This is part 1 of 2 – an insider’s look into the Mindset Mastery Program (previously called FTMF). Participants submitted their questions and I addressed each one with tips, thoughts, and perspective that will leave YOU enlightened, comforted, and inspired on this crazy path to achieving your goals.
Get answers:
How can I trust the impressions that come to me?
What if my goals are too big and general?
How can I move on if my goal statement isn’t perfect?
What does the course reveal to me about the way I live my life?
What can I do TODAY to get unstuck?
How can I determine if I’m selecting the right goals?
What is the real purpose behind my desire for a certain goal?
And more…
Learn more about the Mindset Mastery program here: http://www.prosperthefamily.com
TRANSCRIPT:
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the Rare Faith Podcast, where the solution to every problem is only an idea away and where the same activity with just a little more awareness, always yields better results. Award-winning best-selling author Leslie Householder brings some of her best information to this inspiring series of life-changing episodes that you won’t want to miss. Show notes for this episode can be found at ARareKindofFaith.com
LESLIE: Welcome to the call. This is the Q&A Blitz for participants in the program. I wanted to congratulate you for being in the program and I appreciate the questions that have come in. I know a lot of you have had some trouble staying in that forward movement and that’s the main reason for doing this because I want to make sure that you guys are continuing one step at a time, because that’s what it takes. It’s not an easy program and anybody who says that it is didn’t really apply themselves because this is a program intended to stretch every one of us. Life does that and so does this program, to give us the keys that we need to be able to apply these principles in life, and make life a little bit easier.
So I organized the questions, I kind of grouped them and I’m going to start with two that came in that I thought were pretty easy. Some of them are a little harder, even for me to figure out because I’m still learning. Let me tell you that right now, that I don’t think anybody is going to come to a place of arrival. This is a learning process. I learn from each of you, the comments that come in on the forums and in emails and stuff, it’s a daily thing. So the first question that was one of the easiest. Okay, I’m going to take that one first is somebody asked if I finish, and by the way, I did not keep the names on these questions. I printed them out just questions only so I don’t want you to think that’s impersonal. I probably should have kept the names on there then I could address you by name but I’m going to keep it generic.
So the first question is if I finish the online course, will I then have unlimited access to the online program in the future? And the answer to that is that as long as you are subscribed, you will have access to those materials and to your work. It’s not something that can be saved and downloaded and reserved later. As long as you have a subscription, you have access and I just wanted to remind you this is an $847 program that was already a reduced price from what the seminar fees were adding up to be, and we put this online to be as affordable as possible for everybody but you do lose some convenience. So that’s the answer to that question. If you do want the materials for a permanent place in your success library, if you want to be able to have them portable where you don’t have to be logged in to access them, then you can always upgrade to the physical version of the program.
The second question, I really enjoyed these, I could see personality coming through these. I’m just going to read this one. This person says I love to create. I am getting the material, I understand the mindset and am able to apply it easier. I still have down times, I just understand how to think my way through them. It is awesome! So I’m following my heart, I’m working hard following the promptings I receive. I’m offering online health mentoring. My husband tells me I am crazy because I’m doing it complementary. I wasn’t expecting the response I’ve gotten, and I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed and grateful. I didn’t feel like I should charge. I felt like if I just created value for others then it would in some way, be returned to me. I just don’t know how yet or where, so am I crazy? I just feel like I’m doing the right thing. What do you think? I’m loving it! I could spend all day working on it, talk about a kick! I love that comment, and really my response to that is that you’re doing what you feel like you should be doing and yes, people are going to think you’re crazy because you’re chasing a rabbit, but when it is time to start monetizing it, you will feel an urgency to figure that out. Just like you’ve had this sense that you need to be doing what you’re doing, you’ll get that same sense about monetizing it when you’ve laid that foundation.
The next section of questions that came in all went into one category that I called “Stuck On Goals”. For whatever reason, we get to a place and we feel stuck, and we need some more understanding before we feel like we can continue, so let’s just go through these one at a time. This person says I have been stuck early in the course because my goal seems so generic and big. For example, I am so happy and grateful now that we are enjoying financial prosperity. How do you work with such a big goal that is so important without watering it down?
Now before I go into the rest of these questions, before I even answer that one, I want to make sure and I should have said this at the beginning of the call, I’d like you to get a pen. If you don’t already have one, get a pen and get something to write on, and the reason I want you to do this is because it’s more important to me that you are in a mindset of paying attention to whatever impressions come to your mind, whether or not they come out of my mouth. So if I say something that triggers a thought, I want you to write that thought down and as I pose these questions, I’d also like you to see what you would say in your own heart, in your own mind. How would you answer it? How would you coach somebody through this question? Instead of thinking about it in your head and trying to reason it out or logic it out, I want you to keep your mind open and your heart open, and just listen for those impressions, those thoughts and feelings that come to your spirit, and you may end up coming up with a different answer than what I say, and what’s most important is what comes to you is going to be what’s important for you. So be ready to write those things down as they come.
So again, this person is wondering how to work with such a big goal that’s so important without watering it down. Now the statement that was written there was: I am so happy and grateful now that we are enjoying financial prosperity. That is big, that is broad and it is important but my next question would be, well what does enjoying financial prosperity really look like? Suppose you were enjoying financial prosperity right now in this moment, what would you be doing? Would you be sitting there with a smile on your face, leaning back, your fingers clasped behind your neck or your head and thinking, wow, I am enjoying financial prosperity? You know, I think a lot of people think that it’s a vague image and it’s okay if it’s vague but I would like you to, at least, come up with what one thing could you do in your family or in your own personal life, or something that would represent “aah! this is financial prosperity” because this is what I’m doing, or this is what I have, or this is how I am feeling, besides I feel good.
So when you’re stuck on a goal like that where it seems too big, don’t think it’s too big, it’s perfect. It’s perfect the way it is but do add some detail around well, what does that really mean? What does enjoying financial prosperity look like? In fact, you need to be able to write something down that is check off-able, and what I mean by that is how will you know when you’ve accomplished it? How do you know you haven’t already accomplished it? Well, you’re probably thinking well, of course I haven’t accomplished it, I still have bills! No really, how does it look when you’re enjoying financial prosperity? Because if you were to compare the way you live to somebody, say in the bush of Africa and they look at how you live and you look at how they live, they would probably think you’re already rich and already have more than you’d ever need, and so it’s important for you to be clear on what that looks like.
I’m going to move on to the next one. This person says I’m only through the welcome segment of the course but I’d really appreciate some clarification on setting goals since I visualize my goals daily and don’t want to waste time with poorly structured goals as I work my way through the course. Well the good news, the good news with this is that if it’s not quite right, it’s okay. It’s okay, the whole idea is you’ve got to keep going anyway – one page at a time, one paragraph at a time. Even if you don’t feel like you have your goal exactly nailed down perfectly, I want you to keep going anyway because the program is what helps you get that clarity on your goals. By the time you get to the midterm and you’re ready to submit your goal review statement, people submit those statements and part of it is the big long-term goal, the big life vision that you have, how you want things to be. You know, when you’re looking back on your life, what are you grateful for that you’re able to accomplish? How does it feel? How do you want to be remembered? Those are the big ones and then there’s also the short-term goal piece and the program walks you step-by-step on how to create that. Even if you turn it in to me and it isn’t quite right, that’s what that goal review certificate is all about. You turn it in to me and you have me work with you on it. For those of you who are in the online program, that’s not automatically part of the deal but there is a way to get that personal attention. You really don’t need it probably like people think they do. It is a good added benefit for someone who wants the additional confidence but in the online program, there is a module that shows you examples, real examples of goal reviews that were submitted to me, and what I did with them and what my recommendations were.
So the most important thing about this if you’re stuck early on in the course even if your goal isn’t quite right, that’s okay because the mistakes we make are feedback and if you get stuck, that’s worse than having a goal structured imperfectly and really, you’re never going to have a perfectly structured goal. I think we just need to throw that right out the window – the expectation that it’s ever going to be perfect. If we think it needs to be perfect, then we’re going to doubt whether it’ll work. When in reality, you could have a really, really lousy goal statement but believe it will work, and it’ll work.
So it really has a whole lot less to do with the words you choose than it does with the belief that you have, and the reason we work on getting a goal statement as good as we can is so that when we are affirming it to ourselves, and we’re creating that statement in our subconscious mind and passing it over to that part of us, that we’re just consciously making sure it’s as accurate as possible and you know, we’re going to make mistakes even with the best ones, but those mistakes are feedback to help us do even better the next time.
Let’s see, something else too. Write this down. I want you to consider the possibility that the way you approach this program. What if I were to say the way you go through this program is the way you approach life. So imagine you get to a place and you feel stuck. What do you do when you’re stuck? When you’re stuck, do you just set it aside and just kind of stay stuck? Or do you say “you know what, I’m stuck. I wonder if the answer to why I’m stuck is on the next page…” and you just keep going and you just keep going. Remember, you can always go back. You can always go back but just keep moving forward one step at a time, and that’s how we need to approach life too. In life, we get stuck. We feel like we’ve got all these questions, we’ve got all these pressures, we’ve got all these contradictory issues that we’re having to juggle, and conflicting problems and all of this turmoil. Okay, so we have that. Everybody has that at one time or another and throughout our lives, so what do we do in that moment? We’ve got to just do something. It doesn’t even matter if it’s the right thing because God cannot steer a parked car.
As long as you’re rolling in some direction, just keep moving in some direction, then you’re going to get those little impressions, those nudges, those thoughts, those ideas that you probably don’t even know are happening that say “oh, go this way instead, “mmm, that doesn’t feel quite right”, “uh, there’s something wrong with this” and I guarantee most of the time, you don’t even know it’s an impression. It’s just that part of you that’s helping steer you to your best self and to achieve your goals, and really it comes when you’re in motion and if you’re stuck, you’re going to get them. You’re going to get those impressions when you’re stuck that say “do something”. It’s always there. You can ignore them long enough and pretty soon they’re drowned out so much that you don’t notice them anymore. You can’t even hear them and it’s not an audible thing. It’s not with your ears, it’s just that impression in your heart that gives you an idea that you think might be your own idea. I like to think it’s an idea from God – something that helps steer you a step at a time.
Let me tell you a quick story. The point of this question I want to make is just to keep going anyway. It’s not a waste of time to keep going, even with a poorly structured goal but life is like that. Life is going to be unclear. The goals that you set are going to be unclear but you can’t stop and wait until it is clear. The clarity comes through motion. It comes through movement, it comes from falling forward. Okay, we just keep moving one step in front of the other.
I remember when my husband and I lived in California. We had just had our big major breakthrough that you see on the website. We hadn’t moved into that bigger house but we did move into a nicer house and at the time, we thought man, these principles really work! Oh my word! Well, wow if it works for that, we can triple our income and what else could we do? Well, we really, really wanted to move back to where our home was, my husband’s family and this is where I went to high school and everything. So we wanted to come back to Arizona and that was something that we just wanted really badly. Every time we came to Arizona, it felt like home and every time we went back to our home in California, it felt like we were strangers. I mean, we enjoyed living there while we were there but really it wasn’t a long-term home kind of a feeling, and so that was our desire is to come back to Arizona.
Well, we were convinced that we could have anything we wanted because we’d seen it work with this one major goal. It worked, so okay well, what do we want? Well, we want to move to Arizona, that’s what we want and how are we going to do it? I have no idea but we’re just going to do everything we can each day to get a little closer to making that happen. At the time, he worked at a company that took him two, two-and-a-half hours to drive to each day. Sometimes he’d stay there through the week and come home on the weekends. Sometimes he’d commute each day there and back, about five hours on the road, and so yeah, we were living in a nicer home but you know, the lifestyle sure wasn’t what we had in mind and so we weren’t done. Yeah, we had had a big breakthrough but we weren’t done. We didn’t have the lifestyle we were after, and hopefully we never will because it’s really through that, that desire and that drive that we keep growing and learning new things but that aside, we decided that we were going to go and shop for a home in Arizona. That’s something that we could do. That’s something that was within our power to just go look for a home, right? So when we’d go to Arizona to visit family, we’d start shopping, and we actually found a home that we were excited about and we even put a deposit down on it. We’re like okay well, if we’re committed to making this move, don’t know how we’re going to do this, but we’ll buy the house. We’ll at least make a promise that we’re ready to buy it contingent on the sale of our home back in California.
Well, part of this whole package is we had to figure out what we’re going to do for work being in Arizona and we figured well, you know, it’s a lot faster to fly to Arizona than it is to drive through Los Angeles. So we were just going to have him commute from California to Arizona every day and that was fine. It was a step closer to the ideal picture that we had in mind. Well, we got everything lined up, we even said goodbye to our friends. I mean, this is how committed we were. We knew that we just had to go as far as we could go, trusting that things were going to work out and the house would not sell and this was not even in a bad market at the time. This was just in a normal market and the house would not sell, and it was at a fair price and it was a beautiful home, and there was really no reason why it shouldn’t have, and we were getting so frustrated and so agitated, and upset and like what’s wrong? How come the laws aren’t working for us now? What are we doing wrong? We’re doing everything we did before and getting upset and frustrated, and finally it dawned on us… well, maybe we need to ask if this is a good goal.
Okay, I know you’re all probably thinking, well duh?! but you know, we had come away from that first experience the only, like man, we can have anything! We can do anything, we can whatever, and we finally got humbled enough to go in prayer and say okay, Father what if we still feel like it’s the right thing to be in Arizona. We feel like that had already been confirmed to us. I don’t know why it’s not working now but let’s maybe propose a different idea and the idea we brought to Him was so what if we just wait a little longer, work a little harder to get our financial ducks in a row here. The next plan was going to be let’s pick up ten properties and let them appreciate, and then we’ll sell them all and then we’ll have a big chunk of money to move to Arizona, and then we’ll be able to have more options there and he won’t have to commute, and the minute we proposed that idea in our prayer, we both felt this incredible flood of peace come over us. Peace and love, and we realized, oh okay, well there’s another idea but you know what, we never would have gotten to the point of asking that question if we didn’t first try to do all we could do to accomplish what we wanted to accomplish. So I don’t look at that first goal as being a bad goal. It got us to a place where we started asking better questions and so, no matter where you’re at on the path, whatever you’re trying to do, wherever you’re trying to go, if you’re worried about if it’s the right goal or not, well go for it! Go for it until you find out otherwise.
This is one reason why I think it’s important to have a long-term life vision goal that, if nothing else, just kind of determines the kind of person you want to be on the last day of your life. Who have you wanted to become? That’s bad grammar but who do you want to be on that last day? What kind of a person do you want to be, because really it when all is said and done, who you are is the only thing you have left. You and the relationships you’ve built and everything, all the stuff doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what kind of a home you lived in. It doesn’t matter what kind of a car you drove. It doesn’t matter what your neighbors thought of you. None of it matters but you, your relationship with God, your relationship with your family and with people. That’s the only thing that matters and so, get that clear.
What kind of a person do you want to be and the reason I think that’s so important is because if you don’t care what kind of a person you become, then these laws, these principles, they will help you get everything you want and you will die a miserable person. It’s not about this stuff. I believe that we are given a desire for a better life, for more comfortable circumstances, for more amazing experiences, for travel, for luxuries. All these things are desires that can do one of two things. They can inspire you to become a better person through the growth process that comes from trying to achieve goals. Or they can make you a horrible person by operating on a competitive plane and just destroying relationships along the way, and so the desire for the thing can be good. It can be for your good. In fact, I am convinced that in my life, that’s what it’s done for me.
Somebody once said everybody should become a millionaire in their life. Everybody should set a goal to become a millionaire and achieve that in their lifetime, and I can’t remember who said it, but his point was he says not so that they can have a million dollars but because of the personal growth that comes through that process. We think we’re going for the money but what really happens, is God has a way of using that desire for our good to take us through experiences that refine us, that prepare us for the leadership, for the responsibility. Honestly, if everybody was handed a $3 million lottery ticket today, would that be the best thing for everybody involved? There comes a certain level of respect for the money, and responsibility and growth when it’s gradual and when it’s hard, when it’s hard to come by.
So okay, that was a really big, long tangent! This next question, this person says I’m stuck because the simple things seem so hard for me to do and yet, the bigger goals and visualization techniques come easier and I’m already seeing results with things on a bigger scale. I’ve not achieved any of those goals yet but I can see that in several areas, there is definite progress. I’m reluctant to move on without mastering the small and simple things but just don’t seem to be able to focus on the insignificant. I posted something small that had finally happened for me but has since disconnected, so I feel like I haven’t mastered that at all and understand that mastery of the small is essential to mastery of the great. This is confusing because the bigger goals seem to be rolling along. Well, I think that’s tremendous, it’s all relative though. Big things can qualify as “small” and let me explain what I mean by that.
When I ask you to set the small goal at the midterm, the inconsequential goal we’re looking for a goal that creates no inner conflict. So if a person believes in their heart that they are worthy and deserving and capable, and ready to go out and double their income and that’s their goal and they know that that’s what they can do, then they’re going to go and do it, and that would for them qualify as a small goal because it had no inner conflict. Now, most of us aren’t going to face a goal like that without some inner conflict, and something else I want you to think of is that our purpose is not to get good at the little inconsequential magic tricks. I would say stay away from that kind of a purpose.
The whole idea of helping you find your lost car keys, or the whole idea of, one of my favorite examples was one of our earlier students, one of the first to come through the program. He ended up becoming an official mentor. His goal was he wanted to see a duck approach him at the pond or at the river, and he went to the river and he sat down, and as soon as he got there, all the ducks scattered and he sat down. He thought, I wonder how this is going to work, but he held the image in his mind. He pictured the duck coming close to him and he thought, I don’t know how this is going to happen but eventually, a woman and her daughter came by and this whole long stretch of river was as long as you could see and of all the places at the river, they came and stood right behind this gentleman and he thought well, that’s kind of strange because he’s a big guy and he could be kind of a scary guy if you didn’t know him, not knowing if he was safe or whatever and they came and stood right behind him, and started feeding the ducks and as they were throwing the bread out, the ducks came and approached him, and he thought well, I wonder if that counts?
Of course, it counts because what he pictured was realized but the point is, once you’ve experienced something like that where you’ve seen the goal work, where you’ve seen a connection between your thoughts and what’s happened… done! Move on. Now it’s time to really sink your teeth into the ones that create some inner conflict and honestly, mastery of those small things, I don’t have mastery of that. I don’t spend my time practicing the inconsequential goals. If I’ve lost my car keys, sometimes it takes two, three days, a week until I finally say “okay, okay I’ll use it, I’ll try it! I’ll do the little thing again” and I’ll picture myself with it and you know, you can repeat it. It can be done but there are bigger fish to fry. There’s more important things to accomplish and if you’ve seen it work in bigger goals, write one of the bigger goals down in that inconsequential field. Go ahead and write that down and move on.
Again, one of the main messages of this call is move on. Keep moving, keep your feet moving. Do something. One more page. If you haven’t done a lesson in a long, long time, don’t do a whole lesson. Just read a page. Just one page. One page at a time, and you’re going to find out that a lot of the questions you have, a lot of the things that you’re feeling stuck about are going to be answered on that next page. I cannot tell you how many times that has happened and I have a feeling that there’s some cosmic thing with that, that you’re going to get stuck right before your breakthrough. You’re going to be stuck right before the big AHA that takes you to the next level of understanding, and maybe you get stuck and you get stuck long enough that when it comes, you really notice it and appreciate it. Maybe if you weren’t stuck and you read right through it, you would have missed it and so look at all of it as part of the whole picture. It’s part of the process, it’s all good, it’s all for your good and it’s all to get you to where you’re trying to go.
The next question: my ideal life encompasses many goals. However, most of them would be achieved by just achieving the money part of the goal. Do I create a single goal of achieving the money and focus on that alone, or do I write it out and visualize the whole enchilada at once? Again, just keep going, do something. Get yourself to the part of the program where you’re doing your goal review. If you’ve got the physical course, get that goal review turned in because I know some of you aren’t turning it in because you think, oh this is my one and only shot to get Leslie’s help and this is it, and oh my goodness, isn’t it scary and I don’t know what I’m going to say! It’s probably going to be wrong and then I’ll blow it and I’ve wasted my money! Stop it! Just get it done. Just get it done and if it’s not perfect, don’t worry. This is what it’s for, we work it through. If you’re in the online program, get yourself to the part where it helps you break it down into the whole enchilada and the short-term goals.
I will say this because it’s coming to mind, is that I have over the years, kind of steered away from setting money goals and let me tell you why. Not that they can’t be achieved, we’ve achieved nearly every one of our money goals that we’ve set but the money, the dollar figure on it is always relative. So what I thought five years ago would be the number I needed to be free of financial worry, five years later, we’ve achieved that number but other things have happened that our nut is bigger to crack, and so you’re going to get yourself in a loop of frustration if you’re focused on the dollar figure. Now if you need $250 to pay a bill on Friday, go ahead but focus on “oh, we’ve paid the bill on Friday” and don’t focus so much on the $250.
Garrett Gunderson told me that back in the Depression or in the, I don’t know when it was during, I think it was during one of the wars, that they were in Russia people were taking barrows of money, you know wheelbarrows full of money and hauling them into town, and people would dump the money out and steal the wheelbarrow. There comes a point where the money itself has to be recognized as just a representation of what it is you really want. So if you need a certain amount of money, you need to know well, what is that money for and let’s focus on that. Then the money will come and it will be there for that thing, or something else will happen so that thing can be accomplished with or without the money. It’s not about the money and again, if you’re in the online program, get yourself to the part where it helps you create the goal statement and if you create the goal statement and you’re not sure if it’s right, you’re not sure if it’s right, don’t worry about it! Just use it. Use it, use it, use it, use it, use it until you find out that something about it’s wrong.
How do you think I figured these things out to create the course? I created the course because I did exactly what I’m asking you to do. I would set a goal and I would work on it for a few weeks, or a few months and I’d find out oh, there’s something wrong with that. Let me give you an example. I used to say “money comes to me frequently and easily from multiple sources and increasing quantities on a continual basis. God helps His children through me. People want my products.” Okay well, after about a year of that I thought, wait a minute, there’s a problem. Let’s try it this way, “money comes to me frequently and easily in increasing quantities from multiple sources on a continual basis. God helps His children through me. People buy my products.” How’s that? That’s one little tweak in verbiage that makes a big difference and it took me a year to recognize that.
Well, you’re going to figure it out if something’s wrong. You’re going to figure it out and you’re going to figure it out before it’s too late. Don’t worry about oh, but I need to hurry up and learn this in time, or I need to apply this in time! You can trust that God knows what he’s doing with you. You can trust that these lessons that we’re learning will be learned in time. You will learn them in time to apply them when necessary. There may be an experience coming where you’re going to have to lean on and draw from the lessons you’re learning right now. Don’t worry, you’re going to have it learned in time. The thing that I would worry about for you and that you should worry about for yourself is if you get stuck and you stay stuck. Yes, you might get stuck for a few weeks. You might get stuck for a few months. You might put this program down for a year and say I can’t even stomach the thought of looking at that thing one more time because it’s nauseating to me, and then when you get through that, you’ll pick it up later and you’ll pick it up again, but just know that you’re not going to get anywhere if you get stuck without a hope of coming through on the other side.
The point I’m trying to make is that there are ebbs and flows. The Law of Rhythm, remember that one’s in there. The Law of Rhythm in Phase Two, that’s where you know that when you’re having a down day or when you’re having a bad month, or when you’re having a bad year, you’re going to have an upswing too and so if you get stuck, okay, be stuck but don’t get stuck forever. As soon as you find the strength to read one more page, pray for the strength. If you can’t bring yourself to read one more page, then say “Dear Heavenly Father, please give me the strength to just put my eyeballs across the page one more time” because sometimes you’re going to feel that way. You’re going to feel like I cannot go one more step and sometimes my prayers are like “please bless me to want to want to!”
You have got to start somewhere and again, you’ll come out on the other side soon enough, and the reason I know that, and the reason I can guarantee that is because these principles are universal. They’re God-given, they are God-inspired and they’re needed by so many people. So many people in this world need to know what you are learning. They need to know what you know, and I am convinced that you are being prepared to be able to share it and teach it, and demonstrate it to the right person at the right time, and you’re being prepared for that moment and it’s probably already happening. You’ve probably been already talking to people who need to know what you know, and just trust that not only when the student is ready, the teacher will appear but it goes the other way around too. When the teacher is ready, the student will appear and so just keep yourself learning, keep yourself growing and the hard times that you’re going through right now have a purpose. You can trust that and there is a question coming up. I can’t wait to get to this one, so let’s move on.
I get confused because I hear that we should read our goals every day and then I hear to just write it down and visualize it, and forget it and it will happen in due time. So which is the best way? For me, I affirm it until I feel that emotional confirmation that oh my word, yeah, yeah it’s mine. It’s as good as mine, it’s on its way, and what that confirmation is, is just being able to really see it and feel it like, wow, yeah I get it, I see it! Yeah, I know exactly what that’s going to feel like, and sometimes that is a hard place to come to. Like, if your goal is, oh I don’t know, being in a certain place for traveling. What is it really going to feel like to be on the African safari? I don’t know what it would feel like. Well, what would it feel like and you figure that out. When you can really feel it, then all of the forces that need to prepare the way for you to get there are in motion because you got that feeling, because you generated that feeling and if you’ve never felt that before, don’t worry you will. Just keep going a page at a time. So I affirm it until I get that feeling, and sometimes I’ll get that feeling and then I need to affirm it again later.
Realize that the affirmation is not to communicate to God what you want. It’s not asking for the same thing every day, every day, every day, every day, every day. It’s repeating it for your subconscious mind. God only needs at once. He doesn’t even need it. He knows what you need before you say it but He needs us to ask for it because that’s an agency thing. He doesn’t impose on us the things that we want but He needs it just once, but my subconscious sometimes needs it a thousand times before my vibration shifts to a level that’s in harmony with it. So sometimes I’m already at that level where I’m at the vibration and I know it’s just a matter of time. I can say it once and I don’t mean say it, it’s not like a chant, it’s not like that. It’s just affirm it once or write it down once or decide on that goal once, and then I get on with my life, knowing that things are kind of working out for me. I do what I can to further it and I don’t worry. On the other hand, if I am worried about it and I’m not sure about it, that’s when I use the affirmations because if you tell yourself a lie often enough, you’re going to eventually start believing it and so it sometimes feels like you’re lying to yourself when you state your affirmation of how things are, in terms of how you want them to be. So you just say it until you believe it and when you believe it, you don’t need to say it anymore. So hopefully that answers that question.
The next one is how do you get the consistent white-hot burning desire for long periods of time amid the daily busyness and demands of your life? You don’t. At least I don’t, and what I mean by that is, I think there’s a myth or a misperception that you have to have a white-hot burning desire consistently for a long period of time until it shows up. Well, I don’t think that’s realistic. I don’t think our physical bodies have the capacity to deal with that kind of energy for that much time, but let me just give you an example. If you’re going to set a goal that might take, I don’t know six months to accomplish, whatever that might be, you might end up with that white-hot desire, that burning desire, I don’t know maybe two or three times intensely for just a few moments in that whole six month period. So it doesn’t have to be a consistent, constant ahhh, you know it’s not like that. It can just be once and it doesn’t even have to last an hour, it’s not like that. I think it’s referred to as powerful, and big and huge, because it’s intense. It’s just a desire that oh, you can’t live without it, it’s got to happen, and you guys are going to see in the Portal To Genius book, you’re going see what that looks like in the characters’ lives. I think you may be thinking it needs to be bigger than it really needs to be.
So just relax again one page at a time, and if you can spend some time imagining what the accomplishment of your goal is going to feel like, you can develop that white-hot burning desire in just one session of meditation or prayer but it requires focus. It requires concentration, it’s hard to do it when there’s interruptions, and for me it’s through prayer. It’s asking God to help me feel it, how it’s going to feel. It’s asking is this a good goal for me to shoot for? Is this something that you would want for me? Is this going to be good for me, and usually if you can ask a question that is a yes or no, and you’re asking a question that has a yes answer, you’re going to feel some of that intensity, and that love and that confirmation.
How do you let go and let God while still asking? It seems that the “what” is up to you, but the “how” is up to God. I think that’s true. One way to look at this is that the goal is in stone, but the plan is in sand. For example, you know I always had in mind how I wanted my kids to be. Not like I’m forcing them to be a certain way but the kind of family dynamics that I wanted to have, and we’re still working on that. That’s probably going to be one of those things that are long-term. It’s kind of hard to make sure everybody is happy and peaceful when there’s seven of them. A little bit too much to expect but in general, how do we feel about each other? What are our family time experiences like? Is there respect? Are the kids responsible? Are they learning to think for themselves? Are they learning to be productive? Are they learning to accomplish things, and overcome their challenges and achieve goals?
Well, I thought that in order for that to happen, I would have to be June Cleaver wearing high heels with my apron on, and cooking meals and creating masterpieces, and four-course dinners and stuff. I thought that to create the kind of family life and children, that their characters and everything that I wanted to develop, I thought that’s what that would require. Well, I found out that as harried as life can get and doing the things that we feel like we need to do on a moment-to-moment basis, our family doesn’t look like that very often. Life is crazy and like Price Pritchett said in his book You2, on the way to accomplishing a goal, things get messy in the middle. He says in the middle of a life-saving surgery, it would appear as though there’d been a murder in the room and I rely on that so often! I think man, okay we’re having another surgery it looks like because things are really messy but we’re chasing a rabbit! You know, as a family we’re shooting for goals, and things are crazy and things are messy, and I’m not living that life like June Cleaver from “Leave It To Beaver” – that show if anybody remembers what that is, but the ultimate reason for wanting that is being accomplished anyway.
So again, the goal is in stone but the plan is in sand. You don’t decide “how” it’s going to happen. You go with your best idea. You do your best with what you think is right but as long as you keep moving, if you get taken off on a detour the goal can still be accomplished, and probably will be still accomplished if you hold on to it and don’t reject it with your disbelief. You don’t say “oh well, because I’m not June Cleaver, I guess my family can’t be the way I want it to be. I guess my children aren’t going to turn out okay.” It’s in that moment that you decide, okay is this goal going to work or is it not, and you’ve got to reject appearances that would appear otherwise.
This next one, this person says I really have a hard time visualizing goals. Now I don’t remember who wrote that one but if you have a hard time visualizing them, then affirm them. Just write the statement and repeat the statement. Talk out loud to yourself several times a day. Scream it when you’re driving down the street if you have to. Sometimes you can’t visualize the goal because you’re not supposed to be able to see it. Sometimes I am convinced that God “on purpose” hides the detail of certain things from us so that we can see what we will do with as much as we can see. What will we do with this vague vision that we can see? Well okay, I’ve got a vague vision and I can go in that direction and as I get closer, and as I go one step at a time closer, it gains clarity. It’s like looking at something on the horizon. Okay, I see there’s something out there, I’m going to go in that direction but I don’t know what it is. It’s the same way. If you don’t have perfect detail around your ideal life, that’s okay. Just get as much as you can see in writing, that’s it. Just get as much as you can see in writing, and it’s good enough, that’s it. Add detail to it as you get more clear on it.
Next one, getting clarity of mind as to what I really want financially and sticking to it has been a challenge. I keep wanting to create little stepping stones to get where I really want to be. I think my wavelengths are confusing the universe. Oh, that’s to be expected too. You don’t have to be perfect. It’s better to relax about it than to force the decision. Just again, see as much as you can see, get it in writing and let that be your stepping stone. As you get closer, you’ll see it more clearly.
The next group of questions, you know what? I am going to divert again before I go on to that. About that last one wanting to create little stepping stones to get where you really want to be and worrying about confusing messages. I remember watching a movie called “Rudy” about 15 years ago and it’s about a football player who wants to play for Notre Dame, but he’s not really a football player. He’s just a little scrawny guy but that’s his dream, and that’s what he lived for and it’s a true story, Rudy Ruettiger, and by the time he accomplished his goal and I saw this movie, and I was so inspired by it. This was back when we were really, really stuck and I was looking for answers.
We had not discovered these principles yet and I watched that and I thought, you know what? Man, I wish I could be that passionate about something, because I had heard that you have to have a white-hot burning desire for something, and I thought I don’t even know what I could want that badly. I don’t want anything that bad and it bothered me. I thought well, does that mean I can’t acco. In that moment I decided okay, since I don’t know what to shoot for, I’m going to set a goal and I didn’t do this consciously, like I didn’t write it down because I didn’t know about that, but I just thought I want to find a goal that I can be passionate about. How’s that for a goal? What if you were to set a goal to find the right goal? That works, that one works.
If you’re not sure what it is that you can develop that kind of desire that would move you through the mountains and over the hurdles to become who you want to be and live the life you want to live, then set a goal to identify the perfect goal and you’ll know it’s the perfect goal because you will feel that burning desire, and you’re going to know, this is it! This is the one, this is the right thing! We have this internal guidance system. We flounder, we search, we scramble, we fumble, around in the dark and when we stumble onto the right idea, when we stumble onto the right thought, we know it. We just know it and if you’ve never felt that yet, then set an intention to find the next right goal for you.
Or if you have a question on your mind, I want to find the answer to this question. That could be a small inconsequential goal. It doesn’t have to be finding lost car keys and it doesn’t have to be a bird at the pond. It can be: I need the answer to this question. What do I need to do for that particular child in my family who’s struggling with whatever? That one is bite-sized enough because you know the solution to every problem is only an idea way. Well, to come up with an idea to solve a problem in your family, or at work or whatever it might be in your health, in your personal life, get clear enough on what that question is, and set the goal to find the answer and when you find it, check it off, fill it out, put it in the forum, move on.
So the next one, this next group has to do with tenacity and mental toughness and anxiety. The first question says I’m only about eight lessons into the program but I’ve read your books, as well as many other books on the Law of Attraction and yet my life continues to stay stagnant, and I keep having the same setbacks and frustrations. I can intellectually understand things but to have my emotions stay in check during struggles is very difficult. Letting go and trusting that all will be well if I keep focusing on the “why” has been very difficult for me. I don’t even like writing this because I know it reinforces the negative. I know I can get through this but I just need to understand the “how”. How do I control my feelings from going into frustration, doubt and fear? How do I feel good during difficult times?
Well, the first thing I want to say is feel it completely. If you’re feeling negativity and discouragement, and you’re really struggling not to go there sometimes, you just have to go there and it’s not going to kill your dream and the reason why I know this is because I go there often, and it doesn’t kill my dreams. I might think it has but in that moment I choose to believe that it didn’t. That’s the key and the reason I can believe that is because I have tried to grow a garden before. I have planted seeds and I have missed watering them for a few days before and they still grew. I had forgotten about them and they still grew. I have let them dry up and I have replanted them. So you know, you’re never stuck for good.
You don’t have to throw away the idea that oh, now the goal can’t be reached because I was negative. In fact, that is the moment where most people fail only because they say oh, I guess it won’t work. That’s it. It’s not because they were negative in the first place. It’s because they thought the goal was destroyed because of their negativity. Do you see the difference? So go ahead and feel it completely. The sooner you get it out of your system, the sooner you can bounce back. Now I’ve experienced depression before, where you go into this negative place and it’s a downward spiral and you can’t get out of it, and it’s hard to switch that off but I want you to just remove the fear of being negative, because the fear itself is a vibration that you want to avoid. So don’t be afraid of having a bad day. Don’t be afraid of getting discouraged in terms of how it will affect the goal.
The Law of Rhythm guarantees that we will have those bad days. It’s part of the plan, it’s part of the whole growth process. If the seed sprouts and the plant grows, it needs sunlight, true? True. Okay, but it doesn’t need it 24 hours a day. So your goal like a seedling, a sapling maybe, as it grows it’s going to go through darkness. It’s going to go through some cold times, it’s going to go through some drought but it’s resilient enough to keep growing anyway. Now what you’re doing when you have a negative day or a bad spell, and you’re just feeling bitter and upset, okay so it’s night time for the seedling or the sapling. It’s night time. You know you’ll come back, the sunshine will come back but here’s what kills the seed. When the night time comes and you go outside to your garden, and you say “oh, it’s night time! I guess we better yank out the seed. We better yank out the plant.” Now that’s what’s ridiculous and yet that’s what we do when we get negative, and then we worry and doubt about our goals.
So just be kind to yourself. Be forgiving of yourself because God is forgiving, and it’s up to us to keep the goal alive and to keep the hope alive and when we’re not feeling hopeful, just know that the hope will come back. I do encourage you to keep the journal in the program. When you’re feeling negative, go ahead and write it all out. Get it out of your head, write it out. Get it out of your head and then end with the rules and on a positive. Just say “you know what, this is how I feel and this is how it is, and this is how horrible life is and I hate it, and it stinks but I know that I’ll see things differently soon.” That may be all it is, okay? So just get it out of your head so that you’re not stewing on it. Sometimes the more you suppress it, the more it builds and the more explosive it becomes when it finally comes out. So just let yourself experience it completely, it’s okay.
The next one, oh this one was fun! I am currently working on Lesson 13. I reported my first midterm experience of passing through a traffic jam on the highway at normal speed. Instead of being blocked by it, the traffic jam had been announced five miles before its location and during these five miles, I used visualization and faith the best I could to avoid it, and I love this person says the best I could because I think so many people get stuck saying, oh, it’s not perfect faith therefore it won’t work! No, it doesn’t have to be, just the best you can. Arriving at the location of the traffic jam, the highway split in two. One part going south in my direction and the other part going west. The traffic jam was limited to the westbound side of the highway. What if I had not made my visualization and instead moaning in advance on the traffic jam, would the traffic jam have been exactly at the same place? Or would it have blocked me, and then he goes on, but I just want to address this first question.
You know, I don’t think there’s any way I’d ever know but my guess would be that if that was going to block you or if you had been negative about it, all upset about being late in a traffic jam and everything, it could have been. You know how there’s those people on the freeway that just kind of don’t pay attention to how slow they’re going, it might not have been the traffic jam. You might have been blocked up in other ways, or that traffic jam might have backed up far enough to stop you before the branch. Who knows, who knows? The most important thing is again, that you look forward and use what you’ve learned to accomplish the next goal.
You know what? Here’s what I want you to do. You can choose to believe what you want about that experience. If that were me, I would choose to believe that if I had been negative, I probably would have been stuck. Maybe my car would have been stuck. Maybe my car would have broken down. Whatever it is, whatever story I want to create around the data because the data is what it is, and this is where a lot of us get stuck is where we take in the data and we create so much story around it, that we get bogged down in illusions and what-ifs and falsehoods, and when we could be more productive doing other things but as long as you’re going to create any story around it, create a story around it that leaves you feeling empowered. Okay so alright, I acknowledge I don’t know exactly what would have happened. You know, if this were me, but I’m going to choose to believe that if I had been negative I would have been stuck. I’m so grateful that I chose to be positive because look how good it flows now. What else can I get positive about? So that’s my answer on that one.
The next part of this was during the experience about this traffic jam, there was a sort of, and I love this, listen to how he says this. “There was a sort of struggle between a part of me which was judging and wanting me to stop and be realistic, and another part of me which helped me to keep my faith. The feeling I got from the certainty of success was strong, quiet and joyful.” That is so descriptive of exactly what I’m talking about – strong, quiet and joyful. It was incredible and so good but then his question is what gave me this certainty of success and allowed me to keep my faith in this specific situation? I find this question critical because I could not get this feeling again so far in my last experiences, so it’s like one of the ingredients was missing. Well okay, let me see if I can find this particular blog post. While I tell you about this, I’m going to also direct you to one of the old, old blog posts. Just hang on, I didn’t think I was going to bring this up, otherwise I would have been prepared.
Well, I think one of the reasons that that one worked is because, I’m speaking to whoever wrote this, you had an intention to set a goal for the purpose of the inconsequential piece in the FTMF course. You were looking to set a goal and see it through and accomplish it, so that you could write about it. Well, not only did the traffic jam happen but you recognized that as an opportunity to apply the principle and see if this could be where you could make that work. It could be that life delivered that traffic jam for the purpose of this, and in that case, this one worked for you because it was right. It was the right experience for you. It delivered the right experience and the right lesson that you’ll be able to take with you to apply to the next thing. Now, why it doesn’t work the next time around? It might not have been the right kind of experience for you and this is when we need to step back, and I know that there’s a lot of controversy around The Secret and the Law of Attraction. A lot of people feel like it’s too materialistic or feel like it leaves God out of the picture.
One thing that I’d like to point out is that I had a friend who in years past, has been involved with practices and things that I don’t subscribe to. She was not a believer in God. She was, I don’t want to get into too many details, basically she said, “I was able to make the Law of Attraction work for me anytime I wanted. I could go in and make all kinds of money come to me, and it was easy and it was on and on, and on…” and she says, “but when I decided to follow God and turn my life over to Him, and allow Him to let me grow the way He wanted me to grow, the Law of Attraction still worked ,but it wasn’t as fast. It was hard, and I realized,” and these are her words, she says, “I realized that doing it God’s Way still works, but He makes you grow for it. He makes you earn it with becoming a better person through it, and choosing that path that she’s chosen has brought her the joy, and the happiness and the fulfillment that can accompany this whole process. Prior to that, it was an empty kind of a life and not fulfilling and not happy.”
And yeah, she had everything she wanted but it was an illusion, and I think there is that sight that we have a choice if we’re going to do this in a way that’s in alignment with all of God’s principles, or just the ones that get us the material things. I think it’s important to live all the laws that we learn as we learn them, and the more we learn and apply the ones we know, the more we will discover.
I haven’t discovered all of the laws yet. I’m still discovering them, I’m still learning them and I can’t believe how many keep showing up… That’s why I ended up writing Portal To Genius because the things I’ve learnt since writing Jackrabbit Factor have blown my mind. It’s taken things to a whole new level, and that’s why it’s important to do things in the way that allow for that personal growth.
Anyway moving on, the next one says I can get all excited about a goal for a couple of days but then soon, I’m back in the grind and all the old doubts assert themselves with vigor. What is your best suggestion for staying in the groove? Is it just mental discipline? How many doubts are too many? If I have a little bit of doubt, have I sabotaged all my efforts and must start over? Again, no a seed can survive even if it lacks some nourishment for a little while unless you think it won’t. That’s the kicker, it is how you think it’s being affected, and then what if because of my doubts, I start to think it really was silly for me to ever set such an unrealistic goal?
Those kinds of thoughts that come, if you’ve set a goal and you start thinking, oh well, maybe that was silly. I shouldn’t have even said that? That’s the kind of thought that you need to kick out like the plague, and if you’re unable to kick it out, you know sometimes it gets in your head and you don’t kick it out fast enough. If you kick it out fast enough, it won’t become an emotional thing for you. If you let it sit there long enough, eventually it will start to mess with your emotions, and when it’s already messing with your emotions, then yeah, the goal is going to start pulling away from you, and you’re going to start delaying its process but it doesn’t have to be delayed and repelling from you permanently. That’s the thing I want you to understand here. It’s going to come closer, it’s going to go away from you. It’s going to come, it’s going to go, it’s going to come, it’s going to go, it’s going to come, it’s going to go and what you’re doing is you’re practicing. You’re just practicing the mental toughness that’s required for the goal to come all the way to completion.
Now I hope you haven’t listened to everything I’ve said so far, and say “oh yeah, I can still have a goal even if I have bad days, and I’m just going to have bad days” with no effort to improve, alright? Yes, you have to get that mental tenacity. You have to get that commitment to the goal, and be firm in believing it’s on its way and believing that it’s yours, and believing that it’s going to be accomplished because it’s that belief that opens the doors and creates the connections, and leads you to the right people and that’s how things keep moving forward and when you have that bad day, yes it’s going to pull back but in that moment, don’t kick it out forever. Say “oh, had a bad day. Oops, moving forward. Learned a lesson, taking this lesson with me, I’m better off for it” and view all of these setbacks as for your good, and preparing you to be better able and better prepared to receive the thing you want.
Next one… I feel that this year, I am in transition moving towards accomplishing some of my goals and living constantly in a state of anxiety or living in the terror barrier. I have to keep reassuring myself that this is part of getting myself to where I want to be, and you’re right. I’m still working at keeping the anxiety and panic level down when it comes to finances and choosing to believe that it will work out, and that I will be given the opportunities to create the financial and personal future I desire. How long does the terror barrier last? Is it truly something that can last for an extended period of time as it seems to be right now? Yeah, it can feel like that. That first time that we used the whole Stickman Concept to triple our income and move to a different home, when we talk about the terror barrier we’re really talking about that feeling that you get when you’re making a commitment to something.
Like in our case, part of my husband tripling his income required that he leave his job that had benefits for a contract position with no benefits, that was guaranteed only three months. Now you can imagine that that would create some terror and it did, but in our heart of hearts, both of us knew that it was the absolute right thing for him to do. We had that assurance, we just knew it was right. We knew it was right because we had set a goal, and this opportunity showed up and it resonated with us, but that’s what you’re feeling when you feel like “oh, that is right! I know this is the right thing to do.” You’re not going to get that feeling “I know that’s the right thing to do” if you’re not headed anywhere. If you don’t have an objective and if you don’t have an objective, then how are you going to know if something’s the right thing to do? If you don’t have an objective, your objective can be to find an objective. There’s always an objective. So we had that fear when he went to submit his letter of resignation. Now there was anxiety, there was discomfort all day long, throughout the weeks and things before this transition was in place, but the terror barrier is kind of like an event. It’s when you hand in the resignation and after you hand it in, there’s a feeling of “ahhh, I did it!”
So there’s two different things. There’s the terror barrier which is that moment of I’m going to take the action that I know I need to do that makes me want to vomit, and then there’s that general anxiety feeling that comes when all of the appearances around you point to disaster and you’re trying to stay calm, in spite of it. So it’s not a terror barrier when you’re just kind of in the middle of the scary circumstances. That is just plain old anxiety. That’s just plain old fear, and that can be addressed and helped by opening your program and just reading one more page. I guarantee that if you’re feeling that way, and even if it’s not my materials, pick something up that’s at a higher vibration than where you’re at, and take it in and that will help your vibration.
It’s all about resonance and vibration. Remember you’re trying to keep a vibration that’s in harmony with the thing you want. The thing you want is at a higher vibration than where you’re at or you’d already have it, and so we resonate with the opportunities and the ideas, and the people that are going to help us get there by raising our vibration. We are the radio that needs to tune in to the frequency where the broadcast is that has all those solutions, and if we’re down in the dumps, if we’re in the mire, if we’re worried, if we’re full of anxiety, then sometimes we might not have the strength to go turn on the tape, or to go read a book or whatever, but we can put on music that soothes our souls. We can do something, we can choose something to help our environment. We might be in a bad vibration but we can put our environment in a higher vibration, and it will lift us and it’s just one, one, one scraping step at a time, and as for does it last for extended periods of time? Just think of having you know accomplishing a goal like giving birth, it’s no different.
You have a goal, the goal is the baby and there is the gestation period. You don’t want the baby too soon. You don’t want to force it to come before it’s ready and when it’s time to come, the labor pains start and it gets intense, and it gets more painful than it’s ever been all those months prior and you start wondering “am I going to die?” and you start wondering “is this ever going to happen?” and the contraction comes and then it goes; it’s temporary. So a lot of people right now in this economy, they’ve set goals. A lot of people have made big plans and they’re feeling some labor pains, and it’s easy to think of them like “oh this is pointless! This conflict I’m having with my spouse, this disaster I’m having with my creditors!” Whatever it is, is a distraction from focusing on the goal. I tell you, for me I was never very good at focusing on the baby that I was trying to give birth to. The pain was too great, I couldn’t even think “ooohh but, this is for a baby… imagine the baby!” No, it was too intense. I couldn’t even think of the baby. It was too intense and the baby still came. So yeah, this might be intense, right now.
Hopefully, you’ve got a goal. Hopefully, there is a point to the labor. Hopefully, there is something on the other side of this that you’re working for. If you haven’t written something down, and it’s okay if it’s not structured properly, and it’s okay if it’s vague for now because in time, you’ll know how to fix it and make it better. Just do something, anything, but the pain that you’re feeling today, it’s never constantly bad forever, and if you’ll just admit that, acknowledge that you do have good moments. Everybody does, even when things are horrible, horrible, horrible, you have those moments where you can smile and if you don’t naturally have them, you can create them. Put on a movie that makes you smile, read a book that makes you smile, do something with your kids that makes you smile, but remember each of those pains is not for nothing, and just like in childbirth, there’s progress being made with each pain. It doesn’t look like it, it doesn’t feel like it, it all feels the same but each one is moving the baby closer to delivery.
ANNOUNCER: This concludes today’s episode of the Rare Faith Podcast. You’ve been listening to Leslie Householder author of The Jackrabbit Factor, Portal To Genius and Hidden Treasures – Heaven’s Astonishing Help With Your Money Matters. All three books can be downloaded free at ARareKindofFaith.com. So tell your friends and join Leslie again next time as she goes even deeper into the principles that will help you change your life.
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