For people who know that they would do something different with their lives if only they could figure out what they really wanted.
Online Edition: Last modified 14 June 2010 15:41
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Cory Doctorow puts this wonderfully so I’ll just give you the shortened version.
This is the online version of the 4th Edition of Seven Ways To Figure Out What You Want and it’s yours to enjoy, to print, to copy or to download.
You own it and the licence agreement (see below) from Creative Commons gives you a lot of rights. Every word here is a gift. Take it. Use it. Spread it.
Updated Sept 2011 - First, Know What You Want has now been published! Visit the site of the book to learn more and get the up to date downloads.
Because my problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity (thanks, @timoreilly for this awesome aphorism). Because free ebooks sell PDFs and eventually print books. Because I can’t stop you from sharing it (zeroes and ones aren’t ever going to get harder to copy); and because readers have shared the books they loved forever; so I might as well enlist you to the cause.
I want to help those who struggle to know their own mind or in which direction they should focus their considerable energy, skill and talent but I can’t do that if nobody knows about this. So, read, comment, download and mail the links to your friends, post it on your blog and join the list so I help you figure out what you really want.
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For the rest of us
The story for the rest of us…
Some people are born knowing what they want. As they grow they quickly embrace the idea of setting strong or challenging goals and something ignites them to pursue those goals. Some grow to become sports stars, some politicians, some become over excited motivational speakers and others end up as high achieving business people. Almost all of them, if they gain financial success, publish a book laying out their philosophy of understanding what you want and pursuing it with determination. It all seems so easy.
Then there are the rest of us.
Our goals, if we think of them as such, are modest. A life partner, a family, making a small contribution, security. When challenged to say what we really want, our most honest answer is that we don’t know and if we do know then it’s because we stumbled across it while doing something else. We can only stand aside slightly shamefaced as the motivated and driven yell about the process of goal setting. We tried it once and it didn’t really work.
This is a story for the rest of us…
Everything in life that you haven’t done yet or isn’t yet the way you want it to be, boils down to one of two problems:
This workbook and toolkit will help you with the second problem - being clear about what you want.
Having said that, Seven Ways To Figure Out What You Want is not about figuring out what you want at all, because that’s not your problem. Bear with me for a moment. You already know what you want. The trouble you are having is paying attention to it and because you’re not paying attention, it feels foggy, uncertain, unknowable. The real problem is attention and that’s what this is all about - where your attention is now and where it could be. It’s all about paying attention.
Let me explain why. Somebody once told me: ‘if you don’t pay with attention you pay with pain’. What kind of pain? The pain of not being clear on what you really want, the pain of frustration and the vague sense of unease it causes. You have this pain because you are doing something else with your attention. The point of this book is to help you move your attention from wherever it is now onto your most pressing issue - what do you really want?
And I think you know this, don’t you? You know that if you really paid attention, you could figure out what you really wanted. It’s just that your attention is somewhere else. Curious isn’t it? What have you allowed to be more important than knowing your own mind?
As you read the story you’ll gain a toolkit to help you bring your attention to bear on the problem of figuring out what you want. I promise you, if you bring your attention here, then what you want will reveal itself, a way will open that feels right. You’re going to have to pay attention though, which means before we go any further we have got to talk about the myth of multitasking.
Multitasking is a myth. We are just not capable of it. I know the old joke that men can only do one thing at a time, while women manage several but brain research shows that none of us are capable of multitasking. We are simply not built that way.
“Hold on, you might be saying. Not only have I seen people multitasking, I’ve done it myself.” Really?
Watch closely next time you see someone multitasking. Watch yourself closely next time you think you are multitasking. You’ll notice that what you’re actually doing is ‘thin slicing’ your attention. You’re rapidly switching from thing to thing, with your brain thrashing around like a caught fish. Whilst you can set more than one plate spinning at a time, you can only pay attention to them one at a time. You don’t multitask, you switch attention frantically from one plate to another in the hope of keeping them all in the air.
It’s family meal time. You are in the kitchen. You are stirring a pot which has 100% of your attention for a second or two. Your daughter asks a question, you switch attention, she has 100% until the oven timer goes off, then that gets 100% until the phone rings and you answer but even as you answer, your attention switches back to the pot which is near to boiling. “Mummy?” there it goes again.
Some people are very good at this kind of rapid context switching but being good at it does not make this an efficient process. It means that almost nothing gets the kind of sustained, focused, attention that you need to make a real difference to a problem or to make a partner, child or friend feel wanted. Research shows that a programmer, deep in code, takes nearly 11 minutes to re-enter that focused, attentive state after an interruption. Imagine the effect of being constantly interrupted - nothing of any quality gets done.
In fact, the kind of rapid context switching that we have called multitasking is a form of defensive behaviour, a reaction to a growing onslaught of distraction and information unparalleled in our history. Never before have we faced so many choices with so little training to handle them. This kind of frantic switching from thing to thing only leaves you frazzled and with the puzzled sense that you have been doing everything but have actually done nothing.
Whatever you are doing with your attention at the moment, as you read this book, you will find yourself increasingly paying attention to what you want on a whole number of levels - if you are willing to bring all of your attention here for a while.
Why not plan for this? A deliberate plan to give this your full attention. Unplug yourself from the daily hassle, turn your phone off, find somewhere nice to go while you complete the exercises. Buy a special book to write in and treat yourself to a new pen. (Of course you may not have a borderline stationery fetish like me; but whatever helps!)
You will want to dream, to ponder, to stare off into the distance. Find some undistracted time where it is OK to do this. Adopt a coffee shop, rediscover the library, use the down time while your kids do sports. Whatever you do and wherever you do it, I hope you’ll rediscover the power of bringing all your attention to bear on one thing for more than a micro second.
In your world there are people who know what they want. We call them charismatic because their clarity is amazing. It beguiles and charms us. In a confused world, such singleminded focus is rare and alluring. They have a purpose, a clear plan and their own agenda. Unless you are the same, you will end up working for one of these people. Without an agenda of your own you will spend your life fulfilling someone else’s agenda. A spiritual teacher once described people as ‘sheep, looking for a shepherd’ and he wasn’t far wrong. Your boss, government, family or culture all have an agenda and they are looking for mild, confused and slightly passive people to work on it. This may be OK but if it isn’t then you owe it to yourself to know your own mind.
Let’s begin.
Mike Johnson was lost in thought as he made his way into work, the car driving itself past fields and then into the city centre where Mike worked as a senior project manager for one of the local utilities. It felt like he’d been doing this for years and his Blackberry buzzed as the latest emails arrived for his attention. It used to be fun but competition had struck his industry, the hours were long and he lived in a world of cost control, endless meetings and constant reorganisation. His wife had started to complain that he was no fun anymore and his constant need to be in touch with work interrupted their family life.
He sighed as he thought about his day. At his last performance review his boss had offered him the chance to work with a coach, something about a new initiative for all senior managers. He saw that he didn’t really have a choice and had agreed rapidly, not wanting to appear difficult. There were rumours of more redundancies and Mike knew he had to toe the line but their first meeting was today and it was a 90 minute distraction he could do without.
Still the coach, John, had sounded OK on the phone - not one of those airy, fairy HR types - someone with a bit of business experience, and he’d asked Mike to think about what he wanted from their ‘coaching sessions’.
And that’s why he was so deep in thought. He didn’t really know. He’d assumed it was another useless initiative from HQ and that all he’d have to do was pay lip service. The question had shocked him a bit. He thought he’d have a bit of fun with it though. ‘Let’s see if this coach knows his stuff when I tell him I don’t know’.
That should shorten the meeting nicely.
“Hi Mike” said John, walking into the office. Relaxed and fit at a little over six feet, his hair was longer than Mike was used to seeing at work. Mike handed him a black coffee.
“So, let’s get started then, what is it that you really want?” Mike was thrown off balance for a moment, he’d expected some small talk first but fine, if that’s the way he wants it. He put both his hands down flat on the desk and looked at John. “I don’t know” he said, sitting back.
John smiled “You don’t know?”
“No, I don’t know”.
“How do you know that you don’t know?”
“Well,” said Mike considering the question. “The truth is I’ve never really known.”
“I see” said John “Forgive me but what DO you know about what you don’t know?”
Mike surprised himself. “Look, I’m a senior project manager here, I’m busy, I’m well paid and I’ve had a lot of fun over the years but I’ve always had a vague feeling that there is something else. I can see that if I’m not careful I’m going to spend the rest of my life here, although I know if only I could figure out what I really wanted I would go and do it.”
“I used to enjoy solving problems but now I’m beginning to get the same questions and the same problems repeating themselves. Truth is I’m a bit bored and a bit tired. I know people who’ve stuck at a job they don’t like for years. They talk about doing something different but they don’t know what.” He paused. “My kids are growing up and soon they will have to make decisions about work. They are going to ask me and I feel a bit of a fraud helping them because I still don’t know after all these years.”
John stabbed a finger at him “Your problem is, you’re too bright!”
“What do you mean?” Mike shot back, annoyed at the abrupt tone. This wasn’t going the way he’d planned it.
“You’re too bright and you’ve got too many choices” said John. “The truth is that you could do almost anything you wanted and be good at it. The funny thing is though that instead of feeling excited by all these choices, you feel paralysed. You just end up with a vague feeling that you could be doing something else but not ever doing it.”
“That’s it exactly” said Mike
“It’s a lot more common than you might think. Would you be interested in some help to figure out what you really want?”
“Yes,” said Mike “but what about the stuff from Corporate HR, what’s your brief?”
“I see that they haven’t told you.” He paused. “You’re part of a new initiative designed to help this business plan its ‘managerial succession’. They have identified managers who have a high potential for promotion and given me a free hand to work with them. How do you feel about that?”
Mike groaned. “Truth is, the thought of taking on a bigger job doesn’t thrill me and although the money would be nice, my wife would walk out if I gave any more attention to work. Maybe it’s time I figured out what I actually wanted for a change.”
“Great” said John, “Why don’t we start now?”
John walked across to the whiteboard in Mike’s office.
“I think there are three main reasons why we struggle to figure out what we really want and here they are:”
“There is some good news though; it can be done. Despite these reasons, it is possible to figure out what you want. And it’s possible to find the motivation to go and get whatever it is.”
“What do you mean by lack of practice?” asked Mike.
John tapped the list with his pen. “I’ll go through them in detail at our next meeting but before that, there is something else.”
“Oh yeah?” said Mike “What’s that?”
“It’s this. Before you can start to figure out what you really want, you have to do something else. There is a decision you need to make before you can make all the other decisions. Let’s take a look at…”
“There’s something about this that has your attention, isn’t there?” continued John. Mike nodded. “I don’t know what it is, it might be a specific area of your life where you are trying to figure out what you want or it might be that general sense that you could be doing more with yourself; if only you could get clear on what it is that you really want. You may feel or long for this kind of clarity because you believe that, once you are clear about it, you can commit to a firm direction.”
“Whatever it is that keeps pulling your attention, it’s worth taking a moment to consider the bigger decision, the unspoken one, the thing that you first have to figure out that you want before you figure out what you want. And it’s this…”
Have you decided that you actually want to figure out what you want?
“What do you mean?” Mike said “Have I decided that I actually want to? Of course I have.”
“Hold on a sec.” said John sitting down. “Here’s an example from a different field. Researchers in creativity have found that the single biggest thing that helps people become more creative is when they decide to become more creative. There is something about that decision that either sparks more creativity or somehow gives permission to someone to allow themselves to discover and express their creativity.”
“In the same way, now is the time to decide that you want to figure out what you want. I’ve got some questions for you.” He handed Mike a sheet. “Take a moment with these questions.”
Mike read down the sheet…
“I’m confused now” said Mike, “how will I lose anything by figuring out what I want? As far as I can see all I stand to do is gain.”
John stood up again and drew a stick man on the whiteboard. “Let’s assume this is you” he said and then drew an arrow pointing away from the left of the figure and printed the word GAIN on top of it. “So, what will you gain by finally figuring out what you want?”
“That’s easy” said Mike ticking them off on his fingers
“All true” said John “now let’s look at what you will have to leave behind” and he drew another arrow pointing away from the right hand side of the figure and printed the word LOSE on top of it “So what will you lose if you gain all of these things?”
Mike paused. “Well…”
“Good” said John “What else?”
“OK” said John drawing an arrow pointing down from the feet towards the bottom of the whiteboard and printing the word STAY.“What will happen if you don’t figure this out for yourself?”
“I guess” said Mike “that I’ll stay stuck and I don’t like the thought of that and I don’t want to be one of those people who ends my life standing in a pub regaling people with stories of what I could have done.”
John tapped the whiteboard with his marker. “These questions help you to look at the problem from all sides. Often it is not enough just to think about what something new will bring us. You know that because you have been resisting figuring out what you want, so there must be a strong reason for this. Asking these questions helps you to see round the problem. ‘What will you gain?’ is straightforward. ‘What will you lose?’ may reveal the thing that is preventing you figuring it all out for yourself. ‘What will happen if you don’t figure it out?’ This question gets you to ponder the consequences of carrying on like this and ‘What won’t happen if you don’t?’ gets you to ponder the downside of the possible gains.”
“Before our next meeting I’m going to leave you with these questions to ponder and although you don’t have to write the answers down it will make a big difference if you do. I suggest you find a quiet corner and give them your full attention.”
“I’ll only continue to work with you if you make this first decision because without it, nothing else will work. Decide for yourself first, that you want to figure out what you want and second, that you will figure out what you want. I can’t help you unless you are totally clear on these points. Phone me when you’ve spent some time with these questions and we’ll talk again.”
“Hang on” said Mike “What will you tell the HR people?”
“I’ll tell them that you are setting goals for our work together” said John with a twinkle in his eye.
As he left Mike looked at the questions again. ‘Maybe it is possible’ he thought. He felt strange, an odd feeling that he hadn’t had for a long while, he was excited. He hadn’t felt that way in years. He began to plan a long lunch at a pub he knew in a quiet part of town.
Answer these questions as honestly as you can.
Now make a commitment to the process by signing below
I have decided that I WILL figure out what I want…
Name:
Date:
As Mike sat down he was astonished to see John pull out a thick, closely printed book with a dark cover.
“Is that a Bible?” he asked wondering what the hell he had got himself into and curious to see where this would go.
“Sure is.” John paused. “One of the things I really like about this book is how honest and real it is about human nature. It could almost have been written by our creator.” He joked. “Anyway, right at the beginning is a big clue to this dilemma of figuring out what we want. How well do you remember the story of Adam and Eve?”
“A bit”, said Mike who still had no clue where this was going and was beginning to worry. “There was something about some apple and a snake and they had to leave The Garden of Eden in a hurry”
“Pretty good,” said John “except it wasn’t an apple. The basic story is that the first man had been given this great place to live and work in, plus a few basic rules to go with it. He ended up breaking a few of these rules and hiding from God who had come to see him. It’s the next scene that’s so fascinating and gives us a real insight for coaching and working with ourselves.”
“Go on…” Said Mike, still wondering
“God finds him” continued John “and asks him about what happened. Can you remember what the man said?”
“Oh yes” said Mike “he blamed someone else.”
“Exactly” said John. “Asked to account for his actions and take a bit of responsibility, he said ‘It was that women who you put here’ Then the woman blamed the snake ‘It was that serpent’. And there we see the heart of our problem with sorting out clearly what we want. Adam managed to blame his wife AND God for putting her in the garden, Eve blamed the serpent and nobody took responsibility. And we’ve been doing it ever since. We are past masters at shifting any kind of blame or responsibility for our own choices away from ourselves.”
“Let me explain by asking you a different question. ‘If your life were a bus then who is driving; are you a driver or a passenger in the bus of your life?’ Most people are passengers, what about you?”
“That’s a sweeping statement” Mike shot back
“Let’s see” said John. “It’s easy to tell if someone is a driver or a passenger. Listen to them talk and you’ll hear passengers sitting at the back of their bus complaining about where their bus has gone. Not only do they complain but they hold someone or something else responsible for where the bus has ended up.”
“Since the beginning of time we’ve been avoiding responsibility for our choices and our actions, looking outside ourselves for the cause of wherever we are now.”
Mike leant forward. “So you’re saying that people are still doing what Adam and Eve did.”
“Yes, although now there are more of us it’s even worse. What happens now is passengers get together with other passengers and remind each other that nothing is their fault - ‘don’t worry, no one can lose weight over 40, you’re just big boned!’ You’ll hear passengers say things like ‘Life’s a bitch and then you die’ or ‘Same shit, different day’ because they believe life is something that happens to you and there is nothing you can do about it. Passengers are passive, they act like victims and have a victim mentality.”
John paused for a moment and looked at Mike. “Can you see how this would get in the way of figuring out what you want?”
“I think so” said Mike “If you think and act like a passenger you probably don’t believe that having what you want is possible, so you avoid thinking about it.”
“Exactly right, one of the first keys to figuring out what you really want in life is to think like a driver and before we go any further, I’d like you to practice this.”
“Think about where you are in life right now, the state of your finances, your happiness, your job, your relationships, the amount of fun you have and say to yourself I’m where I am right now because I drove my bus right here.”
Mike looked across at him. “If I’m honest, there’s a little part of me that doesn’t think that is very fair and I’m thinking of several things that happened where it wasn’t my fault”
“That’s great, thank you for being so honest. What you’re experiencing is your built in passenger tendency, the ancient habit of putting responsibility outside of ourselves. Let’s break it down in some detail.”
“First, it’s not about blame. Blame is a feeling, an emotional response, like guilt. Taking responsibility creates an uncomfortable feeling, so we avoid anything that might make us feel that way. Passengers do not want to be blamed so they look to shift the feeling somewhere else. It’s safer, and it feels nicer, to blame others or your circumstances or your past. This leaves you stuck though. If you are just a victim of circumstance how could you possibly change your life? You have to find a way of taking responsibility without feeling blamed.
“How do I do that then?”
“Well, one way is to think of your results so far as data. I made these choices and this happened. If I make different choices, different things will happen. It’s not about blame (which leaves you stuck). It’s about taking responsibility.”
“I think I’m beginning to see” said Mike. “What drivers do is recognise the part they played in what happened and think about what else they could do.”
“Spot on” said John “a driver knows…”
“You can only do this, though, if you are willing to take 100% responsibility for the choices, reactions, focus and actions that brought you to where you are now. This is neither nice nor very comfortable but it is very, very powerful because if you drove your bus here then you can pretty much drive it somewhere else.”
“And notice that while passengers are figuring out who to blame or where to put the blame, the drivers are busy driving somewhere else. Passengers wonder what happened and why. Drivers make things happen.”
“I’m a bit confused now” said Mike, “How does all of this help me figure out what I want?”
“It’s the missing piece, the clue that will pull it all together for you, as we’ll see in the next session. For now though what I want you to practice is looking at everything you have and seeing if you can trace back the choices, focus, reactions and actions that led you here. And in particularly I want you to look at things that you are perhaps not totally happy with and see if you can take 100% responsibility without falling into blaming yourself. Blame makes you feel bad and rarely leads to action. Taking responsibility helps you treat the results you get as data and helps you think about alternative actions.”
“The other thing I want you to listen for is ‘passenger’ language in your colleagues, friends and family. Listen and watch for it, too, in the things you read and see. You’ll be astonished how widespread it is - from executives attributing their failure to government policy, to individuals sidestepping their choices because someone didn’t give them something. Listen for people shifting the responsibility for their choices, their actions, their reactions to some external cause.”
“Great” said Mike, “I’m going to tell everyone about this. Driver or Passenger, who drives your bus? What a great metaphor.”
“Whoa there” John held up his hand. “I really don’t recommend that, you will not be popular. Remember that the passenger mentality is deeply held and no one will thank you for challenging it. Far better to practice being able to spot it and practice spotting yourself doing it first. When you start driving, people will notice soon enough.”
“And my other tip is start small. Let’s say you open your middle desk drawer and notice all the mess in there. Your internal dialogue starts up - ‘It’s not my fault, I have so much work to do I’m so stressed they expect too much of me round here I never get time to clear up’ and so on. All of a sudden you have gone from an untidy drawer to reinforcing your view of yourself as a put upon victim of circumstance and greedy bosses. That’s what I mean by listen out for ‘passenger talk’. Take a drivers view of it. ‘OK it’s a mess. I don’t have time to get to it now. I’m OK with leaving it as a mess for now or I’m going to take everything out of it at lunchtime and put it straight’.”
“Can you feel how much lighter this is, can you hear the difference in the approaches, it even looks different doesn’t it?” Asked John.
“Yes” said Mike
“Good. Now let’s take it one step further. Have you ever been in the position of asking someone else to do something?”
“Of course” said Mike “I’m a manager. I’m always asking people to do things for me.”
“Then you’ll know that you usually get one of two things, either they do it (you get a result) or they don’t do it (you get a reason). What kind of person are you Mike? Are you the kind that generally creates results or do you create reasons?”
“That’s easy” said Mike “I’m a results person”.
“Are you sure?” John looked straight at him and kept silent.
“Hmm” said Mike “Well, now that you mention it we recently had a project review meeting for a project and we spent the whole meeting brainstorming a list of reasons for the late delivery that we could present to senior management.” he laughed. “I see what you mean.”
“Reasons is a polite word really. Reasons are excuses and they often have to do with blaming something or someone else for the lack of result. ‘Sorry I’m late, it was the traffic’, ‘If only my boss was more flexible / friendly / open’ and so on. If you’re looking to make a significant difference to your future direction, one thing you can do right now is make a decision to become a results person.”
“How do I do that?” Asked Mike.
“It’s simple really, all you need to do is get rid of all your reasons. Stop inventing them and stop using them. Without reasons the only things that’s left will be results. Generating reasons usually stops you looking at your results. Did you know there is a big clue that tells you when you are going to get a reason instead of a result? It’s a three letter word, a dead giveaway, hear this word and you know there will be a reason coming along soon.”
“BUT?” Guessed Mike. John shook his head
“It’s the word TRY. When you hear this word you know that a reason is coming. Let me give you an example from home.”
“My wife is going out for the evening and just before she leaves she asks me to tidy up the kitchen and wash up while she’s out.”
Me. “I’ll try”
“What do you think will really happen?” Asked John. Mike laughed again, “You’re not going to do it are you?”
“That’s right” said John, when she comes back some hours later the place is still a tip. She’s understandably upset and feels let down but, luckily for me, I have a good defence. ‘I tried (just what I promised) but this happened and that happened.’ I rehearse my list of reasons secure in the knowledge that they let me off the hook.”
“Does any of this sound familiar?”
Mike nodded.
“If you want to give yourself the power to create all the results you want (and who doesn’t?) then start by banning the word try from your daily life and work. A results person does things or does not do them while a reasons person tries things then invents excuses to cover themselves. The truth is though that it’s impossible to try to do things.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mike.
“Let me show you” said John. “Try and stand up now.”
Mike stood up. John waved him back down, “Listen to what I said try and stand up.”
“Oh I see” said Mike “I can’t try to stand up can I? I’m either stood up or sat down.”
“Exactly. Every time you use the word try you are setting yourself up to create reasons. Promise yourself that from now on you will either do things or not do them - no more trying. And that includes figuring out what you really want. No more trying to figure out what you want, you are either going to do it or you’re not going to do it, aren’t you?” Mike nodded.
John handed him a paper. “Here’s a reminder of the differences in the driver/passenger approach. Take a week to practice being a driver and then we’ll get started on helping you figure out what you really want.”
“Remember this, though. I wonder what would have happened if the first man had said ‘Yes, it was me, I did it, it was wrong and I’m sorry.’ We might still be in Eden now.”
In which Mike learns the three reasons that stop us knowing what we want.
The rain hammered against Mike’s windscreen as he made his way in. ‘What a morning to try a new route’ he thought to himself. ‘Maybe I took John’s advice to be a driver a little too literally’. Still, he’d driven the same route for so long, his car could probably take itself in. Taking a new route every day was part of his attempt to pay fresh attention to things and it was working - although he was going to be terribly late. ‘That John is a crafty so and so. I don’t know how, but he’s got me totally hooked and trying new things. How in the world did he do that?’
It was their third meeting.
“Before we go any further” said Mike, “I want to know something, why is it so hard to figure out what we want? It should be easy, shouldn’t it? So why don’t we know what we really want? And it’s not just me, most of the people I know seem to be stuck in this limbo of doing OK but thinking there might be something else, although they haven’t really any idea what. What’s going on?”
“Whoa there” said John. “It’s no good beating yourself up over it. Remember, I think there are three major reasons why we don’t know what we want” he said, ticking them off on his fingers. “First we lack practice, secondly I think we’ve trained ourselves to focus in the wrong direction. And the third reason is a combination of fear and overwhelm.”
“I remember,” said Mike “and I’m still curious, what do you mean by lack of practice?”
“OK. Let’s summarise. The first big decision is that we are going to figure this out. Right?” Mike nodded. “And we know that this will be a whole lot easier IF we act like drivers, act as if we created all the results in our lives.” Mike nodded again. “But if that’s all it would take, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation, so there are still some things stopping us. Let’s go through them one by one.”
“Why don’t we know what we want? Sometimes its simple. We just lack the practice, we have weak decision making muscles. If you’re an averagely nice person who never rubs anyone the wrong way and generally gets along with colleagues and friends, then a lot of the time you’ve probably learned to go with the flow. Sometime in your past you’ve decided that it’s easier not make a fuss about small things and you probably look askance at people who do.”
“Because of this you are simply not used to deciding what you want, because you very rarely make that kind of decision. Your boss decides when you arrive at work and when you leave, how long your lunch should be and how much holiday you can have (and when). Your spouse organises your social life (and your socks). You fit in, watching the TV that everyone else talks about, doing what others do. Even the way you dress or the kind of car you drive helps you to fit in and feel safe, not too different. Believe me, you lack practice in deciding what you want.”
“It’s no wonder, is it, that when it comes to the bigger issues in life ‘what do I really want?’ that we have no experience to fall back on. We’ve not practiced the skill enough to use it when we really need it.”
“Hmm.” Said Mike. “I’m not completely buying this although, thinking about it, I do feel like I’m on autopilot sometimes. But isn’t this just politeness? You can’t go around making a fuss about what you want the whole time. Can you?”
John looked at him “Well, let’s see. What’s the solution to lack of practice?”
“Practice?” ventured Mike.
“Yep. You have to practice. You have to go right back to the beginning, to the very smallest parts of your life and practice deciding what you want. We’ll talk more about how to practice this when we look at the Seven Ways.”
“This lack of practice in making your own decisions gets compounded because you have been let down so many times. Imagine a friend of yours who keeps promising to meet you for lunch but never shows and worse, keeps coming up with the most lame excuses that you can hardly believe. ‘My back was aching today’, ‘The cat was sick so I couldn’t come’, ‘I got distracted by this TV programme and before I knew it the time had gone’. How would you feel about this person? Annoyed? Let down? That they weren’t really a friend?”
“Guess who you have been letting down? That’s right. Imagine a life littered with broken promises, full of intentions that never went anywhere and ideas that never got further than fantasy. Imagine that lot hanging round your neck. No wonder you feel confused. You’re feeling let down and probably slightly angry. And the solution is just the same as it would be if you make an agreement with someone else and it becomes obvious you are not going to meet it. You have to:”
“What you have to do is rebuild trust with yourself exactly as you would have to do if you had been treating a friend this way. You’ve either got to start keeping your agreements or remake them. Probably the easiest place to start, with your track record, is with the very smallest things in your life.”
Mike nodded “I can see that, I’m not sure I agree with you about lack of practice but I can definitely see that I’ve broken agreements with myself loads of times. Never really thought of looking at it that way though. What’s the second reason?”
John stood up and walked over to the window. He gestured outside. “The second reason has to do with where we are looking most of the time.”
“Imagine this. An eight year old boy is playing in the garden one day when he takes a fresh look at the garden wall. It might be fun to walk along the top. ‘Imagine what I could see’, ‘It would be like flying’. He notices too that there is a way up to the top of the wall that he never saw before. It’s an effort but there he is walking along the top of the wall enjoying the view with this arms spread pretending to fly. It’s wonderful.”
“His mother, glancing up from the kitchen shrieks in horror and rushes out into the garden yelling at the top of her voice. ‘Don’t move.’ ‘Stay where you are.’ ‘Get down from there.’ ‘How did you get up there?’ ‘You’ll fall off and kill yourself.’ ‘Don’t ever do that again’.”
“Faced with this wail of contradictory advice and admonishment, faced with the full emotional force of a mother in distress, he begins to realise, perhaps for the first time, that he could indeed be killed, it is dangerous and he will fall off. Suddenly he is no longer stable, he feels unsteady and vulnerable. He gets down. He sees clearly what he does not want to happen and it stays with him.”
‘Weren’t you scared?’ Mum asks. He realises that he should have been scared, that it would please her if he was scared, so he gets scared.
“From now on, whenever he looks at the wall a strong, negative image of the consequences comes to him. He knows clearly what he does not want AND he is afraid of it.”
“Throughout our childhood our parents, motivated by love and safety, reinforce over and over again the negative consequences of acting. ‘Don’t run across the road without looking, you’ll be killed’ We get very good at focusing on the negative, the downside, the consequences. So now when we cross the road we are not thinking ‘How can I get to the other side safely?’ instead we are thinking ‘I’ve got to watch out in case I get killed and get this done as quickly as possible’. Out of love our parents continually reinforce the negative, what you don’t want, what is wrong. ‘Don’t cross the road’, ‘don’t make a risky decision’, ‘don’t skip your homework’. The reinforcement is strong, emotional and repeated. Is it any wonder that we learn to pay attention only to what we don’t want or are afraid of?”
“In this way our ability to understand our enjoyable desires is squashed by years of practice at knowing, very clearly what we do not want. The odd inkling of something we actually do want is very feeble and soon drifts away if you don’t catch it.”
“Simply put, we focus in the wrong direction. I meet very few people who can tell me clearly what they want but almost everyone I meet knows, very clearly, what they do not want. For some people, talking about what they don’t like, don’t want and didn’t enjoy makes up a large part of their conversation. ‘How was your holiday?’ ‘OK but the flight was late, we got locked out of the hotel and I got food poisoning. They didn’t have any English papers.’ Can you hear it? A complete focus on the downside, the negative, what went wrong or what could go wrong.”
“There is no point asking these people what they want. This is why most goal setting schemes and initiatives fail or only appeal to people who are already motivated. How can you understand what you want when most of your focus is somewhere else?”
“It’s like getting in the car in the morning and working out your route to work by a process of elimination ‘I don’t want to got to Scotland, not France today, not to the cinema etc.’ Eventually, by a process of elimination, you will end up at work but the process is long, slow and boring.”
“This, though, is the dominant thought process for many people. They have their attention firmly on the rear view mirror and live by moving away from things that they don’t like. The are living by a process of elimination ‘Nope, I don’t like this job’ ‘Nope, this relationship hasn’t worked’.”
“What they need to do is obvious isn’t it? They need to focus on what they want. The problem is that just because it is obvious doesn’t make it easy to do, does it? Otherwise we would all know what we really wanted and be merrily moving towards it.”
“The easiest way to get to work is to sit in your car and say to yourself ‘I want to go to….’ Engage the gears and go. But if you’ve spent your whole life steering by the rear view mirror and working out things by trying them, deciding you don’t like or don’t want them and then having a go at something else, this switch of focus is too much of a stretch. There is an easier way.”
“If you know what you don’t want then you need to ask yourself the second most powerful question in the world.”
“Go on then” said Mike playing along, “what is the second most powerful question in the world?”
John chuckled, “I’ll tell you about that later. For the moment, though, let’s look at the third reason that we find it hard to figure out what we want.”
“The third major reason that we do not know what we want is our fear of what might happen if we did. Along with this comes the sheer overwhelm of making choices when there are so many things we want.”
“Struggling to figure out what you want is a unique problem for recent generations in the richer parts of the world. Our ancestors had no problem working out what to do. Why? Because the answer was right in front of them - they wanted food, shelter, warmth and a mate; getting these was enough to fill their time. We, on the other hand have money, freedom, time, comfort and more food than we could ever eat. In a way, all the more obvious and easier decisions have been taken care of. So we are free to think about what our lives mean and what they could mean and, perhaps, what they should mean. That’s not a simple thing to work out or nor is there likely to be a single easy answer.”
“The other problem is the sheer number of options open to us. Even buying toothpaste these days means coping with six or seven brands providing nearly fifty different options for consideration. It’s no wonder that many people just shut down in the face of all this choice and default to what they bought yesterday or grab the first one they recognise.”
“Unfortunately, doing more of what you did yesterday or grabbing at the first choice you recognise, fails to satisfy that hollow feeling, that still, small voice, that says there has to be more for you, somewhere and somehow.”
“We devise lots of interesting and exciting ways to frighten ourselves out of knowing what we really want. Maybe we shy away from exploring other options because we frighten ourselves by thinking about the consequences ‘If I did what I really wanted I’d have to leave this job, town, relationship’. We run catastrophic disaster scenarios in which we would have to turn our whole life upside down if we figured out what we really wanted. So we don’t.”
“If you’ve been scaring yourself, it’s probably because you are denying to yourself some sort of change that you really know you want to make. Remember that being clear about what you really feel does not mean that you have to act on those feelings. For example, many people are unhappy in their job and long for more freedom and control over their day. They shy away from facing this because they frighten themselves with the prospect of having to run their own business. Silly, isn’t it? There are lots of ways to create more freedom and get more control over your daily life and very few of them involve the risk of running your own business. If you never face up to how you feel though, you never get to make these changes.”
“In reality, most of the changes you are likely to make are actually incremental. It’s much more likely to involve small, deliberate steps towards your desires rather than the kind of life changing, revolutionary fantasies you frighten yourself with.”
“And the good news is, that if you are the kind of person who runs very dramatic disaster scenarios in your head you may just have uncovered a very creative and imaginative side of yourself who could probably do with coming out to play more often. Maybe the drama is a plea for more creative play?”
“Another way we frighten ourselves out of understanding our real desires is by the fear of what we might have to become if we really understood what we wanted. The argument goes like this ‘If I gave way to what I really wanted I would be an artist and since all artists are (gay, poor, crazy, etc.) I don’t want to think about what I really want.’ ‘I think I might want to be a stand up comedian but since presentations make me nervous I’m not going to think about it’.”
“This is really just another version of a dramatic disaster scenario. Again, the cure is to realise that running away from a stereotype prevents you considering the smaller, incremental changes that would bring your life much closer to living the way you truly want.”
“If some kind of fear, of an imagined possible future, of an imagined possible you, is getting in the way of you figuring out what you really want, then how do you deal with this? Having practised it for so long, it’s unlikely to disappear just because you wish it.”
“Remember that courageous and brave people are not people who have no fear. A brave person is someone who knows they are afraid but keeps going anyway.”
“Many of us assume that fear is an intuitive signal to keep away from something but it isn’t, it’s just data. It’s just your unconscious early warning system flagging up something for attention. Fear is not a red light that tells you something is broken and needs fixing; it is a red light that says ‘by the way, did you know this?’.”
“If you see the process of getting clear on what you want as a threat to your stability and well being then your early warning system (fear) will start flashing whenever you go near it.”
“Being brave says ‘Yes I know this frightens me but I’m going to look anyway’ or ‘I’ve never liked the sound of this but I’m going to ignore the alarm bells and explore it’ or ‘whenever I think about this I feel nervous but I’m going to push through it anyway’.”
“Fear is just data. Treat is as such. Your unconscious has alerted you for which you are grateful but you intend to go ahead anyway because you want to/you are curious. This puts you in charge. It gets you into the Decide/Act/Get cycle and reminds your fear that it is not the boss here.”
“The truth is that you want so many things and many of them contradict each other. Faced with this, it’s easier to ignore them all especially if you have a feeling that there are many more things you want if only you could figure it out. For peace of mind it’s easier to shy away from confronting them.”
“Trouble is, as you know, you haven’t got peace of mind otherwise we wouldn’t be here. What you need is a system. A way of figuring out what you want and managing your choices so they are less overwhelming.”
“One early tip I can give you is that absolute clarity about what you want is rarely given. It’s unlikely that you will find one desire that trumps all the others and makes clear to you what you should do. You are much more likely to have a handful of wants which all seem pretty important and some of which contradict each other.”
“We are complex beings. Ignore those who tell you the power of setting a single big goal because we rarely, if ever, have the luxury of paying attention to just one big goal. That’s why I never understand how business people will pay to listen to the ‘lessons’ from famous sports stars. High achieving sports people operate in such a cosseted, artificial environment that they have very little to say to the rest of us about achievement in the real world.”
“At some point you have to arrange your wants into a hierarchy. To figure out which one/s you want the most and the key to that, as we’ll see later, is to use your personal values to help you.”
“Great” said Mike “let me see if I can sum up. There are three main reasons why we find it hard to figure out what we really want, lack of practice, focus in the wrong direction and overwhelm. That helps me understand why but I confess I’m no nearer seeing how to do it.”
“We’ll start looking at solutions next time we meet” said John. “For now, though, I’d like you to spend the rest of the week noticing times when you just coast along with decisions rather than deciding for yourself, see if you can spot people focussing on what they don’t want and think about fear signals - notice when they start going off in your life.”
In which Mike learns to start small.
“Hi Mike” said John at the start of their fourth meeting “What’s begun to change already since our last session?”
Mike chuckled to himself, he was used to these abrupt starts now. ‘At least I’m getting value from every minute of our time’ he thought, John makes every second count.’ He thought hard for a moment.
“Two things” he said “Firstly I’ve been practicing thinking like a driver and I’m really annoyed with myself about how far I’ve let others make decisions for me.”
“Go on.”
“And the other thing is I’ve been noticing how many agreements with myself I’ve broken. You’re not going to believe this but the other day I wrote a list of all the jobs around the house that I’ve been putting off and even though I haven’t started doing many of them, just writing it down was like remaking the agreement again. It felt better even though nothing had really changed.”
John looked at him “Something had changed though hadn’t it? Only now do you realise how much tension these broken agreements were causing you. Sometimes it feels like you’ve been holding your breath for ages.”
Mike nodded as John continued “As you begin to notice the changes that are happening you’ll see yourself edging closer to knowing what you want and being able to get it. Now let’s talk about the Seven Ways Toolkit. Over the next few weeks I’m going to give you seven different ways to figure out what you want so that you have loads of choices about how you will decide.”
“Sounds good” said Mike “What’s first?”
“The first way is to learn to start small. It’s simple and easy to do, in fact when I explain it to you, it may seem too easy and you may wonder what the point is but first let me ask you a question…”
“How do you persuade a horse to jump a six foot fence, against the clock, in a hot crowded arena, with 200 lbs of human on its back?”
“I don’t know” said Mike, puzzled by the sudden change of focus.
“Well,” paused John, “it seems to me there are two basic approaches you can use. The first way is to set the bar really high, gallop your horse madly towards it and see what happens. If it fails then repeat but this time hit it hard until it it is so filled with fear and adrenaline that it crashes over. Then raise the bar again and keep beating the horse to make it jump and so on.”
“The other way is to walk a young horse over a rail that is lying on the ground. Soothe, reassure, make it feel safe and when it is totally comfortable with stepping over it then raise it an inch or so. Repeat until the horse is confidently jumping over fences.”
“You’d be surprised how many people try to use the first approach to figure out what they really want. They charge at the problem and then beat themselves up when the answer does not reveal itself instantly. If you are struggling to figure out what you want, then raising the bar on yourself is just not going to work. You’ve probably already tried beating yourself up about it all. (If you haven’t, it might be worth giving it a go so that you can convince yourself for all time that it just does not work!)”
“I’m going with the second approach - starting small and gaining confidence with easy achievements. All I want you to do is learn to work out what you want AND achieve it, by lowering the bar until you can win every time.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mike
“Simple” said John, “the point of starting small is to get you to use the ‘Decide - Act - Get’ cycle. The idea of this exercise is to build your decision making confidence by collecting loads of small wins; so you get used to winning.”
“First you decide that you want something - a really small thing that is easy to get - then you take the required action, then you notice that you have got it. Decide - Act - Get. And you start by picking really small, ridiculously small, things so that you teach yourself that you CAN decide what you want, you CAN take the right action and you CAN get it.”
Mike frowned “Why would I want to do that?”
“Why? Because NOT knowing what you want has become a bad habit you need to break. It goes a bit like this. You struggle to think of something, you half decide that you want it, you don’t take the required action and then you get disappointed or angry with yourself that it didn’t work. Then you conclude that having what you want is too difficult. And it becomes a habit, pretty soon you are doing it all the time! By using the First Way ‘Learning To Start Small’ we are going to break that habit.”
“For the next week or so I want you to let yourself off the hook, give up any worries or thoughts about the big questions in life, what you should do and where you should go or which choices you should make. Take a week off from all of that and practice lowering the bar until you can decide what you want and get it every single time. I want you to fix your practice so that you win every time and that means lowering the bar until all you are doing is winning. Let me explain…”
“As you get up ask yourself ‘What do I want to wear?’ The black trousers? Find them and put them on. Check how you feel. Is this really what you want?”
“Seems trivial and silly doesn’t it? And it probably is. And the reason you’re doing it is to practice the winning cycle of Deciding, Acting, Getting.”
“Now, breakfast. ‘What do I really want?’ Decide, Act, Get. Suppose you decide cereal but halfway through the bowl you realise that it wasn’t actually what you wanted, in fact you are only eating it because it was the last commercial you saw before bed and, in truth, you now realise that you hate this particular cereal. What then? Get up, throw it away and go back to the beginning. ‘What do I really want?’ If it’s been a long time, then this may take some practice.”
“Pick five things you will do before you go to bed tonight. This is not the place for stretch goals or outstanding items from your to-do list, the sole purpose of this exercise is to decide you will do them, do them and hit the pillow tonight having done them all. Fix the exercise so that today you win. If you do this properly, for the next seven nights you will hit the pillow having done every single thing you decided to do - if you make them small enough.”
“So think of something that you are going to do today, something you want, something you want to do. If there is the slightest doubt that you will do it then pick something even smaller until you have something that you have decided to do, that you are willing to act on and that you will notice when you have done it.”
“This seems silly” said Mike, “Why?”
“It does seem silly but think about that horse learning to jump and think about you approaching the problem of figuring out what you want. If you drive a horse at a barrier with no training and lack of practice then the horse will very quickly come to the conclusion that it can’t be done. It happens to people too, wrestling the problem of figuring out what they want and not resolving it, many simply conclude that it is not possible even though they can see it’s possible for others. ‘I’m just not that kind of person’. The point of this exercise is to break the cycle and convince yourself completely that you can decide what you want, take action and get it. Think of it as training your decision making muscles.”
“I cannot emphasise enough how important it is that you lower the bar until you win every time. The key to beginning to figure out what you want is to practice the skill of figuring out what you want over and over again with small things so that you embed the behaviour of always having an outcome for whatever you do.”
“What do I want from this phone call? OK I’m travelling home, what do I want from this journey? What do I want from this meeting? What do I really want to eat at this meal? And if it is not what’s in front of you then put it aside and go get what you want. Build the habit of deciding, acting and getting.”
Mike frowned, he was still dubious about this “What do you mean by small?”
“Well let’s start with something really small - ‘As I leave work I will walk to my car, get in, turn the engine on and start driving’. Yes” said John seeing Mikes expression. “That small, that simple”.
“For the next seven days take all those habitual, automatic decisions you make and make them conscious. Decide to do it, do it and notice that you have done it. Begin to walk over those training poles with confidence and authority. You are a person who can decide what you want, take action and achieve it.”
“And remember, the idea of this is not to start you off making huge changes straight away (although that might happen), the idea of this is to practice being someone who decides what they want and then goes and gets it.”
“And practice deciding what you want from every experience this week. Before each meeting ‘What do I want from this meeting?’ Before each phone call ‘What do I want from this phone call?’ Before each conversation with co-workers ‘What do I want from this conversation?’
“That’s an odd thing isn’t it? Thinking about what you want from a conversation with co-workers. Consider it though. Unless you’re just making a noise, you probably have some outcome – you want warmth, connection, friendship, laughter, you want to share a story, you want to feel better by being with them. What is it you want from these conversations? Decide. Act. Get. Teach yourself two important things. First, that you are the kind of person that keeps his word (even to yourself) and secondly that you are the kind of person who can decide what you want, take the right action and get it.”
“All this low level practice builds muscle memory for the big decisions in life. More on that later.”
“We live on autopilot a lot of the time. Someone asked me once whether I ever work with the blind or deaf, and I do, most of the time! It is amazing how much we cede control of our life to habit or to our boss or our partner so we don’t really make choices at all. Often we just drift along eating the same food, having same conversations about the same things with the same people all out of habit not out of choice.”
“From now on I want you to make everything a choice. ‘Do I want this?’ Start, though, with the very smallest things.”
Mike frowned “Still feels silly but I’ll give it a go. Won’t making all my decisions conscious slow everything down?”
“It’s just a week”, John smiled, “think of it as a week free of concerns about what you want or big decisions, a week spent showing yourself that you can pick something you want, take the right action and then achieve it.”
“A word of warning though. Even with this very safe level of practice you are going to surprise yourself and may surprise others. Be prepared for this.”
“It’s a day or two later and you’ve been assiduously practising deciding what you really want in the small things. Now you’re out to dinner with your wife or perhaps your family. You always have the chicken but as you sit down you’re asking ‘What do I really want to eat?’ And it comes to you that you would like the fish and you’d like to try a different drink. How will they react do you think?”
“Will people be pleased for you? Glad that you are trying new things, encouraged by your creativity? Of course not ‘But you always have the chicken’ they will wail ‘what’s wrong?’ ‘Nope, I’ve having the fish’ you say and your conviction surprises you (and them). Now they are really worried. If you are lucky, they will leave it alone and move on to something else. They may not though and this will be a test of how firmly you are prepared to stand your ground. Sounds astonishing doesn’t it? But wait and see.”
“Once you begin to be clear about the trivial things in your life, your conviction may surprise you. You may blurt out ‘I think…’ ‘I’d like to…’ ‘Actually, I’ve never liked….and I’m not doing it anymore’. You’re beginning to have a view, to develop a perspective, to value your own opinion.”
“This may not be totally comfortable for you and for others but it’s a sign of growth. It’s also a sign of originality, you are discovering that you do have a view, that you know your own mind. The only reassuring thing I can tell you is that this kind of original thinking is very charismatic and in the long run you will enjoy this far more than just drifting through your life eating chicken because you don’t want to offend anybody.”
“Here’s a worksheet to complete before we meet next time.”
It’s OK to have small goals, especially ones that you are going to achieve easily. Success breeds success. Do not worry if what you want is easily achievable. Achieving your goals, no matter how small they are, will get you into the habit of being someone who is a success at finding out what they want and getting it.
Start small, with five things you want to achieve before you sleep tonight. Your list might look like this:
When you are happy and comfortable with your list, do it again, this time for the end of the week, then the end of next week.
Lastly, pick one thing you want to achieve by the end of the month.
| Make a list of five things you want to achieve BEFORE YOU SLEEP tonight | |
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| Make a list of five things you want to achieve BY THE END OF THE WEEK | |
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| 5 |
| Make a list of five things you want to achieve BY THE END OF NEXT WEEK | |
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| 2 | |
| 3 | |
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| 5 |
| Now one thing you want to achieve BY THE END OF THE MONTH | |
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| 1 | |
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| 5 |
You can also download a much smarter PDF worksheet
In which Mike learns the difference between navigating by mood and navigating by desire.
Mike walked into the coffee shop and noticed that John had managed to get seats in a corner where they could talk. As he settled down with his drink John asked him “So how’s it going?”
“Well I’m getting used to continually asking myself ‘what do I really want?’ and like you said I’ve been practicing in very small things. Actually” he laughed, “that’s why I’ve got a chai tea now rather than my usual black coffee. I asked myself what I really wanted and really fancied one of these. Before I would have just chosen automatically.”
“Sounds like you are beginning to make progress. Got any questions so far?”
“Yes. It seems OK with these small things. It’s fun in fact but I’m worried about applying this approach to bigger things. If I did what I wanted all the time I’d never work or get anything done or achieve anything that needed some effort. And what about all those boring but necessary things that I don’t really want to do but have to do like emptying the washing machine or doing my budget report, which I hate. If I carried on just doing what I wanted, I’m worried that I’d stay in bed all day.”
“It’s a good question” said John “one that comes up a lot and it brings us to the difference between navigating by mood or navigating by desire.”
“When we navigate by our moods we are primarily concerned with how we feel so we ask internal questions like ‘What do I feel like doing?’ or when faced with a choice ‘Which one feels right?’ or when facing some regular chore we might avoid it if we do not feel like doing it. Can you see a problem with this approach?”
“It sounds a bit flighty” said Mike “my moods change so much, even what I’ve eaten recently changes how I feel. That makes me a bit wary of using them as a guide and that’s why I’m worried about this whole approach.”
John interrupted “Let’s talk about desire then. Desire is about things that you want rather than things you feel like doing. A lot of the time your mood and your desire are aligned. You felt like a chai tea and you wanted a chai tea so you acted to get one. With experiences like this it’s easy to confuse mood and desire. Let’s think about a different example.”
“Imagine for a moment. It’s Saturday morning. 6am. Cold, dark, wet outside and my alarm rings. I surface with a groan in my warm, comfy, snuggly, bed and realise that, yet again, it’s time to get up for my daughters 6.30am swimming practice. I really do not feel like getting up, I feel like staying in bed. My mood says ‘don’t do it, it’s not right for you, it doesn’t feel right’. With me so far?” He looked at Mike who nodded.
“So I’m lying there and I ask myself ‘What do you want?’ and I know that even though I do not feel like it, I really do want to get up. In fact I like the quiet time while she is swimming - it’s like a little oasis in my week and I’ve enjoyed it before and I picture myself enjoying it again. I also want to get up because she loves swimming and I want to support her. I still don’t feel like it, although, as I begin to think about what I want, my mood is actually changing, coming round to supporting my desire. Eventually I get up.”
“So” said Mike “What you appear to be saying is that if I can identify my true desire, my mood with fall in behind it or in plain English if there is something I don’t feel like doing then I’m maybe asking the wrong question?”
“Exactly”, said John. “Our feelings are so changeable, affected by the weather, what we eat, the amount of sleep we’ve had, what we’ve just read or watched and even having fun or arguments with our partner all affect our mood from moment to moment. This makes them an unreliable guide to what to do next. Our desires on the other hand tend to be deeper and less susceptible to moment by moment changes.”
“So here’s my tip for the rest of this week. Anytime you find yourself in any conflict about a simple choice - perhaps you think you should be doing something but don’t really feel up to it then have a think about what questions you are asking yourself.”
Anxiety is a sign that you are not focusing on what you want.
“As you choose to follow your desires rather than your moods, a couple of things will happen…”
“Remember” said John. “Until we meet next time, practice navigating by desire. The question is not ‘what do I feel like but what do I really want? Focus on that regardless of whether you feel like doing it or not and notice what happens to your mood. You should find that your feelings eventually start supporting your desires. And remember to keep it small for now so you give those decision making muscles a good workout.”
Mike thought for a moment, “So even if I don’t feel like emptying the washing machine, I do want clean clothes and although I hate doing budget reports I do want to show how well we have done. In fact, now that I think about it I’ve had an idea about getting the budget report done another way.”
“Yep” said John “Notice what just happened. You shifted your focus away from how you felt towards what you wanted and that allowed you to be more creative.”
“I see” said Mike “so I can worry less about applying this approach to bigger things because even if I don’t feel like doing them in the moment, if they are real desires of mine, I can still go with them.”
“Have fun navigating by desire” said John as he shook hands and turned to go.
While at first these two ways of making decisions seem similar, they take people in two completely different directions. Since our moods are often tied up in old habits and patterns of thinking, following them tends to just create more of the ‘same old, same old’ in our lives. Somehow, we just don’t get around to making those changes we know we’d love to make, and things that seem like they’ll take too much effort are put off until the last minute or don’t get done at all.
Your wanting, however, is a living, breathing, fluid process. Each time you do what you want (or don’t do what you don’t want to do), your actions seem effortless and inspired ideas become almost commonplace. Over time, it becomes easier and easier to read and follow your inner compass. Life gets a lot simpler, and the pursuit of success becomes a lot more fun. Michael Neill.
In which Mike learns how to focus on what he does not want.
“Tell me something” said Mike, “Why doesn’t this work with everybody?”
“What do you mean?” asked John
“Well, I’ve been practicing my decision making. Virtually all the time now I ask myself what I want, in fact just before this meeting I asked myself what I wanted from our session and what I want is the answer to this question that’s been bothering me for the last week or so.”
“Go on” said John.
“You see, It’s a brilliant question ‘What do you want’, it’s worked for me so well I’ve been using it everywhere; I’ve tried it with my boss and my team and the kids, everywhere, but I’ve noticed something. Somehow, for some of them, it doesn’t work, in fact there are some conversations I’ve had where the question has nearly started a row. I’m puzzled. It’s been such an eye opener for me, so why not for everyone?”
“Hmm” said John “Well first you have to understand that ‘What do you want?’ is probably the most powerful question in the world so it can be dangerous in the wrong hands! For people who live like passengers, this question can be disturbing. It calls attention to the difference between what they want and the life they are living now. Sometimes they will react angrily. You have to be sensitive to this.”
“Tone of voice matters a lot too. Sometimes you need to soften the question a bit, for example:”
“Use a softer tone of voice or you could try asking the question in another way”
“Another way is to make it sound like a joint question:”
“Sometimes by gently asking people to focus on the ultimate outcome (what they really want) other options for getting it begin to suggest themselves.”
“I see” said Mike “I may have been a bit pushy but I’ve got a feeling that there’s more to it than this. Some people just really don’t like this question.”
“You’re right”, said John, “There is something else. In fact, it’s quite a big something else. It’s a fact that for about 50% of the population the question ‘What do you want’ is totally useless, even unsuitable.”
“What do you mean, useless and unsuitable?”
John gave a rueful grin. “Perhaps I should have mentioned this earlier. You see, unless you are a highly motivated, goal-seeking person who relentlessly uses positive language all the time, the chances are that you spend at least some of your time thinking about things you don’t like and don’t want.”
“Remember the boy on the wall? Some of us have had years of practice focused on the downside, the dangers, what could go wrong and what we don’t want to happen. We’ve been positively reinforcing this for years and if we are parents, we can probably hear ourselves doing it to our children as well. We’re very good at it.”
“And this is why the first way may not have worked for some people. Because ‘what do you want’ is such a foreign and sometimes threatening question. Even now, I sometimes seize up and go completely blank when I ask myself that question. We’ve had no practice with it and for some people, it is such a contrast to their normal thinking that it just does not work.”
“That’s also why motivational texts and speeches by goal-driven sports people have no lasting impact on the behaviour of their audience. For most people, listening to this kind of motivational talk only serves to reinforce the barely acknowledged belief that ‘It’s alright for them but I’m just not like that’.”
“Thankfully, help is at hand. All you have to do is learn to focus on what you don’t want. And since at least half the population are very good at this, you should find it easy to use with yourself and with them.”
“Remember my car example? Having a firm focus on the downside, on the danger, on what you do not want is a bit like driving around by only looking in the rear view mirror. You reverse away from what you don’t like until you sort of find somewhere where there is nothing so bad that you need to move away from it.”
“We call this an ‘Away From’ motivation because it describes someone who moves away from pain rather than towards pleasure. It’s the classic pattern of the yo-yo dieter. When I reach 15 stone I hate it, feel fat and uncomfortable, clothes no longer fit well so I’m highly motivated to move away from this. It’s too painful. As I successfully lose weight, though, the pain lessens and as the pain fades away, so does my motivation. The only way to regain my motivation is to gain the weight again. So I yo-yo.”
“That’s nuts!” Mike interrupted “You gain weight as a way of gaining motivation?”
“Does seem stupid, doesn’t it? Look around you though. It’s the classic pattern of the yo-yo dieter or the person who waits for things to get really bad before doing something about it. How many people do you know who stay in a job, or relationship or social life that they don’t really like but is not bad enough to do anything about? How many people do you know who talk about ‘No pain, no gain’ or describe gritting their teeth and making themselves do things. These are the ‘Away From’ people.”
“And, for them, goals just do not work because they lack the essential motivation of having to move away from something.”
“Remember I promised you the second most powerful question in the world? Here it is. If you are an ‘Away From’ type person or you know people who are primarily motivated this way then asking them ‘What do you want?’ probably does not work. Much better is the question ‘What do you want, [pause] instead?’.”
He looked across at Mike. “Think of something trivial in this office that you do not like.” Mike glanced at his phone “Here’s one, I don’t like the menu system on my phone, it’s a pain and I’m always forgetting how to find the settings.”
“OK. What do you want instead?”
“I see what you’re doing here. OK, what I want instead is a menu system that is easy and where the choices are obvious. Something that looks as if it has been designed for normal people.” He paused. “Oh, I get it. You’ve got me to switch my focus haven’t you? Instead of moaning about the phone I’m now thinking about the solution.”
“Spot on. First you go with your natural focus - the moan, the irritation or the thing you don’t like. Then ask yourself “What do I want, instead?” To answer this question you have to take your eyes off the rear view mirror and glance in some other direction. The question causes you to search around until you find something you like; then you can steer towards it. It also feels different because it releases different chemicals in the body. And it changes the script you run in your head. You may not have been aware how negative that script was until you try this.”
“And the best thing of all is that it is totally non-threatening. ‘What do you want instead?’ You’ll find you need to be gentle with the ‘Away From’ people, and yourself, because you and they are out of practice. You may have to ask this several times and catch them if it turns into a complaint again.”
“If you are an ‘Away From’ parent your communication style may well be full of warnings and lurid descriptions of the consequences of things going wrong - don’t run across the road, you’ll be killed!”
“You owe it to your children to give them the option of considering what they should move towards as well. Just because you use consequences and pain to motivate yourself does not mean this works for your children.”
“So just as you are about to yell ‘don’t run across the road, you’ll be killed’ consider what thought you want to leave them with instead ‘remember to look both ways and use the crossing, wait until the traffic stops and get across safely’. Their preferred motivator may be moving towards something. If nothing else, remembering to do both makes you a more fully rounded communicator.”
“I can see this” said Mike, “I can see that I’ve done this to my kids and I know people I work with and who work for me who are just like this. This is brilliant. ‘What do you want instead?’ he asked slowly, rolling the words off his tongue.
John laughed, “Let me give you a couple of examples”
“Once, a long time ago, I was doing appraisal interviews with my team leaders when I saw this question work really well. Let’s call her Chris. She was one of my team leaders, relatively new to the role and this was her first appraisal interview with me. I started in the normal way ‘How’s it going?’ This unleashed a stream of complaints, moans, things she didn’t like, things she thought we were doing badly etc. I waited for her to finish and then said ‘OK Chris, thanks for that, it’s quite a list, so what do you want instead?’ There was a long silence while she processed the question and then admitted that she didn’t know. ‘Why don’t you go and have a think about what you want instead? Come back and we’ll make a plan to make the changes you want.’ Off she went. She had come to the meeting with her focus so firmly fixed on what she did not want and did not like, all the things she wanted to move away from, that she had barely thought about what she wanted to move towards. She had arrived with problems without bringing any solutions.”
“This question ‘What do you want instead?” will help you and help the people you work with to understand what they want to move towards.”
“Moans, complaints, whines, disillusionment, anger, disappointment, blame, dissatisfaction are all symptoms of a passenger mentality. Being asked the question ‘What do you want instead?’ naturally helps them search around for something they want to move towards and helps them become more of a driver.”
“Practice this. Ask yourself and ask others. When your children complain about something ask them ‘What do you want instead?’ When your colleagues complain about the rubbish TV they watched at the weekend ask them ‘What would prefer to watch instead?’ When tempted to complain about your boss ask yourself ‘What do I want instead?’ When you hear yourself keeping up a running commentary of dissatisfaction tell yourself ‘OK, I hear you. Now, what do you want instead?’
Remember, anxiety (and moaning) are a sign that you are not focussing on what you want.
John paused “Here’s another story where I nearly made a huge mistake by not paying attention to different motivational styles”
“I learned about the effect of towards and away from communication the hard way, by managing people. I am a natural away from person. I routinely leave things until they get so bad I have to change them (until the pain gets bad enough). My default way of motivating myself is to remind myself of the consequences of ‘not doing’ and issue warnings to myself about what to watch out for. Because this is the default way of motivating myself I tend to use it (if I’m not careful) as my default style when communicating with others.”
“I remember clearly calling a meeting with my team leaders about the state of our budget. We had done well against a stiff debt collection target but we needed to do better. Jo was sitting opposite me and, as I launched into a series of warnings, admonitions and what if’s, I could see her motivation literally draining away. Earlier in the week I’d been doing some training about away from and towards styles so perhaps I was very conscious of it but I could see that the more I talked the more I managed to turn off her motivation. You see I knew something about Jo. She was my star debt collector, motivated, committed and relentless and here I was doing my best to drain it all away. What I knew about Jo was that she was the kind of person who was virtually 100% ‘towards’ in everything she did. What motivated her were targets, achievement, restless energy towards a goal and hitting milestones. In other words I was using the wrong strategy, I was communicating with my star player using my preferred style not hers; I was communicating with my star player in exact the opposite way to how she best motivated herself.”
“Fortunately when I saw this happening I was able to adjust but it was a close call. I could have walked from that meeting leaving my team leaders limp and drained of motivation. Has this ever happened to you?”
“If you find yourself focused firmly on the downside, collecting uncomfortable situations as a way of charging up your motivation then it’s time to play with ‘What do you want instead?’ Whenever you communicate with others make sure you give the ‘Away From’ people things to avoid and the ‘Towards’ people things to aim at.
“This is great” said Mike “But how do I use this to help me figure out what I want?”
“All of us have a bit of ‘Away From’ focus in our lives and for this next week I want you to unearth all of them or as many as you can dig up. I want you to find all the questions or parts of your life where you spend more time thinking about what you don’t want or don’t like instead of what you want.”
“Here’s the worksheet. Start with something simple again like, say, your job. Now think of something you don’t like about your job. For example: ‘I don’t like breathing recycled air all day’ Write that down on the left. Then ask yourself the question ‘What do I want instead?’ and write down whichever answer or answers come to mind. It could be anything from ‘I want an outdoor job’ to ‘I want to go for a walk at lunchtime’.”
“Start simple and start with a good old moan about all the things you do not like or do not want. Also include those things that you know you don’t want in the future - capture them all - even things like ‘I never want to be an accountant’. Aim for quantity here rather than quality. Then follow the instructions on the sheet.”
Mike had already drifted off into a daydream making a list of all the things he didn’t want. He barely registered John smiling to himself as he left. He put the worksheet to one side and fired up a new document. This was going to be a big list.
If you are good at knowing what you DON’T want then take advantage of this. Use it to reveal to yourself what you actually want instead.
Pick a life area like, say, My Job then on the left hand side make a list of all the things that you don’t want, don’t like, annoy you, or you dislike. Do your best to make them specific:
And so on:
Exhaust yourself, capture everything, big and small. Have a good moan on paper and dwell on this for a bit. ‘Given a choice, if I had a totally free hand, what don’t I want to have in my job?’
Got it all? OK now take the first one and ask yourself What do I want, instead? Give this a little bit of thought, it may be the opposite or it may be something quite different. Note down your answers.
Take each of dislikes or ‘don’t want’ in turn and note down your answer to the question What Do I Want Instead?
| Life Area: Eg. My Job | ||
|---|---|---|
| I don’t want… | What do you want instead? | I do want… |
| START HERE - make a list of all the things you don’t want in your job. | FINISH HERE - Fill this side up with what you want instead. | |
| Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. | Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. | Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. |
You can also download a much smarter PDF worksheet
When you’ve done this, look at what you’ve got. You’ve clearly identified all the things you don’t want in your job or a job. You’ve asked yourself what you want instead and you now have at least some idea of this written down. This gives you things to move away from and things to move towards.
As we’ve already said, just moving away from what you don’t like is like driving while only looking in the rear view mirror. It’s bumpy and slow. Now you are beginning to look forward as well. Not only do you know what to move away from but you know a bit more clearly which direction to go in. This will stop you finding yourself randomly in yet another place that you have to move away from. Setting some sort of forward direction is much quicker than reversing out of one place after another.
Now pick a different area of your life and repeat the exercise. Pick a harder one, perhaps where things really are a bit fuzzy.
This question, ‘What do you want instead?’ is a new life skill for you. Have fun using it. Whenever you catch yourself moaning or complaining or muttering about something ask yourself ‘OK, what do I want instead?’ Notice what this does. You hear a different conversation in your head, it feels lighter and you can see a new direction more clearly as you lift your head up from whatever is annoying you.
Play with it, too, with others. This question works really well with partners, children, friends and superbly well with bosses. Have a go. The only thing you have to watch is your voice tone and way of asking it. You may need to soften it a bit ‘So, I’m curious, what do you want instead?’
What you are really doing here is helping people become drivers because the only way they can answer the question ‘What do you want instead?’ is to get up from their passenger seat and walk to the front of the bus. Really, it’s a form of social service to the world. Have fun with it.
In which Mike learns how to make all his wishes come true.
“How’s it going?” asked John “What other changes have you begun to notice since you started these exercises?”
“Well” said Mike, smiling at the fast start, “You’re right, I’ve been using both questions with myself and I find that second one ‘What do you want instead’ really annoying”.
John interrupted “I know what you mean but explain more.”
“Well I can’t moan anymore! I used to enjoy a good whinge and whine to myself, in fact I enjoyed it more than I’d care to admit but now what happens is I have a little voice that pops up in my head and asks me ‘what do you want instead?’ and that ruins my bad mood. I even tried it with my teenage daughter the other night and only just managed to stop myself laughing when it ruined her bad mood as well - it’s very powerful and I was surprised how easy it was.”
“As I thought,” said John “you’re becoming a driver. Many people who live like a passenger use their moods as a way of excusing themselves from taking action and one of the downsides of learning to be a driver is letting go of a lot of this. I’m not guaranteeing no more bad moods but I can guarantee a way out if you want to take it. What else?”
“And the other thing is, I tried a reverse brainstorm with my team which really made me laugh in the end. We were talking about the new appraisal process and instead of going through the process I started the meeting by standing at the flip chart and asking them for ideas on how to do a really bad appraisal. I’ve got to say, my heart was in my mouth, and they took a while to get it, which made me really nervous but I hung on and eventually I couldn’t stop them. It was loads of fun, they saw the point straightaway and it made the introduction of a new process much easier than usual.”
“OK, that’s really good. Let’s move on. So far we have looked at small wins, using small achievements to practice deciding what you want, taking action and noticing that you’ve got it. Then we looked at reversing your whole approach and putting your focus firmly on what you don’t want as a way of using your existing ‘away from’ skills.”
“Now we’re going to look at your daydreams for clues about what you really want for your life. If I could show you a way to make your dreams come true would you be interested?”
“Sure” said Mike, dubious.
“I warn you, you might not like the answer.” said John “Let me tell you about one of my dreams…”
“For years I had this fantasy of learning to ride a motorbike. Me, on a Harley, with a ponytail, bandana, shades and a leather jacket with tassels. All I ever managed to get was the Harley belly. But I loved to talk about it, especially with friends who did ride bikes. This went on for ages until one day, one of them asked me ‘Why don’t you just go and do it?’ And then it struck me, I didn’t have a good reason not to.”
“What do you wish for? If I had a magic wand and could grant you unlimited wishes then what? You can have anything you like in your daydreams. What takes your fancy? Anything. Anything from a distant, wistful thought or something you regularly fantasise about. I’ll give you a minute to think about it but don’t tell me what they are yet.”
John fell silent as he watched Mike drift off for a while into a daydream. When he saw him refocus again he continued.
“So, those things you just been thinking about, how long have you been carrying these around in your head without doing anything about it?”
Mike shook his head “Quite a long time; years, some of them”.
“Is there anything you talk about, even to yourself, but have never done anything about? You see, I’d never done anything about my bike fantasy because it seemed overwhelming. The time for the lessons, buying a bike - how was I going to afford that? Then the business of passing a test. We’d just had a baby and I had my hands full. In fact I had a lot of really handy excuses.”
“Nothing happened until I gave serious attention to what I would actually have to do. Once I worked out the main steps and put them in some kind of order I began to see that I could break it down into fairly small actions and take them one at a time.”
“Most wishes remain as wishes because they never get connected to any real steps and then never developed into easy, straightforward actions. It’s like that old proverb - How do you eat an elephant? You can only do it one mouthful at a time. In actual fact before you could get to mouthfuls you’d have to kill it, then saw it into large chunks and divide those chunks into smaller chunks until you had a mouth sized portion.”
He looked across at Mike “What are your elephants? Your big, unobtainable wishes that are going nowhere?”
“Mike thought for a moment and then let out a big sigh. Well…”
“Alright, that’s good. Now this week what I want you to do is have a serious go at connecting these wishes to the steps needed to make them come true.”
“First you need to sketch out the big steps you’d need to take to turn that wish into reality. Next you need to take each step and break it down into tiny, single step actions that are easy to take.”
Mike frowned. “What’s a single step action?”
“A single step action is something like ‘open drawer’, ‘turn on television’, ‘print document’. In other words its a small enough action that if I wrote it on a card and gave it to someone they could go and do it. There’s an example on the worksheet”
“OK” said Mike “but why am I thinking about wishes that don’t stand a chance of coming true?”
John drew a cloud on the flip chart and printed ‘FANTASY’ inside it. “Look, these wishes, your desire to own a boat for instance are fantasies. They float around in your head and you take them out every so often to polish them and then consign them to the back of your mind with a wistful look while you get back to reality, true?”
Mike nodded. John printed the word ‘STEPS’ on the flip-chart, drew a circle round it and then joined it to the cloud with a line. He then drew an arrow down from ‘STEPS’ and printed ‘ACTIONS’ at the bottom of the sheet. “This process is your chance to challenge what you are doing by linking these fantasies to the major steps that would make them real and then breaking down those steps in to a number of easy action steps. When you do this I’m willing to bet that two things will happen.”
“Either way, it will no longer be a fantasy taking up space in your head. Dealing with it either by dismissing it for good or making a real plan will free up space to focus on other things that you want.”
“He handed the worksheet across. Here’s the example I promised. See how you get on with it.”
“Most wishes remain as wishes because they never get connected to any steps and the steps never get connected to any actions. And without having bite size actions to do, you are never going to do anything are you? To discover the reality of what you want you’ll have to bring your wishes down to the action level and then you will really know whether your wish is a deep hidden desire that will fulfil you if you get it or just one of those cosy fantasies that you take out and play with every so often.”
“So, go ahead and pick something that you wish for. Pick anything. Even really silly things that you think you have no chance of making real. In fact, this works better with outrageous wishes.”
Mike thought for a moment “OK, here’s one. I wish that I would win the lottery”.
Really?
“Yes, really. If this process is what you claim then it should be able to get me a lottery win”
John put his hands up in a gesture of surrender “OK, you asked for it. Let’s leave aside for a moment that this is probably covering up a true wish for other things like, say, more freedom and control, and go with the lottery thing.”
“First, lets dump a list of steps that might get you a lottery win. No analysis, just an unrestrained brain dump.” He picked up a marker and stood by the whiteboard “Fire away…”
Initial Steps
Mike grinned. “OK, I could:
“Good, let’s stop there for the moment”
“Hold on” said Mike “This is getting very silly”.
“It might seem silly but do you agree that all of these are possible steps to a lottery win?”
“I suppose so.”
“And if we had more time we’d keep going until we had every possible step. For now though let’s use one example and break it down into actions”.
Breaking each step into single actions
John rubbed out all the others, leaving the third one. “Let’s assume for a moment that you were going to build a replica machine and smuggle it into the studio. What would you have to do first?”
“I dunno” said Mike “What about getting hold of the plans for an existing one?”
“And to do that?”
“Perhaps I could bribe an employee where they make them” suggested Mike getting into the swing of it.
“But you don’t know where they are made, do you?” pointed out John “So what is the smallest step before that”
Mike paused “I suppose…, what about…, I know, it’s to navigate to the Google home page to start a search”
Fantasy linked to Steps linked to Actions
“Do you see what we’ve done here?” John asked “We have taken a vague wish, brainstormed the steps and then broken down one step to the point where we have a tiny action to take, in this example, open a browser and find the Google home page.”
“What you need to do now is take each step and break it down into bite-sized actions until you can answer the question ‘What’s the very next action?’. Then you’ll have a 1,000 step action plan to win the lottery and if you do every step you could win it. Suddenly, it is no longer a fantasy. You have a plan.”
“Hang on” said Mike “That’s loads of work, I don’t want to do all of that and I’m not sure that half of it would work anyway”.
John looked at him.
“Oh, I see. I’ve answered my own question haven’t I?”
“Yep,” said John. “You’ve discovered that although, like many people, you have a lottery fantasy, confronted with all the work required to make it happen you’ve lost your appetite for it. What you need to do now is pick another fantasy to work with or ask yourself what your desire for a lottery win was covering up.”
“Here’s the worksheet for the Third Way. Pick another fantasy, perhaps that boat idea or the New Zealand tour and do it again”
He left as Mike began to see pictures of boats floating through his mind ‘I wonder whether it could be possible after all?’
Turn your wishes into actions. Someone told me that you can have anything you want if only you were willing to ask 1000 people. Or achieve any goal if only you were willing to think of 1000 actions and then do them.
| I wish… | How could I? (Steps or Options) | What would I need to do? (Actions) |
|---|---|---|
| Lorem | Lorem 1, 2, 3 4 | Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. |
You can also download a much smarter PDF worksheet
When you have finished, you should have:
Link your wish to the major steps you could take, then link each step to the actions required to achieve it. Make each action small enough that it is a single item. If you want to, write each action on an index card and carry the stack around with you.
Now you have a plan. If you want this wish to come true you just need to do the 1,000 or so small actions and it’s yours.
If you do, take one or more of the actions - what are you waiting for?
If you don’t, pick another one of your wishes and start the process again.
Start to take your dreams and wishes seriously. If you’re not sure, if you honestly don’t know what you want to do start wishing for a direction, for your way to appear. Natelie Goldberg, Writing Down The Bones
In which Mike learns the power of using scales.
Mike had begun to ask himself ‘What do I want?’ more often, especially about the small decisions; as John recommended. He’d found he was beginning to act more deliberately. In fact, he’d had a couple of strange looks from his mother and his wife when he’d unexpectedly expressed a strong preference over fairly small issues. Mostly though it was OK and he was enjoying the thrill of practicing being more decisive in meetings. His boss, Julie, had commented in a recent meeting on that. He’d realised how negative he’d got about a lot of things and had found the questions ‘What do I want, instead?’ really useful. In fact it was annoying because he rather enjoyed a good moan to himself and found that question got him thinking in a different direction. He’d found himself staring wistfully at pictures of boats in the past wondering how they could afford one and when John had challenged him to act on his wishes he’d spent a fun afternoon with a whiteboard freely brainstorming steps to make it come true. It felt different now, he had a plan.
At his next meeting with his coach Mike enthusiastically reviewed all this while John listened. “Sounds great” said John “What else?” Mike thought for a moment. “Well,” he paused “I seem to have done all the obvious things but I still have a feeling that there is more”. John looked at him, “Let me ask you a question, out of 10, how excited are you right now?”
“What a strange question?”
“Just stick with it. Quick as you can. Out of 10 how excited are you right now, right here in this room.”
“Dunno, about 4 out of 10 I suppose.”
“Great. Now, can you turn your excitement down to 3 or below?”
Mike thought quietly for a moment. “Yes I can, it’s about 3 now. This is weird.”
“OK. Now, see if you can take it from 3 to 6.” Mike thought again. “Yes, well I feel a little more excited but frankly this is a hard place to be excited in.”
John laughed. “Well done for having a go. Now let me ask you a different question, ‘What would 10/10 be like? If you had your excitement level at 10/10 what would your energy be like, how would you be talking, what would you look like?’”
Mike began to imagine this and was surprised to find that as he imagined it he actually became more excited. It was very strange.
“What’s all this got to do with figuring out what I want?” he demanded.
“Well” said John “When you said that your excitement level was 4 out of 10, I had no idea what you meant but you did, didn’t you? You had a very clear idea. Let’s break it down for a minute. In order to rate your current excitement level you needed to do a very fast comparison. You quickly ran the extremes of 10 and 1 in your head, did a rough comparison and came up with 4.”
Mike thought about this for a moment. “Yes, that is what I did although I wasn’t really aware of doing it.”
“This is a great technique for uncovering hidden ‘wants’.” John continued, “It works by getting you to score your life at the moment and compare that to what 10/10 is for you. The difference is probably something you want.” John began to draw a circle on the notepad in front of him, he divided the circle into six segments. “This is called the Wheel of Life and it’s a way of keeping score.
“Here are six life areas that apply to most people.” He continued labelling the segments as he talked “Health, Finances, Career, Relationship, Family, Personal Growth and Development, Spiritual. Let’s take Health as an example”
“Out of 10, how would you rate your health and fitness at the moment?”
“Five”. John drew a line and shaded about half of the health segment on the wheel.
“Out of 10, how would you rate your finances at the moment?” “Seven” said Mike. Mike gave scores of ‘seven’ for job and career, ‘six’ for relationship, ‘four’ for spiritual and ‘three’ for personal growth and development.
John then began to plot these scores on the wheel and joined them together to make a jagged shape. He shaded the segments, making the scores more obvious. “What does this shape remind you of Mike?”
“It looks like a really bumpy wheel.”
“Exactly and a person with a wheel like this would experience life like this. Some parts would run smoothly together - see where the scores are similar? While every so often there would be a mighty bump as the parts of their life lurched from one thing to another.” “That sounds about right” interjected Mike. John carried on “The goal here is not to get to 10/10 in everything, it’s to have the whole wheel turning smoothly. That’s a life which is easier to manage than these great bumps.”
“Let’s go back to health and fitness. You rated it at 5. Now I want you to think about what 10/10 would be for you. I know I said the goal is not 10/10 but stick with it for a moment. Imagine 10/10 and really make it attractive - what would you look like? What would others say to you? What would you say to yourself? How would that feel? How would your clothes feel? Got that?”
Mike nodded.
“OK. Now think about the gap and see if you can identify one action that would take you a step closer to 10 in the area of health and fitness.”
Mike nodded again “That’s easy, I’m going to start weighing myself every day. It’s the easiest way I know to get motivated again.”
“Look what’s happened” said John, “We’ve uncovered a new ‘want’ I want to weigh myself every day. Do this for all six segments and you will have six clear wants that cover all areas of your life. Starting on them will help to bring your life into balance. Here’s the next worksheet and some instructions. See you next time.”
Identify the gap between where you are now and where you would like to be. Use this to prompt some small actions to bring your whole life back in balance.
Start by colouring the squares beside the title in each area to show your score. Draw it as a Wheel Of Life if you like.
Now for each area, build a picture of what 10/10 means for you.
If you know what 10/10 is and you know where you are now, then you can begin to think of some of the things you want to do to change or improve this area of your life. So, what is one thing you can do, starting now, to improve your score?
| Career & Business | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What would 10/10 be like? | ||||||||||
| What will I SEE? | ||||||||||
| What will I HEAR? | ||||||||||
| What will I FEEL? | ||||||||||
| What is one thing I can do to improve my score? | ||||||||||
| Family | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What would 10/10 be like? | ||||||||||
| What will I SEE? | ||||||||||
| What will I HEAR? | ||||||||||
| What will I FEEL? | ||||||||||
| What is one thing I can do to improve my score? | ||||||||||
| Relationship | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What would 10/10 be like? | ||||||||||
| What will I SEE? | ||||||||||
| What will I HEAR? | ||||||||||
| What will I FEEL? | ||||||||||
| What is one thing I can do to improve my score? | ||||||||||
| Personal Growth/Development | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What would 10/10 be like? | ||||||||||
| What will I SEE? | ||||||||||
| What will I HEAR? | ||||||||||
| What will I FEEL? | ||||||||||
| What is one thing I can do to improve my score? | ||||||||||
| Health & Fitness | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What would 10/10 be like? | ||||||||||
| What will I SEE? | ||||||||||
| What will I HEAR? | ||||||||||
| What will I FEEL? | ||||||||||
| What is one thing I can do to improve my score? | ||||||||||
| Purpose / Contribution | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What would 10/10 be like? | ||||||||||
| What will I SEE? | ||||||||||
| What will I HEAR? | ||||||||||
| What will I FEEL? | ||||||||||
| What is one thing I can do to improve my score? | ||||||||||
You can also download a much smarter PDF worksheet
This should give you six straightforward actions that cover all the areas of your life, things that you want to happen, desires for each of those areas.
Look to bring your life into balance by getting to roughly equal score across the whole wheel of life. If your Career/Job score is 7 while Health/Fitness is 3 then you might have to pay more attention to Health/Fitness for a while to bring your life into balance.
A smoother wheel of life will run faster than a bumpy one allowing you to get more done, more quickly.
In which Mike learns to live NOW
As Mike walked into the conference room he couldn’t help noticing that there was a picture of a gravestone on John’s laptop. It was a good shot, if a little macabre. John left the laptop lid up but said nothing about the photo. “How’s it going?”
“Good, thanks” said Mike “It’s really odd but since we last met I’ve been using scales everywhere and it’s really changed my outlook. I’m still not really sure how it works but when I ask other people what 10/10 would be, they all seem to know and it activates some sort of action. It’s strange but I’m having fun with it.”
“That’s good” said John “and there’s more. And to find the more we are going to have to think about the end. Your end to be more specific. Let me ask you another question. At what time, in most peoples lives, do they realise they might have some regrets or have missed some opportunities?”
Mike was puzzled “I don’t know, towards the end I suppose when they are old or sick or both?”.
“That’s right and by then it is probably too late. It’s ironic. At the end of your life you finally have the free time you’ve been waiting for but now lack the energy or money to do anything with it. The time to consider these things is now, while you can still do something about it.”
“What do you think the average lifespan for a man in the UK is?”
“About 95?” said Mike
“Nope, it’s more like 80. You are 35 now which means you have just 45 years left if you are going to live an average lifetime. Apologies for being so brutal but you are nearly halfway through your life. What do you really want to do with the time remaining?”
“Take a look at these” he passed Mike a copy and began to read out the questions on his pad. Assume you have 45 years left of life…”
“Yes, yes” interrupted Mike “I’ve always wanted to fly helicopters but never done anything about it.”
“Forty-five years” repeated Mike, “That’s a lot to think about. It feels like a long time and a short time if you know what I mean?”
“Hmm” said John. “Sobering and exciting at the same time. Forty-five years. That’s quite a long time and almost anything is possible if you spread it out over this time. If you’ve nursed a desire to see the Grand Canyon then why not make a plan to see it in five years and start moving towards it now? Same with your helicopter idea. It may seem daunting and unobtainable now but broken down into little pieces, you easily have the time.”
“What about the money” countered Mike “What stops me with most of these things is thinking about how much they will cost and then I think I’ll do them when I retire.”
“Maybe you will” replied John. He paused. “Do you know what Albert Einstein called the most incredible power in the universe?”
“Nope”
“The power of compound interest. Look it up. Compound interest means that for the price of the money you fritter on regular album downloads, you could easily have a Grand Canyon holiday in a few years.”
“OK, I get it. It’s like when we talked about turning wishes into reality. If I really want it I can start taking small actions now to have it happen in the future.”
“Exactly, each week you get to decide - do I want this new album or do I want that trip? Sometimes you can have both, sometimes you need to make a choice.”
“Well then, while we are being blunt about death, I’ve got to ask you about that picture” said Mike pointing to the laptop.
“Oh that?” He grinned. “I’m doing a Seven Ways Workshop next week and I needed a really strong picture to get the audience thinking - they are all students and probably feel immortal. That should get them thinking. Here’s the worksheet I’m going to use…”
Death eh? Comes to us all eventually. How would you like to use the time before you get there?
Subtract your age now from the average life expectancy for a man (80) and woman (85). This gives you your remaining years. Now use the worksheet to consider what you want before it is too late.
| Man | Woman | |
|---|---|---|
| Average lifespan: | 80 | 85 |
| My age now: | ||
| Average number of years left to me: |
As you work through these questions forget about being realistic or practical. Just capture your first thoughts.
| Area | Ideas |
|---|---|
| People I want to meet | |
| Places I want to go | |
| Experiences I want to have | |
| Things I want to learn | |
| Contribution I want to make |
Then ask yourself WHY? What would this bring you?
How else could you achieve it? Fill the boxes with your desires and all the ways you could achieve the same result.
Write it down. Now.
If you’re still coming up blank, then start with ONE THING.
And so on…
You can also download a much smarter PDF worksheet
Use the process from The Third Way to pick two or three small actions you can take now to move you closer to these goals. For example you may not be able to book your dream holiday now but you can easily open a savings account and set up a regular payment into it.
In which Mike learns the power of paying attention to his senses
“What’s your favourite smell?”. Mike paused for a moment and thought. “I know” he said “The smell of a forest on a Sunday afternoon walk, I love that smell”
“How often do you get to smell it?”
Mike thought for a moment “Only about two or three times a year, what with work and everything we have not been to the forest for months.”
John paused. “Look around this room, I’m going to ask you some slightly strange questions but all I want you to do is pay attention to your senses and just tell me what you notice.”
“First, what can you smell?”
Mike sniffed “That’s strange, I can’t smell anything at all apart from the fumes from those flip chart markers!”
“OK, now, what can you hear, apart from me?”
“I can hear a hum from that projector, the air conditioning and a bit of traffic noise” said Mike increasingly puzzled.
“Good, now what can you feel on your body and what do you think about the texture of this table?”
Mike drew his finger along the table, “Never thought about it before, it’s just a standard beige conference room table, it doesn’t really have a texture and I can feel a slight breeze from the air-conditioning.”
“Anything else?” asked John
“Well if I was being picky I suppose I can feel my clothes and my watch on my wrist but I don’t understand?”
“One last question” said John “Look around you, what do you see, describe this room to me.”
“Well, we’re in one of our conference rooms. It has a glass wall along one side, the rest of the walls are painted with white emulsion, the carpet tiles are blue, the table a sort of wood beige colour like the door and the legs of the table are steel. Why all the questions?”
“That’s fascinating” said John “would you say we are in a highly stimulating environment that encourages your creativity?”
Mike shook his head.
“You’re right” said John “Look the environment is dull, we are breathing recycled air, there are no interesting smells and all the surfaces have a uniform man-made texture. What do you think happens to humans who spend a lot of time in this kind of environment?”
“I dunno” said Mike “although thinking about it, it seems like we go sort of numb.”
“That’s exactly what happens. Let me tell you about what the latest brain research shows.”
“You might have heard the story that when we get to a certain age our brain cells start to die off?” Mike nodded. “Well, it turns out that it’s a fallacy. The original brain research which led to that ‘fact’ was done with primates and of course the primates were kept in an artificial environment, breathing recycled air, in steel coloured cages, set against white painted walls. It’s no surprise that their brain cells started to die off. Just recently a group of researchers discovered that if you took the same primates and put them in a highly stimulating, natural setting, which really fired their senses, guess what? Their brain cells started regrowing and not just growing but stretching and making new connections. Can you see a link here?”
“So if I understand you right” said Mike “the same thing happens to us. Which means, if I’ve followed you, that we’ve got to stimulate our senses if we want to grow or prevent unnecessary brain cell death.”
“Exactly” said John “which brings me to the Sixth Way. Come on…” He stood up. “Grab a jacket if you need one, we are going to walk and talk. Let’s get out of this brain dead room.”
As John led the way towards the park, he began to explain “I don’t want you to think about this at all, all I want you to do is pay attention to what your senses are telling you and especially what your senses long for more of. Most people who work in an artificial environment are so disconnected from their senses that it takes ages before they become aware of what they are sensing.”
“Many people have gone numb. Think about those who work in any sort of factory or corporate environment. The colours are dull and muted, usually a variety of grey, beige, white or blue. They only ever write with blue or black ink on white paper. In more physical environments the noise can be relentless and the activity repetitive. No wonder we go numb.”
“We also go numb on how we feel and think. Just the other day, my family were all sitting having dinner when my youngest blurted out ‘Grandma is very fat isn’t she?’. She’s six and she just blurted it out in the middle of everything else because it came into her head. You used to do this kind of thing but you don’t anymore, do you?”
Mike shook his head.
“Your parents or some authority figure soon told you that it was not good to speak your thoughts. Of course, this makes sense. We’d have anarchy if everyone just said whatever they were thinking from moment to moment. Most relationships would not last very long if this was the case.”
“It does have a downside though. If you are constantly shushing yourself, constantly telling yourself that you are not allowed to think or say a particular thought then after a while you lose contact with who you really are and what you really think. All of us have had the experience of ‘going bland’ at work. Unfortunately, in many places you soon learn that original thought is neither desired nor welcome. You are careful never to express a view in a meeting, never to hold a strong opinion. You see that convention and conformity are the keys to promotion. Again, after a few years of this, it can be hard to find any kind of originality or definite thought in you at all.”
“If this hasn’t happened to you yet then can I plead with you to stay in touch with the information from your senses because it gives you some kind of grounding for knowing who you are in the world and what you want and enjoy. Stop thinking and come to what your senses are telling you.”
As he talked, John began to gesture at the sky and the trees and pantomime taking in lungfuls of fresh air. With the sun shining on his face Mike began to lose his self-consciousness about being outside during work time.
“Part of figuring out what you want, the Sixth Way, is to understand what you take pleasure in and rediscover the deep longings you have to satisfy those senses. Since we’re outdoors let me ask you a few questions about your senses and what they are telling you.”
“I know” said Mike “I love watching my children sleeping. They look so gorgeous and special.”
“OK then, how could you see and experience that more often?
“Hmm…now I think about it. I’m so tired with work and life that I very rarely take these moments to enjoy this sight. Hmm, thinking about it now, I realise that this is why I work so hard and I’ve kinda lost sight of that.”
“Oh that’s easy. Laughter”
“How could you make sure you hear this more often?”
“I’ve just realised that I never hear laughter at work at all. What is wrong with us all?”
“No sniggers here Mike. Research has shown that touch is one of the best ways to banish loneliness and depression in the elderly. We touch children a lot because we can see that hugs and reassurance really help. We seem to forget that with adults. In some societies and cultures the whole touching thing has become a minefield, laden with threats of legal action and overtones of exploitation. None of that changes our need for a hug though.”
“Another easy one. I used to love the feel of writing with a fountain pen on smooth paper. And, before you ask me, that’s something I could easily bring back into my life. I spend so much time in meetings that it would be good to make my note taking pleasurable. Again, it’s strange how I’ve forgotten that.”
“Another easy one.” said Mike “It’s curry, my wife’s perfume and I love the smell of my little ones when they’ve just had a bath.”
“Good.” John sniffed deeply. “You know what I’m going to ask, don’t you? How could you stay in touch with those smells? It’s so important, especially if you have been breathing air conditioned or recycled air all day at work. Smell connects us directly to our most ancient memories. I really don’t like going to my children’s parents evening because the smell of the school is way too close for comfort!”
Mike rolled his tongue around his mouth. “Do you know” he said “I can’t taste anything at all. In fact I thought the other day that I had lost all my taste buds. I have to add loads of salt to everything to get it to taste of something.”
“Maybe it’s a sign of stress?” said John “I know when I’m stressed because I start pouring chilli sauce and mustard on my food. Anything to get any kind of flavour. I have no real evidence for this but I’m not the only one who begins to lose my sense of taste when stressed or tense. If you are numbing out your senses on caffeine or desperately craving the sugary or salty high of junk food it could be that you have become totally disconnected from your taste buds.”
Mike took a lungful of air in the park “That’s quite a list and it’s strange how odd it feels being out here in the sun and fresh air during a work day. It feels not quite right somehow, as if I’m doing something naughty?”
John stood up “Yes, but this time I don’t want you to think about it. Just concentrate on what your senses are telling you - what do you want more of and how could you bring these things back into your life? Oh and why not hold your next team meeting in the park?”
He stepped away “Here’s the worksheet, why not stay here and make some notes? I’ll see you next time.”
As John walked way, Mike turned his face to the sun and took in another lungful of fresh air. ‘I’ve got to find a way to hang on to this’ he thought…
Five senses. Sight, Sound, Touch, Smell and Taste. If, through stress or lack of practice, you are numb to sensual pleasure, please indulge yourself through the following questions to discover what you want more of.
Come to your senses. Just answer the questions.
| Senses | More… |
|---|---|
| I most love LOOKING at: | How can I SEE more? |
| I most love TOUCHING: | How can I FEEL more? |
| I most like to be TOUCHED: | How can I have this more often? |
| I most love TASTING: | How can I TASTE more? |
| I most love HEARING: | How can I HEAR more? |
| I most love SMELLING: | How can I SMELL more? |
| What would I do on a weekend spent pleasuring my senses? | |
| How can I make my workplace more sensual? - think about texture, colour, nature, even smells and tastes. | |
You can also download a much smarter PDF worksheet
Mike had decided to do something different for their next meeting as he’d begun to experiment with keeping his senses alive at home and at work. He’d tried eating more slowly to see whether he could really taste his food, although what they served in the staff canteen left little scope for this. He’d also managed to get his boss to agree to more plants on the office floor. They’d started a sample table where the staff could see and touch products from their whole range. Why hadn’t they done this before? So he’d agreed to meet John at the restaurant in the local garden centre. It was quiet on a Tuesday afternoon and it couldn’t do any harm to be surrounded by nature while they talked.
As usual though, John had a surprise waiting. As well as two coffees he had a toy polar bear on the table and next to it was another one, still in its box.
“Go on then” said Mike “tell me about the polar bear.”
John picked it up. “I went to London Zoo once, as a child. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.” He picked up the bear “There was a polar bear, alone in a grey concrete enclosure with a scummy moat at the front. This bear was pacing up and down, pausing only to bang it’s head hard against the wall. Then it would turn, and sway, gently, to the other end where it would bang its head violently against that wall. It had cage fever.”
“Ugh, that’s horrible. Why do you want to remember that?”
“I don’t” said John “I keep this toy to remind me about polar bears in the wild. They play, hunt, run, roll around in snow. Most of all they live joyfully, by polar bear standards at least. And that’s a clue to finding out where you should be, where you fit best and ultimately what you really want. Animals in their natural environment are naturally joyful because it suits them, they fit. Look at sparrows hopping about or lions roaming around the plains.
Put an animal in an artificial environment and very soon you get deviant, self destructive, behaviour. Caged birds will pull out their own fur, some animals refuse to breed, some engage in meaningless, repetitive actions. They display signs of something close to madness.
Why should it be any different with humans? Take a living, breathing, young person and shut them up away from the sun and rain in a monotone environment with recycled air and what do you get? After a few years they have no possible way of understanding where they naturally fit.”
He handed Mike the boxed polar bear. “And this one’s for you, to remind you of the Seventh Way, the easiest and the hardest of all the things we have looked at.”
Mike started unwrapping the polar bear and looked it in the eye “What do you mean by easiest and hardest?”
“It’s easy because all you have to do is find the place where you are at your most joyful. And it’s hard because finding that place is going to take some work and some thinking. Before we start, though, let me ask you a different question. If you are a square peg in a round hole then which is easier - to shave off your corners until you fit or to go and find a square hole?”
“That’s easy! Find a square hole of course.”
“You’d think so wouldn’t you? But you’d be surprised how tenaciously we cling to the wrong place at the wrong time. In truth, it’s actually quite hard to acknowledge that we are in the wrong place and move somewhere else. We seem programmed to make the best of where we are and scared to do anything else.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m just warning you that while the Seventh Way is the easiest of all the things I’ve suggested, it’s not going to feel like the easiest. In fact it might feel like an awful lot of work. Are you OK with that?”
Mike nodded. “Where do we start?”
John picked up the polar bear again. “Consider this. I’m sure there are some people who are naturally joyful and expressive in a corporate environment but if you’re not, then how do you sort out where you ‘fit’ best. How do you find your square hole, the ideal environment where you are naturally joyful and expressive? The Seventh Way is to approach the problem backwards and search hard for all those times when you have been at your most joyful. Put them all together and see what that tells you about the place, environment or surroundings where you will be at your best.”
This exercise is about finding your joy. Those times when you were absorbed, playful, creative, expressive and pleased with what you did. As you look back over your life and bring these incidents to mind you will be able to see patterns emerging that tell you about the times, circumstances, places and groups where you fit best. Where you can be yourself naturally and the work fits you as if it was something you were born to do.
What brought you joy could be anything, of any size. It does not matter whether others would think it significant, only that it gave you joy. It could be a Lego house you built, an exam you passed, learning to drive or just an essay you wrote for history class that you were really proud of.
If you are struggling to remember joy then think of achievements you were proud of. Again, it does not matter whether others noticed, only that you did.
Start with your early years - between 0 - 12 years old. Now bring to mind a memory of an achievement that gave you joy. It may have been something as simple as the day you learned to ride a bike or ice skating for the first time or a Lego castle that you built with your dad. You are not looking here for achievements that others would recognise, only achievements that YOU enjoyed and felt good.
Think about this time and the achievement. Then answer the questions…
It’s terribly important to write this down not just run it through your mind. Writing it down has magic and you’ll need your notes at the end.
Now repeat for the years 12 to 18. And so on.
When you reach your present age, turn to the summary page to find out how to use this information.
You can also download a much smarter PDF worksheet
After you’ve captured all your memories of achievements that brought you joy, please answer the following summary questions:
The autumn winds rattled the oak tree outside Mike’s window, trying to wrench off the last few leaves. Mike sighed, turning back to his desk. He’d been asked to give a presentation on his work with the coach and was tallying up all the changes he’d made this year. He was going to show them his wheel of life, before and after, as a way of illustrating the changes he’d made.
It was ironic. He’d had a glowing performance review but he was actually working fewer hours and was at home far more than he’d ever been. He was taking on less too. It was going to be hard to explain all this. What is the real change I’ve made? He began to make a list:
The most surprising thing though is that I’m still here. All that work on figuring out what I really wanted has helped me make some small changes that have made all the difference. Work feels like play again. He clicked on the archive folder and found the email that John had sent him after their last meeting:
Mike
It’s been a pleasure working with you and I’m looking forward to our review in six months.
You might like to think about not becoming too attached to the outcome of finding out what you want. I know this is surprising but bear with me a moment. If you take it too seriously, you may block yourself and find it hard to understand your true desires because of the obligation you feel to work it out. So what should you do now? In a word, play.
What I’m saying here is be lighthearted, uncritical and open minded with yourself without the pressure to come up with an answer. You may find that the answer just pops up while you are playing. Or it may not. It may involve some hard critical and analytical thinking but if it does then all that playing has given you a lot more raw material to sift through.
Have fun knowing what you want, all the best.
John
In which Mike finds the going tough
Mike climbed the stairs of the Festival Hall. He’d called John for some help and they’d agreed to meet in London. John was sitting at a table in one of the upper galleries with a stunning view of the Thames. He looked up “Black isn’t it?” pushing a coffee across to him. “How are you?”
“I’m good. I’m asking what I want, I’m using the scales,” he waved his hand in the air “Work is going well but as I said on the phone I seem to have run into a brick wall and I don’t seem to be able to do anything about it.”
“Oh,” said John, “tell me more about this wall.”
“Well, it’s very odd but I started this process all enthusiastic and for the last three months I’ve done lots of things, made lots of changes, even taken action on a few of those wishes we talked about.” He paused.
“Go on.”
“I don’t know, just lately it’s become harder and harder to get myself to move forward. It’s not that I don’t know what I want anymore, I do know, it’s just that I find it much harder to actually do anything and its puzzling me.”
“Let me guess” said John “It’s like there is some part of you that doesn’t want you to do it even though you want to?”
“Yes” said Mike “that’s it exactly, although I wouldn’t have put it like that. Some part of me? I was almost afraid to admit it to you.”
John took a sip of his coffee and looked at Mike over the rim. “Actually, I’ve been waiting for you to mention it as I knew it would come up eventually. What you’re experiencing is Resistance.”
“Resistance?”
“Yep, Resistance with a capital R. Let me try another guess; sometimes, when you get near taking action, it feels like there is a force field repelling you, like the way a magnet pushes another magnet out of the way?”
“Yes” said Mike slightly shamefaced
“First, you have to understand that this is totally normal and then you have to understand what to do about it. Let’s see if I can give you a bit of background on what has happened.”
“When you first started this process you had loads of enthusiasm. Getting clarity on small things felt really good. As you began to think about more ambitious goals, that felt even better and to your surprise you took some immediate actions, probably more than you originally thought was possible in such a short time?”
Mike nodded.
“So you have done the easy stuff, you’ve enjoyed the process of seeing a new vision for yourself and are now venturing out of what’s comfortable towards making bigger changes and taking more meaningful action. What’s happening to you now is mostly a result of biology.”
As usual Mike had no idea where John was going with this “Biology?”
“Yes, biology. Your brain has a simple safety system built with a single purpose - to keep you alive and away from danger. Although it’s a simple system, it is very powerful because it can override all the other systems when it sees a threat to your safety. It can do things like flood your muscles with adrenaline, it can divert blood from nonessential functions (like thinking) and cause your heart to speed up so that you take in more oxygen. This safety system is permanently on duty and anything perceived as a threat will trigger this freeze or flee response. So even though you might want to start a business, lose weight, volunteer your time, speak in public or work hard on something new, your biology interprets these as threats and marshals every possible stop signal to keep you safe. They are threatening because they are different from what is known and comfortable. Anything that takes you to the unknown and a possible risk will trigger a ‘stop’ signal from this safety system.”
“It’s very similar to stage fright and at it’s core is fear. Fear of the new, of danger, of standing out, of possible unseen threats, even fear of ridicule or judgement by others. The more meaningful the action, the bigger the likely change it means for you, the higher the fear and the stronger the stop signal.”
Mike thought for a moment. “So, although my mind wants these things, my body is trying to stop me?”
“That’s right”
“So what do I do about it? The truth is it’s horrible” said Mike “It’s so horrible that I was seriously thinking I’d got the wrong goals. Maybe I’ve misinterpreted what I really want? It shouldn’t be this hard, should it?”
“I’m afraid that’s a myth” said John “in reality, the opposite is true. It might even be like a compass - the more something you want repels you the more meaningful it is going to be for you in the long run. In many ways your unconscious safety system is way ahead of you, it can already see change coming, long before the extent of the change has really dawned on you.”
“That’s all very well” said Mike “but what do I do about it? And why didn’t you tell me about this before?”
“I didn’t tell you because you wouldn’t have believed me. There’s another widespread myth that achieving something new is heroic and joyful. Nobody wants to hear about hard slog and they especially don’t want to hear that your biggest opponent might be your own fear. When you do hit resistance though, there are several things you can do…”
“Whilst it may be very scary to pick up the phone to new clients, getting together a list of people to call is not scary. Often if you can start a small part of a new task, one thing leads to another.”
“Remember your internal threat system is simple, almost childlike. You can reassure it by taking small unthreatening steps that build confidence.”
“Any new habit, from deciding to polish your shoes every week or cleaning out the car regularly or learning to drive or taking up jogging are all hard at first and then get easier. Sometimes all your safety system needs is to be shown that it is OK after all. Then, as you get comfortable with the new thing you become more accepting of it.”
“Bigger changes, especially those that involve doing something different or possibly exposing yourself to the scrutiny and judgement of others like, starting a business, public speaking or putting your creative work on sale, are always going to meet a blizzard of resistance from inside you. It’s inevitable, and, you should plan for it. What’s also true is that it’s only a signal, a warning flag and no matter how strong the repelling force is once you push on through it you will find that it backs down.”
“This particularly affects people who constantly do new creative work. If you are going to set out to do something new and different every day then you’ll just have to get used to being warned off it every day and get used to pushing past that initial warning signal.”
“One experiment you might like to try is to start each day by working out what you are avoiding or resisting and doing that thing first. It might be an awkward conversation or a piece of routine work or picking up the phone to a new customer or thinking about a new project. Whatever it is, experiment with doing it first.”
“In this way, you learn to use Resistance as a guide to what to do next. Remember, your unconscious safety system is ahead of you. It has often foreseen a change that will stretch you or put you in a situation where you have to perform at a higher level. By deliberately choosing those things you might be choosing to do the things that are going to help you grow the most.”
“In a perverse and ironic way, Resistance might be a signal that what you are thinking about is exactly what you should do. After all if you decided to veg in front of the TV eating junk food and drinking beer you are unlikely to feel any Resistance at all. Decide to start Yoga lessons though and you will feel the Resistance multiply.”
“Remember all those heroic stories where someone invents a new product or makes a change and their life is wonderful ever after? Nobody tells about the dead ends, the frustrations, the prototypes that did not work, the relationships that got lost on the way. No one talks about the grind.”
“If you know you want something, sometimes the only way is to grit your teeth and grind it out.”
“Do you remember when we spoke earlier about the reaction from other people once you started showing signs of being more directed and focused in deciding what you want and getting it?”
Mike nodded
“Well I’m afraid to tell you that was only the beginning. Once you get clear about what you want and start going after the really big things, not only will you have to cope with your own resistance, in all probability the amount of flack you get from others will probably increase as well.”
“You mean like crabs in a barrel?” Asked Mike
“Yes. The worst thing a crab can do is make a break for freedom and sometimes even the people you love will attempt to sabotage your attempts to change. People going on a diet get offered cakes, smokers struggling to give up will be handed cigarettes, guitarists who start to practice more frequently will be accused of selfishness. Remember that we place far too much emphasis on comfort, safety and security and when those around you see you changing they may reach out to stop it because they, in turn, are scared of what it might mean.”
“Again, the solution is to push on and show them that the consequences are not as scary as they thought.”
“So let me see if I’ve got this” said Mike. “The easy stuff, which my body does not see as threatening, I can just carry on getting if I choose?” John nodded “But those bigger things that I want might mean a bit of a fight?” He paused. “I might have to push past danger signals from my own nervous system or the well meaning attempts of others to keep me where I am?”
“Sound’s like you’ve got it” said John handing him a book from his case. Take this. “The War of Art, possibly the best book on dealing with Resistance that I have ever found.”
“So in the end it’s down to you. There are some things where you will eventually have to choose between mood and desire. If you want it but your moods and feelings resist madly then you have to choose. Back down or push through. Treat your resisting feelings as a warning and back away or treat them as a symptom of an oversensitive safety system and push past them. In the end it is up to you. Just imagine for a moment if your life was a bus…”
In which Mike wonders how to keep it going
Mike checked his watch and looked down at his desk. Nothing urgent in the intray. Just time to turn my phone off and grab a coffee before my review meeting with John. ‘What’s my agenda for this meeting?’ he asked himself. ‘That’s easy, I want to review progress so far but what I really want is to know how to keep this up without the regular appointments to nudge me along. It’s been brilliant, but how to do I keep it going? And this time I’m going to start our chat with an abrupt question!’ He smiled to himself.
“So, John”, he said handing him a coffee. “That stuff about resistance really helped. I have a question for you though.”
John grinned, he loved it when they started turning the tables, “Go on.”
“So, it’s been really good. I’m much, much better at starting small and to my surprise I’ve started to know which members of my team respond to what do you want and which members respond to what do you want instead. And the other day my brother came over for dinner and I found myself using scales with him and it was so natural that I didn’t even realise I was doing it until he thanked me for being such a good listener. I’ve even started a savings plan for that boat I wanted and I’ve found several options for getting one earlier than I thought was possible. I still have a question though.”
“Let me guess” said John, “you want to know how to keep this going. It’s been a good experience but even now you’re seeing the possibility of it slipping away and want to know how you can keep your focus?”
“That’s not fair” said Mike “I think you should add mind reader to your coaching profile. I can see how useful all this has been and some of it has become a regular habit but I’m worried about the bigger things - will I still be thinking like this next year when I’m not seeing you regularly?”
“It’s a good question” said John “so let me share with you two habits that keep me on track - ubiquitous capture and morning pages. Here, take a look at these…”
John pulled a handful of index cards from his pocket and handed them across to Mike. Mike sorted through them. Some had writing on and some were blank. One had CAT FOOD printed in big letters across the middle. He looked at John with a raised eyebrow.
“Somebody once told me that your brain is for having ideas not holding ideas; and that the best way to keep a clear head was to think about things once and once only.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that, this morning, on the way here I remembered that I need to get some cat food. So I whipped out a card and wrote the thought down, cat food. That way I only think about it once.”
“I’m not sure I follow, writing it down will not buy the food?”
“That’s easy, at home I keep a shopping list in the kitchen and when I get home I will take my cards out, sort through them and take any action that’s required. In this case I’ll add cat food to the list. When I next go shopping I take my list with me and tada! Cat food.”
Mike sighed, handing back the cards. “As usual, I’m still not getting it. How does your cat food card help me keep focussed on this work we’ve done together?”
John smiled as he picked up a marker and walked across to the whiteboard. “That’s easy. Let’s look at what happened:
Now let’s look at what would have happened if I hadn’t captured that first thought:
“See what’s happening here? All that mental energy and space used up to remember cat food when I could have just jotted it down. Remember the bug list and clearing the decks? Your brain is best used for having ideas, not holding ideas.”
He sorted through his cards to find ten empty ones and handed them across to Mike. “Let’s experiment. Here’s ten cards. Write down the ten things that have your attention at the moment - one per card”
Mike thought for a moment, then began to scribble them down. He looked up. “I get it. This is better already but you must get through loads of cards?”
“You can use anything, a dictaphone, a notepad, cigarette papers. All that matters is that you are always able to capture a thought the first time you have it. It will take a while before your brain totally trusts you to capture things but after a while ideas will drop off your awareness once you capture them.”
“So again” Mike insisted “How does this help me stay focussed on what I want?”
“Simple, capture every thought you have. Just capture them all. Wild ideas, strange notions, product insights, comments, quotes from customers, and then stuff that catches your eye or new ideas you come across. Find a capture system for it all. Build ubiquitous capture into your lifestyle. Put a notebook and pen in the car, the toilet, tuck some blank cards in your wallet. Do this so that you can take advantage of every fleeting thought.”
“And then, regularly, perhaps daily if you can manage it or weekly at the very minimum make a decision about everything you capture:
“Build this habit into your life and nothing will ever get past you. And your mind will stay clear so that you can continue to bring your full attention to whatever you are doing right now.”
“OK that’s good. I can do that. What was the other thing you mentioned - morning pages?”
“Morning Pages” repeated John “This is an exercise made popular by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way and it’s both very simple and very useful at the same time. All you do is start your day by writing down whatever is in your head until you have filled three pages.”
“Eh?”
“Yes. This morning I got up at 6am, went downstairs, made a coffee, then sat down with a pad and pen and started writing. I wrote non-stop for three pages and when I’d finished, I walked across to the shredder and destroyed them.”
“That sounds strange” said Mike “what’s the point of that and why did you shred them? I don’t think I’ve written more than a paragraph with a pen since school.”
“Well, think about how a day normally goes. From the second you wake up you are assaulted by words, images, contact with other people, information, demands, feelings etc. In fact, for most people there are only two times in their day when they are alone with themselves, that’s just as they are coming awake and just before they go to sleep. For most, that’s the only time when it’s peaceful enough to bring to mind anything that has been pushed aside by the busyness of the day.”
“Morning pages are a way of deliberately answering the question ‘What has my attention?’ it has lots of benefits but let me go over it one more time to point out a few things and see if I can explain why it might be useful.”
“First, do it early. When you wake up your mind is clear and you’ve not yet been filled with other people’s words and thoughts. Think about it, the second you turn on the TV, radio or read a newspaper or start yelling at the kids to get up for school you are filled with words, opinions, ideas and demands from others so it’s easy to forget or miss those things that were on your mind. So do it early. Grab paper and pen and simply write down whatever is in your head.”
“Second, because you know you will shred them, you also know that no one is ever going to read what you write. This means you have total freedom to write, unedited and uninhibited. Simply write down the flow of your thoughts. In the morning I’m often grumpy, I need caffeine and I’m moaning - it’s not literature but the freedom that comes with knowing you can write anything, about any subject, about anyone, in any way, is very liberating and it clears all that stuff out of your head. It’s like taking the cork out of the bottle because it clears your mind for the rest of the day.”
“Third, do it regularly. Remember our discussion about mood and desire. Quite often I do not feel like doing my morning pages but now I do them anyway. What you’re really doing is creating a single unique piece of work every morning and once you realise that you can create this kind of thing under any circumstances and in any mood, you realise that your creative abilities are somehow separate from your moods. That’s something that can carry forward into the rest of your day.”
“And lastly, do it by hand. Write fast, not worrying about spelling or punctuation. Follow the stream of your thoughts as they come out. Writing by hand on paper is an act of deliberate physical creation, it’s just like painting a series of very small pictures. Crafting something physical with your hands activates different parts of your mind - especially if you use different colours. The other thing I do is keep some scraps of paper nearby in case I get a reminder or an idea or a todo that I want to keep. Morning pages sometimes stimulate ideas and actions that I don’t want to shred - I jot these down on a scrap of paper so that I can keep them.”
“That sounds OK” said Mike “and I can see why it might be useful for an artist but I’m not an artist so what use is that for my question.”
“The only way to find out is to try it” said John. “Give it a week and you will see what I mean. All I can tell you is that routinely writing down your first thoughts in a safe and regular way causes you to pay attention to what has your attention. You will find that what you really want begins to come through loud and clear.”
Mike sighed. John had got him again. He was going to have to try this or the curiosity about it would drive him nuts. “Give me those instructions again?”
“Simple, create some time, before the day starts, to write down your first thoughts and keep going until you have filled three pages. Then destroy them. If it helps, start by answering the question ‘What has my attention?’ so that you use your pages to pay attention to what has your attention.”
“Knowing your own mind is the key to being original. You have to know the origin. Morning pages help you know your own mind and as a side effect you will become an original thinker - a person with a view, a perspective, someone who knows what they think. This kind of clarity is both rare and attractive.”
“It’s by paying attention to those thoughts hovering at the edge of your awareness that you will stay focussed on understanding what you really want and finding the motivation to go after it.”
If you’ve worked through the exercises on the previous pages then you probably know some or all of what you really want.
If you haven’t done the exercises yet, then now’s a good time to start!
Use the next few pages to pull your thoughts together and get straight what you are going to do next.
Hint: these questions work best if you do them in order. No peeking!
| What do you NOW want most in the whole world? |
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| What would be EVEN BETTER than that? |
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| If it could drop into your lap with no effort, what else would you have? |
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| What would be DOING if you were already totally happy? |
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| What things would you HAVE if you were already totally happy? |
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| Who would you BE if you were already totally happy? |
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| If it was OK to have it, what would you have in your life? |
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| What would you do if ONLY YOU could? |
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| And if no one was watching….? |
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In which YOU make a note of what you are going to DO NEXT…
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
So, go figure it out and then go after it. It’s huge fun.
You are not an overexcited motivational speaker or thrusting entrepreneur. You’ve not spent your life dreaming of changing the world. You’re just you and you want your life, not a life handed down from your past, your colleagues, your culture or the opinions of your friends.
You now know that you can, gently, bring your attention round until you notice whatever is, even now, tugging at your sleeve. And when you do that, you will know what you want.
Don’t you?
“No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness. If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.” Kahlill Gibran, The Prophet