Impossible situations in our lives are often created because we are off- purpose. In fact, most people seem to have no idea what their true purpose is. Still, many people seem to know their purpose. We often envy these people because their purpose seems so clear. The truth is that purpose becomes clear when we are ready to express our Greater Self. Each one of us has a purpose and a chosen life from the moment we are born.
In order to discover our purpose or creative intention, we must believe and trust that Creative Intelligence is seeking to create through us. Whatever our field of endeavor, whatever our desires, if we devote our strength to the things we feel suited for and attracted to, something inside us will tell us that it is in keeping with our creative intention. When we feel compelled to do anything in life, even though it may seem trivial in comparison to the accomplishments of others, this is our true creative intention.
Most impossible situations in life are the result of being off course. We are not fulfilling our creative intention, but instead we are trying to force something to happen that is not keeping with our life purpose.
We receive our life energy from Creative Intelligence in two elements: the mind and the body. The mind expresses itself through the body as well as moves the body. The two are inseparable. The continuation of human life is impossible with only one of the two. It is essential to understand that when we unify the mind and the body, our power to overcome the impossible and create the possible is unlimited. This includes illness, financial problems and relationships.
The mind and body are not exactly the same, nor are they entirely different. The body is the visible portion of the mind. When we look at a tree, we forget that half the tree is below the ground. The limitations of the body are largely set in the mind.
FOCUSING OUR CREATIVE ENERGY
Each one of us has an energy source where we can focus our power of creativity. This energy source is at our center of balance. Physicists have defined the center of gravity of an object as an infinitely small point on which an entire object can be balanced. This is not only just an intellectual concept nor is it merely a physical location in the body, but a dynamically active center of balance and stability. This centeredness of power affects everything in our life. It may be difficult to comprehend intellectually, but you can experience this mind and body integration through focus.
Creative energy that can overcome any impossible situation is capable of infinite expansion and contraction, which can be directed by but not contained by the mind. It is not merely a concept but a real force that can be intuitively perceived and mentally directed. Only our imagination limits its potential.
Individuals who perform great feats such as athletes, artists, and various professionals use this creative energy to excel. We can optimize our ability to turn the impossible into the possible by doing the same. This one of the ways we can remove the lead weights of impossibility.
So much of our lives are spent off center. We are not doing what we want to do or what we are created to do, but rather, what we think we should do. When we are focused on what we really want, not what we think we should have or do our vision becomes clear, and that clarity creates our point of power.
TALENT – YOUR CREATVE INSTINCT
We are all born with innate talents and abilities. It may be only a mere hobby or a pastime, or it may be undeveloped from neglect, but everyone is uniquely gifted to do something better than someone else. These talents usually come so easily that they tend to be taken for granted or undervalued. The difference between talents and skills is that skills are acquired, whereas talents are inborn. Talent is not something acquired at school or learned on the job. Talents are unique combinations of inborn skills. Like fingerprints, no two people’s talents are alike, but they are so much a part of us that they are sometimes hard to recognize. They become apparent when we pursue our goals.
How do you know what talents you possess? Begin by asking yourself what you enjoy. We are inwardly draw to activities that can make use of our talents, though it may be somewhat vague at first. Because talents are with us from birth, they usually manifest early in our lives. Recent science indicates that brain connections happen at an early age. The neurons in the brain actually show the physical movement of these connections occurring in the brains of babies in the womb and throughout infancy. These connections can be stimulated and therefore
increased in number if the mother sings repetitive songs and repeats numbers and words.
The fact that the neurons in our brains make their connections primarily in the womb through our early years is why young children can learn multiple languages, yet adults will have more difficulty learning new languages or even changing their accents. Whatever we learned in our early years will enhance certain skills that become an indelible talent. Young boys, who play with blocks, toy cars, and trucks at an early age, often gravitate toward the mechanics of cars. A teenage boy may be found working under the hood of a car before he can even drive a car. Some children may develop a natural propensity for music long before they can play an instrument because they were exposed to music more often when they were infants.
Once our key stimulation has affected our brain connections, we will do exceedingly well at almost anything that is a repetition of that skill or talent. From infancy on, we become more and more talented in those specific areas for the rest of our lives. Unfortunately, many of us put our best talents aside and do what everyone else thinks we should do. The talent might get less stimulation, but it never goes away.
So many people are stuck doing jobs that are not suited for them. They are doing jobs that not only do not connect with their purpose or passion, but they do not use their best talents. Take for example family businesses, where the children will eventually take over the business, Unfortunately, some children are molded by their parents to enter careers or family businesses that are not in keeping with the child’s true purpose or creative intention. This could be a serious mistake that can create a long period, if not a lifetime, of unhappiness.
FINDING PURPOSE
Why you do something is more important than how you do it. Purpose is the overall reason for our actions. Goals are the attainment or specific steps along the way. Your goal may be to operate a business, but your purpose is to provide a service to others. Your goal might be to have a five-bedroom house with a family room and a swimming pool, but the purpose of buying the new house is so that your family can enjoy the space together. The purpose in buying the new home would be for the intangible pleasure and happiness. The goal is to find a house with the specific specifications. It is important to distinguish the difference between our purpose and our goal.
Many people, when asked, will say that all they care about is earning money. If earning money to buy things we enjoy is not our most important purpose in life, then what is our purpose? Is it to get more things, or is it to live a more meaningful life. Purpose is the meaning you attribute to your goals and actions. The meaning we give to all our actions comes from within us when we ask ourselves why we want something. Purpose is why we want what we want. The goal is what we want. Purpose is the primary reason, and therefore the motivating factor, in our lives.
Purpose is seen as a mission or an intangible reason behind our actions. This is why corporations not only set goals, they first make a “mission statement”, which is their statement of purpose. If you do not know what your purpose is, ask yourself, “What is it that I keep thinking about and why do I think about it? What have I always wanted to do but haven’t done yet, and why do I consistently desire it?” It may not even be clear to you yet, but thinking about it will help you bring it to the surface. By defining your purpose, you will have a way to gauge whether you are on track with your life. Unfortunately, we often measure
success by material possessions or status, but the true measure of success is fulfilling our life purpose.
Even if you think you would be happy with certain material possessions or a certain career status, you may not realize how much more happy and fulfilled you would be if you went after your real passion, which is always linked to your purpose. One of the ways to discover if you are on purpose is to ask yourself, “Would I still expend this energy if I didn’t have to work for a living? Would I do this, even if I were not getting paid?” If you ask this, over time, you will come to a conclusion about whether your life is on purpose.
Happiness is not tangible. The key to happiness lies in having a purpose that is not just about getting what we want. When people look for higher meaning in their livers, they often gravitate toward the pleasure of giving to others. People tend to realize later in life that beyond having what we need, the key to true happiness lies in exercising our capacity to give rather than get. If our purpose is beyond the game of having more and getting ahead, we can focus on helping others and find true happiness. Then we re no longer defining our worth by how much money we have or how to get ahead, but rather on who we are as our Greatest Self.
CREATING WHAT WE WANT
Before we begin a long trip or a vacation by automobile, we usually check out the automobile to make sure it is in condition to make the trip. We change the oil, check the tires, and tune up the engine. Only when we are sure that everything is functioning correctly do we feel a sense of security that we will have a safe trip.
Life is much the same. As we travel on our journey of life, we must make sure of the ability and strength of the vehicle in which we are traveling.
We must check all the parts of ourselves that will make the journey as safe and secure as possible. In short, we must put ourselves in order and make sure we are not leaking our strength and ability, but have full power to make the journey.
Creativity planning our lives involves making an assessment of where we have been, where we are now, and where we want to arrive. Asking ourselves the following questions will allow us to do a reality check of where we are now and where we want to be.
What
What do I want, what is the goal?
What is the tangible/measurable outcome I want? What are the obstacles?
What are the intermittent steps/intermittent goals? What must I give up or change?
What must I do right now to help myself?
Why
Why do I want these (intangible benefits)? Why do I have a passion for this?
Why does this give me pleasure?
How
How can I accomplish this? How can I create this?
How can I find others who have achieved this?
How do I know what steps to take in the beginning?
When
When will I start?
When will I be at each stage? When will I reach it?
Where
Where will it take me?
Where am I now in relation to where I want to go? Where do I find my resources?
Who
Who can help me?
Who can teach me?
Who will support me?
Who will I celebrate with?
CREATIVE ENERGY
How do we tap our creative energy to move us toward getting what we want? First we need to tap our creative genius, and then we need to focus in the right direction. Scientists have been telling us for years that we only use about 10 percent of our brain. What about the rest? How can we use more of our brains?
Have you heard of right-brain/left-brain interaction? This is how we can use more of our brainpower, by stimulating the use of both sides of our brains. The left side of the brain controls linear thinking such as
mathematical ability, logical reasoning, tasks, and movements. The right side of the brain is the creative side, controlling conceptual reasoning, receptivity, feeling, and sensing. Scientists have also said that less than 5 percent of people have the natural automatic tendency to use both sides of their brains interactively. Most people shift back and forth from the linear to the creative sides of their brains, but remain in either side without readily accessing the opposite side and allowing one to interact and influence the other. We have the ability to use our brains more interactively; we just need to use techniques that require us to use both sides of our brain at once.
When we first wake up from sleeping, we tend to be more in the right side of the brain. If we didn’t have schedules, we’d start our day more slowly. This is why we may seem to be procrastinating when we are just floating around in the right side of our brain.
A business consultant named Janelle Britain suggests that people who have difficulty getting in gear can trigger the left side of their brain by working a crossword puzzle at the breakfast table, especially if they set a strict time limit on completing it. Another left-brain exercise for the morning would be to get out your Day Planner. As you use the Day Planner to unload the linear mental data in your conscious mind, you will free up your conscious mind to let creative ideas come forward as well.
If you find yourself getting exhausted mentally, take out some paper and start doodling. You might actually sketch out what your linear mind is trying to sort out. This is the way to integrate the use of your brain. There are numerous techniques that we can use to brainstorm.
When you unload your conscious mind from linear data, you free your mind for creative thinking. If there is too much linear date in the way, it
will block your creative flow. Once you empty the overloaded data, you can strike a balance in your right-brain/left-brain thinking.
So many people keep their minds full of facts saying, “Oh, I can remember that,” but trying to hold on to lots of information blocks their ability to be creative. It blocks their ability to bring creative ideas into the conscious mind. Now that we are in the information age, we can use our organizer books and computers to store all that stuff. Give your mind a chance to expand by using all of your brain and letting the dynamics of creative energy expand your horizons.
IMAGINATION CREATES POSSIBILITIES
In our society, imagination is an underdeveloped resource. By setting up a positive image of what we want, our beliefs will facilitate us in getting what we want. Visualization and positive affirmations are the tools we can use to help us to create new possibilities.
By using visualization to see your goal in a completed manner, you will eliminate or certainly reduce the stress of trying to achieve something you wouldn’t ordinarily believe could be yours. Psychologically, if you can accept the end result, you will be able to be more relaxed and creative because you won’t be trying to force something to happen. Instead, by imagining it in your mind as something you already have, you can have it almost effortlessly.
When you are trying too hard to force something to happen, your energy is distorted by too much tension that comes from feeling desperate or perhaps being fearful. This underlying energy is subtly affecting your relationship with people around you, and subtly affecting your resources in an unfavorable and distorted manner. Something to remember is, less effort creates more results.
IMPRINTING WHAT WE VISUALIZE
Visualization or applied imagination is one of the most significant tools we can use for change. It is the process of maintaining a thought long enough so that the mental picture we create evokes an emotional response. The emotion causes conviction, and conviction causes reality. Thus, thought plus emotion creates conviction. Conviction creates reality.
When you focus your mind on the result you want your brain will facilitate desirable directions and opportunities that will ultimately get you where you want to go. Visualization has a more profound impact on your subconscious mind than you might realize. Your subconscious mind does not distinguish between whether you are imagining something or actually experiencing it. You can make changes in your opinions, beliefs, and levels of expectation by vividly imagining the experiences and circumstances you select.
The only kind of imagery that will alter the subconscious image of reality is experiential imagery. Therefore, it is beneficial to create an image that has movement, like a film, not a snapshot. You must clearly identify yourself with the imagery. If you can’t see yourself being, doing, or having it, you won’t get there. Active visualization, with yourself in the picture, is a key step in the process of transforming your visualization into reality.
SELECT AND AFFIRM WHAT YOU WANT
We are constantly creating when we use our imagination, but when this activity is not appropriately selective, we may tend to limit our possibilities by capturing images from our past and creating the same
situations in the future. To avoid creating our future out of past limitations, we must actively imagine the future we desire with ourselves as the key player.
Next, we can solidify these images of what we want by affirming them with quality thoughts, which will validate and confirm the images as true for us. The actual process of applying affirmations and imagery is called imprinting. Imprinting plants the image we want in our minds as real and believable. Our faith and belief is part of the natural process. When we expand our minds with faith and belief in creating what we want, we open a gateway to unexplored paths and surprising results.
Some people have difficulty getting a clear visual picture in their mind. If so, they are likely to be people who hear more or feel more than they actually tend to visualize. The people who are less visual can build into their images the learning style that works best for them, such as auditory or feeling. If this is true for you, jut concentrate on the feeling or focus on sounds during your visualization exercises.
EXPANSION AND CONTRACTION OF CREATIVE ENERGY
If you clearly focus on the result, than all the related facts and ideas that support the idea will come flowing forth, especially if you write or diagram your thoughts. All forms of energy must be focused and harnessed toward the result you want.
A book by Robert Fritz called The Path of Least Resistance describes the creative process as energy that always goes toward what you envision. In other words, if you get a clear picture of where you are right now, your current reality, and then focus on what you want, your creative energy will always direct you on the path of least resistance
toward what you want. This is a simple law of nature regarding all energy.
For example, a river will simply flow around rocks as its energy is directed toward the sea, roads go around mountainous terrain rather than over it on the way to a town, electrical energy rushes through a coiled and tangled power cord to a light bulb, and thus to the path of least resistance. Therefore, if you create a positive tension between your current reality and where you want to be, your life force will do whatever it needs to get you there. The key is to keep your eye on the goal, sending your energy toward what you want.
What we tend to do so often is take our eyes off the goal, in effect, turning our light switch on and off, over and over again. This interrupts the creative process that would automatically guide us on the right path. We tend to lose momentum, like the person who starts a diet during a holiday time of overeating and then wonders why he or she gained weight, gets discouraged, and quits.
Results are on the way, but we must keep our momentum up, rather than turning the momentum of the creative process on and off. If we have what appears to be a setback, we must give the energy of the creative process a chance to show us how to adjust our course. Robert Fritz refers to this as create and adjust.
Applying this concept of the creative process to the methods of innovative thinking where we use the right-brain/left-brain thinking, we can use the right side of our brain for scanning creatively through out left-brain database. Next, we can use the left side of our brain to logically sort all the facts to be considered, but we should always remember to check our conclusions and/or ideas with the right side of our brain again to know what is intuitively right or true for us.
By incorporating our intuition and other right-brain senses, we become emotionally motivated by our compelling purpose and passion. This process will happen automatically for us if we give the creative process a chance to work. What generates our creative energy is our application of the right amount of positive stress or tension. We create the right amount of energizing tension when we clearly focus on the difference between our current reality and our vision of what we want. Keep your eye on the goal, and the laws of natural energy will move you automatically on the right path toward your goal.
TURN CONTRACTION INTO EXPANSION
The spiral of impossibility will carry us down into a black hole of failure if we don’t change our thinking. Our own negative thinking, or stinkin’ thinkin’, as the noted motivational speaker Zig Ziglar prevents us from expanding our creativity.
When faced with disappointment and difficulty, we have a choice in life of either expanding or contracting our power. Ultimately, we will choose to expand our power, having the behavioral flexibility to change and do whatever it takes to get what we want. In order to change, we must take action without hesitation when the time is right. Since action leads to the possibility of failure, it is easy to see why so many people stay stuck in impossible situations. Often we choose to contract or depress our creative energy, and we become afraid to take action.
The key to freedom lies in the understanding that there is no way we can fail in the long run, and that the human spirit, or Greater Self can never fail. The Created Self experiences failure because of faulty perception and actions. The good news is that failure is only permanent if we make it so. We begin to understand that all action, whether we
perceive it as failure or not, produces a positive benefit in that we have a greater understanding of our actions and ourselves.
Julia Cameron, a successful filmmaker, refers to her own story in her book, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. Her story is a great example of turning what appears to be contraction into expansion. She tells us that gain can be disguised as loss, and that if artists realized this, they would use any losses as tools to redirect themselves toward their ultimate goals. She had heard for years, from film director John Cassavetes, “Stop complaining about the lousy curves you get thrown, and stretch, reach for what you really want. In order to catch the ball, you have to want to catch the ball.”
In short, she was repeatedly told, “If you want to see your films made, you must first sell yourself as a writer and then if one of your scripts is made, and if that film is a hit, and if the climate warms up a little, then you might get a shot at directing.” She listened to this conventional wisdom for a long time, racking up loss after loss, writing script after script.
Finally, after one loss too many, she began to look for the other door, the one she had refused to walk through. She decided to catch the ball. She became an independent filmmaker. Ms. Cameron took matters into her own hands, used her money from writing for Miami Vice, and assembled the basic equipment she needed for filmmaking. She went onto succeed at filmmaking and as a film writer, producing endless features, short films, documentaries, docu-dramas, teleplays, and movies of the week.
Through the process, Ms. Cameron realized she loves movies, loves making them, and would not let her losses take her down. Lastly, she said, “I learned when hit by loss, to ask the right question – “What next?”
instead of “Why me?” She asked herself, “How can I create what I want?”
The choice we make between contraction and expansion is predicated on whether or not our desire to change is based on moving toward something we want and love, or away from something we fear. What drives you? Fear or love? Have you ever asked yourself this question? Does what you do in life come from your love of what you are doing, or from your fear of losing something you value such as your money, your mate, or job?
PERCEPTION INFLUENCES POSSIBILITIES
Take a look at the above drawing. Now, let me ask you a question. What do you see? Do you see a convex line or a concave line? Which is it? Some would argue for either perception. However, the line has two qualities. It is both convex and concave. The two qualities are the same and exist side by side. Like the half glass of water, it is all a matter of perception. Perception limits or increases our ability to use our power to keep ourselves in impossible situations or to change them. Before we can change any situation, we must first change our perception.
Changing our perception requires being open to expansion, not being blocked by withdrawing into a rigid and contracted state. At the time we are the hit with disappointment, we need to avoid tightening our reins
out of fear. Rather, we must open the channels of creativity fully, allowing new input from an expanded circle of possibility. If we get stuck, we need to give ourselves a little nurturing and then head out on a journey for new input. The methods for stimulating the journey are many, including taking a walk, riding a bike, exercising, meditating, diagramming ideas on paper, and working with our dreams.
Exercise is an excellent right-brain/left-brain integrator because we are moving our physical body and at the same time perhaps counting or concentrating with our left brain in some way. Find what works best for you in stimulating your creative genius, which will give you the strength to overcome your obstacles.
FINDING YOUR “CHOKE POINT”
We’ve had years of programming telling us that mistakes are punishable, therefore risk taking is unwise. Many parents, friends, business associates, and teachers want us to stay where they feel we belong. Then, as soon as we have difficulty, we tend to allow the beliefs of others to be reinforced by thinking they were right. The next steps we try to take will be taken stiffly, as we contract ourselves in what has now become our own resistance to change. Remember resistance to change is nothing more than hardening of the attitudes. Rather than viewing this as our “choke point”, a point where we tend to choke up or stay stuck, we can view this as the beginning of a golden opportunity for us to break through to success. It is our choice, depending on how we choose to perceive it and use it.
Granted, tough times are initially uncomfortable, but we must strike the right balance of allowing enough emotion to feel the depth of the situation, yet realize there is always something positive in whatever is
happening to us. If we do not control our emotions with some clarity, we will reduce the effectiveness of our logical reasoning. On the other hand, we should not linger very long. As Julia Cameron stated in her book, The Artist’s Way, “Pain that is not used profitably and quickly solidifies into a leaden heart, which makes any new action difficult.”
No matter how positive we are there will always be challenges. Earlier, we talked about the ebb and flow if life. Life’s cycles are like waves in the ocean. Each one has its peak, but it also must have a valley. We have the opportunity to ride like a surfer, skipping from the top of one wave to another, at just the right moment of opportunity if we will allow ourselves to go with the ebb and flow. The question we must ask ourselves is do we want to perceive our point of challenge as our choke point or our turning point for a breakthrough to greater opportunity?
CYCLE OF INTENTION – ATTENTION
Intention Creates Attention
Once you are clear about your intention, the only thing you need to pay attention to and invest in are those things that support your intention. Whatever you give your energy to is what you will have more of. Our intention is our overall purpose.
If you don’t have a clear intention, you will lose focus. Clear out all the debris in your mind, and clear out all the physical debris around you that could interfere with your creative focus. This includes well-meaning advice from friends, mates, family, TV, newspapers, political and religious and authority figures. The result is that whatever attention you pay to these sources now becomes your intention.
However, if we don’t have a clear intention of what we want and where we want to go, then others will decide what we will pay attention to. Since we are paying attention to what the outside world draws our attention to, it becomes our intention and we go around in circles. The essential principle in creating successful habit patterns is to choose our intention in every area of our lives.
Let’s imagine we have no particular intention on the kind of relationship we want. Since we must be in the circle somewhere, we end up in the attention mode rather than the intention mode. Our focus is forced upon us, based on whatever the outside world determines. Any individual who comes along and can get our attention becomes the focus of our life, or our intention for that relationship.
Now let’s say we know the kind of person we want. Our focus automatically narrows considerably. We invest our attention in those individuals who match our intention. We constantly choose the kind of person to invest our intention in. Consciously choosing the people that match our intention shifts our energy away from undesirable relationships and draws us together with other positive, creative individuals. The clearer you are on what your intention is, the more power you will have.
INTENTION IS WHY WE CHOOSE OUR DIRECTION
Intention is nothing more than conscious decision. The good news is if you will make the decision, your subconscious will make the provision. Everything that happens in our lives is perfect for us in some way. If we lose sight of this and focus too much on the methods we have been told to believe in, we will limit our subconscious minds from providing us with innovative solutions.
Why we do something is more important than how we do it. The why is our intention, and the how is the method. The method is not as important as the why. When we are focused on the why, the method reveals itself to use in an easy, stress-free manner.
Life is a journey. If you wanted to take a trip, you would have to have a reason for the trip. This is your intention or the why. Your choice of transportation would be your method of achieving your intention. Each life intention involves many choices regarding methods. The next thing to consider is whether to take the long route or the short route. Which direction shall we take? Is there a right direction and a wrong direction, or are some just easier than others? If we are focused on the why and not the how or the method, our Greater Self will take care of all the details.
We must look at what our true intention is. A clue here is that many intentions are unconscious. In other words, we made a choice earlier in life (based on survival) and even though we say we want one thing, we are actually moving toward another. We may say we want money, but our survival mechanism says we should not take financial risks. We may want a relationship, but our survival mechanism says that we don’t want to be hurt. Our true intention may be hidden, yet is constantly revealed in actions. Therefore, before taking any action, we must look at our true intention. The easiest way to do this is to ask, “Is my intention a ‘have to’ or ‘should’ or is something I really want to do?” The answer to this will give you a clue to your true intention.
VALUES – KEY TO MOTIVATION
Our reason for wanting to create anything in our lives must be true to our values; otherwise our intent will be distorted and subject to failure. Our values are our truth, therefore our values are our proof that what we
want is what we are willing to direct our attention and energy consistently toward.
The key to success is to have dominant thought patterns that are totally aligned with what you want instead of what you don’t want. If you are thinking about what you don’t want, it becomes the dominant thought in your head that drives your brain’s neurology. To the extent that you focus on what you don’t want, you will create it. If you want money but focus on avoiding poverty, you will consciously create poverty. Your dominant thought would cause you to miss possibilities for what you want because you are looking for what you don’t want.
When we focus on what we want, our values, we will react strongly to anything that pulls us away from it. Moving toward values determine what we pay attention to. Moving away from values determine what we avoid. You will move toward what you truly want (pleasure) or away from what you don’t want (pain or conflict). Values are the key to motivation. Values determine how we spend our time, money, attention, and energy. Put simply, you will end up doing what is important to you and not doing what is not important to you.
Values motivate us to manifest our goals, and goals are the means we use to manifest what we value. Goals create positive pressure. Setting a goal acknowledges to your subconscious mind that where you are not where you want to be. Our values and goals must be aligned. For example, if your goal is to make a lot of money in your business, but you have an opposing value that money is really not that important, or that it is wrong to earn too much money, you will fail simply because you have opposing or conflicting values.
GOALS ARE AIMLESS WITHOUT PURPOSE
Here’s how the scenario goes:
Right decision, wrong time. Wrong decision, right time. Wrong decision, wrong time. Right decision, right time.
We can either realize these points after something has gone wrong, when it’s too late, or we consciously use these points in advance to appropriately change or alter our choices.
Our life is a play where we are the creative directors of our own success. Our best answers are always within us. If we make our own choices based on our attunement to our Greater Self, we will always know the right answers for us. When we are out of attunement with our Greater Self, and look for answers outside if ourselves, our ideas may be distorted and faulty. The end result is our faulty ideas will create faulty experiences.
PURPOSE MAKES YOUR GOALS BELIEVABLE
How can our goals be believable if they are not specific? People often say they want a bigger house, more money, a new job or career, but how can they believe this when the image of their goal unclear. Surely our minds do not know how to picture what ‘more’ or ‘bigger’ is. Our minds can only picture clear images. Setting effective goals that can be actualized by writing them down and making specific choices as to what we want. The choices are based on your purpose.
Why have a bigger house? What specifically does a bigger house include? When we ask ourselves why (which is our purpose) and what (which is a specific goal), we naturally ask ourselves how to fulfill the goal with a clear purpose, such as our family will be happier if the children each have their own rooms. OK, so exactly how many rooms will the new house you want contain? Once you clarify this, you can put your dream machine into a specific gear with a clear and reasonable intention.
Once you set goals using clarity of purpose, you are automatically motivated and committed to a specific image. It is then that you are ready to work on those goals in your day-to-day life. You are ready for a labor of love. Ideas without labor are stillborn.
OUR SENSE OF PURPOSE KEEPS US ON TRACK
Goals that are set in alignment with our purpose keep us from being distracted by outside influences. Instead of creating what we should, we create what we truly want. We are the creative directors of our own life. As the director, we use our sense of purpose to allow our Greater Self to guide us to the best possible outcome.
This clarity, this level of being and doing, supercedes all self-doubt. The subconscious mind is where all the action takes place, as we integrate our right-brain/left-brain reasoning it ultimately gives us the freedom and boldness to manifest what we truly want.
LET GO AND LET CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE WORK FOR YOU
Once we have our powerful creative purpose in full force and we’ve set clear and specific goals, we must release our attachment to having
those results. If we hang on too tightly, we will distort the energy of Creative Intelligence by closing off channels to bring forth our desire.
As each day progresses, we need to look and listen for messages. The messages will come to us while we observe the play of life – how things play out for us. No matter what comes our way, we need to stop for a moment and look at what is happening – kind of like Native American shamans do. They observe what is happening, and then process it through their mind and spirit. They ask the Great Spirit what to do, as they feel their own spirit connected to the Great Spirit.
Awareness of the spirit is within the creative, receptive part of our minds, which is connected to Creative Intelligence. From this state of awareness we can see what is happening and adjust our course of action. Adjusting our course should be as constant as steering a car. We are always adjusting the steering which allows us to drive around obstacles and reach our destination.
Being flexible as we calmly take note of what is happening around us, rather than getting upset, is the way to stay in touch with our Greater Self. Staying in balance, or remaining centered, is not only a way to prevent problems; it also reinforces the kind of behavior that is characteristic of our Greater Self. Our ultimate purpose in life is to develop that Greater Self through all we do and experience. If we stay focused on this truth, we will respond most favorably to any situation.
CREATING OUR FUTURE USING SMART GOALS
I mentioned earlier, I believe each one of us has a destiny or purpose. I also believe that we are going to get on with it, one way or the other. The choice is either to struggle and make it difficult, or to accomplish it in an easy, stress-free manner.
The purpose of SMART goals is to set yourself up so that your neurology is driven in such a way that it is impossible to fail in the long run. SMART goals are:
S – Specific
By specific, we mean saying exactly what you want. Saying you want more money is not specific and it is not measurable. Every goal must be specific and measurable. Instead of saying, “I want to earn a lot of money,” begin by setting a specific amount each week, month, and season. The important thing about subconscious mind is that it works on the principle of the least effort. If you are specific, it will create an end result that expends the least amount of effort.
The subconscious mind interprets everything literally, similar to a computer. If I write a goal, “I will make $5,000,” that puts it in the future. If you put it in the future, it always stays in front of you, just out of your reach. Your subconscious mind takes this literally. Instead say, “I now make $5,000.” Since your subconscious interprets everything literally, it will act as though the future is now. Remember that your subconscious only responds to specific and definite commands given in the present tense.
M – Modeling
If you want to achieve a specific goal, you have three choices. First, you can try to figure out how to be successful through trial and error. Second, you can observe what losers do, and avoid doing what they do. Third, you can observe what successful people do, and copy what they do. The latter is called modeling. It is the easiest way to achieve any goal and can be implemented through the following process. Find a
model, someone who is already getting the results you want. Keep in mind that no matter how difficult something is there is someone who has already done it, which means you can accomplish the same result. Find out what they are doing. Do the same thing until you get the same results. The ultimate judgment of progress is measurable results in a reasonable amount of time.
A – ACTION
You won’t take action until you are convinced that the reason why you are doing something is worth the price you will have to pay to achieve it. The reason why you do something is more important than how you do it. The how becomes easy once you focus on the why. Forget about how you are going to do something. Instead, concentrate on the reason why you want to accomplish it. A strong enough why will supply the information, creative energy, and drive to accomplish any goal.
Write down why not having what you want will be painful, what it will cost you not to achieve your goal, and how not having it will be more painful than the price you will have to pay to get what you want. This will set up your neurology so that your brain will want to move away from your present situation toward your goal.
Write down ten ways you will benefit from having what you want. Link massive pleasure to your new goal. Write down ten reasons why your must take action now. Take immediate action. Remember, trying is not the same as doing. In life, there is no way you can try. You either do something or you don’t. Triers are liars. Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
R – Responsibility
Take total responsibility for your results. Remember that 99% responsibility does not work.
Notice the results you are getting from your action. If what you are doing is not working, do something else. Keep changing course until you get the result you desire. When obstacles or problems block your success, ask “how” questions instead of “why” questions. Spend 20% of your time on the problem, and 80% on the solution.
T – Timing
Time is our most valuable asset, yet we tend to waste it, kill it, and spend it rather than invest it. We can no more afford to spend major time on minor things than we can to spend minor time on major things. As far as our goals are concerned, there are no unreasonable goals, just unreasonable time frames. Be realistic in setting time frames. Remember the answer to the question. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!