Taking Affirmative Action

Now that you've picked and created your visualization tool, it's time to get to work. Work? Yikes! Relax – this isn't dirty work. Think of it as spring cleaning for your habits and behavioral patterns.

That's right. Over our lives we accumulate a lot of different habits, attitudes and behaviors that we learned from our parents, teachers, the media, and just society in general. This excess “noise” can sometimes be negative, and lead limiting beliefs like “I have to work hard to have money,” or “I don't have what it takes to do that,” and “I'm not smart enough or creative enough or resourceful enough to do that.” Yes, it's that little naysayer inside your head that's sabotaging your dreams, the ego.

To put it simply, your personality, your learned habits and behavioral patterns, your mindset and belief systems, are all a part of your ego. It is the “I,” “me,” “my,” “his,” “hers, “theirs” mentality, which compartmentalizes reality, breaks it down and labels it in accordance with your personal belief system, that is to say, your unique perspective. That being said, if your perspective is at the positive end of the spectrum, you will experience a more positive reality. If it's at the negative end, you can expect that your experience will be more negative than positive. We all know what this is like, and it does not feel good.

Good news is, you have a choice.

“Your focus determines your reality.”
- Qui-Gon Jinn

Turns out the Jedi Masters were right (who knew?), and their ways are now being uncovered by modern physics to be scientific fact. This is incredible not only to Star Wars fans, but to the rest of the world as well. It literally means, what we focus on and think about the most, will indeed become our life story. So if you're always looking behind you and dwelling on the past, you're doomed to repeat it. That's why people find themselves reliving the same circumstances over and over.

So this spring cleaning business... If you're not living the life of your dreams right now, then you've got some old habits and behaviors that are keeping you from doing so. In order to clean up your act, so to speak, you don't need to use an extreme amount of brain power in an attempt to figure out “what's wrong with you.” You need only consult your list of goals and life vision and ask yourself, “how would I behave if I were living the life of my dreams?” and then do it.

You can do this throughout your day as you encounter decisions. When faced with a choice, ask yourself, “if I were living the life of my dreams, would still do this?” If the answer is no, or if it's a tad iffy, make another choice that you believe is in line with how the New You would act. This is called taking affirmative action. When you change just a few things about how you are living your life right now, it improves your quality of life noticeably. So if you want good things to come into your life, make room for it. Do the things you'd be doing if you had it already, talk about the lifestyle as if it's already yours. Believe that you have it now.

Your brain doesn't know the difference between reality and fiction – it cannot compute whether or not you're just thinking about something, or if it's actually happening right now. This puts you at a huge advantage for shifting your mindset and creating your ideal life. Basically, old Walt Disney was right when he said, “if you dream, you can create the most wonderful place in the world.” Dare to dream, dare to use your imagination, and the life of your dreams will become your life experience.