Decide What You Want : Principle 3 (The Success Principles - Jack Canfield)
The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want.
BEN STEIN. Actor and author
Once you have decided why you are here, you have to decide what you want to do, be, and have. What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to experience? And what possessions do you want to acquire? In the journey from where you are to where you want to be, you have to decide where you want to be. In other words, what does success look like to you?
One of the main reasons why most people don’t get what they want is they haven’t decided what they want. They haven’t defined their desires in clear and compelling detail.
Early Childhood Programming Often Gets in the Way of What You Want.
Inside of every one of us is that tiny seed of the “you” that you were meant to become. Unfortunately, you may have buried this seed in response to your parents, teachers, coaches, and other adult role models as you were growing up.
You started out as a baby knowing exactly what you wanted. You knew when you were hungry.
You spit out the foods you didn’t like and avidly devoured the ones you did.
You had no trouble expressing your needs and wants. You simply cried loudly—with no inhibitions or holding back—until you got what you wanted. You had everything inside of you that you needed to get fed, changed, held, and rocked. As you got older, you crawled around and moved toward whatever held the most interest for you. You were clear about what you wanted, and you headed straight toward it with no fear.
So what happened?
Somewhere along the way, someone said…
Don’t touch that!
Stay away from there.
Keep your hands off that.
Eat everything on your plate whether you like it or not!
You don’t really feel that way.
You don’t really want that.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
Stop crying. Don’t be such a baby.
As you got older, you heard…
You can’t have everything you want simply because you want it.
Money doesn’t grow on trees
Don’t Live Someone Else’s Dreams
After many years of these kinds of sanctions, most of us eventually lost touch with the needs of our
bodies and the desires of our hearts and somehow got stuck trying to figure out what other people
wanted us to do. We learned how to act and how to be to get their approval. As a result, we now do a
lot of things we don’t want to do but that please a lot of other people:
• We go to medical school because that is what Dad wanted for us.
• We get married to please our mother.
• We get a “real job” instead of pursuing our dream career in the arts.
• We go straight into graduate school instead of taking a year off and backpacking through Europe.
In the name of being sensible, we end up becoming numb to our own desires. It’s no wonder that when we ask many teenagers what they want to do or be, they honestly answer, “I don’t know.” There are too many layers of “should’s,” “ought to’s,” and “you’d better’s” piled on top of and suffocating what they really want.
So how do you reclaim yourself and your true desires? How do you get back to what you really want with no fear, shame, or inhibition? How do you reconnect with your real passion?
You start on the smallest level by honoring your preferences in every situation—no matter how large or small. Don’t think of them as petty. They might be inconsequential to someone else, but they are not to you.
Stop Settling for Less than You Want
If you are going to reown your power and get what you really want out of life, you will have to stop saying, “I don’t know; I don’t care; it doesn’t matter to me”—or the current favorite of teenagers, “Whatever.” When you are confronted with a choice, no matter how small or insignificant, act as if you have a preference. Ask yourself, If I did know, what would it be? If I did care, which would I prefer? If it did matter, what would I rather do?
Not being clear about what you want and making other people’s needs and desires more important than your own is simply a habit. You can break it by practicing the opposite habit.
The Yellow Notebook
Many years ago, I took a workshop with self-esteem and motivational expert Chérie Carter-Scott, author of If Life Is a Game, These Are the Rules. As the 24 of us entered the training room on the first morning, we were directed to take a seat in one of the chairs facing the front of the room. There was aspiral-bound notebook on every chair. Some were blue, some were yellow, some were red. The one on my chair was yellow. I remember thinking, I hate yellow. I wish I had a blue one.
Then Chérie said something that changed my life forever: “If you don’t like the color of the notebook you have, trade with someone else and get the one you want. You deserve to have everything in your life exactly the way you want it.”
Wow, what a radical concept! For 20-some years, I had not operated from that premise. I had settled, thinking I couldn’t have everything I wanted.
So I turned to the person to my right and said, “Would you mind trading your blue notebook for my yellow one?”
She responded, “Not at all. I prefer yellow. I like the brightness of the color. It fits my mood.” I now had my blue notebook. Not a huge success in the greater scheme of things, but it was the beginning of reclaiming my birthright to acknowledge my preferences and get exactly what I want. Up until then, I would have discounted my preference as petty and not worth acting on. I would have continued to numb out my awareness of what I wanted. That day was a turning point for me—the beginning of allowing myself to know and act on my wants and desires in a much more powerful way.
Make an “I Want” List One of the easiest ways to begin clarifying what you truly want is to make a list of 30 things you want to do, 30 things you want to have, and 30 things you want to be before you die. This is a great way to get the ball rolling.
Another powerful technique to unearth your wants is to ask a friend to help you make an “I Want” list. Have your friend continually ask, “What do you want? What do you want?” for 10 to 15 minutes, and jot down your answers. You’ll find the first wants aren’t all that profound. In fact, most people usually hear themselves saying, “I want a Mercedes. I want a big house on the ocean.” And so on.
However, by the end of the 15-minute exercise, the real you begins to speak: “I want people to love me. I want to express myself. I want to make a difference. I want to feel powerful”…wants that are true expressions of your core values.
Is Worrying About Making a Living Stopping You?
What often stops people from expressing their true desire is they don’t think they can make a living doing what they love to do.
“What I love to do is hang out and talk with people,” you might say.
Make a list of 20 things you love to do, and then think of ways you can make a living doing some of those things. If you love sports, you could play sports, be a sportswriter or photographer, or work in sports management as an agent or in the front office of a professional team.
Clarify Your Vision of Your Ideal Life
The theme of this book is how to get from where you are to where you want to be. To accomplish this, you have to know two things—where you are and where you want to get to. Your vision is a detailed description of where you want to get to. It describes in detail what your destination looks like and feels like. To create a balanced and successful life, your vision needs to include the following seven areas: work and career, finances, recreation and free time, health and fitness, relationships, personal goals, and contribution to the larger community.
At this stage in the journey, it is not necessary to know exactly how you are going to get there. All that is important is that you figure out where there is. If you get clear on the what, the how will be taken care of.
Your Inner Global Positioning System
The process of getting from where you are to where you want to be is like using the navigational system with GPS (Global Positioning System) technology in a newer-model car. For the system to work, it simply needs to know where you are and where you want to go. The navigation system figures out where you are by the use of an onboard computer that receives signals from three satellites and calculates your exact position. When you type in your destination, the navigational system plots a perfect course for you. All you have to do is follow the instructions.
Success in life works the same way. All you have to do is decide where you want to go by clarifying your vision, lock in the destination through goal-setting, affirmations, and visualization, and start moving in the right direction. Your inner GPS will keep unfolding your route as you continue to move forward. In other words, once you clarify and stay focused on your vision
“I’m wealthy beyond my wildest dreams! Unfortunately, my dreams were never very wild.”
High Achievers Have Bigger Visions
The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.
MICHELANGELO
I want to encourage you not to limit your vision in any way. Let it be as big as it is.
If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.
ROBERT FRITZ
Author of The Path of Least Resistance
Don’t Let Anyone Talk You Out of Your Vision
There are people who will try to talk you out of your vision. They will tell you that you are crazy and that it can’t be done. There will be those who will laugh at you and try to bring you down to their level. My friend Monty Roberts, the author of The Man Who Listens to Horses, calls these people dream-stealers. Don’t listen to them.
The Vision Exercise
Create your future from your future, not your past.
WERNER ERHARD - Founder of EST training and the Landmark Forum
The following exercise is designed to help you clarify your vision. Although you could do this as a strictly mental exercise by just thinking about the answers and then writing them down, I want to encourage you to go deeper than that. If you do, you’ll get deeper answers that serve you better.
Start by putting on some relaxing music and sitting quietly in a comfortable environment where you won’t be disturbed. Then, close your eyes and ask your subconscious mind to give you images of what your ideal life would look like if you could have it exactly the way you want it, in each of the following categories:
1. First, focus on the financial area of your life. What is your annual income? What does your cash flow look like? How much money do you have in savings and investments? What is your total net worth?
Next…what does your home look like? Where is it located? Does it have a view? What kind of yard and landscaping does it have? Is there a pool or a stable for horses? What color are the walls? What does the furniture look like? Are there paintings hanging in the rooms? What do they look like? Walk through your perfect house, filling in all of the details.
At this point, don’t worry about how you’ll get that house. Don’t sabotage yourself by saying, “I can’t live in Malibu because I don’t make enough money.” Once you give your mind’s eye the picture, your mind will solve the “not enough money” challenge.
Next, visualize what kind of car you are driving and any other important possessions your finances have provided.
2. Next, visualize your ideal job or career. Where are you working? What are you doing? With whom are you working? What kind of clients or customers do you have? What is your compensation like? Is it your own business?
3. Then, focus on your free time, your recreation time. What are you doing with your family and friends in the free time you’ve created for yourself? What hobbies are you pursuing? What kinds of vacations do you take? What do you do for fun?
4. Next, what is your ideal vision of your body and your physical health? Are you free of all disease? How long do you live to? Are you open, relaxed, in an ecstatic state of bliss all day long? Are you full of vitality? Are you flexible as well as strong? Do you exercise, eat good food, and drink lots of water?
5. Then move on to your ideal vision of your relationships with your family and friends. What is your relationship with your family like? Who are your friends? What is the quality of your relationships with your friends? What do those friendships feel like? Are they loving, supportive, empowering? What kinds of things do you do together?
6. What about the personal arena of your life? Do you see yourself going back to school, getting training, attending workshops, seeking therapy for a past hurt, or growing spiritually? Do you meditate or go on spiritual retreats with your church? Do you want to learn to play an instrument or write your autobiography? Do you want to run a marathon or take an art class? Do you want to travel to other countries?
7. Finally, focus on the community you live in, the community you’ve chosen. What does it look like when it is operating perfectly? What kinds of community activities take place there? What about your charitable work? What do you do to help others and make a difference? How often do you participate in these activities? Who are you helping?
You can write down your answers as you go, or you can do the whole exercise first and then open your eyes and write them down. In either case, make sure you capture everything in writing as soon as you complete the exercise.
Every day, review the vision you have written down. This will keep your conscious and subconscious minds focused on your vision, and as you apply the other principles and tools in the book, you will begin to manifest all the different aspects of your vision.
Share Your Vision for Maximum Impact
When you’ve finished writing down your vision, share your vision with a good friend whom you can trust to be positive and supportive. You might be afraid that your friend will think your vision is too outlandish, impossible to achieve, too idealistic, unrealistic, or materialistic. Almost all people have these thoughts when they think about sharing their vision. But the truth is, most people, deep down in their hearts, want the very same things you want. Everyone wants financial abundance, a comfortable home, meaningful work they enjoy, good health, time to do the things they love, nurturing relationships with their family and friends, and an opportunity to make a difference in the world. But too few of us readily admit it.
