Have you ever sat down and thought about what you wanted? I know I have several times and I believe I have probably written about it at least once. I know that life is really what you make of it and what you want. I have had a hard time defining what I want from life. I know that I want to speak to groups, help people improve their lives, write, and travel the world. What I have a problem with is defining the details of what those items look like.
For example, as I start looking at speaking, I get stuck in looking at how speaking will manifest itself in my life. Do I have to promote myself as a speaker and go about getting speaking engagements? Maybe. How does my job and speaking co-exist? Do I have to give up my job and become a full time speaker? And for me, that is where my fear is. It is not in speaking, I love to speak and I wish that I had more opportunities to speak. The fear is looking at the specifics of how speaking will look.
But, what if I just held the idea that I want to be a speaker? What if I let got of the specifics of how speaking will materialize in my life? Maybe my job allows me to be a speaker? Would that be ok? YES! I think that I have struggled with thinking that what I want has to be defined in a certain way and shape, but I can open up to the possibility that it does not have to be a certain shape or size, but the feeling that I get from speaking is more important than how speaking comes into my life.
When I start to look at speaking in that light. I know that I have had several opportunities to speak and never really appreciated that it was a speaking opportunity. For example, I used to run a monthly tech talk at the office with a coworker. We used to host a WebEx and talk to all the technical people in the company. Well, that is speaking, and I had a wonderful time doing those talks. There has actually been some talk about bringing those talks back with the same coworker. I am excited about the possibility.
As I look at the items on my list, I have had several of the items on my list year and continue to have them with my job. Another example is travel. Last year, I traveled a lot. Yes, a lot! Over 200 days on the road, and I got to see some places that I never thought I would see, like Singapore, Macao, and Hong Kong. My problem was that I looked at most of the travel as time away from my family and I felt guilty for it. But, when I relaxed and just enjoyed it because I was there, I had some wonderful experiences with some wonderful people. I met and made some good friends along the way.
I guess that I have never really taken a look at what I want and how I might be getting it from my job. I am always looking at how my job is holding me back from getting what I want and that what I want is not coming to me, but what if I am getting what I want from my job?
Does it always look like this? I do not know. I think that I just need to be open to the possibility and allow and appreciate. Just because it does not look exactly like I want it to look does not mean that I am not getting it. It is very interesting that everything I have wanted is coming to me. It just did not look like I thought it would look.
I do not know for you, but this is pretty amazing for me to realize. How about you? What do you want? If you step back from what you want, are you looking for something to specifically? If somebody wanted to give you a new BMW and it was red, did you not accept it because you wanted a silver one? Are you looking for that someone special in your life and there is somebody, but they are not EXACTLY what you were looking for? I am not saying that you should compromise what is important to you, but what is really important for you, having EXACTLY what you want, or really having the feeling of what you want? Take a moment and think about what you really want and what is the feeling of that and see if you are getting it in your life right now.
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