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What do you want?
I have never been
hunting before but I’ve noticed hunters always know what they are hunting before
they begin. Can you imagine anything sillier than traipsing around in some woods
somewhere, hunting for something without knowing what it is? If I told you we
were going hunting for Whatchadoodles tomorrow, wouldn’t you at least want to
know what one looked like first?
Success is the same way. You have to know what you are shooting for. How
will you know whether you have hit it unless you know what it is?
The first step in getting what you want in life is identifying what you
want. One of the biggest questions you will ever ask yourself is, “What do I
want?” Most people never bother asking themselves this question, much less
answering it.
I have asked thousands of people what they want but I don’t think I’ve ever
had one person answer the question correctly. Their replies never answer the
question I asked. They always seem to be answering another question such as,
“What would you settle for?” or “What’s the best you think you’ll ever be likely
to get?”
I almost always hear answers like, “Well, I’d like to pay off the credit
cards,” or “I’d like to be able to retire” or “I wish my spouse and I got along
better.”
There is nothing wrong with those answers but I just have wonder if those
are the types of things those people dreamed about when they were young. “I hope
to grow up one day and be able to get out of debt.” Or how about, “When I grow
up, I want to marry someone that I can fight less with.” While these are
certainly worthwhile goals, they definitely don’t sound very exciting, do they?
I believe the reason people aren’t able to tell me what they want is that
before the question ever reaches their brains, it has to pass through several of
their emotional filters first.
It has to pass through the “you’re not good enough” filter or the “you
tried that before and it didn’t work” filter. They have become trained fleas.
Have you heard about trained fleas? I am told that if you take a group of
fleas, put them in a jar and seal the lid, you will hear the sound of them
jumping up and hitting the lid for hours. After a while though, they learn they
cannot escape, so they still jump, but just not high enough to hit the lid. I
hear that you can actually remove the lid and they won’t escape because they
learned it is impossible.
Have you come to believe that what you want is an impossibility? Do you
avoid exploring what you want out of life because you fear being disappointed?
I encourage you to embark upon a quest of discovering what you truly
desire. Determining your desire isn’t making a wish list nor is it an exercise
in fantasy. It is an exploration of what is important to you and what you desire
your life to be.
After all, living your life without asking yourself what you want is just
shooting in the dark.
© 2004 Charles Marshall. Charles Marshall is a motivational speaker, motivational author and president of M Power Resources, LLC. Visit his Web site at www.MPowerResources.com or contact him via e-mail at charles@MPowerResources.com.
