0

A Simple Plan To Make Your Wishes Come True

Here’s a simple plan to help make your wishes come true.  All you must do to is consistently devote five minutes each morning to it. And then remember your intentions throughout the day.  Here’s how…

BEFORE THOSE good intentions for 2016 fade away, I’ve got some ideas to share that, if implemented, will transform your “intentions” into a daily practice.

Wouldn’t it be truly fine to make your wishes come true? Stick to this daily practice, and you’ll have a much better chance to experience your desires.

Over the last few years, I’ve written quite a bit about goals setting, mindfulness (see this and this), and have urged readers to make “good intentions” more concrete by actually putting an action plan together to translate intentions into goals, and goals into lifestyle habits.

In What A Marshmallow Can Tell You About Your Resolutions, I quoted famed psychologist Dr. Walter Mischel, who in response to a question about why people seldom carry out their New Year resolutions, replied:

If you want something that’s been illusive for some reason, you need a plan to get it. This idea can be distilled to the oft-mentioned adage:

“Plan your work and work your plan.”

The reference to “work” concerns the effort that you actively and intentionally do day-by-day to achieve what you want.

The reference to a “plan” concerns the system/roadmap/specific actions that you actively and intentionally do day-by-day to achieve what you want.

I know that many of you want to do this, but have a hard time starting.

 

The Desire For Empowerment

A recent “1 Minute Survey” that I presented to Subscribers indicates that the majority of respondents want these two things:

1. I want to live my life guided by focused intention.
2. I want to learn to build new, empowering lifestyle habits.

Out of 12 possible selections presented in the survey, 34% chose those two, which are closely related. More people chose them than selections for diet, hormone optimization, gut health or getting lean and muscular (although it is the second-highest choice so far at 17%).

The popularity of these two aspects of mindfulness – focused intention and lifestyle habits – surprised me, but I am pleased that it’s so. The reason I’m glad that these were top choices is because I’ve always asserted that for someone to achieve anything in life, he or she must first develop the right Mindset.

“Mindset” is the first pillar that supports a the “long and strong life “motif that I often talk about. Without it, and the practices that support it, the three other pillars – Reset, Fuel and Move – are unlikely to be experienced fully.

The reason for this is simple: Almost no one does what needs doing on a daily basis to live longer with vibrant health. Just look around. Although we may be living longer, we are not doing it healthily – obesity, diabetes, heart disease, thyroid conditions, metabolic syndrome and other chronic conditions have become a way of life for many people as they move into their 50s and beyond.

{For more about the Pillars, check out The Four Pillars of A Long and Strong Life}

So, I have a suggestion.

Rather than implore you to get equipped to climb Mt. Everest, I’d like to suggest that you strap on a simple day pack and every morning fill it (metaphorically speaking) with simple wishes. Then walk with it throughout the day.

“But aren’t wishes akin to ephemeral ‘good intentions’ that lead to nowhere because there was never a solid plan put in place to make them happen, just like Dr. Mischel implied,” you inquire?

Yes, but we are going to have a plan. A simple one.

We’re going to make a tiny habit, one to be done every morning.

To flesh this out and make it concrete enough for it to actually become a plan, I turn to astrologist and radio show host Jan Spillar.

Now, don’t get turned off by this astrology bit, if that’s your inclination, because regardless if you believe in it or not, Jan Spillar has come up with something potentially valuable to you, notwithstanding which moon is tuned to your Neptune.

In her book, New Moon Astrology: The Secret of Astrological Timing to Make All Your Dreams Come True, Jan presents a list of categories in the “What to Wish For” chapter. Each category consists of a list of “Simple Wishes”, which I think of more as “daily affirmations”, but we’ll continue with her terminology.

I chose some that are relevant to my life, and they’ve been inspiring.

You’d have to get the book to see the whole list. The odds are that you won’t do that, which is perfectly fine, because once I tell how I’m using the Simple Wishes I selected from Jan’s book, you will get an idea about how to make up your own.

 

My Simple Wishes

Let me tell you about mine.

I chose three from three categories from Jan’s book:

1. Independence,
2. Courage, and
3. Good Health.

Each of these categories had several “Simple Wishes”.

To bolster my Independence, I chose these:

• “I want to easily find myself accepting the leadership of my own life.”
• “I want to easily find myself trusting myself.”
• “I want to easily find myself following my own constructive instincts in making decisions.”

To evoke Courage, I chose:

• “I want to be filled with strength and boldness in my approach to changing how I earn income.”
• “I want to remain consistently vigilant in the matter of finishing my book.”

To maximize Good Health, I chose:

• “I want a total healing to occur in the area of my detoxification.”
• “I want to easily find myself taking action that leads to my successfully restoring my teeth.”

The “income”, “detoxification” and “teeth” were all elective and chosen by me. So, for instance, in the book Jan writes,

“I want a total healing to occur in the area of my ________________________”, and I wrote in “detoxification”.

Of course, you could write in anything that you want.

{If you’re interested in how teeth and detoxification are related go here and scroll down to the third and fourth video; namely, “Skype Video 1” and “Skype Video 2”.}

This is a pic of a copy I made of the relevant pages from Jan Spillar’s book of my simple wishes:

 

The Plan for Your Simple Wishes

OK, so at this point we’ve got these Simple Wishes, which admittingly are no more solid in terms of their actualization (making them happen) than a bunch of Good Intentions.

So, how do you make your wishes come true?

That’s where the day pack comes into the equation. Every morning, you get out of bed, load your list of Simple Wishes into your day pack, and take a stroll.

Those of you who agree with the majority of the 1 Minute Survey respondents who most valued: “I want to live my life guided by focused intention”, and “I want to learn to build new, empowering lifestyle habits”, now have a process, a plan if you will.

You choose your own Simple Wishes, and focus on them every morning with the intention of making them manifest in your life. And as you proceed with your day, they are not forgotten. You keep them close at hand. When something happens, say a negative thought that undermines your Simple Wishes, you correct yourself by smothering it with what you do want.

What you’re doing here is consistently bathing in what you want, so that what you want overwhelms any competing thought, emotion or action.

This is your Mindfulness Practice.

Go do it, and make your wishes come true!

 

P.S. If you’re interested in how I incorporate my “simple wishes” into my daily morning practice, go here and scroll down to “Do You Have Any Daily Rituals?“.

P.P.S.  Want more guidance about creating new lifestyle habits?  Dig into these:

Manifest Your Goals Like The Pros Do

4 Steps To Make Your Goals Smart and Achievable

The 4 Principles of Success

Why Change Is Hard — The 3 Reasons We Get Stuck

Last Updated on February 7, 2024 by Joe Garma