Listen to your heart. It knows.

Have you ever felt torn between two choices? Or gone back and forth between choices, in an endless figure eight, and drive yourself (and friends and family) crazy?

When you feel that way, it’s usually because the two choices are seemingly equal in value and merit. Both choices attract you for valid reasons.

Part of what gets you caught in the seesaw between choices is fear. Fear of making the wrong choice or making a mistake. Fear of missing out on something. Fear of regretting your choice. The fear creates doubt. With doubt comes uncertainty. With uncertainty comes even more fear.

That fear tosses you back and forth between the choices. It causes you to sit, and stew, and brew, and try to “figure it out.” You go back and forth like a ping pong ball. One moment you feel good and peaceful about one choice, and then you feel fearful. So you move toward the other choice, begin to feel good and peaceful, and then fear creeps in again, and you start the whole thing over.

So how do you decide what you really want? How can you know for sure?

Listen to your heart. It knows.

Your heart knows what you truly want in life. It will point the way towards those people, places, experiences, and things that you absolutely must have in your life. The things you cannot live without.

Put the choices on the scale

In the television show Boy Meets World, Cory Matthews loves Topanga Lawrence and wants to be with her. But in the fifth season of the show, Cory meets a girl named Lauren. He finds himself attracted to her, and enjoys her company. He even develops feelings for Lauren. This confuses Cory and he doesn’t know what to do.

With the help of his best friend Shawn, Cory uses a scale and jellybeans to decide what he really wants: does he want to be with Topanga or does he want to be with Lauren?

This is what happens:

If you’re faced with a tough choice and can’t decide what you want, put the choices on the scale. When you do, it’ll become clear what choice is the most important one to you.

Photo by Greg Jeanneau on Unsplash

Changing your mind is as important as being certain.

I began writing today’s post with a completely different topic in mind. Originally, the post was looking like this:

Leave them feeling like the most interesting person in the world.

There’s a story of two dinners. One dinner was in the company of William Gladstone. The other was with Benjamin Disraeli. Both men were bitter political rivals at the height of the Victorian era in England. Both Gladstone and Disraeli would each go on to serve as Prime Minister.

Lady Jennie Jerome Churchill (mother of the future prime minister Winston Churchill), had Gladstone first, and later next to Disraeli. When asked what her impression was

I know I want to address the topic. But I was not happy with what I was writing. So I decided to scrap the post for now.

Changing my mind wasn’t a betrayal of the original idea. It wasn’t even a rejection of my intention for the original post. It was a “not now.”

Sometimes you’re just not ready to move forward with a previously chosen course of action. You may feel like changing your mind, but refrain from doing so because you want to be congruent, and because you’ve already committed to doing something. You want to follow through.

But it’s ok to not follow through and to rescind the commitment. It’s ok to change your mind and say “never mind” or “not now” or “my priorities changed.”

While you strive to be a consistent and congruent human being, remember that you’re also a mutable and dynamic being who is constantly changing. And realize that it’s not an either/or. It’s an “and”.

You can be consistent and congruent, AND change behavior or beliefs. You can be certain AND change your mind. The key is to stay true to your highest Self and intention.

As Shakespeare’s Polonius tells his son Laertes in Hamlet:

…to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false…

– Hamlet (1.3.80–82)

Be true to your Self, and what comes up for you along the way. Honor change within you. Be willing to pursue it, and you’ll be surprised by abundant possibilities.

Featured photo by Michael Petrila at Unsplash.

Where the old and the new meet.

Each change in season is a reminder that life is full of transitions. They come in different forms and for different reasons. Each transition has its own timing too. The gift of transitions is that they are the point where we leave something behind and welcome something new.

Often, people feel stuck in a transition because they haven’t let go and left behind what must change. Or because they’re not ready to step into an uncertain future. Feeling stuck is usually the result of resisting change. Resisting the transition.

Give yourself over to the transition, and you will find release, renewal, and growth.

Featured Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash

It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be done.

On days when you’re short on time, when you have too much on your plate, when you don’t have the energy…get it done.

You may say: “I’m not gonna publish this blog post because it’s not finished or it’s not good enough.” When you don’t want to go to the gym or wake up early, it’s easy to say: “I just don’t feel like it today.” Your goals and dreams may be on hold because “it’s not the right time.”

Its important to be wise with your time, your energy, and your focus. But if you’re putting off for tomorrow what you can do today, you’re robbing yourself of practice toward mastery.

Life is gonna get in the way of your projects, your relationships, your goals and dreams, your purpose. If you let it, it will block you, and hold you back, and delay you.

Choose to complete today what’s most important to you. Say yes to the things you want to do. Choose completion over perfection. Chose daily disciple and practice, no matter how small.

Not every blog post will be a masterpiece. Many of your photos will not be iconic. Some days at the gym will feel like a waste of time. But any effort is better than no effort.

So show up and get it done!

Featured photo by Miguel Bruna at Unsplash.

How to make your dream, goal, or vision a reality.

There is a simple formula for manifesting the invisible. Here it is:

Make•Believe

The invisible materializes as you make it and believe in it.

The first thing you must make and believe is you. You must make yourself into the person who will create the invisible. You must believe in yourself and your ability to create the invisible. Even if you’ve never been that person before, and have never created the invisible before. You must make•believe yourself.

The second thing you must make and believe is the invisible itself. Make it and believe it in your Spirit, your Body, and your Mind. You need all three. Make it however comes naturally for you. 

If it doesn’t work. Make it again. And again, and again, and again. Make it as many times as required until the invisible begins to manifest. Along your making you may begin to disbelieve. Keep believing. Believe when things get tough. Believe when there are setbacks. Believe even in the face of “failure”.

Most dreams, goals, and visions remain invisible because there was not enough making or believing.

If you can keep making and keep believing, you will eventually create the invisible. It may not be in the timeframe you wanted. It may not even turn out how you first envisioned it. The beauty and power of make•believe is that it doesn’t have to be that way. It can turn out completely different, and be even better than you imagined.

Whatever your dream, goal, or vision; make•believe and it will be.

Featured photo by rawpixel on Unsplash.

How to turn ignorance into an asset for success.

There will come a time when you don’t know something. Most people are afraid of not knowing because we’ve been conditioned to know. We’ve been trained to know “the right answer”, right away. And if we don’t know “the right answer” or if we don’t know it right away, we feel bad. We feel like we failed in some way. We feel ashamed.

The truth is, it’s ok to not know the answer. It’s ok to not know right away. Being ignorant isn’t a problem. Staying ignorant is. So how can you turn ignorance into a strength? By being curious.

Curiosity is the thing that says “Oh look! There’s something here that I don’t know. I wonder what this is. I wonder what I’ll learn. I wonder what I’ll discover.” And then curiosity goes and plays with the unknown.

Curiosity doesn’t feel bad or ashamed for not knowing something. It doesn’t take it personal when confronted with something unfamiliar or unknown. Quite the opposite. Curiosity celebrates the unfamiliar and unknown. It engages with them and plays with them. Curiosity says to Ignorance: “Come on! Let’s go on an adventure and see what we discover!”

Fear will try to convince Ignorance that it’s safer in the known and familiar. But Ignorance already lives in the outer limit of what is mapped out. Curiosity invites it to go beyond the limit.

The choice is yours. Will your ignorance shrink toward fear? Or will it expand toward Curiosity?

The quality of your life depends on the quality of your relationships.

This has been confirmed by an ongoing Harvard study, which revealed that “close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives…Those ties protect people from life’s discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes.”

The director of the Harvard study wisely observed that “tending to your relationships is a form of self–care.”

If close relationships are what keep you happy and protect your health, then it’s crucial for you to know how to maintain and improve those relationships. Relationships must be kept in constant repair if they are to survive and thrive.

There is one thing you can do to radically improve any relationship: seek to understand.

Relationships need Understanding

The foundation to any relationship is communication. Sharing feelings, thoughts, and experiences. But communication turns to static if there is no understanding.

Understanding is the radio that allows you to pick up the signals of meaning that the other person is broadcasting. If your radio of understanding is disconnected or weak, your reception of the broadcast will be compromised. On the other hand, if your radio of understanding is strong, you’ll be able to pick up the signals from others.

Soulmates understand each other. Best friends understand each other. Collaborators understand each other. Understanding is a key component in relationships.

Understanding is the jazz of relationships

Have you ever seen or heard a jazz group perform? It is incredible how a collection of musicians can create space for each other to instrumentally riff and give expression to their own personality, while at the same time maintaining a cohesive and coherent sound.

The best example of this can be found on the album Kind of Blue. Here, listen to this:

Recorded by an all star group of jazz musicians more than a half century ago, Kind of Blue stands as one of the greatest albums of all time. In large part because Miles Davis and company perfectly create musical understanding.

On every track, each musician takes a turn soloing for a number of bars. The soloist is able to comfortably improvise because the other musicians create the space. You can hear the piano cooly riffs, the trumpet smoothly bleats, the saxophones rhythmically flutter, the drums beat in time, and the bass walks in swinging strides.

If you want to radically improve any relationship, be like a jazz musician and create the space and understanding for the other person to solo.

Understanding is a rare gift in modern relationships

At the core of each human being is the desire to be understood. And when a person offers understanding, they are fulfilling an innate desire in us. This is one reason why understanding is such a precious gift.

Another reason is because seeking understanding is so scarce in modern society. We are too busy clamoring for the attention of others. Usually in order to sell something. We live in a world fighting for our attention. Ads, media, entertainment, “news,” social issues, current events, special interests, and so much more. They all want attention. Not to mention the attention demanded by fear, anxiety, doubt, regret, shame, anger, pain.

In such an environment, the rarest and most precious thing you can offer to another is your undivided attention. When you give your attention, you pave the way for understanding.

There is a shortage of understanding in the world. It’s why there are people screaming at each other on t.v. and in social media. Lack of understanding is also one reason why so many in the world today feel disconnected.

By seeking to understand, you become a Sherlock Holmes of sorts. One that is able to comprehend, while the rest fumble about not realizing what’s going on.

Recap

Relationships are key to happiness and health. You can radically improve any relationship by seeking to understand the other person. Understanding is an essential component of any relationship. Create understanding like a jazz musician who offers space to a fellow musician. One of the rarest gifts you can give and have, is to understand others.

Thank you for reading!

Everything I write is with the goal of helping you. If this post was helpful, please share it with someone you know. It might help them out.

If you would like to radically improve your relationships, schedule a call with me today.