So the next step of our journey is a more detailed fraction of step 1.  The purpose of this step is to gain some completion in your life.  Things that are incomplete in our life, loose ends that are untied rob us of energy.

Make a list of all the areas of your life that are incomplete, open loops, things that haven’t been settled.  Things that are incomplete actually turn into avoidance.  We try to forget about it because it’s too painful to face, you keep telling yourself “oh I’ll get to that later”.  You’ll have to be honest with yourself.  Make the list one page long, and it should take about ten minutes to complete.

Come back when you’ve got your list.

So how does your list look to actually have a list of all these things that you’ve been avoiding or just putting off in your life?  You may have physical items on the list, emotional items on your list, or intellectual items on there.  Then go through each item on your list and number them.  The one robbing you of the most energy will be number one on your list, and then go down through the rest of the page.  You want to attack the highest energy robbing item first, which will allow you to gain momentum very quickly once you get started.

You may have heard of the Pareto principal, better known as the 80/20 rule?   80% of our results come from 20% of our efforts, and 20% of our results come from 80% of our efforts.  On your list you’ve created, find the 20% of items on that list that are robbing you of 80% of your energy.  Either complete them or conciously let them go.  I was recently scammed via Craigslist on the purchase of a used camera, and I was fervently on a manhunt to find this guy to make him pay.  I was putting forth so much time, effort, and stress into the matter that I had to ask myself if this was really worth it.  Would it be worth it to hunt him down, take him to small claims court, take off work and just go through so much?  I decided it wasn’t and ended up finding a buyer for the broken camera.  In the end I was out around $15, but there was a huge burden lifted off of my shoulders after making that decision.  (Thank Tony for helping me realize that!)

It may take some effort to let things go on your list, because its a hit to your ego.  You would rather have justice served, than to see some low life get away with wrong doing.  The point is you need to get completeness, whatever that means.  It might mean making contact with an old friend or family member you have seen or talked to in decades.  The point is to close the open loop.  Tie up that loose end, and don’t let it be incomplete anymore.  Either get some completion or release it to the universe.

A lot of people are intimidated when they’re asked to step out of their comfort zone.  They have their life setup to be familiar, predictable, and something that they just coast through on auto pilot.

If you’re wanting to change things up, I implore you to follow along on a series of baby steps I will introduce to you.  These are steps that I’ve personally gone through myself, so I know they work.  Some steps will be experiences I’ve gone through years ago, or they may be some steps I’ve just recently completed.

Let’s get started:

Baby Steps – Part 1

1.  Take a sheet of paper and write down every single thing that you think about on a daily basis.  Anything that crosses your mind at all.  Try to think of things that you’ve thought about in the past couple weeks.  This may be a long list of worries, concerns, items on a to-do list, or trivial thoughts.  Maybe you have a friend you’ve been meaning to catch up with, or you wanted closure to a bad business deal, or maybe need to hire someone to fix your doorbell.  Whatever it is, jot it down on your list.

Take at least 10-15 minutes to complete this exercise.   Make sure to take the full 10-15 minutes, so that your mind  will delve deep into its memory banks.  Complete this before going onto the next step.

2.  Okay, so now that you have your list, we’re going to read through your list and put check marks next to each item that is in your control.  There are things that we all think about on a daily basis, of which we have absolutely no control of.

3.  All items without a check mark, you will consciously let go of.  That’s right, you must consciously say good bye to these things that occupy your thoughts.    These things are robbing you of energy, and this energy can be used towards all the check marked items on your list.

Now it may take a while for you to part ways with some of these, since it’s become such a familiar part of your mind.  But trust me; this small step will release your mind to explore more important matters.

Leave a comment and share some items you’ve “let go of”. This will help us all achieve our mind freedom with the increased accountability.

I arrived at a transitional time in my life about five years ago, which prompted me to become introspective of who I was, what I was doing, where I was going, and who I wanted to be.  I realized that my life was just a series of routines.  I was a creature of habit following the same cycle week to week.  Hanging out with the same people, talking about the same things, working the same job, driving the same way to work, eating the same foods…you get the idea.

While there’s nothing wrong with routines, it left me dissatisfied with myself.  I felt as though there was a lot more to life than the routines I had been living.  I had a desire to push through what I previously thought impossible.  That desire was the pilot lite to a flame that has steadily grown over the past few years.

My journey through self development started off very slowly, as I took little baby steps out of my comfort zone.  I was afraid to change my reality, but I knew something needed to change because what I was doing wasn’t working.  Today, things seem to be growing at an exponential rate.  As of late, my mind has been skyrocketing with ideas on my education, career, life, goals, and pursuit of self actualization.  Self limiting beliefs are being banished left and right, and boundaries are being broken.

I can say with certainty that this is a very exciting time in my life.  I’m more productive and busier than I’ve ever been, and I’m actually a bit overwhelmed with the ideas that are racing through my mind.  This blog is just one facet of the many ideas that I’m involving myself in.

One of the goals of my blog is to share effective tools, information, and resources I’ve come across, to help change lives as I have changed mine.   I’ll present tidbits of information for you to apply to your life or perhaps a small exercise to do every week.  Your life won’t change overnight, but I can guarantee that the baby steps will have you sprinting towards your goals before you realize it.

Sound interested?  I hope so because you will not regret it.

The remarkable thing we have is a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.
- Charles Swindoll

“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”   – Eleanor Roosevelt

“Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.”  – Washington Irving

I heard these quotes this morning during my daily commute into work.  I download the Dave Ramsey Show podcast and listen to it, to help keep me inspired on how to live my life with no debt.  Dave was discussing the idea of what exactly a great mind was, and these quotes he shared really resonated with me.  I’d like my subscribers to chime in on their views of what their idea of a great mind is.  How do you define a great mind compared to a small or narrow mind?
Register and discuss this topic on the Tuned Perception message forum.

http://tunedperception.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=6