Start Right Where You Are

How Little Changes Can Make a Big Difference for Overwhelmed Procrastinators, Frustrated Overachievers, and Recovering Perfectionists

Sam Bennett

• Publisher: New World Library
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781608684441
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Self Improvement

What Are You Waiting For?An overwhelmed procrastinator, frustrated overachiever, and recovering perfectionist herself, Sam Bennett knows all the ways we avoid pursuing our dreams and reaching our goals. She also knows how to "get it done." Start Right Where You Are is an easy-to-read, easy-to-do guidebook for anyone who wants to change their life but doesn't know where or how to begin. Of course, the process of getting out of your own way, raising your self-esteem, improving your relationships, and making better choices can be a bumpy road. But Bennett's fun, original voice lets you know that you've got a friend along the way, a friend who offers a comforting cup of tea — or a bracing shot of whiskey, depending. Her gentle-kiss-on-the-cheek and loving-thwack-upside-the-head attitude gives us what we all need: inspiration, shortcuts, and breathing room.

1.

How to Create a Miracle

YOU KNOW THE TIMES when you have had a goal or a dream, worked hard to make it happen, and then . . . just . . .nothing? No movement. Can’t get traction. So frustrating, right?

Other times, you have a goal or a dream, and you take just very few baby steps toward it, and suddenly it feels as if the universe itself comes rushing in to support you. It seems that all you have to do is put out a little energy, and you get a big tidal wave of energy back. Maybe you have an idea in your head about moving house, and the next thing you know, the perfect place becomes available, and it’s easily affordable, and you get to just swan right in. Or maybe you’re dreaming of meeting the perfect business partner, and then, out of the blue, that person is standing right in front of you, ready and willing. It’s wonderful when that happens, isn’t it?

Ask around and you’ll hear a lot of different explanations for why sometimes you get what you want, and sometimes you don’t. People may invoke the power of a strong intention, vibration, divine timing, angels, destiny, manifestation skills, karma, luck, or happenstance. But I have a different theory — and please note that I mean theory in the sense of an interesting way to think about things, not in the scientific sense.

Imagine that you are standing in the exact center of your world: that you are the sun, the hub, the eye of the storm. Now imagine that there are lines, like spokes on a wheel, or like the individual puffs on a dandelion, extending out from you that connect you with everything else. Those lines represent your relationship with the potentiality of all things. Every opportunity, every relationship, every everything can be connected to you through those spokes. Can you see it?

Now, if you take one small step in any direction, can you imagine how those lines shift in their relationship with you? Now each line is at a slightly different angle. And so maybe there are some spokes that weren’t reaching you before that now prod you square in the chest. Or maybe the angle of one spoke has become more oblique, so that there is no longer a direct path between that thing and you. Other spokes that were right in your center are now maybe a bit off to the side.

This is why a tiny shift can cause a big difference. Can you imagine that for yourself? Right now, think of something that you want that has eluded you. Maybe it’s a new relationship, or a baby, or a creative project. Can you imagine yourself shifting just a few degrees and intersecting your energy with the potentiality of that thing? Can you imagine how easily even the unlikeliest goal might be achieved? I hear stories every day from my students and clients in which they’ve finally decided to write their book, and the next thing they know, they find themselves deep in conversation with a friendly stranger who turns out to be a literary agent. Or just when they decide they’re ready to start dating, the phone rings, and Mr. or Ms. Perfect Fabulous Person is on the line.

I’ve heard the analogy of a rocket ship to describe this, too: if the trajectory of a rocket ship to the sun is off by just one degree, its course is dramatically altered. In fact, it will end up over 1.6 million miles from its original destination. Could it be that you are just one degree away from everything you’ve ever wanted?

When you move, your perspective — the angle at which you see things — shifts. Experiment for yourself: from the position you are in right now, turn your head like an owl, and notice what you can see. For example, I’m at my desk, and if I turn my head as far as I can to the right and use as much of my peripheral vision as possible, I can see a pair of shoes on the floor (I really ought to be better about putting my shoes away) and the corner of the wooden Swedish trunk that my father handed down to me. If I turn my head all the way to the left, I can see part of my bookshelf and some of the big green chair that sits in front of the bookshelf.

 

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Could it be that you are just one degree away from everything you’ve ever wanted?

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Do this right now and note what you can see.

Now move your body a bit in any direction. Look around again, peering as far as you can to your right and left. You’ll notice that your view has changed a bit. I can now see more of the trunk and also past it, to the coffee table. Craning around to my left, I can now see all of the green chair.

So my theory in action looks like this: when you decide that you want something and you move toward it physically, emotionally, or spiritually, then your movement opens up new pathways by which things can appear in your life. Even a very small step (physical, emotional, or spiritual) can cause a radical change in your relationship to the thing you want. Even a small shift in perspective can allow you to see new opportunities.

And those times when you wished and hoped for things to change, but nothing happened? It’s because you never actually moved. You stayed put. So your relationship to the potentiality of all things remained the same, and you kept getting the same results, over and over and over and over again.

So we get to cocreate our reality with the potentiality of all things through our decisions and our actions. And we get to see the deep truth in the axiom, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.”

With a one-degree shift in your internal navigation, suddenly you can do things like:

•    complete the projects that are dear to your heart

•    change your relationship with your body and improve your physical health

•    double your income (this is not a far-fetched marketing claim: I have actually done this several times, and so have several of my clients)

•    transform your relationships with people who are important to you

•    get your work out in the world

•    transcend your visibility issues

•    overcome a bad past or old stories

Change doesn’t have to take hours of arduous work, and you don’t have to wait to start. Think of it this way: you cannot lose thirty pounds all at once right now. But you can start behaving like someone who is thirty pounds thinner right now. You can eat what that thinner person eats and you can treat yourself the way you would if you had already met that goal. Similarly, you cannot build a successful business right now, but you can start behaving like a successful businessperson and start taking the daily steps to get there. Step by step you can go leaps and bounds.

Those little shifts will feel radical. Even those one-degree shifts will feel like the world is tilting off its axis, because for you, it is. But if you can keep your sea legs — if you can hang on through the temporary discomfort of change — you will see results.

 

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Step by step you can go leaps and bounds.

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Maybe you will develop the ability to look in the mirror and notice what looks beautiful about you instead of automatically reciting the litany of things you think are wrong with you. Maybe you’ll find you can enjoy a conversation with somebody that you haven’t talked to in a long time. Maybe you will find it easier to be more intimate, to be more open, to be more present. I don’t know how this is going to unfold for you. But I guarantee you that if you do the work, if you’re willing to endure the super-uncomfortable feeling that your world is changing, you’ll see some wonderful changes in your life.

LITTLE CHANGES ACTION STEP: If you were going to allow yourself to make a one-degree shift today, what would that be? Would you choose to be 1 percent more courageous? More joyful? More outspoken? More kind? Pick a word that you would like to be able to say describes you, and now — right now — find a way to be 1 percent more that way.

2.

The You in the Center of You

YOU USUALLY HEAR THE TERM self-centered meant as a criticism. But, thanks to the hub-and-spokes image, whenever I hear it, I think, “Yes. I am in the center of myself. My self is my center.”

When you are centered in yourself, you are the still center around which the wheel of your life spins. The circumstances of your life are the outer rim of the wheel. You want to stay in the middle, but it’s all too easy to let yourself get pulled out on the edge of the wheel so that as events happen, you end up spinning along with them. You get tumbled.

Learning how to stay in the center of yourself means developing some discipline so that you aren’t pulled off-center by other people’s opinions, bad news, or success. When you really get practiced at staying right in the center of you, things may spin around you, but you do not spin, you stay grounded and true to yourself.

You don’t have to let your circumstances determine your happiness anymore. You can stay in the center of your self and be able to feel the joy of your life no matter what is happening on the outside.

So let’s put you in the center of your life.

I recommend that you access the free audio version of this short meditation at www.StartRightWhereYouAre.com, because I think you’ll find it easier to visualize the concepts if you listen to me say it rather than reading it silently. You could also make a recording of yourself reading it and play it back with your eyes closed.

And if you’re the kind of person who avoids meditation, no worries — I invite you to try only the simple, effective breathing pattern. I have been doing this breathing pattern for over twenty years, and it has helped me through panic attacks, boring sermons, bumpy airplane rides, Los Angeles traffic, audition jitters, and insomnia. It’s a miracle worker.

Here’s the pattern:

Inhale for a count of four, hold for a count of seven, exhale for a count of eight.

That’s it. 4:7:8.

You can just do it once and get a nice effect, although I usually like to do it three times. You can also keep going and repeat the cycle as many times as you like. Once, at a party, I stayed up until 5 AM, sitting on the couch, counting out this breathing pattern with a friend who was having a bad experience on some psychotropic drugs. She said later that the breathing kept her from “completely freaking the freak out.” So, while I’m not making any medical claims here, it’s good for defreaking.

I like this breathing cycle because it is so simple, and because the counting pattern is just unusual enough to distract me from my thinking. It returns me to my center.

Here’s the text of the meditation to read, read aloud, or download as audio:

If you’re somewhere where you can close your eyes, go ahead and close your eyes. If you can’t or don’t want to close your eyes, just soften your gaze a little bit. Let things go just a little blurry. Soften your gaze, soften your heart. And now feel the very center of you. Feel the energy in the center of yourself like it’s the core of something, like the heart of a tree — the heartwood. Focus on that energy in th...