Only one out of five people who make a resolution or set a goal actually reaches their goal or creates the change they desire. Such lousy odds raise an important question: Do goal setters really want what they say they want?
If you’re reading this article, odds are pretty good that you want to create change in your life — or you’ve tried before and failed. So, I have to ask three questions:
- Are you — like all these other people who say they desire some sort of change —spending your time and creative energy focusing on things that hinder or facilitate your creative process?
- Have you formed habits that support wishing and wanting rather than having and enjoying what you want?
- Do you really know what it is you want and how to move towards manifesting it or are you unclear about what you desire and how to go about obtaining it?
These questions represent just three of the obstacles that stand in the way of our dreams becoming our reality—even when we really, really want to manifest them. It takes awareness, time and attention to refocus our energy, learn new habits and create a fertile environment where our dreams can be planted and nurtured so they grow and come into full bloom.
Creating change can be likened to the process of planting a seed and nurturing it until it is grown and its fruit can be harvested. If you want to creat change in your life in 2012, I suggest you plant seeds of change rather than making resolutions. It’s an easy, four-step process that teaches you:
- how to pull the weeds that can take over your dream garden and make it hard for the seeds you plant to flourish
- how to provide fertile ground for you to plant the seed of change you desire
- how to pick out and plant those seeds of your desires and goals, and
- how to nurture the seedlingsinto ripe fruit you can experience fully—and enjoy!
To grow a healthy plant from seed, you must first cultivate the soil so there are no weeds and the dirt is soft and ready to receive your seed. Then you have to choose the type of seed you want to plant, the place you want to plant it and actually put it into the ground. Then comes the fertilization process where the seed must be watered and offered extra nutrients and enough sun or shade for it to grow strong. This is the lengthiest part of the process. Finally, when the seed blooms or bears fruit, you harvest your crop and enjoy it.
Here are the basics of this process:
Step 1: Prepare a receptive place to plant your seed. Ask yourself, “What do I need to discover, understand and clear away to support the growth of my seed?” Try to understand what stops you from creating change. This is the part in the process where you tilling your mental and emotional soil to rid it of change-defeating beliefs and replacing them with life-giving beliefs instead, thus creating a container (a pot full or garden full of wonderful soil) to hold your seed of change. These are the weeds that make it hard for your seed – your goal – to grow.
Step 2: Now you pick out and plant your seed. Ask yourself, “What is it I truly desire this year? What do I want to accomplish? How do I want to change?” Make a decision. Choose a seed to plant. Then create a plan – a garden plan. Where does this seed fit into your life? How will you make room for it in the garden? Do you need to choose a container or it – give it a pot all its own or create a specific place for it in the garden or should it be a small part of a larger flower bed? Get that area ready for your seed. Add fresh, rich dirt. And plant the seed. Place it in your garden – your life.
Step 3:Next, spend time nurturing the seed you planted. What do you need to do to support your seed’s growth? Don’t just plant your seed and leave it to fend for itself. The plant surely will die if it receives no care. In other words, without help — doing the things that bring about change and taking positive steps toward your goal — the change process comes to a halt. Give your seed of change the essentials: Sun (energy), water (emotion), space (time in your life), nutrients (added focus), weed and pest control (elimination of self-defeating thoughts and behavior), and attention (focus on postive thoughts and actual time). In other words, fertilize that seed form the inside and the outside to see growth.
Step 4: At this point, acknowledge the growth occurring, allow more growth to happen, and celebrate the change you’ve achieved. Many of us don’t want to change. So simply see the seed growing little by little and allow that to happen. Don’t fight it. Nature has a way of changing whether we like it or not. So, just let the change happen. Let it in. Then, be open to surprises. Maybe the seed ends up blooming even though you didn’t know it would have blooms or creating some sort of fruit. Maybe another type of plant shows up in the pot as well. Be grateful for all that you create in the process. And enjoy the fruits and the blooms! Celebrate the crop you bring in!
Then start planting all over again.
If you feel this organic process of change suits you better then “resolving” to change, check out this little book, Planting Seeds of Change, here. (Scroll down the page to find the book.)
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