IDK What I Want

IDK What I Want

This one has been coming up for a lot of people lately; I love it when that happens. How do I know what I want? What are my desires? What makes my goals clear?

We seem to be hardwired to only know what we don’t want.

Dang.

So maybe that means that learning what we do want is part of growing up.

I love the weirdness of how challenging it can be to figure out what we want when knowing what we want is so rewarding.

I love the image of sitting in a restaurant, with a huge menu, feeling really hungry, and the wait staff showing up every ten minutes or so, and the patron saying, “I won’t have the steak. I don’t want french fries or coleslaw or fruit. I don’t want the house salad or the soup.I also don’t want the chicken or the fish.” Well, you get the idea. Cracks me up.

How do I want my day to go? What do I like to do? What brings me joy? How do I have fun?

Now, for a good chunk of my early life, I didn’t think I would survive 5 years, so making a 5 year plan seemed absurd. What I did was spend time doing things I felt some passion for. So, I’ve had a varied and interesting life. And I have survived.

What do I want? What do I like to do best? What am I good at? How do I know what I want?

I can hit the big topics; family, career, health, wealth, spirit. I can start to drill down within those topics. I can think about my hobbies, or hobbies I might want to have, and where they would fit.

One weird way to come to know what we want is taking the time to make a list of what we don’t want. Every single thing we can think of. And once we’ve done that, we often have cleared the decks for looking at what we do want.

Another weird way to figure it out is to imagine yourself sometime in the future, thinking back about the best, funnest, coolest stuff you did, and noticing what that is. Messing around with that concept can also loosen up feeling stuck, or generate some motivation or inspiration.

A good way to stymie ourselves and nurture misery is to spend a lot of time thinking about what we can’t have. Things change, losses happen, opportunities are missed, dreams fail, but those things also have useful nuggets within them if we look for them.

Another way is to write out a BE-Do-Have list. I love these, and have been writing ‘em out for ages. You write a hundred things you wanna be, a hundred things you wanna do, and a hundred things you wanna have. Oh, my. This is a nice exercise because you really have to dig deep. And then you cross the stuff off your list as you either gain it, or unchoose it. And then you replace it with new stuff.

How have I changed from knowing only what I don’t want to having goals, ambitions, dreams and desires?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 05082014

Would you tell me something you want? I want to slow down inside a bit more. It's easier to stay focused for me when I can do that, so I feel more productive. And a wind-proof compact umbrella. 

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Owning Our Divine Greatness

Owning Our Divine Greatness

Again, I drew the “Why do I have a purpose?”card, from the blue and yellow deck. The word that popped out for me was “innocent.”

Each of us has a purpose, a point to our existence. Each of us has a special set of skills, talents, and experience that combine to make a rich and amazing blend. When we figure out what to do with it, and start doing it, the world is blessed by our gift.

Some of us are blessed with knowing what we want, knowing what we want to do, almost from the beginning. They are the people who are now what they wanted to be when they were a kid. It’s not the case for many of us.

In days of yore, I felt like I was living without direction, without purpose. Looking back, I think I may have been wrong about that. I think that, because I was so focused on feeling bad, that my purpose was to nurture that; my bad thoughts, my bad feelings, my physical discomfort, my unpleasing circumstances and dissatisfying relationships.

I realize that’s kind of harsh, but I also know you want a better life. Me, too. So we need to take a few minutes from time to time to see where we are putting our energy. Do I talk about that too much? I don’t think so, heaven knows I need the reminders.

I remember that conversation wherein my friend said, “Law of Attraction? That doesn’t work. I think about money all the time, and I’m still broke.” I said, “Do you think about having money, or not having money?” He said, “I think about not having it. Oh. I get it.”

Why do I choose to think about what I want?

Whatever I’m focusing on will get more so. This isn’t 100%, but it is a very good general rule. When I am thinking about feeling overwhelmed, too much on my plate, I start moving into shutdown. For me, that can be a cold or a migraine type headache. I would much prefer to change my thinking and avoid the sick, so I will do that.

Thinking about things I want is nice, thinking about how I want to be is nice, too. I gave up on the whole “that’s just how I am” thing a long time ago. I am not my behavior, and I can change my behavior, and my thoughts, and my stupid bad attitude. I can do that. I have to want to change. I have to want to be more me, that divine, infinite being with more depth and breadth and compassion and love than I can even imagine right now.

We each are so much more on the inside than we are on the outsides. It’s one of the reasons I started playing the “Secret Name of the Day” game. When I give myself a different name, and let myself move into that name for a while, I access other aspects of my personality, aspects that I don’t usually tap into. This lets me see that I am so much more than I let myself be, and I move more deeply into my own greatness.

Why do I accept my greatness? What makes me acknowledge my infinite being? How do I know I am remarkable?

When we can get there, and touch that deep, divine aspect of ourselves, we can find our true ambitions, our pure goals, our being’s purpose. We can find the focus we need to get out of our own way, to grow up, to blossom, and live the life we want from deep within.

How have I changed from supporting my misery to supporting the self I want to be?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 11262013

Living Mindlessly

Living Mindlessly

Being a grownup is so great. One of the many reasons is that I get all the support I want. I will tell you right now, there is a trick to getting the support you want, the support you need. In fact, this trick is super-ultra-mega important to having a life you love living. You might get mad, but I’m going to tell you anyway.

Are you ready?

Know what you want.

What do I want? How do I want to feel? What makes my life go the way I like it? How do I want to spend my time? Where to I feel most productive? What makes me choose?

If I want a happy life, I have to have a good idea of what my happy life looks like. It’s sounds ridiculous, but I’m here to tell you, most people haven’t got a clue.

On the one hand, we like to think of ourselves as independent thinkers with free will.

On the other hand, we have a tendency to be kind of mindlessly compliant.

You can tell that you’re in mindlessly compliant when you get to the end of the day and can’t really remember what you did, or feel the day flew by, or like it should still be last August. The mindless part is sort of obvious. The compliant part assumes you didn’t spend the day getting yelled at for not being a team player. Often, when we are stuck in mindlessly compliant, our internal dialog is mostly complaining.

So, if you are like me, that’s not the way we want to live.

What do I want? How do I want to feel? What makes my life go the way I like it? How do I want to spend my time? Where to I feel most productive? What makes me choose?

If I can’t just say right now what I want, I need to spend some time thinking about it. I like to have at minimum five things I want right near the top of my awareness most of the time. I want to feel peaceful and happy at my core. I want to enjoy each day. I want to feel like I’ve made a difference when I go to bed. I want a folding treadmill. I want to increase my readership.

Because I have those things right there, sort of thinking about them all the time, I make choices relevant to them. I want to feel peaceful, so when folks come around all crabby and stuff, I choose not to go there with them. Ha! How easy!

Because I want to enjoy each day, I make time to appreciate stuff. I make time to be still. I notice where I am in the week, and make room to breathe. The more I appreciate, the more I find to appreciate.

I pay attention to opportunities to feel like I helped, like I made a difference for someone.

Spending time discovering what I want gives me focus. When I know what I want, what my goals are, I know what kind of support I want, and because I respect my goals, I can ask for all the support I need.

How have I changed from mindless compliance, to mindful momentum?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 11142013