Create a Clearly Defined Picture of Your Ideal Life

Posted on July 23, 2008

“You must form a clear and definite mental picture of what you want; you cannot transmit an idea unless you have it yourself.”
- Wallace D. Wattles

Our collective consciousness has lead us to think that we are born with a path paved by those who came before us and therefore it is the path we are to take. According to that path we are born, get an education, get a job, meet someone special, get married, have children and live happily ever after. If you deviate from that plan you are doing something wrong.

That has never sounded more like a fairy tale to me until now, when I realize we have been sold a bill of goods. Talk about a clearly, defined picture. That could not be vaguer if I greeted you good morning by just saying the word “Purple”. And we all wonder why our lives have turned out the way they did. We have so many unanswered questions and wonder constantly if we did something wrong along the way.

I am not talking about setting goals, those come after you know where you are going. Setting goals without a clearly defined picture of what you want is like taking a trip and when asked of your destination you say “I will know when I get there.” Now your trip can take six months or the rest of your life. Don’t spend your life chasing a dream, spend it living the dream.

I thought life was about the next goal and the next goal and the next goal, but after each goal without a clear destination, I kept ending up in the same place. I knew I wanted to get somewhere but the only clear picture of the destination I had was the place I started from.

Eureka! Right? I have a clearly defined picture of a destination but it was the one place I was trying to get away from. How could I have not seen this? My ideal life was laid out by me, like the collective consciousness tale with vaguely defined destinations. “I have an idea of where I am going but it is so hazy that I can only know when I get there.” So let me get an education: Doing what? Will I love doing it? Will it be something I can do for ten years? Will my education lead me to a desk job I will end up hating or will it open doors I never imagined? When I out grow the current job, is there room for growth or would I spend the next thirty years doing the same thing? Did anyone ever ask me what I truly loved to do? Did I ever really ask myself what I loved to do? I really should have asked myself these questions a long time ago. I would have avoided…

If you ask yourself any of these questions year in and year out, you need to take a time out and find yourself, what you love, what you want and start working towards getting it. If you wake up every morning and the only thing that shows you that life is moving forward are your growing children then you need to define what you truly want from your life. While you are at it, you should ask your children the same question, let’s break the circle and give our kids the tools they need to create amazing lives. If you don’t have children to help you measure growth around your static life; well, you know the answer. No! It is not go have kids…

It all starts with a clearly defined vision of what you want your life to be, anything is possible. The Universe wants you to create, wants you to grow, it wants you to succeed. But it can only give you want you want if you can clearly let the Universe know what you want. One of my favorite paragraph in the Science of Getting Rich Workbook really helped me see the importance of clarity when stating your needs.

“If you were going to send a message to a friend, you would not send the letters of the alphabet in their order, and let him construct the message for himself; nor would you take words at random from the dictionary. You would send a coherent sentence; one which meant something. When you try to impress your wants upon the Thinking Substance, remember that it must be done by a coherent statement; you must know what you want, and be definite. You can never get rich, or start the creative power into action, by sending out unformed longings and vague desires.” - Wallace D. Wattles

It is imperative that your clearly defined picture include all the important areas of your life. You need to balance and include everything that is important to you in your big picture. The most important thing about a clearly defined picture of your ideal life is that: It is the ONLY way the Universe is going to help you get what you want.

Later,

photo credit: Panoramas