How to get the life you want
I am often fascinated by how much easier some people find it to say what they don't want rather than what they do. So why is it important? When we are focussing on what we don't want, we are looking in the wrong direction. That's how we can end up living a very different life to the one we truly want. To get what you want, you need to flip your thoughts.
Do you have the life you want?
If not…what do you think is the reason behind that?
When I ask this, many people answer with a list of life experiences and, to be honest, excuses. And I know that a number of years ago, I would have pretty much answered that way too. Something like…
“Well, it’s because I didn’t have this or do that. And then this happened, which meant this and before I knew it I was here and it’s not where I want to be.”
Sound familiar?
This week on my weekly live Facebook show, the Confidence Conversation, we discussed “How to get what you want“. (If you didn’t catch it live, that’s OK because you can watch the recording here)
To me, it is fascinating that so many people know what they don’t want but not what they do.
Without realising, this means that we are looking in the wrong direction.
For example, try reading the instruction “Don’t think about a pink elephant’.
What happened?
My guess is that the first thing that sprang to your mind was…yep, a pink elephant!
But that is the very thing you are supposed to NOT think about. See how your thoughts are taking you in the wrong direction.
After realising their mistake, most people will ‘try’ to think of something else… like changing the colour or thinking of a different animal.
But can you see the problem here? The brain has the think about the elephant first before it chooses something different because the brain can’t think about what it doesn’t want to think about without thinking about it first.
I’ll say that again.
The brain can’t think about what it doesn’t want to think about without thinking about it first.
So the pink elephant is still getting attention, albeit briefly.
Is this what you are doing with your life? Thinking about what you don’t want rather than what you do?
What if you gave all your attention to what you want?
What if you consciously choose to put your energy on that?
I wonder what could happen then?
As I say in the video there are people who truly don’t know what they want. That’s understandable.
If you fall into that camp then grab a pen and paper and first make a big, long list of all the things that you don’t want. It’s okay to start here as long as you remember to flip your thoughts afterwards. Once you have that list, go through each one and ask yourself what you do want instead.
For example, if I had been thinking that I don’t want to be in debt then the opposite of that could be that I want to have savings. Or maybe I was thinking I don’t want to be overweight, then the opposite of that could be that I want to make healthy choices or have a flexible body. Or I don’t want to be single, well OK, how about writing down that you want to be in a loving relationship.
To get the life that you want you have to clearly know what it is that you want.
Only then can you do the other steps – the final one of which is taking action!
All is explained here in the 37 mins video
And if you need some additional inspiration to get you thinking about what you want, then you may want to watch this video :-)
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You can catch my live Facebook Show: The Confidence Conversation every Monday night at 7pm. To get the latest show information and updates, visit the website.
