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Inside Week 5 of What Do You Want?

June 5, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell 2 Comments

This is the fifth guest post by Jean S., who is sharing her experience of participating the 6-week What Do You Want? course. She previously wrote about week 1, week 2, week 3, and week 4.

Now that we have gone through the entire four-week list of “What I really want is…” entries, sorting all the answers into as many categories as we seem to have, we are learning what kinds of things Big-Picture Wants are. Some things seem so important that they must be BPW’s, but upon reflection we find we can unpack them further—by asking again: why? Most of what we do gets us something, hopefully something positive, but is what we think we get out of it the real reason we find it worthwhile to do ?

Big-Picture Wants are the “ends,” the motivators of all our consciously determined behavior. They are not the automatic urges of System 1, the unconscious.

Probing reflection is a tool we use a lot here. Writing to answer the question why? sometimes leads to unexpected results. For instance, here is one of mine: To the question, “What is one thing you really want?” I answered: To have enough income so we don’t have to worry about money.

Why? To be able to discharge our responsibilities to our children.
Why? It is the right thing to do. My husband and I took on the assignment of helping these boys grow and learn and launch onto the seas of life.
Why? The job of parents is to “show them the ropes” of life–even in the world of nature.
Why? We want them to find that which makes them sing in their hearts, to be good, decent human beings, able and willing to help others and contribute to the world while supporting themselves.

This is a somewhat simplistic and incomplete exploration. I stopped there, yet can see it could have gone farther. The surprise for me is to see that while the One Thing I was probing was the desire to have more money, much of what I explain in the exploration of it either has nothing to do with money or has been accomplished without our having much money, anyway. Funny how I mislead myself without knowing I have done that.

Your Big-Picture Wants, by the way, are not some list Joycelyn or someone else came up with. They are YOURS. Once we will have identified at least most of our Big-Picture Wants, then we can use goals, habits, and intentions as the means to getting our Big Picture Wants.

For sure I can see that more money is not a Big-Picture Want. What we may want the money for, though, can point us to some Big-Picture Wants. The goal of “enough money not to have to worry about money” is a means to the ends, perhaps, of Love, Joy, Contribution, Purpose, and several others I can think of.

Know When to Get Assistance

June 2, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

If you work by yourself or live by yourself (or both), you already know how much there is to do and to keep track of every single day. When there’s no one else to pick up some of the slack, the sheer volume of it all can be overwhelming. Believing that you can and should be able to do it all will not make it so. But it can wear you down mentally, emotionally, and physically.

It will wear you down mentally because our brain provides us with a limited amount of conscious attention each day, and when we’ve used it up, we can’t just shift into another gear to get more. When you are trying to do it all, you may find yourself squandering your conscious attention on things that need to be done but that don’t further what you’re trying to accomplish in life. Too many days or weeks of this and you could begin to wonder if what you’re trying to accomplish is worth it or if you’ve really got what it takes.

It will wear you down emotionally because you will inevitably fall behind, miss a target or an actual deadline, or lose track of something. And then you’ll feel bad about it. You’ll feel bad about yourself. If you believe you should be able to do it all, you’ll feel guilty and incompetent when you don’t. If you’re the rugged individualist or self-reliant type, you’ll feel like you just need to work harder to keep on top of everything. Even worse, you could lose your sense of humor.

It will wear you down physically because trying to do everything is exhausting—whether or not you actually get everything done. Mental and emotional stress creates physical tension. You may let your self-care routines go—or at least skimp on them. No time to get to the gym, no time to prepare a healthy meal, no time for a vacation or even a break. You may develop a constant low-level state of anxiety you aren’t even aware of. Trying to do it all can stress your body, weaken your immune system, and make you physically ill.

If you’re in this kind of situation, the best thing you can do is get out of it as soon as possible.

Consider making a list of all the things you do or are responsible for that can only be done by you and another list of all the things that could possibly be done by someone else, even if you have to pay for having it done. You may think you’re saving money (or being self-reliant) by trying to do it all, but that approach can break your spirit. By trying to do it all, you put yourself in jeopardy of losing it all.

I fall into the self-reliant category, and my life-long tendency is to try to figure out how to do whatever has to be done and then do it myself. Sometimes that’s paid off. But even when it has, I’ve often ended up spending an inordinate amount of time learning about something plenty of other people already know how to do. When I do that, I eliminate the amount of time I can spend doing what I know how to do that others may not.

Within the past couple of months, however, I’ve loosened the reins and have begun getting some assistance in three areas: office/organizational, website, and recreational (seriously). I’m not yet taking full advantage of the assistance that’s available to me because old habits die hard. It requires my conscious attention to bypass the tendency to just do it myself. Yet I already feel an enormous sense of relief in realizing that I don’t have to hold up my entire world…all day…every day…ad infinitum.

[NOTE: This post is the sixth in a series. See also When the Going Gets Grueling, Fortitude: Don’t Leave Home Without It, Focus: Keep Your Eyes on the Prize, Patience: Learn to Play the Waiting Game, and Embrace Uncertainty.]

Inside Week 3 of What Do You Want?

May 22, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

This is the third guest post by Jean S., who is sharing her experience of participating the 6-week What Do You Want? course. She previously wrote about week 1 and week 2.

What I Really Want Is… (working with the cards)

In order to keep up with the pace we need in order to take the steps Joycelyn has designed for this process of getting to the heart of the matter in 6 weeks, I find I have to schedule in the writing time each day, or it gets shoved aside more often than not. After all, it’s a course, and I’m not really taking the course if I don’t do the homework. What a coincidence—being able to write every day is one of my prime desires. How sweet!

Embrace Uncertainty

May 19, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell 4 Comments

Embrace Uncertainty

We are wired to crave certainty. For some of us, that means focusing our efforts on getting and maintaining safety and security. For others, it means hedging our bets in regard to anything we undertake. For still others, it means not even starting something without a guarantee of a satisfactory outcome. And for many, it means not stepping out of a narrow and well-worn zone of comfort and familiarity.

We’ve come up with a lot of explanations for the behaviors that go along with trying to fulfill our craving for certainty. In fact, one of the reasons we like explanations is that they make us feel like we understand, and that feeds our craving for certainty. A lot of our explanations are stories spun by the interpreter in our brain. They may be quite wide of the mark in terms of accuracy, so what they’re really giving us is a false sense of certainty. Unfortunately, as far as our brain is concerned—which means as far as we are concerned—a false sense of certainty is almost always preferable to any amount of uncertainty.

Yet people do take enormous risks and undertake challenges and ventures where the outcome is very much in doubt. I’m not talking about the compulsion for engaging in thrill-seeking high-risk behavior. I’m talking about doing something that’s never been done before—like the Wright brothers did—or doing something to bring about change—like Nelson Mandela did. Or doing something we’ve never done before. I’m talking about creating something: a piece of art, a business, a different approach, a change in one corner of the world.

When you start out to do something you have never done before, you can’t know what the outcome will be. Our unconscious causes us to pay more attention to what we might lose than to what we might gain. In trying to avoid loss, we shy away from taking risks or accepting challenges even when the potential payoff might be magnificent. But our unconscious is also notoriously bad at calculating odds, and it doesn’t take randomness and luck into account—both of which are far more significant factors to any outcome than we’d like to believe.

Certainty itself is an emotional state, not an intellectual one. To create a feeling of certainty, the brain must filter out far more information than it processes, which, of course, greatly increases its already high error rate during emotional arousal. In other words, the more certain you feel, the more likely you are wrong. –Steven Stosny, Ph.D.

Life, by its very nature, is risky and enormously uncertain. The truth is that there are no guarantees for any of us for anything. If we want to do more than survive, we might have to step out on a limb once in a while. We might even have to take a leap.

Last week, I was at a luncheon where one of the participants went around the room offering everyone a chance to take one of the tiny cards inside a wicker basket. The card I pulled had “success” on the front. Inside it said:

Anything I’ve ever done that ultimately was worthwhile…initially scared me to death. –Betty Bender

If there’s something you want to do and the only thing holding you back is uncertainty, try imagining a world where all is preordained, everything is known in advance, and there is no possibility of surprise. Is that really a world you’d want to live in?

[NOTE: This post is the fifth in a series. See also When the Going Gets Grueling, Fortitude: Don’t Leave Home Without It, Focus: Keep Your Eyes on the Prize, and Patience: Learn to Play the Waiting Game.]

Inside Week 2 of What Do You Want?

May 15, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell 1 Comment

This is the second guest post by Jean S., who is sharing her experience of participating the 6-week What Do You Want? course. She wrote about week 1 last week.

Inside Week 2 of What Do YOU Want?

Continually look backward asking why?—as we so often do—is sort of like picking at a scab. Does it really help us to heal? Can it take us anywhere new if it’s just a “tired rehashing of the fragmented, misremembered past?” Asking why? forward instead of backward can be much more fruitful.

The handouts for week 2 of the What Do You Want? course were on looking forward vs. looking backward, which shed more light on the way our brains work. Can we get new experiences in life if we so often ask why? about the past? What matters more: exploring a past we can’t change or exploring what we want for the future so we can get clearer on the changes we can effect.

We think maybe it will help us put the past to rest if we make up “answers” to our why? questions about it. That’s all we can do about it, after all. On the other hand, we can be energized by looking at and probing for what we want to have ahead of us. There is a forward thrust toward truth when we ask why? forward.

Think of a 4-year-old child’s drive to ask why? Children at this time discover the power and vastness of that word why. Sometimes we may suspect that they persist with their why? questions just to annoy us. Yet, really, it’s all new to them. Maybe the only intelligent thing for them to do in their “new to the planet” situation is to keep asking why?

WE are in a “new to the future” situation. It is a vantage point for discovering what we really want our future to look like by asking of each answer we give—or is it get?—why?! If we probe for an answer to each why? that will allow us to deepen our understanding of ourselves and what DOES really matter most to us.

As Joycelyn says, “If you keep asking why? forward, you’ll eventually get to the ultimate answer…to the heart of what’s at stake.” One thing that is clear to me is that I have not yet asked why? enough times. If I find it intimidating to start, once I begin, I find it surprisingly interesting and exhilarating to do. Try it! It’s great for getting to clarity.

If you’re in this kind of situation, the best thing you can do is get out of it as soon as possible.

What I Really Want Is… (working with the cards)

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