E-tip No. 60 – Knowing what you want – part 2

Last week, I said most people know what they want. It’s just they find it difficult to express. And if you followed Knowing what you want – part 1, you’ll now have a pile of post-it notes containing words and phrases – you now know what you want. Cool huh!

In order to prioritise them in order of importance, here’s what you do with them:

Today’s experiment
· Take the first two post-its off the top of the pile and hold one in each hand and ask yourself: If there were two worlds, one containing more of [insert what first post-it says] or more of [insert what second post-it says] which one would I prefer? And go with what pops into your head first – it’s important not to analyse your intuition – that’s what got you stuck in the first place!
Then line up the post-it’s in order of preference.
· Then, take the next post-it off the top of the pile, and one off the line-up in each hand (it doesn’t matter which one – post-it note or hand!) and ask again: If there were two worlds, one containing more [insert what left hand post-it says] or more [insert what right hand post-it says] which one would I prefer?
· If you prefer the post-it off the pile over the one off the line-up then pick up the next one above on the line-up and ask the question again until you find where it fits. If it’s less important then put it below the one on the line up, and if there’s already a post-it below it, ask the question again with that one until you find where it fits. Basically, you keep moving up or down the line asking the question until you find it’s natural place in what’s important to you.
· You’ll then end up with a line of post-it notes in order of importance to you. Number these from 1 to whatever, with 1 being the most important
· Then for each of these, apply the http://anthonydavis.wordpress.com/2006/08/10/e-tip-27-more-on-the-out-of-10-rule/. For example, if you listed what was important to you in a job or work, ask yourself for each one in turn: on a scale of 1-10, how does my current job meet this need? And if it’s a new job or choice of jobs, you can do the same, and make the comparison.

As a rule of the thumb, the top 5 are the really important stuff to you, and these are often the most challenging to pursue. The bottom 5 are the least important and usually the easiest to achieve, and this is where most people just settle.

Money may have come up in your list. This is usually taken as a given – you wouldn’t do a job unless it paid you what you wanted or needed. Only include money if you want a huge excess of money over and above what you need – and that could be a substantial amount, even millions! That’s fine too. Money is a means to an end, not an end in itself. How many excessively wealthy people do you know who say achieving their money goal has made them deliriously happy?

In the next couple of days, I’ll be posting to my website how you can take this to the next level – the answer to the second most important question: how will I know when I’ve got it? Because when you know this, you naturally go out and get it!

Anthony

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