What you think, you become
What you feel, you attract
What you imagine, you create.
If you want to have an entirely different life by this time next year, then once you are finished reading this, I will need you to do one thing and one thing only: I will need you to close your eyes and imagine the very best possible version of yourself.
I don’t mean the most productive, or the most physically perfect. I don’t mean someone else’s definition of who you are supposed to be. I mean the one you reach deep into your soul and allow to emerge. I mean your most peaceful self, rested self, aligned self. I mean the self that wakes up each day and likes the person who stares back at them in the mirror.
I don’t mean your best possible elevator speech, I mean your best possible day-to-day, hour-to-hour life.
I need you to imagine the details and contours of this person’s existence.
I need you to feel how their hair sits, the clothes they wear, and how they rest on their shoulders. I need you to taste their cup of coffee in the morning, exactly the way they take it. I need you to imagine your hands moving in the same way theirs do as they complete the work of the day, the tasks they have chosen, the path they are on, the future they claim.
I need you to see life through their eyes, the way it might be.
I need you to imagine the nuances: the people they text and what they say, the food they cook and how it tastes, the space they inhabit, and how it feels.
I need you to imagine what it would be like to watch a movie as them, to kiss someone as them, to get dressed in the morning as them.
It does not suffice to come up with a one-dimensional version of our idealized selves and then to abandon all of our humanness in the process. Our best selves are the ones that make us feel like we are at peace within our own bodies, have made homes within our own hearts, and have finally found our rhythm through the pace of our own lives.
Once you have that clear vision, I need you to open your eyes, and I need you to do the next subversive thing. I need you to be willing to let go of your old self. I need you to understand that you will undergo a death and rebirth, as all of us must do periodically.
You won’t accomplish this by wanting it badly enough, you accomplish it by acting on it in microcosms.
What this is means is that the next time you think to yourself, I should have a glass of water, you actually go get the glass of water and you drink it. It means the next time you realize you’re getting too distracted, you correct your behavior and become productive again.
It means the next time you think, I should go for a walk, you get up and you go for a walk. It means the next time you think, I should pay that bill, you pay that bill. It means the next time you think, I should close all of these tabs and turn off my phone and focus for the next hour, you close all of those tabs and you turn off your phone and you focus for the next hour.
It means the next time you think, I should just relax and enjoy this movie, you relax and enjoy the movie.
It means the next time you think, I am so grateful to have all of this, you actually stop and let yourself feel grateful for having all of it.
This is how you rise to that self you dreamed up.
You do what you know you are supposed to do when you realize you’re supposed to do it.
This is the process of closing the gap between your instincts that are guiding you and the habits that are keeping you anchored to your old life.
This is the process of learning to trust yourself, to hear your instincts, your needs, your hunger cues, that deep inner voice that is always quietly and peacefully trying to guide you.
The honest truth is that you already are the person you desire to be.
It’s just that the habits, patterns, and traits that would make that person fully present are asking to be developed, nourished, and brought to life. It is all there. It is already yours.
It is already you.
It is only through willingness, then vision, then choice, then commitment, then adaptation, then persistence that you will hold that life within your hands, and what was once imagined will be made real.
You are allowed to be the person you know you are inside.
The journey is removing the blocks that prevent you from enacting the cues that would make them fully manifest.
- What are you doing?
- Who are you doing it with?
- Where are you living?
- How much money are you making?
- How much fun are you having?
- What do your senses pick up?
- What is your energy exuding?
- What do you feel in your body?
- What does this version of you value the most?
- What difference are you making in the world?
- What would that version of you tell you about how to show up right now?