We all have those things we've always wanted to do, but for whatever reasons just haven't accomplished. It could be a dream romance with a new or existing person in your life, an amazing career that you LOVE, financial abundance, incredible health and vitality with a body that reflects this, bringing passion and fun back into your life, a deep and meaningful spiritual connection to all of life, a beautiful relationship with your family and friends, or simplifying your life and getting rid of the clutter.
Does any of this ring true for you? Do you feel the strong lack of one of these things, or another particular thing, missing from your life? Do you experience a powerful yearning as yet unfulfilled in your life? If your answer is "Yes!", that is the first way you can tell that you have not yet approached life by placing the Big Rock in the jar first. Let's call this wished-for thing-this yearning for The Big One, the one that emanates from the core of your being, and the one that will be the foundation for all other dreams in your life. It's the Holy Grail of dreams come true, the rock-solid foundation for your pursuit of happiness and unreasonable success.
You may be saying, Hold on... I have been working my butt off trying to make my dreams come true! I have been focusing on The Big One... forever. Maybe you think it is just too hard to achieve, or the universe has not supported your attempts to win success.
In either case, you may be operating with a mindset that does not support you, such as believing you must struggle to win success. However, it is those who enjoy the journey to success who typically create more of it in their lives. The following four steps will begin the process of creating amazing, unreasonable success to your dreams!
Step 1: Make Your Commitment
This sounds simple to do, but for most of us is not so simple to practice, mainly due to this fact of life: Life keeps throwing things at us that take our focus off what is most important to us. Your commitment is to follow this book's principles and practices for the next 90 days. If you do this, you will be quite a different person from before you started down this path. I mean that in a good way! Your commitment begins with the desire to take care of the most important things first. You will be open to rethinking and restructuring your priorities, revisiting your current way of focusing and prioritizing The Big One. Your commitment involves putting The Big One first and foremost-before anything else goes into your life's agenda-and treating it as a sacred commitment that is central to your well-being in life.
Inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, W.H. Murray wrote of The Scottish Himalayan Expedition: "Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!' It's true: Once you make the commitment, life changes in magical ways and your efforts are carried along by unseen forces.
Committing, and meaning it, is by far the biggest step.
It is human nature to say YES when you are hot for something, and it's easy to drop your commitment when you lose interest or feel challenged. Just look at all the diets you've started and then ditched, jobs you've dreamed of but never pursued, promises to yourself that have yet to be fulfilled. Okay, you get the picture. In this game, you have to keep both feet in the room and stay focused on The Big One. When you lose focus, you forget the value of the game you are playing and it is much more difficult to go outside of your comfort zone. It is outside the comfort zone-in the "haven't been here before" zone-where the real magic kicks in to support you.
So commitment-real and lasting-is essential for the successful pursuit of The Big One.
Step 2: Define Your Big One and See How Unreasonable You Can Be.
Now you are ready to figure out exactly what is most important to you in your life. For this, you will have to peel away the layers of "can't" and "shouldn't," and your miscellaneous fears, to dig deep into your very being. You will have to assess your most important game at this time: the most unreasonable, out-there, how-could-I-ever-achieve-that-in-my-little-ol'-life dream. You will have to ask yourself, over and over: Just how unreasonable can I be?
Writing things down is one of the most powerful ways to clarify your Big One and put it forth in the world. But sometimes it takes going through a small list of goals to get to The Big One.
· Write. Start with a clean piece of paper; give it the heading My Big One, and write... write... and write some more, listing what you feel is most important in your life.
· Whittle down. Next, start to whittle down your list by going through each entry and determining which one feels more important than the others. Start by looking at the first two you wrote down. Compare them with each other. Which of those two feels more important? Choose the one that feels right and compare it to the next one on the list.
· Get to the core. Continue this process until you have one or two potential Big Ones left on your page. You can eliminate smaller goals, for example, by saying to yourself, What is more important: looking fabulous on the beach, or my health and well-being? Having the perfect business opportunity, or building a meaningful career? Then you can compare which goal is more important to you at this time in your life: health and well-being, or building a meaningful career? If you are still confused about priorities, look at it this way: If you don't have health and well-being, there won't be much stamina and enthusiasm for building a meaningful career. Get the picture? Doing this exercise does not mean you can't have it all... you are trying to find the first, most important, Big One or something big enough to be the basis for all of life while playing this game, and unreasonable enough to make the journey fun and compelling.
· Consolidate goals. If, after this process, you find that you still have a number of potential Big Ones on your list, it just means that there are several areas in your life you want to transform. When this is the case, either decide you will select, say, the top six-no more than six please!-to work on one-by-one, or look for ways to consolidate some of these areas into one or two Big Ones. For example, if you have one Big One that is for physical health, another for emotional well-being and a third for spiritual growth, you can blend these three Big Ones under the heading My Health and Well-Being. If you have relationship-based goals, such as enhanced romantic life, better family relationships and good friendships, you can pursue a Big One called Healthy and Loving Relationships. By the same token, the search for a meaningful career, the desire to do work that heals the world and achieving financial abundance can be combined as Perfect Work and Extraordinary Abundance. Make sense?
· Fine-tune the process. It is entirely possible you could have one or more Big Ones where you cannot decide which is most important. Just keep asking the question Which is most important to me now? until you can prioritize them in order. This will help you define which is the one to pursue as an immediate priority, and will help you see the things you want most to enhance in your life. As you continue reading this book and doing these exercises, your Big One may shift. This is all part of the process.
Step 3: Select Your Priority
If you have selected your Big One, or have been able to combine several elements into a single Big One, you've already made your choice. But if you find yourself with more than one on your list, now is the time to narrow your selection so you can pursue the path that is essential to you at this moment. For example, Sarah's new book was about to come out and she was getting ready for her book tour. She was excited to share her message, and of course, hoped it would be a great success with lots of TV coverage. The only problem was, she was carrying 20 extra pounds of unhealthy body weight. While she very much wanted her Big One to be Promote Book and Message, she realized she would not have the vitality and energy needed for the book tour if she didn't first focus on her health, and she was clear that she would not be as confident if she didn't feel fit and look "camera ready." So instead, she opted to make Good Health and Feeling Fit her priority.
In order for you to make the best choice, look again at your list. Take a moment to visualize it and connect to the essence of each potential Big One. Is health on your list? If so, how does it feel to you? Are you suffering? Do you not feel well? Are you lacking energy and zest? Do you feel this part of your life needs work? A lot of work? Or just some loving, nurturing attention? Make a note of how this feels. Go on to the next goal, and do the same.
Weigh each goal on your list against the next. Does health feel like the most urgent? Or is your financial life zapping your energy? Maybe your love life needs some serious pepping up right now. By the time you have tuned into your biggest life goals, you will have a sense of what truly needs your attention. Allow yourself to know in your heart what is most important at this moment. If you are clear, for example, that as much as you want to find your soul mate you really must first focus on getting your financial life in order, then respect that, and wisely set Achieving Financial Stability as your priority. Now that you are clear on your Big One, you will use it for achieving unreasonable success to your dreams in 90 days. By the end of that time, as part of the organic process, you will find that many of your other goals also will have been addressed and enhanced along the way.
Step 4: Turn Your Big One into a Game
Now for the fun part! To take things to the next level, you now need to create a game around The Big One. The game will last 90 days, because this gives you just enough time to change old habits, create new ones and build a rock-solid foundation.
We call it a "game" for several reasons. In a contest or competition, the object is to win; but as long as you are out there having fun-playing a game-the winning becomes secondary. Calling it a "game" takes the edge, the urgency, out of the importance of winning.
Another reason why we call it a game is that, much like a sports game with boundaries, rules and a time set for the game, you will put certain parameters around your game so you have something to keep you focused and on target. Besides rules, practices and principles to follow, you will be playing within a time element.
Lastly, you will create an objective for your game. Having clear vision of specific results is important to keep you on target, and inspires you to go for what you most want in life. Much like a soccer game where the team with the highest score within 90 minutes wins the game, your 90-day objectives will be specific and measurable.
This has all been designed to keep you focused and clear on the overall objective as you move along towards achieving your dreams. Your intention is what sets the game in motion.
Let the game begin!
Hi, my name is Stefan Doering. Since 1987, I've been pioneering new approaches to environmental business and sustainability. After having started one of the first green retail businesses in the country and growing it to one of the largest, I now have coached hundreds of green businesses as well as teach green entrepreneurism for various NYC programs and at Columbia University's Center for Environmental Research and Education. I focus on three major areas:
1) Innovating powerful green business models,
2) Crafting and implementing marketing and positioning strategies for bringing green to mainstream, and
3) Creating a consistently profitable and sustainable business.
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