Life! By Design_ 6 Steps to an Extraordinary You - Laura Morton [17]
Okay. Here we go.
As we proceed, know that I honor your bravery and desire to improve the quality of your life. As in Las Vegas, what happens here stays here. It’s between you and me. I have your back and will get you through the process. But recognize, as cliché as it may sound, no pressure, no diamond!
So with all of this in mind, let’s do a quick check on your personal level of awareness. Listed below are some simple questions. Think of this like the old game show Password. Say whatever comes to your mind. Don’t edit your responses. Just go with your gut reaction.
How do you feel about your career?
How do you feel about your relationships?
How do you feel about your health and stamina?
How do you feel about your income and current financial status?
What areas of your life are you avoiding? (C’mon! Answer the question!)
Is there someone or something in your life you feel incomplete with?
Where in your life do you feel the most pressure?
What are your consistent issues or struggles?
What bothers you about your current lifestyle?
How do you feel about change?
EXERCISE
Examine the areas of your life where you experience resistance and write them down. If you are stuck, reread the previous questions. They will steer you in the right direction.
Okay. Let’s do a quick check. Do your answers make you feel worse or full of promise?
When you look at your situation, can you identify what has been holding you back from living a truly extraordinary life? Some people say it’s fear; others simply aren’t comfortable with change. Still others aren’t aware of what’s wrong in the first place, living in denial and not acknowledging that there is always room for improvement.
I don’t believe there are stupid people in this world, but I do think there are people who simply don’t have an awareness of or have not been exposed to what is possible. They point the finger of blame at everyone or everything around them without acknowledging their feelings or responsibility in the matter.
They say things like:
It’s not me, it’s “the man.”
It’s not me, it’s the way my parents raised me.
It’s not me, it’s my team.
It’s much easier to play the blame game than it is to accept responsibility for the resistance in our lives. Most people believe that life is supposed to be hard, that change is scary, that conflict and struggle are normal. While all of these things are true, none of them has to consume you. I deal with conflict, I have struggles, I face hardships and challenges, but I don’t let them rule me. Challenges don’t own or define me. It isn’t the way I live my life, and I am happy to say that you don’t have to either.
When you get present to the notion that you are responsible for what you create in life, you can then own it, push it aside, and/or make new and better choices. It’s all about your awareness and new action. I want to help you get to a place where you have clarity and vision to see things as they really are.
In marketing, advertisers know that the average human being is exposed to more than three thousand marketing messages a day. We live in a stimulus response world. Everything around us is stimulus, so although we’ve become numb to some of it, most stimuli have a way of infiltrating our barriers. Most people become irresponsible in the split second between stimulus and response. That’s when our mind reacts to something even before we know what it is. We take that response down a negative path and prepare ourselves for doom and gloom.
For example, in a relationship, there are four words that generally provoke a worst-case-scenario response: “We need to talk.”
Uh-oh.
You’re getting dumped, or are about to hear a confession of infidelity, or your partner has feelings for someone else. Whatever it is, those words conjure up negative thoughts, right?
Your unconscious mind is where all of the data files of your life experiences are stored and where you naturally go to find your response when a stimulus occurs. Scientists believe that every social act is a response to a preceding act of another