Are you committed to putting you “big-wants” in the driver seat?

Our wants matter. Our want is the energy, or the driver, that determines our life.

I like to categorize our wants into two categories: “little-wants” and “big-wants”.

Let’s start with the “little-wants”. They are like the want for: a day off work, sleeping in, skipping a workout, comfort foods like pizza or ice cream, binging a Netflix series, relieving stress with drinking or smoking, procrastinating taxes or parking tickets, and avoiding the conflictual truths and hard conversations.

The “little-wants” are easy to want. They are default. Part of our brain is wired to want the easy, feel good now, and avoid all pain at all cost “little-wants”. A day, a season, and a lifetime of these “little-wants” is normal; look around, look within, they are easy to fall into and then to rinse and repeat.

Then there are the “big-wants”. The want for:

The work our heart desires to contribute to the world, the work that requires risk taking and failure, the work that requires us to grow into a courageous version of our self.

The vitality of aging gracefully where we do not need medications to function. A state of health that is only built with a lifestyle which is out of the norm; free of the normal inflammatory foods, free of sedentary entertainment, and free of health harming stress reliever escape buttons.

I am talking about a life that is rich in connection, presence, and satisfaction. A life lived in accordance with pre-meditated values and awareness of one’s desired relationships to loved ones, self, money, screens, and time.

The “big-wants” are the ones that require forward thinking, commitment, and intentionally embracing discomfort; these are the wants that pull us out of ordinary and normal and into extra-ordinary and different.

I am comparing a life full of “little-wants” that happens to us, to a life that is driven by “big-wants” that we design and cultivate.

How committed are we to putting our “big-wants” in the driver seat and creating THAT life?

The fruition of our “big-wants” hangs on our commitment.

Because without commitment, our “big-wants” are merely wishes that will fly away in the wind every time one of the endless storms of life roll in.

We can measure our commitment and know exactly how committed we are.

Because committed is a feeling.

And to make a commitment is both a decision and an action.

Both require a mindset, “I will stick to my commitment, no matter what”. “Even when part of me does not want to, even when there is a way out, even when I am tired or feel uncomfortable, even when…. no matter what”

Our commitment to the “big-wants” is born and then either nurtured or undermined with our mind.

When we don’t feel committed it is because our brain is saying something like “it doesn’t really matter” or “just this once”.

We can know exactly how committed we are; we can measure it, we can create it, we can embody it, and we can choose to commit to our “big wants”.

How is your relationship to what your “big-wants”?

Are you committed?

What are the thoughts in your brain about what your “big-wants”?

If you struggle with committing or struggle to staying committed to what you want, I want you to know there is nothing wrong with you. It is normal to struggle with overcoming the part of our brain that defaults to our “little-wants”.

If this is you, I want you to know there is a set of coaching tools that can help you overcome your “little-wants” and instead commit to your “big-wants”.

Committing to and living in alignment to our “big-wants” is not easy AND it is possible.

Ps. This is part of the work that we do in my coaching program. If you want the coaching tools for committing to your “big-wants” then sign up for a free consult call with me, I’d love to help you.