Growing up I remember hearing this phrase a lot in our family. It was a way to teach us to say "please may I have...?" Rather than "I want..." An important lesson to learn, of course. Manners and polite requests are a valuable skill to have in life.
What if it taught me something else too though? What if that repeating phrase has had a deeper and more lasting effect on my life?...
I have been working with my word of the year 'practice' for what? 6 weeks now? About that. I have been working my way through the tasks in Ali Edwards awesome e-course One Little Word slowly. I have been considering my habits and goals and working out where I want to go with 'practice'.
And what I have noticed is that I have found a deep resistance to stating what I want, where I want to be in life. I am great at stating what I don't want, but clearly painting a picture of what I really desire my life to look like? Nope. Nada.
Since the 1st of January I have been attempting to set goals, to design a picture of my ideal life and only now, after some serious resistance and lots of journaling, am I starting to get anywhere.
So what's the problem with not knowing what I want? Why devote a whole blog post to an issue that most people may never even have worried about?
Because I have learnt that 'what you focus on is what you get in life'. This has been a major realisation for me as I have heard it said in a number of ways over the years. The movie 'The Secret' repeated this lesson. It is often referred to as The Law of Attraction and there is a lot of information out there on it if you google the term.
As a very basic explanation - if I spend my days thinking "I'm in debt. I am unhealthy. I am a failure." I will get more debt, ill health, opportunities to feel like a failure.
If, however, I choose to spend my days thinking about how grateful I am that I live in a gorgeous spacious home, about how lucky I am to have running water and heating and internet access in my home, about how good it is that I am healthy and wealthy and happy and wise, then I am focussing on positive things in my life and I will get more of the same.
So I want to be crystal clear about what I want my life to look like so I can focus on that.
So having realised a couple of days ago that whenever I try to consider what I want in life I get the phrase "'I want' never gets" come up I have decided to reframe from looking at what I want in my life to focussing on what I love instead.
So here goes - in no particular order -
- I love spending lots of fun time with my beautiful children.
- I love creating photobooks for my awesome clients.
- I love having adventures in new places.
- I love VW campervans.
- I love visiting National Trust properties.
- I love having Andy at home with us creating value for others in ways that support our dreams.
- I love creating inspirational new pregnancy support resources.
- I love supporting charities that are important to me.
- I love being a wonderful custodian of money.
- I love having a spacious home to host gatherings.
- I love being a part of a supportive, inspiring mastermind group.
- I love sharing food with my friends.
These are just a few things I love about my life now or that I am working on (like the campervan!). These are the things I am going to focus my 'practice' on - my habits, my goals.
My children gave me the incentive I needed to create a life that I love.
It is incredible how just by tweaking a few words and changing the focus from "'I want' never gets" to focussing on what I love, goal setting just became so much easier.
So watch this space me'hearties (ha ha ha been spending lots of time with William's favourite Octonaut character, Kwazii!). Let's see how these new goals manifest.