Getting ahead in life (and enjoying it)

Recently, I was asked to answer a Question on Quora. The asker wanted to know how to stop feeling ‘behind’ in life. 

The main question that needs to be answered first is what does ‘ahead’ or ‘behind’ mean when it comes to life? Life is a game, but it can be difficult to make it in a game when you don’t. know the rules.

When playing a board game, you normally have a manual, which no one actually ever reads. When I play board games I usually look at other people playing or ask them to explain the rules to me. Not knowing the rules of the game, would get me as well as the other players extremely frustrated. I might eventually learn the rules through playing blindly, but will also certainly lose the first game. Unfortunately in life we don’t really get a second game, and if we do, we don’t remember the experience of previous games. Fortunately for us, reality is not a game per se, but rather more of a playground.

When I was a little boy, I used to play in the sand dunes near where I used to live, I would run around with a friend, and we would create our own games. The dunes were our playground, together with our minds and imagination they supplied all the necessities for creation of wonderful games. These games were ones which we always won, because we made our own rules for them. 

Life is very similar, it gives you all the necessities for great games, but if you want to win it, or at least enjoy it, you have to set up your own rules. 

Now, of course reality has some rules of its own, and you share the playground with other beings, but you are the one who decides on the winning conditions of your game. Unfortunately, most people don’t realize it and just take on rules decided by others, but it’s still their choice to follow these rules. 

Often when people say they are ‘ahead’ or ‘behind’ in life, they refer to some social standard of what is expected at a certain age or life stage. Following these social standards is exactly what I mean when I say they are following someone else’s rules. What we should all do is set our own goals and standards, and only Compare our progress to ourselves. It’s up to Us to decide what we are here to do, and what will give our lives meaning. As long as we allow others to decide it for us, we rely on them to decide whether or not we are happy. 

So ask yourself: “what do I really want to achieve to be successful in life?”

Then ask yourself: “is it really something I want, or is it something that’s expected of me to gain the love, or respect of others? (Or both)”

I recommend asking yourself that every now and then to make sure the person who determines the victory conditions of your life, is You!!

Begin deciding, and start winning your life.

Your wizard 

Taking a leaf out of a plant’s book – or the most effective way to grow

We often have goals, motivation for change, improvement (and so we should). Sometimes we want to open a new leaf, to start over completely. Other times we feel like facing a challenge guns ablazing, storm to the head of the mountain and get it done and over with.

This approach is very common, especially if you’re like me – impatient. The problem is, when you try to improve or change something all at once, you often give it great significance. This significance puts pressure on you, and one one hand pushes you forward. On the other hand, the challenge becomes big in your mind, because it’s so significant, it literally becomes a mountain you feel you have to climb. This metaphor creates a feeling of overwhelm, and gives rise to fears. It will also consume your motivation and wear it out. 

On the other hand, look at a plant. Its essence is dedicated for growing, just as we all are, when we’re healthy. But normally you wouldn’t see a bean grow a giant bean stalk over night, these images are reserved to man-made fairy tales. In real life, growth takes time, and is done with tiny steps. Instead of swinging from one point to another, it consists of an infinite number of points of balance. The way of effective change is by making an infinitely small change, maintaining balance, and then making another small change, rinse and repeat. Another problem with big changes, is that they take a great deal of self control/determination/discipline. Essentially when the change is too big, it feels like pulling an elastic band, the longer you stretch it, the more force you have to use to keep it stretched. If you keep spending that energy you’ll get weaker and tired, and eventually let go. Now imagine what would happen to that band once you let go…

My advice is, whenever you’re facing a challenge – a big assignment or change you wish to have in your life, chunk it down. By chunking down I mean, take the change and divide it to several steps, the smaller the steps are – the better, especially if you list them somewhere and keep track. You can read an example of chunking down in a answer I wrote on Quora recently. In this answer, I encouraged the writer of the question to make a plan to focus their attention on schoolwork in incremental steps, starting with just 2 minutes at first. By chunking a challenge down to easy small steps you get several benefits:

1. You reduce the significance of the challenge, and no longer get overwhelmed by its size or difficulty.
2. You make each step an easy step, helping you prevent procrastination, because it is no longer this huge thing you have to do, it’s just a small task, so why not get it over with?
3. You can check that box. Making a list of small easy steps, and checking each step off is incredibly empowering. As human beings we often like to check boxes, it helps keep track of our progress and make us see that we are getting further along, and closer to our goal. 
4. You can cultivate a feeling of accomplishment with each step. We’ve all made a cognitive link between success and happiness, so that whenever we achieve something, we feel happy and empowered. By chunking down, you get an infinitely larger number of successes to enjoy, but only if you allow yourself to! If you make each step a smaller peak, and stop to enjoy the view on your way to the mountain top, your quality of life will improve greatly.
5. You make the change into a habit. If you recall my elastic band metaphor from earlier. Chunking down, is like pulling the band only slightly each time, and allowing it to adjust, so it’s in a new state, and won’t revert back if you release. This allows for a more sustainable change and helps prevent a backlash should you pause or stop your progress. Eventually, your change is no longer unfamiliar, it’s just another habit you have and don’t even have to think about, you just do it, and spend much less attention and energy on it.

The last part is the main reason why whenever someone comes to me and ask about dietary change I advise chunking down. A diet isn’t or shouldn’t be something you do until ‘X’ happens, it’s something you are doing always, it’s a habit of nutrition. Of course it changes with time, a diet much like life should be dynamic and fit our health and lifestyle, but it should never be something you “go on”, because going on a diet is like a large pull on the elastic band, and most people who went on different diets know the pain of letting go of the elastic band. 

So go on, storm new mountain tops, and reach new heights, it’s what we’re meant to do in this life, it makes life exciting and worth living, but make sure you see all the little peaks on the way to the mountain tops. As always I ask that if you enjoyed this or felt this post benefits you, please share it with people you think might also benefit with reading it.

Meet you on the next peak,

Your wizard.

I’m back (and just in time)

After taking too long a break, I’ve started writing again recently. The reason for the break, had partly to do with the topic of this blog post: self worth.

We all sometimes have things we are not happy with in our lives, in our character or in our history. We should remember though, that as much as it’s important to strive to grow and change for the better, it’s equally as important to realize that our self worth, or feeling of self worth should not depend on that. That, in a nutshell is what I told this young lady in my answer to her question on Quora. She focused her question on her comparison of herself to her boyfriend, but it is implied through her wording that she was under-valuing herself in general, and that she needs to understand that she is and should feel worthy just for being herself. Struggling with her weaknesses will only give her more pain and suffering. I had a similar problem a few months ago, as after an especially painful rejection I started linking the attributes I wished to have (attributes which might have made me more attractive to my subject of affection) to my feeling of self worth. After battling my feeling of depression and even a little dispair, I started working hard on improving the attributes I found lacking. Obviously as I made progress I felt better, but only briefly. Only after I remembered and regained my sense of purpose in this world, I remembered that this purpose, defines who I am. Remembering who I really am broke the link between my feeling of self worth and my conceived weaknesses. I remembered suddenly that I am worth something just for being me, for recognizing my core values and those parts of my being that I can’t change even if I wanted to.

So ask yourself this question: do I really value myself for being who I am? Or am I linking my self worth to something outside of me, something dictated by my mind rather than my soul?

See you soon, and remember you are valuable and deserve to be loved just for being who you are. Please share this if you found this helpful or can think of someone who might benefit from reading this.

Love elixir

Ever found yourself feeling lonely? repeatedly struggling to fight the nagging thought “when am I finally going to find someone”? or as Freddie used to say, “can anybody find me somebody to love?”. When facing loneliness, which is sometimes accompanied with the feeling of inadequacy, we often hear the cliché “love yourself first, and others will follow”. To which, I find myself answering “but I’m lonely, and I’m in pain, and I just want someone to kiss it and make it better”.

It’s difficult to love yourself, which is absurd, because it shouldn’t. We’ve been taught by society, from infancy, to stop loving ourselves, to tell ourselves we’re not good enough unless someone else loves us. But then, as we fall for someone, we demand, or expect them to fill the hole that we create within ourselves. Most often, we either don’t believe them when they express their love, or we just don’t allow ourselves to feel it. Because as the cliché goes, when one does not allow oneself to love oneself, he or she is saying “I am not worthy of love”, and we can be extremely convincing!! Our mind doesn’t like inconstancies. When it decides on a truth, it will find evidence to support it, whether we like it or not.

Sometimes I also find myself making this error, and once I’m in this very disempowering state, it’s very difficult to find the inner peace, required to shift back. People these days often go into relationships looking for someone to complete them, to meet their need for love that they don’t meet themselves. This either leads to unsatisfying relationships in which the partners blame eachother for not “doing their part” or to addictive relationships, in which people find themselves relying on the other person to give them another ‘fix’.

Recently I caught myself weaving a very convincing narrative, a story of love, or rather infatuation. For what is infatuation if not an act of falling for an image of our design? When the object of my desire rejected me. I was in so much pain, my mind wandered to thoughts of inadequacy, and I kept telling myself that I will never find love. I forgot that first I need to remind myself of who I really am. But even after a while, when I rediscovered the image of my true, strong, brave and playful self. A small glimpse of loneliness ended up dispelling this newly found strength.

So how do we counter this self destructive pattern? How do we retrain the mind and change what we believe? Sometimes this belief is so strong we can’t remember how it was before, when we were enough, when all you needed was (self) love, as the poet once wrote.

As I’ve written in previous posts, sometimes we need to cast a powerful spell, to counter a dark spell we cast in our past. Using metaphors and images can indirectly influence our minds, basically tricking it to exchange imagination with reality.

To treat this painful wound, I slowly entered a peaceful state, and sought out the pain that I’ve been feeling. Realizing that this pain in my chest was simply hunger for love and connection, I decided it’s time to take responsibility for my own thirst and treat the wound.

My experience teaches me that we have several personas, archetypes if you’d like, within ourselves. I am already familiar with the main integral parts of my being, and so from my safe place I invited them one by one, to first remind me of who I really am.

The second step was to offer myself love. To do this I invited the part of myself which is the most loving and asked for help. For me, this part takes the form of a dancer in white, for you – he or she will no doubt take another form. I asked him to love me, and as he embraced me, I felt the pain in my chest, this hole that has been vying for love and attention slowly being filled, the light, love and energy filled me up. At first it seemed like no matter how much went in, the hole was so big, the thirst so intense, that there was still so much more to go, eventually, with enough time, and love, the thirst began to quench, until at some point, the only thing left of the pain was a faint memory.

We trained ourselves to believe that love must come from outside of ourselves. Using this picture, I tricked my mind to believe that I was being loved by someone outside of me, when who I was really getting all this so much needed love was just another aspect of myself.
By repeating this process, we can gradually rewire our brains, and fulfill our own need for love and connection. Eventually we will believe that we ARE worthy of love, and allow ourselves to give ourselves this needed love. With so much self love, giving our love to others will become a choice, coming from abundance, rather than from a state of scarcity.

I’m sending much love in your direction, and wish that you find the wisdom, and the courage to find (self) love.

Disentangling ties

This is dedicated to the new year, to closure and new beginnings.

Through life, we interact with other people in ways which sometimes make bits of their essence cling to us, whether it’s a jealous ex, a recently departed friend, or a family member which seems to have to much sway over us and finds a way to push all our buttons. Sometimes in order to move on, we need to find a way to distance ourselves, set ourselves emotionally or even physically apart. The technique I’m about to share with you today might be useful to help resolve conflict, to allow for healing, or just to say goodbye.

To use this technique you should first sit in a quiet place, in a position that is comfortable, so that you may stay in it for a long time if necessary.

Close your eyes and visualize yourself in a place which is completely under your control, a location which is peaceful and allows you to feel completely safe no matter what, no harm can come to you there. If you are struggling with reaching that state, I will post another post soon about techniques to get there.

Once you are in your safe place, remind yourself that should you allow someone to come in to your sacred place they would never be able to hurt you there, and will have no choice but to be respectful.

Think of the person with whom you’d like to have closure or to enable controlled, healthy detachment. Invite them in.

Notice your aura, you are vibrating with a specific colour. Notice that your guest is made up of energy of a different colour. As a result of your relationship, spots of your guest’s colour have marked certain areas of your being. Notice that your guest is marked with your energy as well.

Now it’s time for the real work to begin. Realize that the energy that clings to you has served its purpose, it does not belong with you any longer. Similarly, the energy that you marked your guest with is no longer needed, they should be free of your worry/influence, invite your energy to slowly drift back to your being, and let go of the spots your guest left with you, allow them to return to their proper place.

With some people, with whom you feel the connection stronger, or of whom you might be reluctant to depart, this process may seem extremely difficult. Try taking in your energy with every inhalation, and letting go of your guest’s energy with every exhalation.

Once your energies are completely distinct, take a deep breath and thank your guest for all that you have been through together, even if you had much anger, or experienced hurt, take a deep breath and thank them for whatever they did to benefit you, or at least for the lessons you have or can learn from them.

Say goodbye and invite them to leave your sacred place.
Stay in your place a while until you feel focused and safe, and slowly return to your real self and open your eyes.

To allow for an effective purification, you might also want to take a good shower and let all the unnecessary energy to wash off of you.

A friend of mine – C. Recently shared with me, that he felt dirty inside, mostly because of sexual endeavors with several partners. In order to help him feel better I led him through this process, and asked him to invite all of the past partners he could think of, one by one, until he felt cleaner. To make the process even more effective, I asked him to find a water source, and take the dirty cloth in the center of his chest ( a picture he described to me earlier) and asked him to wash the cloth in the running water until all the dirt was gone. It really is interesting how the metaphors we use can be manipulated to accelerate healing. But I’ll elaborate more on cleansing another time.

A major step on the way to growth, is finding the courage and the strength to let go. Once closure is achieved, however, a new chapter can begin.

I wish you all the Best of luck, and a happy new year full of new beginnings.

Set yourself up for success

I was recently asked, what should a person do to become successful, here’s what I answered:

The first thing one must do to be successful, Is to define what success is. For each of us success might mean something a little different, or a lot different. Many people go through life not knowing what the rules of the game are, yet they expect to succeed. Don’t be one of them. 

Define clearly what is required for you to feel successful. Success is mostly a feeling, it’s based on a system of rules we have in our head, which tell us when we can feel successful. Go over your rules list. Ask yourself, do these rules make sense? (if you have a rule that says that in order to feel successful you must rescue 1000 people and walk on the moon, you might deny yourself of that wonderful feeling).

 Decide on ways you could feel successful along the way, by making simple actions that get you further ahead, making small achievements will make you feel happier and more confident along the way. No sense in waiting four years for you to graduate, or until you finally find the cure for diabetes, give yourself credit for all the wonderful things you do right now, choose to appreciate yourself, and acknowledge your effort as well as your progress. Stop telling yourself “when I’ll have this, I’ll be happy/successful”. Set yourself up for small successes, and eventually you’ll be surprised by the progress you’ve made.

Are you ready to become successful, it starts with a small step, a small shift in your mind, take that step and follow me!

Everything is awesome!

It’s been a few days since the last time I posted. I’ve recently came back to Israel after a long trip in Germany, and I’m having a little bit of fun before setting up my ‘roots’.
I just finished watching the recent LEGO movie, and I must admit that though I was reluctant to see it, thinking it might be just another children’s movie, I really liked it and highly recommend watching it.
Stay with me, it’s not just a movie review…
The LEGO movie begins with Emmett, just the most ordinary Lego construction worker man. Emmett wakes up in the morning, and follows his instruction manual, he says “good morning city”, brushes his teeth, takes a shower, goes to work, watches “where are my pants?” On TV and sings the popular song “everything is awesome” along with all other law abiding LEGO city citizens. Little did Emmett know, that he is designated by a prophecy, told by a black Gandolf wannabe, to save the entire LEGO universe, because he is “the special one”.
The movie can be a bit corny “like a cat poster”, but it has a lot of insight as well as criticism for our brainwashed society. For those who still want to watch it, I don’t want to give any spoilers. However, the movie goes out against our tendency to follow the rules blindly without any original thought. Too often I see and meet people constrained by what they have been told by others, and worse by themselves, about what they can of cannot do. Often this leads to stagnation, unrealised potential and general unfulfillment. The problem is when people are unfulfilled or unsatisfied, they’re not necessarily in enough pain to make a change, so they get stuck. Stuck in a boring job, working on someone else’s dream. Stuck in an unhealthy relationship, keeping themselves and their partner unhappy. They might be stuck with unhealthy habits of overeating, malnutrition, smoking, drinking or depression. The thing is, as the movie suggests, we’re all special, we can all build and craft amazing things, if we allow ourselves, and overcome our fears. In order to do so, we need to realise what we truly want in life, and be honest with ourselves regarding where we actually are, and how we actually are.
We need to stop listening to what others told us, and we must repeat what is true “the past does not equal the future” (Tony Robbins). Sure, if you keep using the same strategies over and over again, don’t expect different results, that would be insanity. However, don’t dismiss challenges to change your life for the better with “it’s never going to work”, “what’s the use in trying”. Rather ask yourself: “have I really got something to lose?”, “Is my life, the way I’m living them today, what I deserve?”
If you decided that you deserve more, but still feel insecure about actually achieving what you yearn for, start challenging yourself, pick something you’re scared to do but shouldn’t, something for which the fear is mostly in your head, and set yourself up with a challenge to go and do it, make it specific and set a deadline. Go live YOUR LIFE, instead of living it for others, or your fears. Eventually, everything can be awesome, and you’re special, but only if you believe and only if you dare to OWN it!

We’re off to see the wizard!

It’s all about the journey,  and the friends we meet along the way

Often in life, we feel incomplete, unfulfilled, and scared. In these situations, we often look for the great, wise powerful wizard, someone or something that will help us feel a certain way, that would get us to the place we call home, a place which is like no other, where we will have feelings of safety, joy, passion…

The thing we often don’t realize, is that this so called wizard, is just another human being, just like the rest of us, hidden behind a mask, behind smoke and mirrors. often, it is a deception  of our own creation. This wizard, is not necessarily a person we go to for wisdom. Sometimes, it’s just a goal we set for ourselves, imagining that once we’ve achieved it, we will get to our desired destination, to those feelings we so desperately seek. 

What we should realize at these times, is that it’s the journey we go through, the people we meet, and the different parts of ourselves we discover, which are really the secret to unlocking the desired feelings. It is through understanding of ourselves, and empowerment of the different pieces of our unique puzzle, which can enable us to reach our true feeling of home.

What do I mean by different parts ourselves? Well, one of these parts could be our intuition, the scrawny scarecrow which will give us the insight and understanding we need to approach a difficult situation. It could also be that it’s our hearts that we need to get back in touch with. that part in each of us, which will help us find the secret to what really brings us joy. It’s the one which will allow us to connect better with others, or show ourselves the love we need in order to grow and be truly fulfilled.

In some situations we need the courage, the audacity, to go ahead and just grab the future we deserve and turning a deaf ear to the people and thoughts that are just holding us back. Some areas are darker, more carnal and physical, representing our senses, body or sexuality. Without giving these parts of ourselves the room and energy they need to grow, we might get stuck. On the long and winding yellow brick road, we might fall asleep in the poppy fields of stagnation and doubt, or even fall to illness and misery under the tyranny of sides of ourselves which initially mean well, in their attempt to control and protect us.

For me the war with the tyrannic witch is almost over, after I took the effort to understand that basically she’s just another piece of myself, doing her best to do me good. She did it through vehicles which are no longer relevant, but were initially there to serve and protect me. Today, with each step I empower another part of myself, I’ve learnt to serve myself with better vehicles,  and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.

Growing up, and even years later, I always felt broken, unrepairable, flawed. I felt I was different from others and couldn’t achieve the happiness I saw in other people. By shedding light on the different parts of my being, exploring and experimenting with each, I finally felt whole, as if all the pieces came together and fixed my being. After letting go of all the pain, guilt and fear, I decided I don’t wish anyone else who might feel as I have, to go on feeling this way. 

If you would join me on the yellow brick road, I could help you understand yourself better and empower those parts of you, which needs extra love and care, see the different shapes which assemble your core, and help you with the tasks which will make you grow stronger and reach the next stage of your journey, it’s time to go home!

Are we the victims of our brains?

I have fond memories of robin Williams from several movies I watched growing up. He was a master of making others smile and laugh. I did not follow his life and career the past several years, and hearing about his suicide created quite a mental dissonance for me. How can a man so devoted to laughter and humour decide to end his life in such a way? Reading up on it, I found out that it came as a surprise, though Williams was unhappy quite often.

Now suicide is a very serious topic, and very complex. So I’ll focus on depression and unhappiness. Depression, in the clinical sense comes as a result of a chemical imbalance in the brain. So many believe that they are victims of their brain’s chemistry and are helpless to change it without medication.

I suppose for extreme situation that might be true, but I’m wondering if the psychiatrist’s hand might be too quick in giving prescriptions and diagnoses. You see I believe that often when people suffer from ‘depression’ in today’s society, they’re simply unhappy. And those who become suicidal either can’t imagine a future which is better, or have a limiting belief that causes them to have certainty that a better future isn’t even possible…

My issue with clinical diagnosis, is I believe they often make people feel helpless or incapable to influence their state, which might bring more suffering. People would tell themselves “I’m in pain and it’s out of my control, I must rely on these pills”, or “it’s my brain that’s at fault, nothing I can do about it, it’s just the way I’m wired”. The problem with these sort of thoughts is that they encourage a ‘fixed mindset’ (I explained the difference between fixed and growth mindsets here)

When people are in pain, and they believe they’re not in control and can’t change it, they suffer, and get stuck in a very dangerous situation, which can lead to very destructive choices and behaviour. It also gets people into paralysis from which they stop taking responsibility for their actions. Some people, for example, following a head trauma, experience difficulty controlling their temper. In this situation, if the doctor comes and tells them that they have a medical condition due to their injury, they might be inclined to ‘blame’ their decisions on their ‘condition’. As long as you don’t take responsibility over your actions, it’s unlikely that you change your behaviour and grow.

So now is the time to ask yourself, “who is in control of me? Is it my brain’s chemistry and physiology? Or do I choose to take responsibility over my life, and overcome my body’s  predisposition for illness?”

On another note, depression, as I mentioned often has to do with the person’s image of the future. When a person has a compelling future, which he/she believes could come true, it’s more likely they will employ the tools available to them to pursue happiness. Do you have something you look forward to? Something that gets you excited, or in a hopeful, peaceful or loving state? If not, it might be time to start picturing it, envisioning it, and acting on it. If you have a picture in mind, but aren’t acting on it, you might be stuck due to fear, what are you afraid of? What could be more terrible than not living your life to the fullest of its potential?

Take responsibility for your life! If you believe you need medication, take them, but only as part of your strategy, those pills aren’t magical! Pills can only improve your game, but you have to focus on the ball, and practice swinging the bat!

Having more passion for your job/business career – step I

I notice that many people I meet ask themselves: “is this all there is? Do I need to carry on with the same job I hate for the rest of my life? Why am I so bored/unhappy with my job? What do I actually want to do?” and many more questions along that line.

Through this, and the following posts, we’re going on a journey to help you become more aware of what you actually want, what would make you happier, more passionate and more excited about your source of income. It might lead you to the discovery that you should switch jobs, change your job’s definition, or maybe even create a new job for yourself, be it in your current firm, in another, or on your own.

These steps are exercises, in which you’d have to do quite a lot of work (exciting, isn’t it?). Each step is composed of a series of actions, I will describe the action and Finish it with ‘Go!’ To mark that it’s time to stop reading and start working.

The first step in our journey is finding out what properties your ideal job should have, to keep you satisfied. In order to do this, take out a sheet of paper, and divide it to two with a vertical line in the middle.

Now is your time to take a pen or pencil, and write down for 5 minutes everything you ever wanted to be when you grow up when you were a child, be it prince, princess, fairy, wizard, as well as more ‘reasonable’ things like police officer or doctor. Anything you wanted to be from the age of 0 till today.
Go!

Don’t go on reading this until you wrote for whole 5 minutes, and if you need more time, take it, we want a complete list with everything!
Really dig deep and get everything down on the page!

Good!
Now that you have the list, go over it, and ask yourself these questions for each item on the list: “why did I want that? What did I imagine it would be like? How did I imagine I would feel being/doing that? What about it got me excited?”
Write down the answers to these questions in the second half of your sheet, as emotions you wanted to feel, and properties you wanted to have in the job/profession/state of being.

For example: I wanted to be a zoologist at one point. I imagined I would be exploring far away places, discovering new forms of life, working with animals and having a connection with them. I imagined it would be interesting, exciting, thrilling.
So next to zoologist I would write: exploration, discovery, connection with animals, interest, excitement, thrill.

If you have an emotion or property repeating itself in several professions that’s good, write it down several times. Go!

Go over your list and fill in the second half of your sheet,
Don’t go on reading until you have a complete list of all the properties and emotions you imagined.

Excellent! By now, if you’re like me, and were quite fickle as a child with many dreams, you should have a page full of different wishes, properties and emotions.
In this case, what you want to do now is chunk it down.
The way to do it is like this:

      1. Go over all properties and see if there are some you could join into a more general property. For example, if I have discovering new planets, discovering new pieces of history, and discovering new rules of physics, I could incorporate them all into ‘discovery’ category.
Be creative and combine the pieces, so you have the essential properties/categories and emotions.

      2. For each new category, write next to each of its constituents, the category’s name.

      3. Make a new list with the categories, properties and emotions, in which each of them appears only once.

      4. Count the number of times each category, property and emotion appears on your original list, and write the number next to it on the new list.
Go!

Congratulations! By now you should have a list of properties, and emotions that would help you feel more satisfied with your work. The numbers should give you an indicator of what are some more important emotions and properties, but you should also go over the list and think for yourself if something might be more important than others.

Now what should you do with the list?

First of all, go over it and compare it to what your current job (if you have one) offers. Try to think if there might be small ways in which you could change your job’s routine to allow you to have as many of these properties and experience as many of these emotions on a daily basis.

Keep the list somewhere where you could easily reflect on it every now and then, it’s a guide to give yourself more satisfaction in life, as it resonates with the things you’re drawn to.

Until next time…