4 Things You Can Do Every Day to Get What You Want!

Calling in the year 2014 was the most powerful New Year’s of my life. The Inspire Truth New Year’s was a two-day event, dedicated to healing, magic, the arts, all things creative, and meeting our potential as human beings.  

The New Year’s Eve spectacle took place at the Portland Art Museum, with various dj’s bands, dancers, performers, and all around magic happening on various rooms on 3 floors, and this party went on until 4:30 in the morning.

On the main stage on the top floor, Alex and Allyson Gray, and Eric Nez were the artists who made fresh paintings on either side of a stage as the dancers, performers, djs, and bands changed every hour. There were also at least 1000 people in that room hooting and hollering and dancing, along with loud music. The party was on fire. Their concentration was formidable, and damn, if they didn’t have a fresh work of art done at the end of the night!

At the side edges of the stage, crowds of people watched, enraptured at the artists at work, especially in front of Alex Gray. He was the psychedelic superstar who maps intricate details of the body along with energy centers, and sacred geometry. He is a psychedelic superstar, and it was an honor to watch him work.

The splendor of that night is impossible to describe, just like it was impossible to experience everything offered that night. I had a magical time from beginning to end. Even the Max train ride back to my part of town in the early hours of morning was incredible.

Yet, as spectacular as it was to call in the New Year, what made that event powerful were the offerings on New Year’s Day. These events were low-key.

Of course, I was exhausted. I didn’t make it to the Yoga Sun Salutation of doing 108 Sun Salutations to start 2014. After a few hours of sleep, I came for the Ecstatic Dance, and made it to the talk that Alex and Allyson Gray gave on New Year’s Day.

They talked about all kinds of things. But the part of their talk that I have never forgotten was the best, the simplest, and the most elegant advice on resolutions – New Year’s or otherwise – I had ever heard.

“You can have anything you want,” said Alex Gray. “But there are 4 things you must do to make what you want happen.”

So here are their simple, elegant, and effective 4 steps to manifesting anything you desire.

1)    Define your goal/want and write it down. Keep it simple. By doing this, you do this, you take your goal/want out of the ethers of your coulda-shoulda-woulda and make it real. Again, keep it simple. No more than 1 sentence. You only have to do this once per goal/want.

2)   Do something towards that goal/want EVERY SINGLE DAY. You can’t make your goals and manifest your wants if you don’t actively work on them. But some days can be light. For instance, researching something or reading a book that gleans knowledge and helps you gain information about your goal/desire counts.

3)   Before you fall asleep at night, reflect on 3 challenges you met or overcame. 3 things that went well, difficulties overcome, etc. EVERY SINGLE DAY. This doesn’t have to be centered on your goal/desire. This can be about anything. What I like about this step is that it builds empowerment, a belief in yourself, and confidence.

4)   First thing when you wake up in the morning, as soon as you remember to do it, is to think about 3 things you’re grateful for EVERY SINGLE DAY. The gratitude that ends this list and starts the day kicks the brain into a positive thinking mode immediately, and cuts out negativity. It works. Even if I woke up mad or moody, I remembered 3 gratitudes and immediately felt so much better. By the way, this step is the most difficult to remember and the easiest to neglect.

So there you have it. This can be applied to anything. Do these four steps EVERY SINGLE DAY, and achieve all your goals and manifest all your wants. Alex and Allyson Gray swear by it and they have enjoyed a mad level of success.

Wanna Get Excited About Writing? Talk About It!

A fairly common piece of writing advice is to not talk about your novel while you’re writing it.

I think that holds true when I’m in rough draft, because the unsolicited feedback that often comes when somebody feels they can improve upon your ideas can really psych writers out, or distract us into going in the wrong direction, which ultimately creates more work to correct, if we don’t give up out of frustration.  

But that’s only in the beginning. After a point, it’s incredible how talking about your work can create more excitement for it.

Yesterday, I was working out with my friend, and Laura asked the usual question: “What have you been doing since I saw you last.”

My answer: “Writing.”

That is most of what I’m doing right now.

2nd draft is a slower process because I focus on keeping the details straight, so there is a novel that is done at the end of this. A novel that needs a developmental edit, some rewrites, and polish, but still a finished novel - whereas the rough draft is a mess.

Anyway, she asked me what the story was about, and I told her it’s a triad of love stories involving seduction, fascination, and rivalry.

The Shepherd and the Courtesan are together to tell their stories of Ella Bandita, the predatory seductress who had abandoned both of them. The Shepherd has never gotten over her, and neither has the Courtesan.

The Courtesan’s goal is to know for certain that Ella Bandita is dead. To entice the Shepherd to stay and swap stories with her, she tells him of her transformation from an ugly, embittered, hard-labor peasant named Addie to the glamorous and irresistible Courtesan known as Adrianna the Beautiful.

This is the 2nd novel in a series of 4. Ella Bandita is the central character, however she is not the main character in this particular novel, nor will she be in the 4th.

In this one, Ella Bandita is a secondary character in the background, present only through dreams and memories in the stories the protagonists share with each other.

Through sharing their stories and the time they spend together, the Shepherd and the Courtesan find a chance for redemption and healing, but only if they are willing to let go.

The appeal of this novel is discovering the labyrinth of life experiences that make a human being who they are. The Shepherd’s character is complex, but his solitary life is simple. His relationship with the Woman who would become known as Ella Bandita, Thief of Hearts, is the only unusual circumstance of his life.

The Courtesan’s character is complex with an incredible life story, and at least half the pages in the novel are spent on who she is and how she came to be that way. I suppose this is excessive “backstory,” but I don’t care. Because the Courtesan’s origin story is that juicy. Her stories propel the story forward between the Shepherd and the Courtesan, so it’s staying.

As I told Laura more, especially because there will be plenty of sex scenes, Laura got excited and said she wanted to read it. Of course, her enthusiasm made me want to keep writing the book.

I needed that.

This draft is excruciating became it tests me in an area where I’m weak – patience. So although I would have been unwise to talk about this in the early stages, I found the sweet spot of talking about my work at a moment when I needed some juice to keep writing.

Laura got me excited about a story that I was starting to feel jaded about. That would not have happened if I had not talked to her about it.

So yeah, you writers out there, give it a try so long as you’re not in rough draft.