It’s been a while since I penned an instructional blog but I’ve been asked five times in the last week for my ‘secret’ to a successful and fulfilling life. Unequivocally I can tell you it boils down to just two things: focus and choice.  (Click here to listen instead)

Let’s talk about focus first. If you’re a uROk 33 Day Challenger you already know all about this from our discussions on the Creative Process, ‘Radio-Me’ concept and ‘Life-Movie’ visualisations. In fact the whole purpose of uROk 33 Day Challenge is to get you to focus your thoughts, words and actions toward the things that serve you in your journey home to your ideal you. But if you’re new to all of this then let me take a step back to explain further.

No doubt you’re familiar with the power of the sub-conscious mind as a key tool in the Dream Your Life, Live Your Dream equation. The internet is now overflowing with information on how to tap into, feed and influence this well-spring of creativity. Magazines, newspapers and even television (thanks to the likes of Anthony Robbins with his new Breakthrough reality show) have hopped on the bandwagon too. If you want to understand your subconscious better and really put it to good use, there is a ready steady stream of information to suit all tastes just waiting out there for you. One of my personal favourite mentors in this field is Bob Proctor, and he really gets to the heart of the matter in a simple, eloquent fashion that anyone can understand. But it’s not the subconscious mind that I want to talk about per se today because the funnel or mouthpiece to this wonderful tool we all have is our conscious mind. The conscious mind is the filter through which all instructions go in; the gate-keeper so to speak. So no matter how much you think you’re doing to influence your sub-conscious mind, if you’re feeding your conscious mind with garbage and mixed signals, your results are going to reflect the same. This is where our friend focus comes into its own.

What are you focusing on right now? Reading this blog with an earnest focus on how it can help you Dream Your Life, Live Your Dream or are you half-heartedly breezing through, thinking about other stuff? Is your focus clear and strong and full of self-belief or is it lazy, doubtful, fearful and scattered? What you repeatedly focus on becomes your reality. If you focus on all the mistakes you’ve made, the ‘bad’ things that have happened to you, the people who have been mean to you and other such things, what do you think you’ll get more of? On the other hand, if you turn your focus to all of the things you can be grateful for, the pleasant surprises in life, the people who have made your heart sing with joy, the endless possibilities in front of you, how much better do you think your life would look and feel. We all live inside our own heads. When someone says ‘wake up to reality’, my question is always ‘who’s reality?’ because it’s a completely subjective answer.

Now you may be sitting there questioning how you could possibly focus on a reality of being wealthy when your bills are pouring in left, right and centre. Let me ask you however: is focusing on the amount of your debts going to move you to a better place, or is turning your focus (and getting your creativity firing) toward saving more and making more money a more constructive approach? Naturally, in a short piece like this I’m over-simplifying things, but I trust you get the general gist of what I’m saying. I like to think of focus as the positive twin brother of the more negative sibling called worry. Worry is just another form of focus -but hardly a positive use of this magnificent mental function. When you worry, you leak out so much of your positive energy and kill off large chunks of the good work you’ve done through visualisation, goal setting, positive affirmations etcetera. Worrying cannot change things for the better and in fact if you believe that thoughts create your reality, worrying only serves to make things worse. So how do you take control of your focus aside from the subconscious mind techniques we discussed earlier?

Welcome our second friend today – choice. You absolutely must make a choice. Shift your focus from the perceived negatives in your life and aim it squarely at all of the positives, the possibilities and your vision of your best ever self and life. Then make the choice to take action. Choose to Think in ways that serve you, choose to Speak in ways that serve you, and above all else choose to Do in ways that serve you. Hence where the “I am, I now, I feel” affirmation model comes from that I use in all of my work and the very same method that underpins your work in uROk 33 Day Challenges. The harsh reality is sometimes people will do and say things you don’t like. Sometimes the economy will go haywire and external things beyond your control will rock your boat. But what are you going to do about it? Throw your arms in the air, scream it’s not my fault and then spend months worrying about things or, will you instead turn your focus to the positives and the possibilities and then chose to think, speak and act in ways to make them real.

Perhaps a little nagging voice is now saying ‘well it’s easy for her to say that her life is perfect’ then let me stop you in your tracks for a moment. Yes my life is perfect (perfect for me) but bad stuff still happens to good people from time to time. Some months back I suffered a terrible personal loss that rocked me to the core. I felt devastated, emotionally wrung out and just plain tired. I went through all of the natural human emotions one does in such circumstances from shock (how?) through to denial (it isn’t true) and finally to grief (why?). But I quickly realised that none of this was going to change things. What had happened had happened and it was up to me and me alone as to what I was going to focus on and what meaning I would give it. Albeit sad at my loss, I turned my mind and tuned my heart to the things that are good in my life. To help me in this process I practiced daily self-reiki and sought Divine assistance in my healing. I practiced gratitude, spent time in nature and focused on all of the blessings in my life; both those that I already enjoy and those that I know are coming. And then I chose. I chose to think about the positive overall vision I carry for my life, I chose to speak about all of the things I can be grateful for and finally I chose to act in ways that promote healing and happiness. In fact I chose to put myself on another 33 Day Challenge to make sure my head and heart were working together to keep me in that positive state. (Yes, even I still do it after all these years!)

Some people think they have nothing to be grateful for but I strongly dispute this. If you’re either reading this or listening to it then you have at least some or all of your five senses working. You are alive. You are a unique and unrepeating miracle bursting with potential. You can reinvent yourself in a heartbeat. Change your focus and choose to think, speak and do in ways that serve. Your life is a gift. Treat it as such. Chose today to shift your focus to what you really want out of life and then do something right now to make it happen. One small step in the right direction is all you need make.

With love and light,

Sari