Getting what you Want

There is very real power in the things you tell yourself. For example, when I was a kid I used to believe those ‘coin-and-ride’ airplanes at the grocery store could really fly if I could only have one to myself. Can you imagine my disappointment if I ever got exactly what I wanted? Sometimes I wonder how many things in my life are still like that today where I’ve told myself something and I deeply believe it – and long for it – but it simply just isn’t true or isn’t possible or both.

As another example you can tell yourself, “I deserve better” and find a way to believe it so deeply that you resent a life which could be more than good enough if you just didn’t look at it in that way. You can also tell yourself, “I’m fortunate to have this chance, today” and move through your whole day feeling rather glad for it. The real rub is that you can find a way to say either of those things about the very same life. Perhaps happy people have simply just found a way to feel lucky for the same kind of life we all have. Perhaps unhappy people have found another way to look at that same life. There is very real power in the things you tell yourself.

Now I know you know this on some level already. I’m just not convinced we do very much with it. If the stuff in our heads really is like a shrub, then it means we must tend it, nurture it and even prune it – yes – it must be trimmed and contained and reduced in order to grow in healthy directions and ‘hold it’s own weight’. Otherwise it grows wild and then eventually it stops growing at all.

I landed on all of these thoughts this week because I decided to examine some of my ‘longings’ more carefully. What do I desire? Are those things true? Are they possible? Are they helpful? Am I focusing on them in helpful ways? All of this is something I don’t do very often and I think it costs me. My head-space grows wild and untrimmed and I become tangled in it. And I realized I’ve found more than a few ‘grown up’ versions of thinking that ‘coin-and-ride’ airplane could actually fly if I just got one all to myself. Imagine my disappointment if I actually got what I’ve been wanting.

There are people who’ve wrapped their whole lives around an ‘if only’ (as in ‘if only I could be this or that or have this or that’). But that ‘thing’ either never came to pass or it wasn’t possible or it simply didn’t have the desired effect when it did. And in that case their whole life happens to them while they are waiting for something else. Think about it: their whole life happens to them while they are waiting for something else. So I’ve decided to tell myself a different ‘set’ of things: my most important life is the one that is happening to me right now and that means there is no other place and there is no other time.

There is very real power in the things we tell ourselves. What are you telling yourself?

This Sunday is the first of 5 questions I’d like to ask you this summer as you re-think who you are, who you are becoming and the path that you’re on. Join us for more ‘Thoughts for the Open Road’ or tune into the podcast through the week.

Have a great weekend,

Chris