It’s a cliche, but can you answer it?  If you knew there was no way you could fail, what three things would you most love to do?

Write them down. These are the things we explored in the three part article on discovering your purpose. These are, potentially, your goals.

Did you know that in a 1970 study, a graduating class at one of America’s most prestigious Universities was interviewed about their goals. Today, 3% of that class earn more than the rest put together.

What was the difference that set those 3% apart?

No, it wasn’t that they had goals – about 60% of the class passed that one. It wasn’t just that they wrote them down, either. There were 10% that did that.

Those 3% of students, today multimillionaires, had goals, wrote them down, and took it one step further by reading them, 3 times a day.

And they achieved them.

You’re probably starting to wonder exactly what that has to do with the title of this article, right? Well, that final step, the one that made all the difference, is the one that impacts most powerfully on your belief system. The more often you hear something, the more likely you are to believe it. And it doesn’t have to be someone else doing the talking.  That’s the principle behind visualisation, affirmations and a whole lot of other techniques designed to help you make changes – and having been around for hundreds of years, if not more, there has to be something that works about them.

How can you take advantage of that? What beliefs would make the biggest difference to your life today, vs the life you’d like to have. If you’ve decided where you want to go, but are having trouble getting there, could it be time to stop and look at where you really believe you should be, as opposed to where you really WANT to be? Not from the point of view of revising your goals, (unless they don’t feel right to you anymore) but to see what’s stopping you getting there.

“What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve”. We’ve all heard it. How far along the journey are you? Has your mind wrapped itself around some big dreams? (if not, I recommend you read “The Magic of Thinking Big” – a short book with a powerful impact) If you’re not on your way to achieving them, then remember that anytime you look up at where you’re going, and face that goal, you’re still on the road, and you’re set up to take the next step forward.    It’s all about belief. What beliefs do you need to get rid of? What new ones can you set up that would help you go further? This is where self talk can help you so much to create your new reality, as well as uncover the hidden parts of your current one that are holding you back.

Bottom line, the reality you create for yourself is not just the one you dream of getting. It’s the one you convince yourself you deserve, and will not let go of. Write those goals down, read them at least daily, and learn to believe in yourself – for a better future.

Your imperfections are the best part of you. Forget what the magazines and TV ads tell you, the expectations that you’ve been taught to believe everybody achieves, are flat out unrealistic.

As a person, your strengths are one and the same as your individuality. There is nobody else alive today who thinks, acts, and believes exactly the same as you do. The most valuable thing you have to offer the world is not your ability to fit in with what everybody else thinks you should be. It’s not your ability to live up to the hype, marketing, and expectations that are put on you. What makes you unique and special is what you do differently, the twists that you put onto how you express yourself, and the quirks of personality that stand you apart from everyone else.

Most especially, the times when you go off the beaten path are the times when you most clearly express the truth of your inner self.

Nobody cares, two years after you’re gone, how clean you kept the house. Nor do they remember you for how well you followed in the footsteps of everyone else, finishing school, getting a job, getting married, raising kids, retiring, and never setting foot outside the guidelines laid down for you by society’s expectations. You are, and will be remembered for the things you did, said, and were that surprised people, shocked them, or made them think.

For some reason, there’s something in all of us that wants to fit in. We want to be accepted, to run with the crowd, and fade into the background. It’s easier that way. We work hard to file down the rough edges and slide smoothly into the mould that everyone else fits into. In doing that, we’re sacrificing the chance to make a difference, the opportunity to express something and achieve something that nobody else can. We celebrate the things that make us the same as everyone else, and revile the things that set us apart. But those are the very things that we need to embrace, celebrate, and delve into, so we can find the meaning in our own lives. Those quirks are the best expressions of the core of who you are. Most of all, they are the gateways to how you, as an individual, are most likely to make a difference to the world.

You’ll never be perfect, so forget about trying. Nobody else is ever going to achieve it either. But the ways you are imperfect are uniquely yours. Don’t close them away. Allow yourself to be an individual, apart from the crowd. Let yourself express the unique value that you have to offer, and embrace the idiosyncrasies that make you a true original.

[Unconventionality Rocks!  You are hereby invited to argue with me.  Am I wrong?]

There are burning desires and goals in most people’s lives. Most people even make efforts to achieve them. If you look at the success statistics, though, there’s a big drop off between those who start out to realise their goals and those who actually make it to living them.

Why?

It seems to be a universal law that the more strongly you want something, the more strongly you’re tested on how badly you really do want it. Little things you don’t really care much about, not much seems to stand in the way of them. Big things that could make a life or death difference to you, there’s pretty much a 100% chance that there’ll be not just one, but several obstacles in the way of you getting them. And not only that, but they’re likely to be real doozies!

I’ve been watching this pattern in my own life now for some time. Some things I’ve achieved, some things I haven’t. Nearly all of them I’ve had to fight for, and the bigger ones I’ve had to fight real hard to realise. I have no way of knowing which of the ones I didn’t get were just around the corner, or over the next hurdle, at the time I gave up and decided to move on to something else, like a quote I read somewhere that there are so many people who never knew how close they were to their goals at the time they gave up chasing them.

I started to imagine what my life would look like on those important issues if I had. You wouldn’t be getting this ezine. My book wouldn’t be done. My job would be filled by someone else. Come to think of it, my website wouldn’t even exist!!! I’d probably be going day by day through the motions, waiting for the weekend then spending it dreading the next week, if I even had a job at all… Not a pretty picture.

Looking at it that way, I’m suddenly glad I’ve been through some tough times. There’s a lot to be grateful for in my life, and having had to fight for it makes it just that much more worthwhile. Now, I’m chasing another dream of mine – involving a promotion at work. I know there are going to be obstacles, because this will put me into the category of people who are doing 100% of what they love at work, if I manage to get it. But if I never chase it, it’s not going to come to me. I’m looking forward to those difficulties just to show I’m serious about how badly I want it.

It’s amazing how changing your frame of reference can make things so much easier to face, isn’t it? What’s standing in the way of your dearest dreams right now? Is it something really big, because there’s something amazing and wonderful just the other side – and if it is why not just take that next hurdle? You never know, it might just be the last one!

Ever felt like you were being victimised by someone, especially someone in a position of power over you? It’s a horrible feeling – like your choices are being narrowed and bit by bit taken away. It feels like you have no control anymore, at it’s worst, and is fertile ground for stress, anxiety and depression.

It’s hard under that kind of pressure to remember that you have responsibility for your own life, let alone power over choices you make on a day to day basis.

I’ve been in a situation like this – workplace bullying.  The attacks got very, very personal, to the point that I hated having to get up and come in to work – at a job I used to love, and considering I still had fairly fresh memories of what it used to be like living without any work at all. I found myself sliding into depression, and coming close to tears whenever I spoke to anyone about it.

Then one morning, when I was just so tempted to call in sick, not to have to face it anymore, but knowing I had to force myself to go in, I came to a decision and came up with a plan to help me face it, working out what small steps I would take that day in my own defence. It helped to have had a couple of people on my side, who kept telling me that “they can’t do that”, so I had a couple of avenues to pursue. From being in physical pain from what was being done to me at work each day, I took 3 steps that day to turn my situation around, and let me tell you I was so glad I’d made myself do it. That process of starting the ball rolling highlighted several more avenues where the law, as well as company policy, was clearly and obviously on my side.

I stopped feeling so helpless.

It was a shock to realise how much power I had given that person over me, and how far I had allowed it to go before I pushed back. If I had started doing that a lot sooner, things may have been a lot diffferent for me (although equally it may also have been a lot harder to clear up, before all the proof of this personal ‘vendetta’ became obvious for anyone to see). I had to accept that I had allowed it to degenerate that far. At that point, I took back my own position of power and opened my eyes to choices I’d had all along, but hadn’t seen because I was busy stuck in the ‘victim role’.

My focus shifted from just plain surviving, back up the scale to damage control, and making sure that my records and reputation weren’t destroyed because of this person’s personal targeting of me.  From there, I took more steps to make the company live up to what their official policies said, and when they closed ranks and started working to get me fired, eventually managed to get transferred to another location, working with a whole other calibre of quality people.  Ironically, since then I’ve been called on to help several other people going through the same bullying situation, both in my organisation and outside of it.  I even discovered myself listed with an ‘authority ranking’ for workplace bullying on one of the main social media sites online!

None of these things seemed even like remote options back when I was feeling powerless and victimised. They were always there, but it took fresh eyes and a new perspective to find them. Now I wonder what other areas I’ve been similarly giving away power and limiting my own options as a result.

Are you standing firmly in your own power too?

Do you know anybody these days who doesn’t procrastinate? Seems like with all the pressures we’re under on a day to day basis, every one of us has things that we know we “should” be doing, but for one reason or another, just don’t. Especially when they’re things that ask us to face the weaknesses in ourselves. Let’s be honest. Who among us ISN’T more tempted by that delivery pizza than by the exercise bike gathering dust in the corner?

You know how hard it is to drive yourself to do that one thing that you’ve been procrastinating about. The longer you put it off, the harder it gets, until it’s either just not possible to put it off anymore, or you’ve given up. But doing some research for my www.self-positivity.com site the other day, I found some interesting research had been done on the topic. In particular, one study found that the key difference between procrastinators and non-procrastinators (if there is such a word) is simply the point of mental focus. Put another way, the people who get on with it are the ones who don’t focus on what has to be done, but who are focussed on WHAT THEY GET AT THE END OF IT. Results.

Think about it. Alarm goes off and you know you really should get up and exercise. It’s cold, you didn’t sleep well, you think about how hard it is to drag yourself out of the blankets, force yourself down the road to the gym, change, torture yourself with exercise that you don’t want to do and really don’t think you’ve got time for, only to have to shower again and get ready for work. No brainer what you’re going to do. It’s called a “SNOOZE” button.

On the other hand, if the alarm goes off, you wake up and go “holy cow it’s cold”, but you have a clear picture in your head of a dress you’re determined to fit into at a wedding coming up in a few weeks, (plus you know how good you’re going to feel after a good workout, nice and warm from your exertion and with energy to spare for the rest of the day) are you much more likely to get up?

For years we’ve been told by marketers that in order to sell anything, you need to remember that people don’t want to see features, they want benefits. Now it seems that this is how we can sell ourselves on something we want as well. Stop dwelling on the methods and processes of what you need to do, and put your focus firmly on what you’re going to get out of it.

As a long term, at-least-second-generation procrastinator myself, I can promise you it works!!!

After the exercises of the past 2 weeks, some of you will already have started finding a bit more about what kind of things/ causes/ activities you are drawn to. For those of you who aren’t, before we move on to this week’s topic, we just need to make sure that you haven’t been pushed too far, too fast – if you’re a perfectionist, or impatient to see results (like we’re all trained to be these days) it’s all too easy to do this; sometimes a bit more time is all that’s needed.

One of the reasons this series came as 3 articles, instead of one long one, was to make sure that as much as possible, you kept your focus on the week’s goals, and not too far in front of where you were at the time. Sometimes we focus so much on the destination, we stop seeing the road, and don’t notice that we’ve wandered totally off it, or worse, are just about to trip over a dirty great rock!

Do a quick check on your body. Is it feeling relaxed as you read this, or is there tension lurking in a few odd spots (neck, shoulders, back are the common ones)? If so, spend a bit more time getting rid of it before moving on to the next step.

Once you’re feeling ok there, sit back and close your eyes (finish reading this paragraph first, though), and look at the state of your mind. Are thoughts flying every which way, going around and around in circles, or have you got it down to the point where there are only the occasional one or two that float past you, and you’re able to set them aside for later, not letting them interfere with your focus?

If both of these are green to go, then you should be open to seeing those hints and messages we’re looking for from the timeless part of you. The only thing remaining is to learn how to find and interpret them.

I’d like to start off by saying that in this process, first and foremost you need to trust YOUR instincts. We each build meaning and association into things based on our own experiences, so if I suggest a possible interpretation that doesn’t feel right for you, or doesn’t ring true, then go with your own ‘gut feeling’ as to what it might be. There is no better expert on what is right for you than your own instincts. Trust them.

Next step is to stay as much as possible in that clear frame of mind that you’ve worked so hard to get to, and NOTICE things, especially things that come up repeatedly. As an example, if 3 of my friends tell me that I need to read a certain book, I’ll start watching out for it in second hand stores or at the library. More often than not, I’ll find it soon after, because this is a message that it is something I need right now. Off the cuff comments that people make, like “I heard there’s a really great ________ up the road from here – you should check it out” or “you should really do __________” are great, because often they’re straight from their own unconscious awareness of things – unedited.

When the same thing comes up a few times, open your mind to the possibility that this is could be something you are being guided to… use your next meditation to hold the thought of doing it and see what comes up. Occasionally, you’ll feel resistance to doing it based on exactly the blocks it would help you to release – follow the resistance and ask if this is something telling you you’re not ready, or if it’s something you need to overcome. It’s the “still, small voice of your heart” you’re trying to hear. With practise, you’ll learn to distinguish it from your own conscious thoughts, and when that time comes, you’ll have a permanent guide as to the right path for you to take, whatever you do.

One thing more: to make sure you’re in a situation where you CAN hear about the things that you need to, start trying a few new things. If there are activities you’ve always thought would be fun but never actually done, now’s the time. Go for it.

If you get an impulse to do something in particular (horse riding, ice skating, going down the local cafe, whatever) as much as possible, try to do it. You never know what’s around the corner – and your heading to that place and that time could be how the universe has arranged for you to meet up with someone in particular who will help you take your life path on to that next step – or could even just be as simple as a conversation you overhear that gives you a great idea for something you’d like to do. Unless there’s a good reason not to – try it. There’s an incredible joy in letting your life flow with your heart, mind and spirit/soul in total alignment.

I hope this article has helped. If you want to read more about how to listen for that “still, small voice” the book I would recommend as having helped me most on that path myself, is “The Celestine Prophecy” and “The Tenth Insight” – its sequel, by James Redfield.

Last week we covered the need for you to get rid of tension and stress out of your body as a first step. This week the focus shifts to the mind. Once you have a clear connection body – mind – spirit you will be able to see and hear much more clearly where your true talents, inclinations and purpose lie.

…continued from last week

Once you feel you are starting to drain tension out of your muscles and can think a bit clearer, you can start using the time to meditate. For those of you who’ve never done this before, an excellent way to start is simply by putting your entire attention on your breath. Don’t force it in, or out, or make yourself do “in for the count of 3, hold for 2, out again for 3” – those techniques are a good way to quiet the mind when it won’t shut up but our aim here is different – you want to settle into your NATURAL thought patterns as much as possible, so you can see the thoughts that come up – your “normal” state of being.

These thought patterns will be the key to finding what direction your true interests lie.

When you are a) not stressed, and b) clear enough mentally to notice what’s going on around you, your mind will start working in such a way as to point out the things that YOU think of as important, and/or interesting. This filtering function happens all the time, you just don’t notice it.

There is normally way too much going on at any one time for any of us to be able to cope with the “information overload” – so your mind separates it out according to your own priorities. Have you ever heard your name spoken in a conversation across the room that you weren’t listening to? That’s an example. Your name is one of the most important sounds you can hear, and almost guarantees attention.

Same thing when you decide that you’re going to buy a car of a particular model and colour. Suddenly, you see them everywhere. For women, you probably know that after you find out you’re pregnant, you see more mothers and mothers-to-be than you ever have before. You’ve created a new ‘filter’, and your mind now classifies this as something to notice. Remember, too, that all the while you’ve been doing these exercises, your subconscious mind has been working to engineer the situations that will answer the question you posed to it last week:

“What are my interests?” or “What is my passion?”

It’s amazing how many coincidences come up once you start a train of thought like that – especially if you don’t hold on to it consciously, but let it sink to the level it can work at. By focusing on yourself, relaxing, and calming your mind, you’ve been using one of the most effective formulas out there for achieving anything – so effective it used to be called “magic”, before we learnt a bit more about how our minds worked.

If you’re interested, these ‘coincidences’ are also discussed in the Celestine Prophecy – a book I highly recommend. So, once again, your focus is to meditate, calm your mind, and let your thoughts as much as possible follow their natural inclination. If this is difficult, there are 3 possible reasons. First, you may not have got enough tension out of your body. If you are still feeling stressed, spend a bit more time on that step. Remember, this is the rest of your life we’re talking about. There’s no rush. Take it at your own pace.

Second: your mind may have a lot of unlearning to do. If you’ve been living “on the edge” for quite a while, it might take a similar while to come back down. If you can’t be patient enough for that, get someone else into the process. A coach, a counsellor, a friend – whatever seems to work best for you.

Third: you might be working against a long held belief. If, for example, your passion is for motorbikes, and you were continually taught to avoid danger – including bikes – as you were growing up, you might need to redefine the way you look at risk. Go back to the lesson on self-talk in the free course and read through it, and/or get the help I mentioned under number two.

The added benefit once you get through the exercises this week is that you should have a lot more energy to do those things you discover. By allowing a direct flow spirit to mind to body, you are tapping into an unlimited source. Enjoy it. I certainly do. There is no better “high” than being caught up in something you love and that you feel is right for you to do – is part of your purpose. (It makes decisions easier too, once you see the bigger picture!)

Next week, after a bit more practise on this, we’ll cover the kind of ‘signs’ to watch out for and how to understand the messages you’re getting to guide you to your true purpose and fulfilment.

Until then, relax, still your mind, and don’t forget to enjoy the journey!

How fast does your day go by? Does it drag past, to the point where you count down to half-past five (or six, whatever) or does it flash past so fast you can’t believe it’s THAT time already? How satisfied do you feel at the end of it?
If you answered 1. to the first question, and “not much” or something similar to the second, chances are the ladder of success you’ve been climbing is leaning against the wrong wall. But what about how to find the right one?

Many of the self help books on the market tell you to follow your passion to find true success… but what if you don’t know what that is? If you’re like me, for many years I was so busy studying, then looking for a job, then trying to get ahead in the ones I got, that I didn’t have time to stop and think about what I enjoyed, let alone go out looking for it. Is this you?

If it is, then the first VITAL step towards finding and living your dream life is to take time out of each and every day just for YOU. Doesn’t matter if it’s only 20 minutes lying in bed in the morning before you get up, or in the evening before you go to sleep. Ideally it should be at least half an hour, during the time of day when you feel most clear-headed and when you don’t have anything urgent or scheduled waiting for you afterwards. In other words, time when you can concentrate without other issues or commitments interfering.

For the first week or two (three if you need it) your focus will be to relax. Read, sunbathe, meditate, take a bath, play some soft, soothing music; anything that lets you switch off and drain the tension out of your muscles. If you can afford it, get a massage once a week (some massage schools offer discount rates if you let their students work on you, supervised of course)

This is important because stress releases adrenaline that accumulates in your system over time, and when your body is perpetually hyped up, your mind can not relax. What you are aiming to do is to convince your body that you are not under attack, (de-stress) and get into the habit of nurturing your body as well as your mind and spirit. If you’re an “adrenaline junkie” like me, learning to relax will be hard for the first while, but believe me it will pay off to do.

…to be continued next weekend

[This is an article from my original Self Positivity Newsletter, slightly updated to make it current]