Instant Mastery

I've always said that goal-setting isn't about what you're going after; it's about who you become along the way. I think we sometimes glide over the top of those neat little answers thinking, Yes, I know what that means. Yep, I agree. But sometimes we have to stop ourselves in our tracks and take a good hard look and actually register what it means.

It's about who you become along the way. That's a lovely phrase, but what does it mean in practice?!

Well, what I get is that it means we are going to have to deal with our limitations. Which means we are going to make mistakes. We are going to experience delays and unpleasant surprises. We are going to be ill. We are going to forget to do things. We are going to give in to weakness. We are going to have to experience unpleasant emotions and disagreement.

Why? Because that's the road to mastery. (If there is such a destination.) We are being given the opportunity to be patient when we want to snap, to trust when the appearance of something is alarming, to be courageous and persistent when we would like to give up, to listen to the real message of our anger and irritation, to rest and honour our physical and emotional bodies, to keep rebalancing our lives so that everything that is important to us is given time.

In Practical Kabbalah – A Guide to Jewish Wisdom for Everyday Life, Rabbi Laibl Wolf says, "Hassidism teaches us that two basic guidelines affect our course in life. The first lies in our gifts - the special qualities that distinguish each of us from the other. The second is the constellation of events around us, over which we have no control. The Ba'al Shem Tov, the founder of Hassidism, teaches us that these are divinely ordained to provide us with the optimal stage upon which to express our life's role. But we fight these events. We seek to control them through our limited wisdom, although we may in fact be doing ourselves a grave disservice."

In other words, would you choose illness or divorce or a car accident or retrenchment? Probably not. And yet many people look back on those difficult experiences and recognize the gifts they came to offer.

So we choose the experiences that inspire us, and G.O.D./the universe/Great Spirit/your Higher Self/whatever you want to call it steps in to provide the surprises that will cause us to grow. As Dr John Demartini states over and over in The Breakthrough Experience – A Revolutionary New Approach to Personal Transformation, Love is support and challenge, not just support. The support nourishes us and the challenges nudge us to grow.

Rabbi Wolf goes on to say that ‘By fighting our seeming adversities, the Cosmic process of rebalancing invariably results in the rise of even more pressing circumstances that are in truth a corrective mechanism of the Creator'. In other words, what you resist, persists. The sooner we surrender and look deeply into the challenge, the sooner it gives way to its gift.

So is mastery about being in total control of your life? Of snapping your fingers when you want something? Of only having things happen to you that you want? Suppose you've made a treasure map and set goals and visualised, and then a whole lot of stuff happens that seems to upset everything you wanted to do and your dreams are as far away as ever, does that mean you are a failure as a master? Not at all.

Sometimes stuff happens that we can't predict or wouldn't choose, but it's all for our good. It's grist for the mill. It's helping us get there. (And where, by the way, is ‘there'? I believe it's a greater expression of our divine nature – our power, our joy, our love, our creativity, our wisdom. Not necessarily into the mansion with the fountain on the front lawn.) We can all experience manifesting breakthroughs from time to time, but total control will never be possible simply because it's not a good idea. We might grow faster without the fountain…

Becoming a master of your life is an apprenticeship. Just as with sporting goals, there will be ‘failures' along the way and you need to go into training to build muscle and fitness. Only this is mental muscle and attitude fitness. A serious level of mastery requires a serious (life long) commitment.

Our task is to find the gifts, learn the lessons, take all the little steps, remind ourselves that the way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time; to not discourage ourselves by comparing with others who seem to have it all together. (Just look a little more closely and you'll probably find some area of their life that isn't so perfect.)

And remember to go looking for what you ARE doing well RIGHT NOW. (I'm telling myself as much as you.) Acknowledge the successes, however small.

Celebrate the accomplishments. Little things, like stopping to smell a rose instead of rushing past, or saying no to that extra helping or the person who is pushing your boundaries, are all signs of growth. We need to recognize them.

By: Liliane Grace

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Liliane Grace is a prize-winning author, inspirational speaker and writing coach. Her unique 'personal development' novel, The Mastery Club - See the Invisible, Hear the Silent, Do the Impossible, shows children and teens how to achieve their goals and dreams. Visit www.themasteryclub.com.au.