Can You Really Have What You Want? Part II

More on yesterday's topic about making the commitment to get what you want in life:

Often we don't focus on getting what we want because somewhere along the way, we decided we don't deserve that much happiness and fulfillment.

I trace my own inclination to think that way back to a pivotal lunch with my mother back in my senior year in high school, when she asked me what I wanted to do with my life. As I was about to answer, 'Be a singer or a writer,' she pointed a finger at me and announced triumphantly, 'Communications! You're going to be GREAT in communications!" At that point in my life I was all about pleasing my elders.

So I promptly burst into tears, and went on to spend 18 years in advertising, 'communicating' and hating myself all the while.

Seeds get planted that shouldn't be allowed to grow; ideas get listened to that should have been ignored. We cast about looking for anyone else but ourselves to give us direction -- and yet, WE are the only ones who can give us the permission to really, truly, honestly create what we want in life.

(And believe me - we really DO know what it is that we want, even when we're convinced we don't.)

We can do what we want with our lives, but only if we are brave enough to seize the initiative -- even if that means not listening to Mom and going it alone.

The urge not to provide ourselves with what we need in life is a sort of Creative Anorexia, deprivation that is all about a distorted picture of who we think we are and deserve. The real irony is that seldom do the contingency plans and hedged bets work out.

During my entire career in advertising I never made half the salary that my other, more eager co-workers made. The simple fact was that I didn't want to be there, nor should I have been.

Perhaps the road to what you want won't be easy or lined with gold, but it will be one hundred percent honest. And that provides riches you can't even begin to count. So get out there, make a plan you can stick to, and begin to do what you want.

I'm here to say that you do, indeed, deserve it.

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