Iam 100% sure that all of us have a dream or even more. It’s part of being human. Our dreams and desires make us feel alive, they inspire us to grow. In fact, you can manifest your dreams by creating a vision for your life and deliberately choosing beliefs, feelings and actions supporting that vision. The question is how do you manifest your dream and how do you create a foundation to support your aspirations.
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1. Release past shackles
Before thinking about manifesting your dreams, our first step needs to be letting go of the past and its resistance. Naturally, when we try to resist something, we only compound and fuel that problem.
There’s one thing that really connects us all as humans, that is our ability to feel pain whether that pain is physical or emotional. We all have experiences of being hurt, what truly separates us is how we deal with that pain. A sign that we are moving forward with a growth focused mindset is when our emotions and our pain prevents us from healing from a situation. And one of the best ways to heal from this pain is to focus on its lessons, which allows us to focus on growth and forward momentum
If we get stuck in thinking about what should have been, we can become immobilized and painful feelings and memories. Ask yourself this question “what is specifically holding you back”, maybe it’s a failed business, a failed relationship, a broken friendship or a failed partnership. Chances are we’re not able to move forward because we haven’t taken the opportunity to understand why it has held us back and why it’s so important to face it when we spend the time actually facing these things rather than fearing them or ignoring them, we find answers.
They release us to move forward naturally as humans we bury things that hurted us, that traumatized us. The reality is the only way that we learn, the only way we adjust is by hitting those walls head-on by accepting those shortcomings and turning them into lessons to adjust courses and get 10 steps further on our next attempt.
We failed to recognize the potential and possibility of growth because we stick to cruise control. When we stick to the speed we fail to slow down and recognize the wise.
Don’t be a prisoner of your past. Source : iStockphoto
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2. Shift your focus away from negativity
Ask yourself “Do you focus on the negative or the positive side of life?”. When we focus on negative things we actually reshape our perception into only seeing negative things. The idea is to focus on things that we want not the things we don’t want and the crazy thing is that all of us actually already do this to some extent and almost daily.
Here’s how: when you’re driving, you should focus on staying in your lane staying between the yellow lines to your left and the white line to your right. You don’t focus on not hitting the trees, you don’t focus on not smacking into the side of a building. I am sure you’re aware of these things but that’s not where 99% of your attention is. This is identical almost parallel to focusing on the positives.It’s extremely easy to get caught up in the funnel of negativity.
So what are some ways you can stay in that lane of positivity ? Call out positive things daily out loud and recognize those things. Maybe it’s that you woke up on time, recognizing yourself for crushing a meeting, recognizing yourself or eating healthy for 30 days straight, or achiving the hardest task of the day.
If you can do this consistently, it starts to become more natural. Your mindset starts to shift. Stay away from people that tend to bring the room down. All of these things play a huge role in the way that we think and what we focus on.
These bursts of negativity happen so consistently daily that most of us go through life not really recognizing that. The news is a great example of this, constant negative headlines to suck you in, highlighting the worst possible things that are happening around the world. These needles are poking at your mindset and we feel it but it’s not really linked to thinking more macro about our life or how we approach situations or how we express ourselves. It’s this social conditioning, the idea is to remove it as much as possible and consistently. When we put this into constant action, we will experience a major shift in our behaviors, our happiness or success. Deliberately choosing positive feelings and focal points will keep you in alignment with your desires.
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3. Being unattached
We can only control the effort and the consistency of that effort, we cannot control the outcome or the time frame when we can fully recognize this and accept this, the more efficient we become.
Maintain your desires but be unattached to the specifics of the outcome by creating this false hope or unrealistic vision we create this false world. We need to focus on the things that we can control, the dedication to just that side of life is a wealth of energy and if that’s the case taking any fuel or any energy away from that can be detrimental
When we create this fallacy and things don’t happen within that timeframe we’ve defined or the exact way we had hoped we arrived at Island disappointment and when this happens we fall back into that negative mindset. It’s about accepting or current life for the way it is and that doesn’t mean that were throwing in the towel and giving up, instead it’s about learning and being okay with things being the way that they are.
Many of us battle ourselves in our head what if I don’t get the job, what if I try and come up short, what if I ask out that girl and she says no these are not things that we can control. A great exercise that can help you through some of these moments, anytime you have a thought of uncertainty write it down and after you’ve written it down, ask yourself these questions “did things turn out all right” if they did how and why did they turn out positive, if they didn’t “what happened were you able to handle it”.
Writing down what’s troubling you and what you can do to improve the situation will provide elevation in clarity, it will give you the opportunity to recognize that no matter how you answer them you are figuring out how to deal with them, it will give you back control.
As humans we like control, it’s why so many have a hard time taking risk because they are unsure of the outcome. This can be applied with literally anything in your life, you should build a system for yourself to analyze the way you go about situations and how you react or just to them, it will give you an opportunity to learn more about yourself and where you see opportunities for improvement.
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4. Visualize fantasize and obsess over achiving your goals
Sometimes when hear the word Obsession we connect it to a negative thing but in this case it can be really healthy habit and tool and here’s the key.
When I say obsess over achiving your goals, I don’t mean the physical things that they will bring. I’m talking about the emotions they will evoke. To be honest, we normally think about accomplishing our goals and dreams sometimes we have a tendency to think the bigger house that I’ll get to enjoy, the nicer clothes and cars that don’t have, the fancy of life.
These material items will never never fill our long-term happiness. What will drive that is the emotions that pour out of us for fulfilling our dreams, the way of being proud of yourself, the lives you’ve touched along the way.
When you fantasize about these emotions they make you feel good in the moment and when that happens you push forward with less resistance because you were driven by those feelings.
Actually a majority of us have experienced this in a more short-term way of thinking before. Addiction is a good example alcohol thinking about how it will make you feel after you’ve had a few drinks with your friends, you’re thinking about the feelings associated with it driving you to make an impulsive decision. The key is to use this as a tool in a positive way.
Here’s an example, anytime I’m working on something big in my life, I fantasize about the emotions that I can create internally and externally. My impact for example each time I plan out these stories each time I sit behind the screen, I think how will this change someone’s life what value will I bring them, how is create a ripple effect and finally how will I feel when I receive a message from one of you after delivering that value.
The emotions that pour over me when I read someone saying how they took action on their dreams and made it happen that is the feeling that gives me happiness, that is the fuel. If you can access and fantasize over that aspect of your journey, you can manifest your dreams.
This goes beyond material items, it goes beyond money this is how you keep momentum and happiness in perpetuity.
Photo by iStockphoto
Recap
- Release past shackles before we can think about manifesting your dreams our first step needs to be letting go of the past and its resistance ask yourself “what is specifically holding you back”
- Shift their focus away from negativity ask yourself “do you focus on the negative or the positive side of life” the idea is to focus on the things that we want not the things that we don’t want number.
- Be unattached we can only control the effort and consistency of that effort we cannot control the outcome or the timeframe, maintain your desires but be on the couch to the specifics of the outcome.
- Visualize, fantasize and obsess over achiving your goals fantasize about the emotions of achieving those goals. This allows you to feel good in the moment and when that happens if you push forward with less resistance because you were driven by those feelings.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: iStockPhoto.com