Recently I have been challenged by three different people (a friend, a coach, a seminar leader) by the question: “What do I now stand for, what is my one cause?” Or said more directly, “What’s the one cause that I am willing to put all my life in to, and at risk for, it’s successful realization?

What is coming up for me, in how to begin to answer this question, is connecting with the intersection of the answers to – What am I most drawn to? Above all else what do I deeply value? What fuels my fire?

In essence – What am I willing to commit myself to 100%?

How can I take my root values: Understand & Evolve; Relieve Suffering; Improve the Human Condition; Natural Beauty; Joy/Aliveness; Authenticity. And fully intertwine my most meaningful sense of purpose: Being Awake and Connected to All of Life. All directed at the one thing I have been most drawn to: Expanding Loving Leadership for All?

This is consuming my consciousness this holiday season.

What would you say your answer is to the Big Question?

A new year dawns, and it’s a great time to sit back and ask yourself “How will I grow myself, what areas can I work to self-improve, what do I need to do to become who I want to be?

Too often people make their new year’s resolutions about things they want to do, places to go, or things to get. We continue to pursue things that we think will make us satisfied, successful or happy. Yet, most of this activity is simply a grand waste of time – and leaves us just a bit more cynical and jaded year after year. If you’ve ever analyzed why you don’t achieve the goals you set, or realized why the career or financial aspirations you want haven’t materialized, or still lack the depth of joyful relationships you desire, you probably see that something within yourself is preventing you from achieving what you say you want. Trying harder, working more, pushing, forcing, hoping – none will ultimately get you where you want to be.

If you want to live a better life, have better things, enjoy better relationships – it looks like you’ll have to become a better version of yourself first!

To cut right to the heart of this issue, we must first BE the best version of who we are as a human being. Before we are human ‘doings’ and human ‘havings,’ we are utmost human ‘beings.’ We are who we have been, and while that may feel like that’s a life-sentence for the rest of our lives, we can alter who we are by getting in touch with our deepest, most authentic nature. We can evolve and become better, and that will require tapping into your innate consciousness/wisdom, and being brutally honest with yourself. To grow, in essence, is to shed those parts of you that are/were never really true, and be open to see yourself honestly without ego, judgment, shame or fear.

I have myself, and with coaching clients, used the following lists, questions and exercises to help with the self-evolution process. Take a look and see if any of these can be of service to you!

Expand Your Self-Awareness

There are countless resources out there on any of these areas listed below, and lots of teachers, books and programs are available. I suggest pick the one or two that resonates most with you right now and dig into yourself through them:

1. Meditation
2. Mindfulness Practice
3. Assessing Limiting Beliefs
4. Understanding the Ego & Assessing Fear Patterns
5. Contemplation & Observation
6. Self-Study, Spiritual Practice
7. Values, Passion, Strengths and Purpose Definition

Increase Self-Mastery

These will help you improve the way you live your life, particularly in getting along with others and setting new directions in your life:

1.  Coaching: Personal, Life
2. Emotional Healing
3. Gratitude
4. Forgiveness
5.  Releasing Attachments
6.  Group Work
7.  Personal Assessments
8.  Physical Practices
9. Vulnerability Work

Improve Professional Mastery

Since we all need to work, finding the right outlet for your unique gifts is a big undertaking, yet a most meaningful endeavor:

1. Find the intersection where your Values, Passion, Gifts, Personal Purpose align with an organization that welcomes your unique contributions and allows for your full engagement in the effort.
2. Take up a new study either at a college or on-line program that helps you expand in new areas.
3. Coaching: Professional one-on-one, or join a Peer-group program.
4. Consider taking on a new role or business opportunity that allows you to stretch yourself.

Deepen Your Relationships

1. Make a list of 10 people you most want to have a better relationship. Look at where you see new possibilities with them. Take ownership of what’s happened in the past, and let go of old interpretations and stories you built up that created distance between you both. Find where you are deeply grateful for them, and then use forgiveness to free you from any past shackles. Then reach out in your most loving way, reconnect with heart and soul, and stay present to them.
2. Make a list of people you want to establish a new relationship. Take note about them that you admire, and see what you can bring to this relationship. Then go and make that happen!
3. Stay present to the relationship you have with yourself. Take care of your physical body, keep your mind active on things that interest you, face emotions and share your feelings, and develop the unseen parts of your human spirit.

Broaden Your Leadership Capacity

1. We all are leaders, at least of our own lives. Many have the role as owner, manager, boss, supervisor, yet few are true leaders. Leaders inspire others to bring more of themselves than they thought was possible. Are you a leader? Ask yourself a few questions:

– Do I really like people, being around them, helping them get what they need to get things done?

– Can I see a bigger picture of what we are doing and help others see that as well?

– Do I think about what I can do to expand my ability to care for others?

– Am I truly interested in others succeeding?

2. Leadership capacities you may want to develop are you being more: inspirational, insightful, intuitive, non-forcefully persuasive, flow-oriented, integrative, visionary, strategic, coach/mentor, stakeholder-oriented, and system-oriented.
3. True leaders are men and women who are more self-aware and conscious about themselves and others around them. They are awakening to new truths, open to grow, learn, change, set on changing themselves, concerned about making ethical choices, becoming more open and transparent, better at developing trust, being more responsible and accountable, developing emotional intelligence, learning what triggers them and work to reduce effects of emotional hijack, cleans up messes better, learning to be more effective at confrontation and problem-solving, and open to being coached and mentored.

Einstein is often quoted that “we cannot resolve a problem at the level of thinking that created it.” I say we cannot resolve our problems by sticking to being the same person we always have been.

The opportunity for real change is before us – and it doesn’t require us to “do” or “get” anything new or hard. It requires us to shed who we are not – all the fears, beliefs, masks, stories, pretenses – that we have come to define ourselves as, and step into our own natural, authentic power. Only then can we BE the person we want to be, can then DO the things we know need done, so we can HAVE the positive results and life we know we desire and deserve.

It takes work, in this case lots of self-reflection, honesty, vulnerability, patience, and desire to allow oneself to be your authentic self. While the path isn’t easy, it is the most rewarding one you’ll ever walk. Some of this is done alone, and some with others. My hope is that you find worthiness within yourself to make you a priority in 2017, and beyond. The price you’ll pay for not evolving is far too high. Aren’t you worth it? Aren’t your loved ones worth the effort? Isn’t your mark on the world worth you playing full out?

Your life awaits – I hope you grab all of it!

Be the you that’s in there, and then be the change in your life so you can live your life to its fullest!

Take a moment and check-in with yourself:

– How did your health fare over these past 12 months?

– How have your key relationships gone?

– How did your work or service go for you this past year?

– Did your personal wealth go up, down, or stay the same?

– Did you learn anything of true value to you and others during this past year?

– What goals did you meet/exceed? Not met? Why?

– Are you happier than a year ago, if so why, and if not, why?

– What’s your state of mind now as compared to a year ago?

– Are you more, less, or the same in regarding confidence in yourself, others, Life, as you look ahead?

– Is your life meaningful to you?

Many people are excited to see a year come to an end, and look ahead to a new year as a fresh start. Some are dreading more of the same pouring over into a new year. Then there are those who don’t give much thought because they feel resigned to a life that feels stuck, heavy with responsibility or simply lack the energy or vision to move forward.

Before you begin to plan ahead it’s always good to put what was/has been in a healthy place within you. Make a list of all the people, places, and things you are most grateful for in 2016. Really get into the loving power being in a state of gratitude and grace offers. Then make a list of all those who you forgave over the past year, or who still needs forgiving by you. Then, either to them one-on-one, or within your own mind and heart, forgive them for whatever you have been holding on to. Especially be open to forgive yourself in each of those encounters. It’s near impossible to manifest something new if old negative energies are still holding you back from moving forward. Gratitude brings in more of the good – forgiving lets you release what is not healthy for you. Both are the prep work needed to manifest anew.

No matter your position in Life, I say we all can, if we consciously choose, begin to create new life paths, possibilities and plans that enhance, enrich and enliven ourselves and others in our lives. If you are ready to live a life of more peace, prosperity, health, joy and meaning, then it all must start within you!

As I have studied Wallace Wattles, Neville Goddard, Dale Carnegie, and others who studied those who are adept at making their desires come true, I synthesized their wisdom into what I call The Manifestation Process. When I desire something and have clarified the goodness, truth, and beauty it will bring, I use the process below and await the results. This process has served me and others well, and I encourage you to study and practice becoming an intentional creator to build the life you desire.

The Manifestation Process

1. Visualize IT, the goal or object desired, happening. Create a clear, compelling picture in your mind that generates big feelings and creates excitement. It could be one image, a series of images, or a short film. Form a distinct mental image of what you want your IT to be. Then Intend IT!
2. Take some time and contemplate the IT of what you want. Allow gratitude to enter around the realization of your IT, and ensure that IT is in alignment with your highest ethics. Tap into your higher self through meditation, contemplation, and visualization. Be mindful of IT.
3. How does IT feel in your gut, head, heart, body? Assess whether IT feels 100 percent or less. Write down your beliefs about IT. Is it fully believable within you or less so? Investigate any doubts, and allow them to diminish to zero.
4. Hold fast to the intention of IT. Believe IT 100 percent, and will your attention to IT. Think, believe, and act in full faith with IT realized.
5. Identify one or two big feelings you would have if IT happened. Don’t associate this with acting “as if”—this is only about feelings! The feelings could be gratitude, joy, peace, etc. Remember big feelings!
6. While holding the image, breathe those feelings into every cell of your body, deepen them, intensify them, and make them bigger than you ever have! Experience those feeling more fully than you ever have. Let yourself go! There is no limit to how deeply you can feel something! Breathe those feelings in like they are the only oxygen in the room! This is called breathing a feeling.
7. Make it even stronger! Double the feelings!
8. Hold the feelings for a full minute or more. While holding that visual image and the supercharged feeling, repeat these words of power with great authority and intent until it feels complete:

“Already done, already accomplished!”

9. Say “thank you” to your divinity/higher power, positively reaffirming the outcome of your desire made manifest. Realize, with great gratitude, that you do get what you want. Retain your vision, stick to your intention, and maintain faith and gratitude. Act with faith and intention in every interaction. Pay attention to any clues that IT is on its way. Be a magnet for others to receive a sense of advancement or increase from being with you. Give them more value than they give you.
10. Feel and act, imagine and contemplate “as if” your vision is already realized—with 100 percent faith—until your IT is manifested. Take the last few minutes of each day, review your IT, and fill your mind of with gratitude as if IT is realized.

I have a few key suggestions to share. Don’t get caught up in worry or trying to control any outcomes. Don’t allow any conflicting, competitive beliefs or fears to derail you from your best intentions. If you find any of these in your thoughts or feelings, you will not manifest what you desire, so if you discover them face them, confront them, allow their energy to play and pass fully through you, and let them go so they no longer prevent you from attaining the life you envision for yourself.

Assume the feeling of the desire—IT—fulfilled throughout your being as often as you can during your days!

Imagine IT, desire IT, intend IT, believe IT, feel IT “as-if” IT has already manifested, and then just let it go.

Wishing you a joyful, healthy, prosperous and meaningful 2017!  Kevin

Many look back as the year is ending, take stock of where they are, and where they’re not, and then look ahead to set new intentions, goals and plans. Yet we all know that most of those wonderful plans will go unfulfilled. I have come to know that the reason why we humans don’t meet our goals is that we hold another belief, often a hidden belief, that is stronger and in conflict with our new thinking. Hoping for a new outcome is a scenario doomed to failure, given how our mental and emotional systems are composed, when we have conflicting beliefs held within.

Wikipedia says “Belief is the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case, with or without there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty. Another way of defining belief sees it as a mental representation of an attitude positively oriented towards the likelihood of something being true.”

Beliefs are mental positions one chooses after experiencing some life event(s) and then makes that new belief their own. Over time that belief typically cements into a person’s values and worldview, where those beliefs in essence become one’s “facts.”

Our thoughts and beliefs color our perception of the world. They determine our actions, inactions, feelings, and behaviors. It is said that whatever you believe becomes your reality. You do not believe what you see; you see what you believe. This is why people facing the same situation see things so differently. Author Rick Carson, in his book Taming Your Gremlins, says, “Beliefs, even the noblest of them, are just opinions that we develop loyalty to.”

In essence then, beliefs are what we make up with or without the support of data, facts or truth!

We all have beliefs about who we are, how life is/should be, about religious and political and social issues. Many beliefs are there because we ‘feel’ a certain way about something, with no real basis in fact, or trust in the sources of those facts.

This political season so highlights for me how the power of beliefs operate. Not only do we humans stick to our beliefs when presented facts or other opinions that refute them, we shut ourselves off from truly listening to outside sources that have opposing views, therefore deepening our resolve to hold on to what we believe. In this case our beliefs have become our identities, our biases, our prejudices, personas, and we form opinions that protect these from others who don’t share our viewpoints. This results in stalemates at best, or conflicts in their myriad forms.

A large number of psychological studies have shown that people respond to new information, scientific, or technical evidence in ways that justify their preexisting beliefs. In other words, people reject the validity of a new data source because its conclusion contradicted their deeply held views. People believe what they believe, and often there is no hard data or facts that support them.

I use this visual to show how thoughts, feelings and beliefs manifest our reality:

Experience → Feelings → Thoughts → Interpretations → Response → Result → Story → Belief → Behavior

Our beliefs drive our behaviors, and limiting/hidden beliefs are the biggest barriers to success. We form beliefs to make sense of our world. Early beliefs were formed around our parents, family, and the immature decision-making skills of our youth. We often interpreted things happening around us and began to think the following:

– I’m not good enough, have no value

– I’m not needed

– I don’t matter, what I say doesn’t matter

– I’m not important

– I’m bad

– I’m wrong

– I’m a loser

– People who are _____ are wrong, bad, scary, out to harm me.

We also interpreted events in our world over time, and developed biases and prejudices about people of other sexes, races, religious and political affiliations, and more. These then become solidified as our truth about the world and of people, and unconsciously drive our thinking and behaviors today.

So before you set yourself up for probable failure in setting new goals for yourself, you might want to look the source of what drives you, and see if there are any beliefs that are counter to the life you envision and desire for yourself. Reflect on what you believe, what your truth currently is, how you arrived at these beliefs, and whether they will serve you along your life’s journey.

I have had to constantly take stock of my most revered beliefs and truths every time I was faced with new ideas or facts. I had to look at what was before me, how it resonated within, and determine what was needed for me to shift my thinking. Once new truths were accepted, the old had to be let go to integrate the new into my system of understanding. Beliefs do not seem to go quietly or without discomfort. Many times this created conflict, which required delving deeper into the strata of my mind.

I often ask these questions of myself and my coaching clients to help root out limiting beliefs:

Are your beliefs still serving you?

What new information, data, and facts are you being presented with that cause an internal rub within you?

What prejudices and biases do you hold on to, and are they still true in all cases?

Where have you formed opinions that seem to project from you without you even thinking, and do they still represent the way you want to live your life?

What belief, opinion, bias, or prejudice, that you now see is no longer always true, would you like to remove from your thinking?

To get beyond the choke-hold of old beliefs and begin living the life you envision requires the following:

1. Set a new intention, desire, or goal.
2. Identify the beliefs you have about accomplishing it.
3. Identify the beliefs you have that run contrary to it, are of a limiting nature, or are hidden that will sabotage it from manifesting.
4. Eliminate the belief, consciously and continuously, by seeing the belief, where it came from, what it has costed you, what emotions it arouses, and just allow that to flow through and out of you without any self-judgment / shame / condemnation.
5. Replace them with thoughts, feelings and new beliefs that allow us to manifest what we desire.

We can challenge our beliefs and biases whenever they show up. We can reject any thoughts of limitations or exclusion, and replace them with a positive stream of thinking which starves them and forces them to wither and die. Self-help guru Jim Rohn said, “You cannot take a mild approach to the weeds in your mental garden. You have got to hate the weeds enough to kill them. Weeds are not something you handle; weeds are something you need to decimate.”

It always comes down to choice – if you really want to manifest new things in your life that go against the grain of your current beliefs, you have to choose to eliminate the old beliefs first. That takes some self-reflection and a desire to see your own patterns, make peace with them and yourself, and let them go. Only then can you more freely go about making your new intentions your reality!

We can implement the following steps to live a more positive, loving, authentic life:

New Thoughts → New Positive Feelings →

New Beliefs → New Attitude →

Different Actions → Desired Results

Happy 2017, and beyond!