The Creative Power of Initiative

[00:00:01] Welcome to your wish fulfilled. [00:00:07] This is your magical podcast to come into the feeling that you've already attained everything you want right now and to create the life, your highest life from that beautiful space within yourself self. [00:00:30] I'm your host, Michael McIntosh and we're going through the law of Success, powerful book on creating whatever you want in life from a higher state of consciousness by Paramhansa Yogananda. [00:00:50] And in today's chapter, we're diving into the creative power of initiative. [00:01:01] Before we dive into this, let's take a moment just to tune to what you would love to create in your life. [00:01:11] I invite you to take a nice deep breath. [00:01:18] And relax and just open your heart and mind to the feelings, the experiences, the kind of life, relationships, success that you'd love to have. [00:01:43] Just become grateful for all the blessings that you already have in your life. [00:01:52] And as you breathe now, just imagine that you can attain anything, that you can have an initiative, an inspiration, and that all the things, all the shifts, internally and externally, all become manifest in your life today. [00:02:21] How do you feel. [00:02:26] When you arrive at the ultimate destination? [00:02:30] How do you feel what is different in your body, in your mind, in your heart? [00:02:40] When all this driving ends, then you have attained and you can completely relax. [00:03:09] Just bring into your awareness the ideal experience that you'd love to have. [00:03:24] And imagine walking into that, stepping into that, as if you're in your body, in this higher state of awareness, Just noticing what is different, how you feel different and what else is different in your life. [00:03:45] Now that you have already reached that which you desire, Take some time to wander around in this reality of total success, accomplishment, freedom, abundance, love, health, and assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled. [00:04:50] That's a very deep thing. [00:04:53] So let's dive into this creative power of initiative. Because transforming our life has to start from somewhere. [00:05:07] What is initiative? [00:05:11] It's the creative faculty within you, a spark of the infinite creator. [00:05:20] It may give you the power to create something no one else has ever created. [00:05:29] It urges you to do things in new ways. [00:05:34] The accomplishments of a person of initiative may be as spectacular as a shooting star. [00:05:43] And apparently creating something from nothing, one demonstrates that the seemingly impossible may become possible by one's employment of the great inventive power of the spirit. [00:06:03] Initiative enables you to stand on your own feet. [00:06:09] Free and independent is one of the attributes of success. [00:06:22] So in this short chapter, Yogananda is talking about initiative taking initiative. [00:06:34] Anything that you have done yourself without someone prompting you or forcing you or demanding of it is initiative. [00:06:45] Many people, they live by a Reaction only, you know, I feel hungry. I'm going to eat. [00:06:52] This person says, I have to do this thing, so I'll do it. There's this event coming up so that I'll go to the event because someone told me about it. [00:07:01] So that's a reactive life. We're waiting around to react to things coming to us. [00:07:10] There's no initiative. And that's why I highly recommend you, and I apply this myself, do not wake up in the morning and immediately check your phone, because that is putting you in a reactive mode. Rather than taking initiative, rather than deciding and choosing what to create in your life, if we pick up our phone, we're just reacting to everything else, other people's messages and whatever stuff we're seeing, getting affected by it, designing our life around others or around reaction. [00:07:49] Initiative is the creative spark to do something new. [00:07:56] It is the creative faculty within you, the spark of the infinite creator. It may give you the power to create something no one else has ever created. [00:08:13] It urges you to do things in new ways. [00:08:21] The accomplishments of a person of initiative may be as spectacular as a shooting star, apparently, creating something from nothing. You demonstrate that the seemingly impossible may become possible by one's employment of the great inventive power of the spirit. [00:08:48] And so, in order to have initiative, we need space. [00:08:56] We need to stop, we need to think. [00:09:02] We need to be able to tune into what is coming through. We need to get what some people call downloads. You know, you have to be open to receive something new. [00:09:14] So one is being open to receive, listening for guidance, divine guidance. [00:09:21] What is the highest good for all? What is the greatest thing I could create? How can I be of service to others and myself? [00:09:29] How can I bring something new into the world? [00:09:33] So one is the idea, the inspiration. [00:09:39] And then initiative is having the power, the capacity to stand on your own feet and do something that nobody has asked you to do. [00:09:52] You are deciding to do it from a greater purpose. You're bringing something new into the world that doesn't exist now. [00:10:06] So one is having the idea, the inspiration, and the other is actually taking the steps, doing the things, taking action. [00:10:20] So, for example, this morning I was reading a book, sitting outside on the deck, enjoying beautiful weather, was reading actually interesting book called Illusions by Richard Bach. [00:10:35] And I realized I hadn't done one of these podcasts for far too long. My apologies, by the way. [00:10:41] And so I stopped what I was doing and came in my recording studio and decided to do this. That's initiative, right? I'm deciding. No one said anything. No one did anything. It came into the mind. [00:10:55] This podcast was created from initiative, right? I thought, how can I be of service to people? How can I share something I'm interested in and help others? [00:11:05] And here we are. [00:11:06] So it's one thing to have an idea, it's another thing to actually do it. And I'll be perfectly honest, doing it consistently isn't that easy, especially for me. Some people, maybe they're a bit more militant about this, their work, but we have to go from listening, which is a huge step, just even tuning into something new that doesn't exist. Being able to catch new ideas, new songs, new inspirations, new books, you know, new ways of helping people doing things, new inspiration for your health, and then saying, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna get on this new health program. I'm gonna do this thing, this practice. I'm going to create something. I'm going to write something. [00:11:53] Initiative enables you to stand on your own feet, free and independent. It is one of the attributes of success. [00:12:06] So just tune into this for yourself. [00:12:09] What are your inspirations? What do you want? [00:12:13] What are the ideas that you would love to bring forth into your life? [00:12:21] And then do you feel that inspiration to actually do something about it? [00:12:30] Right. It doesn't mean necessarily only creating things. It might mean learning things that you want to learn or being involved in something that is of service. [00:12:41] It might mean, for example, getting up early or calling someone who needs help. They didn't call you. You decided to call them. You decided to get up early. You decided to start something. [00:12:57] Many people have ideas, and they kind of float around in their head, but they don't do anything about it. They wait to be invited. They wait to be told. [00:13:10] If we want to have a truly successful life, we need to have the power to initiate things, to have the idea and bring it forth, and then have the capacity to keep doing it long enough for it to yield success. This is the harder part. So there's three stages to this. The idea, the initiative to start the thing, and then actually persevering with it when things are hard and when we don't feel like it. And a lot of this book is about that third step. [00:13:53] So just tune into your initiative. How much initiative do you have? [00:13:57] What is initiative? It is the creative faculty within you, a spark of the infinite creator. [00:14:03] It may give you the power to create something no one else has ever created. [00:14:10] It urges you to do things in new ways. [00:14:15] The accomplishments of a person of initiative may be as spectacular as a shooting star. [00:14:24] Apparently creating something from nothing. [00:14:28] You demonstrate that the seemingly impossible may become possible by one's employment of the great inventive power of the spirit. [00:14:40] Initiative enables you to stand on your own feet, free and independent. [00:14:50] It is one of the attributes of success. [00:14:59] So today, just tune into your power, creative power of initiative. Just notice it. It's a real power that you have when you are initiating something. Anytime you're deciding to do something yourself that no one has asked you to do, that you're bringing something fresh, something new into the world. Just notice you're doing it. Recognize it, appreciate yourself. [00:15:28] Because most people are just literally reacting all day long to something else. [00:15:34] This is something fresh, different, creative. And you can change the lives of so many people. You can bring something fresh. Isn't it fun? Bring something new. [00:15:45] It urges you to do things in new ways. [00:15:49] It gives you the power to create something no one else has ever created. Creating something from nothing. Isn't that amazing? [00:15:58] An idea comes forth and something totally new is brought into the world because of your initiative. [00:16:11] So thank you for being here. [00:16:13] I appreciate you. [00:16:15] Hope you're enjoying your life. [00:16:18] If you enjoy this podcast, I always love hearing from you. If you want to leave a review or if you have anything you need help with, leave it in there and enjoy your beautiful day. [00:16:33] Noticing the creative moments that you have where you are bringing forth something into the life that didn't exist. It's very fun. [00:16:42] Lots of love and talk to you soon.