How to Get Whatever You Want

In the past, I have written off goals and desires just because of the overwhelm it gave me thinking about how long it would take to get there.  We have all heard that humans have the uncanny ability to talk ourselves out of goals by making excuses as to why we can’t have it.  Yet, in my opinion…that’s actually step #1 to getting what you want.

Going over in your mind all that can go wrong or how said goal may not work out is not a bad thing.  Unless you stop at that.  People who get what they want take all of those “excuses” and use them as part of a plan of implementation.  Those excuses become red flags to work around or prepare for, as it’s really just our mind trying to protect us from discomfort or harm.

When you are young and have no clue what you are doing or how to get there, overwhelm can lead you to get lost at best, and have you not start at all at worst.  Yet just starting is actually how you begin to get what you want – just one simple step.  From there, I have found that you have to release attachment to what it will all look like in the end.  Mostly because we change course throughout our journey.  Variables both inside and outside of our control can come into play, but also we can’t picture with our human minds at the beginning, or even the middle, just how wonderful things can turn out when those variables interject themselves.

Buddhists believe that hanging on to any thing, person, or idea with a kung foo death grip is what causes suffering. It causes suffering because allowing our identities to become tied into what we so dearly desire is unsustainable.  Things change.  We change. This is the reason why so many people have the experience of losing it after a loss. They can’t get the picture of how they thought it was going to be out of their head. To some extent, we all have the tendency to do this.

In the pursuit of whatever you want, you have to be down with failure.  (tweet it!) 

The one real reason that most people don’t go after what they truly want, outside of what others will think of them, is because they fear failure.  The thing is though, you cannot outrun failure in the same way that you can’t outrun death.  Failure comes for us all in some fashion or another.  They might be small failures that hurt more personally than anything, or they may be large failures where your endeavor crashes and burns spectacularly for all to see.  All of it is needed to help not only shape us as humans having an experience, but to shape our pursuit of attaining the thing/experience that we want.

Ask yourself a lot of questions along the way; I have found this to be fundamental in my attaining my dreams and desires.  Sometimes I find that I don’t want what I thought that I wanted, or while I’m halfway there I decide to add something to said dream that waylays me a tad.  The point that I’m trying to make is that if you are unwilling to self-evaluate what you are doing, how you are doing it and if you’re actually accomplishing anything – you won’t accomplish anything.  Self-examination is at the heart of getting whatever you want because how else would you even know what you desire?

Allowing enough room inside of your dreams and goals and treating them as organic living things that need nurturing is what every single Richard Branson will tell you that you have to do.  Here are the rest of the steps:

1. Know what you want & Know what you have the ability to bring in

What you want will change over and over again, but it will basically be the same.  Some people desire money, but what they really want is the security and the freedom they perceive money will give them.  Find ways to bring yourself the feelings that you desire, and what you desire, money in this instance, will be the by-product.  Focus on the talents that you naturally have that will be fundamental in getting you what you want, as well as those that you can develop for your end game.

2. Be patient

It’s taken me three whole years of getting to the barn at 5 am, taking care of my horses, mucking stalls, running home to get ready for work, going to work, and going back to the barn at 5pm nearly 7 days per week to get my Equestrian Management Company to be where I can actually begin to focus on growing.  Patience is not my favorite thing, but there were some mornings that I was so sore and so tired that I cried all 11 miles to the barn in the early morning darkness.  I had to have a few really bad boarders to recognize what great boarders look like.  I learned how to vet people, how to communicate, and how not to be taken advantage of.  Here I am today with more than a dozen of the best, most talented, dedicated, lovely people that I consider family, helping me make this work.  P

Patience sucks and you’ll get no argument out of me otherwise, but I now understand that everything that we so desire for our lives takes time. It takes a lot of time actually. To give you an analogy, Rome wasn’t built in one day. For if it had been, it more than likely wouldn’t still exist.  Build for the legacy…not the short-term gain.

3. Be happy.  Now.

Being happy right now, in the process, despite the fact that you do not currently have what you want is the magic sauce. I you have to LOVE the journey.  While I was crying during those early mornings where I was frustrated, I still LOVED the fact that I had a beautiful and cozy barn all to myself.  I still LOVED the fact that I had three horses waiting on me to get there who nickered at the sight of me.  I knew that my idea was just too good to not keep going, so now I always look for reasons to LOVE the process of building.  It puts out great vibes for all of your desires to come to you, like a homing beacon.  It keeps you moving toward what it is that you want because when you are not happy, you can then use that information as a marker to find your way back to your path.  At my lowest, I developed a new routine that I LOVED and looked forward to – and that kept me content enough until things started to come together.

4. Love yourself limitless & Give thanks

Love yourself enough to have really big goals. Don’t sell yourself short based on what it is that you know and have experienced today. There are things, people, places, and opportunities that you have never thought of as a possibility because you do not yet know that they exist.  Love yourself enough to allow different and unimaginable possibilities.  Give gratitude for things that have yet to come.  Give thanks to yourself for being courageous enough to begin your endeavor.  Give thanks for getting what you want before you even have it.  And most importantly, thank everyone in your path – whether you had a good experience with them or not – because their actions/inactions are helping bring in what you really want.

5. Let go. Just let go.

Be Buddhist for a minute, and release expectations. Have your basic plan, but leave room for change, for growth, for magic, for things to turn out better than you can picture them right now with your current understanding. Anything can happen and you have to factor that into your desire striving. In order to not get knocked off course, pay attention to everything and everyone that comes to you; will it bring you closer to what you desire or further away? Is it in alignment with where you are going and how you are currently traveling there? Is it something to be considered for future reference?

I know that the above steps seem simple in logic, but a tad overwhelming when you think about practicing them. Just know that getting whatever it is that you want isn’t always hard. It isn’t always this sweat-upon-our-brow-hard-slog of a time.  Actually it’s quite pleasant and mostly enjoyable when you look back on it. There will be times of rolling up your sleeves and digging in, you can count on it.  Also times where you cry for 11 miles.  Mostly however, it is a process of intuition and imagination.

Getting what we want is within our control and only our control. No one else can give us what we want and us continue to be happy long term. There will be key players that present opportunities, support, guidance, mentor-ship and the like because no man is an island, but getting what we want is an inside job. Someone handing you your dreams without you having done the introspection and enjoyable work to get there is a recipe to have it all taken away at a moments notice.

Because what is giveth can be taketh.

Whether the desire you have is big or small, or whether or not it is within the foreseeable future, or the future future, we can all have whatever we want. No matter how bold it looks to us right now.  Now isn’t that something 🙂

In Service,