In the epic book, The Alchemist, a young boy seeking to discover his life’s purpose meets a wise seer. The young boy wants to know his future, to which the seer says:
“I make my living forecasting the future for people… When people consult me, it’s not that I’m reading the future; I am guessing at the future… How do I guess at the future? Based on the omens of the present. The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better.”
What do your current circumstances look like?
What do they tell you about yourself?
In a recent conversation I had with the famous public speaker and hypnotherapist, Sean Stephenson, he told me: If you want to know what a person wants, just look at what they’ve got.
Don’t Look For The “Next” Opportunity
In the book, It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be, Paul Arden explains, “Don’t look for the next opportunity. The one you have in hand is the opportunity.”
If you’re always looking for the next thing, you’re probably not putting enough energy into the thing sitting right in front of you. There’s no green grass in other fields that is available to you. Only the grass in front of you.
Your Circumstances Reveal You
“Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself.” — James Allen
If you want to see who you are, look around yourself. Your life is a series of subconscious patterns.
Lessons Are Repeated Until Learned
“A lesson will keep repeating itself until it is learned. Life first will send the lesson to you in the size of a pebble; if you ignore the pebble, then life will send you a brick; if you ignore the brick, life will send you a brick wall; if you ignore the brick wall, life will send you a demolition truck.” — Oprah Winfrey
Rather than looking for the NEXT opportunity, or the NEXT relationship, or the NEXT thing… look at what’s right in front of you.
The pattern will continue until you learn your lessons. Until you purge yourself of the suppressed pain you’re avoiding — which is the cause of all the effects around you.
Don’t focus on effects. Focus your energy on cause. Once you weed out of the root, and are healed from what’s holding you back, you will get new and higher lessons to learn from.
Your personality should never stop developing. It only stops when you ignore what is presenting itself to you, over and over.
Surround Yourself With People Who Remind You Of Your Future, Not Your Past
“Surround yourself with people who remind you more of your future than your past.” — Dan Sullivan
Patterns and people go hand-in-hand. Of course, running away from your problems won’t help long-run. But neither will trying to force something to change which simply doesn’t want to change.
If you continually surround yourself with people who remind you of your past, you’ll be stuck there. The patterns will persist.
Once you decide what you want to do and who you want to be, you need to surround yourself with people who are already there. Your brain naturally syncs-up with the brains of those around you. The collective unconscious is not a metaphor, but a very real thing. Your brain automatically reshapes it self and magnetizes to the brains of the people around you.
Epigentically, your biology also reshapes itself based on the environments you place yourself, people you surround yourself with, and behaviors you perform.
Embrace Failure And Radical Honesty
“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” — Winston Churchill
If you really want to improve upon what you’ve currently got, you’ve got to be willing to lose it. You can’t hold onto it so tight. You need to be honest with yourself and with others. You need to seek true learning and seek what you sincerely want.
And you will indeed fail in such pursuits — especially if your pursuing is genuine. If genuine, you’ll do what it takes. You’ll fall on your face. And you’ll seek help from people.
You won’t be embarrassed to ask for help. You won’t be embarrassed about your goals and your challenges. You’ll be humble. And those around you will feel of your humility and sincerity, and they will love you as a result.
Ready to Upgrade?
I’ve created a cheat sheet for putting yourself into a PEAK-STATE, immediately. You follow this daily, your life will change very quickly.
Originally published at medium.com