Achieving financial serenity III
Making Dreams Work: What separates “dreamers” from successful “creators”?
I received an e-mail today from someone who is familiar with my work, and she inquired about how I developed this program. I developed it by applying the structure I’m about to describe to you — but I’ve also used the same structure to create the kind of life partnership I’d dreamed of, to move from “living to work” to “working to live” to “living to live fully”. I used it to write my first book, and to have that book published. It has changed my life, and has allowed me to live a life that transcends my wildest dreams.
If you’ve read Financial Serenity (soon to be available here online) you know that I was promoted six times in eight years and became an executive prior to beginning this work. Since then, I’ve gone from living an impoverished life on a six-figure income to an incredibly rich life on a fraction of that — but certainly, there are people who would question whether or not that really constitutes success. If you’re one of them, I’m not sure I can help — for me, prosperity isn’t about having X number of dollars in the bank. Prosperity is living life with ease — a life that is full of joy and meaning and defined by contribution. I don’t care if any one of us ever make a billion dollars, unless we need a billion dollars in order to realize our potential. But I care deeply about the fact that we are all born to fulfill an essential purpose here on the planet earth and that many people will die without doing that, because they got busy paying the bills and forgot why they were here.
Robert Fritz, the author of “The Path of Least Resistance”, also cared deeply. He has made it his life’s work to study the methods of creative people, and has discovered that successful creators consistently employ and repeat successful systems, or structures. His research showed that success depended on structural change.
If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, for example, you know that it is not enough to want to be thinner. That works until we get hungry. I have committed to endless health plans after dinner, when I’m feeling stuffed and my jeans have come unsnapped. I’m fully committed until about lunch time the next day . Then, my primary motivation changes — instead of the long term pleasure of a healthier body, my primary motivation becomes the instant physical pleasure of a really great meal. Suddenly, my health motive fades to grey: “what are you worrying about,” a little voice says, “you’re fine. Damn those super models. Damn this youth-oriented society.” I don’t give up on my commitment — I just change it from commitment to a healthier diet to commitment to a more pleasurable diet.
That’s a classic example of a structure that doesn’t work: the waffle. Fritz discovered that systems and structures are defined by tension and that nature, even human nature, abhors tension. Therefore, tension will be resolved. In the example I just used, tension is initially created by my need to be healthier, so I decide to eat more healthfully, and the tension is temporarily resolved. The next day, when I grow hungry for the same kind of unhealthy food that created the problem in the first place, another kind of tension is created — the hunger for an immediate fix, the food I like. So I relieve that tension by eating. Unfortunately, no progress has been made, and after dinner, I’m going to begin the process all over again: a process that consumes my energy, undermines my confidence and gets me nowhere.
The same process occurs in other areas of our lives. We want a loving, supportive respectful relationship, so we read a book on relationships. We commit to treating our loved one in the way we want to be treated, knowing that eventually, we will change the tone of the relationship through our efforts. Until, that is, they fail to appreciate our efforts, or we have a hard day at the office, or they do something that we define as uncaring — when our primary motivation becomes our need to let them know how they are failing at their end of the bargain.
It happens at work all the time. We want a promotion, so we take a course and let our boss know that we’re interested. But when a project is overdue and it becomes necessary to work through the weekend in order to prove ourselves to be reliable, our primary motivation becomes our need to relax, or our commitment to our slow-pitch team. Instead of finding solutions, we make excuses — and we act in ways that undermine our dreams. We oscillate. We react. We do not create.
Will power, enthusiasm, faith in ourselves — all of these desirable traits work both side of the fence when it comes to realizing our dreams, because the reality is that many of the things we want contradict each other. We want to be prosperous, but we also want time to spend with our families. We want to save for the future, but there is so many things we want and need to buy today.
Most of us have dreams, but we have learned to react to life, not to create it. We careen from one reaction to the next, and wonder where the time goes.
Take heart. There is a solution — a process compelling enough to transcend conflicting needs and desires.
Fritz discovered that there is a way out, a method used consistently and successfully by every creator he studied — a method that harnesses this tension and allows it to work for us rather than against us. In order to become creators rather than reactors, we simply need something in our life that is so big, so powerful, that everything else shrinks in importance beside it.
We need a vision. But we need more.
The three keys to successful creation are these:
1. Develop a crystal-clear, Technicolor vision of your desired result. In this case, we are developing nothing less than a vision for our lives. Examine your past for clues. What did you love? What activities made you happy? In what environments were you most comfortable and content?
2. Understand and honour your current reality. What resources do you have? What resources are you missing? Where are you now? When we plan a trip, we need two pieces of information: our destination and our starting point. Without a destination, as Yogi Berra once said, we may not get there. But if we don’t know where we are starting from, our chances of successful arrival are just as slim.
3. We need to plot and then take the action steps from starting point, current reality, to our destination — our dream.
When creating your vision, use your longings — even the most superficial longings — as a pathway to your heart’s desire. If your dream is a waterfront home, for example, ask yourself what that that waterfront home will give you. Peace? Beauty? Communion with nature? A place to welcome friends and family? Status in your community? Ease? A representation of your success or security? Whatever it is, ask yourself what you could do to introduce more of that into your life right now.
Use artwork, photos and magazine clippings to bring colour and realism to your dreams. Know that your vision will evolve as you do, and be willing to constantly update it while still holding true to its ultimate creation. (The fact that we change our mind is usually not an indication of our inability to know what we want, but of our growth in that direction.)
“Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they
never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: ‘What
does his voice sound like?’ ‘What games does he like best?’ ‘Does he
collect butterflies?’ They ask: ‘How old is he?’ ‘How many brothers does
he have?’ ‘How much does he weigh?’ ‘How much money does his father
make?’ Only then do they think they know him.
If you tell grown-ups, ‘I saw a beautiful red brick house, with
geraniums at the windows and doves on the roof,’ they won’t be able to
imagine such a house. You have to tell them, ‘I saw a house worth a
hundred thousand dollars.’ Then they exclaim, ‘What a pretty house!’
That’s the way they are. You must not hold it against them. Children
should be very understanding of grown-ups.”
Antoine de Saint Exupery
French Aviator and Author of “The Little Prince”
Exploring your vision�
Who is there? Who do you spend time with? What interests do you share? Who are your friends and colleagues? What kind of relationships do you share with your family? Who supports you? Inspires you? Who do you inspire?
What are you doing? What do you do to create a livelihood? How do you spend your workday? In what activities? What skills are required? How do you contribute to the world and how does the world reciprocate?
Where are you doing it? What does your work environment look like? Are you in an office, or an artist’s loft? Where do you live? What do you see from your windows? Are you in a rustic cottage on a lake or in a high-rise condo downtown? What kind of furniture do you have? Is there art on the walls?
When do you work? When do you play? When do you sleep? Do you get up and leave for work at the crack of dawn or saunter into your home office at 10 a.m.? Do you have a nap each afternoon or burn the candle at both ends?
Why? What is your purpose in life? What special gifts, talents, or inspiration do you bring to the world? When you die, what would you like people to remember about you, and how can you share more of that with the world?
Defining current reality requires ruthless self-honesty — and the ability to hold both the current reality of your life and the future reality of your dream in mind — without surrendering to anxiety or ego fears that try to convince us that we aren’t deserving, aren’t capable or that “it’s impossible.”
When designing the action steps between current reality and the final actualisation of your vision, know that you only need one at a time. Write down everything you need to move from current reality to manifestation of your vision, but do not fall into the trap of believing you must make things happen.
If your vision is clear — if you are willing to pay the price — if your vision serves your highest purpose and the real needs of the world — the world will come up to meet you, and resources you’ve not yet imagined will find their way to you. Devote your energy to doing what you can now. Never waste a moment thinking about the things you may not be able to do now, may not be able to do by yourself, or may not be able to do with your current resources.
“Just trust yourself. Then you will know how to live.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe