The vast majority of people that I meet in my life seem to think that the only thing they need to do to get what they want is to work hard. My dad taught me that if I worked hard that I would get a good job and I would be able to save for retirement. You may or may not realize this but that old paradigm has somewhat died in the past few years.
It’s not as easy as it once was to get a good job and keep it for 30 years. So, if you’re looking to perhaps make it to retirement with a fair amount of money saved or you’re looking to get greater success in your life, whatever that may be, you might want to consider the number one reason why most people don’t get what they want in life and that is; they simply don’t know what it is that they want.
So what I’ve done is; I came up with a way to figure out what it is you want by accessing the emotional intensity of how you feel as it pertains to what you want. This is an exercise that I’ve learned from Dr. Robert Anthony and have modified it slightly to make it easier for you.
One of the ways to think about this exercise is; what would you like to do, be or have in your life that you do not have right now? Then what you would do is; you would measure the intensity of the feeling that you get after envisioning yourself having that, doing that or being that.
Here are 3 ways that you can use this scale and what the benefits are for you:
- Think about the top 10 things that you want in your life that you do not have right now. These could be material things, these could be things to do with your favorite charity, these could be positions that you want to achieve or the type of person that you would want to be perceived as by your community. I always say to people if not just about getting what you want it’s about the actual process of attaining it that’s the most fun part. So think about the end goal. This is called end thinking. If you don’t know where you’re going you will certainly end up somewhere else. So write down the top 10 things that you want in your life and make sure that they are big because nothing big ever got created with a small idea.
- The next step is to put yourself in the position of having what you want. Feel about it don’t think about it. Reason and logic have very little to do with this particular exercise. In fact, reason and logic is the number one reason why it won’t work at all. I’m asking you to feel about it way before thinking about it because if you think about it, it makes no sense and therefore you’ll take yourself out of the game because you’re comparing what I’m saying to what you already know and the answer that you’ll get for yourself is; this is nonsense. Try it anyway. Look at your brain and say hey brain,” thanks for sharing” I choose to do this exercise anyway because I’ve really got nothing to lose.
- The final step in this process is to measure the intensity of how you feel about each one of the 10 things that you’ve written down. If you have to close your eyes for a few minutes to put yourself in that position then do so. For example, if I wanted a big white yacht, one of the things that I might do is envision myself parking it. Or I could be out in the open water with a group of nine people enjoying cocktails. Or I could be in a windstorm with nothing but GPS to guide me. Think about every potential situation you could find yourself in and the more you envision it the more you will feel attracted to it and the more you’re attracted to it the more it will be attracted to you. Then consider that in this list of 10 things one of them might be higher than the rest. And the other nine things will happen as a natural result of going after the big one. Measure each one on a scale of 1 – 10, 10 being the highest level of true heart intensity.
In the end, it’s your choice to do this exercise or not. However, my recommendation is that you just give it a try. There is nothing like your current results to tell you how your current system is working. This is another system, another way of feeling, certainly another way of thinking. So don’t discount it until you try. The only reason this won’t work; is your better idea.
If you want to know more about how this works, why it works and some of the things that might help you analyze it from the logic and reason perspective click here for more information.
Great exercise Paul. Really helps you go deeper with what you want and what you are here for.
Phillip Mountrose