This post is the second of two posts in response to the questions I received last week: What’s Your Most Burning Question? The topics covered in this set of questions and answers include relationships, career transition and how to believe in your dreams.
Question #6: “My question is why can’t I decide about who I want to be with. The one I have is dear to me, but he doesn’t match me in my purpose for life. I am emotionally attached to him. I am not attracted to him, but he is the one I call when I have time. I worry what would happen to him if I marry someone else. I worry if that someone else is going to work out for me or not.” ~ kept anonymous
All this worry is rooted in your mindset. I don’t know what books on self-improvement you’ve been reading, but that would be the first place to start changing it. Your mindset controls everything so start filling your mind with something good. Here are a few products I recommend:
Now to the real problem. You said you can’t decide who you want to be with? The solution: instead of deciding make a choice. Choose who you want to be with based on what you want. If you ask me why I blog and coach, I’d probably say, “because it’s something I want to do.” I don’t need to give any reasons.
It’s just what I want to do.
Here’s another way to look at it. When you make a decision, your decision is based on a reason:
Reasons > Decide > Act
But when you make a choice, there is no reason. There is only a choice:
Choose > Act
So you can keep making decisions until the cows come home and you still won’t be happy. Why? Because you’re making decisions based on your reasons. And you’re reasons for doing something are not going to make you any happier.
What will make you happy is to choose the person you want to be with – your choice is based on what you want. When you want something, you just want it – there are no reasons to explain why.
It’s like asking someone how they know if they’re in love? They can’t tell you. They just know.
So the real key here is to begin choosing what you want instead of deciding. If you let your reasons decide then you’re not in control, your reasons ARE. When I started coaching I didn’t start because of the reasons, I started because I wanted to do it, which threw Trisha for a loop. She was like why do you want to be a coach?
And I couldn’t give her any reasons – at least not any good ones because I just wanted to do it. That was it. So that’s what I told her, “I want to do it.” There weren’t any reasons.
On the other hand think about why a lot of people go to their job. They go to their job because:
- they have to pay the bills
- they need to make a living
- it’s the only thing they know how to do to make money
These are all reasons for going to a job, but they are not choices. Choices come from what you want – they come from the inside. If you want to be happier, then start choosing what you want.
Question #7: “I am an educator with over 22 years of experience. I have been ready to make a shift to teaching dance as a means to acquire fitness and wellness. I am very good at it!
My problem is, I feel stuck – a teaching job pays more right now but it does not bring me the joy I experience when I do my dance fitness program.How do I make my career change? I have been learning about personal growth, visualization, law of attraction and prosperity and goal setting. I just don’t know how to go from where I am to my dream profession.” ~ Belle
Hi Belle. I love this question. There are a few steps involved here, but this is how I made my career transition.
At the time I made my move I wasn’t really versed in goal setting so that should give you some comfort. I basically got started by digesting any and all information I could find on the The Science of Getting Rich (SGR). I studied the principles in that book as if my life depended on it.
One of the premises of SGR is that you grow out of your current environment. You do this by thinking and acting in a certain way. Since I didn’t really understand what Wattles meant, I just followed the instructions in the book and did the exercises. I also followed the teachings of several others including Bob Proctor’s SGR Program which at the time cost $2,000. (If you don’t want to spend that kind of money, the next best alternative is to check out Six Minutes to Success)
For obvious reasons I can’t share the whole book here (because you would need an entire course to do that). Instead, I’ll share what I feel are the three most important principles in SGR.
Create A Compelling Vision
Everything starts with a thought. We’re thought beings in a thought world so start thinking about what you want your world to look like. Start by creating a compelling vision. Spend at least five minutes every morning to map out your vision. Get this image clearly planted in your mind.
A compelling vision is an image of your ideal life for the future. It’s an image you can get emotionally involved with; something you can feel. If you don’t have a compelling vision then you won’t have a destination.
“A person who is thinking about a concrete and worthwhile goal is going to reach it, because that’s what he’s thinking about. Conversely, the person who has no goal, who doesn’t know where he’s going, and whose thoughts must therefore be thoughts of confusion, anxiety, fear, and worry will thereby create a life of frustration, fear, anxiety and worry. And if he thinks about nothing … he becomes nothing.” ~ Earl Nightingale
Do What You Can Where You Are
Do the best of what you can where you are. It took me some time to appreciate how important this is. Action is important if you’re going to move ahead, but keep in mind that it must be effective action. Action that is predetermined with intentional thought. You don’t want to be running around all over the place taking actions without any purpose.
Take actions that will improve your current situation and benefit the people around you. The more frequently you do this, the greater you expand and grow. Your action is like giving the Universe proof that you’re ready to expand and become more. And as you become more you outgrow your current environment and evolve into a new environment (your new career). It’s just as Wattles said,
“When an organism has more life than can be expressed in the functions of its own plane, it develops the organs of a higher plane, and a new species is originated.” ~ Wallace Wattles
As you’re taking effective action and growing, opportunities will start to come your way. In my case it began to show up as new job opportunities. When I was an engineer I had recruiters calling me in the office. Most of these opportunities were not in alignment with my vision, but as I persisted I began to hit the real gems. I landed an opportunity that helped me pave the path to my current career. I share more on this here: Will Vision Help You Escape the Rat Race?
Be Thankful for What You Have
Start to make it a habit to be thankful for everything you have right now. You can’t just do this once and a while, it’s got to be done consistently. It’s like this flood of good starts pouring in when you feel good – and gratitude gets you feeling good. The more consistently you feel good, the more attractive you become.
Question #8: “Love your blog, it looks very open and welcoming. My question for the day is, how do you best remain happy, relaxed, focused, in tune and without fear? How do you believe in your dreams enough to make them real?” ~ Ann Marie Dennis
Hi Ann. How do you live a life without fear? I don’t know that it’s possible to live a life that is completely without fear. It may be possible, but I’m not so sure. What I can tell you is how to live your life with a lot less fear.
Here’s the short answer: I focus on thoughts that bring me joy. I deliberately take time out of my day to focus on feeling good. Normally this is done in the morning. A practice I subscribe to is visualization as I’m sure you’re aware.
One way to do this more effectively is by using your unconscious mind. You steer your unconscious by making conscious choices. Your unconscious mind will take whatever you give it – but you’ve got to start by giving it better feelings. That’s the language of your unconscious mind.
In this video I share a real powerful technique to seed new thoughts into your unconscious mind. It has has made a tremendous difference in my life: The Unconscious Mind Power Series 3
How to believe in your dreams
If you’ve got to start with the first step. It may be visualization, writing your goal on a card or cleaning up the office you’re in. Whatever it is you’ve got to start somewhere.
Then get clear on what you want. Begin to crystallize the details of your dream. Write it out.
I was at a seminar in Universal City last year and saw some amazing speakers. One of them was the rich dad from the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. He said something that I’ll never forget,
“Always think on paper.” ~ Keith Cunningham
That would be a great start. Write out your goal, your vision or whatever it is until it’s crystallized in your mind. Then once you have it written out, start taking action and moving towards it. William James said:
“We need only in cold blood act as if the thing in question were real, and it will become infallibly real by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real. It will become so knit with habit and emotion that our interests in it will be those which characterize belief.”
And there lies the biggest secret to creating a belief in your dreams. You want to mix your mental image with emotion and habit. As you move toward your dream, your dream will move toward you creating the belief that your dreams will come true.
You may also want to read: What is Belief?
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