03/08/2021
Tap into the hunger within
When people think about making changes in their lives, they most often start from the standpoint of a goal, resolution or final outcome. “I want to lose 15 pounds in two months”, for example. Or “By this time next year I plan to save enough for a house”. There are goals about careers, beauty, relationships, diet plans, finance, the list goes on and on. Setting goals can be useful, and can be very rewarding. But although goals can help us reach a desired outcome, their usefulness actually ends once that outcome has been reached. Goals are one-time events. Not only that, but goals can even leave you with a sense of emptiness once they have been attained. After losing the weight or getting the house, you may be left with the question of, “Now what?”
Another challenge lies in the fact that goals most often rely on willpower to see them through. The problem is that willpower is notoriously unreliable when it comes to consistent behaviour. It is one thing to say “I want to lose 15 pounds in two months”, but it is another thing entirely when you’re attending a dinner party and the host has happened to have made your favourite dessert. The willpower part of you says, “That dessert will keep me from my goal”. But the emotional side of you says, “But it will taste SO good and help relieve the stress I’m feeling right now”. As study after study has shown, willpower simply isn’t enough to overcome the emotional cravings that occur in our minds. In the battle of willpower vs. emotion, it is emotion that more often wins out. If it were the other way around, everyone who ever set out toward a goal using willpower alone would have achieved it.
In the battle of willpower vs. emotion, it is emotion that more often wins.
So if goals aren’t the answer to making meaningful, lasting changes, then what is the answer?
In Search of the Hunger Within
There is another way to bring about changes in our lives, and it comes from a deeper place than goal-setting. And because it comes from a deeper place it is infinitely more powerful than single-minded goals.
That deeper place is a place of hunger.
Think of it like this: when you’re hungry, you want food. You’re looking to get food, you’re trying to get food. You’re hungry. And if it’s been a very long time since you’ve eaten, you’re very hungry. You will do anything to get food. It becomes your primary purpose. It’s an inner feeling that envelopes your entire being. It pushes you onward. And that’s exactly how I see the origin of meaningful changes. Instead of a hunger for food, we experience a hunger for something different. Where we are so fed up of how difficult our life has been that we connect with a part of ourselves that wants to be a certain way. We feel it deep down, and when we embrace it then everything that follows just feels right. We now feel hungry for change, and the hunger means we will do whatever it takes to get there.
One person can’t make another person hungry, it has to come from within. Like a light switch, or an activation. It’s an innate desire that gets switched on, saying, “I’ve had enough. I’m hungry.” That’s not to say others can’t help in being a catalyst for change. For instance, as a Health Coach I see myself not only as a guide, but as an inspiration to others. I like to stimulate that desire in others; I like to embody that essence of being hungry. But ultimately it’s up to each individual to create their own hunger.
Hunger means we will do whatever it takes to get there.
At the beginning it helps to start the process of influencing your mind by pointing in the direction you want to grow into. You might find images of what you want to look like, you might write about how you want to feel, or you might find inspiration from people you admire. But whichever outlet you choose, you must start seeing yourself as that change already. You see yourself as already successful, you see yourself as already beautiful, you see yourself as already brilliant, you see yourself as already healthy. These are not goals or intentions: this is you creating whatever you want. Too often we forget that humans are creators. We are magical beings and we have the power to manifest anything we want. But it has to come from a place inside, from our heart and soul: From our connection to divinity. Not from our mind, but from the heart. When we get into that space, we have the ability to imagine what it feels like to be successful, beautiful, brilliant or healthy. Now we are ready to truly create whatever we want. We become purposeful. We become steadfast. We become hungry.
There are other ways to connect with your hunger. Meditation is a powerful tool to help us realize just how hungry we really are. In meditation we see glimpses of our true nature. We begin to see ourselves as a manifestation of divine love. We are all love, whether we realize it or not. The challenges of life may cloud our thoughts and vision, but it doesn’t change the fact that at our core we are pure light, pure energy. Once we tap into that fact, the possibilities for creating a purposeful life are endless.
We are magical beings and we have the power to manifest anything we want.
Help Along the Way
Once we’ve felt the hunger to make lasting, positive changes in our lives, the next step is to actually do it! But wait, where do we start? There are a few people who instinctively know the right path to follow. But for the vast majority, help is needed to formulate an action plan. Without a plan, we tend to dabble in certain things for a short time, and then try something else. The end result is that we achieve very few if any lasting changes. Ultimately we may give up altogether.
In my role as a Health Coach, I help formulate an action plan for clients. Every plan will be different, since every person is different and every person has unique changes that they are hungry for. One approach may work amazingly well for one person, and yet may not work at all for another. But whatever form the approaches take, the overall aim is to help turn that hunger into something real and tangible. Something beautiful and amazing. Something that a person may never have even thought possible. And yet we all have it within us. We are all capable. We can all manifest the changes we want to take place in our lives. All it takes is the courage to ask the question, “Am I hungry?”
