Curious about Desire: Do You Know What You Want and Have a Burning Desire Strong Enough to Get It?

Definition of Desire : To long for; to wish for earnestly; to covet. To express a wish for; to entreat; to request. The natural longing that is excited by the enjoyment or the thought of any good, and impels to action or effort its continuance or possession; an eager wish to obtain or enjoy. Anything which is desired; an object of longing.

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

“Desire! That's the one secret of every man's career. Not education. Not being born with hidden talents. Desire.” - Bobby Unser, American celebrity

I chose “Desire” for this week’s blog theme for several reasons. First, because I am re-reading “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill – you have just read his thoughts about the importance of a true desire. Bobby Unser agrees whole heartedly. But, most of all, because when people are asked about what they want and/or what are their dreams and desires, most say they don’t know.

I also feel that we settle on “not knowing” because if we do know, we will have to go after it or them, which produces a state of fear. We are afraid that we won’t succeed at receiving our desire and hate the idea of failure.

How about you? What is your burning desire? Realize that anyone who experiences failure is so far ahead of those who never try that it makes sense and is worthwhile to take the risk. Another known fact is that those working on a desire often experience a down turn just before the break through and success. It is easy to give up at this point. Don’t. Those who persevere and stick with it, do achieve and receive their desire.

Many uplifting quotations resulted from my search for “desire:”

• “The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear.” - Brian Tracy, American author
• “My secret? A desire to work, years of dedication and loving what you do; I can't live without music.” - Compay Segundo, Cuban musician
• “Plant the seed of desire in your mind and it forms a nucleus with power to attract to itself everything needed for its fulfillment.” - Robert Collier, American publisher
• “Out of need springs desire, and out of desire springs the energy and the will to win.” - Denis Waitley, American writer
• “When desire dies, fear is born.” - Baltasar Gracian, Spanish philosopher
• “Have the courage of your desire.” - George Gissing, British novelist

A few more with a bit of a different twist:

• “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” - E. B. White, American comedian
• “A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving.” - Ayn Rand, Russian writer“
• "In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.” - Bill Cosby, American comedian
• “The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who... looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space... on the infinite highway of the air.” - Wilbur Wright, American inventor
• “It is psychological law that whatever we desire to accomplish we must impress upon the subjective or subconscious mind.” - Orison Swett Marden, American writer
• “This life is a hospital in which each patient is obsessed with the desire to change beds.” - Charles Baudelaire, French poet

In addition, two for the road (ones that speak to me especially):

“The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.” - Robert Kiyosaki, American author

“Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon must inevitably come to pass.” - Paul Meyer, French writer

What is your desire? Have you written it down? Do you state it several times a day and just before you go to sleep? Make it your focus, and we all will be celebrating victory before long.

Curious about the Subconscious: Does It Have Power and Control? How Much?

“Whatever you determine to be true in the subconscious becomes true for you.” – Richard Hatch, American actor

“The conscious mind may be compared to a fountain playing in the sun and falling back into the great subterranean pool of subconscious from which it rises.” - Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychologist

I chose The Subconscious for this blog’s theme, because I finished reading the fun and thought provoking book I wrote about last week. The Ant and the Elephant – Leadership for the Self by Vince Poscente, reinforced what I have been told about the subconscious. In this well written parable (you know how much I love stories), the ant, Adir, represents our conscious mind and the elephant, Elgo, represents our subconscious. The third character and mentor is the wise owl, Brio.

As Poscente wrote in the Afterword, “Conventional wisdom says we control our own destinies. Yet, this wisdom stops at appreciating that the mind is more than just a conscious tool. … In this story, Adir the ant is a metaphor for your conscious mind. The elephant represents the subconscious. Until the ant can learn to lead and guide his subconscious, he will not be able to attain his goal. I have yet to meet a person who does not ad it to having at least a little disconnection between ‘his ant and his elephant.’”

So, how do we connect, lead and guide our subconscious? I found many quotations that suggest the power of repetition:

• “Any thought that is passed on to the subconscious often enough and convincingly enough is finally accepted.” - Robert Collier, American publisher
• “Only one thing registers on the subconscious mind: repetitive application - practice. What you practice is what you manifest.” – Fay Weldon, English novelist
• “You affect your subconscious mind by verbal repetition.” - W. Clement Stone, American businessman
• “Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality.” - Earl Nightingale, American entertainer
• “We cannot always control our thoughts, but we can control our words, and repetition impresses the subconscious, and we are then master of the situation.” - Jane Fonda, American actress
• “You will be a failure, until you impress the subconscious with the conviction you are a success. This is done by making an affirmation which ‘clicks.’" - Florence Scovel Shinn, American artist

A few thoughts with a bit of a different slant:

• “I can't help believing that these things that come from the subconscious mind have a sort of truth to them. It may not be a scientific truth, but it's psychological truth.” - Brian Aldiss, English writer
• “One of the unfortunate things about our education system is that we do not teach students how to avail themselves of their subconscious capabilities.” - Bill Lear, American inventor
• “The main factor in any form of creativeness is the life of a human spirit, that of the actor and his part, their joint feelings and subconscious creation.” - Konstantin Stanislavisky, Russian actor
• “Traditions are the guideposts driven deep in our subconscious minds. The most powerful ones are those we can't even describe, aren't even aware of.” - Ellen Goodman, American journalist
• “In Buddhism there are words you can say... as you say the words with rhythm the conscious tells the subconscious.” - Tina Turner, American musician
• “That is the strange thing; I don't know if you want to call it the subconscious, but things that I don't seem to notice are getting stored away.” - Ann Beattie, American writer

And, as I close for now, think on these:

“I dream a lot. I do more painting when I'm not painting. It's in the subconscious.” - Andrew Wyeth, American artist

“As soon as I became old enough to make my dreams my reality, I became a firm believer that the subconscious and the world outside of our flesh and blood is essentially the truth.” - Melissa Auf der Maur, Canadian musician

How do you couple your dreams and goals with your subconscious? I would love to hear your comments.