I remember years ago listening to a recording of a talk that Louise Hay had given where she talks about setting intentions. She compared setting intentions with placing an order at a restaurant. When you place your order with the server, you don’t go into the kitchen to see how it’s being done. You place your order and have faith that you’re going to get what you asked for!
Louise says that this is the same mentality to have when we set our intentions. We put them out there with the belief that we’ll get what we ask for. Of course, mistakes can happen and sometimes we take for granted that the chef isn’t our mom or dad who knows exactly how we like it. If we have particular needs, you make sure to state them before they begin to work on your meal.
As someone who is an admitted control freak, this has been a difficult lesson to learn. When it comes to my dreams, there have been so many times where fixating on how things will all come together has been both frustrating and paralyzing. The ability to set the intention for something that I want in my life and then acting, knowing and believing that it is on its way is not something that has come easily to me. It has taken a lot of work and shifting my belief in what’s possible.
If there’s one thing that I have learned as I work on this, it’s that you must be very specific about what it is you want. At the end of 2016 I was setting my intentions for 2017 and one of the things I wrote that I wanted to achieve was to appear on network television. It was one of those goals that I truly didn’t know how I was going to make happen, but I put it out there to the universe.
Just a few days later, while walking my dog Lulu, I saw two news trucks parked on the street that is our normal route. After passing the first one and doing my duty as a dog owner and scooping up Lulu’s poop, I was approached by a reporter and her camera man to answer questions about an explosion that had happened on the street six months before. I answered the reporter’s questions and carried on with the walk, laughing at myself because I realized that while I did put it out there that I wanted to be on television, carrying a bag of poop and not talking about anything related to my business was not what I had in mind!
Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want. If what you get isn’t quite what you were looking for, try again and be more specific about what you want the next time. Anything is possible, you just have to be willing to put it out there and trust and believe that it is on its way. When you focus on what you want, the how will take care of itself. ♥