I’ve always been the kind of person who’s kept constant lists and goals of things I want to buy, promotions I want to achieve, relationships to build, health visions you name it, it was probably on my wishlist, vision board or goals somewhere. Maybe that feels the same for you, an inventory of all the things to acquire, achieve, create and do constantly rolling through your mind. For me, there was often very little intention behind it; Sally got a promotion, I should go for one too. Oh I’ll look amazing in that dress, add it to the list. My cars looking a little dated, obviously time for a new one, actually Lou just got a BMW, maybe that’s what I should get too… I saw something or it appeared to be the logical next step and on a whim, I added it to my list.

Over the years I started to notice I was constantly striving for things outside of me with a creeping feeling that the next thing would ‘make’ me. Like somehow I’d be some better version of me when I ticked the next item off the list. When I get this promotion, I will have made it. When I’m earning a 6-figure salary, I’ll be successful. A wardrobe full of clothes will mean I’m worthy. A hot body equated to being desirable, loveable. I had all these underlying links between wants and my feelings.

While I continued on this hamster wheel for years, I started to notice that when I got each of the things I wanted, it was never quite enough. None of these things ever completed me the way I thought they would. I would hit the goal, acquire the thing and very quickly, my eyes had already shifted ahead to the next thing. The promotions, payrises, clothes, numbers on a scale, even the men if I’m honest, nothing ever created the “better me” I was expecting. The cycle was insidious. I wanted the thing to make me feel a certain way, I’d get it and the feeling would be there, fleetingly and in a very short period I was in exactly the same spot, looking towards the horizon again for the next thing. Like a junkie getting my hit, it was just enough to keep me going, yet never enough to really satisfy me. Cue striving, hustle and feelings of frustration, disappointment and ‘not enough’.

A curious person, I couldn’t understand what was happening. This is what I was sold as the recipe for a successful life. Work hard, buy things, achieve status and you’re happy, right? Yet that wasn’t how I felt, as I was moving up the ranks, acquiring the stuff I was actually feeling worse by the year, not better. So, I went on the journey of questioning everything. Here’s the shortcut for you. Everything, (yes, absolutely everything!) I wanted externally was because I wanted to create a certain feeling internally. Let’s say it again another way because I’ve found it to be true for everybody; everything you want to create, achieve, acquire and do in your life is because you want to feel a certain way and you think ‘the next thing’ will make you feel that way.

Once I had my mind blown by seeing this in myself over and over, I began to think; perhaps I could focus on feeling the way I wanted to feel rather than chasing the things. If the thing was to make me feel a certain way, maybe I could just start feeling the way I wanted to feel and extract myself from the constant emotional – not to mention costly and tiring – treadmill.

This powerful realisation changed the way I looked at everything I wanted and what I was striving for in life.

• Instead of focusing on the promotion, how could I feel successful now?
• Instead of the wardrobe of clothes, how could view myself as enough now?
• Instead of forcing my body to look a certain way how could I feel beautiful now?
• Instead of looking to things outside of me to make me feel whole, how could I feel and acknowledge my completeness already?

I started focusing on the answers to these questions. I started feeling the way I wanted to feel and making choices in my life that helped me to do so. I started feeling good about myself without the clothes, I felt successful as I was and decided to leave my Corporate job, I felt abundant and no longer fixated on more money as the answer to everything, and here’s the kicker, life got a lot sweeter. I actually enjoyed it. I felt happy. What it came down to was I suddenly realised that I was enough. Even though, as a human I’m always going to be inclined to go for more, grow and change, in this moment right now, I know I am enough.

So guess what? You can start getting everything you want right now too. Everything you want is actually about your desire to feel a certain way and every feeling can be created instantaneously.  You get to take your power back, stop placing it outside of yourself and you get to create what you want in your life today, right now actually.

So how can you get started? Tap into the feeling you desire underneath everything you want and go about creating that feeling for yourself. It sounds simple and it really can be. There is always a way to feel free, abundant, joyful, grateful, self loving or successful. We have the ability to create any feeling we want in an instant.

Then, you can build momentum in your life, each and every day, do something that helps you feel the way you want to feel. Ask yourself, how can I feel free, secure, worthy, abundant today? Take the action and watch as over time, other aspects of your life begin to change to. That is how you get what you want right now, while also enjoying the journey to your bigger goals and dreams.