What Do You Want?

What do you want? What do you really, really, really want?

Have you really asked yourself that question?

At the beginning of the year, we often make new year resolutions and set goals about what we want to achieve this year. The first question is usually “What do you want?”

Some of the answers may be:

• to lose weight, to achieve my ideal weight
• to exercise at least three times a week
• to double my income
• to make more money
• to save at least 30% of my income
• to meet my soul mate and start a family
• to spend more time with our family
• to read at least one book per week
• to learn a new skill
• to launch a new business or career
• to travel the world
• to be closer to God
• to be more loving, generous and caring
• to have more discipline, positive attitude and motivation
• etc

If we dig deeper, sometimes those goals are simply means to an end. What we really want is actually the feelings behind accomplishing these goals. For example, if your goal is to make more money, ask yourself this questions:

• What does having more money mean to you?
• How does having more money make you feel?
• How does accomplishing this goal make you feel?

The answers may be:

• I have more freedom to do what I want, to have what I want
• I feel proud of my achievement and accomplishment
• I feel I am worthy and I get more respect from my family, friends, my peers
• I feel happier
• I feel more secure and safe
• etc

These are what we are looking for, feeling good about ourselves, feeling happy, feeling proud and more positive feelings.

The problems start when we are going after these feelings the wrong way. For example, we want to feel the thrill of success but we find it through gambling. When we gamble, we take risk, we feel a sense of excitement. When we win, we feel a huge satisfaction, the thrill of success. When our brain makes the connection – gambling = excitement, satisfaction, we started a journey on the path of destruction.

Sometimes it is not as obvious as gambling in the casino, but it is disguised as ‘investment’. When we invest in the stock market, index, foreign exchange without any knowledge or strategy, it is the same as gambling. We take risk, we feel the excitement. When we win, we feel so good, happy and proud of ourselves.

What if we lose? When we lose, we feel like a failure and we do not want to feel like a failure, so we try again. Sometimes we think this way “Hmm…I am not a quitter, I’ll try again!” It is really a bad example of persistence!

Moreover when we lose, we feel guilty, regret and other negative emotions. We cannot blame anybody else but ourselves because we are the ones who make the decision every single time. There is no one else to blame! If we cannot cope with it, sometimes we start to create problems with people around us. When there is a problem with other people, we have an outlet to release our feelings of guilt, anger, hurt, and regret. We release those feelings full force and ending up hurting people around us.

What do I want? I wish everybody has an outlet to release their negative feelings without hurting other people so that everybody can feel happier. We want to feel happy! I want to feel happy! Do you?

Learn and Grow!