A while ago I read a book by Arielle Ford called The Soulmate Secret, and I liked it a lot. It was a good book about using the Law of Attraction to find your soul mate. And while I really enjoyed it in terms of helping others to find the right mate for them, I also liked the idea of using the same or similar principles for finding your path in life.
However, before I get into the parallels of these concepts of finding the right mate to finding your path in life, I’ll converse a little bit about my own love life.
Over the years, throughout all of my relationships and all of my droughts, I have turned to books to help me figure out what I was missing. Nearly ALL of the books said something along the lines of “pick two or three qualities that you absolutely must have in a partner, and then forget (or try to negotiate) the rest”. While I understand that this logic certainly widens the pool of candidates and therefore (mathematically) the odds that you will partner up, it doesn’t truly help a person attract the right mate. It helps attract a mate, but not the right mate. Why? Because 100% of those people that you attract will have something about them that you won’t want or like or be willing to live with for the rest of your ever-lovin’ life, even though they will have the two or three things you have determined are your non-negotiable items (and by the way, I tried negotiating on the things that weren’t on my list of three, and it spectacularly did NOT work. I was dating a man for a while when I said “you know, it would be really cool if you would be on time”, to which he responded “you know, it would be really cool if you would be less of a bitch”. Apparently I did not have “punctual” as one of my top three non-negotiable items, and he did not have “be willing to put up with all my shit” as one of his). If you are settling in your love life, by nature of the Law of Attraction, you will magnetize to you people who are also settling. How is this helpful? Doesn’t this just dilute the pool, instead of concentrate it? Is the goal to partner up, or to partner up with the right person? Even worse, how good does it feel to know that the people you are attracting also consider you someone they have to settle for? Bleh.
Now the point I want to get to, is that the same principles apply when trying to find your ideal work/lifestyle. Sooooo many of us settle, coming to the conclusion that there is just NO WAY we’ll ever be able to reconcile what we’ve been taught about life, with what we dream about life.
Piffle!
Have you ever heard the phrase “you get what you settle for”? Well, there you go. If you’ve decided that life is a pile of turds, then guess what you’re going to get? A lot of crap.
For the purpose of this post, I am going to assume that you readers are interested in finding the right lifestyle, not just any old 9-5 grind while looking forward to watching football/Real Housewives marathons/hours of Facebook/YouTube insipidity on the weekend so you can tell your friends and family and everyone you come into contact with, that yes, you are in fact someone in this world because there is a social media outlet in which you avidly participate where everyone can witness the made-up minutiae of your life. There are plenty of folks out there who want just that, and more power to them. I’m sure they’ll find each other on Facebook. This post is for readers who want more deliciousness in their lives, natch.
I didn’t realize that this settling business was happening in my dating life (or, say, ALL of my life) until I read this Soulmate Secret book. I’d made lots of lists of qualities in my ideal man over the years, just like all the books tell me to do. And, I’d attract guys who had the things on the list, even though I didn’t include ALL the things I really wanted in a man, because I had been trained to believe that I would never get everything I wanted (other people’s dross, remember). Asking for everything you want in a mate, apparently, is unreasonable. And guess what? I didn’t get what I wanted. And guess what? I’m still single. Why? Because I don’t want a man who doesn’t have all the things I really want. And since I don’t want a man that doesn’t have all the things I really want, by the Law of Attraction, I’m going to get a man who doesn’t have all the things I really want and I’m not going to want him. Hm.
And round and round we go.
The Law of Attraction clearly states that you will always get what you ask for. I was asking for a man I didn’t want. I got men I didn’t want. This is why settling never works. In your dating life, and in all other areas of your life.
What I like about this Soulmate Secret book, is that Ms. Ford openly asks you to write your list, and include everything – and I mean everything, right down to eye color, height to the last inch, weight to the last pound, what songs he/she likes to sing, how he/she likes to celebrate the holidays, to name a few – that are important and/or meaningful to you. Don’t put stuff that “would be nice if I could get it, but it’s not necessary”. Don’t put stupid stuff just to be difficult. Only put the VITAL things on the list, that you know would make you happy if they had them, and probably would make you bloody miserable if they didn’t. Absolutely everything, down to the last detail. She asserts, logically so, that if you list everything you want, and think about that person who is everything you want, the energy level and frequency of your vibration will rise to match the level of that person you are looking for (they do exist… you just have to attract them into your world), be sent out into the Universe, and that energy surge will magnetize them into your life. Makes sense to me.
So. Couldn’t the same concept apply to attracting the ideal lifestyle for yourself? Let’s face it, most of us have ended up in the lives we have because we just “allowed it to happen”. And then – gulp – we settle for… that. The people out there who have the most exciting, fulfilling lives (and, naturally, relationships) are those who actually KNEW WHAT THEY WANTED. Those who don’t (me, for oh so many years), just plod along taking what is offered, without really thinking (in detail) if it matches what we want.
Basically, we’re all just appallingly lazy.
So, when I wanted to change my lifestyle I began by writing a schedule of how I wanted my average day to look. And then I wrote a schedule of what I wanted an extraordinary day to look like (and we want some of both, let’s face it). And you know what? It was fun! I actually got excited about writing my schedules because I felt the joy of believing that I could have everything I wanted in my ideal lifestyle. I could see it and feel it – or rather the energy – and it was exhilarating. I didn’t have to settle! WOW! Talk about liberating! I was so excited just thinking about it. And you know what? The Universe felt my vibrational excitement as I thought about my awesome new life, and it brought it to me. It still does, every time I continue to add to my list of lifestyle desires.
Now don’t get the idea that this is where the work ends. Oh HELLZ no. Getting really clear on how your dream life will look and feel is just the beginning. We all have to crawl before we can walk, and walk before we can run, or else we’ll spend a lot of time falling down on the ground and hurting ourselves (see every baby learning to run before he can walk, hello).
The point is, that excited, anticipatory energy was a completely different (and higher frequency) vibrational signal than the one I was sending when I was just ambling along, listening to other people try to tell me how life “really” was. When I would hear those people, I would feel a grave sense of disappointment. Nothing overwhelming, but the feeling was there, and noticeable. And if it was noticeable to me, this low frequency human, it was definitely noticeable to the Universe. Why am I now not at all surprised when I think about the life I have attracted over the years? The Universe was just matching my vibration and providing opportunities based on that. And – wheyyyy! – I was always disappointed with them. Icky poo poo. Not that these opportunities weren’t wonderful in their own ways (I wouldn’t be where I am now if I hadn’t experienced them!), but they certainly didn’t add up to my dream life. They couldn’t possibly – I was settling.
Stank!
Now. There is a caveat to this method of attracting the lifestyle of your highest dreams: you have to be willing to wait for the Universe to respond to your order. SIGH. I know, this condition has got to be the most bugging thing in the world, but there it is. Like you cannot control the chef when you place your dinner order, you can not control the Universe either. Bummer, I know. You’ll get your order when it’s ready.
So my astrologer tells me, anyway. 😉
The Universe does not work on our timeline. This is one fact that most humans simply refuse to accept (including myself, up until this point in my life, when I finally realized how futile it’s been). Spirit hears our request, and then moves things to fulfill it. Sometimes, the process takes longer than we are willing to live with or trust, and so instead of being patient and maintaining the faith that our order is being filled, we abandon our original intent, and…. settle. Kind of like leaving the restaurant where we placed our magnificently delicious dinner order, but because it didn’t arrive fast enough, we went to the hamburger joint down the road that served us immediately. It wasn’t the luscious filet mignon steak we wanted, but we weren’t willing to wait. Similarly, we marry people who are in our lives at the moment we are starving to get married, or take jobs because we are starving to maintain a certain status, hoping that the person/job will be as awesome as that steak and not the hamburger they really are. In that moment of starvation, hamburger looked like steak. But hamburger is never steak, no matter how hungry you are. It can taste really great when you’re starving, but if you prefer to eat steak every day, it is unwise marry or take a job with a hamburger. You’d do better to get some bread to tide you over while you wait for the steak to arrive.
Spirit answers all requests. This is why settling never works. You don’t want your steak to arrive at your table after you’ve already left.
The same thing applies to creating the life that you want. If you’re so desperate to have all the STUFF that you think you need RIGHT NOW to feel good about where you are in life, or to impress all the other folks who are “participating in the same game of make-believe”, then you’ve fallen into the trap of settling. And, you end up getting hamburger.
Life isn’t about accumulating stuff. It’s not about impressing other people. It’s about passion and adventure and a sense of accomplishment for a job well done. And you can only achieve the latter when you can envision what that looks like, for you.
No one else.
You have to decide what you really want to eat, and then be willing to do the work to find the restaurant who can fulfill your order. And if no restaurant can provide you with the meal you want to eat, you have to be willing to cook it yourself.
So if you’re just starting out, don’t listen to people who tell you that you can’t have what you want in life. You can. Don’t settle. You just have to figure out what that is by spending some time envisioning it, writing it out, and then coming up with a plan to find the ingredients and create the meal of your ideal life.
The good thing is, even if you are not just starting out, your life isn’t over even if you have settled into a life of endless boredom and obligation. You CAN change things. You can create a new meal. Write down what your dream day looks like. Get all the details in! Really go to town with it. Believe it or not, when you’re done, ideas will start to germinate on how you can actually make that beautiful life happen.
Or, you can contact me. 😉
