Do You Know What You Want and Insist on Getting It?

Do you know what you want and insist on getting it? I was reminded of this on vacation in Tahiti when a skinny stray cat came begging at my table. She was clearly hungry – bordering on emaciated (although gorgeous) – yet she refused my proffered treats of shrimp, rice and avocado (all I had to offer from my poke bowl), only deigning to accept my offering when I ‘borrowed’ some fish from my hubby’s plate.

Gotta love a girl who knows what she wants and doesn’t settle for less. Would you say that about yourself? Are you someone who knows what they want and insists on getting it? If you’re like most people, the honest answer to that is probably, “not really”.

Why is that? Why do we allow ourselves to go through life settling for less than our heart’s desire?

Here’s a few tips and insights to help you on the path to getting more of what you want and deserve …

I Work on Self-Love and Self-Worth

If you don’t value yourself, you will inevitably ask for less and get less than you deserve. If you seek external validation rather than building an unshakable sense of self-worth, you will sell yourself short. If you don’t own your value, others won’t recognize it.

Don’t make yourself smaller or play small. Don’t shy away from receiving. Recognize that you deserve great things in life.

How? Create your personal brag list. Start by listing things you love about yourself. Consider all the positive attributes, assets, and accomplishments. Consider the tangible and intangible, the physical, mental, and attitudinal. Include your qualities as well as your skills. This exercise is a valuable and critical way to retrain your brain – to undo the negative conditioning that you’ve been inundated with since childhood.

Read your brag list each night before bed, allow it to wash over you and absorb its essence. Add to your brag list each night and let yourself bask in a sense of your own worth as you sleep.

Our intrepid kitty loved herself enough to turn down what didn’t suit her and insist on getting what she loved.

 

II Get Clarity

While it seems obvious that clarity is important, most people fall short in achieving their dreams because they lack clarity about what that looks like. You can’t hit a fuzzy target in darts, archery or in life. Take time to drill down about what you truly seek in every aspect of your life.

Imagine that it’s 10 years from now. What do you desire in your life in each of the following categories:

• Health & Fitness
• Finance & Wealth
• Mission & Vision
• Growth and Learning
• Career
• Family and Friends
• Mission and Vision
• Emotional and Mental
• Quality of Life
• Spiritual
• Intimate/Romantic Relationships

 

Don’t make the mistake of only focusing on one category. It’s important to build balance into your life view.

And as you explore each category, be sure to invoke all your senses. Allow yourself to see it, hear it, taste it, feel it, and smell it. Be as specific as possible to really anchor in those desires to improve your ability to live into them.

Our kitty heroine had absolute clarity about what she was seeking … and as a result she got it.

 

III Set Boundaries

In addition to knowing what you do want in your life, it’s important to have clarity around what you won’t tolerate. Setting boundaries is an often-overlooked aspect of negotiating our best lives.

Without boundaries, it’s a slippery slope to accepting less than what we want and actually undercutting our ability to achieve our true heart’s desires. While I advocate flexibility in any negotiation (to enable pivoting when the information you relied upon changes or when a better option presents itself), it’s important to set intentional parameters going in. These are sometimes known as your ‘bottom line’, or ‘resistance point’.

Considering these boundaries in advance avoids getting caught up in the moment and making choices that don’t serve your long-time goals and vision.

The kitty heroine in our story not only knew what she wanted but had clarity around what she didn’t want. She wasn’t willing to take scraps that didn’t satisfy her specific desires and needs.

 

IV Go For It

Once you have practiced self-love, gotten clarity about what you seek and boundaries beyond which you’re not willing to compromise or settle, then go for it. So many people spend time thinking and analyzing and dreaming but fail to get into action to make those dreams a reality.

• Don’t make excuses about your inaction (the timing is off, etc).
• Don’t procrastinate, living a ‘one day’ mindset (when this happens, I’ll move forward with my plans).
• Don’t wait for perfection.
• Don’t let your fears hold you back (i.e. fear of the unknown, fear of rejection, fear of being judged, fear of failure … or success).

Instead, get into action. Ask for what you want. Follow up.

In doing so, you will dramatically increase your odds of getting what you want in life.