Step Two:
Select what you would like to have, do, or be.
If you realize you can have anything, be anything, or do anything, then the question becomes: What do you want?
The trick is in turning every one of your complaints around to something you DO want. Start focusing on where you want to go, not on where you were or where you are.
I don’t want this headache becomes “I want a clear head.”
I don’t want this back ache becomes “I want a strong back.”
“I don’t want these bills” becomes “I want more than enough money for everything I desire.”
“I don’t want to struggle in my business” becomes “I want business to come to me easily and effortlessly.” There’s an art to rewriting what you don’t want into what you do want. All I do is write the opposite of my complaint. Turn the sentence around 180 degrees. If I say, “I’m tired of being interrupted when I write,” the opposite would be, “I want to write in a place that is safe, quiet and without interruptions.”
You’re probably wondering what this has to do with anything. Why write these sentences if they won’t help you pay the bills or heal your problems or anything else?
Good question. The answer: Refocusing on what you do want will take you in the direction of what you want.
You see, we seem to create our lives out of our perceptions. If we focus on lack, we get more lack. If we focus on riches, we get more riches. Our perception becomes a magnet that pulls us in the direction of where we want to go.
If you don’t consciously select where you want to go, you go where your unconscious wants you to go. To paraphrase the famous Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
In that regard, most of us are on auto-pilot. We simply haven’t realized that we can take the controls. Knowing what you want helps you aim your life in the direction you want to take it.
But there is a little more to it....
I just had lunch with a delightful friend of mine. She had a session with Jonathan last week and she was still glowing. Her eyes were large and alive, full of passion for life. She reminded me that even though you may think you know what you want, you may have to probe deeper to discover what you really want.
She had gone to see Jonathan with the intention of creating a successful business for herself. Jonathan asked, “For what purpose?” After dodging the question for a while, she realized that she wanted a successful business “to prove I am a worthwhile person.”
I remember saying I wanted to write books that were colossal best sellers. Jonathan asked me that same famous question, “For what purpose?” At first I squirmed and said things like, “I deserve it” or “I want the money” or “My books are good enough for it.” But the real reason, the underlying motivating factor, was that I wanted best selling books “so people would love and admire me.” When I said it, I felt a shift within myself. I knew I had reached the real thing I wanted. My goal, my intention, was to feel love.
Most people live their entire lives being driven by an unconscious, unacknowledged need for something. The politician may be a child who never got enough attention. The business woman may be a youngster who doesn’t feel equal to her peers. The best selling author may still be trying to prove he’s smart, or lovable, or admirable.
Freedom and power come from knowing what you want without being a prisoner to what you want.
But there’s another reason for knowing and stating your intention. When you declare it, you begin to discover all the things in the way of it happening. You may say you want to pay off your house so you are free of those big payments, but suddenly here come all of the objections: “I don’t make enough money to pay off my house,” or “No one ever does that!”, to “What will my parents think?”
You know what I mean. It’s easy to come up with objections. The trick is to dissolve those objections until you are clear inside. When you are, manifesting whatever you want will be easier.
Let me explain...
A woman went to see Jonathan because she was going to have a cancer operation on Monday. She saw him on Friday. She was terrified of the operation and wanted to get rid of her fears. Jonathan helped her release all of her fears, and two hours later, when she sat up on his table, she felt healed. But she still went through the operation. On Monday, when the Doctors opened her up, they could not find any cancer. It was gone.
What happened? Again, our beliefs are powerful. The woman believed she could remove the beliefs that were causing her fear, and she did. But she didn’t know that the fear was what created the cancer. When she removed the fear, the cancer left. It no longer had a home in her body. She had taken conscious control of her life by choosing to see Jonathan and take care of her negative beliefs. She knew her life could be another way.
Beliefs are how we create reality. I’m not sure how to explain this to you in a way that makes sense. You’ve probably noticed that people seem to have recurring problems. Did you ever wonder why it was the same problem for each person? The person with money problems always has money problems. The person with relationship problems always has relationship problems. It’s as though each person specializes in a disorder.
Beliefs, unconscious or not, are creating those events. Until the beliefs that create the events are released, the events will continue to reoccur. I know a man who has been married seven times. He hasn’t gotten it right yet. He will continue to marry and divorce and marry until he removes the underlying beliefs that cause the events to happen. And while he continues to marry and divorce, he will blame other people for his problems, and maybe even blame fate, or God. But as you read earlier, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
What are your beliefs?
Look at your life. What you have are the direct results of your beliefs. Not happy? In debt? Poor marriage? Not successful? Bad health? There are beliefs that are creating those experiences for you. In a very real sense, some part of you wants what you have---problems and all.
I remember motivational guru Tony Robbins talking about a schizophrenic woman who had diabetes when she was one personality and was healthy when she was another personality. Beliefs make up personality. The woman with diabetes had beliefs which created those diabetes. It’s obvious that if you change the beliefs, you change the situation.
How do you change the beliefs? It starts with selecting what you want for your life. As soon as you select what you want to be, do, or have, you’ll discover beliefs in the way of it. They’ll surface. That swings back to what I was talking about earlier, that you can then restate your complaints so they become goals or intentions for you.
So, what do you want?
Use the space below to write want you want to be, do, or have. A study by Brian Tracy revealed that people who simply wrote down their wants and put the list away, discovered a year later that 80% of what they wrote came to be.
Write down your wants!
Did you write down many goals?
Sometimes people feel greedy when they start to ask for what they want. They feel they are taking from others.
The best way around that limiting belief is to be sure you also want others to have success, too.
In other words, if you want a new house but don’t want your neighbor to have one, you’re stuck in ego and that’s greed. But if you want a new house and think everyone ought to have one, then you are in tune with the creative spirit and you’ll pull or be led to that new house.
You see, there really isn’t any shortage in the world. The universe is bigger than our egos and can supply more then we can demand. Our job is to simply honestly ask for what we want. The desire in you is coming to you from your inner spirit. Honor that spirit by writing down what you really want to have, do or be:
Now write down one goal or intention, something that you would really like to have, do, or be.
Focus brings power. Look over your two lists and see what goal or goals jump out at you. Which goal or intention has the most energy, or charge, on it? A goal should scare you a little and excite you a lot.
And keep in mind that you can always combine goals. There’s nothing wrong with stating something like, “I want to weigh 120 pounds, own a brand new Corvette, and have fifty thousand dollars in the bank, by this coming Christmas.”
In the space below, write down the most powerful intention you can:
Now here’s the final step:
Write your intention as if you already have it.
In other words, “I want to weigh 120 pounds, own a brand new Corvette, and have fifty thousand dollars in the bank, by this coming Christmas” becomes “I now weigh 120 pounds, own a brand new Corvette, and have fifty thousand dollars in the bank!”
Do that now. Just rewrite your goal into present tense, pretending that you already have what you want:
You might now write the above goal on a card and put it in your pocket or purse. By doing so you will be unconsciously reminding yourself of your intention. Your own mind will then help nudge you in the direction of making your goal a reality.
So relax. You just planted a seed in your mind. The rest of this book will tell you how to water it, give it sunshine, clear out any weeds, and let it grow.
Prepare for your miracles!
“Prosperity is the ability to do what you want to do at the instant you want to do it.”
-- Treat Yourself to Life by Raymond Charles Barker, 1954