Step Three To Success – What Do You Want?

In Step Two on your journey to success, we discussed how important it is to pay close attention to your thoughts and words, and how you can change the way you think and speak to greatly improve the likelihood of achieving your desires. The next step is to determine what you really want in life, and then to go about the business of creating it. If you could imagine your ideal day, what would that look like? What would you be doing for fun? Who would you be spending time with? What kind of work would you be doing?

Note: We’re using the term “I want” simply to clarify a point here. You will have better results if you don’t use the words “I want” when you actually set your goal in concrete. Stating that you “want” something will likely just create more of a “state of wanting”, and not the real goods.

Why Visualization Alone Doesn’t Usually Work

We’ve all heard about visualizing what you want in order to attract success into your life. But the reason it doesn’t work for many people is because there are often two critical ingredients missing: clarity and emotion. Without clarity and emotion, visualizing something you want becomes merely a wish.

Clarity Is Critical

Once you have a pretty good idea of what you want, the next step is to be extremely clear about how it will look and feel, as if it has already happened. For instance, let’s say you want a new job. If you aren't yet clear on what type of job you would like, you may want to ask yourself, “What do I love to do? What am I really good at?”

(Hint: These two questions can lead you to discover your true purpose in life!)

What would your ideal day be like? Would you work from home some of the time? Or would you love being around lots of people all day long? Would you have a short commute? What would your boss be like? How much would you be paid? Would you be paid hourly or by commissions, or a combination of both? What benefits would you have?

More importantly, can you see yourself in that job, enjoying it? (If not, you probably want to come up with something different!) And even if you can’t imagine being so “lucky” to find such a perfect job, don’t let that stop you! Remember, in our Universe, anything is possible. It’s up to you to imagine it, and then to create it, just the way you want.

Stick To It!

Once you decide you want something, stick to it until you receive it. Let’s say you decide that you want a brand new Mitsubishi Eclipse, and then a few weeks later it hasn’t shown up yet. So you figure maybe you asked for too much, and then you decide that perhaps you should ask for a used Honda Accord instead. As far as the Universe is concerned, you don’t really know what you want, so in a sense it becomes confused about what to bring you. And the end result is that you won’t receive either one.

So it’s necessary that you maintain clear focus on what you want, no matter how outrageous it may be or how undeserving you may feel about it. (These feelings will pass if you stick to your journey to success, and if you pay special attention to the sections on transforming limiting beliefs on this site.)

Emotion Puts Your Vision Into Motion

Emotion plays two key roles in creating what you want. First, it feeds your desire, so that you are more likely to stick to the actions it will take to reach success. Secondly, it raises the energy vibration of the desire, so that the Universe is now in cahoots with you to create it. Recall that energy is the basis for everything in the Universe. Energy attracts like energy. So by emitting a vibration about a certain thing you desire, you actually send out a signal that says, “Come on over here!”

Emotion is imbued into your desire by using your acute sense of imagination. When you are visualizing a new house, for instance, it’s very important that you feel what that house is like, with every one of your senses. Imagine the breeze flowing through your windows as you cook a tasty dinner in the kitchen. Smell the delicious aromas of the cooking (or the takeout, if you don’t cook!). Notice the curvature of the sink, the shiny new faucet, the beautiful wood grain on the new cabinets. Hear the sounds of the birds singing outside the windows. Walk through every room in the house, feeling the flow of the layout. Lie down on the bed in the guest room and take a nap (on second thought, it might put you to sleep!). Walk out onto the patio and take a dive into the cool blue water of the pool. Can you feel the slight chill on your skin as you glide through the water? Getting all of your senses involved brings emotion into the game, which causes your vibration to rise, which causes the Universe to match that vibration and bring you what you desire.

Ask The Universe For What, Not How

The Universe is highly creative, far more so than most of us humans are, because of our limiting beliefs. Your job is to figure out what you desire, but let the Universe determine how to bring it to you. Let’s continue with the example of a new house. You have in mind exactly the house you desire. You know how many bedrooms it has, if it has a backyard, and what the kitchen looks like. It’s clear as a bell in your mind.

Now, it is not your job to figure out exactly how you will get it. For instance, perhaps you think the best way to get that new house is to get a second job to save up for a down payment. And so you do that. But the Universe may decide that you should inherit this house from a distant relative instead. So let it bring the house to you that way! You will want to be very flexible about what you do along the way to your goal, and let the Universe do its magic for you. In other words, try not to fixate in your mind that the way you’ll get the new house is only by getting that second job—the money for the down payment may come from another source entirely that you didn’t anticipate.

If you try to dictate exactly how your desires will be fulfilled, you are in essence limiting what the Universe can do. And we know that the Universe is unlimited possibilities. Doesn’t It know better than we do? So it’s important to allow it to unfold, without your intervention.

Take Inspired Action!

That being said, however, you can (and should) take what I call inspired action. Oftentimes I will have a strong feeling that there is something I should do at a particular moment. Perhaps it’s just watching a certain television show, where there is an important message I need to hear. Or perhaps I get the urge to call an old friend, who just so happens to need a piece of information on this website at that moment. And this friend is linked into a huge group of people who may also benefit from visiting this site.

Usually, whatever action I am inspired to take will lead to a new opportunity, or will allow me to meet a person I needed to meet, or some other thing that leads me closer to my stated goal. If you spend a few moments being quiet every day, you will soon find that you receive specific instructions (or they may appear as ideas) about what you should do next. If they feel true, then it’s wise to follow them. You’ll be surprised at how often they help you leap forward in your desired direction, no matter how miniscule they may seem at the time.

Make It Easy

Taking inspired action will often save you a tremendous amount of time and effort towards reaching your goal. For instance, let’s say I want to buy some rental houses. I can send out 5,000 letters to homeowners, or I can pick up the phone and make 50 phone calls a day for weeks on end. Or, if I am inspired one day to go visit the local bookstore, I may discover somebody in the real estate section looking for books on how to quickly sell his ten rental houses. This person may strike up a conversation with me, and voila, we have a deal! Now which would you rather do—mail 5,000 letters, or make hundreds of phone calls, or go to the bookstore? Taking inspired action, once you have a stated goal in mind that you are truly focused on, can make that goal become reality in a much shorter timeframe.

Suggested Homework

At this point you may want to spend some quiet time away from the kids, the dog, and the phone, and really think about what you want in your life. You may want to start with something relatively small, just to get your feet wet. Or, if you've already had some success practicing these principles, why not go for something BIG?!

Once you figure out what you want, spend at least 15 to 20 minutes every single day thinking about it in vivid detail. As mentioned above, envision it experientially, as if you already have what you want. Think of all the details, including smell and touch. It's especially important to feel the strong emotions related to actually having it. If it's more money you want, see your bank statements with thousands of extra dollars. Envision piles of checks in your mailbox, and/or piles of hundred dollar bills stacked on your dresser. If it's more customers you desire, see yourself shaking hands with someone who just agreed to do business with you. See your profit and loss statements with much higher profits.

Once you're finished visualizing, write it down in as much detail as you had imagined when you thought about your desired goal. No matter where you are in your journey, if there are still things you desire that you don't yet have, you will want to do this every day, and write it down every day, until you have what you want.

Some people ask me if you can visualize more than one thing at a time. Certainly! But I would suggest that it should correlate with the amount of time you have to give focused attention to your desire. If you have 30 minutes or more a day to spend on visualizations, by all means, throw a few things in there! But if it's only five minutes, you probably want to focus on only one thing at a time.

The more you do this, and as you see your desires becoming manifest one by one, you will only get better at it. Your trust in the Universe, and in your own power, will grow and grow. This makes you an even better "magnet" for consciously creating whatever you want. I find that the more I do this, the faster things come to me with even less effort. Yes I work hard, but when I request something, or even someone who will help me accomplish my goals, they appear almost magically in very little time! I am always amazed, but I am no longer surprised.

Here’s a little secret that most people don’t know about…

If you will do your part, the Universe will do its part. It will collaborate with you, and it will contribute its vast energy to help you! It will bring the right people, the right opportunities, and the right events to you, at exactly the right time that you need them in order to fulfill your dreams.

But there are two catches…

Catch #1: You must do your part!

Catch #2: You must expect the Universe to do its part, and not rely solely upon yourself to do it all. Because if you don’t expect help from the Universe, you will beat yourself up for not being “good enough” or for not “doing enough”, and this essentially tells the Universe to take a hike.

That, my friend, is one of the best kept secrets in the entire Universe.

"Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

So...will you do your part?