Articles tagged with: enthusiasm

How to Access the Power of Love to Realize Your Dreams

Maxima Kahn January 12th, 2018

In this post, I share with you how to access the deepest power in the universe, the power of love, so that you can draw upon this limitless power to help you realize your dreams.

This is the fourth post in a series on Enthusiasm vs. Willpower in reaching your heart’s dreams. If you missed the last post, you can read it here. In it, I offered you a radical invitation to help you connect to heart, passion, delight and fulfillment in your life. I also introduced you to the Inner Taskmaster and the Rebel, both of whom can sabotage your dreams.

In discussing the Taskmaster in my last post, I talked about the unhealthy kind of willpower and how it really doesn’t help us reach what we long for in our lives. Today, we begin with a healthy kind of inner power.

Accessing the Power of the Mother Bear

photo by matthias-goetzke on unsplash

The second kind of willpower is that of the mother saving her child. This will is unstoppable. We all know better than to get between a mother bear protecting her cubs, because no force is stronger than that love.

This is the kind of will we want to access on the path to living our heart’s dreams: Our powerful, passionate, unstoppable love for what we long to be, do and have, our fierce commitment to it.

This is a force that can move mountains, including the mountains of our own fear, doubt and resistance.

Connect to Your Deep Why

So, how do you access that kind of will?

You dive down to the core of your love and longing for your dream, the heart of your passion for it. You become deeply connected to what that dream gives you, what it will give you, what you love and enjoy about it, what it can give to others, how it connects to values that you hold dear.

You get very clear on what I call the Deep Why of the dream. How does it serve you, others, our world?

Then, you keep reconnecting to that why, that love and vision, as long as they remain true for you. You keep recommitting to your dream from that place of love.

Call up your fierce, powerful love for your art, your dreams, for the power of art itself and what it gives our world, how it changes lives. Let that be the source of your willpower to act day after day in a manner congruent with your dreams.

A Little Will and a Lot of Love

photo by craig whitehead on unsplash

So, yes, a little will is involved. It can serve you well on the path of dreams, when used properly. You may have to draw on 30 seconds of willpower every single day to get yourself into your studio and begin creating.

But deeper than will for me is the love of creating, the passion for art. Being clear in knowing what creating gives to my life and knowing what is lacking without it. And having a strong, inspiring vision of where I am headed in my life.

Vision, love, joy—these are unbelievably powerful on the path of dreams.

If you are not feeling them for your dreams, you may have the wrong dream. Or you may need help clearing past hurts, fears and doubts that keep your passion and enthusiasm at bay. If you lack inspired vision for your life, you may need some expert help uncovering it and uncovering what keeps you from it. (Check out my creative life coaching here.)

Please cultivate a little will too, your core of inner strength, that mother bear love, and persistence.

Cultivate commitment, that shining bridge. (If you missed the post on the shining bridge of commitment, you can read it here.)

But, commit only to that which you truly love, desire and value, that which inspires you and lights you up. No shoulds here. When you waver or forget or lose your way, simply recommit if the dream is still alive for you.

Dream big, but set yourself small, reachable goals toward your heart’s big dreams. (See my post on The Power of Small Bites).

Commit to those goals. Succeed at them.

In this way, you can move mountains and realize your great dreams—for yourself and for our world.

The Deeper Power Behind Everything

Love is the deeper power behind both enthusiasm and willpower. Behind willpower is devotion, which is love. Behind enthusiasm is passion, which is love.

Notice how everything comes from Love. Love is the deepest power on earth. Nothing is stronger or greater than this.

Loving what you do, being passionate about it, being lit up by it, being engaged with and curious about it. Taking joy and delight in it. These are so essential. If they are persistently lacking, I would strongly suggest you choose a new dream.

Give Yourself to Love

photo by eye for ebony on unsplash

If you can consistently return to love and draw on love to power your art and your dreams, nothing can stop you.

The realization of your dreams may not look how you first imagined, but what you arrive at will amaze you.

Your life will be immeasurably enriched by walking the path of Love. And so will the lives of everyone you meet, as well as many others you never meet.

Far greater than will, greater than enthusiasm, greater than discipline, commitment or passion, greater than inspiration is love.

Love will carry the day. Love will see you through.

So, draw on it. Call on it. Connect with it. Express it.

Dare to love in all you do. Find what you most love and do it, be it, give it, live it.

To your powerful love,

Maxima

P.S. One act of love you can take now is to share this post with someone who might benefit. You can use the share buttons below.

Do Exactly (and Only) What You Want

Maxima Kahn January 5th, 2018

1 Comment

In this post, I give you radical permission to do what you want! How will that help you reach your big life dreams? Read on!

I share with you about the Inner Taskmaster and the Inner Rebel and how they both sabotage your dreams. I start the conversation about two different kinds of willpower and which one will help you.

And best of all, I give you a radical, delicious assignment that will help you live guided by heart, so that you can create a gorgeous, joyful, soulful, fulfilling life.

This is the third in a series of posts on Enthusiasm vs. Willpower as we walk our heart path toward our dreams. To read the second post called The Shining Bridge to Reach Your Dreams, click here. To read the first post called Enthusiasm vs. Willpower: Surprising New Discoveries, click here.

Ok, let’s dive in!

Two Kinds of Will

There are two kinds of will, and they are very different. They come from different places within us and have vastly different effects on us and our lives.

The first kind of will is the taskmaster or drill sergeant.

Most of us have an internalized drill sergeant or taskmaster. This part of you is not your friend or ally. Many people think they need the taskmaster to get things done, stay healthy, exercise, eat right, write their book, accomplish anything meaningful. This is the first place they turn to within when trying to get themselves to do something. And it’s a mistake.

Many people rely on this inner taskmaster, and at the same time fight against it, their whole lives, falling on and off the wagon of whatever program they have set for themselves. And feeling terrible about it.

“If only I could be more disciplined,” they believe. And so, they renew their efforts yet again, and fail again, lowering their opinion of themselves once more, as well as their hope for the future.

They continue this cycle, despite the fact that it is not working, because it is all they know to do.

When I work with people on unleashing their creativity and living their heart’s dreams, I often have to begin by helping them send the inner taskmaster on a one-way ticket to the Bahamas.

The Taskmaster and the Rebel

The taskmaster always conjures our inner rebel. No one likes to be pushed around. When pushed, we push back.

photo by Andre Hunter

So, the rebel comes to our defense when the taskmaster is ordering us around.

The rebel does not want to do anything the taskmaster says and will sabotage its efforts, making us do the opposite, wake up later than we intended, stay up too late watching movies, get on the internet when we intended to be painting. . .

If you understand that the rebel always accompanies the taskmaster, you will understand and have more compassion for your own cycles of hard work and conscientious effort toward your dreams and goals and then goofing off, letting every distraction and passing pleasure come in the way of those dreams and goals.

What If You Only Do What You Want?

I often give my students the radical assignment to do only what they feel like doing for three weeks (or much longer!)—no shoulds or have to’s, no self-betterment programs, routines or healthy habits, unless they truly want to do it. (Note: This does not include if you have a job you need to go to or kids to take care of, but does include anything and everything else that you put upon yourself as a must or should.)

Try it!

This practice helps put our hearts, our love and joy, our curiosity, passion and self-kindness back in the driver’s seat. And it can lead us back to doing our creative play from genuine love, desire and enthusiasm.

Be patient with this assignment. If you have been ordering yourself around with your taskmaster for years, it may takes months of letting yourself lie on the couch and read trashy novels before an honest desire to do something else can be felt and followed. The time spent will be well worth the result.

If you are patient enough to let yourself do only what you really want, you will be surprised and amazed at how clearly your own loves, passions, desires, interests and gifts begin to show themselves. And how easy it is to do them.

How I Healed Myself

by Jake Young

I did this practice of only doing what I wanted (outside of work hours) for months after I dropped out of graduate school in music.

I was at sea in my life, having lost my clear direction and my ability to create music with love and joy. I had no idea what to do next. I was afraid if I did not keep driving myself with that fierce inner taskmaster who had gotten me to accomplish so much for so long, all I would do is lie around eating bon-bons.

Strangely, that is not what happened.

I did lie on the couch a lot, reading. And I went to a lot of art movies.

But, I was reading poetry and novels, translating poems for fun, reading the dictionary to learn new words and the etymology of words, writing in my journal, writing poems, seeing amazing films, going for long walks, going to literary events.

And still, I thought I was doing nothing, until a friend pointed out how consistently I was focused on writing, story-telling, words, art. That is what I was choosing to do. I couldn’t even see it. I thought I was just lazing around.

If You Have a Strong Inner Taskmaster

So, the first kind of willpower is the taskmaster. And it is an unhealthy and unsustainable kind of willpower that will have us cycling between striving and exhaustion, between accomplishment and disappointing ourselves. And all the time we will be being mean to ourselves.

If you are familiar with this kind of willpower, I urge you to try the experiment to do only what you truly want to do for a month.

See what it shows you about your real inclinations, desires, passions, pleasures. See what you learn about being with yourself in a wholly new way, a loving and compassionate and open-minded way. See what you learn about your own cycles of energy and how to ride those waves instead of fighting them.

If, on the other hand, you have a stronger inner rebel than taskmaster, then you may already indulge in your passing whims and surface-level desires but rarely touch something deeper or stick with anything. You flit around and change course constantly. You find it hard to stay with any program, project or routine.

If that sounds like you, you particularly need the second kind of will, which I’ll share in my next post.

We all need this second kind of will to reach our dreams. Stay tuned!

To your true heart’s desires,

Maxima

The Shining Bridge to Reach Your Dreams

Maxima Kahn December 14th, 2017

Here is what I have discovered. There is a shining bridge between willpower and enthusiasm: Commitment.

Commitment is a tool we all need in order to realize big dreams, visions and aspirations for ourselves and our world.

Yet, commitment, is often misunderstood. In today’s post I will clear up some misconceptions and show you how to connect with your own commitment.

[This is the 2nd installment in a series on Enthusiasm vs. Willpower and how to realize your life dreams. If you missed the first post, you can read it here.]

Scottish mountaineer W. H. Murray said:

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: ‘Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.’ Begin it now.”

Commitment, once made, must be repeatedly renewed in the heart through the power of re-committing.

The Most Powerful Tool on the Path to Our Dreams

by Ruthie Martin

Recommitting is probably the most essential tool on the path to realizing our dreams.

On the path to our big dreams, we will encounter many setbacks, disappointments and challenges. We will meet our own resistance and faltering self-belief. We will get thrown off by unexpected life events and unanticipated challenges, by enticing distractions and the allure of comfort.

It is completely normal to fall off along the path to our dreams. It’s what we do next that matters.

Recommitting gives us a way to get back on the proverbial horse and ultimately realize the fulfillment of our great aspirations.

Commitment Must Come From the Heart

If we attempt to be committed to a dream, a project, a relationship, from the mind alone, our commitment will be dull and hard to maintain. To be a true commitment, it must arise naturally, without force, from the love in our heart.

The paradox of commitment is this: We cannot manufacture true commitment in the mind. But we can and must be conscious of our commitments and renew them consciously. We must make a conscious choice to recommit to that which matters to us, to our highest aspirations and deepest values.

We do this by reconnecting to our love for that person, place, dream. We reconnect to our vision for it, what it means to us, what it gives to us and others, and/or what it can give.

In reconnecting to our vision, love, and what has meaning for us, our commitment naturally rekindles.

Accessing a New Kind of Will

From this heart-centered commitment and conscious choice, we can then access the energy of will in a positive way to help us move past resistance, discomfort, doubt and fear and actually take the next step on our path of dreams—whether that next step is picking up a paintbrush, going to the gym, or calling a prospective agent.

Once reconnected to vision and love, to our deep why, our will is energized and not forceful. We know why we are doing what we long to do, and we are motivated from a deeper place than just thinking we should do it.

Then, we aren’t beating ourselves up to do it. We don’t have to battle ourselves and be at war with ourselves, which is stressful, exhausting and doesn’t work. Instead, we use the positive energy of commitment to empower us to take another step in the direction of our dreams.

by Luis Davila

And, we use 30-second bursts of will to move past the initial resistance every creative person feels before beginning to create or do anything difficult and meaningful.

We use will to set clear, helpful boundaries that protect our creative time, space and energy.

We use commitment to pick ourselves up after a disappointment and continue on our path of dreams.

But that will and commitment come from love.

In my next post, I’ll talk about two different types of will and also about the inner taskmaster and the rebel. And I’ll give you a radical assignment I think you will love.

Stay tuned!

To your dreams,
Maxima

P.S. Remember, if you sign up in December for soul-based creativity coaching with me you get 40% off my regular rates. Save $300 and give yourself this profound gift to help you create your bold, beautiful visions now. Find out more here.

P.P.S. Help create a more beautiful world by sharing this post with a friend. You can use the share buttons below.

Enthusiasm vs. Willpower: Surprising New Discoveries

Maxima Kahn December 6th, 2017

Maxima at age 3 playing

You have a dream to write, paint, dance, sing, build a house, start a business, travel the world. Do you use willpower to get you there, or do you rely on the energy of enthusiasm to realize your dreams?

Perhaps you think enthusiasm is shallow and limited, comes and goes, and you will have to resort to willpower. Perhaps you feel you have no willpower or it always fails you.

For years I argued for enthusiasm vs. willpower. I am coming to appreciate now that we need both, but I have made several important discoveries about this:

The vital bridge between willpower and enthusiasm.
The two kinds of willpower—one is a disaster and the other a boon.
And most essential of all, the deeper power that moves worlds.

Enthusiasm Comes From the Gods

“Nothing great was every achieved without enthusiasm.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

In my work helping artists and dreamers to realize their dreams, I have maintained that willpower is a weak force, especially as compared to enthusiasm. In The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron has a compelling essay encouraging artists to draw on enthusiasm instead of discipline.

Enthusiasm (from the Greek roots for “the God within,” or as Cameron translates it, “filled with God”) is an extraordinary power that naturally inspires and motivates you in any project, activity, or life dream.

When we are filled with inspiration and passion for our art, we don’t have to force ourselves into the studio. In fact, almost nothing can keep us out of it.

When filled with enthusiasm, we are unstoppable. We are also magnetic to support from others towards our dreams because enthusiasm is contagious.

Willpower Is Weak

Willpower, on the other hand, as anyone who has attempted to overcome an addiction can tell you, is weak. When not backed up by a deeper motivation, vision and love, willpower quickly loses steam. That is because it usually comes from ego, not from heart.

Many of us fall into the trap of see-sawing between trying to enforce a military discipline on ourselves and then falling off the wagon and beating ourselves up mercilessly for it. Take note: This only ensures another repetitive cycle of the same.

This use of will is destructive, an attempt to bully ourselves into doing what we say we want to do, instead of loving ourselves into it.

Cultivating self-kindness creates a soil from which all manner of good and fruitful things can grow.

Anything built on a foundation of self-violence, rather than self-kindness, contains the seeds of its own ruin and our own ruin. So, let me be clear, this is not the kind of willpower I encourage you to use.

But, There Is a Time and Place for Will

I have recently come to appreciate that we need a little willpower, as well as enthusiasm, to reach our dreams.

Those without any willpower struggle mightily to realize their big life dreams.

The key is to be in right relationship with our will.

Otherwise, we end up in repeating cycles of striving and exhausting ourselves, of accomplishment and burnout, of progress and collapse. Sound familiar?

Will without enthusiasm is dry, hard and loveless, making our work joyless and dull, a drudgery at best, incredibly difficult at worst.

On the other hand, enthusiasm without any willpower can peter out, having us jump from project to project, never completing anything, having too many interests at once, always distracted by the next shiny object.

As a person who has always had a tremendously strong will and a lot of ambition and discipline, it was easy for me to overlook the important role these qualities play in being able to realize our dreams.

by Ian Schneider

You do need some willpower, especially when the thing you want to do (sing, write, make films. . . ) conjures up fear, past hurt, self-doubt.

Or when you have to take a step towards your dreams that is uncomfortable in order to make the time and energy to engage with your art, such as get up a half hour earlier or step out on a stage in front of an audience.

Or when you need to move past an addiction, such as staying up too late watching TV or reading Facebook compulsively or listening to the news before beginning to create in the morning (bad plan!).

Willpower alone will not get you over these hurdles, but you’ll need a little burst of it.

30 Seconds of Willpower to Realize Your Dreams

You need some will to overcome inertia, fear, bad habits, resistance. In most cases, you only need short bursts of will, 30 seconds at a time is enough. Just enough to overcome the temptation in front of you and get yourself into the studio or to bed on time so you’ll have energy to go into your studio the next day.

But you will need these short bursts daily.

If you think you don’t have any willpower, that is just an old lie you have told yourself. We all have inner strength.

by Jens Thekkeveettil

If it were a matter of life or death (which doing what you love is), you would find the motivation. If I told you that you would be dead in a week unless you create every day for an hour, you would move mountains to make it happen.

That is will, but it is deeper than the inner taskmaster (who is not your friend or ally). The will energy I’m talking about here draws on a love for your life, and that love is powerful.

Both willpower and enthusiasm come and go. But there is a shining link between those energies that lasts.

In my next post, I’ll share with you what that magic power is that is vital to reaching your dreams. I’ll also share what’s behind it that is the power that moves worlds.