To go into beat up mode when we are not perfect; then we start to focus on everything that is wrong with us, everything we do wrong, everything we don’t do right, everything that you know we don’t look a certain way or you know; I can’t do this like this or we start to get into that self imposed, self doughty, what I do wrong, what I do bad? And it is literally the most selfish thing we can do. Why is it selfish? Because the best us doesn’t show up.

We are so focussed on us and so focussed on our inadequacies and what we do wrong, the best of us doesn’t show up for ourselves or other people. So, literally it is the most selfish thing we can do on this planet to be consumed with self doubt, self criticism, inadequacies.

We get preoccupied. We get wrapped up in our own stuff and then we can’t really show up for other people, the best us doesn’t come out and maybe it is a business, maybe it is you know “My business isn’t going this well. Here is what is the problem with my business is. I am not making enough money and somebody is causing me to do this” or “There is a problem with my director” or “There is a problem with this person or people that are working for me” and this is an issue and this is a problem and all that stuff and sometimes we call it being negative; it’s not necessarily being negative, it just focussed on our inadequacies or what’s going wrong in our life.

Sometimes it is “Hey, you know, I can’t do that. I am like this. This is the kind of person I am,” and that self dialogue is absolutely selfish and egotistical, but sometimes we think it is egotistical to focus on our greatness, because of how we were brought up or some of our belief systems, but it is not so.

The best thing in the world that we can do is to celebrate our own goodness. The best thing we can do is to focus our self, focus on what is great about ourselves, the things that we do wonderful, focus on our greatness; that’s not egotistical.

When we do that we are focussed on being able to help other people, focussed on being able to have the real us show up and that is the objective, bottom line is to be you, real, genuine, authentic, without any need to impress, without any need to pretend, without any need to feel ashamed or any need to fear.

It is literally the hardest thing we do is to be, just simply be ourselves. I know that sounds like a cliché, be yourself, but it is literally the hardest thing we can do, but it is the most important task in our existence, literally the highest level of maturity.

Peace of mind, comfort with ourselves and there is a lot of contributors to this, right? Some of that contributing factors is how we were brought up, the nurture, no doubt about it, that is very real. How people talk to us, how people say things to us, that is very real, but the other piece is this piece when we talk about systemic thought.

“Oh, life should look like this. People should be like this, it should be perfect” and when it is not whose fault is it? Ours, because it is not stacking up to the way it is supposed to be and that creates this whole thing that says why am I not making this happen?

I told myself I was going to be making this amount of money each month. I told myself I was going to be saving this amount of money each month. Why am I not making that happen?

There is something wrong with me. Maybe not and probably not.

The bottom line is you created expectations that weren’t necessarily realistic with the time and energy that it is going to take to do them. I want it now. I wanted it yesterday. Maybe it is going to take some more preparation, but notice how we go into beat up mode, because we will compare our worst with somebody’s very best and that creates the self dialogue where we feel inadequate, the most selfish thing we can do.

Let me just have you pull out a piece of paper for now, and just draw a circle, draw a circle about the size of a water bottle, and what I want you to do is at the top of the circle, I will give you just a minute here to do this, again just a little circle, size of the bottom of a water bottle and at the top of that circle, I want you to write the word “obligation.”

Some of you have done this before, that is okay, just keep working through this, but at the top of that circle write the word “obligation” and at 2 o’clock, I want you to write the word “fatigue;” at 4 o’clock I want you to write the word “rebel;” at 6 o’clock write the word “quit” or you can even put “desire to quit;” at 8 o’clock the word “guilty;” and at 10 o’clock the word “recommit.”

Now, I have really found three basic forms of motivation and this is one of them. We call this the obligation psyche. When you are a little out of balance with your motivation, you might think that you have to do things you should, you must, you are obligated. I have got to do it. Have to, should, must, need to, ought to, supposed to; what happens is if you believe, you might believe that the work that you are doing, whatever that work is in that particular area and this might be personal, doesn’t have value to your life; now if you have to, must, should, ought to, supposed to, need to, if you feel obligated, without a doubt you are going to feel fatigued, burn out, right?

A lack of motivation, a lack of excitement. May be it is mental fatigue, may be it is physical fatigue, but absolutely fatigued and if you get tired, which you will if you are obligated to do it and again this obligation goes back to,

“Hey, if I want to get anything done in my life, I have to do it, I must do it,” then it will get done. That is why it is giving you that advice, but if it is have to, should or must, I guarantee you will get tired and if you get tired, then you will start to rebel and rebellion manifest itself in not finding excitement in things, in some of the details, you know not finding enthusiasm, maybe even avoiding the obedience that you know you need to have, do something or get something done. By the way remember when we talked about this obedience as a key to freedom.

So, you rebel against the obedience and then there is that the quit or desire to quit and quitting may manifest itself in “Hey, taking a nap” or simply saying “You know I am going to quit this business,” whatever business you are in. I am going to avoid doing this thing. I have a desire to quit, but then the guilt sets in. You know there is people that I need to take care of or now I have all this obligation, I got to… I feel guilty that I didn’t do it. So, you recommit and go back and do it, because you have to, must or should till you get tired again and you will and the cycle continues. This is called being motivated by obligation.

Now, there is a different way to feel motivated. You can be motivated by choice. It doesn’t have to be obligation, but there is an entire cycle and the next 45 minutes will really need to be spent, really looking at how we can create motivation, true motivation around excitement, around choice and not built around this obligation, not feeling like you have to, you must, should, you need to, you ought to, you are supposed to. Here is a different way; it is through choice, choice and accountability. I get to, I want to, I choose to; it doesn’t happen automatically, it doesn’t happen overnight. It is a process and it definitely takes time.

It’s like some of us have this sort of lottery mentality, right?
 

It’s like: “Let’s make this thing happen”.
 

“I want the lottery”.  

“I want the universe to give me everything”.
 
“I want the universe to open the door and to do the
work”.  

When the principle law of abundance says “WE”
really need to do the work.  The doors open up, you bet, but
when we are ready and willing to do the work, that’s when
things happen.  

When “WE” do the work, the universe opens up more
doors of opportunities, and we do more work, the result is abundance.
 

Now, we talked about the lottery and how the lottery mentality really
kind of robs us of that because we are not really prepared wholly to
have that thing that we want in life. (Like the people that win a
lottery).  They win a lottery what happens, they end up losing
their money.  

Even bigger things happen.  A large percentage of them end up
doing things they have never done before.  In fact I saw
studies that showed that about 30% of the people that win a lottery end
up committing a first time felony.  So, it really creates
problems.  So, it tells a really sad story about
people.  They are not prepared to handle the results.
 

So, the lottery really cheats those winners (So called winners) of the
opportunity to grow in preparation for the gift and the losers and the
desire to do the work of preparation.  

The power of abundance is very real.  Tapping into it is
crucial.  The universe opens the doors, we do the work, but
when we ask universe to do the work, we frustrate the plan and then we
are left frustrated, angry, and depressed.  So, how do
expectations play into that?  

Even if it’s somebody else’s expectation, it might be extremely
challenging to live in the now if you got expectations and somebody
else has expectations, right?  Because the now is the only
place you can turn dreams into reality; that’s it and if we
are preoccupied with thoughts that drive feelings of fear or
frustration or stress or resentment, even anger, we are going to be
tempted to consider any changes.  

Have ever heard the grass is greener on the other side?  Yeah;
it’s not that the grass is greener, just that there is Astroturf over
there or maybe that person is just really, really taking care of their
lawn.  Is the grass really greener?  Maybe, but
before we need to make any external changes in our life, we need to
explore these expectations that maybe put on us or we maybe having,
unrealistic expectations, because if we have unrealistic expectations
and we use that as the measuring stick for our lives and again these
are only ideas that we have, expectations, ideas about how life should
be and we become committed to those, reality never stacks up to those
expectations, ever, but again we are using those expectations as the
measuring rod.  

So then what do we do?  Whose fault is it?  Ours,
something wrong with us?  We can’t turn that stuff into
reality; there must be something wrong with me.  

“I want that thing”.  

I am trying to make it happen, but nothing seems to work; nothing is
measuring up.  Life is an interruption; if you will; an
inconvenience because we cannot make the thing we want come into
fruition, come into reality, but it’s basically bottom line because we
have an unrealistic expectation.  

Like somebody who says,

“Hey, I want a lottery; I want that now.  I want it
absolutely.  I want it now.”  

It’s not coming quick enough; it’s not coming fast enough. 
Maybe we are just not prepared to have that yet.  

So, we need to create a plan, a plan of action that says,

“Hey, you know what?  Here is my plan for turning my dreams
into reality”

And a lot of people will say,

“You got it, you know you got to really work on that thing, that thing
that you want.”  

So, for example if you want a million dollars, we need to focus all of
our energy on making the million dollars or we need to focus all of our
energy on the exotic sports car, and if we focus on that, then it will
sort of magically manifest.  Once in a while it does, but it’s
almost accidentally that people get that.  Now, the different
approach is this.

Successful people basically live in the here and now; that’s
it and if they spend any time visiting their castle in the sky if you
will, it’s to learn what needs to be done in the here and now to make
it happen.  

The key word there is “ACTION.”  
So, what I want to approach is working on improving you, becoming a
different you or more of what you already are.  

Instead of focusing on a million dollars, what if that millionaire or
that potential millionaire was to focus on what that person needed to
do to have a million dollars?  What kind of person they needed
to become to have the million dollars?  If somebody wants an
exotic sports car or Cadillac or whatever level they want to go to in
their organization, the bottom line is when they focus on becoming
somebody different and the things that you can do to become that
person, then you will have the things necessary.

It’s like the person that wins a lottery, right?  I
don’t know if I shared this with you, but there was a story
about a person that won a lottery in New York City and here is what
happened.  

Six months later, this man showed up with a lottery ticket and said
“Here we go, here is my lottery ticket.”  What did you do for
the last six months?  Well, what this man had been doing, he
had been preparing himself to have a million dollars.  He had
hired lawyers, financial people, he knew where the money was going to
go to, where it was going to be spent, how it was going to be
handled.  He and his wife and children had been seeing certain
psychologists and therapists and coaches to help them with how their
life was going to be different and how it might change.  He
was preparing himself completely and wholly to have that money before
he had it.  

That’s what I want you to work on, to work on becoming the
person who will have the thing you want, instead of focusing on the
thing you want.