Pursue the Thing You Most Want to Possess!
Monday Message from Margo 12-14-09
“There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart…pursue those.” ~Michael Nolan
Pursue the Thing You Most Want to Possess!
My mother was a hilarious women, a sweet lady, and a shoot-straight-from-the-hip kinda gal. She had so many funny and unusual sayings. Some she made up herself and others she snagged along the way on life’s journey. She spouted them off to us often. Each one told it like it was in just a few words. My brothers and sisters and I will likely write a book filled with them (if we can stop reminiscing and falling on the floor long enough to recapture them all). A favorite of mine was, “If the dog didn’t stop to take a bathroom break (a nice way of saying it), he would have caught the rabbit.”
The poor dog. He couldn’t even stop to relieve himself without my mother’s generation seriously picking on him. But, who is to say that he REALLY had to go to the bathroom? Maybe, just maybe the dog stopped because he was afraid, insecure, not certain, or numb with routine. His excursion from the chase could have been nothing more than a sly form of procrastination. We can be fairly confident that the dog did WANT the rabbit, after all, isn’t that what dogs are SUPPOSED to enjoy? For some reason though, the poor hound stopped at the wrong time or for the wrong reasons.
Could this dog be you?
Are you happy in your business and in your life?
I want to be happy, don’t you? But ARE you happy? I didn’t ask if you were appreciative or thankful. You can be thankful in any situation and in any stage of life or during any step of reaching a personal or business goal. I also did not ask if you were content (at ease). You can be content in the expected, the common, the mundane or the monotonous, but not challenged or invigorated. Further, I didn’t ask if you were satisfied (comfortable). You can be satisfied after a bowl of warm porridge, but maybe you were destined to taste sushi or steak.
Many years ago I used to tell my husband, “I don’t want a mediocre marriage, I want more”. We had a good marriage, but I wanted a great marriage. I think one of the biggest and many times one of the saddest misconceptions people have is that mediocre is good enough. After all, it is safe and somewhat effortless, and why seek after something you may not attain to or something you have never experienced when you already know, understand, and have control over what you have now? Fear of the unknown (and a dash of laziness) holds us back.
You can be in the midst of satisfaction and still seek more. Your business can be thriving while your heart holds many more dreams. What if seeking more and actually gaining it could put you in a place of living your life the way it was meant to be experienced? We are born with the capacity and the ability to do great things, even if just within our own circle of influence.
Don’t you know what Emerson said about men of quiet desperation? Look it up. If you listen to your heart—really listen—you will find that it is your God given birthright to not be o.k. with mediocrity. Mediocrity is the slow and deadly poison of a great and richly fulfilling life. Your family, your associates, and your customers deserve the best you have to offer, and you deserve that too!
What are you holding to that holds you back?
Is your business living in the past (and your relationships for that matter)? Are you surviving off of the heavenly manna of yesteryear? It’s probably going bad by now—it could be moldy. Are you holding on to old dreams that may not fit your lifestyle today, or dreams you have already lost? Don’t. It is honestly time to let go.
Let go of what may have worked for you at one time, but does not anymore. Not everything, but those activities, ideas, relationships, business pursuits, or business offerings that have no real shelf life left. Let go of the old and open your arms to embrace the new.
This is a new day. Muster up the strength and the tenacity to envision for yourself what could be—those things that are in line with where you WANT to go, and those goals that are actually somewhat within your reach, or even better, just outside of it. So what if you have to stretch a little or gain some new flexibility in order to acquire them? Anything worth having is worth the effort to gain it.
What do you REALLY want?
Do you want the rabbit, or is that what other people say you should want? Not all dogs prefer rabbit over other meats. Surely there is an elaborate fantasy, a crazy hallucination, or an intriguing story you envision for your life and business when you really let yourself go. What is YOUR CORE DESIRE? Ask yourself what you unmistakably want. The first thing that pops up may NOT be your core desire. Stay with yourself long enough to get to that core desire. You may have to dig a little, and this can sometimes be painful. Simply admitting you do not already have what you deeply desire can bring pain. Let that longing or desire for your business (or life) be one that fits you going forward, not one that came from the past. Redesign it somewhat if you must. Think about creating a NEW future.
You have the answers you need within you. Let your dreams speak to you. That new idea, that new line of products, that new and exciting direction you want to take will excite you once again. Your most meaningful and satisfying dreams will always be the ones you create and plan, rather than the old ones you fearfully or desperately cling to. The one thing that will drive you forward most forcefully in your action and pursuit of what you want now is definiteness of purpose. Be bold, be audacious. Have fun with it. What do YOU WANT NOW?
What are you waiting for in order to make even a single change?
If you want to possess it, you must pursue it.
Wayne Dyer once said, “Go for it now. The future is promised to no one.” I’ll ad that the past is long gone. Think back to five years ago? Is your business pretty much the same? How about your relationships (I’m just saying—since there could actually be a pattern in your action level here)? Has anything amazing transpired, or at the very least, have you grown substantially in any of these areas? For many people, weeks, months, and years pass, and things look exactly as they had before, or perhaps there are slight variations, some of which happened in spite of us. But is there a specific thought, plan, or dream you had that was actually realized—something truly significant to you? Another week, month, and year will surely travel by. Are you ready for something better, something even profound?
If you want to acquire it, you must identify it, acknowledge it and then 
advance toward it. You have to pursue it. Don’t wait. Start NOW. Take action immediately. DECIDE what you want. Decide that you will simply BEGIN to START creating it (see how subtle that is). The moment you decide, you enter into creating it, because your subconscious thinking, your intentions, and even your resources become focused towards what you want.
I can’t— someone already thought of that
Not the first? GREAT! Being second means someone helped pave the road for you, and it means there is information out there that can help you. It also means you can one-up the competition with added features or benefits that can save the client time, money, hassle, or solve additional problems for them. No excuses here.
Maybe it’s just too hard
Maybe it is hard, so what’s your point? Anything worth anything is a matter of effort. Hard is only for a season, and the payoff for focused effort towards the right goal yields results that feel a hundred times better than the hard ever hurt.
Recognizing that you can have more, deciding to procure it, and moving with directed action takes courage, because you must leave a space of knowing, and willingly transition through the unknown to a potential place where you know you need to be. It takes guts. You’ll never see the payoff without them.
A chunk at a time
Just how do you get from here to there, from idea to reality? Do you wait until everything is perfect to even make a step?
The way is a chunk at a time. It may very well be time to re-pattern, to break old, useless, or fruitless habits one at a time, to do something a little different, to slowly begin to make subtle adjustments and mild but certain changes in direction.
Innovation is the gift you give yourself when you lay down old patterns and tweak them with new twists.
A little more to the left or a tad more to the right can ultimately bring you to a completely different destination.
Follow your wholesome desires for improvement, fulfillment, and success
A core desire brought to your conscious mind and acknowledged by your active thoughts and actions drives you. It encompasses your thinking to the point where you cannot and will not entertain what you don’t want. You stay easily focused even in the face of obstacles, major issues, and roadblocks. You are on fire with desire and nothing can stop you. Your core desires become your priorities.
This week, find a core desire and give it a lot of thought—a lot! Mull over it, and consider how actualizing that desire will put you in a completely different place in life. Then, play with those thoughts even further. Reshape them, rearrange them, and use them to form your plan of attack.
Select a simple task, project, or goal associated with that core desire that will advance you in your career (or in whatever area you need to advance in). Make it a point to just do it, no excuses, no looking back.
Let this action step be the first of many more action steps to follow going into a new decade, 2010. The old is gone and the new is being ushered in. It is REALLY time to stop wasting your own precious time, and start solidifying once and for all the life you know you want, and most importantly, the life you KNOW you most certainly can have.
Have a Wildly Possessive Week,
Margo
Comments December 14, 2009
Yet, there is some change that as people, we tend to deeply resist. This is when the change gives us the sense that we have lost control. Someone we love dies, a spouse walks out on us, our business hits rock bottom, our best friend moves far away, or our grown child takes a path we did not want for them.