Do I regret this? Absolutely not. Why? I am too overjoyed that favor is on our side, meaning I think that it doesn’t have to take nearly as long for a person to change their life around, make amazing creations, and grown beyond their wildest dreams, as the amount of time that same individuals was down and out and living an “unsatisfying life”. Change can happen, and in a favorable amount of time. The old sayings like, “It takes a person twice as long to get over an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend as the time that they were with the person.” is bologna and hoopla mixed together. We “boo hoo” longer than we have to because we choose to, not because we have to. #The Problem With Our Society!
… Any who, just simply using a great work ethic for ME for a change has motivated me to work for myself more and has done a lot of good in the process of creating the life that I want, and even helped me to do some good in the world for the benefit of others. #Food For Thought # Life Looks Brighter This Way!
I’ve been using that great work ethic quality that I seemed to be oh-so-good-at in EVERYTHING else, finally for me by working harder towards bettering myself and achieving my life’s desires. This leads me again to this morning when I woke up. I woke up from a dream (around a quarter to 6) and I COULD have went back to sleep. After all, I had planned to wake up at 6 and not a quarter to 4. God had something else in mind…and since I am leaning on God, and praying so much lately, I feel as thought I can read the messages that I get much clearer, and without doubt.
So anyway, I found myself thinking away, as I often do, and before I knew it I was analyzing myself altogether and pumping myself up about my goals and the thought came into my head…”You’re up doing all of this thinking and trying to get back to sleep so you can wake up at 6, why not just get up now! No one’s telling you not to. Your doubting if you can get your goals done in such a short period of time, why not push yourself even more!…Set even higher standards! You’ve worked 3rd shift before for a measly paycheck so you can work any hour for an abundant life! Get up now and reclaim your assurance of your excellent work ethic! If it’s possible, do it! This is not a J-O-B that you are working for, this is your life!” Yes, the little Billy Blanks grew in my head and before I knew it I was up starting my daily routine a few hours earlier than normal, and feeling more energized than ever. I prayed for the help of God to get things on my list done today and prepared to get to work. This is when the thought came to me to share this with you. After all, I do believe that when we strengthen our gifts, when we use them for our own life to fuel and shape our desires and to produce great things in our life, THEN we grow to value them, and when we see just how much they “love” us, we can easily share our talents, our gifts, with others. (Ideally, this is the way I think the world should be, BUT, back to reality, huh? )
There’s two points that I want to make from here. Here’s the first…
Point #1: When I woke up with all that energy, I realized something else, that knowing myself is where I find my power. The more I‘ve grown in personal development, the more I‘ve discovered the things that are important, and the more powerful I‘ve become. (I’m feeling teacher-like)…You might want to right that down…“Knowing myself is where I find power”. Yes, indeed. I TRULY BELIEVE that this equates into KNOWING YOUR VALUES. I had heard this teaching some time ago from a video online…at the time I was like a mad person trying to learn the world of internet marketing (I’m sure SOME-body can relate). I was trying so hard to learn all that I could and listen to people who claimed to be “gurus” or successful in the business. Well, apparently this particular guy knew what he was talking about. I remember his whole video was on the importance of writing down and knowing your values. Clearly, no matter what business you are trying to get into, it is important that you know what it is exactly that you want out of it and how closely it’s attached and/or aligned with your values. The more you know this the more successful you will be. In order to know what you want out of something, you have to know what you want out of life, and you have to know who you are! That might sound like a little over the top, but I believe it to be the truth because it makes good sense. If you know what you want out of life, if you know what’s important to you, and know your values, then, along the way you will better be able to, first of all, stay focused when you have a goal, because if your goals are clearly created around your values the goal will remain important to you and then that means you will have no doubt about how much you want it and how hard you are willing to work for it. If your are getting into a business, or trying something new in life being in tuned with your values will be your assessment tester at hand. Is what you are doing in aligned with your values? You will be able to take a hard look at the things you are currently doing, the people you are associating with, the things you are involved in, and even the current goals you are claiming to have, and be able to assess them and see if they are truly in alignment with your values.
Thankfully, I have been keeping this importance in my mind lately after reading “Smart Women Finish Rich” by David Bach. (Still reading J ) He talks about his first step in a consultation with someone about their financial situation. The first thing he does in a session is have the person to acknowledge their values buy creating a “value ladder”. He has them go through a process in order to do this. At the end of the process it becomes clear to the individuals what their values are. He mentions the wide variety of ages of women that have come into his office, from women in their 20s to women older than 70. In all brackets, it’s apparent how little people know about the things that matter most to them in life. This, and not the actual money itself, is what has the power in your life. For example, you may say that money motivates you, but, what really motivates you is the things you can do or get or feel from the money. If you say you want money but get lost on the way to finding why you want the money, you might not get as much money as you COULD get if you made it clear why you wanted it in the first place. In fact, knowing your values has power to create, and maintain, the financial situation that you want. It has the power to help you design a truly desirable destination and make all the plans necessary to get there AND give you untiring determination to get there, and get all the tools you need to get there.
After I woke up (Yes, you guessed it), I started thinking of my values. I was going over the things that I had established to be extremely high on my priority list, value wise, and before I knew it that is when an energy source was found. Why else would I get up at a quarter to five in the morning, unless I had a sleeping problem, or somewhere I “had” to go? BECAUSE I HAD SOMETHING TO DO - FOR ME. I saw visions of what was important to me and I couldn’t sleep on that. Knowing that I had more creating to do to bring those visions into my physical world gave me more than a reason to get up and do SOMETHING in alignment with this! I realized, that while being happy and enjoying the present, enjoying nature, (and all that good stuff) is important to do, it’s my duty to work to create and maintain the things that I love most in this life. What else is there to live for?! (Other than the moments we have J )
I understand that the most successful people owning their own business sometimes, treat their business like a child, with care and SERIOUSNESS. (Ok, pause, I hope you’re not getting done of my excessive CAP using, it rubbed off on me after reading the book “Think and Grow Rich”; it’s how the book is written.) Back-to-the-story->> They work with dedication in and out of the storm, through the ups and the downs, obediently. If a child is crying hysterically in the middle of the night, you wouldn’t neglect them. You would cater to them. Why? BECAUSE. They are VALUABLE. They are IMPORTANT, they are PRECIOUS. This might not even cross your mind as you get up to go see what’s wrong with them, but, you do it anyway, almost on autopilot. Because it’s embedded already in your mind how important they are, you obediently take care of and nurture them…whether they are giving you a tough time or not. If this is you, congratulations, you can identify one of your values; seeing or knowing that your children or your family are safe or happy! Still, what are your other values? Or, because many people have not done this evaluation throughout their whole life, the real question is what WOULD bring you utter fulfillment in life…is it anything that you don’t FULLY have as much control over as you would like to yet? An example of a general value would be freedom. This indeed is one for me…specifically financial freedom; the ability to purchase a yacht IF I choose. The ability to send a family on a vacation IF I choose. The ability to donate a large amount of money to a charity if I choose. The ability to take a 6 month vacation without working hard if I choose. The ability to study in another country just because I want to, when I want to and for what I want to…if I choose. The ability to get up at anytime of the day, and plan a day freely, of things that I choose to do with absolutely NO PRESSURE behind them. The ability to incorporate things into my life as I choose to. I could go on, of course. That is what freedom means to me, to be able to explore the world and myself, freely and to the extent of my desire. Sometimes if we would love ourselves as much as we would love a child, we would see that there is nothing wrong with that, and that it would make our lives that much better. There is everything right about discovering your values and living your life accordingly.
Knowing your values, clearly has the potential to show you who you really are… clearly.
When you know yourself this much, you have a power that could not be formed otherwise. It’s the clarity that gives you peace AND POWER and is what brings me to my next point…
Point #2 I previously came up with an analogy to help give me a “push” or extra “power” towards some of my aspirations. The analogy went something like this…
I was “pumping myself up” as I try to do often. I came up with a car analogy (Car analogies are good for just about anything in life…Cars, games, and athletes) LOL - Ok, whew, back to the story here (guys, it’s early in the morning, give me a break)… I said to myself, I just needed to find a “pedal.” I was looking for a power source, and I named it a pedal…thinking of how the pedal of a car, with the press of your foot, can get you where you need to go, and, if you press all the way down, it can get you there fast. Well, I told myself I was ready to put the pedal to the metal! I knew I wanted a better life, so if I could just find that pedal I would damn near brake it! I knew what my vision was. Visions of things I want out of my future. I told myself that (in the mist of pondering over plans of success that I had been trying to sincerely develop)…I told myself that I had the desire to make my vision true, but that I just needed a pedal!…Something I could use that would make me feel like I was definitely in the driver seat and driving. Some might call this a “lucky break”. I saw the “pedal” in my mind as something that was going to be given to me; something to be that special something, an opportunity, or a person, or a organization, that would help give me the gas that I needed or a “pedal” that would provide as the chance for me to take myself and my desires to go flying through traffic! This sounded good in my head, right? Since then, I have gotten more than one opportunity. Sure, I could have used probably plenty of opportunities that have come my way to use as a pedal. But something was still missing. After I saw something, or learned about something and identified it as an opportunity or potential “pedal”, I didn’t feel that extreme excitement that I was looking forward to when I found my pedal! At first, I thought, well, maybe it just wasn’t the pedal I was looking for. I thought that if I had my vision of success, a plan that could be accommodated to fit my pedal, and some desire, then that was a sure remedy for success, that I could practically celebrate because of the guaranteed ride! That wasn’t the case. That left me feeling rather salty. I knew my vision was real, my desire was real, my plans (although in the beta stage) were real and feasible, and I was on the right track (or at least in the right vicinity). Still SOMETHING was tempting to make my vision fade in and out, SOMETHING was nagging at me saying that I didn’t have all of the pieces. SOMETHING was almost laughing at me, telling me that my dreams were a joke and hadn’t crossed over into reality and that the guarantee of them ever doing so was still non-existent. I continued my momentum of “striving for positive” even though I was feeling this way, thank God, but, it wasn’t at the pace, or the energy level that I knew I should be. I knew that if a life of financial freedom, a 6 month vacation, or a travel around the world was waiting on me, then it would only make sense that I would have a high energy level, a high determination, a high motivation to get to getting! So, why wasn’t I feeling this way! Why can’t I believe whole heartedly that I can create whatever life experience that I desire!….Fear. Pure fear. The killer of all dreams is fear. Nothing more and nothing less. Fear of “What if this “opportunity” has faults?”, “What if I should take that opportunity and not this one?”, “What if I can’t finish ____ in enough time according to this opportunity?”, “What if I don’t get the support I was hoping for, for a particular opportunity?”, “What if I let this opportunity slip out of my hands?” “What if I can’t hold up to the creditials?”, “What if I fall back to square 1 and have to endure the pain and face the demons, and the people, that I thought this opportunity was lifting me away from?” “What if, what if, what if!” With external depending factors, there will always be a what if! As long as you depend on something outside of yourself to be a piece to your puzzle then you will always have a level of insecurity stunting your growth and impairing your energy and momentum! This is one of the laws of nature. All that we need to succeed is what is IN us. Everything and anything outside of us is here for our use, our intelligent and creative tools within us is what helps us to evaluate these things outside of us and use them in the best way for the best use….but they don’t make our success! If one opportunity doesn’t work, there will ALWAYS be another one created or possible to create. The level of our success does NOT depreciate depending on our circumstances or our opportunities, yet it increases depending on our own ABILITIES and BELIEFS. THAT is what we should salute…not the circumstances or opportunities themselves. Don’t be more grateful for an opportunity than you are for your ability to take advantage of that opportunity! When you strengthen that ability to take advantage of it, then chances are you can take advantage of many more if need be! Thus, you are creating stability and security within yourself and your abilities, giving you the confidence to race and not merely run to your goals. Now THAT’S what you call power! Chances are, with this mindset, you ARE successful before you ever see success. THEN you have the energy to be as engaged in your celebration now as you will be when you achieve what it is you are aiming for!…The best part: No one or nothing can phase you in between!
Moral of it all? My values, my internal reasons for doing all that I do, for wanting all that I want, turned out to be my “pedal”. I would never find more of a perfect pedal anywhere outside of myself; not in any opportunity, person, or organization. YOU WILL NOT FIND YOUR PEDAL OUTSIDE OF YOU. You will not find a pedal, that last forever, outside of you. Any pedal that will be consistent and full of gas whenever you need it will be inside of you. A true pedal will always be there and can take you wherever you want to go, no matter how long the ride is, no matter what the traffic looks like. It is consistent and has an untiring determination to get you where you truly want to go…Now that is one magical pedal!
Where do you want to go? Well, get to driving!
