Can you create your life?
67Can you?
There has also been an explosion of self help books, audio programmes, dvds and even movies such as The Secret. All these authorities seem to agree that if we only thought abundant happy thoughts, we would all lead abundant, happy lives.
Yet for many this simple solution does not work. We drink, we smoke we are addicted to anything going. Would anyone in their right minds create lives like this?
How did 'Arnold' create his life?
It does seem to look true that people with passion and purpose are successful. Look at the careers of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tony Robbins, for example. They seemed to know at an early age what they were ‘supposed’ to do and went about it with a vast store of energy that most people do not have.
But perhaps we are focusing on the wrong aspect. We look at people like this and think, ‘well that’s ok for them, I could never be like that, that driven. So we settle down to our lives and are unhappy. Or perhaps we go on some courses and try to be like our heroes. It works for some and it works for some more, for a while, but then we slip back to being who we were and the results dwindle. Are we failures, doomed to mediocrity?
To answer that I want to refer to a newspaper interview Arnold Schwarzenegger gave to a young reporter called Steve Chandler, many years ago. It was during a promotion for a film (a flop) called Stay Hungry. Arnold told Steve Chandler that he was going to become the number 1 box office star in America. At the time it seemed ridiculous. Arnold had a failed movie, he was overwhelmingly huge at a time when bodybuilding was not popular, and had a very thick accent to boot.
Steve Chandler asked Arnold how he was going to achieve that goal. Arnold replied that he would do the same thing as he had done in bodybuilding. He would create a vision and live in to it. Steve Chandler points out that Arnold did not say, ‘receive’ a vision, he said ‘create’, make up, a vision. Arnold’s future was his creation and all the actions he took were geared in that direction.
Here is an example. If I want to create a vision of me as fit and healthy that’s quite easy to do. I know the things I need to do and the things I need to not do. Then in my day to day life when a choice comes along, such as, shall I have a cigarette, I can decide in line with the vision I have created. Every action either takes me towards or away from my vision.
My vision did not come from God, or my parents, or anyone else. I created my vision and I use it to guide my actions.
Is it ok to sit on the sofa and attract the good life?
Can we magically attract new cars and financial prosperity from the comfort of our sofa? This appears to be the promise of The Secret, Cosmic Ordering and their ilk. There are people, intelligent people, who swear by this method: The Law of Attraction.
The thoughts and feelings I predominantly experience are what determines what I receive. If I can change my thoughts and feelings and ‘put out’ prosperous thoughts the BMW is as good as mine. There are courses that purport to teach you how to do this. I wonder how many of the people I see driving a BMW used the course, and I wonder how many people wearing out the sofa because they don’t have a car used the course.
Changing our thoughts is a beginning, not the whole process. Visualising what he wanted was Arnold’s starting point, not his whole game. This, by the way, is why coaching is so powerful. It takes you through the whole process from visualisation to goal setting to removing obstacles, to action to achievement. That’s a clue, but only the most important one.
A recipe
Is there a recipe for success? There are many! Look at all the successful people. They followed a recipe.
Here is one version of what works (but only every time).
Decide what you want.
Decide what you need to do to get it.
Decide what you are actually prepared to do to get it.
If there is a mismatch here, you don’t have a goal, you have a ‘want’. We all have wants and it is completely ok not to do anything about them, but rather futile to feel bad about choosing not to do anything about them!
Schedule actions into your day
Do the actions
Notice what effect your actions are having and refine.
Keep doing the above
It’s a simple recipe and it works. Most people don’t follow it because they believe their thoughts and feelings.
Don’t you have to be special to succeed, surely people like me can’t do all this?
So how is it that such a simple recipe is so difficult. How is it that we haven’t got it yet?
It’s a good question.
We lose ourselves in being victims of our own thoughts and feelings. We decide to do something, regular exercise perhaps, and then we check in with our feelings to know whether we are going to do it or not. This is not making a decision. This is being a victim.
Making a commitment to doing an action means that we do it whether we feel like it or not. Often when we start the action, our feelings will change anyway. So committed action acts and lets the feelings catch up. And they do, often wonderfully. But the action comes first. This is another reason why coaching is such a powerful way of working. Two people are completely focused on achieving your goal. Not if you happen to feel like it, but always.
We can make the same commitment on our own. It is this commitment that is the ‘magical’ force that enables us to create our lives. The is the magic Arnold had. This is the magic that we all have, if we choose to exercise it.
We can start small, place a new routine in our day. We can make an unbreakable appointment with ourselves to act on a goal. We can keep a record. For example, I know exactly how much exercise I have done this week because I have a record. What gets measured gets achieved.
Choose one of your goals. Is it a goal or a ‘want’? If it’s a goal what are you prepared to do today and everyday for a week? Timetable it in to your days. Record whether or not you do and you will have the evidence of whether you are committed or not. if you are not, let it go! Choose to create something else that you want more. It’s your choice. What you choose to create is always yours.
I will end this section with a quote attributed to Goethe,
"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."
Just begin
Just begin, accept the challenge to create your life. 'Challenge' isn't some positive gloss applied to a negative situation, it's truth. It's a challenge to create your life and you can start really, really gently. Here is what coach Steve Chandler, (yes, the same one who interviewed Arnold many years ago) describes it:
Don't think about doing the whole thing. You don't have to do the whole thing. Just begin.
Our society encourages us not to begin....it encourages us to hang back and seek cautious comfort. Most products and services advertised day and night are designed to make us more comfortable and less challenged.
And yet, only challenge causes growth. Only challenge will test our skills and make us better.
Only challenge - and the boldness to engage challenge -will transform us.
It is up to ME to constantly look for challenges. Rather than waiting for fate and random occurrences to challenge me.It's up to me to notice when I'm buried alive in a cautious (trembling) comfort zone.
It's up to me to notice when I am living my life, in the image of the poet William Olsen, like a flower "living under the wind."
(Steve Chandler)
Godspeed!
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fucsia Level 3 Commenter 14 months ago
I very like this Hub and I agree with you. The most difficult thing to me was understand my desires. Seems stupid? For all of my life I have not been used to giving a value to my thoughts and I never listened my inner voice. Now I start to see them every day with more lucidity and is wonderful feel grow the sensation that my life is mine, my future is mine!
Thanks for this useful page.