Believing Without Seeing

December is an interesting month for people, the deluge of the Holiday's, the wrapping up of another year, the anticipation of the next and the lingering question of what all of it means. Will I spend another year at this job? What changes are on the horizon? Will it be the same office party next year? Will it ever get any better than this? December finds us looking out at our world to access what's working and what's not, when perhaps the answer to that question is closer than we think.

Each person possesses the power to transform their lives. We deny this power because it is easier to believe that we are in a world that is happening to us, rather than we are creating the world we are living in. Once we accept the premise that we are the creators of our world and that we have the power to build what we want-focus becomes the operative stance. Can we stay focused on what we want to create even while it is in the process of being created?

Life would be wonderfully magical if we could instantaneously make our wishes come true. A new house, a better job, the perfect mate-so amazing it would be to wake and create it on the spur of the moment. While we can have it, and often much more quickly than we imagine, the work, or the leadership, comes in being able to stay focused on the vision while the rest of the world is shifting to support it. Yes, the rest of the world must shift to support it, because every thought, every action, we put out in the world is what makes the realization of our dreams possible and in creating them must come after shifts take place in the physical environment. These shifts can happen easily and will always take time to manifest; so seeing may be believing, but without believing we may never see it.

The challenge is believing in our worthiness and desire in the face of what appears to be stagnation or inaction-especially in the areas or places that mean the most to us. Consider this: have you ever flippantly yearned for something, perhaps tickets to a big game or new pair of shoes-something that you wanted but it didn't mean the world to you, so you put the desire "out there" and didn't think much about it? Often, what we want appears because we weren't constantly checking to see if it was happening, we allowed what we wanted to come because we weren't focused on if it happened or not. Other times, what we want may come to us although it may not look the way we thought it would look. Did you get tickets to the game in your boss's box where you may have to talk business while watching? Were the shoes you wanted on sale but in a different color? Recognize how often you really get what you want, even if it doesn't always look like you thought it would.

So why is this so hard? Because the belief that it really isn't going to happen is often so much easier that trusting that it will. Using love as the basis for our actions, words and deeds puts us on the right path to staying in the place of possibilities. Love is expansive, love doesn't have bounds, love doesn't create walls or blocks, it flows, it is easy and it feels good--and leadership is love in action. One thing that you can do this Holiday Season (and beyond) is to be our best and anchor every action we take in love. If we do nothing else our world will change in profound and amazing ways.

This December when the nostalgia for the magic of bygone days or the yearning for a shift in your circumstance occur: stop, breathe and visualize what you want your life to look next year and know it will be so. If you can believe without seeing, next year you will see a very different picture. Lead your life as you want it to be and that means being a leader every day and every step of the way.

By Kathleen Schafer