As January winds down, many people already have lost sight of the resolutions they set at the beginning of the year. Gym memberships have been abandoned. Efforts to curb screen time have dwindled. And glowing ambitions to eat better … or meditate daily … or recommit to yoga practice … or learn a new instrument or language … have dimmed.
This happens each year because it’s so much easier to forget your vision of the future than to remember it. But one of the things I love best about this work is, it’s never too late to change. It’s never too late to choose you.
Recently, I shared six simple steps you can practice so your thoughts, actions, and feelings align with the life you’re creating. Today, we’re going to talk those steps, and work through some exercises to help you remember your vision for a new future – so you don’t forget again.
Step 1. Define Your Purpose
One of the first things I learned on my own journey was the importance of living with purpose. Purpose is what gives your life meaning and direction. And purpose is dynamic. It’s uniquely personal, it’s always evolving, and it’s never-ending. It’s an overarching mission by which you set your course.
Conversely, a lack of purpose often is the main reason we lose sight of our goals – or lose our connection to a new future. Without a guiding principle or mission, how can you know if the choices you’re making are in alignment with where you want to be?
And so, before continuing with the next steps, take some time to reflect on your purpose. I find there’s no better way to do this than to sit down with myself, get quiet, and write.
Here are some prompts you can journal about:
- Where in my life do I naturally feel inspiration, curiosity, wonder, and motivation?
- Where do I struggle to find a sense of meaning or direction?
- Am I practicing metacognition? Am I aware of my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors?
- Do I have a sense of mission or vision? If not, can I remember a time when I felt connected to a higher purpose?
- What would be a reason for me to jump out of bed in the morning, excited for the day ahead?
- What would be a good mission statement for this moment in my life?
It’s powerful to give words to the things we value and we’re working toward. And taking this time to reflect on what matters most to you is a great way to choose you. You must know your purpose so well that it feels visceral – so it’s not merely words, but something that feels deeply true in an embodied sense.
Step 2. Set Achievable Goals That Support Your Purpose
Once you’ve defined your purpose, it’s important to set goals that keep you moving in that direction. This is a simple exercise in terms of approach, but it takes some time to be discerning and set goals that are simultaneously challenging – that stretch you – and achievable.
- In your journal, write down the purpose or mission statement you arrived at in Step 1.
- Under that statement, write down five or six realistic, achievable goals that support your mission.
For example, let’s say you’ve decided your purpose, this year, is to be healthier. That’s a broad area, so to track your progress, you need to narrow down your goals – and be specific. Your list might look something like this:
My purpose: To be the healthiest version of myself I can be – physically, chemically, and emotionally.
My goals:
- Meditate every morning and evening
- Learn about nutrition – and prepare my own healthy meals
- Exercise at least three hours a week
- Cut personal screen time to no more than 30 minutes a day
- Take a break from social media
- No screen time before bed
- Invest more time and attention in my relationships – in person
- Keep a journal to track my progress
Whatever your goals, it’s important they align with your purpose. That’s what keeps you on track. And, as you achieve some of the goals on your list, make sure to add new ones so you keep making progress – and you keep challenging yourself.
Step 3. Set the Intention to Make Different Choices
This may seem like an obvious step, but in all my years of doing this work, I’ve lost count of how many people are trying to reach a new future as the same person they’ve been all along. They keep making the same choices – and are somehow expecting different outcomes.
But if you’re thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same feelings, and acting out the same behaviors as your past-present self, that keeps you connected to only one place: your past. In other words, making the same choices each day will keep you in the same familiar, known life.
It makes sense, then, that if you want to connect to your new future, the only way to arrive there is as a new self. And that means making new choices. Thinking the new thoughts, feeling the new feelings, and acting out the new behaviors of your present-future self – all of this is what can lead you to a new life.
In your journal, spend some time exploring these questions:
- What are some people or situations in my current life that often cause me to go unconscious?
- What are the automatic thoughts and feelings that fuel my behaviors in that state?
- How can I prepare myself to respond differently when those challenges arise? What would my future self think, feel, or do?
When you set the intention to make different choices, it bolsters your resolve to align your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors with your purpose. So, when resistance rears up – as you know it will – you already have a plan for how you’re going to respond.
We all have that voice inside that says,
I don’t feel like it. I’m too tired. I’m too busy. It doesn’t work anyway. I’ll start tomorrow. But with intention, you can ask yourself in those moments: Is this aligned with my purpose? Will this help me reach my next goal? What would my future self do in this moment? What choice do I need to make to become that version of me?
When you make the choice that aligns with your purpose and your vision, then in that moment, you’re choosing yourself. You’re overcoming the old programs and conditioning in your body – as well as your environment and time – and you’re investing in your new future.
Setting an intention is a way to put meaning behind what you’re doing. And when you put meaning behind what you’re doing, you’re changing your energy.
Continually Moving in the Direction of Change
Remember: nothing changes in your life until you change. You can’t see the future through the lens of the past. Your purpose points you in the direction of your new future. Your goals support that purpose – and give you measurable steps toward progress. Your intention is the fuel that helps you achieve your goals – and keeps you on purpose. And clarity about all of these helps you make the right choices as you continually move in the direction of change.
It doesn’t matter where you are in the year, or what holiday is being observed, or what personal milestone looms. It doesn’t even matter if you started off today in your automatic programs. Moment to moment, whenever you realize you’ve forgotten the new future you’re creating, you can catch yourself and bring yourself back to the present moment. You can remember. And if you keep remembering, chances are you’ll stop forgetting. You can always begin again.
Step 4. Learn to create from 3-D and 5-D
As powerful as it is to tune in to the unknown and create from the field – what we call the fifth dimension, or 5-D – there are still concrete steps you have to take, each day, here in the three-dimensional world – the plane of demonstration.
You’ll notice there’s a lot of overlap between making different choices – the third step – and doing the work in 3-D. If, in Step 1, you defined your purpose as being the healthiest version of yourself you can be physically, emotionally, and chemically, then in Step 2, you outlined goals that support that purpose:
- Meditate every morning and evening.
- Lose 10 pounds at a sustainable rate.
- Prepare healthy meals and eat out less.
- Exercise at least three hours a week.
- Cut personal screen time to no more than 30 minutes a day.
- Invest more time and attention in my relationships – in person.
Then, in step 3, you set the intention to make different choices – to achieve those goals. The concrete steps you must take in 3-D, then, build on the first three steps to align your actions, thoughts, and feelings with your stated purpose.
When you make those new choices, and take those concrete steps, you strengthen the signal you bring to the field when you work on your new future in the quantum, or 5-D. Here is where you tune in to the new life you’re creating. Here is where you experience how your future self will think, feel, and act as that new life unfolds.
And here is where you practice combining a clear intention with feeling the elevated emotions of your future – so you can sustain those emotions, and practice with your eyes open, when you come back to the plane of doing – and continue on in your daily life.
When you practice feeling – and sustaining – the feelings of your future on a daily basis, it takes you out of feeling the lack of not having that future. Those elevated emotions help you feel like it’s already happened – and thus, they will drive behaviors and thoughts consistent with those feelings.
Step 5. Resolve, reflect, revise, and record – every day
In a popular post last year, I wrote about the importance of beginning each day with intention and resolve – and ending each day by reflecting on how you did. These practices are about reminding yourself of your purpose, goals, and intentions throughout the day. I hope you’ll re-read that blog for an in-depth exploration of how transformative they can be.
Here, I’ll simply add a few more tools and suggestions to round out the daily exercises of resolution and reflection:
- Work with an “accountability buddy” – someone who understands and supports your goals and will partner with you in the purposeful pursuit of their goals.
- Try posting inspirational quotes or notes to yourself around the house – or send yourself reminders on your phone. You could try something as simple as Post-It notes on the bathroom mirror that read:
- This is your year.
- What would love do?
- Are you in the feelings of your future right now?
- You live in no time. You accomplish everything in the right state of mind and body.
- Change yourself, change your life.
- You might hang inspiring pictures or symbols around your home – or listen to music that elevates your emotions.
This is a really fun part of the process. Take time to experiment, play with it, and keep it engaging. Incorporate anything that helps you stay connected to that new future you’re creating and motivates you to make different choices.
Remember, you have to make time for yourself. If you don’t make time for yourself now, there will never be “enough” time later.
The third “R” in this section is about revising your model. This is so important. Just as your purpose and mission will evolve over time, so should your model of what that looks like.
- This means educating and informing yourself and evolving your understanding – so you can fine-tune your intentions and bring deeper meaning to your practice.
- I often refer to this as understanding the “what” and the “why” – so the “how” becomes easier.
Let’s use a different mission as an example here. If your stated purpose is to generate abundance, you might want to study wealthy people – and the journey they took to become successful. You’ll find, for most, it never was a linear path. The important point is to study the characteristics that made them abundant. That includes the sacrifices; the long hours; the uncompromising vision; the hard choices; how they learned from their mistakes; how they evolved over time.
All of these aspects serve as the raw materials for you to get real about the reality you’re choosing. Those people became successful on their journey – and you can learn from their experience.
Finally, the fourth “R.” As we progress in creating in alignment with our purpose, we’ll begin to see feedback in our outer reality. It may take time, but it’s important to record it when it happens.
If you’re working on improving your health and have a breakthrough in how much weight you’ve lost … or how many minutes you can run at your newest goal pace … or you notice the pain you’d suffered from for years is suddenly gone … or your lab values from your blood tests have improved … write it down.
If you’re working on creating abundance and get a promotion at work … or you receive an advance when a pitch is accepted … or you get a letter describing an accounting error accompanied by an unexpected refund … record it.
Celebrate every sign. All it takes is one breakthrough to boost your enthusiasm for the work – and your resolve to keep going.
Step 6. Make it be about your EFFORT – instead of the RESULT
When you can get through a whole meditation, workout, or meal prep, or manage your emotional state the entire day – or whatever your purpose-driven goal is – and have your behaviors match your intention … when you can go through each step and gain value from it … when you get so lost in the act, it’s no longer about the event, because the act is actually producing the event or the experience … then it’s no longer about results. It’s about your effort.
When you can finish something with great effort, there’s a celebration of you that takes place. You feel satisfied with yourself. You feel worthy of whatever it is you’re working on. And that is a very profound state in which to receive.
In other words, you no longer feel the lack of not having your new future – because you’re becoming it.
Remember: it’s never too late to change. There’s no such thing as failure; there’s only learning and evolution. It doesn’t matter if it’s the middle of February, or the day after you missed an important deadline at work, or if you’ve just completed a major cycle of growth and change and are feeling a little unclear about your next experiment.
You can always make great strides in discovering and celebrating the mystery of yourself. I hope you decide this is your year – this is your moment – to choose you.
Dr Joe Dispenza
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