How to find personal clarity

Hello,

I am new to the forum, in fact I am new to studying meditation, affirmations, etc. I look forward to hearing new ideas on these subjects.

As I have read about success, meditation, affirmations, and subconscious imprinting I always come back to the same questions; What are my goals? How do I define that elusive idea in my life which will bring me clarity and determination?

I think the reason I am having trouble setting life goals is partially due to the fact that I have a family who I care for deeply. My wife of nearly 20 years and two wonderful boys. When I think of how I/we want to live our lives together I see travel as a big part of it. I would love to show my sons certain parts of the world. I want them to experience what it's like to travel to Europe instead of just reading about it in school.

When I try to think of ways to be successful, I don't seem to know what I should do. Create a new product or service, write a book, open a business, etc. My mind seems to be all over the place. I seem to be lacking clarity.

I'm sure this is not a unique problem in the world.

Any advice? Tips? Insight?

 

Hi m2244 and welcome to the community

Here’s an exercise I posted in the community some time ago from one of my journals:-

The following major lesson I learned from Jim Rohn:-

"Make a list of 50 things that you would like to achieve or have in the next ten years - big things - little things, it doesn't matter. Write at least 50 and only write one thing on each line because you will need space to write something else a little later.

These are not things that you think you can aquire - it's a list of what you want - just let your mind run free. What would make your life dazzlingly unique?

What places would you like to visit?
Would you like to write a book, create a song, learn to play a musical instrument?
Expand your library
Investments you'd like to make

Education for your children
What would do it for you?
Parachute out of an aeroplane or bunji jump
Climb a mountain
Life is a collection of experiences. What would give you great satisfaction?
Maybe some benevolence goals - become a benefactor
Set up a youth camp or an orphanage

What would reward you - give you that wonderful feeling that you have contributed and helped?
Be a teacher, speaker, lecturer, author, poet, singer. One of the greatest forces that stir the human soul are music, lyrics and poetry.

Debt free
They don't have to be big things.
Something that you've got to prove to yourself
Something that would give you great satisfaction
Entrepeneur
Executive

This is a model that you can use and then teach. You can teach this to your children and they will have no problem with this - they would probably already be asking for more paper

If you could have everything you wanted to make your life just how you would like it to be, what would you write. I realized I had forgotten how to use my imagination.

I asked "What will make me kind, rich, effective, live an extraordinary life?"

When you have listed at least 50, look at each item and decide that one is about a 1 year goal, that is about a 3 year goal and that one is a 10 plus year goal. Mark each one with the appropriate number of 1, 3, 5 or 10.

If you've not done this before you could be astounded. I hadn't thought so much about this goal setting ever in my life - planning my future.

Now, look at all the 1 year goals, pick out the 4 most important and put them on a new list. One of the greatest exercises in life is deciding what's important and what isn't. Don't spend major time on minor things. Save your energy for the majors.

Now ask yourself why these 4 goals are important to you. It's the why that makes the difference. If the why isn't important enough to you then don't waste your time on it.

What you want is the "object" - it's powerful - it's like a magnet.
Why you want it is the "purpose". Purpose stirs the emotion and the passion.

PURPOSE IS STRONGER THAN OBJECT.

For example:- You want a 4 wheel drive because you like the look of them.

Or, the purpose of you wanting a 4 wheel drive is because you and your family travel along rough terrain each day and often get stuck if it's muddy.

The purpose of why you want the 4 wheel drive has a much stronger pull for you than the want because you will eliminate this particular challenge for you and your family.

So the two important questions are what do you want and what do you want it for.

A lot of your goals need to be personal development goals to help you become the person you want to become.

Beware of what you become in pursuit of what you want.

It's incredible what you can become.

Jim Rohn's mentor suggested to him while they were discussing economics, "Why don't you set a goal to become a millionaire for what it will make of you to achieve it. Once you have become a millionaire, the money will not really be of importance - you can give it away - the real value is what you have learned and who you have become"

You will have learned to solve problems, improvise, gain an understanding of the market place, be more knowledgable and bring value to the market place
This philosophy changed his life.

That's the positive side and in life there is always a positive and a negative.
The creator and the spoiler
Day and night
Health and illness
Winning and losing
Life and death
Liberty and tyranny

We must see the opportunities and sense the dangers.
Whatever you want will come with a cost.

If it costs you working hard, discipline and learning some skills, that's good.

If it costs you violating your values and principals the cost is too high - nothing is worth this.

Don't compromise good friendships for something that has you driven too much.

Weigh up the cost first - don't look back and realize that this has cost too much. If it costs you to be disloyal then it's not worth it.

Judas got the money - a small fortune at the time - was this a success story? No it wasn't. Why? because he wasn't happy with himself. He had got his hot little hands on the money but he wasn't happy with himself because he had sold out. He tried to take the money back but they just through him out and he hanged his worthless self because of the betrayer he had become."

The only added advice I would give is play Creative Flow if you choose to do this exercise.

Here's the link to the thread I copied the above piece from:-

http://www.project-meditation.org/community/mind-body-spirit/1490-personal-development.html#post7396

Here's how I personally work towards goals:-

"A goal is a dream with a date on it" is how I work in business. Goals are in concrete but the plans are in sand. For example if I set achievable and believable (to me) monthly income goals I believe like it all depends on God or the universe and I act like it all depends on me.

I visualise it happening and work out a plan to achieve the results. As I work my plan, I check every now and again within the month if I am on track for reaching my target. If I'm on target, I just keep on doing what I'm doing and if I'm falling short of my target, then I'll alter the plan.

There's always a worthwhile reward for me when I achieve the goal and I always take the reward (this is very important)

I always take the time out to meditate with LifeFlow because it really helps me focus more, clears my head and allows answers that I need to surface.

I totally believe that what we focus on and think about mostly, we bring about. As Dennis Waitley says "If you go there in the mind, you will go there in the body."
When we are really focused we become like a heat seeking missile towards our target or goal.

Hope this helps and wish you much peace and joy

 

When I was at the office yesterday I decided, for whatever reason, to write an e-mail to my wife about the good things in our life. I listed things like the fact that we have been happily married for 18 years, have two great children, the laughs the four of us have shared, etc.

Between that e-mail to my wife yesterday, recent uplifting readings, and starting this exercise you shared, I feel incredible today.

Thank you so much.

 

My pleasure really happy for you. Feeling thankful creates such a lot of happiness in my experience.

Look forward to hearing how you progress and wish you much peace and joy

 

Success is a word that will take you to some very strange places in my experience.

There has been thousands of books and careers launched on the back of the concept of finding "success".

For me - all boiled down, the idea of finding and cultivating my passion was in essence all about those things that I just couldn't wait to do each day. It was those things that I could just never get enough of. Those things that brought me joy, happiness and contentment. It takes some time to identify these things. It is a bit like tending a garden. It takes a little while for the blooms and fruit to emerge.

As my focus on these things became clear, creative energy brought options to enable me to make a living from them. I didn't always know how these things would happen, but the more I focussed on them, the more things just manifested.

A friend of mine is currently undertaking PHD research in medical sciences on brain functioning. She mentioned to me the other day that her research indicates that the brain creates cells around an idea. The more we focus on an idea, the more cells are created just for that idea. It gets bigger and amazingly, brings things into being. Her research follows other tangents relating to predicting strokes and the like, but as an aside, I was fascinated on what I guess I intuitively already knew.

Olmate

 

Just seen this recent post - thank you Don. Fascinating to see and hear things from different perspectives

 

Hi there m2244,

hope your still feeling incredible. I have just finished reading "The 5 Love Languages" written by Gary Chapman I read "His needs-Her Needs" and "Men are from Mars and women are from venus" many years ago. For me personally, I relate with the 5 love languages so much more.

The e-mail you sent to your wife sharing your appreciation and the quality time you spend together as a family popped into my mind as I read part of this book and I thought I would share it with you.

I now have "The 5 Love Languages for children" and the one for teenagers added to my library that I will enjoy very soon.

I wish you much peace and joy

 

Hi m2244,

Clarity would come through meditation, knowing what you really feel about yourself, breaking away from the norms of the society, not taking any impositions from anyone, nor imposing yourself on anyone, cutting the excess bonds caused by emotional attachments, realizing your individuality which is what you were before you were born. Realizing your free spirit and being yourself and lost in yourself. Following your heart and doing things that you were born to do. We all are born to live to the fullest, free and unbound yet guided by the untold wisdom which we gain intuitively from our core or no self.

 

i may think of this different then most, i believe you go out and split test the world, do an extreme test of living in one area for awhile, then compare that to not traveling, and keep testing and trying and over time you will get clarity on what you like and what you don't like. you have to spend time in the sun and rain to know what you like. this is true with food, imagine you are 2 years old again, be curious and go see the world, and you will have different levels of clarity and the vortex

 

Thanks for sharing that, it made my day.

Good luck my friend.