Transforming your year

Everyone tells you that you must have a clear vision of where you want to go and who you want to be. Not everyone tells you exactly how – and how not – to get to that vision.

For example, suppose you want a life in which you are well paid and appreciated for your work. You want warm relationships and the time to pursue them.

But suppose your nagging belief is that it’s simply not possible. After all, you’ve spent years piling up evidence to tell you that.

So you sit down, meditate, and envision in exact detail what you want. You then open your eyes and everything is still the same.

Vision isn’t enough

A fellow coach tells the story of a woman to whom he was talking. She had a serious weight problem, and he asked her what she was doing to challenge it. She replied that she sat on her sofa every day for thirty minutes and visualized herself losing weight.

That, of course, was the problem. Vision should be the carrot that draws you forward, taking the steps necessary to reach that dream. It should not be a dream in which you submerge yourself in fantasy, waiting for things to happen.

It’s not enough to dream; you must walk the walk.

So you say, “OK, I’ve tried that, and I’m exhausted. I mapped out all the steps, followed them carefully, and it still didn’t work.” Maybe that was the problem.

Throw away the list

One of the reasons we fall into despair over the seeming impossibility of meeting our vision is that we believe we have walked the path leading to that vision – perhaps many times – yet we’ve never reached that Promised Land.

What probably happened was this: you made a list of the logical (to you) steps you needed to take to get there.

You started to follow those steps. You brushed aside distractions.

At some point, you were blocked, or exhausted, or rejected, or disheartened. You lost your dream.

It’s a little like taking a path that’s edged with a tall, thorny hedge. That hedge gets in the way, and you can’t even see the fields on either side of the path, fields filled with blooming flowers and sparkling brooks. All you can see is the rocky path ahead and the thorny hedge walling you in.

Maybe some of those distractions were not actually wrong paths at all, but alternate, pleasanter, and faster ways to get to where you want to be.

So don’t make that rigid plan. An inspiring vision opens you up to all the possibilities in your environment that you haven’t seen before.

Try this exercise that I like to do with clients: what do you see here?

OPPORTUNITYISNOWHERE

The way in which you break this phrase up into separate words is a strong indication of your current mindset. What do you see?*

Truly creative people don’t use lists: they pay a lot of attention to their vision and notice everything in the present that confirms its reality.

Pay attention to your emotions: honor them, and recognize they are just temporary, like sudden summer storms that appear, rage, and then disappear, leaving a clear sky and sun.

Despair happens to everyone, every now and then. The problem is, when it hits, we picture ourselves sunk in a never-ending sea of despair. It’s such a heavy feeling that it forces us to sit down and stop working in order to support it.

Pay attention to when despair hits: for me, it’s about 4 p.m. and I have learned that my energy level is simply low at that hour, so I turn temporarily away from doing anything productive to reach my dream.

Here are two despair-chasing phrases I use all the time:

There is a solution. I just can’t see it right now.
and
I can’t handle this right now. I’ll worry about it tomorrow.

Angry at feeling rejected or blocked? Use your anger as energy; turn it into determination to succeed, then look around you for another path that isn’t blocked.

Unload the baggage, those memories of past setbacks, and load your mind with warm, successful memories. Collect every scrap of evidence you can that records your progress through life – skills mastered, certificates gained, warm notes telling you how important you are to others, and go over them every night just before bedtime.

It’s really all about getting out of your own way.

I hope you love these quotes from Tut, The Universe, as much as I do:

“Rarely are the first steps in a journey anything like the final ones, either in direction, pace, or grace.“

“Simply stand aside, let spirit emerge, have no doubt, and your wings will appear.”

* “Opportunity is nowhere” or “Opportunity is now here”