I don’t know about you, but I am not using 100% of my potential. I am not living life at the top level of Carl Massy. So I am speculating that maybe you too have a few levels to go to really get things shaking and moving in your life. The other thing about going to the next level is it is hard-wired into us. We have a very real need to grow in life. To step up to the next level. Therefore if we are not growing we are also likely to feel unfulfilled.
So what are the best things you (and me) can do to take ourselves up to the next elusive level of happiness, health, vitality, success and fulfillment?
Let me share with you what I believe are the main things we all need to do to really tap into our inner greatness:
1. Discover or uncover or dream-up a Goal that is worthy of you
The right (worthy) goal causes us to show up in a bigger and bolder way than we ever have before. The right goal will pull us towards it. It will be on the next level taunting us to dig a little deeper, try a little harder, be a little different, and let go of the old stories about why we can’t. The right goal is Good for You, Good for Others, and Good for the Great Good. The right goal is CREATED from within, and therefore breaks the reactive pattern of being at the whim of external appearances. This is what ALL great people through history discovered and did. They got passionate about a worthy ideal (or goal) which came from within.
2. Get help or an external perspective
One of the main things I teach is ‘we only know what we know’. Unless we learn something NEW, we are working on old memories and experience. And if we have not achieved our worthy goal in the past, it means that we need NEW knowledge, skills, and behaviours (by the way, if you have achieved the goal before it is not the ‘right’ goal). You need to add knew knowledge to your brain, you need to generate new emotions, and you need to behave in a different way. Read books, study, listen to new teachings, get coaching or mentoring, and perform new behaviours. Quite often, unless we have an external perspective from someone who knows more than us, we will continue to do the same stuff and get the same results on the same level.
3. Embrace change
There is a great statement by Dr Darren Weissman who says ‘Change is the essence of life’. That is not figurative, that is actually literal. What must anything in nature do – for instance a plant – in order to grow? It MUST change. If it is not changing it is dying. Therefore we need to embrace change. We need to let go of old ideas, old beliefs, old habits, old ways of thinking, old ways of behaving. We need to CHANGE and show up as a different person, before we can access the next level. We might need to be more accepting, less reactive, more compassionate, more creative, less risk adverse, more focused, less critical…etc… As Dr Joe Dispenza says, ‘When we change our personality, we change our personal reality.’
4. Embrace Resistance
I mentioned this the other week. My take on Buddha’s ‘Life is a struggle’ line has morphed into ‘In order to grow we MUST experience resistance’. The best way to highlight this is to poke our noses into the closest sweaty gym and ask the dude with the biggest muscles how he got them (and for this story the dude is drug free ;-)). His response is likely to be, ‘From lifting heavy things’. Which translates into: Pushing or pulling on a heavy weight, which provides a high level of resistance, causes the mind to say ‘we need build bigger muscles’ (aka over-compensation) and so a bigger and stronger muscle is created. This same principle works with experiencing mental and emotional resistance. We must have this resistance in order to grow. To get up to that next level. Resistance is not life throwing egg in our faces, it is life helping us to evolve into our authentic best self.
5. Slow down
This might sound counter-intuitive. But picture a wise man or woman and tell me how fast your wise person is moving, is thinking, and is doing things. Chances are your picture is the same as mine. They are moving with intention and awareness, they are pausing and thinking deeply before acting, and their actions are focused and deliberate. They don’t waste energy on the stuff that doesn’t matter. They also utilise creative intelligent POWER, rather than physical brute FORCE. Their power comes from within as they align themselves with the fullest and most authentic expression of themselves. They don’t waste energy on being someone else. So slow down, breathe, think and come from an inner place of power as you truly connect to your inner greatness.
And then you are assured of being welcomed at your next level, as you connect passionately to a goal worthy of you, as you seek new knowledge and external perspective, as you embrace change and the inevitable resistance required for growth and then slow down so you can tap into your most intelligent and authentic self. Then enjoy the new level fully, before you start the process again… 😉
If you want to listen to a Strategic Happiness Podcast (MP3) where I go into more detail (and you get to hear my [fill in the blank] voice) CLICK HERE