What to Do If You Don’t Know What to Do (Part 2)

Note: This post starts with #6. That’s because it’s the second part of a two-part series. Click here to read Part 1.

6 – Practice deciding

Does this sound like your home on a Friday evening?

“What do you want to do tonight?”

“I don’t know. What do YOU want to do tonight?”

Non-deciding is a habit. It’s insidious and will bleed all over your life. If you have a hard time making the smallest decisions – from dinner to nail polish colors – then you might have a hard time with big decisions. So, start small. Practice deciding.

Remember: the goal is not to make a perfect decision. “Oh man! I should’ve gotten Think Pink on my nails instead of Belize it or Not!” It’s about making a decision. Any decision. “Cool! My nails look like Bubblicious! And I chose it myself!” Learn to ignore regret or the “should’ves.” Instead, congratulate yourself for deciding. Practice it often.

“What do you want to do tonight?”

“Let’s go see Christine Kane live!”

TASK: For one week, catch yourself non-deciding, and stop it. Challenge yourself to make decisions – the wackier the better. Relish being decisive.

7 – Banish the “should wants”

I recently saw Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love, speak at a local bookstore. (Read this book if you haven’t already. Get it in audio.) She related a conversation with a friend at a cafe in New York City. Elizabeth was about to travel to India to live in an ashram for six months. Her friend said, “God, I wish I wanted to do that.”

Are there things that you tell yourself you want, but you don’t really want them – but they seem like good and virtuous things to want? If they don’t excite you, then they’re probably the “should wants.” For instance, many women feel like they should want to have kids because it’s so expected of them. (I recently said to a friend, “I really want to want to have kids.”)

TASK: Get out your journal. Make a list of all the things you should want to do. Write the great American novel, go to a yoga retreat, gut and remodel your 1918 bungalow, write a screenplay, have a sensible job, grow an organic garden, etc. Then, give yourself permission to put it off for a year. You don’t actually have to admit that you don’t want it yet. But as long as it’s there in the back of your head, you’ll keep hearing the “should dream” voices yammering away about how you haven’t completed it yet. That’s draining your energy and your focus. Maybe, for right now, you need to focus on other things. That’s okay.

8 – Change the HOW , not the WHAT

Sometimes we wake up to realize that we’ve allowed our life to become a mess. Drama and chaos. Late fees and finance charges. Angry clients and co-workers. Not enough time. Too much rushing. At these times, we may want to toss everything out the window and start all over with something different. A clean slate. (My roommate in college would ignore her bank account until it got so chaotic and riddled with fines that she’d close out the account and open up a new one at a different bank!)

Changing the WHAT might be necessary in some situations. But more often, the issue is HOW you’re doing your life – not WHAT you’re doing. (Besides, after a while, you may run out of banks!)

There have been times in my career where I’ve wanted to ditch music, stop performing, never write another song, and go get my MBA. (Insert laughter here.) At those times, I’ve had to step back and re-evaluate the HOW of my career and not the WHAT. Shifting the HOW required that I let go of an employee who was draining me, say no to performances that didn’t feed my soul (or pay well enough), get clear about how I wanted to feel as a performer, and get a clue about my finances. The how-shifting process can be tedious and scary. (And sometimes even embarrassing when you see the messes you’ve allowed in your life.) But this process has led me into greater successes and happiness.

TASK: (This task is only a beginning step. Speaking from experience, my own how-shifts have taken up to two years to completely materialize. But you have to begin somewhere.) Get out your journal. Make a list of the scheduling, the people, the commitments, the clients, and/or the patterns that are draining you. Then, turn the page over and write the following sentence: “The ideal situation would look like this…” Try to avoid requiring that anyone else change their behavior. “I want my boss to move to Prague.” That’s just crazy-making. Try instead to create spaces and paint a picture of you feeling good. You may have to repeat this exercise until you are clear. Then you can begin to make changes.

(Note: This takes time but it works. My husband and I were driving back from Charleston this week. I was outlining my schedule for the rest of the month. He stopped me and said, “Look at you! You just performed at one of the best arts festivals in the country, and another ballet company choreographed a show around your music. Then you’re flying up to DC where a driver will take you to a retreat center where you teach and perform for people. Then you will be driven back to the airport…” He smiled and added, “And you’re getting paid really well!” He said all of this to remind me that I had begun to envision this exact lifestyle for myself two years ago when, in total exhaustion, I began to change the HOW of my career. I created exactly what I wanted!)

9 – Shrink your goals and goal times

“What do you want?” is a pretty big question. So is “What are your five-year goals?” Shrink it down. Can you just look at the next six months or even three months and see if there’s a small thing or two that would make you proud to complete?

TASK: Choose one area of your life. Career, travel, finances, home, etc. Ask yourself, “What do I want in the next three months?” Dream big so that you feel enthusiastic!

10 – Pick one thing

It’s not unusual for me to be working on six different songs at once. It’s fun to have lots of new ideas for melodies and lyrics. At some point, however, I have to choose one of those songs and just finish it. Otherwise, I’ll spend an entire two-hour writing period dabbling in each song without really committing to any of them. Nothing gets done without that commitment. When I finally pick and focus on one song, then it gets completed. Magic!

Even though it’s thrilling to have many different options, eventually you may need to commit to one thing. Even if it’s just to experience the energy of completion, then it’s worth it. This will build on itself and teach you the value of completion!

TASK: Do a Mind Map of all your different things, ideas, projects, plans, dreams and goals. Go through the whole process, and take down every last idea you have about each item. Next, reflect upon which one thing made you happiest or felt exciting to pursue. Do a mind map on that one thing. Then take one step that will jump-start that thing, and do that one step by tomorrow at 4pm. Repeat until complete.

tags technorati : goals, plans, hopes, law of attraction, music, mind-mapping, christine kane