(Home)

“When the great library of Alexandria burned, the story goes, one book was saved. But it was not a valuable book; and so a poor man, who could read a little, bought it for a few coppers.The book wasn’t very interesting, but between its pages there was something very interesting indeed. It was a thin strip of vellum on which was written the secret of the “Touchstone”!

The touchstone was a small pebble that could turn any common metal into pure gold. The writing explained that it was lying among thousands and thousands of other pebbles that looked exactly like it. But the secret was this: The real stone would feel warm, while ordinary pebbles are cold.

So the man sold his few belongings, bought some simple supplies, camped on the seashore, and began testing pebbles.

He knew that if he picked up ordinary pebbles and threw them down again because they were cold, he might pick up the same pebble hundreds of times. So, when he felt one that was cold, he threw it into the sea. He spent a whole day doing this but none of them was the touchstone.

Yet he went on and on this way. Pick up a pebble. Cold - throw it into the sea. Pick up another. Throw it into the sea.

The days stretched into weeks and the weeks into months.

One day, however, about mid-afternoon, he picked up a pebble and it was warm. He threw it into the sea before he realized what he had done. He had formed such a strong habit of throwing each pebble into the sea that when the one he wanted came along, he still threw it away.

So it is with opportunity. Unless we are vigilant, it’s say to fail to recognize an opportunity when it is in hand and it’s just as easy to throw it away.”

Over the last few weeks we defined the necessity of purpose in our lives—a purpose is quintessential to our existence both physically, emotionally, and especially spiritually.

Sometimes the idea of starting forth on our journey towards our greatest desires is scary. Questions swirl around in your mind, building the fires of fear:

• What if I don’t have a purpose?
• What if I’m wrong about what MY calling is?
• What if no one supports my decision?
• What if I mess up?
• What if it’s hard?
• What if I run into obstacles?
• What if I FAIL?

These are the first, and most powerful signs of resistance. You begin putting it off—the easiest way to resist change—procrastination!—because you aren’t giving up after all, you’re just going to start tomorrow, or next week, or after you’ve lost weight, or made more money, or OR OR…

We form these self sabotaging habits early on, programming our mind to believe that we really don’t have a purpose. Forming our minds around this devastating lie, we live our lives unhappily because we’ve set this condition on our ultimate happiness that literally cannot be met!

Yet, there is a light at the end of the tunnel—we can beat these self-defeating thought patterns to form our minds to travel down the greatest path leading to our ultimate happiness and success.

We identified the definition of purpose the first week of this series; you began the discovery and definition process of grasping what your unique purpose is in life, last week. Today I’m going to give you an exercise to strengthen your will to continue in pushing through the obstacles, and succeeding daily.

1. Turn the noise off. As chatter fills our minds from our loved ones, people we work with, the T.V., the radio, etc, we lose our focus. Tuning out once or twice a day, and really taking time for yourself to refocus on your ultimate goal is essentially to clearly seeing your path for that day.
2. Create a short list of heroes. Take a cue from those who have influenced you directly or indirectly—surround yourself with quotes, photos, and major milestones that they reached. Don’t have a hero yet? Start looking around you; whether it’s a celebrity, genius, or close friend, all that matters is that they make you want to move, to be better, and to seek happiness. When you identify them, spend a five minutes of silence each day, imagining yourself with all of those qualities they possess that you admire and desire.
3. Observe your everyday life. One day this week really observe the people in your life, and the situations and circumstance you are currently in; rise above yourself, and view it as if you were a third person. Take down a few notes—are you beginning to inadvertently work harder towards your passion? What silly self-sabotaging habits do you see? Can you get rid of them?
4. Let go of your limitations. Pretend that you are a superhero; abandon the thoughts of feasibility. What would you do, if there were no limits? Now, look at the limitations you have set in your life already. Do any of these hold truth? Who told you that? Examine the reality of each limitation; can you throw it away? Nine times out of ten we have set limitations on ourselves because we are scared. It’s time to let that fear go!

Fear is a potent emotion; when we allow it to rule our lives, we can only expect havoc. Fear leads us down the path that leads us as far away from our dreams as it can. Yet, fear is not insurmountable. You have the strength inside of you right now to completely evaporate the fear from your life, take control, and move forward. And once you begin to move forward in the right direction, you can only pick up momentum.

Here’s to your greatest prosperity and bliss,

Crystal