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Where I get together with clinical psychologist Tess Howells to answer some of the most important questions during the Growing Stronger: Rising Beyond Fear podcast series.
I have just come across this great book by speaker, movie maker and writer Debbie Ford, who is also the best-selling author of The Dark Side of the Light Chasers and The Shadow Effect with Deepak Chopra.
What’s great about this book is that it provides simple but effective daily practices to help you activate some of the ‘key agents of change’ to help you navigate through releasing emotional and spiritual toxicity from your past, challenging you to become grounded in the present, and inspiring you to activate your greatest gifts to create your ‘ideal’ future.
Insight #1: You must understand that divine consciousness (your soul’s journey) and human consciousness (your ego’s path) coexist and are operating within you all the time.
Insight #2: You are designed to reinvent and recreate yourself, over and over again for the evolution of your own soul.
Insight #3: There is a ‘golden essence’ within you that has been covered within ‘human clay’ of past upsets, hurts and disappointments. While this clay provides you protection and safety, it keeps you separated from your divine essence. Therefore the job of every human being is to break through the clay and reveal their true ‘golden essence’ to the world.
Insight #4: You must recognise that there are thousands of life-draining beliefs and if you attach to any of these negative beliefs, and call them your own, they become your limitations. That’s when you literally “Ease God Out” (EGO).
Insight #5: All real change requires risk. You must take risks everyday of your life. You must get up each morning and ask not “What can I do that is the same today?”, but in fact the complete opposite: What can I do that is different?
Insight #6: Your soul’s mission is always to serve you in the grandest way it can and to support you in growing and evolving in new ways. Therefore, are you going to follow the path that you’ve always known? Or are you going to roll the dice and bet all your resources on a power greater than yourself, a source that literally has the power to change everything in your life?
Insight #7: The world is waiting for you. To follow the call to new, uncharted lands, you must first be willing to trust the possibilities that exist within you. The opportunities and possibilities are endless when you honour your soul, value yourself first, and commit to follow the inspired guidance of your heart in each moment.
The 21-Day Consciousness Cleanse – A Breakthrough Program for Connecting with Your Soul’s Deepest Purpose by Debbie Ford, published by HarperOne 2009 is available at Amazon.
Q. What do Oprah Winfrey, Zig Ziglar, Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Seth Godin have in common?
A. All set very clear, directed intentions for their lives and then found the courage and capacity to make their visions, goals and dreams a reality.
Now, if you’re like most people these days there’s a good chance that you already have a list of goals and dreams for your life tucked away in a journal, computer or even in your wallet or purse. However, the real challenge these days is not ‘the goal setting’, but finding ways to stay committed, focused and on track once we have set an intention and goal in our lives.
So in this blog post I’d like to share with you 5 key principles to help you embrace ‘Next Level Goal Setting’ in your own life that will help you take your life, goals and dreams to the next level.
Let’s face it. In today’s world it’s not that we lack the knowledge or information to create and realise our dreams. A simple search on Google or YouTube is often enough to help us find the answer’s to our most poignant questions.
It’s not even lack time that is the issue. Rather the key challenge that I find amongst most of my clients, colleagues and students is the realisation that we are living in a hyper- distracted world.
With emails, 24/7 connectivity, social media updates, a plethora of information at our fingertips, increasing demands of business, work and family… is it any wonder that we often find it so difficult to keep our focus and intention on the goals and dreams that are most important to us?
“The primary reason most people don’t get what they want,
is that they don’t know what they want.”T. Harv Ecker
In this hyper-information overloaded and distracted world it’s important that you find ways to keep your focus and attention on what’s most important to you. While life may challenge you to multi-task and take more activities on in your life, we are all being quietly requested by our own hearts and souls to create ‘sacred space’ and ‘freedom’ in our lives.
“Clarity of vision, creates clarity of priorities”
John Maxwell
So instead of trying to focus on too many competing outcomes, ask yourself “What are the 4 most important outcomes for me to realise my highest ideal life?”. Make sure to write these down in your journal as they come to your awareness.
Have you heard people complaining that there just doesn’t seem to be enough time anymore? That time as we know it is disappearing? Well, I hate to be the bearer bad news, but if you look back 10, 20 or even 50 years ago you would find that the same 168 hours a week that existed then, also exists today!
So if we all have access to the same amount time, why is it that some people seem to effortless produce results with grace, ease and fulfilment, while others struggle to even realise their smallest dreams? The answer exists in what you believe is most important to you.
So go through your 4 outcomes from step #1 and check into see:
There is a great deal of difference between goals that are important versus those that appear urgent, or that are driven by the needs or desires of others. So make sure to put yourself first, and focus only on what is most important to you.
As simple as it may sound, checking in with your key goals and dreams once a day can make an incredible difference to your fulfilment and personal performance. Human beings are attention seeking vessels, what we reflect on and give our attention too grows. So why not ..
Even the simple act of reading your goals first thing in the morning, or just before going to sleep will begin to program your subconscious GPS to guide you to your destination.
Sometimes life is not about doing lots of planning. It’s about living and embracing the moment with spontaneous directed action. So instead of waiting for things to be perfect, instead of waiting for there to be little or no risk, why not just trust and ask your intuition to guide you towards the next best step?
Asking this single question each day, and then being willing to take action on your own soul’s response and answer has the power to move you closer to your dreams each day.
You’ve probably heard the saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. Well, neither were the Great Pyramids of Giza, The Great Wall of China or even the chair you’re sitting on right now! All great achievements begin with a vision in mind, and the focus, inspiration and intention to see the result come to fruition.
Just as the act of taking one swing with an axe each day against a tree will eventually bring it down, so to you amplify your life-force energy by simply turning up each day and writing the next page of that book, swimming the first 5 laps of the pool, penning the first verse of that song, learning the first words of that new language.
And finally reminder… especially for all the ‘A-Type’ personalities out there … ‘life is only difficult when we make it so, therefore it’s ok to create your dreams and outcomes with ease’. In the words of best selling author Janet Attwood remember:
Intention + Attention + No Tension = Results
Happy Goal Getting!
I’ve just been reading a great book by New York Times Best Selling author and internationally recognised leadership expert John C. Maxwell called ‘Put Your Dream to the Test’.
If you have a dream, vision or great goal in your heart but seem to be struggling to have it manifest, then in this book John shares the 10 key questions that will help you to become a real difference maker – a person who is capable of not only dreaming the dream, but of becoming the person that achieves the dream.
So no matter what your dream, put it to the test with Maxwell’s 10 key questions that will help you create greater clarity, conviction and purpose on your own pathway to greatness.
Just imagine a world where every person owned his or her dream. Where everyone used their innate skills and talents to pursue their dreams, and where through their own individual success and achievement, they contributed to the betterment of their communities, nations and world.
What difference or legacy could your dream make?
As Maxwell says when he quotes his good friend and fellow author Max Lucado:
“You aren’t an accident. You aren’t an assembly line product. You were deliberately planned, specifically gifted, and lovingly positioned on the Earth by the Master Craftsman.”
Put Your Dream to the Test, John C. Maxwell, 2009, Thomas Nelson Publishers is is available on Amazon or by visiting John Maxwell’s website at www.johnmaxwell.com