Where to Go From Here

In last week’s post, I talked about deciding how you wanted to change by determining what you did not want. This week, I want to suggest ways you can find clarity on what you do want.

The first thing I want to make clear is that your beliefs about what's possible may be the single biggest obstacle you have to overcome in this process. When you say things like, “I wish I could…” or “If only it were possible to…” or “I could never…” you're allowing your beliefs to put limits on what you can accomplish, even before you get started.

I understand that this is a difficult habit to break, because your beliefs feel like the truth to you. Many years ago, I believed that I was a depressive type with a melancholy personality, and that was just a given. I believed I had inherited a predisposition to be depressed and overwhelmed by anxiety, and I would always have to deal with that reality. As long as I believed those things about myself, I acted in ways that made them reality.

This is a self-reinforcing cycle. You hold a belief, and you act like the belief is the truth, which creates results that provide evidence that the belief is correct. This makes you believe even more strongly that the belief is the truth. If you are to make real change, you have to examine your beliefs. Actually, you have to examine things you think are the truth in order to see if they are beliefs in disguise.

One way to do this is to listen for those phrases I mentioned earlier. The words “I wish,” “I can’t,” and “if only” are clues that you may be dealing with a belief, rather that a truth.

The Freedom of Possibility

When you start to look for clarity, decide to at first assume everything is possible. You can escape from the limitations that hold you back. You can stop repeating your family history. You can be the first one in your family or circle of friends to reach a certain goal. You can break the cycle, break the rules, be the difference.

When you start to think about what you want for your life, let your imagination have free rein. Allow yourself to dream big. I will be the first to admit that I have a difficult time with this. I am so constrained by my ideas of reality and what is possible that I tend to dismiss possibilities before I even consider them. However, when I have allowed myself to dream, I have found dreams becoming reality, and often it happens with astonishing speed.

Some people decide early on in life what they want to be, do, and have as they go through their lives. I have known a few of these people, and to be honest, I envy their certainty and focus. Though I have found that, among my acquaintances at least, these people are quite rare.

It seems the more common experience is to have difficulty choosing a path and then to question the path, think of leaving the path, leave the path and start on a different one, only to question that one after a period of time. This does not mean you are flighty, wishy-washy, irrational, or short-sighted. It doesn't mean anything is "wrong" with you.

It probably means you are an intelligent, creative, curious, multi-talented person who wants to take part in more than one course of the banquet of life. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, unless you allow fretting about it to keep you from doing anything at all. Remember that you don’t have to get it perfect on the first try, or ever, for that matter.

It's perfectly all right to try something you think you might want and then change your mind. It's perfectly all right to do something for a few years and then decide you want another change. It’s your life. Jobs, friendships, and romantic relationships run their courses. You grow and mature and change. The people around you grow and mature, or they don’t. What you wanted ten years ago might not be what you want now. It’s all okay. I repeat, it’s your life. You get to decide.

Now, to the how...

Making a List

Remember, let your imagination run wild as you begin this process. You can consider reality later. For now, dream, and capture the dreams.

One method is to make a list of things you would like to be, do, and have in your life. I'm a list-maker, so this one works for me. Jot down everything that pops into your mind. Have you always thought you had a book or a screenplay in you? Put it on the list. Wish you knew how to scuba dive? Write it down. Want to make a million dollars, or two, or ten? Write it down. Want to meet the love of your life? You know what to do. Keep writing.

Add big things and little things and medium things to the list until you can’t think of anything else. Then put the list aside, but keep it handy, because you will keep thinking of things to add to it over the next few days.

Set aside all judgment during this process. You don’t have to be realistic, or apologize for wanting what you want, or worry about what anyone else thinks. This is your list that you made with your wild imagination, and you can put absolutely anything you want to on there. Give yourself a week or two to complete this process. It feels weird at first, but it gets to be fun pretty fast.

After a little while, you might start to feel bad about the items on your list. You might start thinking things like, “I have never done what I really wanted to do, and now it is probably too late,” or “Why didn’t I go to medical school when I had the chance?” or “Why did I go to medical school instead of becoming a forester?” Welcome to the human race.

We all could have, would have, should have…and thinking about that is a waste of time, energy, and emotion. Remember to focus on the present and the future. You are where you are, and the only direction is forward. Keep dreaming. It’s not too late for the next great thing to come into your life, especially if you create it.

Visualizing the New You

Another option for discerning what you want is to write a story about it. You have written the story of your life up until this point, deliberately or by accident, but now you can take the opportunity to take control of the story. You are the main character of your story. What happens to you next? You can do this using elements from your list, or you can start the story from scratch.

Again, remember to let your imagination take any road it likes. I find it helpful to write this narrative on paper with a pen because my hand seems to know things my head does not. I’ve heard it said that writing in longhand connects you more to your heart than to your mind.

In the story of your future, where are you? Who are you with? What are you doing? Assume that everything has gone your way, that doors have opened, that possibilities you never dreamed of suddenly appeared. How does your story go if those things are true?

Another option is to go the visual route and create a vision board. The old-fashioned way of doing this is to search through printed materials like magazines for images that represent the things you want in your life. The new-fangled way is to search online for images that you like and print them out. Then you combine them into a collage of pictures that show where you are going, what you are doing, and who you are becoming.

Place the board where you will see it frequently (like next to the bathroom mirror) and pay attention to the images. I enjoy making vision boards, and I have seen some pretty amazing results from them, both for myself and for others.

However you decide to capture your dreams, whether in a list, in a story, in a visual representation, or another way that is uniquely yours, be sure to put yourself in the dream. Imagine ways in which what you want COULD happen, even if they seem rather outlandish. You are a human being, which means you have a big brain, which means your possibilities are bigger than you probably think.

Once you have your dreams captured in some kind of physical form, revisit that form often for a while. Look over the list, read the narrative, study the vision board. Feel free to add, change, delete, or edit in any way. These are your dreams. Don’t listen to anyone who says you’re doing it wrong. Keep dreaming, keep imagining, and then see yourself in the future you imagine. Visualize yourself in that dream job, that beautiful location, or whatever situation you come up with. Daydream about what it’s going to be like and especially how you will feel when you start living the decisions you make deliberately and with forethought.

Last week, I told you that when I was depressed, I was already the person I had decided to be. I just had decided that I agreed with the people who said I was depressed. You don’t have to be who you have always been. You don’t have to do what you have always done and get the same results you have always produced. Let yourself believe that change is possible when you choose the change.

Next week, I’ll talk about beginning the process of change, bringing your dreams into the real world. It’s going to be exciting to be you as you choose to go through this process and I'm excited to go through it with you.