I recently confessed to a friend that one of my challenges is that I don’t know what I want. Or I want too many things, which has a similar impact. I told her that we can consider that “we don’t know what we want” but rather “we decide what we want”.
I believe that a good life can be lived in many ways. There are many paths to happiness, and satisfaction, and a lot of the travel happens in our thoughts, in our brains. However, when we choose something, we get to direct our focus and energy on that thing. As shared by Anna Garcia on the Law of Attraction in episode 59, we can align our vibration towards that reality.
When we make a decision, we can stop spending mental energy on that issue. For months, I have been thinking about whether or not to move. Then I went through a process and made a decision. It was such a relief to remove that question from my life. It was taking an incredible amount of mental energy. You know when you have a sore, a painful point on the body such as a wiggly tooth (we’ve all had this at some point). We keep irritating that point, consciously or subconsciously. Once we deal with that issue, resolve it, we get back the time and energy that we were expending on it.
Is Deciding Enough?
Once we make a decision, we need to commit. For that irritating tooth, the problem doesn’t go away when we decide to go to the dentist, but rather once we make the appointment with the dentist and follow through. To follow through on a decision, we need to commit. Committing means taking steps and putting in processes to achieve whatever you decided on.
When you commit to something, it means that you will do what you need to achieve success. This could look like:
- volunteering or taking classes to learn new skills
- finding and learning from mentors (they don’t need to know they are your mentors)
- creating or joining a community for support and accountability
- making a plan with a timeline and milestones to track celebrate progress
- changing your environment to support your success
Do You Have to Pick One
I am not equipped to give you advice on this because I do (too) many things. I’ve been working on rearranging things, deciding on what I want most right now so that I can focus my energy on that thing. Many successful people, and coaches such as Gary Keller, discuss the need to focus on one thing when you are getting started. Keller says that it takes an average of 66 days to build a habit (but it can take much longer). Yes, we hear about the importance of diversification but we don’t start off that way. I’m going to defer to Chalene Johnson on this:
IF YOU GET CAUGHT UP IN THE FEAR THAT YOU’RE GOING TO BE MISSING OUT ON ALL THE LATEST & GREATEST, THEN YOU ABSOLUTELY WILL NEVER TAKE TIME TO IMPLEMENT WHAT YOU’VE LEARNED AND/OR ARE CURRENTLY LEARNING.
Chalene Johnson, Entrepreneur and Motivational Speaker
What Do You Want?
So what do you want? If you allow yourself to dream, to choose, what comes up? When to you lose yourself? The question isn’t what you expect to get or what you think is safe, but rather what do you want. Can you drop the external pressure, the shoulds? Have fun with this first (think back to the way you dreamt as a child). Try to feel with your body and notice what brings you job. Then be brave enough to choose, recognizing that a valid choice is to be happy with your current path.
Here’s Jack Canfield on listening to your intuition:
Learn More
You may want to also check out the following related podcast episodes:
- You Can Start with One Thing
- Learn, Grow and Build the Life That You Want
- How Community Can Support you with Change
- Celebrate Progress to Build a New Life
- The Only Way Out is Through
- Regenerative Purpose and Reframing Success
- Play For a Change and Play is Necessary for Adults
Start Here
As a comment, share one activity in which you can lose yourself. How do you like to play?
