My job is not my life and at times I can say without a shadow of a doubt… I would quit if I had the opportunity.  The fact of the matter is that work is getting in the way of my dreams.  The daily adminstrative automaton-like work I spew out stops me from spending quality time working on building a more fulfilling life.   I am sure you are in the same boat.   So what are we to do about it?

Phase 1 - make a heart choice to follow your dreams…

The first thing you can do is make a choice that whatever you think you should be doing that you decide to do it. Ultimately you can choose what’s sensible, necessary and obvious for the time being. But at the very least you can make a heart commitment that you are going to follow what you dream about. What’s the harm? Just open it up and say I will do it! It won’t cost you a cent.  Don’t go quitting jobs or firing people… just say you will do it.

Phase 2 - Spend quality time inside your imagination building it on a daily basis

I read in Embraced by the light, a woman’s perception of the afterlife; that life is fully lived in the imagination. What we can imagine doing… we end up doing. Our imagination was given to us as a building tool.  It’s not just for sexy daydreams!  It’s a great way to open up your mind to things you didn’t think were possible.  Imagine yourself living your dream.  Why?  Simply, because… what you imagine today… you do tomorrow. 

Phase 3 - Look for opportunities and spend dedicated time learning about what you need to do in order to reach your dream

There is always a ‘doing’ cycle in reaching a goal. That doing is not paramount, in fact it’s the least important. You act and build your life from a creative vision you have growing on the inside. Purpose, is built from the inside out.

This works for me: When I am looking to build something and I have inner confirmation that I should be doing it I say (speaking is acting… if you say it with meaning and purpose), “I am expecting you God to help me reach this goal today because I perceive you want me to do it, so I thank you in advance for opportunities to take positive steps towards the end result. I expect good things to happen to me today.” You will be surprised at what you can do as a result of simply saying things like this. Yes, it’s the whole carpark thing but for some reason it works for me. It may not for you so put down your rocks.  The point is find what does work by trying and stick to it like glue.

The other part of the ‘acting’ part is to begin to look into and inquire about the the thing you wish to do. Learn what you can… this is a small part but it’s where you can do the least. If you dream to buy a yacht why not learn about them? Don’t spend all day in the store OR get overwhelmed by the stupid price of these things. Why not save up and take sailing lessons? Or hire a book or two from the library on sailing. Maybe, you can ask around and score a free ride from somebody? Who knows what can happen? To be honest… when the timing is right I have always noticed (often in hindsight) things that I was doing were required to help me in achieving the goal.

So where to from here?

What are you going to do? Are you going to build into your life the possibility of making a difference or are you going to sit back and be an armchair critic? I can assure you of this simple fact: unless you begin to think things can change today, tomorrow will still present you with the same old BS it did yesterday. This is a matter of choice. Are you going to build your dreams by at the very least looking into it or will be like the rest of the ants in this world and simply follow orders. The choice is yours.

A goad is a long sharp stick used to poke things. My whole life I have felt like one of these. A goad is a tool used mainly to make some unfortunate animal do something it doesn’t want to do. A poke here and a poke there… the animal unwillingly obeys. At times I have met people I played the goad with. These are the people that need a poke in the right direction… a sharp stab to the left and right.

Iron sharpens iron

Some times you have to be the person who stands up and says something to guide people in the right direction. I can tell you from personal experience… it isn’t always that easy. Often, very often in my line of work, you can make a suggestion but because of your status in the eyes of others you may not get through. The important thing in this case is not to push against the pressure but navigate around it. You really need to think through your position and take it from there.

When to goad when not to goad

Use your head and your gut to learn when to goad. People may not be ready to be pushed or shoved in the right direction. But, there is a time and a place to guide people to get them where they need to be. Excusitis can be paralysing … so what better way to help others overcoming by being a goad?

Isn’t it funny that one of the most intriguing things about us is us? Why is that we go to school, grow up and follow whatever we do and never think about it the reasons why we make decisions. We have in us dreams, desires and natural inclinations that we often don’t even know are there. However, there are really two different kinds of voices that come out of us when it comes to desires. The first is a desire to do something out of our own strength, what we can call what we would like to do and the other is something that comes out of us, which we can call what we should do.

Who are you?

Scientists tell us that we have two parts to the brain, the left side and the right side. Traditionally we have called the left side rational and the right side intuitive. In the spiritual workings of man there are also two really strong ways of discerning what comes from where and how to understand it. On the left (rational) side we have cognitive structures or logical conclusions that help us to reach certain kinds of solutions and on the right side we have intuitive reactions that come from the creative inner workings of our spirits. There is much confusion in Christian circles about how our two parts work together and how they function.

The left side of the brain is often labeled the logical brain. This side of the brain takes our ideas and shapes them into logical structures for us to understand things so we can appropriately frame the world around us. These frames form the foundation of our thinking when it’s logical thinking. Such thinking is a connected set of ideas that can be logically explained. Those who lean to this side of the brain quite often are adept at putting together very good arguments and can see the loopholes in the logic of others. Some people I work with are very good at building logical bridges from one end of a problem to another but all the time they are in analysis mode. All they are really doing is coming to solid conclusions based on the evidence they have before them.

Evidence is the substance that the natural left side of the brain creates things with. Its evidence is solid, factual and represented by sense data that it perceives to be useful to the person who is beholding it. A mathematical equation is purely logical. It has a sound formula to it that if you followed it would result in a known answer. It’s logical and rational. Most human beings operate this way when they are in the spirit. They see something and reach a conclusion based on natural evidence. An example is that I like Lasagne very VERY much. This is a logical conclusion I have reached by eating it and desiring it’s taste. This has nothing to do with the other side of my brain and it certainly has nothing to do with the way I am.

Knowing who you are does not come from drawing natural conclusions. It comes from something much deeper than that. If God had exalted the mind beyond it’s position in the body to be the centre then we could so easily say that we were made to be purely logical and absolutely natural but this isn’t the case. The left side of our brain reaches out into the world around us and makes logical conclusions. The other side the right side of our brain is the intuitive side. This is what we know about ourselves that we haven’t logically concluded.

Intuition is an inner knowing that presents us with information we have NOT logically derived from our experience in the world. This information stems from a deep inner knowing within us about something. Quite often we rationalise God out of existence before he has had a chance to tell us something. We draw logical conclusions without thinking about what we already know on the inside. Knowing the real you, who you really are, comes from the information that is not logically derived because it’s that which underpins everything else.

Logic can better be thought of 1 + 1 = 2 but stop for a minute. You know what you know about yourself because you know it. I know I like to play the guitar. Something inside me gets great pleasure out of creative things and I really enjoy it. I didn’t reach that conclusion by running a stochastic model, I found it out by just being in the right conditions to find it out. The real you is not logically available it’s intuitively available. If you find yourself attracted to certain things and you can’t explain why then you have found it or at least some of it.

I have a small black Chihuahua who went out into the backyard the other day and began barking at a bluetongue lizard. At first I thought she was just being annoying but after a while she got more and more vicious! When I went out the lizard was gone but the dog was still barking. Why was she doing that? Why didn’t she just let it go? She kept going because instinctively she didn’t know why but she had to do it. There was no real reason why but she had to do it. The conditions drew a tendency out of her that she wasn’t aware of and it bubbled to the surface.

One time I thought I was called to make lots of money and build a successful business. As time went on and the creative edge of business maintenance set in I realised I was have hidden entrepreneurial desires that come out in certain conditions yet I am a dreadful manager! The day to day grind of trying to come up with sales and make things work was horrible. I felt so tired and exhausted but I didn’t have the money to get someone else to do it. I am called to be creative and if I don’t pay attention … it finds another way to come out of me. I can write a short story or a novel and it just flows out of me. I get ideas, characters and all kinds of things coming to me. Now, I am not special but when the right conditions come along I find the real me.

Logically if I try to come to conclusions through reasoning, a survey (although they can be helpful in finding the underlying desires) or whatever I won’t find the real me. I already know what I am like and all I need to do is look at the way I am and I will find what I am supposed to be doing. A friend of mine likes to play chess, draw puzzles and play computers. I have found him to always look at what’s going on around him and come to the closest available solution which is less than helpful. However, put the man in front of a computer and he could make it sing. Why? The right conditions present him with what he likes doing being logically creative with technical things.

Now if I took the same person and told him he should sit down and come to a reasoned conclusion about who he really is he would have to come up with something rather than simply being who he is. The hardest choice you will ever have to make is deciding to be who you really are. You have been given talents and gifts by God for a reason. What conditions will you need to make it work for you? What will make you bark?

One half of your brain is logical for a reason, you need to reach conclusions about things that are well thought out and you need to make good decisions. If you want to learn how to drive a car, add up an equation or discern black from white then you need to know some stuff. That’s logical. You are not a machine and you are not an equation you are a living breathing spirit. I am not saying that you will know what you are supposed to do that’s a completely different story but the beginning of knowing who you are starts with what’s already there. You just need the right conditions to come along to tease that the real you out.

In concluding this article I would like to say that I think one of the greatest problems we have in the Christian world we have is that we have a church centric mentality. Every dream and every desire is fine so long as it’s supports the vision of the pastor. There is nothing wrong with vision bearing pastors or church but at some stage you must realise that God may not want you to be involved … he may have other desires in mind for you. Supporting your local church is good so long as you recognise that you are as much a minister as the pastor is and that you have a role to play that is equally as important. There are a lot of people who simply never find their calling in God because they cannot conceive of it outside of the four walls of the church. This is nothing more than religious nonsense. You are important and God loves you remember that.

I hope that you think about what I have written here. Don’t look at yourself through logically eyes to find the answer … look inside into your intuition. What does that tell you? If you can’t see past your logic ask yourself this question: What am I naturally drawn to? What do I want to do like nothing else I have ever done before? It’s my prayer that you will find this and over time allow God to show you what he has in store for you. The best is yet to come.

Technorati Tags: Christian, logical thinking, Chihuahua

I was in the car driving home from work when I suddenly realised something. Big actions often come from deep seated unconscious feelings that we really don’t understand. Think about the decision to have children, was it a rational choice or something that you felt you had to do. What about the choice to follow a career in the field you are in? Was there something about that kind of job that just spoke to you? A lot of the time the choices we make, especially those from the heart, cause us to take huge actions.

There is a thing called post-hoc rationalisation which I lectured on the other day that says we often take actions and later justify them by making sense of what happened because we don’t really know why we did what we did. Take me for instance. I am attracted to things that are new. No, not shiny things… new things. I like to create stuff and make it. In my job I don’t get much of a chance to do that at present so I have been a bit tired. But, when I am working through something new and ideas are flowing I feel like I have had a fire set under my backside. It’s truly wonderful. Why is that? It’s because deep down that’s me and when I see that in the world it’s me coming out.

As small step we need to begin to pay attention to what we do and trace it back to what we think and then some kind of underlying feeling or emotion.  These deep things we ignore are us.  I have once heard it put this way you are not what you think about you are the bit behind the thoughts.  I think in business we need to pay more attention to these things and take them more seriously.  I think this is an interesting topic and I will be posting more about this in the next few days.   Thanks for reading.

Technorati Tags: unconscious, feelings, decision, actions

Our western educational process generally discourages us from following in the footsteps of intuitive thinking. We are encouraged to follow the well worn path of reasoning but very rarely are we asked to intuitively think about things. Think for a moment about the things you know about yourself. Say for example, you are driving down the motorway and somebody cuts you off. What’s the first thing you would say? What kind of things do you find funny?

These kinds you just know about yourself are intuition. You don’t need to go to far to find the answers because these are things that you know. Ever gone to do something and you felt that you just shouldn’t do it? Or perhaps met an individual that you just didn’t like from the very first time you laid eyes on them? Why is that? I teach a lot of people at university who are very good at reasoning but not so good at intuition. It’s almost like we thing we have to switch off the role of intuition in our education process because it’s counter cultural. Today I want to make a case for encouraging the free flow of intuition.

When you know that you know

The Late Steve Irwin once said in an interview that he always had a deep passion for wildlife. You can tell he wasn’t lying when the man used to quite happily pick up a snake and not worry about it. I had the pleasure of seeing him perform literally weeks before he died. He put so much passion into his shows that it was really amazing to watch. He wasn’t pretending and he certainly wasn’t making it up in my opinion … it was 100% passion. How could he do that? I think because he just knew what he should be doing. He knew that he knew that he should be working with wildlife and with animals. You have instincts on the inside of you that are dying to get out. Can I tell you that you need to develop these instincts. That which you know about yourself will change as you learn more about it but the core ‘knowing‘ or intuition you have will never change. That which you know that you know about you is who you really are.

You never have to think about intuitive things

In a previous article I spoke about the art of conjecture. Often when we take guesses we are basing our decision making on our intuition. Harvard Academic Daniel Isenberg found that top managers often make most of their decisions when they talk out loud to themselves. Why is this? It’s because they are thinking through their decisions to see what feels right. Intuition is always there you never really have to think about it… but sometimes our subtle reasoning processes make us believe things we think are helpful but really are not. A conclusion after careful scrutiny is not intuitive thinking. We are using intuitive thinking when we are doing what our gut is telling is the right thing to do.

Intuition has built some great things

Go back and study some of the greatest entreprenuers. How many of them just knew that they would make it and this ‘faith’ drove them on to create impossible things. I am talking of people like Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson and so on. If you carefully look at how these people make their decisions there is as much reasoning as there is intuition. Some of the biggest decisions I have made have been through intuition. It’s not a flawless guide… but it’s a lot better than me just reasoning.

I would encourage you today to stop reasoning so much and begin looking towards your intuition. Knowing stuff is good because it develops us and makes us better. However, than can be no replacement for genuine ‘gut instinct’ in times of crisis, testing and extremity. Don’t rely of your mathematics or basic processes of mental reasoning only… remember your gut! Start today.

Technorati Tags: intuition, university, education process, instincts, knowing