August 30th, 2009
Feeling stuck?
You’re not alone. Just last week I spoke to a friend who felt stuck in his job because he was stuck in his relationship.
Japan was kind of in a stuck situation, with the Liberal Democratic Party as its ruling party for 54 years. That’s a long time to have the same party in charge – especially when commentators speculate that the Liberal Democratic Party jumped the shark around 1990 and has been dragging Japan down ever since.
I’m no expert when it comes to Japan’s governmental structures, but I know a lot about being stuck, and here’s a little secret for you: one of the most common causes of that stuck feeling is trying to crawl back to how things used to be.
In other words, what works for us has changed and we do not want to change with it.
Using Japan’s government as an example, when the New York Times broke this story on the morning of August 30, 2009, it was reported that “Many Japanese say the vote is the final blow to the island nation’s postwar order, which has been slowly unraveling since the economy collapsed in the early 19990s.”
That’s nearly 20 years of Japan not wanting to change when what worked for them (the Liberal Democratic Party) had changed.
If you’re like me – and the country of Japan – you are scared of change because it’s seems so unknown and unpredictable.
We are wrong, you know: change is one of the most predictable and familiar processes that we can cozy up to and put to work for us. It only hurts this badly when we resist it.
Where are you stuck in your life right now?
It may be a job, a relationship, your weight… and no matter what it is, whether the solution be a small tweak here and there or a big overhaul, take a deep breath, realize that if you want to feel better, you will choose to work through this.
The only way out of the sticky situation is to take stock of it honestly.
Make a good, long list of how you’re feeling and what is not working for you. Note what IS working for you.
No actions are necessary for the time being – in fact, I highly recommend you take no actions for some time while you do some internal work. Merely begin to observe: be honest with yourself about your thoughts, feelings and preferences about the situation where you feel stuck.
Here are some questions to get your juices flowing:
- Does it feel “all wrong” but difficult to articulate the precise reasons why, like you’re in a fog?
- Do you wish that things between you and your job/sig other/family could go back to how they used to be at some other time in the past?
- Do you find yourself thinking about other times when you were happy in this situation, and trying to emulate that behavior from that previous time in your life? As in, “Oh, the first months dating Jeff were carefree and I was happy so I’ll try to act now like I acted then and maybe we’ll be happy again.”
- Has a significant portion of time passed (months, years) that you’ve been trying new and creative solutions to this situation? Maybe you’ve lived in New York for 3 years and are still trying to figure out how to have the life that’s right for you in NYC. Maybe you started a job a few years ago and have always found it lacking compared to your old job.
Diagnosis is not so difficult – you know when you’re stuck.
The key is to believe (it’s true!) that the solution will not be as terrible as the “stuck” feeling . Putting off addressing your “stuck-ness” does not make the solution any easier or the stuck feeling any more likely to mysteriously vanish.
In fact, the longer you wait to accept that you feel stuck and assess whether it is because what works for you has changed and you do not want to change with it, the bigger the solution and your adjustment to it will be. That’s a great reason to get started now!
August 25th, 2009
You have fully accepted that your job is ALL wrong for you. There is no redemption for this situation.
Now what!?!
First of all, realize that you’ve actually come a long way if you are clear that your job is wrong for you. This takes self-reflection and honesty with yourself about what isn’t working, and it’s great that you’ve put in the effort to figure this out.
Second of all, as long as you’re assessing your current situation, be very specific with WHAT you don’t like (and anything that you do like). Consider such factors as:
- Content: Think about the content of your days and the work you produce. For example, if you’re a lawyer, this may be documents you review or revise, research you conduct, and negotiating among other tasks. If you’re in marketing, the content of your work may include coming up with ideas, turning ideas into text with images, and delegating administrative tasks. Make a list of the content you dislike and content that you do like.
- Environment: Consider your current work environment. Do you like the decor of the office? Do you like where your building is located? If you work from home, is this an issue? Is there a lot of sunlight or very little? Do you have your own, secluded work space or do you work in an open space – and do you like this layout? Even if you’ve never taken much notice of your work environment, stop for a moment to mull these questions over and write down your preferences.
- Relationships: Assess what part of your dislike in your current job results from the relationships you have with your co-workers, your boss(es) and anyone who works for your. Do you like any of these people, and if so, why? If the people you work with are at the top of your list of reasons why this job is wrong for you, what is missing from these relationships?
- Responsibility: How much responsibility are you given and do you desire more or less? Sometimes, large companies result in individuals working in pigeonholed roles when a broader variety of tasks – not just admin work but also some training and teaching, for example – might be a better fit for you. Perhaps you’re handling way too many tasks and it feels overwhelming. Get clear on your feelings about your current responsibility level.
- Autonomy: Is the work you do fairly independent from other’s work, or does your work product depend on the productivity of other people? Assess if autonomy or lack there of is an issue at your current job.
- Pay: Is your primary frustration compensation? If a raise is long overdue, or perhaps your hours are much longer than promised when you accepted this position, take note of this.
- Culture: What is the culture like at your job, and does it suit your natural preferences? If you’re a very relaxed and down-to-earth person working in a stiff environment, this may be part of your distaste for your job when you want to shoot the breeze at the water cooler and that’s simply not done. Perhaps you like structure and order at work and your environment is low on boundaries and high on social events.
These are just a few of the ingredients to consider as you dissect the precise problem.
No matter how miserable you are right now, you can use your strong opinions to gather information about your NEXT job.
For example: You work in marketing for a large bank at the home office in a big city and you are not happy in your job. You don’t respect your co-workers with maybe one exception, and find yourself stuck with menial tasks instead of creating content and writing which is what you like doing, and the people you work with are very restrained. It’s hard for you to don the persona of the uptight bank culture that is your stuffy work environment. You hate wearing suits and hate how much red tape there is when attempting to complete a project. Your pay is actually pretty good but your hours are TERRIBLE. Your boss has fits of rage followed by apologies for the explosion, the combination resulting in your timidity around him.
What this means: You actually like marketing – is it your destiny and ultimate passion? I don’t know and neither do you at the moment, but that’s an issue for another blog post. In the meantime, you have learned some of your natural preferences: you prefer relaxed work environments with less hierarchy and structure, an even-keel boss and a position that permits you to create in addition to other tasks, not just functioning as the middle-man. You dislike a formal dress code and because the work environment requires a stiffness not natural for you, you don’t feel connected to your co-workers. Work-life balance is important for you.
Solution: Prioritize finding your passion with finding a new job – if your job does not permit you free nights and weekends, you may need to do a job search before your launch your passion search.
If you decided to switch into a job that’s a better fit as an intermediary step, put out feelers in marketing for companies that tend to be less traditional than banks, such as tech companies, start-ups and even companies that you could work for remotely. You can look for jobs on craigslist, by googling headhunters in your area, and by directly contacting people you know in the marketing industry.
When you begin interviewing, be honest with yourself with how you feel about the people you’re meeting and compare the position’s responsibilities with your new-found list of preferences.
Be patient and keep looking around – this is also wonderful fodder for your ideal job description which you are now creating for yourself. By putting pen to paper and getting as specific as you can about the various factors that matter most to you, you are exponentially increasing your chances of finding this job. Trust me! Not only will you know it when you see it and then jump on it, you are attracting this job to you when you send your wishes out into the universe.
Even if you’re not into touchy-feely concepts such as the Law of Attraction, take a leap of faith and try it out for once – what would be better than having the perfect job drop into your lap?
If the Law of Attraction, where I get clear on what I want and it appears in my life out of nowhere, hadn’t happened to me before, I may not be such a believer.
But it has! So, I am.
Put your list of criteria somewhere you will see it often and add to it as you grow clear on your job likes and dislikes, and, congratulations: you’re well on your way to life after “I hate my job.”
August 19th, 2009
I help people find their passions. I LOVE this work because it is rewarding and fun.
I want to share with you one of the biggest roadblocks I see in my clients who have spent years working in an environment that is wrong for them is that they are not in touch with their feelings.
This is a big roadblock because they want to discover their passion and lasting contribution to the world – and passion is a feeling.
We can’t know passion when we see it – we know it when we feel it.
Reconnecting with how we feel is often the first and is an unavoidable step to identifying what we are uniquely passionate about.
How do we reconnect with how we feel? We reconnect with our feelings by reconnecting with our bodies.
Do this mini-body scan as you read this post:
- As you sit or lay there, uncross your legs and let your arms hang by your side.
- Take a breath in as you count one-two-three-four, and now let it out as you count 0ne-two-three-four. Do that two more times.
- Think for a second about the balls of your feet. How do they feel? Are they tingly or throbbing or tight? Check in with the ball of your feet until they respond to you.
- Now let your focus climb up your feet and ankles and legs, making mental pit stops as you go. Each part of your body feels a certain way right now, so keep asking until it tells you how it feels. Don’t give up on your left knee — it wants to speak up, it’s just been years since you have paid it attention.
How did that feel? Was it very difficult? This mini-body scan is a great way to get back in touch with your feelings because feelings live in your body. As wonderful as our minds can be, they cannot get us to our passions, only our body’s can. And we only know something is our “passion” if it feels like passion to us.
HINT: If it is very difficult for you to access how one part of your body is feeling, this is a sign that you have neglected it and have climbed out of your own self, so to speak, and been living a disproportional amount of time in your head or totally outside of yourself (by constant awareness of how what you do or look like seems to others).
Even if you found the exercise difficult, and are thinking, sure I don’t freaking know how my pinky toes feel, but I have feelings often – take a moment to pause and consider that it is possible that you are only registering the feelings that are bopping you over the head.
All of the emotions at a talking level – which happens to be the level at which your passion speaks, at first – are too quiet for you to hear right now because you are not in your body enough to hear them.
Years of ignoring aches and pains and discomfort leads to a fairly high level of disregard for the whispers that can help us the most.
If you take 10 minutes each day for one month concentrating on how your body feels at that moment and thinking of your happiest memories, you will achieve mountains more than brainstorming about things you like and trying to figure out what you want to do with your head.
- Do a body scan like we went through above each morning when you wake up. It’s just a few minutes and it will set up your focus to the right compass for your entire day full of experiences.
- Spend 10 minutes each morning thinking of your favorite memories. Think of them like marbles that you keep in a treasure chest in your mind – take them out, hold them in your hand and then keep them safe until tomorrow. Do this for 1 month.
- Spend 10 minutes each day imagining the absolute best life for you. Think about how you feel and where you are, what your home looks like, who is with you, the kinds of things you do. Do this every day for 1 month.
- Twice each day, take three deliberate inhales and exhales where you focus on keeping your inhale equal to your exhale.
While it may seem counterintuitive not to be hammering out a 10-step plan for finding a career or switching jobs or uncovering your passion, this is the plan!
You won’t know what the plan can be until you know the direction of your passion that is “warmer” and can say no to the direction that is “colder”.
Trust me – do one of the above suggestions for just 1 month and in my experience there is a 99% likelihood you’ll be closer to uncovering your passions.
Here is what you risk – nothing. At worst, you’ll be more relaxed, calmer and happier – not a bad worst case scenario when the upside is finding your purpose.
August 16th, 2009
I find it interesting when people come to me seeking relief in their suffering over career decisions and yet are unwilling to make changes.
When I ask, “How does it feel when you think your thought that you just told me, ‘I am trapped in a situation where I cannot have my ideal career AND my most basic needs met’?”
And the answer is, “TERRIBLE!”, it seems to me like the person with the TERRIBLE thought might want to change it.
And sometimes, that person is unwilling to change his or her perception of the situation whatsoever, even when changing perspective means feeling better and even having the exact thing that seems impossible to have!
You can have it all – feeling good and living a life you currently believe impossible – if you will open up to changing your perspective.
Why would anyone resist making the change?
Because it means that you are no longer the victim of your own life – you are the culprit.
Ask yourself: How is playing the victim in my own life working for me?
Answer: It feels terrible! If you’re anything like me, you play this role all of the time. “My boss makes me do things that I don’t want to do.” “My parents make me go home for Thanksgiving.” ”I have to go to the dentist.”
When you assume your true identity – the perpetrator of all of the crimes that have been done to you – you don’t get to sit in the corner telling yourself that you have to do this or that, or that you just have bad luck, or that everyone is out to get you, or it is anyone else’s fault that your life sucks. It is your fault. You’re holding the bag. Guys, we have been caught red handed.
Realizing that all of the crimes committed to you by so many people and situations are actually crimes that you did to yourself means that you are empowered to undo the damage and bring yourself great opportunities, great friends and great experiences.
- You choose the job you hate – no one can make you go there each day, either, you choose to get up and go there.
- You choose the living situation that is all wrong for you
- You choose to run up your credit card bill instead of living within your means.
- You choose to go to the dentist because you don’t want cavity-ridden teeth and major health problems.
- You choose not to speak up when your landlord raised your rent beyond what you can afford.
- You choose to disregard your own wishes and do what you thought “everybody” wanted you to do and thereby live the wrong life for you.
It’s not a blame-game, it’s an acceptance-game. Accept your role in each miserable situation in your life, and you have taken your power back.
You can choose another job, or to leave your job. You can choose to pay off your credit card debt or keep riding it up. You can choose to find your own voice and speak up or to keep quiet. No matter what you do, it’s your choice.
Those are your choices: Suffer forever as the victim of your life without any relief, or step up to the knowledge that you’re responsible for creating your own misery or your own victory.
Do nothing in the real world as your very first step. Start in your head: On the count of 3, imagine walking through each room of your ideal life – your career, your weight and health, your relationships, your family life.
Take that pacifier out of your mouth and imagine a life where you decide each piece according to what you want and what is right for you.
You are responsible for our own happiness and career success – and this is great news.
August 13th, 2009
You chose this job because it made sense. It was logical to go to law school. It seemed like the easiest way to make the most money to work for this or that company.
Your big brain selected the job that met the criteria it adopted as “important” (money, prestige, what dad thinks, security) and voila!
Or maybe you had always been in one industry and really enjoyed it, and after 7 years you felt like you’d done all that could be done in that job, so you left that job for another similar job in a different company in the same industry. It made sense!
It’s a tale as old as time. Well, really it’s a tale as old as the Enlightenment Age of Reason, a period around the 1700’s, which contributed such things as democracy, awareness of social issues in the public sphere and the supremacy of reason and logic over all other problem solving avenues.
At this time in the world’s history, reason and logic officially became the king of the universe in the opinion of western civilization. Such mantras as, Deny your body! Control your emotions! Embrace stoicism! became accepted as fact. I would argue that most of us over here in the west still live our lives this way. And somehow, we are miserable….
I suspect you have experienced in your life, as I have, basing your life decisions primarily on how “logical” something is results in experiences as fulfilling as living in a world without sunshine or clean air.
The career path chosen because it’s logical sounds like a good idea in theory, but when you’re living it, it feels pretty yucky.
Your brain says yes, but your soul flounders.
Eastern cultures suggest another way of operating: the mind is incredibly useful when it is taking orders, not giving them. Who is giving the orders? Your essential self. Where does your essential self live? IN YOUR BODY.
Your body is the boss. Its many sensations, wisdoms and emotions are the keys to your destiny. Your body picks up the creepy vibes of the guy on the subway and the buoyant energy of the best day in your whole life.
Did you ever meet a person, or go to a job interview, or walk into an apartment or house and just KNOW that it was right for you? You just KNEW that that was where you belong.
Go to one of those memories and think about how that feeling felt in your body – not what you were thinking or whether you experienced the emotion of happiness, but how did your chest feel? What did your hands want to do? What is going on in your stomach? Remember this! This is the feeling you will look for whenever you know if it is right for you to say “yes” to something. This is your truth.
And the truth always tastes of freedom.
The mind is a terrible master but a wonderful servant. Your body tells you “yes” and that is the moment to put your mind to work on making it happen.
Crawl back into your body for a moment, see how it feels right now. Observe it without judgment and everything it is telling you.
Here’s your starting place for all of your career decisions – but only if you want a career that brings you joy, all of life’s riches, success and more. 
August 10th, 2009
You’ve been laid off.
One of the benefits this bestows is TIME.
TIME to transform yourself from miserable to happy, to release your old ideas that are keeping you numb or downtrodden, and to uncover a career or job that (1) is RIGHT for you and (2) viable today.
Here is the 5th step and FINAL step to get you there!
STEP 5: Repeat steps 1 through 4.
Don’t be disappointed! This step is just as key as each of the four that precede it.
Here’s Why: Going through steps one through four (dissolving your fears, crawling back into your own body while you define your boundaries, growing clear over what you want and releasing your death grip over one particular outcome) just ONE TIME is like going to see a personal trainer ONE TIME – you’re in only marginally better shape than you were 60 minutes ago.
In fact, the gym metaphor is pitch-perfect for the work cut out for you to be happy and gainfully working once again.
- WHY TO RELENTLESSLY DISSOLVE FEARS: When you dissolve your fears each morning for 10 minutes while you drink your coffee, you are building a muscle. The muscle you build gives you the strength to identify fears – and ANY thoughts – that are not serving you well.
- The more days per week you dissolve your fears, the more mentally sound and fit you are – what better person to employ? or raise some kids? or go to Starbucks and run into just the right person who is looking for someone with your skills? There is, actually, NO better person than that! Stop reading and start your fear dissolving! Just kidding finish reading this first. Then commit to being in the best mental shape of your life! You have the time, no more excuses.
- WHY TO CONSTANTLY CHECK BOUNDARIES:
- You are constantly jumping into NOT your business (don’t be alarmed, virtually everyone on the island of Manhattan does this), so it takes relentless reminding to see results.
- Ask, whose business am I in? When you identify what is your business (your job, your health, your emotions) and what does not belong to you (anyone else’s job, anyone else’s health, anyone else’s emotions) and therefore no reason to jump into and muck about it, you take your power back.
- You CAN control your business. You CANNOT control (oh, but not for lack of trying) anyone else’s. Next time you’re upset because your boyfriend won’t work out, just drop it. So keen on the gym, are you? Then why don’t you go to the gym? EXACTLY!!! You don’t have to think about how you are not so healthy when you’re swimming around in someone else’s business. In the words of Mr. Wilson: Go home, Dennis.
- WHY YOU MUST WORK AT WHAT YOU WANT:
- Identifying what you truly, deeply want in your career (or anything) is not flipping a switch.
- Again, gym metaphor: It’s like training for a marathon. You cannot go the distance with the lungs and legs you have today. Go as far as you can with the little you know of yourself (I like movies; I enjoy dogs) today, and next week you’ll find you can go farther (I love smart movies that comment on culture; I enjoy running and training dogs) and farther (I love reading, watching and writing smart content on culture; I am entering a doggy competition with old Rex).
- Knowing what you want from a deep, essential self level means that, for perhaps the first time in your life, when you get what you want, you will feel satisfied. Satisfaction – not looking eagerly for the next plateau in an endless series of latter climbing scramble wants – will overcome your physical being. Let me tell you – this is one drug you’ve got to try. It’s like dopamine on meth or something. Sorry I clearly don’t know enough about drugs to attempt a joke. Also not the worst thing to not know about.
- WHY YOU MUST RELENTLESSLY RELEASE OUTCOMES: Staying loose by releasing control to outcome is very counter-intuitive in our scheduled-to-the-maximus lives that we also plug toddlers and dogs into with their own play dates, music lessons and sports (and I’m just talking about the damn dogs!). It’s a skill – like squash or pilates or golf. It’s learning a new technique.
- Here, it is helpful to have a master mentor to learn from. Find any evolved human being to stalk or read books by Eckhart Tolle if the stalking doesn’t work out for you. Ignite your progress by finding a model.
Folks, the final tip I leave for you and your laid-off life (okay, second to last tip, I just remembered something) is that you HAVE TO DO THE WORK. Do the work! Do it! Do some work! Work on yourself! If I could reach out of this computer and make you go through these steps just once, so you could see how you feel and keep doing it if you feel good BUT stop doing it if you feel crapola, I would. Make yourself do it once – and if you notice a little pep in yo’ step and some cajole to your stroll, you’ll want to do this work.
The REAL final tip I’m shouting here is this: be thankful for what you have.
Free time and good health are not the worst combination in the world. So you’re sleeping on your mom’s couch? At least now you have time to get back to your writing! So you’re homeless? Again – what better book or article in the Times than the one about the actual homeless investment banker or architect? Think of our ancestors: they were all homeless. They built huts on the land and lived there from birth till untimely and early death (ok, so you might not want to live in the extremities indefinitely).
No matter how dire your straights, you have some thank you’s to spout before you lay your weary head tonight. When you start feeling grateful, you begin to see your blessings hiding behind every corner of your home – or the crannies of your dumpster, I don’t judge – and darn if the world doesn’t start inviting you to the party every opportunity it gets.
August 4th, 2009
You’ve been laid off.
One of the benefits this bestows is TIME.
TIME to transform yourself from miserable to happy, to release your old ideas that are keeping you numb or downtrodden, and to uncover a career or job that (1) is RIGHT for you and (2) viable today.
Here is the 4th STEP to get you there…
Step 4: RELEASE CONTROL OVER OUTCOME.
The best way to be the most popular kid at school is to think nothing of your popularity. And the way to earn the nickname “Wizard” for magically appearing to social gatherings uninvited is to desperately want to be accepted and liked.
The best way to be in the most demand with the opposite sex is to not care whether or not you are asked out. If you want to be dead in the dating water, feel like you urgently need and MUST go out with someone, anyone.
The surest way to have people respond to your emails about potential jobs is to be okay if they don’t write you back. Or you could make it clear that you would do anything to be considered and are desperate for the position and then you could feel confident that you would never hear from them, ever.
What’s the deal with releasing your focus on outcome? It might sound counter-intuitive to mentally coach yourself into being okay with getting a job or not getting a job, but it’s true and proves itself time and time again.
It’s that whole energy thingy- we humans can take a cue from the animal world every time when it comes to understanding how your energy affects your surroundings and creates your reality. Basically, your “energy” as perceived by other humans and animals is the frequency of the emotions in your body – positive feeling emotions have a higher frequency and negative feeling emotions have a lower frequency. Creepy people thinking sinister thoughts give off gross energy and you pick up on it when you’re listening to your body. Animals “sense” a predator – the gazelle at a watering hole will freeze because of the energy she is picking up, she doesn’t actually see anything. If she saw something, she’d be running at turbo speed already. Ultimately, she gets out of there if the energy she is picking up does not subside.
People are just like animals this way: work on your energy by working on your thinking about outcome. The more reasons you can come up with that either outcome could be good (this is true, by the way, that either outcome could be good – so you can definitely find reasons) when applying for a job, or asking someone out, the more likely you are that the wishbone breaks your way every time.
In other words, know what you want (see step 3), but be open to change as you make your way in the world.
PRACTICAL EXAMPLE: When you loose your job as an associate at a law firm and can no longer grind up the corporate ladder, find reasons that this really could be a good thing and KEEP THINKING UNTIL YOU FIND REASONS YOU BELIEVE. Then, be open to whatever job or career that opens up to you that you find attractive – and be ok with the ones that don’t.
You may speak to some headhunters or other connectors and find yourself working free lance as a contract attorney - great! Now you have time to exercise, take trips, see your friends (or make friends – at last!), or maybe this contract work provides you with the time to do the work to figure out your next career move and still be earning some income.
Your outcome may be that you still want to be a partner at a law firm, and you’ve not closed off that option, but consider relaxing your death grip on that dream. While I can think of 3 partners I know that worked as contract attorneys at one point, I can also think of a few that have confided in me that they know this is not the happiest they could have been with a job. Others live in anxiety because of the onus of bringing in business that is dwindling. Maybe you’ll make partner, maybe you won’t — and if you are open to another outcome, you’ll find that the unplanned outcome is always so much better than what you THOUGHT would be a happy ending.
There is knack to releasing control over outcome, start practicing with your dog by being cool if he comes to say hi, or decides to lie in the corner… if you are doing this with 100% of yourself, the dog comes! I swear! It’s like dog whispering. PS: Works with cats, too. My dad hates them and never notices their presence and they LOVE this, his indifference is the ultimate cat magnet.
Does it really matter if you end up as a partner (staying in the example above) or going in-house at a start up IP investment firm if you’re really happy? Convincing yourself that only one outcome will bring you joy is a lie. You cannot tell the future or know without a doubt how life would’ve been at that other job or if you’d stayed on at your firm or if you’d invested your money differently.
The truth is, the outcome that will bring you the most joy is the one that happened.
CONCLUSION! If you are enjoying the work you do, and not attached to one particular outcome, you have succeeded in leading your own wonderful experience in the world.
And THAT is what it’s all about!
Next and final step # 5 is next at bat.
August 4th, 2009
You’ve been laid off.
One of the benefits this bestows is TIME.
TIME to transform yourself from miserable to happy, to release your old ideas that are keeping you numb or downtrodden, and to uncover a career or job that (1) is RIGHT for you and (2) viable today.
Here is the 3rd Step to get you there.
Step 3: BECOME CLEAR ON WHAT YOU WANT.
Commit to doing the work necessary to connect with yourself, and you’ll grow clear on what you truly want.
I am living proof that when you become clear on what you want, what you want FALLS INTO PLACE. I have several of these stories – with work, with thoughts, with my personal life.
Today I want to share one fall-into-place story from my personal life. This is pretty unusual for me, I am sort of a private person when it comes to my personal life. But in the spirit of Step 3, I am going to go with it and do what I want and tell you a story.
But before I go into that, first let me say that the place from which you want something is key in this step. Only when you want something from your essential self, from an authentic place, rather than wanting something from only your social self, a shallow place, can wanting create the object of your desire.
EXAMPLE: Why do you want a Porsche? Is it because you want people to think you are cool and successful (social self desires) or is it because driving a car with those capabilities feels deeply satisfying and extremely fun (essential self)? Or both?
Social self desires are not evil or bad or anything to be hated – these shallow desires are just not very powerful on their own. Think of it this way: Excellent race car drivers who were born to drive feel like they’re breathing for the first time in their lives when they’re driving – they love it. Do their social selves love having a G3 Porsche in their driveways? Maybe so, and that is okay. When the source of the desire is deep and authentic, the desire itself attracts the thing it longs for.
There is action involved, but the actions you take have a different quality when they are motivated by an authentic want. More on that later.
Back to my story. About a year and a half ago, I broke my foot and was stuck on crutches in New York City for six weeks.
I cannot convey how impossible it is to get around this city when you’re disabled. My universe of walking to work, walking 100 feet to the restroom, walking from my apartment 20 feet to the elevator, walking from the cab half a block to the restaurant — it all disappeared. Even though I exercise regularly I just don’t have the upper body strength to lift my body weight with every single step. for thousands of steps, each day.
So I was stuck. I felt depressed sitting in my apartment while working until 9:30pm (an early night for me to finish work at that time) and not be able to join friends for dinner. I tried to go to a movie, but the closest theater had the world’s largest lobby – how to get all the way to purchase the tickets? and then all the way to the massive stadium seats?
And yet – this injury in this city was one of the best things that has ever happened to me.
Once I was physically forced to slow down, I could hear some of the whispers of deep desires bubbling up.
At the time, I was reading Steering by Starlight by my girl Martha Beck. The book suggests visualizations and other creative exercises to literally see and grow very clear on what you truly want.
I found after a few exercises where I had to visualize my future, to be still for 10 minute, to create a place in my mind where I kept all of my treasured memories, that I seemed to deeply desire a companion. I have been very independent my whole adult life and not very interested in serious romantic relationships. I have always dated, and really love going on dinner dates, but not because I have been looking for a boyfriend, just because it’s interesting to meet new people and fun to date. A girl’s gotta eat, right?
Then I broke my foot. I discovered that I had a longing. I dwelled on that emotion and it grew clear that what I longed for was a person. I wanted a partner to share things with, to get to know really well and with whom everything just worked easily. I wanted to meet a great human being who understood being self-reflective and self-aware, who was fun and required very little compromise or work for either of us.
I didn’t feel desperate in this need. It wasn’t as if I felt I MUST have it TODAY or else I was going to loose it. I just felt a deep desire that I began to focus on and listen to and grow specific about.
And then – once I got in touch with my deep desire, grew really specific about what it was I wanted – THE FIRST NIGHT that I could walk (this was months later) and went out with a friend, I met this guy… who turned out to be a terrible match for me (you weren’t expecting that, were you?!)
The thing is, I knew he was all wrong because I was clear on what I wanted, not just that I wanted a companion. This is the WORK part, the stuff you do in the world that doesn’t really feel like “work” but is, in fact, you taking actions and doing things in your life. I went out, met a fun person who was all wrong for me and recognized that.
THEN, another few weeks went by and a friend dragged me to this concert, and THEN I met someone interesting who I then got to know and it turned out that he totally fit the bill – and then some!
How’s that for The Secret?
The key is knowing what you want from a deep place, not a shallow and clinging place. If I had wanted a boyfriend because then people would think I was good enough, for example, things would’ve been much messier with the no’s that I met and my desire would not have been in place to be attracting who I am looking for.
OR if you feel desperate for a job just because you feel embarrassed about not having one, you may one day get what you want, but it will take uphill work, a definite grind of a journey that feels like swimming up stream. This is unpleasantry is avoidable.
Instead, if you get still and listen, you may realize that you actually would love to take a break. Downsize the overhead necessary to live your life, and give yourself a break.
Or, if you listen, you may realize that yes, you do want to be working – listen some more on what feels like some work you were born to do and would love. Be open for any unexpected ideas that may pop up. Stay loose as you’re reconnecting and relax – the whispers have always been there, all you have to do is learn how to hear them. As you take actions in the world, the quality of your experience while doing this work is much better and lighter and you’ll find much less resistance — MUCH, much less resistance in your journey for what you’re after.
Once you discover the desires from a true place, the universe rises to meet you.
Bonus Round Practical Tips:
Mine the resources that seek to guide you.
- Read the category of my blogs that deal with Thawing Yourself Out, they are full of suggestions on reconnecting with yourself – essential for knowing what you want.
- Check out Christine Kane’s advice on growing your creativity, because the right side of your brain which is a limp puddle from lack of use needs a little work out to start firing again. Your creativity and big thinking have a lot to contribute to the deep desire front.
- Keep tabs on what thought leader Seth Godin is saying. He encourages your essential self to come out and play. Read his mini-books in the time it takes you to have coffee in the a.m.
- Build time into each day, even if it’s just five minutes or five seconds, to be still and present and check in with yourself. Lay in bed for 2 minutes, by the clock, after the alarm goes off in the morning. Breath, just be still and continue to return your focus to the moment. Look at the walls, look at the ceiling. Check in on how your body feels. Any tight spots or aches? There’s tons to do in those 2 minutes. This is EXACTLY how Maria Shriver began her journey to reconnect with who she is and what she wants.
Through this work you will uncover your deepest desires. And you have to do the work to uncover the desires that are lurking.
It also takes time, but if you truly want to know your passions and are willing to take steps to get there, you will succeed in your search. What great news!
Stay tuned! Step 4 is around the corner. 
