Napoleon Hill’s Think & Grow Rich was a book I struggled with for a long while, more than a decade really. It was the FIRST law of success that caused me all the angst: ALL CONSUMING DESIRE.
You see, the first (couple? several?) times I read the book, I was focused on money. Making more of it. Money is what I had the least of… it’s what caused me the most stress and the most shame. It’s what I needed most desperately.
BUT… Hill talks about an OBSESSION with your goal.
An ALL CONSUMING DESIRE,
an INTENSE focus your goal.
He says we can have whatever we want,
but we have to be CONSUMED with getting it.
Gulp.
And therein lay MY problem. 
You see, no matter how hard up for money I was,
and I was HARD UP FOR MONEY…
(Note: I had MASTERED the delicate art and flimsy science of living broke..)
the entire idea of focusing INTENSELY on money,
on cultivating an ALL CONSUMING DESIRE…
for money,
well… it just didn’t resonate.
Worse than that,
it turned me off.
If THAT was the key to getting financial wealthy,
I’d never be wealthy.
Focusing INTENSELY
and OBSESSIVELY
on something as tangible, as consumable, as replaceable as money…
I just didn’t have it in me.
And — to be clear —
I didn’t WANT to have it in me.
So, I set the book aside.
Picking it up SEVERAL times over the years,
but always stumbling over that first law…
Until one day,
with a MUCH expanded view of success
(including but not limited to financial success)
I picked it up and didn’t struggle AT ALL with the law of all-consuming desire.
My all consuming desire…
the OBSESSION that came naturally
and lit me up from within…
was for the life, the health, the family, the marriage, the bank balance, the schedule, the faith, the friendships, the relationships, the self-care luxuries….
ALL of it.
The CLEAR and FULL vision.
THAT clear vision
for my work and my life and my home…
the FULLNESS of it,
was something I could very naturally
develop an all-consuming desire for.
THAT obsession,
I could fall head first into every morning.
So, what vision,
what CLEAR goals
do you have an ALL CONSUMING DESIRE for?
A clear vision
matched with a pure obsession
is a simple recipe for success.
So, two questions:
1) how clear and detailed is your vision?
2) How OBSESSED are you with bringing it to life?
Journal Prompt for Planning 2021: What exactly — in painstaking detail — is the life and business I deem worth obsessively pursuing? Write it out. Leave no detail out. What do you see? Where do you work? What do you wear? Where do you live? What do you do each day? Who do you serve?
Is THIS a reality worth obsessing over? If not, re-write it. If so, well.. I’ll see you soon, my friend.
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