What I Don’t Want

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When you sit down to order a meal, you first decide – probably without even thinking about it – what you don’t want to eat. If you’re there at 9:00 A.M., you probably skip the roast beef dinner. If it’s dinnertime, you probably won’t be satisfied with tea and toast. But that decision has to be what you want, and what will give you the energy you need. If you’ve been working hard since four in the morning, you’ll want something hearty. Just don’t be like Jack, who didn’t even really order. If you keep doing things as you’ve always done them, what you’ll get is what you’ve already got.

Just stop for five minutes and dream with me. We’re going to have a wonderful dream together, and it’s going to be about you. Dream about feeling that you have an abundance of life all around you and in you. You are doing work that satisfies you, stretches you, and fulfills you. You wake up in the morning with an excitement in you – you’re already planning how you are going to spend the day, because it’s just a joy to think about.

You have a glide in your stride and a skip in your step all day because you have satisfaction, you have rewards, you have work that is good for you. Maybe it’s because of money, or maybe it’s because of love, but more likely those things are what happens after you have started living your utmost life.

I don’t know about you, but I am convinced that you can have that dream-if you are willing to do the work. Attracting the life you want by thinking the right thoughts might sound easy, but it won’t happen unless you make it happen. And I believe that you will start to see a difference almost immediately – if you are willing to do the work. Some of it will be hard, but most of it will be absorbing. After all, it’s all about you.

CHALLENGE: You may find it easier to make a list of what you don’t want before you can clearly see your heart’s desires. To help bring your core desires into focus, make a list of what you don’t want to swallow anymore. Finish the sentence: I don’t want …

I don’t want to be fat.

I don’t want to wake up feeling like I don’t want to get out of bed.

I don’t want to feel the rest of the world is enjoying what I don’t have.

I don’t want to work at this job I don’t care about.

I don’t want to always be. Denying myself things and experiences just because I don’t have the time.

I don’t want to be too out of shape to enjoy playing ball with my kids.

I don’t want to meet men only in bars.

I don’t want to argue with my wife every time we talk about money.

 

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You Have the Power

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Even when you’re creating the life you want, there will be times when you make choices whose consequences turn out to be different from what you expected. If they are the wrong ones, move on…that is going back and start over. But if it’s not quite what you wanted, see if you can’t make it so. Try adding a little salt and pepper, sugar or olive oil. You may find that the meal, the life you’re currently living, is a whole lot tastier than you expected.

Change Your Attitude

Maybe you must have dinner with your in-laws. You’ve begged and pleaded with your spouse and maybe even made up excuse why you can’t go, but you’re just not getting out of it. You just can’t stop thinking, “This is not going to be fun.” What if you said to yourself, “I have the power to make this fun. How can I do that?” If your spouse’s parent think you are a lazy good-for-nothing, now you can let them know what you’ve been doing with your life. Even if you’re in the same company or job, now you have a plan and a promise. Maybe you can bring something special to the table that will change the whole atmosphere. You’ll be amazed at how differently people will react to you when you are content with your life and eager to make it better, when you have confidence and a vision. It’s a known fact that when people associate you with good times, they will like you better…and you’ll like them better.

Take a Break

If you’re working hard on a difficult project and come to a point where you can’t figure out what to do, take a break. Try writing down the problem as clearly and concisely as you can…then go do something else. There are times when your subconscious will continue working on the problem. The next time you go back to it, a solution may appear. Of course, there will be times when just writing down the problem provides a solution.

Ask the Experts

If you need to learn how to do something, find someone who has already done it, or something like it. Especially in these days of easy internet access…you can google it right from your phone. Listen and read from experienced professionals, committed amateurs, and even other people who are trying to find out the same thing. You’d be surprised at the great ideas you can get from YouTube and Pinterest.

Remember, you have the power to change your attitude about the life that’s currently in front of you. If it’s not exactly what you wanted…change a few things on your side to help get it there.

 

 

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How to Succeed at Failing

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So when you’re going into a new situation, learning a new skill, you have to think and prepare. First you’ll prepare for your success – research and study, think and practice, tone up your mental or physical muscles for whatever activity you’ll be involved in. Then imagine what you will do if you don’t succeed – if you don’t wow the audience, if you don’t get the highest score, if you don’t get the job you’ve wanted. Think of it in terms of what you can learn. Decide then and there, before it happens, that you won’t let it stop you. Have faith in your future. Don’t expect perfection, but don’t plan for collapse either.

Suppose you’re trying to lose weight. You’ve planned your menus and calculated the nutritional values. You know when you’re going to eat, what, and how much. Terrific. Now imagine that just as you’re sitting down to dinner, you slip, bump into that cabinet, and break the new 50″ plasma  flat screen television you bought for yourself at Christmas and are still paying off from Best Buy. You see it cracked from corner to corner and a little smoke coming from the back of it. Its fried. It makes you want to pull out that container of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream you had hiding in the back of the freezer and grab the biggest spoon you can find…and devour the whole thing.

Now plan for the television breaking. You’ll definitely need…you definitely deserve…to reach back, relax and regain your focus. Envision yourself having three spoonfuls of ice cream. And yes, enjoy the ice cream. You’re not to going to feel guilty about it, or feel that you’ve failed, or that you’re weak. Having this ice cream is part of the plan – the plan for dealing with the pain. When you’re finished, you’ll pull out your diet chart and plan what will eat the next day, cut out a little here and there to make up the difference. Hey, it’s just three spoonfuls, so it’s not a big deal.

Then you envision putting the ice cream away and cleaning up the mess. Imagine how much better you will feel because not only did you have the ice cream, you enjoyed it enough that you don’t have to eat more. As I say, life is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. You won’t always succeed the first time, or the second, or the third – but that just means you will have more than one chance to succeed. In fact, you’ll have many. Each time you fail, you’ll have another clue about how to avoid failure the next time. The more you can learn to overcome obstacles, to reposition that opposition to your mission, the more you will enjoy doing it.

Prepare and envision. See yourself overcoming the problems, see yourself answering your critics. The next time you’re working on a presentation, imagine how to respond if your boss disparages your ideas. It could be as simple as being ready to ask your boss what was wrong – whether it was the way you presented your idea or the idea itself. You might find out that there was nothing wrong with the idea, but that you didn’t get it across adequately. You’re learned something.

If you add that you want to benefit from the boss’s experience, you may gain an ally in the bargain. Even if your boss still doesn’t accept your idea, you may get some support the next time.

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How Do We Handle Setbacks?

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One morning, in the diner I was frequenting, I saw an old friend, Marvin, looking morose. When I asked him what was the matter, I could barely hear him. “No, no, I’m fine,” he said. “Just had some setbacks. I think maybe I have to rethink what I doing.” When I asked him why, he didn’t really give me a clear answer.

I see this a lot. When people get down, it’s like their voice gets down too – down to a whisper. Marvin had been on a roll with his new job in a computer game company, taking to it like a fish to water. When he started, he did everything he was asked to do, and he did it fast. He started early; he stayed late. He listened to everyone and he thought about what he heard.

“So then they asked me to evaluate some new game proposals. I was psyched. I spent three days and nights working on it. I had everything together – sales, reviews, industry expectations, stock prices – everything. I went to the meeting with all the suits. I even bought a suit.” I looked at him surprised. “Well, I bought a sport jacket and a tie.” “And what happened”, I asked. Marvin explains, “What happened? I’ll tell you what happened. The Man – the guy who sits at the end of the table, can’t be fifty-five, whose fingers are too clunky to use even a Wii, who’s always chewing on a pencil; that guy says, ‘Its garbage.’”

“That’s all?” I asked. “That’s all. Moves on to the next project. I’m looking around the room and nobody’s looking back at me. I might as well be dead.” “That’s tough”, I said trying to find the words to say. Marvin grumbled under his voice, “I might as well be back at my old job. At least there, nobody noticed me.”

I could hardly hear him again, but I know he’s really saying: It’s too hard. Nobody cares. I don’t need this kind of rejection after I worked so hard. Even when you are on the path, when you know your goals, when you are letting your passion drive you, sometimes you are going to go off the road.

I worked once with a running back in the NFL. He was at the top of his career, then one season, he began fumbling the ball. He’d get tackled and lose the ball. It became such a fear for him, that he was afraid to carry to carry the football at all, especially in crucial situations. I was able to work with him, but the problem plagued him for the rest of his career. Even worse, he took the problem into his personal life. After he retired from the NFL, he received all kinds of offers for business opportunities that he could get involved in. But, he decided not to take up any of them because he was afraid he would fumble it. His fear had become his vision in life. He was shrinking back from life, not rushing forward to grasp it. That’s the way Marvin was feeling as well.

“So do you really want to go back to your old job?” I asked Marvin. Marvin answered, “Yes. No. I mean, I don’t want to get dumped on like that again. What if I don’t have the talent anyway? Why get beat up all the time? This isn’t the first time I screwed up, you know. Even at the last job, they were always telling me what I did wrong.”

During the most difficult times in our lives, we are growing, changing, and learning, even when we don’t realize it.

Think about such a time in your life. It may be difficult to think about, but it will be worth the effort. (And the more you do it, the easier it will become.) Start with something that happened many years ago. How did you react? Did you lash out? Did you pull back within yourself for weeks or months? Did you reach out to others for help?

Now looking back years later, does it seem like a turning point in your life? What strengths did you gain from it?

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The Approval of Others

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IMG_4391Just imagine with me for a moment, that special day when everyone notices all your hard work, praises you and makes sure you know it.  What exactly do you expect will happen that day?  We spend an incredible amount of time and energy planning and working for that day, but why? It will never arrive, and even if it does, it’s not clear that anything special happens.

Perhaps the approval of every person in the entire world doesn’t need to be the goal of your life. Perhaps there is something more important. Perhaps your life has value with or without other’s approval.

Praise temporarily fills the void created by the feeling of not being loved and we experience pleasant emotions. Because we don’t know how to close this void we figure that we can only be happy when others approve of us.

“Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.” - Andrew Carnegie

The scriptures speak of the power of wise councel. There is a difference between listening to sound counsel and seeking the approval of others. Wise counsel will always direct you to finding your purpose and living it out. Wise counsel will always be more about you and your life’s direction and less about them and their agenda.

CHALLENGE: Consider today, living your life beyond the borders and limitations of those who surround you. Consider who you seek counsel from. Consider who you seek approval from. Consider rising to the challenge of being you. You have a purpose that is uniquely yours. Don’t you think it’s time you lived it out?

 

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