The Wealthy Mind Page 5

  To set a goal of having something that’s powerful, personal and meaningful for you is a great way to summon up much more intense desire for a particular outcome.

  That might be something which can improve the quality of your life in a very direct way by matching your deepest values.

  Of course, in the end, the things that make a desired outcome truly attractive for you, and increase the force of your passion and desire to achieve it, are entirely personal.

  But you'll often find they are connected to your deepest values: to the essence of who you are, and what really motivates you.

  Examples of the kind of thing I'm talking about come from my work with my clients.

  One woman wanted to take her family around the world to give them an educational experience and insight into different cultures.

  A man who I worked with for some time wanted to establish a retreat centre deep in the mountains of Virginia so that people could go there for rest and recuperation.

  Two brothers who I worked with wanted to start a publishing company to publish books on self-improvement and new-age literature to help people find meaning and purpose in life.

  And so it goes on. Only you know what your deepest values are, and only you can decide what will motivate you sufficiently to generate the desire that you need to start the process of manifestation.

  Now, could it be that your deepest values reflect your purpose in life? The reason, in fact, that you are here on the surface of this planet?

  Let’s find out how your purpose in life might be linked to manifestation.

  CHAPTER 5

  HOW TO FIND YOUR

  PURPOSE IN LIFE

  One simple way to find your purpose in life is to write the question “What is my purpose in life?” at the head of a sheet of paper and then to start writing down the answers which come to you, without thinking too much about it.

  There’s no doubt this method can work, but it may take 20 to 40 minutes before you find an answer which really generates some powerful emotion in you. And that’s what you’re looking for.

  In fact, if it makes you cry, then you’ve probably found your real purpose.

  You may have to write a hundred answers, you may have to write five hundred, but you at some point you will be struck by an answer which fills you with a powerful emotion.

  Even if this sounds silly, do it anyway, because writing like this can be a direct route to your subconscious, from where the answers to deep and meaningful questions such as this can emerge.

  In the context of manifestation, of course, the purpose of finding your life purpose is to help you identify something that will give you the passionate drive and intense desire needed to fuel your manifestation.

  If you find that some answers create a little surge of emotion as you’re working, then you’re on the right track but not quite there. Perhaps each answer like this represents one small part of your purpose, serving you by revealing that you’re getting nearer the truth.

  You need to do this alone, without being interrupted. And as you go along, you may find you feel some resistance at some point.

  You may start feeling bored, or suddenly want to give up and do something else, or you may feel irritated. All these things can be a sign you’re getting near the truth.….. and a sign there’s some resistance in your mind to receiving the answer.

  Eventually you might find you’ve written something like this: My purpose in life is to live with full awareness of love and compassion, to act as a catalyst so that other people can enter deeper into love and compassion, and to make this world a more peaceful place.

  And of course you might not: you might find something completely different comes to mind for you. This is, after all, about YOUR particular purpose in life.

  You’ll have noticed this answer is more like a “mission statement” than a clear expression of what you need to do or how you need to do it so you’re able to live with full awareness of love and compassion.

  In fact, it’s actually more about what motivates you. And how you translate your mission statement into action in the world is another question for you to answer….

  ….but it may well be that finding a way to translate a broad statement like that into action in the world is the way to generate a deep and passionate desire to achieve something.

  Why? Because wrapped up within that mission statement are the values and goals which matter most to you. (In this case, they are living with full awareness of love and compassion, helping others do the same, and generating peace.)

  Another example:

  What matters most to me is loving myself, loving others and seeking joy in life.

  What I value the most is being able to connect with people in deep and meaningful relationships.

  What I’d like to do to achieve this is to work only in areas that feed my soul, and only in loving environments on projects that I can connect with.

  My intention is to become financially abundant in an honest and holistic way that doesn’t violate any of my values, objectives or my purpose in life.

  Questions To Discover Your Personal Mission In Life

  The greatest fulfillment will always come when you’re doing something in line with your deepest values and beliefs.

  We’ve all met somebody apparently very successful, financially abundant, busy in industry or commerce or a profession of some kind, but still unhappy despite their wealth and apparent success.

  You know why this happens? It’s almost certainly because their life has been spent doing something that they’re not happy about, something which doesn’t fulfill them, and maybe isn’t even in line with their deepest values.

  You will always know if you’re in that situation because there will be a level of discomfort about what you’re doing, a grumbling sort of dissatisfaction which you can sense deep down in your soul, a sense that things aren’t quite the way they ought to be.

  If the first method above for finding your life purpose doesn’t help, here are 15 questions that might:

  What makes you feel good about yourself?

  What is it that makes you smile and gives you joy – either people, or activities, projects, pastimes….

  What makes you lose yourself in what you’re doing – for example something where you just don’t notice that time has past?

  What are your favorite things you like to do now, and what did you like to do in the past?

  Who inspires you in life? Who is a role model for you, someone who represents the values you hold dear? And when you look at such a person what are the qualities that inspire and excite you?

  What are your natural talents and abilities?

  When people ask you for help or support, what area is it that they are asking for you to help them with?

  If you had to teach somebody something, what would it be?

  What will you regret most if you reach your deathbed and haven’t done it?

  And if you were 90 years old, sitting in a rocking chair outside your house with the breeze gently brushing your face and the sun shining on you, feeling blissfully happy about the life you lead and full of joy about what you’ve achieved, what would it be that mattered most to you?

  What are your deepest values? These might be things like compassion or love, or qualities like service and loyalty.

  When you’ve faced difficulties and challenges in life, what’s helped you overcome these hardships? How did you manage to get over them?

  What cause would you die for?

  If there was a message that you could spread to a large group of people, who would those people be and what would your message be?

  How could you use your own individual talents, passions, values and enthusiasms to serve or contribute to the betterment of other people, or the world around you, or anything else?

  To use this list of questions, take a few sheets of paper and a pen, turn off your phone, make sure you won’t be interrupted and start writing the answers to each question – just the
first thing that pops into your head.

  And do this without editing your answers, using note form, but writing out the answers rather than just thinking about them. This digs deep into your subconscious.

  And don’t give yourself too long to think about the answers to each question because your head will take over from your heart if you do that!

  This is about what’s in your heart. And your soul.

  Most of all be honest, because this is private, solely for you, and it’s about revealing the qualities, values, attitudes, thoughts and feelings which matter most to you.

  Once you’ve done this, you might be able to come up with a mission statement or a sense of what your purpose in life might be.

  And from that you can work out your goals and objectives – the things you’re able and willing to work towards.

  Things which make you feel a passionate desire for a certain outcome.

  Perhaps these are the things you should try and manifest; perhaps they are the things which will motivate you in your quest for financial abundance and prosperity.

  One final observation: unless you expect money, or a relationship, or a better job, or anything else, to bring you happiness and fulfillment, it may not be the right thing to try and manifest.

  So the bottom line is this: if you’re looking for money, manifest it with the intention of using it for a purpose that will make you happy, or find a purpose in life which motivates you to summon up a passionate desire for financial abundance.

  And the principles are always the same no matter what your objective.

  For example, if you want to manifest a relationship, make sure the qualities you visualize from that relationship are the ones which will give you joy – as well as a passionate desire to be in relationship.

  These qualities will not be the same for everybody – only you know what those qualities are for you. They might, for example, include love, great sex, intimacy, connection, or a shared journey through life.

  Some people would say that only when you’ve discovered your purpose and mission in life can you really identify the key things you should be trying to manifest.

  There’s a lot more to say about setting goals and achieving them, so let’s move on to belief which is the next component of manifestation.

  Belief is important because what you BELIEVE about yourself - and what you BELIEVE about the process of manifestation - will determine how successful you are in getting what you want.

  CHAPTER 6

  BELIEF

  Most of us grew up with the belief that we were going to be thwarted when we wanted something. Just think how often children ask for something and receive the unthinking response "No, you can’t have it!"

  And then consider how few of us deprive ourselves of what we want when we’re grown up – so much so this has been dubbed the “age of self-indulgence”. Perhaps that's a response to being thwarted so often as children.

  You see, the problem is that when children are thwarted they develop some powerful beliefs that they will rarely/only sometimes/never get what they want.

  That's why many of us can't be passionate or intense in our desire something new in our lives when we are adults.

  Not only that, but when we do want things, a lot of us tend to focus on the lack or absence of them rather than the idea of abundance.

  That won’t make anything manifest!

  As kids, we learned that resources were in short supply. We were, to put it bluntly, brought up with a poverty consciousness.

  We were raised on ideas such as these: “Life is a struggle”. “There isn’t enough to go round.” “Nothing will ever change.” “Don’t expect too much, you’ll only be disappointed.” “You can’t have that.” “You can’t do that.” “That’s not for the likes of us.” “You can’t trust men/women/the rich/the poor/the…..”

  Well, you get the idea, I’m sure. We just picked it all up, never questioned it, absorbed it like a sponge, and our unconscious believes it all to be true – to this day!

  And there is no better example of this lack of consciousness than around money.

  Want more? Tried to manifest it? And failed? Maybe you believe this is because money is in short supply and there isn’t enough to go round.

  But do you seriously believe the world is short of money? Really?

  Apparently the world’s wealth is 60 trillion dollars – that’s $60,000,000,000,000. Enough for us all, I think.

  What’s stopping you getting some of that isn’t a shortage of money – it’s what you believe about your relationship to money.

  In general, most people who want more money in their lives are suffering a serious lack of it. They may be deeply in debt, or they may simply be struggling financially to keep their heads above water.

  Because money is such an important commodity in our society, the lack of it generates an intense amount of fear, and that tends to be where people's attention goes.

  No matter how clearly you might say you want more money in your life, it's inevitable that your focus will often be on the lack of money in your life. That’s driving your wish for change, but it’s also impeding it.

  You've probably heard a lot of people say that what you focus on is what you attract to yourself. And there’s certainly an element of truth in that.

  If you're focusing on lack, your thoughts are not on abundance – that's pretty clear.

  Self Belief

  Creating Financial Abundance

  But there's another aspect of this which is hugely important: do you really believe that you can generate or attract wealth into your life?

  You see, a lot of us are limited by the beliefs we carry – again, beliefs which were "given to us" during childhood.

  You have to understand that in the first seven years of life, a child's capacity for reasoning is not developed to any significant extent. She or he will tend to take the information given by parents or caretakers literally.

  And once implanted, these beliefs are held in the subconscious mind (or the unconscious, if you prefer) – which means that you might not even be aware of them later in life.

  And the truth is that most people who want – or need – a lot of money as adults will have received negative messages about money when they were children.

  Parents may not necessarily mean to do this, but they can convey some pretty profound attitudes and beliefs just by the way they behave, let alone what they say.

  Did you grow up in an environment where there was a sense of poverty – what we might call “poverty consciousness”?

  Were you being shown in one way or another, or even directly told, things like "We can't afford it." Or "There's never enough to go round." Or "If you go on spending money like that, you'll never have any."?

  Sad to say, it's quite normal and common for people to be brought up to believe that poverty consciousness is the norm.

  And then there's another layer of limiting beliefs around the acquisition of money: were you taught that it was wrong to be "greedy"?

  Or did you somehow get the message that "money was the root of all evil"?

  Or perhaps you were told that "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer"?

  Or what about this piece of ridiculousness: “Money doesn’t grow on trees”?

  And maybe, if you came from a religious family, there was some moralistic issue around money. After all, as we all know, "it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven".

  I had an English client who spoke of her desire to generate wealth through manifesting abundance.

  And yet things just weren't working out for her. No matter what she tried, her financial situation didn't change.

  Month after month she looked at her income and expenditure, and found they were generally the same. She just couldn't generate abundance.

  When we looked into this we discovered she came from a poor family where all the messages around money were about lack – say
ings such as "there will never be enough to go round" or "money is hard to come by" were the order of the day.

  Her family were manual workers and artisans, and historically they had been the exploited class: laborers paid little, often hired by the day even when they were skilled craftsmen.

  When she spoke about her family’s attitudes to this way of life, it was obvious that the family had carried a huge amount of shame around the poverty they lived with.

  But very interestingly, it seemed like the family had created its own myth of "the virtuous poor" to compensate for this.

  Roughly speaking, the family myth became this: "We built the world – the bridges, the furniture, the houses, the railways and more – and we're damn proud of what we did…nothing would be here without us and our type. And somehow it doesn't matter that we were dirt poor. Because we built those things and those things are still standing today, we were virtuous."

  There was a religious aspect to this as well: somehow there was a place reserved in heaven for the members of this family, complete with poverty consciousness, because they’d suffered on earth with such poverty.

  But I think it was chiefly the shame of being poor which had led the family to come up with myth of them belonging to the virtuous poor.

  Because, don’t you think, that if being poor is virtuous, then being rich must be evil or bad in some way?

  And if your deepest beliefs tell you wealth is evil or bad, then how likely are you ever to be rich? How likely is it that you will ever generate abundance?

  I tell you that story to illustrate the power and subtlety of limiting beliefs. Because if you've been trying to generate wealth and you haven't managed to do so, it's a fair bet there's something pretty powerful holding you back. What, what, you ask? Stand by for the shocking answer…..

  A set of beliefs you hold about money which interferes with your ability to attract it.