The world tells you to create moonshot goals. You get inspired and try for something that scares you.
You take another shot at becoming successful or happy or wealthy. You seek advice. You create elaborate plans.
However, after a few weeks or months, disappointment replaces inspiration. Things are not going the way you had planned. It feels like you are pushing against all the odds.
You try your best to continue, but you are so far away from the goals that it seems rational to do what is feasible.
It sucks when we are unable to meet our goals. It sucks even more after we have given it our 100% effort.
If you fail to achieve your goals, your capacity to influence the outcome is falling short. You have to increase your influence.
Influence Through Energy
Napoleon Hill tells the story of a man named Edwin C. Barnes in his book “Think and Grow Rich”. Barnes wanted to become the business associate of one of the greatest inventors of all time — Thomas Edison.
Despite having no money and no relationship with Edison, Barnes hopped a freight train and managed to get an audience with the famous inventor. Hill shares about that first encounter in the book –
Mr. Edison said –
“He stood there before me, looking like an ordinary tramp, but there was something in the expression of his face which conveyed the impression that he was determined to get what he had come after. I had learned, from years of experience with men, that when a man really desires a thing so deeply that he is willing to stake his entire future on a single turn of the wheel in order to get it, he is sure to win.” Barnes had no money, to begin with. He had but little education. He had no influence. But he did have initiative, faith, and the will to win. With these intangible forces, he made himself the number one man with the greatest inventor who ever lived.”
Every feeling, every conscious and subconscious intention translates into a force. This force permeates throughout the world. You have to learn to leverage it in your favor.
You need to influence it and it will bring the right set of coincidences, people and insights to help you.
It’s not about thinking the right thoughts.
Thoughts are deceptive.You may not have all the information to define long term outcomes and what you defined as an outcome may suddenly seem irrelevant.
If you are too focused on the exact outcome, you will block the opportunities that would have worked out.
While a diversion from your path may lead you to a better route, you will consider it as a failure. If you feel like you are failing, then you will fail.
The smallest element in your body exhibits particle-wave duality. Every element in the world has a similar nature. You are capable of influencing the energy wave around you by how you feel.
Once you switch to this mindset and start influencing the energy around you, then every situation will work out in your favor.
Every setback will be a way to not move forward in a certain direction or learn something invaluable.
You will stay calm and committed, knowing that the universe is rooting for you.
Let’s put this concept into practice with these 5 steps –
- Identify the Goal: Find a simple goal that you want to achieve
- Translate the Goal: You have to associate this goal with a feeling and let the ideal outcome appear. If you want to be promoted, feel the accomplishment of creating immense value. If you want to buy a perfect house for your family, feel the happiness and connectedness you will experience in the house. If you are not sure about your career, feel that you are working on something that gets your excited every day
- Create Peak Environment: Peak environment is a state when you are focused. Your mind is calm. You feel powerful. For e.g. it can be after a run, a yoga session, a cold bath in the morning or a walk in the evening.
- Influence Energy: In this state of flow, feel the experience you desire. You can even narrate the experience and trigger the feeling. Train your subconscious mind once or twice a day through this practice.
- Journal: You have to build self-evidence for the subtle changes that will manifest in your environment. You need to capture every small win. For e.g. Did you meet someone who is enabling your goals? Did you suddenly get a new idea? Did you stumble across a relevant book? You have to look deeply at every obstacle — it’s teaching you something or its asking you to pivot.
With conviction, the effectiveness of the process will increase. You will be able to influence your environment beyond your means. Your efforts will get acceleration, and outcomes will appear in ways you never imagined, giving you the experience you were seeking.
Influence through Intuition
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” — Albert Einstein
In the book “The Power of Intuition” — Gary Klein explains the following –
Many of us have been trained to make important decisions only after careful analysis of the pros and cons of all our different options.
However, a purely-analytical approach doesn’t work in reality. Real-life decisions are more challenging and complex, time is limited and we don’t have complete and conclusive information for a foolproof analysis.
Practitioners need to be in communion with their gut feelings or their sixth sense and enjoy the benefits of forgetting and ignorance
Intuition is the knowledge that you are born with or build through experience. You know which opportunity to pursue when you don’t have enough information, whom to trust when you know very little about a person, how to connect disparate pieces of information to find an opportunity where no one else can and more. Intuition is scientifically more accurate than the conscious brain.
When you try to achieve big dreams, you will face new situations. You will need a mechanism to make blind decisions or create an action plan for a problem you have never faced before.
Intuition can become an effective way to make choices based on “strange feelings”. Give it a try –
- Relax: If you have to decide something immediately, then take a deep breath. If you have more time, then calm your mind through mindfulness for a few minutes.
- Feel: Get in touch with your feelings about the situation. Avoid options that make you feel uncomfortable.
- Pivot: Evaluate results and gather feedback on your gut. You may confuse fear with intuition and make wrong decisions at times. It’s important to keep pivoting.
Conclusion
To go beyond the limits of your conscious mind, start influencing through energy (also known as subconscious mind or force) and intuition.
Experiment for the next 2 weeks.
Just take a small goal, align energy for the feeling you desire, use intuition to create a plan and implement with your mind.
Don’t doubt the process, it will weaken your energy. Stay aware of the chances and luck that will appear to help you.
Your conscious mind will work at 10X with the support from the universe.
You will not feel defeated.
You will gain immense influence.
You will overachieve your goals.