How Do You
Know What You Want, When You Don't Know Who You Are?
Here's the context:
"Get a Pen, and some Paper...
the next 45 minutes are going to change your life!"
Have you every heard this before?
This is the typical motivational speaker, who at the back of the
room, or on their website has the solutions for you. Just as
soon as they take you through the benefit chain: don't you want
to work in your pajamas, don't you want to be free, don't you
want to be your own person, don't you want to make money in your
sleep?
Ever heard those lines before?
Listen to this
short
clip and you can see what I mean as we listen in on yet
another rags to riches story.
"Nothing is real in life unless you put it on paper..." and so
the story goes.
Why do you think most people who do these exercises,
or get this advice don't succeed?
The questions are fair?
"What do you want, put that down..."
It's a fair question isn't it?
Actually, it's a cul de sac--a dead-end in disguise.
When people put themselves, or are put in altered states we
actually create a design where the person's resources are
amplified through support to levels which are unsustainable;
UNLESS the design is based on NOT what they want, but on WHO
they are.
Let me say it a different way.
This is subtle but an extremely important point:
The reason that motivational speakers say you can is because
they believe you can because they did it. What better
testimonial of success than one's own belief that one rose from
rags to riches?
Yet, why can't WE do it too?
We know how to do it.
We've studied all the things they tell us to study?
What gives?
Clearly, we have to understand that people are different.
What creates success for one person is not likely in most cases
going to create success for another unless it is part of a
design that satisfies business reality.
In almost all cases, what people want...
is something they don't think they have.
Yet, in almost all cases, it's not because they don't want it
bad enough. It's because they don't know themselves well enough
to know what--who they are needs.
Now, this can begin a complex discussion, but let's keep it
short and simple.
When you know what your strengths and gifts are, you know what
to say yes to and you know what to say no too, as well.
When you're unclear about who you are and are being driven
through want by altered states or motivational speakers, you are
more than likely going to confuse what you say yes to and what
you say no too.
This happens in large part because we don't really know who we
are.
The bottom-line?
Before you ask yourself what you want, or for that matter,
answer anyone else's questions about what you want or need,
answer the question: Who Am I?
There are many different methods for identifying the personal
gifts and strengths you have, along with the limitations surely
to accompany them. Instead of doing what you want, become who
you are, and all the riches in the world will follow in the days
ahead.
