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Keep Your Goals away from the Trolls



There is a type of crab that cannot be caught — it is agile and clever enough to get out of any crab trap. And yet, these crabs are caught by the thousands every day, thanks to a particularly human trait they possess.

The trap is a wire cage with a hole at the top. Bait is placed in the cage, and the cage is lowered into the water. One crab comes along, enters the cage, and begins munching on the bait. A second crab joins him. A third. Crab Thanksgiving. Yumm. Eventually, however, all the bait is gone.

The crabs could easily climb up the side of the cage and through the hole, but they do not. They stay in the cage. Other crabs come along and join them — long after the bait is gone. And more.

Should one of the crabs realize there is no further reason to stay in the trap and attempt to leave, the other crabs will gang up on him and stop him. They will repeatedly pull him off the side of the cage. If he is persistent, the others will tear off his claws to keep him from climbing. If he persists still, they will kill him.

The crabs — by force of the majority — stay together in the cage. The cage is hauled up, and it's dinnertime on the pier.

The chief difference between these crabs and humans is that these crabs live in water and humans on land.

Anyone who has a dream — one that might get him out of what he perceives to be a trap — had best beware of the fellow-inhabitants of the trap.

The human crabs (we call them trolls) do not usually use physical force — although they are certainly not above it. They generally don't need it, however. They have more effective methods at hand, and in mouth — innuendo, doubt, ridicule, derision, mockery, sarcasm, scorn, sneering, belittlement, humiliation, jeering, taunting, teasing, lying, and a dozen others not listed in our thesaurus.

The way to handle such people is the same method used by Jonathan Joffrey Crab on his clan. (Remember that book about the crab who wasn't content to walk around, he wanted to learn underwater ballet?) Jonathan, knowing the dangers of attempted departure from the cage, said, "Hey! This is fun! What a gathering of crabs! I'm going to go get some more!" And he danced off to freedom.

Our suggestion: keep your goals away from the trolls.

People don't like to see others pursuing their dreams — it reminds them how far from living their dreams they are. In talking you out of your dreams, they are talking themselves back into their own comfort zone. They will give you every rational lie they ever gave themselves. And if you don't believe them with the same degree of devotion they do, get ready for Big Time Disapproval.

Why bother? Consider your Dream a fragile seed. It's small now, and needs protection and lots of nurturing. Eventually, it will be strong — stronger than the slings and arrows of outrageously limited people.

When you've obtained your goal, then tell them about it. Even though faced with irrefutable evidence, the most common expression you'll hear will be, "I don't believe it!" If they can't believe reality, imagine how much difficulty they'd have believing in your Dream.

This, of course, does not apply to close friends and supporters who have always believed in you and offer only encouragement. If you're not sure, tell them about a friend who has a similar Dream. If their response is, "Good for them!" you're in good hands. If their response is, "What a silly thing to do," it would be a silly thing, indeed, to share your goals with them.

If some people should hear of your dream and start telling you all the reasons why you can't possibly do it, you can (A) walk away, or (B) listen to them with compassion as they describe the parameters of their own comfort zones — the ones that may keep them firmly in the trap until it is hauled up.


PART FOUR
BECOMING PASSIONATE ABOUT YOUR DREAM

We're going to go faster. Now that you have your Dream and have committed to it, you're probably experiencing some Divine Impatience. A part of you is saying, "Let's get on with it!" And so we shall.

We move now from the mental realm — the world of discoveries, choices, goals and commitments — and into the emotional.

Although the mind can get the body jumping here and there, emotion is necessary for sustained activity. This section is about cultivating and channeling the emotional energy for consistent, persistent action.

There are a lot of different words for this emotional energy — enthusiasm (en theos, to be one with the energy of the divine), desire, and even obsession. The one we're, well, passionate about is passion.

The emotions are, however, controlled by the mind. What we think about determines how we feel. So, even though the goal is to produce passionate emotions, much of the time we'll be discussing the uses of the mind.

To reach a dream, especially a Big Dream, we need to have an ally, something to counteract all the limiting emotions the comfort zone can dish out so well.

That thing is our passion. We must love and desire our Dream — and love and desire it intently — for our Dream to come true.

To paraphrase Mark Twain: "Put all your eggs in one basket — and LOVE THAT BASKET!"

Or, as Elbert Hubbard said, "Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed — there's so little competition."



Visualization

To visualize is to see what is not there, what is not real — you know, a dream. To visualize is, in fact, to make visual lies.

Visual lies, however, have a way of becoming visual truths.

As we mentioned earlier, don't let the word visual throw you. We're talking about the imagination. Some people primarily see things in their imagination. Others primarily feel things. Still others primarily hear things. Whichever sense you use to access your imagination is fine.

How do you visualize? What does it look (feel, sound) like? The same way you remember things, that's how the imagination looks-feels-sounds. What's the shape of an apple? What color is a carrot? ("Why is a carrot more orange than an orange?" asked the Amboy Dukes. That was back in the sixties. You had to be there.) What is your bathroom sink like? How clean is your car? However you saw or sensed or heard those images, that's what it's like to visualize the future in your imagination.

But you know all this. You already have a sanctuary built in your imagination, and probably a few taco stands, too. With such advanced readers, it must be time for a Pop Quiz! (Take a deep breath, now.)

POP QUIZ: Although the brain Is only 2% of the total body weight, it consumes 25% of the body's oxygen. What does this mean?

(A) If you feel short of breath, stop thinking.

(B) People without brains need 25% less oxygen.

(C) Our brains should be bigger.

(D) The body considers thinking an important activity.

(E) We should spend 75% of our time doing something other than thinking.

(F) You shouldn't walk, think and chew gum at the same time.

(G) Keep breathing.

In our imagination, what we behold we become. What we have beheld until this moment has gotten us what we are — and what we have. If we want something different — something greater — we must think greater thoughts.

We are not responsible for every thought that goes wandering through our mind. We are, however, responsible for the ones we hold there. We're especially responsible for the thoughts we put there.

It's time to plant a Dream crop of positive visions. It's time to focus on the positive; to hold an image of what we want; to see, view, play (s'il vous plait) our Dream.

Or, worded for our more negatively thinking friends: Don't focus on what you don't want.

Think about your Dream all the time, no matter what else you're doing. Live your Dream in your imagination. Become obsessed by it. Love it. Be passionate about it.

To paraphrase Churchill: Never lose in your imagination. Never. Never. Never. Never.

It's your dream. Your imagination. Why on earth should you lose? Don't. If you find yourself losing, turn it around. Call in a calvary charge. Bring on the Tooth Fairy. Whatever it takes.

Always come out on top, always be victorious. Always win.

Affirmations

To affirm is to make firm. An affirmation is a statement of truth you make firm by repetition.

Affirmations always take place in the present, hence the wording is always present tense. "I am a successful orchestral conductor, making $100,000 per year," is how to state an affirmation, not, "I'm going to be..." or "I really want to be..." or "If it's not too much trouble, I'd really like to be..."

Make an affirmation for

• Your purpose

• Your Big Dream

• Each of the goals along the path to the Big Dream

Read each affirmation out loud at least 1,000 times. (An hour each for your Purpose and Big Dream; 30 minutes each for your other goals.) Before starting, ask the white light to surround you for your highest good.

When you affirm, all that is between you and fulfilling that dream surfaces — in other words, the gunk of comfort zone. Expect fear, guilt, unworthiness, hurt feelings, anger and discouragement to do what they do to get you to stop.

Keep going.

To bring up the limitations faster, look at yourself in the mirror while repeating your affirmation out loud.

You can record your affirmations on an endless-loop cassette (the kind used for outgoing messages in answering machines) and play it softly in the background no matter what else is going on.

You can get an earphone and play your tape on a portable stereo wherever you go. Talk about your portable paradise.

You can put your affirmations on the walls of your sanctuary so that you see them every time you come in.

Some people like to make a Treasure Map. A treasure map is a large piece of paper — or bulletin board — that contains the path to your inner and outer treasure. Cut from magazines, newspapers, etc. things that represent portions of your Big Dream — words, pictures, people, anything.

Glue, paste or pin them to your treasure map. (Some people use a bulletin board so that when one portion of the Dream comes true, they can take it down and replace it with the next part of the Dream.) It becomes a colorful collage. Put it where you'll see it often (but not where the trolls hang out). It's a visual affirmation.

Practice turning any of the comfort zone's negative affirmations into instant affirmations. Anytime you catch yourself saying negative things to yourself, take charge of the thought and rescue it. Turn it around. Make the most negative thought the most positive one, just like that. Consider it a lesson in creative writing, or a new quiz show — the grand prize of which is your Dream. If stuck, you can always add, "...up until now, and things are changing for the better," to whatever negative nonsense the comfort zone throws at you.

Affirmations help you believe in your Dream. Belief is essential. Your Dream must become more real than your doubt. Affirmations are like lifting weights — a mechanical process that helps build strength (belief) in your Dream.

"One person with belief," John Stewart Mill wrote more than a hundred years ago, "is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests."


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