Kindle Notes & Highlights
In order to feed our internal flames, we must wake up and make each of our choices conscious. A conscious choice reflects our highest commitments and is in direct alignment with our vision for our lives.
When we are acting on automatic, we fail to see the consequences of our behaviors.
In any given moment we are being guided by one of two maps: a vision map, which is a deliberate plan for our future, or a default map, which is made up of our past.
If you ask the Right Questions before you make a choice, you will shift yourself away from automatic, repetitive cycles and toward deliberate, focused steps that will lead you toward the future you desire.
The Right Questions wake you up. This is not a dress rehearsal; this is your life. Either you will milk it for all it’s worth and manifest what you truly desire or you will go to your grave regretting that you didn’t make different choices.
Can you imagine taking off for a twenty-year road trip not knowing where you wanted to go? How would it feel to get into your car every day and just drive down whatever road looked good at the moment? Do you think that would inspire you? Is “destination unknown” an itinerary that would support you in jumping out of bed every day and becoming the greatest possible expression of yourself? If it would, read no further.
The most important thing you can do each day is to consult your vision map.
If you’re focused purely and intently on what you want, you’ll be able to stand firm and make life-enhancing choices when you find yourself at a crossroads.
Most of us are waiting for the day when we’ll do better, when we’ll have everything we want, and when we will become the people we most want to be. But as you know, that day doesn’t just magically arrive. That day is a choice.
When we take actions that feed our inner flames, we discover that there is really very little to think about.
There comes a time when we each need to bypass our automatic emotional responses and—instead of asking, “How do I feel about this?”—ask, “Will this choice bring me closer to my highest vision for myself?”
In other words, our vision map, not our mood, should be our guide.
Maybe you’ve noticed: your emotions fluctuate constantly. Therefore, it’s not the wisest idea to navigate by them. If you want to arrive at your desired destination, I suggest you forget about your emotions for a while. Save them for loving your children, for caring for the elderly, for making a difference in the world, for appreciating yourself. Don’t use them as your compass to your future; they just weren’t designed for that. As long as you look to your emotions to be your guide, you forfeit your right to achieve your goals.
Our underlying commitments are responsible for the discrepancy between what we say we want and what we’re actually experiencing.
Underlying commitments are so potent because they are our first commitments. Left unexamined, they will keep us stuck in the past and rob us of the future we deserve.
“What am I committed to in this moment?”
Her first commitment is to having what she wants when she wants it, so she spends her money on whatever she deems important in the moment, without really looking at the long-term consequences of those short-term choices.
“The bitter truth is better than a sweet lie.”
We can’t be traveling east and west at the same time.
It’s easy to deceive ourselves into believing that the small choices don’t matter that much. But a hundred small choices in the wrong direction can add up to a lifetime where our dreams are always one step in front of us.
“Failure is not a single cataclysmic event. We do not fail overnight. Failure is the inevitable result of an accumulation of poor thinking and poor choices. To put it more simply, failure is nothing more than a few errors in judgment repeated every day.”
Why do we continue repeating behaviors day after day that no long serve us? Because, as Rohn says, “the joy of the moment wins out to the consequences of the future.”
The ability to rationalize behavior that goes against what we want in life might be our biggest curse, because it makes us masters at justifying our actions.
Taking the risk to follow our hearts gives energy to our future and breathes life into our dreams.
It’s human nature to opt for the quick fix, preferring to suffer the consequences of our behavior…later. Our desires in the moment win out over our commitments for the future.
You’re attempting to gratify yourself quickly, but remorse sets in as soon as you realize that you are left further away from your goal. The rush is over, but the guilt stays with you.”
When we make choices that are in direct conflict with our dreams, we rob ourselves of the future we desire.
We are masters at rationalizing and kidding ourselves, tricking ourselves into believing that things will magically get better. But remember, the small choices that are in direct alignment with our long-term vision are the doorway to the future we desire.
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
When we are looking for what’s right, we invite life to shower us with all its many gifts. Looking for what’s right opens our hearts and allows us to live in a state of gratitude for what we have. It lets us appreciate the little things that bless us every day.
Looking for what’s right is an art that takes practice. But here is the payoff: when we look for what’s right, we feel good, strong, and worthy.
An extraordinary person is an ordinary person who makes extraordinary
