Last year I read the fabulous “Only 10’s” by Mark Silverman – a book about only doing those things you really want to do, the things that are a 10 for you. It’s a book I buy for my clients often because it’s a fabulous barometer for what you really want in life – overall, and daily – checking that the things you think you want to do 10 out of 10 for you?
If they are, they get done. If they aren’t, they get procrastinated on. This year, I have been listening more to what the 10’s are in my life. My daily toodle do list has changed from being a big list on paper of a gazillion things I want to do to a smaller list with as little detail as possible – “what’s calling?”
“What’s calling” is usually the 10, the thing I REALLY want to do. In the past, my toodle-do list was so long that I couldn’t tell you what was calling because I was far too busy being busy. I didn’t know the 10’s from the 5’s. I didn’t know why I’d get to the end of some days having been wonderfully productive, and other days I’d procrastinate on every damn thing on the list.
Now I know. On the days I didn’t do what I thought I should, I wasn’t doing the things I really wanted to. If I had been, I’d have got them done. It’s curious isn’t it…when did we stop thinking “because I want to” was a good reason to put something at the top of our priority list? When we were kids, that was a perfectly good reason to do anything…but as adults, we put what we should do, what someone else thinks we should do, what we’re expected to do ahead of what we want to do.
That ability to know “I don’t want to” or “I do want to” gets squeezed out of us as we get older, because we have obligations. And we may not want to be at school (I never did) but we have to be there anyway, so we learn to suppress our inner desire compass. But maybe it’s time to let the compass back out – to start listening again to what you truly want…and then going for that.
Ok, when you’re at work, you may really want to bunk off and go watch Netflix on the sofa for the day, but you probably want to keep your job more! Sometimes the 10’s are the things we have to do, not necessarily the things we’d love to do. But the more you can navigate your life by what you truly want to do, the easier it will get to follow the energy of desire right into a life you love.
Even though most of us simply do not trust ourselves enough to follow the 10’s, the irony is that those 10’s are the most fulfilling, most fun, and probably most effective things! They’re the things you’ll be most cross about not having got to at the end of the day. So what if the things you most want to do are the things you need to be doing?
What if you trusted that your level of desire to do something was a good indicator of when and where to do it?
What if you listened to those desires and where possible, honoured them?
What if you let your inner wisdom dictate what you did all day, not the 3-mile long toodle-do list?
What if it was more effective and productive to do the 10’s, to work on the things you want most?
What if, even if someone else would say we’re wrong, we trusted that we were right?
Following that inner certainty is a surprisingly smooth ride (especially if you’re used to ignoring it!) For a start, you won’t waste time on resistance – if you’re doing what you want to be doing, you’re way less likely to wander off to facebook to procrastinate. You might be astonished at how much you can get done when you really want to.
When you’re in touch with what a 10 feels like, decisions become easy. Usually, if I find myself umming and ahing about a decision, it’s not a 10. If it was, I’d have said yes immediately. If something is a 6/10, that’s just not enough desire to motivate me to do it.
And when you follow that energy of certainty, you are fully in charge of your life, of your happiness, of your direction, of your action…not giving your power away to shoulds and expectations. It takes deep trust in yourself to listen to what’s calling you and to follow the energy, but when you do, you show confidence in yourself, you are in flow, it’s more fun, and it’s way more likely to get you where you want to go. Listen to your inner compass and trust in your 10’s.
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