I spent the day with Mike Dooley this past Saturday at his event in Charlotte, NC. If you aren’t familiar with Mike, he writes ‘Notes from the Universe” (www.tut.com)

Mike is an entertaining speaker and the day was full of ‘aha’ moments for me. I thought I’d share with you some of what I learned.

Situations will repeat themselves until you take responsibility. History repeats itself, right?  I see that in my own life.  Taking responsibility means that I acknowledge my part in the situation and make a conscious choice to change my behavior.  This is such a simple thing, but has profound consequences.

There are basically 2 steps to getting what you want. 1. Have a dream.  2. Take action. How simple is that? So many people have a dream of what they want in life, but never take a step toward it.  They talk themselves out of it before they get started.  And Mike says it doesn’t have to be a big step – you can take baby steps toward your dreams and see results.  Cool?

Just because you can’t see the miracle doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. This is about faith.  He tells the story of a person boarding a ship in New York headed to England.  Two days into the trip, the person notices that the scenery hasn’t changed and decides nothing is happening, when in fact, the ship is exactly on course to reach its destination.  The traveller simply needs to have faith that the goal will ultimately be reached.

If you want change, you must act. You can’t sit around and complain about your cicumstances and expect things to get better.  You have to do something about it.  In other words, if I want a different result, I have to change what I’m doing.  This one really struck me. I think I’ve been wanting change in one area of my life, but not doing anything to make it happen.

Some things that look like failure are actually stepping stones to the thing you want.  Nothing is ever wasted.  That means that something that seemed like a horrible failure was actually preparing you for something else.  For example, this is my third time to have my own business.  The first time I consider a failure.  The second time just didn’t work out either.  This time is very different and I can see that the first two times taught me so much that I needed to know in order to make this one work.

Do all you can with what you’ve got from where you are. This is one of my favorite quotes from Mike! It measn that you have to take action.  You can’t expect things to just fall into your lap, because it doesn’t work that way. Take baby steps.  Do something.  Move toward your goal.

The more you celebrate, the more you’ll be given to celebrate. Love this!  To me, it means focus on the positive and the things that are going well, and you’ll have more of it.  Lately, I’ve been keeping a journal of all the things that happen during the day that are good – things I accomplished during the day, things that randomly happened, happy surprises, etc. - and I find that it really lifts me up.

You never know when you’re about to reach the point of success, so don’t give up. This is another one that really struck me.  Like the person on the ship that isn’t seeing visible progress, sometimes it’s hard to tell when we’re getting close to seeing our dreams come true.  For me, it means I can’t give up.  I have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, especially on those days when I’d rather just throw in the towel.

What are your impressions of my takeaways from my day with Mike Dooley?  Please click on the comment link and share.