My Life In Dynamic…A Core Desired Feelings Collection

A key part of The Desire Map process is about uncovering your Core Desired Feelings – the feelings that make you feel good and that you want to live in as much as possible.  When you get clear on how you want to feel and align your routines and goals to generate those feelings every day, week, month, year – well, that’s a wonderful life of feeling good!

This is all fine, but for desire to work, it needs action – real integration into daily life as well as the big goals.  Deliberately doing things in ways that will make you feel good both whilst you’re doing those things, and when you achieve what you set out to achieve.

Feel good now…and when you reach your goals.

Over the next several blog posts, I’d like to share with you my life with each of my Core Desired Feelings to show you what they mean to me and how I integrate them into my life.

Today’s Core Desired Feeling is…Dynamic.

~*~

What does it mean to me?

Energy.  The rhythm of life.  Power.  Momentum.  Flow.  Kicking things up several gears and roaring with excitement.  The feeling that I am affecting my world.

I love it.

It’s the male side of me that loves action and results, and sometimes needs reminding to sit back once in a while and appreciate those results before heading back out for more action.

It’s the slightly masochistic side of me that loves an endurance, a test of mettle and strength, of getting down and dirty in the scrum of work.

It’s the logical side of me that strives to find efficiencies without losing quality, but will happily take the long way round if there really isn’t any other way.

The dynamo.  Dynamic.

You know that feeling of being in flow – when time flies and you don’t realise it because you’re so deliciously absorbed in your work and, on a particularly good day, you get a tonne of stuff done in only part of the time you thought it would take?

Gay Hendricks calls it “Einstein time”, because it feels like you’ve just bent time to get a load of stuff done, when in reality you’re just working with your strengths for once instead of against them.

Those things you’re good at, no matter how strange or mundane?  Those are your strengths.

Those subjects you got great grades at in school?  Those subjects are your strengths.

We’re taught from a young age to ignore our strengths and focus entirely on our weaknesses.

Those subjects where your grades weren’t as good?  We’re told to focus on them to “get grades in those subjects as high as the subjects you’re good at already”, to become more well-rounded…or the worst thing you’re told if you were in the top sets already: “You have to be amazing at everything otherwise you are a failure in LIFE.

Immediate thought on being told that?

“I’m not good at it therefore I have to work/struggle/fight with it.”

And, the likely thing is, if you have to work harder/struggle/fight with something?

You’re gonna hate it.

This is just one reason why so many kids hate school – because it’s a constant struggle.

And the struggle continues into the workplace – being forced to struggle with the things you’re not so good at, often at the cost of something else that you actually are good at.

But it gets worse: “I’m not good at X” can easily, if we’re forced to struggle constantly with it, become:

“I’m no good.”

If however we are taught to focus entirely on improving our strengths?

We’d all be geniuses.

Sure, you need to be proficient enough at certain subjects in order to live well in this world – read, write, basic maths, ideally also basic science (I’m quite concerned at the backlash against science and medicine right now in certain parts of the West).

But here’s the thing that the current schooling system and workplaces seem to forget: nobody loses if you focus on strengths, because there always will be someone else will help you cover your apparent weaknesses with their own strengths. 

Everyone wins.

 

Dynamic.  Working with my strengths and feeling damn good in the ease of it all.

 

Why the word “Dynamic” over other words?

Like Freedom, Dynamic was another of the first words that tumbled out when I first Desire Mapped with a broken arm and pumped full of painkillers (yes, really!), and it’s one of only two that has stuck with me since the first time (the other one that has stuck since the first time was Freedom).

Strangely though, it’s not really one I’ve questioned either.  No other word encapsulates power, potential, strength, and energy in one word for me.  Whereas Freedom is the meaning of my life, Dynamic is the energy and force behind it.

 

How do I use “Dynamic” to guide my goals?

Does the goal in question flood me with energy to go out there and claim it?

Can I easily see my pathway laid out before me to achieve my goal?

Even if that pathway is blocked, do I trust that I will easily find other pathways to get there?

Dynamic is the practical, forward-looking surge when it comes to goal-setting.  I use Dynamic to help me figure out how easily I’ll achieve my goals, and also to gauge how much I actually want it.  If I’m flooded with energy and get-up-and-go, I’m going for it.  If I don’t feel Dynamic when I think of a goal, I’m never gonna suddenly have the inspiration to go for it.

Dynamic is my inspiration – the momentum is my motivation.

 

What do I do each day to feel that CDF?

I write.

Desire Map Journal

One of the reasons I took up blogging was so that I could share my writing with you.  I love the flow I get into when writing because it is the easiest way for me to precisely express myself and my thoughts.

I largely write on computer or laptop because I get frustrated with how slow it is writing by hand – I can’t get it out fast enough and that slowness frustrates me and stymies my flow.

Sure, writing by hand is much more cathartic and expressive, but when I have a lot of ideas I want to say, I need a keyboard to keep up with my mind!

I play videogames

...and I go to videogames conferences like GAMESCOM

…and I go to videogames conferences like GAMESCOM

Yup, I do.  I mostly play single player games, because they’re much more about the stories and adventure than online or multiplayer games are.  The Final Fantasy series are a big part of my teenhood, as are the old Tomb Raider games before they rewrote the back story over and over and over again to suit different franchising desires (urgh!).

These days I’m playing the Dragon Age series (look, I don’t care if Mass Effect has better storylines in it, no dragons and magic = not interested!), and I love The Elder Scrolls series (yes, Fallout is excellent, but the scenery is a nuclear fallout – it’s not as pretty as Elder Scrolls!).  I am currently playing the MMO Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited right now because it’s essentially a prequel to the other Elder Scrolls stories I’ve played (Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim).

I love the adventures and stories because I am actually in the scrum of it creating the story – or so it feels.  Books and movies are great, but they’re passive: the story and adventure is fed to you.  In a videogame?  Your actions ARE the story, your heroics MAKE the story – you are in the game and you are making it happen.

It doesn’t get much more Dynamic than that!

Guess what?  More music!

These make me feel Dynamic in no time:

Skyrim: OST (N.B. I AM DOVAHKIIN!)
Muse
Alter Bridge
The Prodigy
Faithless
Tiesto
Thirty Seconds To Mars
Little Boots

Next week is the last installment of this mini-series, and I’ll show you the glue of my Core Desired Feelings: Love

Laughter,

 

Catherine

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