15 Jan The Year of Your Dreams

“The starting point of all achievement is desire.” ~ Napoleon Hill

Happy New Year! I wish you all a spectacular year of dreams, goals, action and accomplishments and to that end I thought it appropriate to do a posting on the art of manifesting the life of our dreams!

In early 1999 I hit a wall. I was in a dying relationship and living paycheck to paycheck in a small rental apartment and in a dead-end job. Whose life was this exactly? It sure as hell wasn’t the adventurous one that I had dreamed about as a child with wild imaginings of glamour, success and excitement. I was so certain back then that my dreams would all come true so what the hell was going on?

I had to find answers. How do successful people succeed? What did I have to do to turn my life around? Thank God for Oprah Winfrey. At that time on her show, she featured so many experts in the art of living a purposeful, joyful and abundant life and every Tuesday belonged to Dr. Phil (this was long before he got his own crazy show). His advice really resonated with me and when he put out his first book, Life Strategies, I devoured it. It changed my life. Many books followed – I was going to figure this out. Finally, I had answers. Now I knew that I was in control of my destiny but I had to work at it and there were some basic fundamentals that I quite simply had to buy into and follow.

I diligently did all the exercises in the Life Strategies book and when it came to writing down what I wanted for my life, this is what my list looked like (verbatim):

1. To own my own business

2. To be in a loving relationship

3. To spend half the year in a warm climate (or the whole year!)

4. To own a rural property with horses and a dog!

5. To be wealthy enough to help my family in times of financial crisis

6. To satisfy my love of fashion by buying new designer clothes each season

7. To financially support animal charities

8. To travel wherever and whenever I desire

Those of you who are regular readers of my blog know that every item on this list has been achieved, and most of them many, many years ago.

And now, my list is loftier and more detailed. Now, I expect so much more of myself. I am pushing myself to new limits and the dreaded doubts have crept in — I have had to remind myself that based on past experience, I am really, really good at this! I am after all a millionaire with a wardrobe full of designer clothes, an animal welfare philanthropist with beautiful horses and an adorable dog and a business owner with a home in the desert. I have freedom, a loving relationship and the means to help others. Yes, I can do this and so can you.

Here is my blueprint for manifestation:

· Write down the life of your dreams. Make it spectacular. Dwell on it daily.

· You must have a burning desire for this life.

· You have to believe in your worthiness and ability, and if you don’t, then start lying to yourself. Tell yourself ten times every day in the mirror how frigging great, unique and worthy you are. Keep doing it until you believe it. There is tremendous power in affirmations and mantras. Use them. You will never manifest anything that you do not believe you deserve.

· Get off your arse. Take charge of everything that is within your control from your health and fitness to the organization of your home, closet and desk. Get the ball rolling so that the Universe can conspire with you.

· Have blind faith. There is a powerful spiritual force that exists within all of us – you’d better believe it.

· Forget about “how”. Focus on the end result, your desire — your dream. Create a vision board with pictures representing your desires. Feel the emotion associated with your dream life. Feel it. Work hard at all that is obvious and within your control and the bigger answers will start to come to you.

· Life will offer you opportunities. Some will seem crazy. Take them.

I can of course go into much more detail on each of these points — there is so much to be said but it will take a book — it’s coming! In the meantime, if you would like some help with your specific situation, then please email me at info@jacquiesomerville.com with your question.

I wish you all the year of your dreams!

JS