I’m going to state the obvious: Winning the lottery can’t make you happy. Money can’t buy you love or long-term happiness.

So why did so many of us go out and buy lottery tickets (myself included!)?

Hope.

And a belief that what holds us back from doing what we really want is money. (But it’s not.)

We have a tendency to believe that IF money weren’t a problem, we could do anything we want. There would be no obstacles. There would be no worries. There would be less stress. Life could be simpler, more fun, full of adventure, etc. We could make ANYTHING happen.

Except for making ourselves fall in love with someone, or making someone fall in love with us.

Except for having a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Most of us want to have a reason for being on this planet. We all want to know what our purpose is, our unique reason for being here and how we can fulfill that purpose. We want to use our gifts.

Two years ago you could’ve handed me a million dollars, and I still would’ve been miserable.

It’s soul sucking to be working at a job that doesn’t tap into your values, use your strengths or bores you to tears. Talk about defeating. But what’s even more excruciating is not knowing what, in your heart, you “should” be doing.

Money can’t answer that question for you.

Sure, money might be able to open up doors for you, but you still have to be willing to walk through the door. Or even realize that a door has opened. If you don’t know what you want to accomplish during your time here, it doesn’t matter how many doors are open.

But here’s the good news. The TOTALLY AWESOME news. The truth is that we actually CAN make anything happen that we want. But we have to believe that we can do it—and then go make it happen. What stops us is fear, not money. It’s fear of failing, fear of success, fear of becoming destitute, or fear of looking like a fool—but it’s all just fear.

I worked with a guy once a long time ago who had won a million dollars in the lottery, and he kept coming to work every day, wearing the same polyester suits he’d worn in the seventies, driving the same old beat up Toyota…basically, not changing a thing about his life as a result of winning a million (or maybe it was two million) dollars. You know why?

He was scared he would lose it.

Winning the lottery, not winning the lottery, it doesn’t really matter. The more important thing is how you think about what money can do for you. If you believe that the only way to do what you want to do is by having a lot of money, then you’re right.

But if you’re willing to allow yourself to dream and believe in your own power to make things happen, well, you just might be surprised by how much you can do, how much you can learn about yourself without the lottery.

Let’s pretend you did win the lottery. What would you like to go out there and accomplish?

Now ask yourself, what’s stopping you from taking the first teeny tiny step toward that dream? I bet taking those steps are what's going to make you happy.