I hate to sound over simplistic, but getting what you want in your life is just a process that can be learned. For those who are committed to self work, the practice of pulling your ideal life into existence becomes a muscle you build over time, just like you do physically at the gym. I hear this is a thing and it is possible, because my husband goes to the gym and he has muscles. I used to have them too. They are no more. The concept still holds, however.
Lots of thought leadership has gone before me, so I do not pretend to have cornered the market on the core concepts behind things such as emotional intelligence, awareness and Law of Attraction. What I do believe I bring to this discussion is a simplified way of looking at creating the life you want, heavily influenced by those areas of study.
Belief
Creating what you want starts with belief. When I refer to ‘belief’, I do not mean religion, a wish or even hope. A belief is simply a thought you think over and over again; so much so, it has become a part of your unconscious thought life. But here’s the thing…you can change the beliefs that don’t get you what you want and exchange them for beliefs that do.
Belief has sort of an irony. Belief is the recognition that something isn’t here right now (belief doesn’t deny facts), but it is an assurance of something coming to pass by embracing and welcoming the uncertainty of it all. Belief is both feeling as if you have the thing without needing to avoid the uncertainty experienced because the thing is not yet here. This is created by a confluence of your thoughts, your feelings and your spiritual connection.
In your thoughts, you conjure up the desired future state. This is where you decisions are made about your ideal life, in your thoughts. Your thoughts create the feelings you have but it’s not enough to just identify those feelings. You then employ your feelings by ‘feeling as if’ right now. You imagine what you will feel like when you accomplish that ideal goal or state and you give yourself permission to feel that satisfaction and joy right now. Then spiritually, you connect to something bigger than you are that can somehow live in this place of the not yet and yet to come. Your thoughts and feelings work together to bring your desire into existence.
Practice now. Imagine the thing you want the most in your life. Think about it deeply. Now, how do you imagine feeling when this dream is realized. Go ahead and feel those feelings right now. Really bask in them to the point where there is no difference between how you feel now and how you will feel later. It’s kind of cool that you can feel how you want right this very moment. I hope that felt good.
“Your subconscious mind recognizes and acts only upon thoughts which have been well-mixed with emotion or feeling.” Napoleon Hill
Behavior
What’s interesting about getting your belief lined up, is your behavior changes. When we unknowingly embrace beliefs that do not get us what we want, it is because we are behaving accordingly. Most of us get this backwards: we think the results in our life are causing us to feel bad when in reality, we feel bad and this is giving us the results we have right now. When you start choosing your ideal future beginning in your thought life, you are tapping into a powerful combination: Belief + Behavior. Matching your behavior to what you believe is crucial. This is not say, if you want a $200K car that you should go out and buy one before you can afford it and act ‘as if’, all the while hoping for the best. That is an act of foolishness, not belief or faith. Remember: hope and wishing are not the same as belief. Behavior refers to the little, daily choices you make that are either aligned or not aligned with your belief. You get to choose these too…choose wisely.
Aligning your behavior begins with how you start your day, what you choose to think about throughout your day, how well you challenge the old beliefs to change them, how much responsibility you take for those thoughts and feelings and what choices you make thereafter. Aligning behavior, then, is about the intentional choices you make in your thought life but also your daily to-do’s.
It’s not enough to believe in the thing – what are you doing to set goals to get to that thing? How committed are you to taking the small steps necessary to reach your desired destination. Do you hate where you work? Why do you stay? Something in your thinking and feelings keeps you stuck in a place where you are unhappy. You think you are unhappy because your workplace sucks but in reality, you are in a sucky workplace environment because you haven’t supervised your thoughts and feelings and matched them to your behavior. Your feelings drive your actions so check in often with those feelings. Does your behavior reflect your belief?
Bravery
Bravery is what is needed to endure the discomfort of showing up for yourself in this new way. Many of you have been taught damaging things about belief, sometimes tied to religious upbringing. We’ve heard talk about belief as if it is something we are certain of intellectually. Belief isn’t about certainty and knowing. So, coming to this realization and experiencing it firsthand may cause some dissonance. This is normal. Press on.
Bravery is also needed because on your journey of building your belief muscle, you’ll experience setbacks and things won’t work out exactly as you imagined. Sometimes this is good. Sometimes things work out better. Other times they don’t work out because your behaviors didn’t support your beliefs. And still other times, things don’t work out because that’s life. That’s ok too. Look at that these temporary setbacks and failures instead as research for your next go-around!
I can tell you one thing: the first time I try something, I’m usually pretty shitty at it. Most of us are. But you know how you get less shitty at stuff? You practice and practice some more. Listen, even the most talented artists and athletes in the world put in the work every damn day to be the best. Your failures and setbacks have no bearing on whether or not you ultimately succeed. Only you can determine that by building your belief, matching your behavior and remaining brave through the process.
