Create What You Desire

“We judge only in the way we are fearful of being judged.”© That goes so much further than the surface projections! While it is clearly about the judgments we make in our language and our thoughts of others and of Self, it also teaches us that we create, over and over, the very things we fear. How do we interrupt that frustrating pattern so that we do not recreate what we no longer desire? Better yet, how do we create the things we desire?

Sometimes, we actually create around us the very challenge beyond which we think we are trying to move. For example, somewhere in your life, you may have bought into thinking you are not good enough. So, maybe you think your dream can’t be your reality because you are not good enough. Yet you live your life as if you are going after that dream, as if you believe in your Self and, at some level, you do. And yet, one day you stop, look around and realize that the headquarters from where you are trying to create that dream is laden with the parts of the nightmare that keep you from ever believing your dream will come true. You may have people around you who judge you as not good enough, your own thoughts may have hidden doubts and/or judgments, you may be missing a key item that is required to move you forward in the dream, or more.

How do we break that pattern? First, RECOGNIZE IT! You must first be able to see what it is you are creating in the people with whom you surround your Self. You must also recognize those experiences and things with which you surround your Self. Then you must ask what each REMINDS you of in terms of your history and the people in it. It is at that point that you can begin to correct and let go of the pieces that are keeping you pinned to old patterns. Can you feel what people or things you are hesitant to release or change? It is important to identify the hesitation so that you can move through it. Any experience that is occurring in you but beneath the obvious has a great impact on you and your life. Finally, listen for the judgments you are making of people, things and experiences around you (especially as they relate to the dream you are trying to achieve). They will teach you where you need to heal, release, or transcend in order to further break an old pattern!

It takes the death of a minute to birth the next minute. Do not fear the release of what is not working for you. It will open the doors and make space for the new dream to manifest!

Approximately 50% of the people will attempt to state resolutions and of those, 88% will not achieve success with their desired goals.Those statistics are very well known. There are numerous articles on why resolutions don’t work. So, why an article on how they do work? Because there are behavioral measures we can take to be successful in the short term and then there are ways to incur permanence. This article will address SUCCESSFUL RESOLUTIONS.

Most people set resolutions to reinvent their Self or to find greater “happiness” in their life. Yet, the top resolutions set are:

This list suggests that most Americans believe that these external goals will bring an internal experience of general happiness in life. So the ultimate goal is their happiness. They “think” these goals will bring them that. Consequently, there is a “why?” that you need to ask. If there are aspects of your life that you wish to change, then what was causing them in the first place? Why are these challenges existing in your life? There is something that keeps them active. It is this question, unanswered, that sits under the goals you set and slowly eats away at your success IF you only implement behavioral change. So, let’s address the behavioral measures you can take, some thinking you can change, and then let’s look at some other things you can “do” to ensure greater long-term success.

WHAT TO DO

Quietly sit down and choose those resolutions that are important to you. Write down ALL of them. Then pick your top three. With each of those 3:

HOW TO THINK

Positive thinking is the only way to achieve success because success is a positive. You cannot achieve a positive with a negative.

Listen for thoughts or statements of hidden expectation:

Each of those phrases is speaking to you about how you have expectations tied to your resolution. Expectations are not from you — EVER! They are always from what you have learned from others. Those phrases, when thought or spoken, are telling you that this is an area of internal conflict. In other words, what you have scheduled your Self to do does not match your internal comforts. The expectations undermine your success by pulling you toward feelings of not good enough. This is a time you are desiring a reinvention of your Self in some way. You do not need other people’s expectations pulling you away from your desires!

Finally, listen within your Self for thoughts of hope. With hope there is doubt. “I hope I can … !” suggests you doubt you can. This is a very different hope than the spiritual hope. Listen to your thoughts for statements of hope and ask your Self what your doubts are! Once you identify the doubts you can heal them. Otherwise, they will undermine your success. Doubt is fear, fear undermines positive thinking!

HOW TO DEVELOP THE EXPERIENCE

It is the internal experience that the resolution gives you that is critical to your life. To develop that, you must know what it is you wish to experience. What are your desires that you believe your resolution will give you? What will it feel like within you once you achieve your resolution?

Once you have identified the experience your goal offers you, there are several things you can do to enhance your success of meeting your goals.

In conclusion, you can be one of the 0.7% of people who are successful with their New years’ Resolutions if you can develop a plan of what you can do to incorporate the change, change your thinking, define the way the success of the resolution will be experienced, and then build upon living that experience until it is manifest. This process is easily doable but may require some further direction. Please contact my office for online seminars for successful resolutions and with any questions you may have.

I’m very proud to announce that this is the first of many articles which will be featured in Our Town News magazine.

Whether in business or life each person has a brand. The problem is that most people are unconscious of their brand. How do we consciously and with intent create our own personal brand — a Me Brand?

In business, we are familiar with product and corporate brand. As a result, employees may identify with the company or product brand and thereby not see the importance of their own brand within that structure. An owner may identify with the brand and reputation of her or his company but that does not determine her or his self identity and reputation. People will separate the two. For example, “Joe” may be seen as a brilliant business owner but a miserable man. Identifying with the “other” brand, the individual is not conscious of their Me Brand.

A Me Brand is important for many reasons, e.g., sales, corporate culture, and personal success. A sales person can repeatedly sell a product to a customer or develop a relationship with a client who buys for a lifetime. A customer purchases without loyalty and may shop lowest price or convenience. A client develops loyalty and buys from someone with whom they have a relationship. So, if you would like to develop a relationship with potential clients or existing customers you may benefit from developing a Me Brand.

Often, in order to develop a consistent culture, corporations are using “personality” typing with employees and new hires. While this is helpful, it can be enhanced by assisting the employee with the use of that information to develop their Me Brand. They are then consciously creating their unique identity with their strong qualities and adding to the diverse yet unified corporate team as well as to the clients and or bottom line.

In order to develop a successful career personally, development of your brand is important. Your brand can exist because of the perceptions and assumptions others have of you. That is not a brand of which you are necessarily aware nor is it the way in which you want your brand to develop. Do you know how others perceive you? How do you want to be known? It is important for you to be able to answer that question with honest thoughts and goals. It is also important to understand that there are ways you may want to be known but you may be coming across different. Consequently, it is important to understand what is causing the difference so the correction can be made.

Everything in business starts with you! What is the experience you wish to create and to have in each of your business relationships? In order to define and create those experiences you must be aware of your Self. Your attitude, your philosophy, your personality are the first aspects that your colleagues, peers, managers, clients, and others see and experience. The more aware you are of how and who you are in business (or life) the more clear and consistent your brand will be reflected. The more you are branded as a positive, likable person, the more people and clients will want to know you. Consequently, the greater your success!

Many strong, successful career women seem to have had eating disorders in their past. And many of those women seem to have married or are dating men who are much more attentive to the home and children. It is as if the roles and definitions have been reversed.

In my experiences, it appears that, in general, strong ambitious women do not learn how to define themselves in this culture so they identify with men in their need to find acceptance. When young, they may struggle with their female curves and body and, more often than not, work to eliminate it with the eating disorder. It seems to be of continued importance for them to maintain an attractive figure and appearance in adulthood. They also continue to develop a more male-oriented position in life through career and providing. They tend to have a hidden judgment about being taken care of and so make sure they do not need to be “taken care of” by providing for the family. It may be important for them to feel in control. Again, this may be due to the need to identify with a man’s world and find acceptance through being good enough.

But why do they tend to marry or date less ambitious men? It appears to represent their need to feel accepted without having to work so hard at it; to be able to relax and not take things so seriously. It appears to be a compliment to their intensity. It is as if they are learning to love the very part of themselves they used to hate. As if they are accepting the very characteristics in their partner that they desperately needed accepted in their Self as a child.

More often than not, however, the relationship appears to take on an abusive quality. That again, goes back to the days of the eating disorder. The control of the eating, was the struggle to stay away from the judgment of not being good enough. It is that very judgment that creates shame in an individual. The judgments may also allow the woman to feel unaccepted and, consequently, not belonging to the family or group. The shame and absence of belonging are two consistent characteristics in the abuse pattern in an individual.

A woman of this experience may be struggling internally with being good enough and may still be looking for extrinsic rewards or reinforcers to confirm that she is good enough to be loved, accepted. Part of this may be due to the perception that in our society, women need to shut down their female aspects to succeed in business. This leaves an internal feeling of not being good enough because as a woman you cannot be who you are. It may also be that the very shame that developed in them as young women interrupted their ability to define their Self and lead to the eating disorder or more. Or, maybe, as an ambitious female, her role models were males and so she learned to shut down her female aspects to be more like a man in order to be accepted by men. This suggests women may perceive that they cannot be accepted into a man’s world for who they are and so need to be like a man to be accepted as a professional among them. It may then be more clear that they would choose a partner who is complimentary, supportive, and caring of who they are.

As women begin defining their Self from an intrinsic point of reference, they will begin to accept their Self for who they are which will lead to feeling accepted by others and, consequently, society. Women will then pass forward the defining of self for self and by self. This will end women defining themselves through men. I believe the ending of women defining their self through men will also have an impact on the numbers of eating disorders. Just think, mothers and women will no longer press their daughters and younger women (respectively) to be thin in order to be loved, they will begin teaching a healthy lifestyle that embraces the unique characteristics of each child. Something so many women want and try to achieve.