Ready, Willing & Able
We’ve heard the expression “Ready, willing, and able” countless times throughout our lives. I would like to focus on what I consider to be the most important word of the three – “Willing.”
We can be ready for something to occur and we can be quite capable of handling it, but if we own an unwillingness, the likelihood of it happening is south of slim.
How can you find out if you’re ready and able, but unwilling for something to occur in your life? It’s quite basic, look at your life and determine what’s missing. That’s what you are unwilling to have.
This unwillingness may not be on your conscious radar screen, but it exists – mostly outside of your awareness, at what is commonly referred to as the subconscious level.
I have come to discover that willingness for something to occur is singularly the most important ingredient. It’s not a sure bet, but it sure does exponentially increase the odds. The magic act that willingness performs removes the blinders and opens our peripheral vision to what is possible.
Unwillingness is a governor on expectations, and it has us miss seeing many options that are in clear view, but blocked from our sight.
Unwillingness is a pattern of behavior that keeps our possibility quotient low. We are unaware of many of the patterns we own until someone or something points them out. Reminds me of a story . . .
I worked with a radio newscaster many years ago who had a pattern of jerking his right arm about while he was engaged in conversation. It was an exaggerated movement that was totally out of his awareness. He had played some minor league baseball as a pitcher and his involuntary movement resembled a pitcher’s loosening up move. It became high comedy one day when I saw him interviewing someone over the phone. Every 7 to 10 seconds, he would perform this move and the phone would move away from his mouth about 3 feet. When the tape of the interview was played back on the air, you heard his questions fade in and out every 7 to 10 seconds. It sounded like a technical snafu. It wasn’t – just patterned human behavior.
The story got more interesting when the program director brought this activity to this fellow’s attention. The most amazing display of unawareness arose when he denied having the behavior while displaying it when being counseled. Denial is the antithesis of willingness. To underscore this assertion, notice there is no willingness present when an anorexic denies being unhealthily thin.
If what you want has been eluding you for a long time, investigate your willingness to allow it to happen. I’m not a proponent of affirmations because they are generally anemic, wishful statements that are overridden by patterned behavior. I think willingness is a more potent affirmation that builds a bridge across the gap between unconscious behavior and desired outcomes.
Willingness, as an affirmation, doesn’t expect the desire to happen; it just lays a more solid groundwork that it could happen by revealing previously blocked possibilities.
Instead of affirming “I am healthy, wealth and wise,” you would be better served by affirming, “I am willing to have health, wealth and wisdom.” The first affirmation delivers a polarity response from your unconscious that, in effect, says, “No you’re not. You’re sick as a dog, poor as a church mouse, and dumber than a stump.” The willingness affirmation suggests an openness to these conditions should they present themselves. It lessens your patterned resistance to them occurring.
Determination is unlikely to get you what you want because it’s not a matter of willpower. Success is more easily arrived at by employing its gentle second cousin – “Willingness.”
All the best,
John
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