The power of desire and intentional practice

Last week I posed the question of “Who is writing your life story?” and alluded to the creative power of our words.

You can harness the power of intention, practice and desire to write a new life story.  More than just a new chapter. If you can imagine the person you’d love to be, you can move toward a new identity.

The thing is, we have become our daily habits, which came from our internal dialogue. Often it was the path of least resistance. So the transformational work starts with becoming aware of all these learned defaults. Those working with a coach will identify default habits as you go, consider new perspectives, think about possible more helpful alternatives.

Your lens – time for new glasses?

The way we interpret information and experiences is like a lens. Your lens is familiar, habitual, so things made sense. It helped get you where you are now. But this lens is also the limiter – there is a time to change glasses – that is, if you want a new life story.

Once we are aware our lens and default patterns are the limiters, we can begin to break with the old and move to new possibilities.

Intention

You will see yourself acting with intention, it’s like having new purpose, you become deliberate. In my yoga practice (ever challenging) I find bringing intention to my practice brings me to the present, being mindful; intention refreshes my attitude and brings me a new lens to my practice.

Bringing intention to your mental habits is like accessing the throne-room of change.

Practice

Once you take new actions with intention, then it’s just a matter of practice. (Is change that simple? Yes, but simple isn’t the same as easy). Not just any practice, but intentional, focussed practice. Did you know it takes 10,000-15,000 hours of focussed practice to become a world-class expert in a particular skill? At that point you make it look so easy! The focussed practice literally writes the skill into your neural networks. … Is writing your new life story worth some intentional practice in new skills?

All this time, you are talking to yourself. What are you saying? Your words must come into alignment with the new identity you desire and visualize.

I often hear people saying, “I was just joking”, and of course they weren’t. A joke comes from a belief, it’s in character. There is not a bucket of random jokes that drops out of the sky into our brains.

This brings us to the prime importance of

Desire

Desire is the hotbed of change, energy, inspiration.

Desire drives us to reproduce dreams into reality. It is like oxygen to the fire.

You need desire to write a new life story. Desire supports intention, practice.

If your desire level is low, look at the clarity of your vision. Is it blurry and vague? Or can you describe it in vivid detail, how it looks, feels and sounds?

Another dampener to Desire is long term lack of achievement, where you begin to believe you are stuck in a perpetual, inevitable unsatisfying destiny.  This can occur when you are working outside your strengths too long or in conflict with your true values. Mediocrity could come from mental laziness or lack of vision – or not knowing how to cultivate vision.

The creative power of words

All along, you are talking to yourself, commentating on your performance and projections. Your subconscious is accepting these as truth, even when these are only perceptions. We have long ago learned that the subconscious believes whatever we tell it with impact and frequency, and we can change that by conscious intentional practice. The greater repetition of the story we paint to ourselves – the more vibrant colours, the sound and intense feelings your language evokes to your senses – our subconscious that drives our behaviour accepts as real, and we act accordingly.

Have you noticed the turning point when a couple start ‘joking’ about divorce, and how the relationship changes to a different track, communication and trust changes, often eventuating to that outcome.

A couple of useful insights into language

Did you know when you say “Don’t forget…” the subconscious hears “forget”, so it acts that out.

To imprint a desired behaviour you need to frame it as “Remember to…”

Or when about to make a presentation you tell yourself “Don’t be nervous”. Your mind hears “nervous”, feels the emotion and responds perfectly with nervous physiology and blundering.

It’s totally different when you speak to yourself, “I am excited about presenting today, my system is in top performance though relaxed…”   Absorb yourself into this feeling. And watch the difference.

Words create              

We don’t really know how, but words hold creative power.  Your words can work for you, or against you.

Key thought:

Where is your language and thinking pinning you to you new desired future? Where is it pinning you to past history?

To write a new life story for  2015, harness the power of intention, practice and desire. And re-shape your language.