Flashback ~ The “I Can Have It If I Really Want It” Game

This is a re-tooling of a post I wrote several years ago.

OMG! You guys! I have to tell you what a fucking relief it was to make this tiny tweak in my belief about what was possible for me to have in my life!

Here it is in a nutshell: No dream is impossible. There is ALWAYS a way. Some ways are risky, fast and impractical, others take time and careful planning. Many take both. 

The choice is yours.

Everyone will weigh in. Ignore them! Do what feels comfortable, scratch that, I recommend reaching just a little bit out of your comfort zone for your dreams. It makes life so much more interesting!

Take a few risks.
Pick the road less traveled.
Occasionally drink wine before noon.

As my friend, Steph Jagger would tell you “Lift your restraining device and accept the call to adventure.”

And Carry on,
xox

We’ve all been bitten by the ugly green ENVY monster, especially when other people’s fabulous lives are vomited all over social media.
“Where’s my great kitchen?  “Why aren’t I wintering in the Maldives? ” They bought another car?” “Shit, I know that jacket, that jacket costs eight grand!”

Waaaah, Waaaah, Woe is me…where’s MY stuff?

I turned this around for myself years ago and then shared my devious little plan (insert diabolical laugh here) with my husband – who has turned it into an art form.

Seriously. He should hold seminars.

When I saw someone with something I really wanted, like a ten thousand dollar handbag, or a Tuscan Villa, instead of thinking that’s impossible for me and turning into a sad sack — I’d sit down and make a plan. I enlisted the same part of my brain that talks me OUT of everything fun—to talk myself INTO making it happen.

I Could Have That If I Really Wanted It —I’d tell myself — and it’s true.

If I wanted a wildly extravagant vacation, I could sell some jewelry, cash in my 401K, borrow money, even take out a loan. I could do all those things.

IF I really, really wanted it, I could make it happen.

The same is true for almost anything you desire. You CAN have it — but it’ll cost ya.
If it’s a price you’re willing to pay, great! If not, put a picture of it on your Pinterest page and keep living your life.

Guess what? It may still show up!

A friend Alex wanted a husband. A rich husband. So she made sure she was impeccably manicured, coiffed, waxed and outfitted; ready at a moment’s notice to accept only the BEST party invitations with only the BEST men in attendance. Even though I admired her commitment, I admit I often scoffed at her strategy. It seemed shallow and wildly expensive. She would just smile at me, undeterred. Three years later Alex married a billionaire businessman she met at a diplomatic dinner party in NY.

The bottom line is this — it is a choice. YOU make the choice. It’s not impossible, it just may be impractical, there’s a difference.

Impossible = says NEVER. That deflates me. Like a pair of saggy boobs, it leaves me feeling limp and disempowered.

Impractical Practicality (a term I made up)= says MAYBE. It feels hopeful. Like a calculated risk.

Sell everything and travel around the world skiing like Steph did sounds crazy, right? Only here’s what she did to make that happen. She did careful research in order to pick the destinations, plotted and planned. She got a loan on her house (gulp), saved her ass off and drained her savings. When others, like her dad, questioned her sanity, she just smiled the same undeterred smile as Alex. She wanted it THAT bad.

Now THAT feels empowering.

I wanted to own a house which is impossible when at the age of forty you‘ve only managed to save $1.57.
But I was ready, and it was time. How am I going to make this happen?  I wondered.
I had refused to believe it was impossible, so I made a plan. It actually played out as a mix of practical and impractical. I’d have to bank every cent of my income, adhering to an austerity program that would make the rationing in communist Russia look extravagant.

I’d have to practice wildly impractical practicality for one year — to gain the impossible — and I did.

At forty years old I put all my things in storage, moved into a room at my sister’s with my two cats and saved every nickel I made. I sold watches and jewelry, silver, and anything else valuable that I had collected over the years as an antique jeweler. I also put a large chunk of what I’d saved in the stock market, for the short-term. Very risky, I know, but I made out like a bandit. Impractical you say? Yep. But I was trying to make the impossible happen.

I brainstormed and researched areas I’d like to live in, forgoing my daily Starbucks, nixing the mani-pedi’s, and living on salads made at home. I tried to borrow money at different points during the year, to expedite things and was met with a tight fist every time. That should have discouraged me but I was in so deep at that point it only strengthened my resolve.

Eventually, the perfect house, in the perfect price range, in the perfect neighborhood showed up — exactly one year later, and not a moment too soon according to my cats.

I’ve often found that if you believe the impossible is possible — the Universe provides.

Years ago, my husband was going on and on about a certain car. The car of his dreams.
“Buy it!” I said. “It’s too expensive.” he shot back, without hesitation.

“You could afford it if you sold some things, you have thousands of dollars of motorcycle crap…” he flinched as if he’d taken a punch, “It’s all just lying around, gathering dust. Sell it!”

“First of all, that stuff is NOT crap, and second of all, it wouldn’t make a dent in the price of that car.” He sounded…deflated.

“Yeah, but it’ll get the ball rolling. Put the word out that you want that car, it’s not impossible if you really want it — you’ll find the money.”

He looked at me sideways, but the next day I noticed that his screen saver was a gorgeous vanity shot of that car.
Within a year, he drove it into our driveway.
I nicknamed it The Vomit Comet. Too much car for me. I couldn’t ride in it without getting carsick. Eventually, the bloom fell off the rose and he sold it — and put that money toward the next vehicle of his dreams. He got that car and then realized — it goes too fast, you can never use all that power off a racetrack.

NEXT!  He’s got this down to a science.

NOTHING is impossible. It’s all a choice.

Carry on,

xox