Re: Will you dance? Will you dance with me tonight? Will you hold my hand and float across the beach

Hello Gordon,

I've found myself asking many of the same questions over the past 9 months that you've posed the past few days...sometimes the biggest (and most overlooked) aspect of changing your situation in the physical world is to shift your mental focus first....FOR A SUSTAINED PERIOD OF TIME.

It's that last part that so many people miss. A lot of people (myself included in the past) have figured that once a mental shift is made, then things change quickly. Occasionaly it can happen, but more often, folks give up before the change has had time to manifest into something greater.

I left a secure job that I hated, and decided to take the (for me) scary plunge of temping for awhile, to try and find something new that I liked. So I quit....on Spetember 10, 2001.

Oops.

Suffice to say, that in the brave, new, uncertain world we all woke up to the next day, I quickly grabbed another job for security's sake. I've tried ever since to find something else, and it hasn't happened. I've never gone through a stretch like this in my life. But a funny thing started to happen about 4 months ago.

I began to see my situation, not as a plight, but as an opportunity.

And that was the shift I've waited my whole life for.

I need to be clear, absolutely NOTHING has changed for me financially, yet. I no longer expect it to. Because with the mental shift came an additional, unintentional, yet profound bonus.

I learned to let go of the prize.

So often, we try new things because we expect a particular result. When that result doesn't come to fruition, we often get discouraged and give up. Everything I have attempted in my life was done with the anticipation of earning my "prize". Needless to say, the prize I sought rarely arrived, and I continued to be known as "the guy with all that wasted ability and potential".

Ever since my accidental discovery of the need to let go of the goal, and enjoy the journey, amazing things have begun to happen. My previously blocked imagination has begun to open up, and I suddenly have more project ideas than time. I'm able to limit myself to three projects and stick with them. (For us ADD folk, more than one project at a time is almost necessary - the challenge is in not having so many things going that nothing get finished.) I have two sites that are 80% complete and am starting a third.

I'm really getting the hang of this now. I'm most excited about this third project because I know I'm going to enjoy the "process".

Will I make money from any of these ventures? I hope so, but the enjoyment and desire to be successful is no longer tied to the result. It is now tied to the process.

Ironically, it appears as though I will finally be able to get what I want.....by letting go of the need to want it.

I got waaaay off track here. I had originally wanted to talk about rituals, but ended up describing what can happen if you make a slight change in your ritual, and commit to enjoying the process, instead of demanding a result!

Hope this post has been helpful to someone. :-)

Mike Long




What will this be?? Stay Tuned!!

Mike, you wrote:

> I had
> originally wanted to talk about rituals, but
> ended up describing what can happen if you
> make a slight change in your ritual, and
> commit to enjoying the process, instead of
> demanding a result!

Right on! That's just where I am now as well. I quit my safe secure job on January 4th and I was in a funk for 3 months. I actually have to start a new "safe secure job" (if there is such a thing) in order to fuel my gazillion projects as well (ADD here too) because I'm out of cash.

But...like you...I'm learning to enjoy the process. I KNOW I've found some great information that's going to help me with what I want (and WHY I want it), and I too am not expecting the instant "prize" anymore.

I'm just learning to say yes again to friends who want to go out to eat. Before, I had that little voice in my head that said, "You can't go out. You haven't achieved your goal yet." Dogged tunnel-vision determinism is one thing, but every once in a while, you must ask yourself, "What joys am I missing along the way?"

Great post, Mike! We'll get there and have fun on the journey...both of us!

John

> Hope this post has been helpful to someone.
> :-)

> Mike Long