Inspiration for Creating your Ideal Life

The first step in creating your ideal life is knowing what you want. Unfortunately, there seems to be an “I’m not sure what I really want” epidemic going around. To quote the great 19th century American writer Mark Twain, “I can teach anybody to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can’t find anybody who can tell me what they want.” Coming up with a preliminary, rough draft list of wants which you can modify as you go along is better than not having anything at all. So where can you go to begin to get inspiration? Below you will find three sources of inspiration to get you started in deciding what you want.

Log onto the internet: your first source of inspiration is the website 43things.com. This is a popular, free, social networking site where 1.3 million people from around the world list their goals and write comments sharing their progress with others. Go ahead and read the goals others have set for themselves and see which ones you would like to achieve as well. You’ll find goals in several different categories and as varied as the following: “go on a road trip with no predetermined destination”; “spend the night in a castle”; “learn reiki”; and so on.

One of the best ways to achieve your goals is to create public accountability and support by sharing them with a wide audience. Create an account for yourself on 43things.com, put up your list of goals and hopes, post your progress, and cheer others on as they move toward the achievement of their goals. They might even cheer you back.

The second source of inspiration is another website, Soyouwanna.com. This website teaches you how to do just about anything you can think of, from writing a business plan to converting to Buddhism. Go through the different categories and see which topics catch your interest. Maybe you want to . . .

• Be a comic book artist

• Write a script for a TV show

• Do stand-up comedy

• Write a children’s book

• Go camping

• Learn how to salsa dance

Now shut off your computer and head out to your favorite bookstore. Your third source of inspiration is the magazine section of Barnes & Noble, Borders, or whichever bookstore you choose to patronize. Magazines cover the whole gamut of possibilities, from sailing, to dog training, to wine tasting, and so on. Maybe you’ll stumble upon the “home and decorating” section and discover you’ve been a closet Martha Stewart all these years.

Take out a notebook and a pen and write down anything that comes to mind when you visit the two websites mentioned above and after browsing the magazines that catch your eye at the bookstore. You might even choose to purchase a few magazines and cut out images that appeal to you and paste them in your notebook. Carry the notebook around with you and write down anything that comes to mind. Once your mind sees that you’re serious about deciding what it is that you want, you’ll be amazed at how it begins to cooperate and come up with ideas of its own. You’ll go from not knowing what you want to having a notebook filled with possibilities.