I actually want?
- And when things don’t go according to plan, can I remain optimistic enough to look for another way forward?
These aren’t resources we use once and then put away forever. Different stages of our lives—and different stages of the same goal—call upon them in different combinations.
You don’t buy a good toolbox because you expect to use every tool today. You have it because you know different jobs will require different tools, and when the need arises, you want the right one available. I think our inner resources work much the same way.
Preparing for the Life You Want
A few years ago, we compiled nine different programs into an album called Essential Pillars of Success. Looking at that collection today, I’m struck by how well the individual programs complement one another.
The collection includes Esteem, Have It All!, Motivation, Freedom From Stress, Prosperity and Abundance, Be Well Stay Happy, Strategic Planning and Peak Performance, Manifesting Your Vision, and Optimism Plus. Together, they address different elements of success because we don’t always know which element life will call upon next. Sometimes you may need one. Sometimes several. And over the course of a lifetime, chances are you will draw upon all of them in different ways.
That’s why I think Essential Pillars of Success is one of those InnerTalk collections everyone should have in their personal library.
The best time to build the inner resources you will need tomorrow isn’t necessarily when tomorrow becomes difficult.
When a new opportunity appears, a familiar task unexpectedly becomes difficult, or life simply asks something new of you, it can make an enormous difference to already have the tools available to help you respond.
The Complete Essential Pillars Collection — Special Offer
For a limited time, we’re making the complete Essential Pillars of Success album available for:
- $99 for downloadable MP3s
- $119 for physical CDs
And if you already own one, two, or even several of the programs in the collection, don’t automatically assume this offer isn’t for you. At the special album price, it may still cost less to purchase the complete collection than it would to buy just the programs you’re missing individually. Instead of gradually adding programs one at a time, you can complete your toolbox and have all nine resources available whenever your circumstances, goals, or life itself calls for something different.
We’re also including I Believe as a free bonus. I particularly like adding I Believe to this collection because underneath so many of the things we attempt in life lie two deceptively simple questions: What do I believe? and What kind of life do I wish to create? After all, before we can successfully create the life we want, it helps to understand the beliefs we’re using to create it.
You may not need every tool today. You may not even know which one you will need next. But you can prepare. Because while none of us knows exactly what tomorrow will ask of us, we can build the inner resources that will help us meet it.
Warmly,
Ravinder Taylor
*Please note: this is a limited time special offer that expires at 11:59 PM Pacific Time on Monday, October 12, 2026.
“I have bought your Pillars of Success and I love it! It has really helped me to focus in on my dreams and make them into a reality. I believe GOD brought these programs to my attention and I use them every day to further my success. Thank you!”
~ D. W.