“It is only by a change of consciousness, by actually changing your concept of yourself that you can ‘build more stately mansions’…It is of vital importance to understand clearly just what consciousness is. The reason lies in the fact that consciousness is the one and only reality, it is the first and only cause-substance of the phenomena of life. Nothing has existence for man save through the consciousness he has of it.” ~ Neville Goddard, The Power of Awareness
I wrote my first bucket list when I was 18 years old and just graduating from high school. I had 20 things on that list ranging from travel the world to flying an airplane. I grew up on a farm in rural Oregon and was the only one of my siblings to go to university. We certainly weren’t wealthy and I didn’t personally know (or even know of) people that had done most of the things on my list. At that time my sense of my “identity” (my consciousness of self) in no way included having, doing or being any of these things. They just seemed to me to be worth experiencing.
I kept revisiting that list and, interestingly, I found that within 10 years every item on that first bucket list had come to pass. Looking back on that time, I didn’t exert any undo effort to make these things real. As a matter of fact, you might say I simply “followed my nose”. Opportunities seemed to appear out of nowhere and one unplanned “yes” or carefully considered “no” (more on this in a later article) positioned me in ways I couldn’t have deliberately planned. The key to this was keeping my consciousness in the game and, over time, my sense of identity – my concept of myself – had transformed. I also realized I needed to start dreaming/imagining “bigger”!
Goddard continues in The Power of Awareness to say that “I can only give what I AM, I have no other gift to give. If I want the world to be perfect, and who does not, I have failed only because I did not know that I could never see it perfect until I myself become perfect. …all outward appearances are but states of mind externalized.”
Now, here's the unvarnished truth about why most people give up on their New Year resolutions within about two weeks and why most bucket list are unfulfilled. Most don't understand the purpose of meaningful goals. Goals are not meant to "get" anything, they are meant to position me (and my organization) to grow. Ideally, we'll also get what we desire in the process, but that is simply frosting on the cake. Growth is the objective and growth of any sort tends to be uncomfortable. This is why awareness becomes such an important part of the developmental mix. We all run on habituated "automatic" to a significant degree. Indeed, studies show that upward of 95% of a person's behavior is the consequence of subconscious programming. It keeps us comfortable because it's familiar andit keeps us imprisoned in a self created identity rooted in what was. Any increase in awareness will illuminate new choices, possibilities for new actions, and obstacles that were perviously hidden. Awareness is the catalyst for growth because "...all outward appearances are but states of mind externalized." What comprises my "state of mind?"
Breaking the habit of being yourself is difficult work and it's work that is worth engaging.
To master anything, we must first master ourselves—our emotions, our thoughts, our actions. In times of uncertainty and disorder, self-discipline and self-mastery are not just essential but are your competitive advantage.
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