Decide to Succeed!

Are you clear about the direction you are heading in? Or are you simply taking whatever life throws at you? If you find yourself struggling everyday you are probably stuck in the first step of the manifesting process, which is deciding exactly what you want your life to look like.

Now, you might say that deciding what you want is not the problem, you know what you want… you are just having a hard time getting it to manifest in your reality, but the truth is that knowing what you want is not the same as deciding what you want.

We all have dreams. We all have wishes. We all have desires. But none of those will become a reality for you if you don’t decide to make those dreams real, if you don’t decide to change. It is the decision to focus on your goals and move toward them that changes them from wispy dreams into solid reality.

But that’s not the end of the battle, is it? You have probably decided to reach out toward several dreams and even though you have made the decision, you’ve decided that this is what you want, you can still struggle to make those dreams real. You can still find yourself faced with obstacles and roadblocks that make you doubt your ability to actually make this happen.

How can this be?

It happens because getting clear about the changes you want to make, in other words, deciding what you want, is not really one decision, it is actually two separate decisions.

The first is a decision to move toward a specific goal. This is where you’ve narrowed down your desires and chosen a particular dream that you want to create. This is the decision that gets written about and talked about all the time. Decide what you want, decide what you want, decide what you want… unfortunately, that’s not enough.

The second decision in the process is the important one. This is the step that gets left out and causes you so much grief and struggle. The second decision is when you decide to make the changes necessary to bring your goal to life.  You see, it’s one thing to decide to lose weight, it’s another to decide to change your eating habits or alter your beliefs about eating.

It’s easy to decide what you want. What causes you struggle is your resistance to the changes you need to make.

Every new thing that you bring into your life, every new part of your being that you want to express, requires you to change.  YOU.  Not the world, not your neighbors, not those annoying people in your life… YOU have to change.  You have to decide that the changes you want are worth the effort. This is what throws many people off track. They decide what they want, but they are unwilling to change anything in their life to get it.

One of the biggest misconceptions about self improvement is that once you learn the process you can have everything you want in life. That’s what all the books and movies tell you, right?

WRONG.

You can have anything you want in life, but you can’t have everything at once. Many of your desires are actually at odds with each other, and if you try to have both in your life at the same time you wind up feeling blocked and you meet with mountains of struggle.

Let’s stick with the weight loss example. You may decide that you want to lose weight, that may be an important goal that you want to create.  But at the same time you find yourself unwilling to change your eating habits, or your exercise, or even the very thoughts that you have about food. This unwillingness to change is at the heart of your struggle. This is true regardless of your goal.

The solution is simple, but one that you might find yourself having a hard time committing to. You have to prioritize your wants and desires and see which ones are most important to you. While you may enjoy gorging yourself on your favorite foods, you will discover that you can’t lose the weight unless you change your eating habits.

You see, the decision to lose weight is not enough in itself to power your success. You must also look at your decision and see what changes you have to make right now in order to bring that dream to life. You might look at your decision to lose weight and discover that there are many changes you must make in your life. Each one of those changes requires you to make another decision. You can feel like you are ‘giving up’ something. It can be frustrating.

The secret to success is looking at your desires and honestly assessing the changes you need to make. If you find yourself unwilling to give up your fast food addiction then you probably aren’t really committed to making weight loss a reality.

A happy, successful life is not about punishing yourself or going without. It is about learning your true desires and deciding which ones are important enough to you for you to begin changing. Life is full of choices and many times you will find yourself being pulled in more than one direction at a time.

The key to your happiness lies in understanding that you CAN have everything you want, just not all at once. Decide which of your dreams is most important to you and decide to make the changes that will make your dream a reality.

Peace,

p.s.  There are lots of great ways to help you choose your path and succeed in life, but none are matched by the power of a strong support network and positive feedback.  Those are just two of the benefits that a mastermind-style group can provide you.

p.p.s. Don’t forget to DREAM BIG!