Gaining Clarity

Dawn Damon 0:07

Hey, beautiful women. This is Dawn Damon the brave heart mentor and you're listening to the brave hearted woman. This is a podcast designed to help you find your brave so you can live out your beautiful vision. I have been working with women for years. And now I want to help you too. I'm here to awaken the brave heart inside of you so you can ignite the flame of your vision, you can reach your goals and achieve your dreams. Come on, let's get brave.

Hey, are you brave hearted women? It's great to be with you again. I'm excited to share with you today about clarity, having clarity, clear vision of your purpose, and your calling and your assignment while you're here on this earth. Now how many of you remember this famous discord between the cat and Alice? On Alice in Wonderland, it goes something like this. It starts with a cat and the cat says, Where are you going?

Well, which way should I go? Well, that depends on where you're going. I don't know. Then it doesn't matter which way you go. Set the cat. What a perfect example of the quote that also says if you don't know where you're going, then any path will do. So how about you and your life? Do you know where you're going? Do you know what you want out of life? Do you know what you're supposed to be about? Or do you like this one gentleman I met when my husband and I were on vacation. We were all sitting in the hot tub together talking about our goals and dreams. And I looked to him. His name was Scott. I said, Hey, Scott, how about you? Do you want in on this conversation? What are your goals and dreams for this year? He said, Oh, I don't have any I don't believe in that. I just live one day at a time I just roll with the flow. And oh, well, that sounds so esoteric. And it sounds so beautifully. So scripted. So free. But you know, at the end of the day, he doesn't know what he wants out of life. He doesn't know where he's going. And he doesn't know where he's gonna end up. And God bless them. I hope it's all great for him. But we can't just live our lives accidentally. We've got to have a plan and a purpose. So the definition of clarity is the quality or condition of being clear. That's pretty easy, right? easy to understand. At the air at the top of the mountain on a clear day is example of clarity. Easy followed directions are an example of clarity. I like the famous author Napoleon Hill. And he once said, there is one quality which one must possess to win. And that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants and a burning desire to possess it. How about you? Do you have a burning desire to possess what you want? Mark Twain is the one who said I can tell anybody how to get what they really want. The only problem is he said, I can't find anybody who can tell me what they really want out of life. Man, that just challenges me I want to really be clear on what I want. Because there's a reason why we need to be clear. And we're going to talk about that today. We talk a lot about living brave. And that's the name of the podcast, being brave, taking courageous, uncomfortable steps of action, becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable. And as my friend Wanda says, there's a difference between being in danger and just being uncomfortable. You know, we sometimes think and our brain wants to tell us abort, abort, get away from this. It's dangerous, because our brain is designed to keep us safe. And our brain thinks that any threat including the threat of embarrassment, the threat of failure, any threat must mean that you're in danger. But we're not really in danger. We're safe, we might be uncomfortable, and there's a difference. But if you're gonna live your brave, uncomfortable vision, the best life that you can, you have to be clear. You have to have clarity, and you have to be clear on these three things. You have to decide exactly what you want in life. What do you want? And then you have to know why do you want it? It's Simon Sinek who wrote the book, start with why and he discovered that if you don't have a compelling why if you don't know why you're

Doing something, or even why you want something that you'll give up on it and quit. So you have to know exactly what you want in life, and you have to know why you want it. And then thirdly, you have to be willing to do the work or pay the price to get there. You have to be willing to give up some things to have what you want. So imagine this with me for a moment.

Imagine you want to travel overseas, but you have yet to decide on which country you want to visit, like, I don't know what my destination is, but I know that I'm going to travel. Can you buy a ticket for your flight? No. Can you formulate your itinerary itinerary? No, I mean, can you pick out the places that you want to go? And where you want to visit? No. Can you book your hotel? No. Do you know how much you're going to spend? And and the people that you want to meet? Know? Do you have a plan to get there? What attractions you're going to visit? Do you know how to pack? No, you don't know anything? Because you don't know your destination? That's pretty powerful commentary on the importance of having clarity in life. When you wake up in the morning, do you know what you should be giving your time to? Well, you might know what's on your calendar. But do you think that if you do the same thing every day, for the next year, that you're going to reach your goal or your dream or your destination? Well, no, you won't, because you don't even know what the goal or the dream or the destination is. So in this analogy that I just gave you, you have to decide where you want to go. And once you decide where you want to go, all of the other decisions become more easy to make, because you're clear on your destination. So let me give you a few points on clarity. First of all, let me just say this right up front, clarity gives you a destination, we just discussed that it gives you a target of where you want to go. And so when you're absolutely clear about what you want to achieve, you can then formulate a solid plan to get there. And you can take the right action to produce the right results. I know where I want to go. Therefore, I know how to plan. I know what steps to take. I know what to say yes to. And I now actually know what to say no to I know what decision will bring me closer to my destination. And I know what decision might lead me further away from my destination, I can chart a plan for my life. And that's pretty important, isn't it? Here's the second thing that clarity is going to do for you. Clarity eliminates all the distractions I just said a moment ago, when you know where you're going, you have a better time deciding what to say yes to and what to say no to. and clarity really does that I mean, life is loud. And clarity has a way of muting the noise around you, it eliminates the distractions. So when you know exactly where you want to go, then you can focus all your effort and your energy on how you want to get there. And or at least how to plan what reverse engineer at what do I need to do or what needs to be true in order for me to reach this destination. So many years ago, I adopted a formula that I heard from a classically trained award winning violinist. And she said that in order for her to get to where she wanted to go, she had to employ this thing called intentional neglect, right, intentional neglect. And I really liked that. And I began to adopt that formula. Because I thought, at the beginning of each day, here's what I want to accomplish at the end of the day. And I only have so much time. So what am I going to intentionally neglect today? For me because I'm an author, and because content is really important, and I have writing deadlines, it became really imperative that I practiced intentional neglect. Yes, I hear my phone ringing. I'm intentionally going to neglect it. Yep, the bell is going off on all kinds of things. And this notification in that notification and I'm muting it all because I have to intentionally neglect that in order for me to reach this goal today. And I'm not going to do the dishes maybe today or I'm not going to do the laundry or I really need to go to the grocery store. But guess what, I'm going to make something else for my dinner, because I'm going to intentionally neglect that.

And if you have a series of days in which you choose the things that are seriously important, if clarity now gives you the ability to mute the distractions, at the end of these several days, you have a product that you've produced, you have accomplished a goal, you have reached a destination, you have become successful in an area because you did not allow yourself to be taken hijack by all of these different things that could have

inner intervened or interrupted your progress. And I think that's really important for us today that we have some intensive time of focus and devotion and undistracted focus on the things that we're trying to produce. Here's the third thing about clarity.

Clarity makes you proactive, rather than being reactive, and so very closely to what I was just saying, when you have a clear purpose, you know what to do. And you know, how to be proactive to set up your day and your schedule in your time. So that you're not asking, oh, where to time go? No, you're telling time where to go. You're not just responding to things that come at you like a million ping pong balls, that you just have to sit there and bat them all the way up batum all the way. Now you're actually in the driver's seat, you're the one deciding the action plan and which way we're going to go. And you know, you can execute on your plan to get the results that you want. You're not procrastinating, you're not getting off focus, you're not experiencing vision, drift and mission drift. Because you have clarity, and you know what's important to you. Those three things on clarity are really critically important for you. And I want to throw this in there as well, that with clarity,

when you begin to see where you want to go, the law of attraction begins to work. Well, it always works. But it's going to begin to work in your favor. The clearer you are on something, the more determined you are to get there. And the more you focus on it, the more you begin to taste and believe and have faith that this thing is going to come to pass in your life. And the more you believe it, and feel it and experience it, the more likely you are to draw that very thing into your life. I believe that things begin to fall into place for you, you begin to and I've seen it in that I've experienced it, that what begins to happen Are you begin to because you're focused, you begin to meet people, your brain starts bringing you because it is a is a heat seeking missile, it wants to hit its target, your brain knows what's important to you. And it begins to draw to you those connections, those people those opportunities, you'll see words on a TV ad or in a magazine. That makes sense to you. Because your brain has become very acute and very focused. Now. It knows what to filter, it knows what to block out. And it knows what to stop blocking out, you begin to see it. Do you understand what I'm saying? It's so important. So the more focused you get, the more accelerated things become in your life so that you can begin to reach your goals and your dreams. Alright, so let me give you a few things here. I love this.

You might be staying at a crossroads right now. And you need some perspective on what choice to make, what direction to go. You might be having the conversation with the cat. And the cat might be saying where are you going? Don't be like Alice in Wonderland say, I don't know. Which way should I go? Well, where do you want to go? Well, I don't know. Well, then you can go anywhere you want.

I have read in a book. It's Debbie Ford's book, that she's she's now gone. She's passed away. But she wrote a book called the right questions. And I'm going to read these questions. These are the 10 questions that she developed. And some of the wording isn't exactly how I would say it. But these are the questions that she came up with. And but I have employed my own questions like this and I want to share them with you and see how they feel to you. Because questions I think it's Tony Robbins That said, if you want a better quality of life, ask yourself better quality of questions. And I don't know if you're in the habit of doing that if you ask yourself questions. I don't know if you're curious about yourself about your behaviors. If you're curious

e last year, the beginning of: 2020

Great question.

Here's number two, will this choice bring me long term fulfillment, or will it bring me short term gratification? And so by the way, which one's better for you long term fulfillment or short term gratification? You have to decide sometimes, maybe that short term gratification is the right decision? I don't know. But ask yourself that question. Before you make a decision say this number 3am I standing in my power? Or am I trying to please someone else? Am I getting ready to do this for me? Or am I just trying to please people? And again, there's no right or wrong answer. It's up to you in the moment that you're in. Number 4am I looking for what's right, or am I looking for what's wrong? Your brain wants to see what's wrong. It's designed to find the threats find the danger just like we said at the beginning. So am I do Am I looking for everything? That's right or am I looking for everything that's wrong? You have a choice. And I would say

man I it's a mandate for me. I want to train my brain to look for what's right. I don't want to be a problem identifier in my life. Will this choice number five, she says will this choice add to my life

Or will it robbed me of my energy? Will it feel me? Will it inspire me? Will it build me? Or will it drain me? Will it take my energy? Will it cause me to despair? Number six, will I use this situation as a catalyst to grow and evolve? Or will I use it to beat myself up? I just thought that was such a great question. Because I don't like failure. I don't know how you feel. But I do tend to beat myself up if something doesn't go just like I wanted or how I envisioned it. And so I'm learning I'm being resilient, which means being flexible, like recovering quickly. So that's a great question, will I use the situation as a catalyst to grow and evolve? What a beautiful outlook, what a beautiful way to go through different things in life? And I've had to reframe many poor and many painful experiences, and say that very thing, yes, I am choosing this as a catalyst. I want to evolve, I want to grow, I want to stretch, I am not going to sit in the ash heap and beat myself up.

Number seven, does this choice empower me? Or does it disempower me? And that's pretty clear. And that's a great question. The eighth question, Is this an act of self love? Or is this an act of self sabotage? Again? Am I loving myself? Am I taking care of myself? If I make this choice? Or am I sabotaging myself? I think about that a lot when I'm about to put something in my mouth. How about you? Number nine? Is this an act of faith? Or is it an act of fear? And I don't want to move out of fear. I don't want to make decisions that are fear Laden, I want to move by faith. And number 10am, I choosing from my divinity? Or am I choosing from my humanity? And I interpret that to mean, again, the faith element? And am I choosing this from the Spirit of God? am I choosing this from a place of fullness of my soul? Or am I choosing this from the flesh and from my fear, and from my fallen self? I just thought those questions were really important and really good. So I want you to reflect on those and see what you think about it. So with clarity, here's a little homework for you define the success that you want, be really clear. And then if you think it and get hooked, they don't just don't just define it in your mind, write it down, get really clear on it, write it down, put those goals on paper, begin to see it, put it in front of your face, write it down, make it clear, run with it. And there's much more science that shows us that if we write longhand, rather than typing, we actually even activate certain parts of the brain that help us become more creative. And we will remember it longer. So I would even say, write it down with your hand, don't just type it, and then put it in a visible place that you can see it on a regular basis. And then remember to look at it and visit it often. So this is your moment. I hope you'll do it. I hope you will get clear. I hope for you that you'll never have a conversation with a cat that says I don't know where I'm going. But instead you'll say this is my destination. Will you show me the way. All right Bravehearts I hope you enjoyed this. I hope you got some benefit from it. Don't forget to visit me on my website, Dawndaymon.com and also consider taking my course uncover your brave vision. You'll find more about that on my website. In the meantime, this is Dawn Damon your Braveheart mentor saying Don't forget, uncover your vision and live your brave.

Thanks for hanging out with me today and becoming brave. If this has helped you be sure to share it with someone and subscribe so you never have to miss another episode. For more about me my books, my coaching or online courses, visit Dawn damon.com. And as always be brave and live your vision

Transcribed by https://otter.ai