Tomorrow Begins Today

To paraphrase Lewis Carroll, if you don't know where you are going any road will get you there. There is a wonderful understanding in that phrase. As a hypnotist I have clients who seem to bounce from situation to situation, crisis to crisis in a reactive manner. They know in general what they want in life and go along with that nebulous cloudy understanding of a direction. Their actions and their determination match that going along attitude; nebulous and cloudy.

Do not get me wrong, there are benefits to this approach. Because you have not locked in a fixed destination you have a stronger ability to shift and adjust as the vagaries of life come your way. Like the flexible reeds in a heavy wind people can bend in extreme directions and yet recover with no noticeable damage. The important adjective in the previous phrase is noticeable. As these events come about our movements and shifting do cause changes that are not perceivable. Like a car that has been driven down the road and avoids a log or deer, our lives get out of alignment. You continue driving the car and the next few slight detours extend that misalignment until steering becomes a greater problem. This is bane of living, but it sure beats the alternative.

Man plans and God laughs is one of my favorite adages Most plans are going to be knocked down, shifted, and mildly mutilated as we move on. So how can we not succumb to these slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? We must or should create and focus on a North Star, a point that has stability and is immovable. In essence you are creating for yourself that one goal, that one achievement that is uniquely yours and all else fails in comparison. You make an investment in arriving at this destination because little else can give you that immutable joy and happiness when it is realized. The summit of that mountain, the apex of this journey is your greatest happiness.

Your greatest happiness should be your goal in life. Every action you take should be aimed in that one direction. Any obstacles that appear would evaporate like an ice cube in a frying pan if your desire on acquiring that goal is laser focused and consistent. What would stop someone, indeed everyone, from getting there? The barrier, in a phrase, is not knowing what that North Star is.

Henry David Thoreau went into the woods at Walden to live his life deliberately. He wanted to know what the basic things in life could teach him without the noise of 1850's life in New England. To truly find happiness in his life he stripped everything away and went back to nature. The trappings of materials things were just that to Thoreau; traps. Settling for comfort and ease he believed would prevent him from fully appreciating all life had to offer. He went to the woods to live deliberately, but I would say he went to the woods to determine what happiness was at the basest level. He had to know for himself. He had established that North Star and that search for understanding and getting to that destination consumed him and drove him.

When we define something we in fact begin to limit it. I describe my dog Stromboli as an Estrela Mountain Dog who weighs over 110 pounds and in defining him I also say what he is not. Much to his chagrin he is not a lapdog. He is not a cat, horse or hamster. In ten words I have eliminated an infinite number of possibilities for who he is. In thinking about him and defining him, I filter through thousands of criteria of limiting factors. I could indicate his color, his bloodline, his health, or more information on this wonderful breed. As I discuss him, I am also determining for myself the elements that I believe are important in clearly representing my wonderful companion. Because of the relationship I have with him, I am the master of defining those terms. So should it be when you define your own happiness.

There is the concept of the tabula rasa, the blank slate that must be written on. You are the author of your own happiness. To find that happiness, you should ask yourself when in your life you felt most fulfilled. What were the times that you felt in congruence with everything around you. What were the elements that created those feelings. Frequently we get so caught up in these moments of transcendent joy we do not take the time to appreciate the elements that created them.

The first step is to create the fertile ground for those feelings. As a life coach and hypnotist one of my first objectives is to establish for my client that they are the most important thing in their own world. If you believe you are deserving of pain, anxiety, stress and guilt, you will find all the things in your life that match that checklist. Indeed, you frequently will transmute events from joyous to painful. Nothing is good or bad, but that thinking makes it so. When you expect to find something painful, your subconscious mind will find a way to meet that expectation.

Luckily, the opposite is also true. When you expect great things to occur, your imagination will take challenging events and create a way they can be placed in the positive universe you have established to hold it. So step one should be to acknowledge:

You are a success in your life. It is inherent in your nature; it is there just like Michelangelo’s David was present in the flawed piece of marble that had twice been discarded by other master sculptures. All that remains is the process of chiseling away at all the ancillary bits that are not serving a purpose in your life. When all the extraneous, unimportant things are stripped away the masterpiece will be revealed.

Before you can use the chisel, maps, compasses and other tools necessary to find the previously undiscovered country, you must have an idea of what/where that country is.

What does success look, feel, sound, and even taste like?

Take the time to write down all the elements of that success. That is your tabula rasa. Use the brightest colors, the most tactile words, the most vivid sounds, the most vibrant tastes so that it will become complete and compelling to you. The more complete and compelling it becomes to you, the better. If you begin to question it, you may need to change. That idea/destination should vibrate and resonate within you without having to be edited. Even taking the time to truly search for that happiness serves a wonderful purpose. You are editing, tweaking, and manipulating ideas, thoughts and feelings and measuring them against an ideal you are in the process of creating.

This first exercise did a few things that are necessary for you to discover the success magnet you are. You have engaged your imagination to create something that will exist for you. If you have no destination, you have no direction.  If you hold onto that destination and realize you will arrive there, you have taken a great first step.

I take information and knowledge from any source I think will serve my greater goal. When Jesus is asked what the greatest Commandment was he said there were two. Love God with your whole heart and love your neighbor as you love yourself. The implication is that you truly love yourself. Loving yourself is a selfless act. Those people who care for you and whose happiness means the most to you want you to live a joyous life. When you sabotage yourself, you are harming them. In caring deeply about yourself and truly taking care of yourself, you are easing them from worry and unneeded concerns. Loving yourself is setting the foundation for all your life's happiness.

The wonderfully brilliant and caustic comedian Bill Hicks said that life is a choice between fear and love. We are always fighting that battle. If you face your life in fear, you will hide from all the events that could elevate you above the riffraff and allow you to wallow in mediocrity. It is fine to aspire to great things, but words without deeds accomplish nothing. It all begins with your positive thoughts that lead to those positive actions.

If you see everything through the lens of love and understanding bad things will still occur; but, their effect will be lessened. There are two things in life from my point of view; gifts and lessons. A gift occurs when someone shares a kind word or expresses an appreciate for who you are and what you do. It could even be a literal gift of a book, money or a painting. When the gift is given an exchange is made. You are receiving the gift and how it is received shows how you view your life.

There is an old Jewish proverb that: it is most blessed to give then receive, but they are thrice blessed that receive graciously. When a gift is given you have a choice. You can accept it graciously or reject it. Consider at the deepest level what those two actions truly do. If you reject the gift you are telling the giver that you are not worthy of it. In truth it goes beyond that. It tells the giver that their opinion of you is of little or no value to you. You are in essence insulting the giver.

If you receive it graciously and tell them that it means a great deal to you because it came from them, you honor them and at a deep level tell yourself you are worthy of that kindness. These little acts of self kindness build the foundation for a better happier life.

With that being said, if you have read this far and enjoyed my musings I wish to thank you. I appreciate that you have taken the time, not a replenish-able commodity to consider what I have written. I shall venture to write something more in the next few days.

If you would like more information on what I do or to just chat, you can go to my website, www.unleashyourownsuccess.com and fill in the form for more articles and discussions. You can also email me at [email protected].

Be Well and Do Good. Thank you again for your time.

Tim