If you do not have a purpose in life, you will find that your behaviours are undirected. We have discussed the importance of thinking in a way that enables you to create useful meanings. These meanings we assign to life events produce our behaviours and subsequently our results.
Understand that we are meaning makers. That's what we do all day, everyday. We go through life and assign meaning after meaning at lightning speed and do not give a second thought to the subjective nature of this process. We compare the stimulus to the totality of our life's experience, and we create a meaning. The meaning, therefore, does not come from the outside world. It comes from our past experiences. We just think it comes from the outside world.
Recognizing that we have this tendency will open your mind to new possibility. A possibility that says, "maybe I am not doomed to repeat the past. Maybe I can think differently and that will be enough for me to assign different meanings. If I can assign different meanings, then this means I will have access to new and better behaviours."
To further push our way into possibility we must direct our minds to take in information that supports these new meanings. Remember, we delete the vast majority of information that is coming in so the end results are a very narrow field of perception.
The story that we tell ourselves when we experience a life event is just that, a story. Learn to tell yourself better stories and you will get a better outcome. It is much easier to tell yourself better stories when you have identified a purpose because your attention is directed towards a vision that enables you to see things that you may have missed when you had no purpose.
My purpose as it relates to my career is to help as many people as possible live better lives. This comes from helping them break bad habits, removing phobias, chronic pain, quitting smoking, losing weight and a host of other things. I know that if I am true to my purpose then I must frame all speed bumps in a way that keeps them as nothing more than minor speed bumps in my mind. If not, a little speed bump can turn into a brick wall that cannot be penetrated. I move past obstacles with ease because the clarity of my purpose is something I am very purposeful about maintaining.
For example, if I focused on the fact that many people feel Hypnosis is nonsense, I may not be able to help so many people. I may begin to feel self conscious and focus on the negative judgement that is bound to come from other people. A desire to shield myself from this type of judgement could cause me to play small. Maybe I would be reluctant to post testimonial videos with myself in the videos or deliver speeches to various groups. Or maybe I would build my business slowly through word of mouth to avoid being exposed to people that are not instantly impressed with me and my work.
When I am focused on a purpose that is bigger than me it gives me an awareness that it really is not about me. This notion that judgement by others should color all my decisions tends to lose its power when I focus on my higher purpose. After all, it is not about me. Truthfully, I am not that important in the grand scheme of things and if I assign too much importance to myself as a person, I may begin protecting my projected image in an absurd way. A way that stands in the way of my progress.
When others make judgements about us it can be concerning, and nobody likes to hear hurtful comments. I urge you to frame events in which you are criticized in a way that benefits you in the long term. A great frame to live by is that other people really don't care as much about you as you think. We are all legends in our own minds and can take huge offence at the smallest of sleights. This type of thinking holds people back. Fear of judgement is the biggest killer of creativity and innovation that most people will ever face. People are often capable of so much more and fear of what other people will say or think is what stops them from reaching their goals.
How do you overcome this fear? The first step is to be purposeful about how you live your life. You cannot live a purposeful life if you have not identified your life's purpose.
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