What fuels your success? Is it a desire for money, possessions or fame? Do you hear a voice in your head telling you to get to work? We all have carrots and sticks propelling us forward. Sticks aren’t fun nor do they work well as we tend to resist them. And, the carrots-when we get them-often don’t taste as sweet as we hoped.
There are numerous ways to motivate you to be more successful. Therein lies the problem. Motivation demands effort and often produces results that are less than expected. However, an easier and quicker way exists which is also more fun and the results more fulfilling. You achieve the personal development and the goals you want simultaneously.
Release what doesn’t work
Those voices, the shoulds and shouldn’ts that speak to you, are distracting. If you’re like me, these voices are more like nagging flies. Get rid of them.
How?…by not resisting. I’m not suggesting that you follow their advice but that you listen to what they really want. What emotions are behind them? These voices are much like a nagging child. When a child gets what he or she truly needs, the nagging ceases. Slow down and listen for the feelings and needs as you would to a child you love.
There are many techniques to facilitate letting go and I will address them in future posts. For now, breathe, feel the feeling and listen for what is behind the nagging. When you accept what you are resisting, the nagging will end thereby ending the distractions and energy drains.
The more you release the limiting spell of your voices and your beliefs that tell you the right way to achieve, the more room you have to do it your natural way. All the actions and beliefs about what and how you should proceed limit your choices. Let them go. In the beginning, it may not be comfortable to not have your old limiting friends but you’ll grow to enjoy the freedom from the silence.
This is the healing phase. Removing the blocks always creates space for the magic to show up. It isn’t much different than pulling the weeds from your garden so your vegetables can grow.
Spark your passion
Now the fun begins. Now that you have a little space to feel-what excites you? If nothing comes up, that’s okay as that is frequently the case. Here are some questions that can spark you:
Finding it
- What do you dream about having? Think about what you’re afraid to tell others.
- What is your vision? This is the big goal you have for yourself. It’s frequently the one you hesitate to share. This is more than a dream; it is the context in which your dream will show up for you.
What do you envy in others? Go beyond the material items, what qualities do these people have that you want. - What do you read, watch on TV, research and speak to others about? What is it about this interest of yours that makes it interesting? For example, although you may spend time around hardware stores, it doesn’t mean you want to own a hardware store or be a contractor. What does the store represent as a metaphor?
- Triangulate your observations. Use several of these and other questions to create several directions of inquiry. Where do all of them meet?
- Ask your family and friends. They often know more about how you express than you do. Ask them what excites you.
Sparking it
- Experiment. Play with the components of what you find. Give yourself the chance to investigate your passion.
- Find others who are into it. Hang with them. Being with them will give you energy if it’s your thing.
- Risk it. It’s like falling in love. When you are infatuated, you are expressive. Express yourself. If it is the thing, you will be getting energy from sharing.
- Create. Take what you learn and make something with it. Maybe it’s a plan, a model or a scaled-down version.
Risk it
- Let go. Someone might not like your idea or your creation. Step back from the personal identification and listen as if he or she is helping you improve what you love.
- Know the fear. There’ll be fear when stepping out beyond your norm. Fear wants to freeze you and stop you from achieving your goal. Feel the fear as you keep moving forward. This goes against most of what we’ve learned and because of that, a lot of power is available to you when you turn your fear into excitement and passion.
- Share it. Artists know how hard it is to share their work. It’s a part of them, sharing it exposes their creation. The line between fear and excitement is thin. The fear can quickly transform into excitement.
- Express yourself. With the fear and passion in hand, go for it, be the little kid that is so excited he or she can’t shut up.
Transforming fear into passion is no different from going from knowing that you can’t ride a bike because it’s too hard and scary-to having a blast. We repress a huge amount of passion that could fuel our success by allowing our fear to rule. Shift from denying and fighting the fear to accepting it, releasing it and then using it to keep you in the game.
Seek out experiences and people that support this shift to passion. Model what others do when they allow their emotions be their ally. Young kids are innately innocent in their passion. They will tend to focus less on what might happen to them and more on what they want. Let the passion fill you, it can. Stop trying to mitigate the fears. Go for increasing the passion. Dream into what you want.
The big picture
This process follows the Whole Adventure and its five stages. For those of you who like to make connections, you’ll see patterns developing in these posts. Start with what you want-imagine. Keep going-commit. As it gets intense, get the help you need to find the core of your passion-catalyze. Once you taste it, allow the new experience of you to be empowered by this newly found passion-integrate. Enhance and reinforce this gift by giving it away-share.
We need more passionate adventurers to share their enthusiasm with the rest of us. Passion begets passion. Passion makes us whole; it fuels change and creation.
What is your denied passion? What do you want to create? Share it. The act of speaking it can be a breakthrough. I want to know.
