“Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.” Washington Irving
by my buddie Diggy over at upgradereality.com
We all have our habits that we have grown into or adopted from others, some of them good and some of them bad.
What I want you to do today is to take note of how many times you think or say the phrase “I wish…”.
I wish it was weekend.
I wish I had money to go on holiday.
I wish I had a girlfriend.
I wish I had more friends.
I wish I didn’t have to work this dumb job every day.
I wish I could lose weight.
The list can go on, with almost every possible phrase inserted after the words “I wish…”
If you are like me or most people in this world, this habit is a nasty one. It causes you to spend all this emotional energy wishing for things to change when you are going to do nothing about it and the chances are big that nothing is going to change your wishes by itself..
How to swing this habit in your favor:
This habit is not as nasty as it seems, with a few small modifications as I am going to lay out for you, you can actually change this habit into a productivity machine, to help you achieve what you really want.
The next time you find yourself thinking or saying “I wish…” ask yourself the following questions:
1-) Is this thing that I am wishing for something that I really want?
2-) Is this thing I am wishing for possible to attain or do?
If your answer is no, then take it upon you to stop wishing for it. Just forget it and don’t spend any more time or energy thinking or wishing about it. For instance, this would be something like wishing the past was different, or that you were some famous actor or rockstar just because they have a lot of money and attention while actually your passion is animals and helping underprivileged kids.
It can take a bit of practice before you are able to stop wishing for things that cannot be changed or things that you don’t really want. Studies have shown it takes 21 days to change or adopt a habit. After that it becomes automatic. Now you are free to use that extra time and energy, or those extra thoughts to focus on the things you really do want…which brings me to my next point:
If your answer to the above two questions was ‘Yes’:
If your answer was yes to the previous two questions, it means that you really have a desire for the thing you are wishing for, and it means that it is possible to achieve or attain this wish.
This could be for example wishing you were able to play guitar, or be able to advise people how to handle their finances, or be able to run a mile in under 5 minutes.
The only problem that you are still having, is that you are wishing for these things to take place, without actually taking action. Hoping that somehow magically, a genie will grant your wish and all of a sudden give you magic powers. pffft. “I wish”. hehe
Now that you are aware of your wishing, and the desire you have to achieve what you are wishing for, you need to take action. You need to formulate a plan for how you are going to achieve your desires.
Some of these questions could possibly help you along:
What steps do I need to take to achieve my desires?
Which people have achieved what I want to achieve so I can study their ways?
Where can I take classes or lessons?
Do I need to move/get up earlier/get a different job/make new friends etc. in order to achieve my desires?
How much time do I need to dedicate to achieve my desires?
( Have you read The Art of 1 Hour a Day?)
My personal example is the fact that when I started this blog and internet marketing, I used to wish a lot of the time that I had a pretty blog with lots of valuable content and thousands of subscribers. I used to wish for websites that would bring in hundreds of dollars a day on autopilot.
After a while I realised that I was dumb because these things are not going to happen magically, there are no magic genies, and if I really want what I’m wishing for, I’m going to have to take action and work hard, which is exactly what I am doing.
Stop Wishing and Start DOING!
Have a Rockin’ day
Diggy
Hello Diggy. No question but your post contains good advice. Like you, I’ve seen moocho wishing and minimal doing. But I’d like to add a cautionary note here about taking action to fulfill wishes. Bernie Siegel said it best in “Love, Medicine and Miracles”. He says….”don’t climb the ladder of success, only to find it is leaning against the wrong wall”. The quote by Irving at the beginning of your post also points to this problem. Irving is saying authentically successful people don’t just wish for any old thing. They “wish” to make things happen that are in alignment with their purpose. So here’s my add-on for your readers. If you don’t know why you’re here, you won’t have a clue what to wish for. You’ll be wishing for money and cars and cash and that big position to make you important. And yes you can…like me…bust both buns to climb to the top, make big bucks, and cause bright red sports cars to show up in your four garages. If these things aren’t in alignment with who you really are though….you’ll go to your grave with big regrets. In summary then…your blog (Diggy) is absolutely and perfectly dead-on. Nothing happens without action. Never did a wish come true without hard work. Even so, before heading off to get what they’re wishing for, your readers might want to ask themselves these things. Am I following my passion every day? Do I know my reason for Being? Is my Mission on earth absolutely clear to me? And? Three times no? You don’t know what your heart really desires. You can make a million wishes real, but at the end of it all, you’ll have big regrets. Now a note of sunshine to cast light on that bit of darkness. It’s absolutely possible to figure out what to do with your life…..so your wishes mean something to you when made true. It’s not complicated either, but…..like Diggy says….it will take some work. Ciao from a sub-zero farm in rural Canada Diggy. John Duffield
.-= John Duffield´s last blog ..Do You "Know Thyself"? =-.
hey Ivan. and DIGGY!!!
awwwwsomeness.
really liked the flow.
magic warm yum irreversible glory 🙂
make it happen.
glorious
alex – unleash reality
Hi Diggy,
So true, and great advice! We’d all love that magic genie in the bottle to transform our realities for us and make our wishes materialize in an instant. You’ve really outlined a good process for examining wishes, and the fact that we *do* have that power to create our wishes if we really desire them, it just takes a little longer than it does the genie!
Cheers,
Miche 🙂
.-= Miche´s last blog ..There Is No Such Thing As Stuck =-.
Heya Ivan:)
Thanks again for using my post, I hope your readers enjoyed it!
@John, Heya! Thanks for the cool detailed comment! I agree, the biggest question is to find what you truly want, and then take action to get there somehow or another.
@Miche, Thanks for the kind words! Haha, I like that satement, we are our own genie’s 🙂 I may just use that in a post one day! Cheers!
.-= Diggy – Upgradereality.com´s last blog ..Be True to Yourself – Tyler Durden Style =-.
no thank you for letting me share it my friend :)….hope all is going well…talk to you soon…@Diggy – Upgradereality.com:
An eye-opening post you have presented here. Most people have harbored the habit of wishing instead of doing. I think the reason behind this attitude is that it’s hard to take the first step, and when one manages, the second difficult this is to stick with it.
I believe it’s much better to commit into action the sleep in wishing. 🙂
I think most people wish too much and do too little. Saying tomorrow is so much easier than doing today. Well, saying is so much easier than doing. Your post is well written and very inspirational. Well done!
Great Post! I have a similar one on my website http://www.successwithstephen.com