Are you perfectly happy where you are right now in life? If you answered yes, you can stop reading. For the other 99.99% of us, keep reading.
For the next two hours, notice your thoughts. How often do you think about how you don’t like something about your current circumstances? Maybe it’s your job (or lack thereof), your financial situation, your spouse or partner, your kids, friends, health, whatever.
Every negative thought is resistance to the way things are. It’s you thinking that things should be different. It’s a build-up of negative energy inside you. It’s your precious time and energy wasted.
And, needless to say, it’s not very productive.
All it does is ensure that things will remain exactly the way they are. And the more you resist and become entrenched in those thoughts, the more those situations will remain entrenched in your life.
You can take the easy road and play the victim and complain about how nothing ever changes. Of course, nothing changes if that’s all you think about.
You can relinquish any responsibility for your life and blame it on everybody and everything under the sun to further guarantee that nothing will change.
You can sit around and bitch and moan with other victims complaining about their lives. This group makes you feel a little better about yourself because you’ll appear “right” about the whole thing since everyone around you is doing the same. It’s the easy road and makes you an instant member of the “club” where, by the sheer act of complaining, you’re accepted. And acceptance from a group of people you don’t really give a shit about is soooo much more important than your personal happiness. Right?
Just don’t try it around anyone who knows that there’s another way – the folks that take responsibility for their lives. They won’t hang around very long because they know you’re full of crap and don’t want to be around your negativity.
How do you get exactly what you want from life?
1. FORGET about your current situation.
It exists and it sucks but so what? You know there’s something better for you out there.
Stop wasting your time and energy resisting/complaining about the way things are. Forget about the million things and people you can’t control. Focus on YOU because that’s all you can really control.
2. VISUALIZE and FEEL what you really want.
Write down, in excruciating detail, what you DO want. What would every minute of your day be like if things were exactly the way you want them to be? What time would you wake up? What does your bedroom look like, feel like? Who are you waking up next to? How do you feel when you get up? Where do you eat breakfast? What are you looking at? You get the idea. Do this for the whole day.
3. READ what you wrote in the step above every day.
Think about it during your day. Read it before you go to bed to get your subconscious thinking about it and working on it while you sleep.
4. MAKE A LIST of all the things that would have to happen to move from where you are now to where you want to be. Make it as detailed as possible.
Don’t write things like “make a million bucks to get out of the debt hole I’ve dug for myself.” Think more like “pay an extra $50 to one of my credit cards each month instead of going out to eat once.” Instead of “lose 50 pounds in the next three months,” think “eat a bowl of lightly sweetened oatmeal instead of a doughnut for breakfast.” Instead of “find the man/woman of my dreams,” think “get a nice haircut and dress in a way that makes me feel great about myself.”
Give yourself at least 10 minutes to sit down and write. Get creative. Ultimately, there’s nothing you can’t do.
WARNING: Do NOT let your monkey mind (MM) destroy this process. As soon as you start to think of great ideas, your MM will dream up every reason under the sun why you can’t do these things. It will call you bad names for even having these thoughts.
Remember that the job of the MM is to keep you safe and change is not safe for the MM. It may be very safe for you to make these positive changes but the MM has other ideas.
KEY: You are not your monkey mind!
5. If you have to, play the “worst case scenario” game.
To get the MM to shut up, every time the MM starts to tell you why you can’t do something, ask yourself, “If I did this, what’s the worst thing that can happen?” See it happen. Don’t stop the train of thought because you think it’s too horrible. The whole point is to show the MM that it’s not really that bad.
When you’re playing out the worst case, make it as bad as possible. Go down that really bad road and see what happens. Basically, if you’re not going to die, it’s not that bad. It’s something that you’ll learn and grow from and something that will make you a better person (really, I’ve been there too many times). It may not be fun to live through but you know you can do it. You’re a very strong person. Stronger than you ever realized.
Don’t continue in the comfortably uncomfortable life you’re in now in order to avoid the rock bottom low that will propel you to a consistent, heavenly high that you never could have imagined for yourself.
6. DO something about it.
Nothing will change until you get off your ass and DO SOMETHING. What one little, tiny thing can you do RIGHT NOW that would be a baby step toward the way you want your life to be?
Pick something – ANYTHING – on your list and do it today.
Tomorrow, do what you did today and do it every day so it becomes a habit. When the previous thing you’ve chosen is a habit, do the next thing on your list every day. If the next thing on your list is a one-time thing (making a phone call or having a difficult conversation), congratulate yourself for getting it done and move on to the next thing. And keep congratulating yourself.
It’s amazing how accomplishing one little thing makes you feel great about yourself and your ability to accomplish anything.
Nike had it right: JUST DO IT!!
While all these actions, in and of themselves, are very simple, we all know that they’re not very easy. And that’s why you’re still part of the 99.99% of people who aren’t happy with themselves or their situations.
Ultimately, happiness is a choice. You can choose to see all the beauty around you right now instead of seeking out what drives you crazy. Know that nothing will change if you don’t take this first step.
Change your outlook. Change your thoughts. Change your life.
This may sound like one more person spewing the same old advice but I’ve lived it. I know it works. I have gone through lows that I never thought I could face. Worst case scenarios that I swore I would never let happen. Well, they happened and they sucked and I’ve learned lessons that I could never learn from a book or blog or things outside of myself. All the things I learned from these books and blogs helped me to handle the shit that was hitting the fan at the time.
And now I’m living the life that I wrote about, the life that I visualized. And it’s kind of uncanny how the details that I wrote about have come to life (I’ve done this twice on a “change your life” scale). It hasn’t happened in any of the ways I imagined. Like we hear about all the time: The HOW is not important. The Universe will figure out the HOW for you while you continue to take action, learning from your results. Know that it’s possible.
Today – Notice what’s going on in your head and what’s coming out of your mouth and DO something about it.