When you become discouraged, you can be sure that you have been getting into world thought and forgetting My way of thinking. World thought will discourage you because it looks at outer vestments and forgets true Source and true development. When you feel discouraged, you have let world thought weigh on you.

When you enter My thought, discouragement is impossible. My thought does not depend upon results. You become discouraged because you begin to think that what you have been going toward does not exist, at least for you. You think success belongs to others. You think recognition belongs to others. You think you will hobble along all your lifelong, and that you hobble for naught.

First, do not be tied to a result. Probably the obvious result you have in mind is too small and which yet cannot come quickly enough for you. In that case — or any other — come back to where I am.

Hobbling can be a good thing. Hobbling is like weaving, and you do not yet know the elements of the universe that you weave. Hobble all you want. Go back and forth. Stumble. Keep going. Consider that keeping on is success, and the only success worthy of you.

That is following your star.

Feeling hopeless comes from pinning your hope in the wrong place, and that is the same as being tied to a particular result.

There are subtle results beyond your ken.

If you want to be an opera singer, sing. That is all you have to do. Your notes will reverberate and be picked up soon enough.

You are the discourager of yourself because you start counting. You count the arias you sing that no one hears. When you do that, you are looking at the wrong end of the telescope. Turn it around.

The success you count off lies not in closure. The moment of success you dream of is nothing. The moments you move toward your dream are everything. Dreams follow dreams. The fruition of your singing is no greater than the singing. Don't you see that it is only the next step? And there is another after that?

The point is that you sing. Sing for one, sing for two, or sing for two thousand. The point is not the audience. The point is your singing. Your voice goes out in any case, and it is your singing that nourishes the universe.

Stop thinking so much about the universe having to nourish you. Start thinking about your throwing bouquets to the world.

Now you are turning the telescope aright.

There is yet another way to approach your dreams. Consider them fulfilled. Consider the ending already accomplished, and go on from there. Build the success within you. That is where it belongs. The success outside you will never fulfill you anyway. Get the sense of success inside. Harbor it there. See what notes issue from your voice when you charter success within you.

Do not wait for the outward success. Bring success with you. Give success. Sing it out.

This is not planning. This is coming from a place on high where success lives. Nothing keeps you from the place of fulfillment but yourself. Be a success long before the world knows it.

What matters the whim of the world?

Give accolades to your work.

Forget yourself.

Remember your work.

So what if the teacher in your imagination gives you a C. What does a grade have to do with you? Give yourself an A. Give yourself an A+ for following your dream.

It may not be your dream at all. It may be My dream you are fulfilling. Who needs to know that but you and I? And maybe you don't need to know. Maybe it is enough that I know.

Recognition is not the measure of your success. Numbers are not the measure of your success. I am the measure of your success, but I do not measure. I only know you bear sweet fruits for Me, and I accept them simply.