Start by Thinking Small: Creating Your Ideal Life

In order to get what you want from life, you first have to know what you want. Amazingly enough, most people simply feel dissatisfied with their current lives, without being able to articulate exactly what they wish their lives looked like. General feelings of dissatisfaction will never be a catalyst to creating your best life; you must decide what it is that you want. Sometimes, in order to create the life of your dreams, you have to start by thinking small.

If you're not ready to decide what your ideal life would look like, then simply begin by asking yourself what small changes in your life would make you happier or more comfortable. For example, walk around your house or apartment and list anything that isn't exactly the way that you want it to be and write down what you would like to have instead. Your initial list could look something like the following:

• I want the faucet in the kitchen to stop leaking.

• I want another shelf in the closet so that I have an easier time finding the sweater that I'm looking for.

• I want to get a lamp to put next to the reclining chair in the living room so that the chair can be used for reading.

• I want to plant some flowers in the two empty pots out in the balcony.

• I want to throw out the old beige towels in the bathroom and get some new ones, in light blue. . .

Once you get used to the idea of thinking in terms of what you want, you'll be able to start thinking bigger. Maybe instead of adding more shelves what you really need is to redesign the whole closet . . . or maybe you need a bigger closet all together . . . which means you'll have to move to a different apartment . . . or maybe you don't want to live in an apartment at all, you've always wanted a large house with huge bay windows . . overlooking a lake . . . where you could go windsurfing . . . You start thinking small, but your thinking gets bigger and bigger as you go along.

In addition to getting used to thinking in terms of what you want, thinking small allows you to begin moving toward what you want right away. That is, it allows you to start applying the creative process consciously. If your list of what you want includes planting flowers in a few empty pots you have out in the balcony, this can be taken care of by a trip to a nursery and an hour planting the flowers once you get home. The creative process here is simple, quick, and easy to observe:

• You made a decision you wanted something;

• You created an image of what you wanted in your mind's eye;

• You wrote it down;

• You took the necessary steps to make it happen; and

• Now you have the result you wanted.

You can take this small victory and repeat it several times to achieve other small accomplishments until you're ready for larger victories. Thinking small is simply the "Law of Progression" at work. If you make constant little tweaks here and there, one year from now your life will be completely different. And then who knows, perhaps you'll be ready to start moving forward in leaps and bounds.