Dear friends and clients,
This week let's look at Strategy 15 and 16 from my upcoming book "Wake up, Jump into your life." 

Wake up, Jump into Your Life - A Journey into Self Observation

By Steve Lentini
 

 Twenty Strategies for a Life of Joy, Satisfaction and Success

So let's take a look at Strategy Eleven and Twelve this week.

Strategy 15 - Frustration signals surrender is required.

When we feel frustrated, it signals that surrender is required. The idea of surrendering to something that frustrates us is a new and strange concept in Western culture. We have been taught to "fight our way through frustration" to get what we want. The opposite is true.

When I feel frustrated, I sit quietly now and meditate on "what am I resisting?" Usually, the answer comes and it becomes clear that I am resisting something that feels uncomfortable to me. Giving up my license to teach Sandler Selling skills felt uncomfortable and I resisted it for many months. When I finally surrendered the license, my "own" programs were born just two weeks later.

How would have anything new come into my life, if I had not surrendered, to what seemed very uncomfortable at the time?

When you feel frustrated, notice if friends and loved ones, coaches and teachers are recommending a new action or path that you are resisting. Source, Higher Power or God, comes to us in the form of others to help us during these times of frustration. I used to think of these "good intentioned" others as "people who could not mind their own business" and not as God or Source. If we are all made from the same "energy," made in the image and likeness of God, how could others not be from Source? It just seems like the advise is coming from "humans" because it is not the advise that we want to hear. When we realize that what we need to hear is uncomfortable and surrender to it, the gift of change gives what we want sooner. We can then reflect on the choice later and each and every time I have done it, I have come to realize that Source, God was working through all those "others" that bothered me, to help me get on the right path.

Try this strategy the next time you feel frustration. What do you have to lose if you have tried fighting through it and it has not worked? Does this thought feel very uncomfortable right now? Maybe this could be your first surrender? Try it.  Surrender to it, or not.

Strategy 16 - Your life is like a garden. Let nature's patterns guide you.

Everything you think, do and say is a seed to a future harvest. How are you preparing the ground for your future harvest? Are you locked in "victim," or "why me" thinking? Imagine the harvest that thinking like that will bring about.

What are your predominant thoughts and words? These are the seeds of your future harvest. What does your harvest look like based on your recent thoughts and words? ARE YOU EVEN THINKING ABOUT YOUR FUTURE HARVEST?

What farmer would prepare a crop without thinking about what he/she wanted to harvest first? Would corn just appear without planting corn seeds? Isn't it interesting that we humans want new things in our lives and yet we are planting the same old seeds all the time and expecting a new harvest just the same? If you do not change your thoughts, words and actions, how will you get a new harvest?

Impossible.

Prepare the ground. Think positive thoughts, surround yourself with others that support your vision. Spend quiet time meditating and visualizing your new future, your new harvest. Start with the end in mind. See the harvest you desire and work backwards from there to make a general outline for its manifestation. Sign up for training courses designed to help you grow as an individual. Plan time for some rest as well. These are all steps that prepare the ground for your new future, just like farmers have a plan to prepare the ground.

Plant the seeds. Your thoughts, words and actions have to be congruent with your planned harvest. Act as if you already have what you want. Once you plant the seeds, relax until the sprouts appear. Trust, have faith that things are working "under ground" until those first signs of the sprouts appear.

Tend to the sprouts. This is the tender stage of your harvest. Make sure your sprouts do not get trampled on or eaten, or frozen. This is the stage where you persist through the high winds, rain and mud of spring. THINGS MAY LOOK MESSY AT THE EARLY STAGE OF PLANTING A NEW IDEA OR HARVEST AND WE STAY WITH IT NO MATTER WHAT.

Weed, feed and water. Watch for pests. This is the stage where you fight off doubt. You keep an eye on what you have planted and know that you will have the desired harvest if you stay with it. No rest now, stay in the fields. Pay attention, be disciplined with your thinking, words and action. Disciplined and focused people get what they want. Be patient as well. Would you stand over a tomato plant after it was spouted and shout, "hey, give me a tomato now, right now!" No, you would not. Everything has its cycle, be patient. Your ideas have a natural cycle as well.

Gather the harvest and take notes on what you reaped. Did it fit your plan? If not, reflect on what happened. Be prepared to let go of things that did not work. Just like the trees let go of the leaves in fall, this is your time to let things go as well. Nature does this all the time, maybe that's why dinosaurs are not still here?

Note what did work and plan to repeat it. Nature does the same here as well.

More on this topic in the book...

Thanks and be well, and I give all that read this my blessings as a gift.

Thank you,

Steve