Push On This Year

Recently, my husband and I set aside a day to have a professional retreat. Since we're both self-employed (Larry is a photographer, I am an author and speaker), we decided to use eachother as sounding boards as we assessed our results for the past and made goals for the rest of the year. The results were both funny, and revealing.

Since we didn't want to spend a lot of money, we decided to camp out in various spots in a nearby college town in Vermont for the day. We began by getting a booth in a sunny deli with fifty cent refills on the coffee. I opened up my briefcase and pulled out spreadsheets, an overview of the year's results in eight different categories, and typewritten goals for last year, this year, this quarter, last quarter, the next five years, and life. Meanwhile, Larry pulled out his checkbook register and began flipping through it.

"Who wants to go first?" I asked, a little too eagerly.

Larry eyed me over the checkbook register. "You'd better," he said. "You've put in a lot more time on this than I have. I'll probably learn something from you."

The fact was I'd spent the last three days tabulating results, digging up old projections, and hunting through files of receipts. In my usual totally mental way, I was determined to make my business a success by thinking it to death. Meanwhile, my husband, who could easily go by the name of Mr. Laid Back, brought along the check book register and a loose list in his head of what he'd made happen.

Not surprisingly,he turned out to be the one who'd met his goals for the previous year. Meanwhile, I was still in the excruciating mode of 'almost there' and 'trying to make it happen.'

My husband is one of the world's great manifesters, which he does by doing practically nothing. After fifteen years of observing this man in action, I can only attribute his results to a profound belief in being able to have exactly what he wants.

For example, some years back he was casting around for the next career move. After two decades as an editorial and corporate photographer, he was drawn to the fine art photography world and had begun to shoot such pictures as well. However, he knew himself well enough to know that he needed a deadline, and probably a partner. "What I really want to do is shoot fine art work on assignment," he announced one day.

Being the supportive wife that I am, I declared that this was impossible and told him to go back to work. Less than a year later, he started shooting fine art photography on assignment for a conceptual artist whose work now hangs in museums and galleries around the world.

He did not seek out this assignment; it found him. Larry did not make list after list of 'what he was going to create'. He didn't set to chanting, or mumble a mantra over and over. Instead, he checked in with his gut, figured out what he wanted, and let it show up. Larry has always done this. For example, once we were out in our small metal boat when he picked up a rotten flotation cushion and declared that we finally needed a new one. An hour later, a brand new cushion floated by.

The key to manifesting anything in life begins with deep knowing -- what we want, and that we are meant to have it.

In the second half of our retreat day, when Larry was meant to make his goals, he kept falling asleep. Maybe it was our lunch (big) or the fire we were sitting in front of as we camped out in the lobby of an old inn. He thought it was because he just wasn't "any good at this goal stuff".

And rightly so. When you're in the quickness of life, stepping out of it to think, plan, and project is uncomfortable and pointless. Larry was quick to note that he hadn't gotten a gallery to pick up his own work in the past year, nor had he sold any prints. "But then ... maybe I don't really even want that," he wondered aloud.

Probably not. Meanwhile, he was manifesting by simply being -- an uncomplicated state that assumes life will roll on as it's meant to, and he will act in kind.

May we all push on this year by simply being true to ourselves, and not thinking our processes to death. Instead, may we truly own what we want.