Every once in a while I have a self-inflicted intervention.

This happened to me a couple weeks ago when I was feeling grouchy about how much I wanted what other people had. A little voice inside me said, “Wow, Judy, you’re a really envious person!”

This insight was followed by a quick wave of remorse and guilt.

But I also got curious and shared this insight with my coach to hear what his thoughts were.

“And being envious is a problem for you because …” my coach prompted me.

“I feel so unhappy and angry,” I said, “And I believe that the only way I can be happy is to have things other people have.”

My list of “I’d be happy if only …” is rather long but here are a few select items:

• I was 20-pounds lighter (in fact I’d prefer swapping out this part of my DNA altogether)
• I received more recognition and fame
• I felt I was more influential

When I’m in a place of envy, I want these things RIGHT NOW. I don’t want to work or wait, I’m ready for the life swap right now (thank you very much).

Like Fairy Godmother, where ARE you?!

The Real Issue (barring for the possibility of Fairy Godmothers)

When you or someone else is in this space it’s very tempting to do what I call a “tactical fix.” A tactical fix is coming up with an action plan to make the painful situation go away.

In my case, we certainly could have focused on a step-by-step plan to help me attain one of the conditions I envied.

I think action plans are fantastic  but I also know how often they just don’t satisfy. It’s like eating popcorn for lunch: your mouth is happy, your stomach may be full but most of the cells in your body are saying, “Hey, some protein and vitamin B12 down here please!” Actions plans are helpful but they don’t fully nourish us.

What You Need to Be Fully Nourished

As is often the case in business, we learn about lots of tools that serve our intellect but not so many that serve our hearts and that’s what underlies that feeling of emptiness.

Rather than come up with an action plan, my coach suggested we look at what my heart is longing for. The idea being when we’re feeling angry or scared or sad it’s almost always because our heart is longing for something that isn’t getting met.

When asked what was behind my envy, I was surprised to discover that one of the qualities my heart was longing for was Significance. For me significance doesn’t require me to win a Nobel prize. What I want is to feel my work is making a positive difference and to hear from time to time from customers what positive changes they were experiencing because of my work.

Qualities are More Manageable than Wants

Discovering the qualities beneath my wants was a powerful insight for me for several reasons:

• Wants have a way of going on and on because the underlying cause is never satisfied. I know I’ve sat down to assess what 2-3 items I plan to buy in the coming year and suddenly my 2-3 items has grown to 20 or 30 and I find myself urgently wanting everything.
• We can get and receive spiritual assistance to satisfy our longings for these qualities. As someone who believes in a Higher Power, my human abilities are quite limited. When I ask the Divine for help, it’s like plugging a lamp into an electrical outlet. Often I get insights and perspective that is far beyond anything I can “figure out” on my own…even beyond what I get when I tap into other peoples’ knowledge and experience.

In my experience, once I look at the qualities I’m longing for, I become calmer and my perspective becomes more expansive. I lose the sense of agitation and urgency that is causing me to act like a crazy maker.

Steps for Getting What You REALLY Want

#1 Begin with Compassion

When you find yourself in the throes of I WANT IT NOW, I invite you to have some compassion for your humanity. We’re all human and of course we want to be attractive to others and to belong and to be esteemed. It’s not a weakness to want things, it’s being human!

#2. Look with curiosity for the underlying quality your heart longs for

And be willing to be surprised by what you learn. When I looked beneath my desire for my recognition, the quality I discovered was a longing for significance: I long for my work to make a positive difference and I long to close the loop and get some feedback from customers that my work is, in fact making a positive difference.

#3. Let yourself fully acknowledge this longing

This step can feel really empowering. I know when I finally acknowledge what my heart is longing for there’s a sense of “Yeah! That’s exactly what I want!” And it isn’t grasping or anxious feeling. I feel like this longing can and will be fulfilled.

#4. Ask for spiritual guidance and support

This means regularly taking time to remember and reaffirm and recommit. Then to humbly ask for help. Frankly it’s a lot easier for me to admit, “Hey God I tend to mess things up when I try doing this on my own. I’m going to let You show me the best way to fulfill this longing. My work is to follow Your Guidance.”

When you follow these steps, you enable yourself to do the following:

• Unhook yourself from surface-level, crazy-making wants. This alone is a huge relief and improves your mindset.
• You give yourself a break for being exactly what you are: human. This makes you a lot less crazy-making to others (super-driven people are not exactly fun to hang out with).
• You get to the core of what you really want which means you have a much better chance of actually getting it!
• You remember and reaffirm what you want and ask for spiritual help. This, in my experience, helps you almost certainly get what you want … or something even better.

Following these steps has made a big difference in my personal and professional life. I’m having more fun and struggling less. No fairy godmother required!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 29th, 2011 at 5:20 pm and is filed under Growing Your Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.