Photo by h.koppdelaney

Our actions and behavior are a result of our thoughts and emotions; which in turn are dictated by our conditioned beliefs. In order to experience real change in our life, we need to start by examining our underlying beliefs. One of the most powerful subconscious beliefs, that powers our life, is that achieving certain goals in the future will somehow resolve most of our challenges of the present. It is our deep-rooted belief around ‘doing, having, and being’.

Doing, Having and Being

Consequently, we are possessed by the mental commentary that once I can do this (get promoted, expand my business, lose weight, get my kids to college), I will have that (more money, success, time, recognition, friends) and I will be there (happy, fulfilled, connected, proud, grateful). While there’s some truth to that, particularly in the short-term, in the broader sense, it is an illusory belief.

For example, when the much awaited promotion does come along, we quickly realize that we do not necessarily have the extra time we had longed for or the sense of fulfillment we had conveniently assumed. On the contrary, not only do we become busier, but also find ourselves setting sights on the future goal – the next promotion. In the process, we routinely put our life on hold and keep postponing our happiness to another day in the future.

From Doing to Being

To transform our life to be more meaningful and happy throughout its journey, we need to reform this belief. We need to alter the sequence of the above belief to ‘being, doing, and having’. We need to start with what we deeply want to be, and let that guide us on what we do and have trust that with that, we will have all that we need to have.

For example, ask yourself whether you would like to be more successful or happier. If you had to make a choice at work, who would you rather be – a Happy Vice-President or an Unhappy Senior Vice-President. While being happy and getting promoted don’t have to be mutually exclusive, consciously making the above choice is important as it can determine what you pay greater attention to on a daily basis.

That in turn dictates what you get engaged in, how you structure your life, what you receive, and how you feel. If you choose to be the Happy Vice-President, that doesn’t mean you stop putting in the committed effort at work, it’s just that you become more conscious of the underlying emotional journey and prefer not getting stressed by the daily ups and downs at the workplace.

Then we no longer single-mindedly pursue our career ambition; instead, we actively invest in honing the skills to be happy and nurturing our inner well-being, alongside, and not as something we wish to materialize as a future reward of our success. Ironically, plenty of research suggests that happier individuals make better leaders in any case – they tend to operate from a greater sense of inner security, relate better to their colleagues, and have a more positive outlook towards their circumstances.

Who we are determines what we attract in life

We do not attract in our life what we want but who we are. In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words, ‘What you are comes to you.’

While altering pieces of our environment – job, location, partner – can sometime support changing our experience, for the most part, unless we work with reforming who we are being we continue to attract unpleasant situations that recur in our life. We continue to land ourselves with an overbearing leader, until we learn to be assertive; attract toxic relationships in our life, until we choose to be more loving and respectful of ourselves; find problems with every location we move to, until we learn to be more positive about life.

The reality is we have these choices all the time and who we choose to be at each moment shapes the direction of our life’s experiences. Once we make the shift towards prioritizing our inner state of being, it has a positive impact on every outer aspect of our life.

We shift from ‘Let me get though this busy phase and then I will organize myself’ to ‘I need to be organized (so I can get through this busy phase)’; from ‘I need to control the kids now, when they are mature I will be more hands-off’ to ‘I need to be more hands-off now (so the kids can become more mature); and from ‘Once I can lose weight, I will love my new self’ to ‘Learn to be more loving to myself (and I will become healthier)’.

More examples of how we can be

Here are some more examples of how we can begin to start making a shift from things to do to a new state of being in our every day life.

Things to do….…………………Replaced with state of being

Build a career…………………….Be in sync with my calling

Plan my day………………………………..……Be organized

Follow my priorities…………………………….Be disciplined

Spend time with children…….…………………Be connected

Holiday with wife……….…….……..…………….…Be loving

Attend more social dinners……………………….……Be fun

Grow my network………..……………………….Be engaging

Work towards the next promotion…………….Be committed

Rehearse an important presentation…………….Be confident

Make things go my way……………………….…Be detached

Perfect the things I do..………………………Be wholesome

Support my spouse…………………………….Be committed

Earn more………….………………………………Be content

Exercise regularly…………………………………Be healthy

Learn more……………………………………………Be wise

Meditate regularly…………………………………Be present

(This is an expanded version of an article I had recently written on the Heal Your Life website)