Fulfill Your Desire
“Fight for the life you want to lead . . . and make it crisp and full of color.”
Look to the sunset for your desire.
Look to the sunrise for your hope.
When it comes to motivation, our brains are wired …
to want …and
to get
Again, and again, and again.
Put another way, we are built to yearn.
It is this yearning that gets us out of bed in the morning.
It gives us purpose and direction in our day.
And it is this yearning that sets us on our course to get what we’re looking for.
Yet, you may ask “if this is the case, then why don’t we always achieve our goals?”
The answer is simple: we don’t live our lives in a closed system of “flip this switch to get reward”.
Fortunately for us, our brains are wired accordingly … with the skill to adapt.
Let’s use an equation for an example.
Instead our brain operating in a simple “If A, then B” fashion, we’ve been granted unlimited pathways of adaptation to help us get our needs met.
What this means is that if A does NOT produce B, then we either
change A so that we can get B … or
we keep doing A, but change our outcome to accept C
Put another way, let’s use our own childhood to illustrate:
As children we wanted (and needed) our parents’ attention. It was our job to figure out how to get it.
If life had been simple, all we’d have had to do was smile and coo to get our parents to come take care of us in the just perfect way we needed.
Yet, because our parents had responsibilities and their own wants, our needs for attention were not always met the way we would have liked. Our solution was to either change how we got what we wanted, or to change what we were looking for:
to change how we got the attention, meant that instead of simply cooing,
we devised more interesting ways of saying “look at me!” …or
we learned to cry, throw stuff, create a distraction
to change what we desired, on the other hand, meant that instead of only wanting our parents’ attention,
we decided that playing on our own was ok after all, even fun …or
we learned to look for other ways to get that need met
If you’re wondering where this is going, stick with me here. Although it may appear that I’m delving into childhood psychology, I’m really just pointing to the simplest time in our life … where our wants and actions were rather pure and A+B ish.
Yet … what’s really important to understand in all of this is:
We are not only wired to want and get …
but have also been given the resources to adapt our wanting and getting.
And here’s the beauty of it all …
We get to CHOOSE!
We get to choose
what we desire
what we pursue
and what we focus our attention on
Likewise, we get to choose
how we get our needs met
how we show up in our day
and how we focus our attention
——————————————————————-
Yet, although the answer is simple, it’s anything but easy to achieve.
This is where our voice chimes in with: “You see, I know what to do, I just can’t make myself do it”
And believe me, I get that. I’ve been working to close the gap between wanting and getting for decades.
I’ve been at a place where I would say “I’m not going to eat that cookie” and ten minutes later having finished off the whole bag.
I’ve promised myself that I’ll wake up the next morning to workout, only to be dragged out of bed by my kid so we’re not late to the bus.
And I’ve made plans to go out because I knew it’d be “good for me”, only to cancel at the last minute because I was too scared.
What I offer is a solution … not for perfection, but for fulfilling your desire.
You see, I believe that change is possible at any stage of our life.
All we have to do is choose it.
We start with kindness. …always start with kindness. This is how we learn to be truthful with ourselves and begin to forgive our past errors.
Then we walk in courage. We do this by being held accountable for our actions. Then with every step we take, we become more courageous.
Finally, as we stand in our strength, the most amazing and beautiful thing happens: more days than not, we wake up and find that we’re closer to our desire than ever before. When that happens, all we need to do is reach out and grab it.
If you
aren’t at peace with the woman in the mirror
are tired of not living within your joy
are terrified of stepping out into the world
… please don’t remain isolated. The enemy is counting on you to stay separated and alone.
-Coach Rebecca
“Find something that's gnawing at you, and make a change that brings you closer to who you actually want to be.”
-Rebecca Boskovic