I’ll bet you’re probably clear about the things you don’t want in your life. You don’t want nasty neighbours, a lousy job, or a car that’s always breaking down. These days, you especially don’t want to lose your job, or your house, and you don’t want your insurance premiums to go up. Do you?
But does it really work to live your life by avoiding all the things you don’t want? No matter how many things you put on your Things I Don’t Want list, there will always be a million more that you forget to add. There are three kinds of things in life: things you don’t want, things you do want, and lots of things that you don’t necessarily want, but you’re not really negative about them either. The trick is not to clutter up your life with the last group: things you don’t particularly want and that won’t make you happy.
Picture yourself doing the weekly shop at Tesco, with a long list of the things you definitely don’t want. You crawl down each aisle, checking every item you see against your list. If it’s on the list, you pass it by. But if it’s not on the list, what do you do? Buy it? Think about it and maybe come back to get it later? Stress out? Melt down?
Shopping this way, your weekly shop would take forever, cost a fortune, and when you finally got home, you’d have mountains of stuff, but nothing for dinner. Light bulbs (several of the new energy-saving sort, since they’re not on your list), a Monty Python DVD, two varieties of pink double-quilted loo roll, reduced-price Christmas pudding, three kinds of artificial sweetener, a floor mop. A trolley-full of things that aren’t what you really want.
When you live your life from a list of things you don’t want, life is complicated, expensive and unsatisfying.
Instead, it’s worth your time to make a list of all the things you do want in your life. A well paid, satisfying job? A warm, affordable home? Happy children who feel confident and relaxed? A spouse who loves you, and whom you love? A sense of purpose in your life that you fulfil every day? Go for it! Figure out exactly what you want, and focus on that.
Take a few minutes the next time you sit down for a cuppa. Get a pen and paper.
- Pretend you have a magic wand that will make any part of your life just like you want it. What areas of your life would you touch? Finances? Career? Children? Health & Fitness? Relationship? Spirituality or religion? Personal time? Hobbies? List the 4 or 5 top areas.
- For each area, rate your current satisfaction from 1 to 10, where 10 is that it’s just exactly as you’d like it to be. Now it’s easier to see where you’d like to wave that magic wand. Choose one area to focus on, the one where you’ll decide what you want. Circle it! This is where you’ll focus your attention: on what you want, not on what you don’t want.
- Now, if you were to wave that magic wand, what would you say just before you say ‘Abracadabra!’? Let’s say you chose Career. If you had the career you want, what would you be doing? Working for yourself, rather than in a job? Working in a different position, or different industry? A promotion? A pay rise? Picture clearly what you want. If you sometimes complain about your job, what do you complain about? Complaining is focussing on what you don’t want. What’s the opposite of that? What would have to happen for the job to be wonderful, for you to feel excited to go to work every day?
- Write that down! It’s really important to write down what you want. Somehow our minds grab hold of things better when we write them down. If your mind starts up the negative talk again (I don’t want to work in an office, I don’t want to be a customer services rep), pay it no heed. Turn your attention from that and focus on what you want. Your mind should be your servant, not your master.
This is the first step to accessing a powerful force that will always support you: your own positive focus on what you do want. Once you discover this, your life will change forever. May your trolley be overflowing with your heart’s desires!