Getting What You Want
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
– Anias Nin
Tragically, many people keep themselves small. Some deep part of them thinks they don’t deserve the things they want. We unconsciously fear we’re not good enough for the job, we’re a fuck-up and are always doomed to failure, we’re not good enough to get the guy or girl we really want, we’re bad people who don’t deserve good things.
I truly believe the first step to a happier life is actually believing you deserve to be happy. Take a moment now and ask yourself, “Do I deserve to be happy?”
If you answered with anything but an overwhelmingly confident affirmative, “YES!” I’d encourage you to take a deeper look. Thinking we don’t deserve something is a sure-fire way to set ourselves up for more unconscious self-sabotage.
Sometimes we’re unconsciously afraid of failure. Sometimes we do absolutely nothing because our unconscious mind tells us, “If we don’t try, we can’t fail. Better to stay paralyzed.” If you’re putting something off, know that in most cases the reason for procrastination is fear of failure. We essentially tell ourselves, “If I don’t try, my unconscious fears can’t come true.” Unfortunately, if we don’t try, there’s a lot that can’t come true, including anything that requires hard work and the courage to take risks and push past our fears.
Sometimes, we’re unconsciously afraid of success. This can be hard to realize because it goes against logic, but success can be very scary. Famed Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard said, “There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.” We wonder, what if we’re not good enough? What if we don’t deserve it? What if the increased effort reveals that we’re really a fake (like our negative inner voice says we are)? What if we get so high, we can’t handle the fall? What if we get the rug pulled out from under us and it hurts like it did in childhood? If any of these resonate with you, a deep-seated fear of your own success may be holding you back.
As you become aware of the ways in which you are self-sabotaging or undervaluing yourself, you can begin to shift the way you think. Then you can begin to pursue the things you actually want.
Changing the way we think is never easy. Let’s revisit one powerful technique of reframing, which we touched on earlier. If you notice a negative thought, write it down, then invert it. Then say the inversion everyday until you believe it. If it’s uncomfortable to say, perfect. That means you found a really good one that needs work. The first time I tried to say, “I love myself… I deserve success… I am enough,” I physically squirmed. Gradually, the words became more sincere. It got deeper. I was saying something I didn’t believe – until I began to believe it. Then, as my inner world changed, my outer world followed.
When I came to believe I deserved a better to job and a higher salary, I found myself taking action in that direction. Soon enough, I had a better job and made significantly more money than I ever had before. When I came to believe I deserved a better partner, one who treated me well, I found myself attracted to a different type of person. When I came to believe I deserved a nice place to live, suddenly I left my apartment of 8 years. I had become motivated to get what I want by first coming to believe on a very deep level that I deserved it. It was a mental shift in my inner world that led me to take action to create the outer world I wanted to live in. It did not happen overnight but it happened step-by-step. Life will never be the same, and I only intend to head further in the direction of my dreams and building the life I now know I deserve.
Ask Yourself:
Do I deserve to be happy?
Might I be afraid of failure?
Might I be afraid of success?
Can I try reframing any of my self-defeating thoughts (especially if I don’t yet believe the positive reframing)?
Next Letter: Going For It