Photo by kittyz202

Somedays the “Create” phase of Choosing the Life You Want can seem like an impossible task.

But what if “creating” isn’t about pushing, striving and working to make things look the way you want them to look?  What if it isn’t an outward process at all?

What if it’s as simple (and as difficult) as setting the intention of what you want for your life and then choosing to get out of your own way? What if the secret to creation is simply choosing to allow what you want to come into your life?

Rumi, the 13th century Sufi poet and philosopher wrote: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

Take a look at your current life situation and examine the thoughts you are thinking, the words you are saying and the actions you are taking to see if any of them are blocking you from the life you want.

• Are they blocking you from love?
• Are they blocking you from financial abundance?
• Are they blocking you from a fulfilling career?

Ultimately, you need to examine where you are blocking yourself from receiving the life you’ve chosen to have.

Let me warn you now – the process of self-examination can be painful and difficult because it involves taking responsibility for your current situation. No scapegoats.  No outsourcing of blame.  Re-read Rumi’s words above.  He’s very clear that the issue is “the barriers within yourself that you have built.” But the exciting part is that once you accept this great responsibility, you have access to great power. (Apologies to Stan Lee)

Today I saw that someone on Facebook had posted a link to a video by Seth Godin.  I like Seth and I follow his blog because, for me, he has a lot of interesting things to say about marketing and innovation.  So I clicked on the link and watched the video.

The video was on a website called the99percent.com and the site’s tag line is “It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen”

Wow! What a powerful website with some great tips and suggestions on making things happen! TED is about big ideas and 99 Percent is about making them happen!  Do yourself (and your family) a BIG favor – for the next week, disconnect your TV and just watch videos and read articles on these two websites! (If any of you take me up on that challenge – let me know in the comments!)

So I’d like to share Seth’s video with you here.  Although his presentation is geared at a corporate audience and he talks a lot about “shipping” (which is tech industry speak for sending a new product out to the marketplace), the exact same principles can be applied to the CREATE phase of Choosing The Life You Want.

His main point is that we don’t suffer from a lack of creativity (or a lack of CHOICES in the language of CTLYW) but that we get paralyzed by our fears and never actually get down to the business of CREATING! He offers some interesting strategies for avoiding this.

So what steps are you going to take today in the area of CREATING?

The other day a friend of mine cut up one of her credit cards.

That’s right, go back and re-read that sentence!  She wants to begin to Choose The Life She Wants and part of that includes reorganizing her financial picture.

She told me that she sat looking at the credit card for a very long time. It was a platinum card.
Deep breath.
Then she took out the scissors.
Deeper breath.
She proceeded to sit with the card in one hand and the scissors in the other for another very long time.
Deepest breath.
SNIP!

That’s huge right?

Well, as she was telling me this story, she was already downplaying the significance of what she’d done.  She started with that old refrain, “Yeah, but...”

“Yeah, but I have many other cards…  Yeah, but that was just one… Yeah, but that was just a tiny, baby step.”

Photo by Mint Imperial

We all need to realize that when it comes to choosing the life you want, there are no small steps.  We need to acknowledge and celebrate each and every step that we make in our respective CTLYW journeys.

Please, please, please, don’t insult yourself by diminishing the “small” accomplishments you make along the way! Small actions trump grand intentions every time! That’s what the CREATE Phase of the CTLYW Process is all about!

By the way – I advised my friend to go back to the garbage can and retrieve a small piece of the credit card to keep as a monument to her new choices and her new life!

How about YOU?

• What are you committing to?  Let’s hear about it in the comments section!
• What will you use as a symbol of your new choices and your new life?

Do you have a “life list”?  My friend Bill Starr is the CEO of MyLifeList.org and he says that a life list is “a compilation of significant experiences that a person aspires to accomplish in their life.”

An important part of Choosing The Life You Want is to begin to create this sort of list for yourself.  If you are working in the “Choose” stage of CTLYW, then starting a Life List can help you dream big.  As you move into the “Create” stage, the Life List can become a much more tactical tool.

The My Life List methodology is: Create – Act – Celebrate.

Since the third step of CTLYW is “Create” and the fist step of My Life List is also “Create”, the MyLifeList.org website makes a fantastic companion to the CTLYW approach!  Membership is absolutely free and it leverages the power of social networking to help put you in touch with people who have similar life goals, which allows you to learn from one another and get moral and practical support.

Why not check out one of my entries on the MyLifeList.org website?  This one is about my experience doing stand-up comedy.

When you join the MyLifeList.org website, be sure to add me as a friend!

You might also want to check out the My Life List: Guided Journal.  You can read my review of it and also find it on Amazon.