How to Create Breakthroughs
Today I want to talk to you about breakthroughs in your life…
Have you ever wondered what makes people different from each other? For example, what separates successful people from those who do not achieve their goals?
And I can tell you one thing. The difference is not in what we are born with, but in what decisions we make.
To start, I’m going to tell you a story about a little girl.
Born to a 13 year-old black girl in a poor Mississippi neighborhood in the mid 50s.
Went to live at her grandma’s house as her mom was not able to take care of her.
How would you think this child would turn out?
Grandma was completely overwhelmed and had difficulties providing for the little child.
Before this girl was 13 years old, she was sexually abused three times by different men from her family and close friends.
And then history repeated itself when she herself became pregnant at the age of 13.
A still birth.
She continued to be passed back and forth between people and homes that were far from safe for any growing child.
Maybe some of you already know her story and know which girl I’m talking about.
Oprah Winfrey.
Today, Oprah Winfrey is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and media proprietor. She is best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which ran in national syndication for 25 years, from 1986 to 2011. Her net worth as of today is estimated at 2.8 billion USD.
Well, Oprah shows that our story (where we come from) doesn’t determine where we go (what we become.)
And yet we find it difficult to acknowledge this within ourselves.
Even with others.
About 30 years ago in the US, the Menendez brothers both shot their parents with a gun while they were sleeping.
Normally it’s clear, isn’t it? They should be punished for their actions. Condemned, right?
What do you think? Shouldn’t those two brothers be punished for shooting their parents in their sleep, killing them?
Well, the process went through two trials, before two juries.
Why?
Because they said their parents abused them.
How do you feel now?
Has your view changed? Do you think it’s fair that the brothers shot their parents?
You know that feeling. You change perspective after learning some facts.
The thing is, though, we buy the story. For ourselves and others.
We feel bad.
But this is the greatest danger, a huge risk that we can take. A trap that we can step into and from which we cannot quickly free ourselves, because we are stuck there.
It’s like buying the story sends us to our own prison.
If I don’t break free from the story, if you don’t break free from the story, if we don’t break free from the story and we don’t start taking responsibility, then it’s like a PRISON that holds us captive.
I want you to ask yourself the question if you have failed in the past.
Why?
Ask yourself: why?
Be honest!
Listen to yourself when you tell yourself the reason or reasons for your failure?
If you like, take a quick break from reading and write down the reasons you are coming up with.
American author, coach, and speaker Anthony Robbins says it so beautifully:
Change your story and you change your life.
Your story keeps you in prison.
But you can free yourself.
You need something to free you.
Change your story.
Well, the thing is, it’s in our human nature to blame others for our failures. Because this is how we protect ourselves, that we ourselves are to blame. So it’s not you, it’s someone else.
Maybe it is:
God
The government
Your neighbor
Your boss
Your colleague
Your partner
The “virus”
Be honest, who is it for you?
Well, let’s examine what holds back most people besides their story.
Most people, including myself for a long time, think that in order to achieve breakthroughs in their lives, they need resources.
Resources like:
Money
Time
Technology
Just some examples.
These are resources.
However, what I was able to discover not only in my personal life and in working with my network and colleagues, but most of all in my work with clients, is that it is not the lack of resources that prevents people from having breakthroughs or achieving their goals.
So what is it that we really need if it’s not the resources?
What do you think?
To be resourceful.
Being resourceful comes from your emotions, from your feelings, from the state that will get you anywhere if you put yourself into it.
If you really want to, and if you are disciplined, you will notice.
The ultimate resource is…?
Exactly, being resourceful.
Okay, so let’s talk about what it takes to experience breakthroughs:
Three things:
Just ask yourself the question. Do you think that if you want to lose weight, a specific strategy is missing?
Have you ever wondered that someone wasn’t able to find a single strategy for that?
Entering “strategies to lose weight” gives me 48.5 million results in under one second in Google alone. Add the opportunity of using personalized apps or books targeted for weight loss, and the sheer amount of strategies seem endless, right?
Well, we’re talking about the three things we need to experience breakthroughs.
I want to start with the least important, and that is actually the strategy.
Let’s ask ourselves, what is a strategy anyway?
Well, a strategy can be defined as a concrete plan that leads you to a concrete result.
Example: baking a cake
#1 STRATEGY
I will not hide this. I am a strategy lover to the core. I’m obsessed with finding ways that make the most efficient way of using resources.
Okay, so I love strategies and strategies can be found everywhere for everything, right?
Do you think that lacking strategy is the reason why you failed in reaching a breakthrough in your life?
You have to have the right strategy at the right time!
And here it is important that not every lid fits every pot.
Let’s use the weight lost example again. Fitness, health, or nutrition gurus may praise THE ONE BEST strategy for losing weight. That’s simply not true. There is not one recipe that applies to everyone.
You have to find someone who can adapt a specific strategy to your personal needs and based on the desired outcome. A strategy which has been applied hundreds of times over a long period of time. And it has been validated. It must produce results.
Let’s get to the second pillar.
#2 STORY
The story you tell yourself.
We saw at the very beginning that successful people, such as Oprah Winfrey, cannot be defined by their story, right?
You know when we give ourselves excuses?
I’ve already tried everything? I just can’t do it, I’m not made for it, I’ve always done it that way, I have heavy bones (when losing weight ;))
Your story may even be true. BUT it doesn’t work!
Your story kills your hunger for life, your confidence to redefine your identity and achieve all your dreams and desires, your story kills your will to continue. It kills your creativity. You are no longer resourceful :O
I would like to ask you a question at this point:
How many people do you know take antidepressants and are still depressed?
The thing is, you can change your body’s biochemistry through medication, but if your story stays the same, then you’re stuck.
Even if your body is in a different biochemical state. You’re stuck in your story. You still think it’s everyone else’s fault. You’re in prison. You haven’t freed yourself yet.
Let go of the story.
Maybe you have a terminal illness
Maybe you were abused, physically, sexually, mentally
Maybe you were lied to, cheated on, stolen from…
CHANGE YOUR STORY
CHANGE YOUR LIFE
Let’s get to the final pillar to experience breakthroughs:
#3 STATE
In order to experience breakthroughs, you need the right alignment, the right energetic frequency, you need to put yourself in a very specific state.
Let me take you on an emotional journey…
Have you ever been in love???
Really head over heels in love. You forgot to eat, to sleep, you just didn’t need anything, you were just in this feeling of being in love. You wanted nothing more than to be with this person. Touching, kissing, smelling that person…
Well, when someone is in love, they would do just about anything, right? When your new love asks you, where do we want to go for dinner? Doesn´t matter, the most important thing is being together! Which movie do we want to watch? It doesn’t matter, the most important thing is being together. Where are we going over the weekend? It doesn’t matter, the most important thing is being together.
Sounds familiar?
Well, at some point, after 7 weeks, after 7 months or after the famous 7 years or even longer… What happens then?
Now imagine if you had always remained in this state of being in love. Would you have always done the things you do in this state…
Do you know what would happen then?
There would be no end.
There would just be this state.
This is your state. Your state maintains this level and keeps you there.
Not just in your relationship, but also in your decision making (and I’ll go into that again in a moment.)
So you have these three pillars to experience breakthroughs in your life, to achieve the goals in your life:
Strategy
Story (paradigm)
State
What do you think is the most important and perhaps most challenging part of it?
Exactly, the state. The good news is though…
You can change your state in seconds. You can use wonderful, simple tools to catapult yourself into this state again and again and this is something I do a lot when working with my clients.
Well, here you have the three things you need…
But do you remember the opening question?
What makes some people different from others?
The decisions they make!
Not circumstances!
Life depends on your decisions.
Not from your circumstances.
And to round it off, I would like to talk about decisions.
Because the decisions you make, make the complete difference in the results you will achieve in your life!!
Again, here are three things that are crucial when making decisions ;P
First, what are you focusing on?
Is it fear? External circumstances?
Our focus determines our feelings, our responses, our energy.
If we don’t choose what we focus on, the world will.
You do not believe that? Just imagine, what’s happening in the news or on social media?
Headlines.
Now, what are your headlines?
You define these yourself!
So the first thing about focus is: Are you controlling your focus? Or are you not controlling it?
Remember, our focus controls our feelings, our energy… (Where focus does, energy flows.)
Second, are you focusing on what you have? Or are you focusing on what you don’t have?
No matter how rich you are, you are poor as long as you focus on what you lack in your life and not on what you have in your life.
80% of the world’s population lives on less than 2 Dollars a day. For us that might be a cup of tea or coffee…
That means 80% of people in the world are dreaming about our worst-case scenarios!
Finally, do you focus on the future, the presence, or the past?
Studies have clearly shown that people who focus on the past are unhappier and even depressed.
Just imagine… What happens if you constantly look in the rearview mirror while driving?
You will have an accident!
Because you don’t see what’s in front of you, what’s coming before you.
Similarly, people focusing on the future experience more anxiety and are more likely to become perfectionist, procrastinators, or delay taking action.
The second point is, the meaning you give to the things that have happened in your life.
Do you give these things the meanings of…
A punishment
A curse
A challenge
Or maybe a gift?
Is it the end?
Or is it the beginning?
Remember relationships and being in love. Imagine what it would be like if you gave everything this great meaning like your new, fresh love. Your partnership, your business?
The thing is, after a lot of time and effort and love, we think it’s the end when something breaks. For example, a marriage after 25 years or a business after 10 years.
Edison had a huge fire where all his work burned… he called his son to his side and said, “Son, call your mother and tell her there has never been such a big fire in her life, she has to see this.”
The next day he started rebuilding everything from scratch.
Oprah Winfrey… what meaning did she give to her life, her story, what meaning to the decisions she made from it?
The final step when making decisions is to take action.
Ask yourself the question. WHAT DO I DO NOW?
Do I stay where I currently am? Am I learning new things? Am I investing in myself, my business, my relationships?
When making decisions, make sure you have an action plan that you can follow step by step, which again is something I many times work at with my clients.
I hope you were able to get something out of this summary of how you experience breakthroughs in your life.
Remember, it’s about strategy, story, and state.
Once you have these things focused, make decisions based on focus, meaning AND most importantly, GET INTO ACTION!!!
Don’t stand still. Keep evolving.