The most exciting part of coaching happens when I ask my clients “What does your heart truly desire?” Sometimes, when we're stuck in the depths surrounded by nothing but problems, this can be a difficult question to answer. Our minds can be distracted by our problems, but even so, we know in our hearts and our minds what we really truly want, it’s just that sometimes we let it hide behind the tedious day-to-day stuff that makes up most of our lives.
As we grow older, it’s easy to lose focus on what we really want. ‘Important’ and ‘urgent’ responsibilities and tasks take over our lives. Most of the time, they’re neither more urgent or more important than having what our heart truly desires, yet we let them prevent us from achieving what we really want. Things like household chores, homework, study, jobs, niggling repairs to our houses or our gardens, all take our time and all need to be done, but not at the expense of us achieving what we really want. Some of us are guilty of placing our partner’s or parents’ or our children’s needs before our own, in the mistaken belief that their well-being and their goals and desires are more important than yours. We tell ourselves that they’re more deserving of your time and attention than you are.
We allow ourselves to become distracted by the mundane. We listen to niggling little voices in our heads reminding us of unimportant tasks we haven’t done and we let them get so loud we can’t hear that tiny voice in our head saying “What about me?”
All these distractions leave little mind space to focus on those things that are life-changing to us, the things we really want from our lives. Can you remember being a child and looking forward to birthdays, school holidays and Christmas? Do you remember thinking of all the fun stuff you wanted to do or planned to do? You would turn to your parents or guardians and ask, “Can we go to the fun park today? Can we go to the beach today? Can we go to the cinema today? I wanna see the latest movie that came out! I can’t wait to see it! And can we invite my friends to go too?”
Can you remember the transition between those times and now? How long has it been since you looked forward to planning for a holiday to a destination you always wanted to go?
Have you ever wanted to learn to surf? Or go rock climbing? Or travel to Italy to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa or drop pennies in the Trevi Fountain? Who would you meet? What other experience would you have? When thinking about these questions, do you notice your energy levels rising?
When you find or create your own space where you can deeply concentrate, where does your heart send you when you think about things that excite you? During my years of loneliness, I found my mind straying away from my studies and my problems and focusing on my dreams and goals. If you wanted to know what they were, I will share some of them with you...
I wanted to fly a Spitfire, one of the most famous WW2 era fighters
I wanted to travel - to the U.S. and visit Disneyland - to Egypt to see the pyramids with my own eyes - to the U.K. to visit Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace.
I never stopped dreaming. In NLP, this is called manifesting. I dreamed of each of these things, and I let my mind take me to those places. In my mind I would feel the seat belts bite into my flesh as the spitfire barrel-rolled. I’d feel the hot Egyptian sun on my face and feel the sand shifting underfoot. I would feel myself there in these places, seeing these sites and interacting with the people of these countries. The power of dreaming, holding onto these dreams and making them seem so real was fun. It also took the edge off any problems that I was facing at the time.
These dreams I have written about, stayed with me into my 20’s and some of them were even in the back of my mind when I was well into my 40’s. Here is what happened as a result...
When I was a kid, my parents couldn’t take me to Disneyland or any other country during my teens but...
...I was able to make it happen. It didn’t matter how long it took. By the age of 20, I had competed in my first international trap shoot event in Ohio. On the way back to Australia, I stopped in California and spent four days at Disneyland. I made many friends in America who I stayed in contact with for decades afterwards.
When I was a little older, I travelled to Egypt and saw the pyramids. I met with the locals and I even got to see the mummified remains of pharaohs such as Seti I and Ramses II, famous Egyptian rulers I’d only ever read about in history books.
In my early forties, I made it to England with my wife Vivienne where we did indeed visit and walk through Westminster Abbey, we set our watches by Big Ben and walked right up to the gates of Buckingham Palace. Not only did we meet the locals, we even stayed with long lost distant relatives whom I discovered through my family tree.
Oh and I flew in that Spitfire. The photo at the top of this post is me, flying upside-down in the Spitfire as it barrel-rolled!
The realisation of these dreams has been priceless to me and the cost of fulfilling these dreams relatively inexpensive.
I cannot convey strongly enough the power of manifesting your dreams and living them!
So I now ask you, set aside some time right now, create a new note on your smart phone, or write down on a piece of paper , if you could do or go anything or anywhere you want, what it is you want to happen.
Where would you go?
What would you do?
How can you make it work?
How important is it to you that you live your dream or dreams?
What are you prepared to do to make it happen?
Imagine if living your dream could change your life?
How could it change your perspective on life?
When you’ve finished writing your list, write down a date when you would like this dream to be fulfilled. If you don’t, you are likely to shove your dreams aside to the part of your mind which leaves you in a state of wishful thinking.
If you would like more help in manifesting your dreams, please contact me using the details below...
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