What If Today…You Focused on Desire?

” The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear.” ~ Brian Tracy

I walked into the studio’s waiting room with my Dunkin’ Donuts over-sized chocolate chip cookie, and soda, stripped down to my leotard and tights, and sat down on the couch and wiggled my feet into my wrinkled slippers. It had been months since I’d taken a class. I missed the sweat and well-deserved fatigue.

I also missed feeling healthy. I’d taken up running when I first came home from college, but I’m not a runner. Running is lonesome work to me. It never ignited my soul to do great things. So, to compensate for the lack of stimulation I’d found from ballet, I’d become addicted to food that tasted really good and made me feel something. I don’t think I can describe the “something” I felt, but it was good enough to keep going back for more. It worked for me.

But the self-imposed guilt was gnawing at me every day. I’d studied nutrition as a teenager, and I’d taken exceptionally good care of my body for years. Honestly, I was addicted to poor health and  had tried eliminating the sweets and adding activity to my life, but nothing stuck.

In other words, I was focused more on my fear of  the effect my eating habits would have on my health than why I was craving those foods in the first place; I wasn’t dancing and I was driving myself crazy!

And then I found “The Dancer’s Place.”

The studio was within walking distance of my home, and I was thrilled to find it. I’d calculated how many classes I could take without going bankrupt. I knew that one a day was never going to do, but it was a start.

The dancers from the class before mine exited the studio and the rest of us traded places with them like race horses let out of the gate. I  found an empty place at the barre and waited for the teacher to give us the first set of exercises. Two minutes in and I knew I was in trouble. I was exhausted and feeling sick.

Needless to say, that was the last day that I felt like eating cookies and drinking soda to wake me up. I wanted to dance without throwing up!

But this post isn’t really about health. It’s about knowing what you desire and doing “it” instead of defining your fears and running from them. Doing anything less leads us to self-help books, diets, gurus who’ve “been there done that”, and scratching our heads at the absurdity of what it feels like to be a grown up.

Where did all the fun go? Does everything have to feel like a battle against our desires? What if we worked with our desires? My experience is that most of what’s “bad” for us would slip out of our lives if we were being true to ourselves.

One last quote for you to ponder today as you assess whether you are running from fears or being true to your desires and living a life that knocks your socks off:

“Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.” ~ Napoleon Hill