Get Your Wish: 10 Steps To Discovery

GET YOUR WISH: 10 STEPS TO DISCOVERY (Issue 2)

by Diane Gold

Early on, I can remember marketing coaches asking me what I wanted. On more than one occasion, I would answer them by talking about one project idea after another, not focusing on one idea. I had an expert at my fingertips and no crystalline vision on my tongue. If I couldn’t come up with my own desire, how could someone help me with it? Having multiple creative projects in my head, as a rule, led me to understand how important it is to focus on one idea and have a priority and to-do list to execute.

This brings me to the topic of our main essay in this issue: Knowing Your Wish And Getting It. I talk about what it can mean to pinpoint direction, and I include a 10-step to-do list to get us there. The steps should take no more than 5 minutes. Some of us will only use 8 steps, so let’s go.

I’ve been working with many moms and daughters through martial arts and personal development training. What I’ve found is that focus makes winners; consideration for self generates strength and follow-through.

If we could have one wish to change one thing about ourselves, what would it be? Would we wish to look like “eye candy” that sells media headlines? Maybe yes, but would that be our primary wish? Would we wish to know our daughters more completely? Would we make a wish of health for our daughters or ourselves? Would we wish to give our wish to our daughter instead of ourselves? Or would we wish to work to eliminate hunger in our life time? Which would we choose?

To be faced with deciding our path, when there are so many avenues, can leave us stumped, unsure and even stuck. The interesting thing is that many of us would jump at the opportunity for a free wish but have not selected what it would be. Knowing the direction we want to go is half the achievement and certainly a motivating force. Getting it is the rest.

Here’s a parable about the wish collector, who can give out wishes, a woman who walks the earth helping people with their wishes, and the girl who wants a wish.

The wish collector comes to visit the girl as she is walking up to her doorstep. She says,

“OK, my wonderful girl. You have 30 seconds to make a wish to change something in or for yourself. Are you ready?”
The girl says,

“Well, Ms. Wish Collector, that is a tough question because there are so many wishes I have considered.”

Ms. Wish Collector says,

“That’s OK, dear girl. There’s no rush. I’ll be back another time after you’ve had time to think about it.”

One month passes and the wish collector doesn’t come back. The girl is patient because she meditates to music, but she notices eight months have passed, and the wish collector has not been back to visit her. All of a sudden, the girl hears her name. It’s the wish collector calling from the driveway. The collector is asking the girl whether she has decided on her number one wish. The girl says,

“I am so happy to see you, Ms. Wish Collector. I was busy being concerned about whether I would ever get another chance to make my wish. But, here you are.”

The girl smiles and looks happy but makes no attempt to speak. The wish collector asks,

“So, what did you decide?”

The girl says,

“I never took the time to really find my priority because I didn’t know when you were coming. I’ve been too worried about whether or not you would come back. I will pick anything that comes to my head because I know I only have 8 seconds left to make a wish and don’t want to lose my wish altogether or wait for you to come back again.”

The good news about this story is two-fold: we can figure out what we want, how valuable it is to us and what we are willing to give up to achieve it and the wish collector who leads us to contemplate our objective is within us. It is we who get to decide on our most precious goal, although we might want to keep it small enough so that we can succeed at it small increments at a time.

Here are some examples of reasonable wishes:
1. wanting a new mirror that will show your beauty and power. This requires going into the bathroom, getting your old mirror, washing it with some mirror cleaner and giving yourself a giant hug before you look in it.
2. having your daughter look forward to your phone calls or visits in her room. This requires not asking her a bunch of questions about her life: (author’s note: guilty of daughter question bombardment).
3. beginning to love the person you are. This requires winking at yourself and smiling afterwards. The act in itself will begin the movement.

Here is an example of a poorly thought-out wish:
the chance to walk down the runway in a Milan fashion show, today, if your only means of transportation is your feet, you are not in Milan and you don’t know anyone in the fashion industry well enough to drop in on a show.

The great news is we are worth the preparation of discovering our most important wish. We are smart enough to proceed to achieve it. And we are wise enough to reach out from our own journey and ask others to walk alongside us in partnership, as mother and daughter, as global women and as fellow human beings.

The conclusion here is this: in order to reach our ONE WISH, which is the path we choose for right now, we must consider what is most important to us. There is no rush, so we need proceed at our own pace. As long as we don’t procrastinate or consistently stray away from a decision through distraction. Writing down ideas helps a lot. Every time we cross one off or delete an idea, we are one step closer to having that one wish present in our mind. Once we have “it,” we can take a tiny sliver of an action that will take us a centimeter closer to achieving “it.” Big steps are OK, but we must be polished swimmers to jump into deep ocean. Most of us can do massively well by first stepping off the sandbar and proceeding slowly. Please be patient as I outline steps for finding the right wish for you now. They may seem easy and obvious, but going through the exercise of writing them down and proceeding one at a time builds momentum and keeps us directed.

1. Make a list of 10 wishes you would like to become reality now.
2. Eliminate those that cannot be started in one week’s time, down to 5. We can edit our wishes so that we pick one step of a wish that can be started in one week’s time.
3. Prioritize the 5.
4. Get rid of 3 by considering what would happen if we had 30 seconds to decide what our wish would be. Pressure usually helps, but not always.
5. Say out loud the first of these 2 as if it is our priority. Record it, and listen to it.
6. Do the same with the second of the 2.
7. Decide which one sounds as if we like the outcome.
8. That is the one. Say it LOUD in the mirror. We have it!
9. If that doesn’t work, tell ourselves we are going to flip a coin, and we do it.
10. If we are upset with the outcome, then we pick the opposite wish. Now, we have our wish for the wish collectors that we are.

How many times can we remember deliberating for so long that an opportunity passed us by?Taking too long to start can equal missing the boat. Please let us know how you did with this simple 10-step system (or maybe we were finished in 8 steps).

We would like to hear about your journey, so feel free to go online to warriorsofweight.com, click on this one under articles and leave a comment. Or go to our contact form at warriorsofweight.com/contact-us. Or email 1[at] warriorsofweight [dot] com.

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, site for Moms For Healthy Daughters, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music pro and stress expert. She says, “Making a wish is a three-step process: knowing our wish, committing to it and taking one step forward.”