The blog

Have you ever want­ed or desired some­thing so bad that it became a bur­den? It can be a job we des­per­ate­ly want, a con­tract we want, a deal we want to make, a life which we believe some­one else has and we want as well, or a com­pa­ny we would do any­thing to have as our client.

Of course it is some­times good to have some­thing you want be or some­where you want to reach in terms of hav­ing moti­va­tion to progress, but when long­ing for some­thing becomes a fix­a­tion and the long­ing in itself obstructs our every­day life, mak­ing our days heavy and bur­den­some, the desire has become an unhealthy obses­sion that no longer serves its pur­pose of gen­tly push­ing us forward.

We no longer think clear­ly and even more impor­tant­ly, hav­ing our minds cloud­ed like this will make us miss oth­er oppor­tu­ni­ties that come our way since we are blind­ed by where we think we want to go instead.

Things are not always what they seem
But is the grass real­ly green­er on the oth­er side of the fence?

Per­haps. But per­haps not.

What we know for cer­tain is that we most like­ly have a slight­ly unbal­anced pic­ture of what it would be like attain­ing that thing we desire so des­per­ate­ly. There­fore, let’s give our­selves a more nuanced ver­sion of our dream, which will enable us to make more sober deci­sions regard­ing where we should head from now on, be it in our per­son­al life, our career or in terms of where the busi­ness is heading.

Today I want to share an exer­cise which has helped me sev­er­al times in sit­u­a­tions where I have longed des­per­ate­ly for some­thing I did not have. Speak­ing for myself, it has most fre­quent­ly con­cerned some­thing imma­te­r­i­al, such as hav­ing my life struc­tured in a par­tic­u­lar way. (By the way, my ear­li­est mem­o­ry of want­i­ng some­thing is being ten years old and dev­as­tat­ed because I believed that I would nev­er play the key-harp; some­thing I have now done for 30 years.)

Do this
This usu­al­ly works for me. Per­haps it will help you as well.

1. First of all, write down as clear­ly as you pos­si­bly can what it is your heart desires.


2. After you have done this, write down what would be so won­der­ful about receiv­ing it. Write freely for as long as you can and feel like it.


3. Here comes the fun part. Now think of as many ways as you can in which it would be just awful if you actu­al­ly got what you wanted.


4. Now, read through what you have written.


5. Lis­ten to your heart, allow your­self to ful­ly expe­ri­ence what you are feel­ing. Do you feel any dif­fer­ent about the object of your desire? If you are like me, it will feel less charged. Per­haps I still want it, but if I would nev­er receive or attain it, I now know that it would not be the end of the world.

Nuanc­ing expands your hori­zon and the num­ber of options available
If we do this or some­thing else to bring our­selves and our pro­jec­tions and illu­sions down to earth, we nuance the way in which we view the goal or vision that has turned into some­what of an obses­sion (and hence an obsta­cle), and we regain a more sober per­spec­tive. This will enable us to make bet­ter deci­sions on how to pro­ceed. We will real­ize that not every­thing depends on this one thing, and that there are plen­ty of oth­er pos­si­bil­i­ties and ways to reach goals and achieve­ments far beyond what we are cur­rent­ly per­ceiv­ing the one and only option.

How do you alter your perspective?
What is your way of find­ing out what the right option to choose is from a selec­tion of avail­able alter­na­tives? Tell me!