ESTIMATED READING TIME: 14 MINUTES

💓 Final Pulse

The decisions have been made and ambition is making its presence known.

At the beginning of the week, you were invited to consider how the choices you’ve made over recent weeks have changed the quality of your life.

There was a sense of satisfaction, greater personal security and the pleasure of having your energy available for the people and things you genuinely want in your life.

As the week progressed, those decisions began translating into action. You’ve been dealing with practical challenges, taking greater responsibility and putting things in place for the future.

And somewhere along the way, you may have discovered that an old argument, or an old way of responding to one, no longer provokes the same reaction. Something that might once have drawn you back into conflict may now be much easier to leave alone.

But there’s something much bigger happening here.

You’re moving from making decisions about the quality of your life to exercising the personal power necessary to create the life you want.

What is currently moving through your life?

There may have been one last little bit of unfinished business to deal with this week.

Something connected to an earlier disagreement, difficult situation or decision may have resurfaced. It could have been a comment, a conversation, a text or an email that brought up something you thought you’d already put behind you.

Almost like a loose end presenting itself to be tied up.

What matters is how you responded.

A few weeks ago, you might have felt compelled to explain yourself, defend your position or make certain somebody understood exactly why you made the decision you did.

This time, you may have recognised where the conversation was heading and decided you’d given the matter quite enough of your attention.

There was nothing more to gain by getting involved.

And that’s significant, because the last few weeks have been teaching you about the energy you invest in conflict and what happens when you stop feeding it.

You may have been presented with an opportunity to replay an old pattern and discovered that you no longer wanted to participate.

The situation may still exist. Someone may still have an opinion you disagree with. There might even be a few things you could say if you felt inclined.

But you’ve made your decision, you’re satisfied with it, and your attention has already turned towards other things.

Don’t go pulling on a loose thread when you’ve already tied up the loose end.

What areas of your life is this affecting?

Earlier in the week, there was a sense of personal satisfaction. You could see the benefits of the decisions you’d made and genuinely enjoy how much better life was feeling.

Now that satisfaction is translating into something more substantial.

This is about security, resources, responsibility and the practical business of managing your life.

You might be making decisions about money, property, your home, your work or the future you’re building for yourself and the people you care about.

There is a growing sense of ownership here. And with ownership comes responsibility.

It’s wonderful to have ideas, make exciting decisions and imagine how things might look in the future. But sooner or later, somebody has to do the work.

Somebody has to organise the finances, manage the resources, make the appointments, deal with the unexpected and follow through on what was decided.

This week, that somebody was you.

There is also a growing sense of competence. You’ve been able to look at what needs doing and recognise that you have the experience, knowledge and resources to deal with it.

Perhaps you’ve accomplished more than you expected. Perhaps you’ve solved something that initially appeared difficult. Or perhaps you’re beginning to appreciate just how capable you’ve become through everything you’ve already experienced.

And I think there’s something particularly important about understanding your own competence.

When you’ve developed your abilities through experience, you become less dependent on other people’s assessments of what you’re capable of.

You don’t need to demonstrate your value every five minutes.

You know what you’ve accomplished. You know what you can manage. And you know that when something unfamiliar comes along, you have the ability to work out what to do about it.

You don’t have to defend the value of something you’re already successfully managing. And that includes yourself.

That recognition changes the way you make decisions about your future as you’re now drawing on the confidence that comes from experience and self-trust.

And that’s not only useful, it’s a powerful foundation on which to build a life.

Where is this taking you?

Now you’re getting somewhere.

Earlier in the week, you were recognising the benefits of decisions you’d already made (Changing the quality of your life from the inside out). There was a growing sense of satisfaction with the direction your life was taking.

Now those decisions are calling for something more substantial: action, responsibility and personal authority.

It’s one thing to decide what you want. It’s another thing entirely to organise your life around that decision and take responsibility for maintaining it.

This is where personal authority comes into play.

And I think it’s worth considering what authority actually means.

You can exercise authority over your own life without needing to control everybody else’s.

You can make decisions, establish boundaries, manage your resources and determine how your time and energy will be invested.

Other people may agree with those decisions. They may disagree. They may have opinions about what you’re doing or how you’re going about it.

But you don’t need everybody’s agreement to govern your own territory.

That’s a rather useful distinction, particularly after the conflicts you’ve been examining over recent weeks.

Because authority can be exercised wisely, or it can become another contest of wills.

And if you’re spending all your time trying to control how somebody else responds to your decisions, how much authority are you actually exercising over your own life?

There’s also another dimension to this.

You’re building your own little empire.

And empires are built brick by brick.

You start with one brick. Put another beside it, and you’ve got two.

Add a few more and you’ve got a row of bricks. Put another row on top, and another, and eventually you’ve built yourself a wall.

Build four walls, add a floor and a ceiling, and you’ve got yourself a room.

Keep building and that room becomes part of a house, a business, an estate or whatever your particular version of an empire happens to be.

None of it happens without somebody laying the bricks.

And that’s what you’ve been doing this week. Laying one brick after another.

The decisions have been made. Now the actions are following.

Some of those actions may seem relatively small when you consider them individually. But collectively, they’re creating something substantial.

You’re taking responsibility for your territory, exercising your authority and building something that belongs to you.

An Emperor doesn’t need everybody’s agreement to govern his territory. He certainly doesn’t need their permission to build on it. And neither do you.

Soul Expression

Your ability to solve problems has been put to the test this week.

There may have been some mental challenges, particularly around working out how to accomplish something.

Perhaps you encountered problems you hadn’t anticipated, discovered that a task was more complicated than expected or found yourself dealing with several issues that all seemed to require attention at once.

But the way you approached those challenges tells a rather different story.

You could have looked at everything that needed doing and decided it was all too difficult.

You could have become overwhelmed by the number of problems, convinced yourself you didn’t have the answers or spent hours worrying about how you were ever going to manage.

But you chose to tackle them.

One problem at a time. One thought at a time. One possible solution at a time.

And when the obvious answers didn’t work, you started looking for alternatives.

This is where the mind becomes such a valuable instrument.

You can use it to examine a problem from different perspectives, question your assumptions and explore possibilities that weren’t immediately apparent.

Sometimes the answer is sitting right in front of you.

Other times, you have to work through the obvious options before you arrive at something more unconventional.

And sometimes, what initially appears to be a problem turns out to be an opportunity to do something in a completely different way.

If you focus on the solution, you’re far more likely to find one.

Of course, this doesn’t mean every problem can be solved immediately, or that every solution will produce the outcome you originally imagined.

But when you’re actively looking for solutions, you’re exercising your ability to influence the outcome. And that’s a form of personal power too.

You can convince yourself you’re trapped by a problem, or you can start investigating your options. Either way, you’re using your mind. The power is in how you choose to use it.

The circumstances might be exactly the same.

What’s changed is how you’re responding to them.

There is a wonderful sense of mental resourcefulness here.

You may have begun the week wondering how on earth you were going to accomplish everything you needed to do.

By Friday, you’re looking back at a series of problems you’ve worked through, decisions you’ve made and tasks you’ve completed.

And with every problem you’ve solved, you’ve added to your experience.

That experience becomes another resource you can draw upon the next time you’re presented with a challenge.

Perhaps you can see now just how much energy was being consumed by fighting a fight.

And look at what you can accomplish now that you’ve redirected that energy back to yourself and your own interests.

The Bigger Picture

This is where things get exciting.

At the beginning of the week, you were experiencing the benefits of everything you’d been working through over recent weeks.

You’d learned when to stop feeding a conflict, when to leave something alone and how to prevent one difficult situation from consuming so much of your attention and energy.

As the mental and emotional interference began to subside, your intuition had more room to make itself heard. You could see more clearly, and see yourself.

With that energy now available to invest in your own life and interests, your attention is turning towards the future and what else you could accomplish.

Ambition is making its presence felt.

You may find yourself thinking about what you want to do next, what you could create or how much bigger your life might become.

An idea that was previously little more than a feeling may now be developing into a plan.

You might be looking at opportunities, considering possibilities or realising just how much influence you have over the direction your life takes.

And you now have something particularly valuable to support those ambitions: greater authority over your own life, confidence in your abilities and a growing command of your resources.

Because ambition needs somewhere to go.

It needs your attention, your commitment and eventually your actions.

There is something quite powerful about sensing an opportunity intuitively and then having the confidence to do something practical with it.

But there’s another important connection here.

You can have all the resources, experience and authority you need, yet still convince yourself that something is beyond your capabilities.

And you can have very little experience with something new, but possess enough curiosity and determination to work out how to accomplish it.

Your mind can be one of your greatest resources, provided you use it constructively.

That’s particularly relevant when ambition starts making demands on your imagination, your abilities and your willingness to venture beyond familiar territory.

You may not have all the answers immediately. You may need to investigate, experiment, learn something new or find a different way of doing things.

But you’ve already demonstrated your ability to work through problems this week.

Why would that ability suddenly disappear when you turn your attention towards something more ambitious?

You have more energy available to invest in your future. And you’ve got some ideas about what you’d like to do with it.

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👑The Three Expressions of Personal Power

There’s a world of difference between proving your power and exercising it.

There’s something running through this week’s forecast that I want to draw to your attention.

You’ve been presented with three very different expressions of personal power.

The first is the power you attempt to acquire through conflict.

When somebody challenges you, disagrees with your decisions or questions your judgement, you can become determined to prove yourself right.

You want to win the argument, defend your position or make certain the other person understands exactly where you’re coming from.

But winning can come at a cost.

Sometimes the cost is the time and energy you continue investing in an argument that has already served its purpose.

And frankly, if you’ve already won your peace, why would you want to spend it on another argument?

The second expression is the power that comes through competence and ownership.

You’ve developed skills and abilities through experience. You’ve learned how to manage resources, take responsibility and deal with the practical demands of life.

You know what you’re capable of because you’ve demonstrated those capabilities to yourself.

There’s no great need to convince everybody else.

The third expression is personal authority.

This is where you take the knowledge, experience and resources you’ve accumulated and consciously decide how you’re going to use them.

You establish the structures, make the decisions and take responsibility for what you’re creating.

And look at how dramatically your relationship with personal power has changed.

The first expression saw you spending your energy trying to influence other people’s opinions. The second saw you develop confidence in your own abilities, freeing your sense of personal power from the need for anybody else’s agreement or approval. The third allows you to exercise that power deliberately, directing your abilities and resources towards building the life you want.

Meanwhile, the way you use your mind determines how effectively you exercise that power.

You can look at a problem and become convinced it has defeated you, or you can begin working through the possibilities.

You can recognise an ambition and dismiss it as unrealistic, or you can investigate what would be required to make it happen.

And you can continue investing your energy in arguments that belong to the past, or redirect it towards something you genuinely want to create.

The decisions you’ve made have changed the quality of your life. Now the way you exercise your personal power will influence what you build from here.

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⚡ Three Power Moves for Momentum

Taking back your power is one thing. Keeping charge of it is another.

1. Don’t take the bait.
Stop giving your power away through conflict.

If somebody presents you with an opportunity to revisit an old disagreement, consider whether there’s anything useful to be gained by engaging. You don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to. Your energy is yours to spend.

2. Stop polling the audience.
There’s no need to look outside yourself for validation.

Before asking everybody else what they think about your next decision, ask yourself what you think. Draw on your own experience, knowledge and judgement. You can seek advice when you need expertise, but you don’t need a committee to approve your life.

3. Invest in your abilities.
Start investing in your own capabilities.

If your ambitions are growing, take a look at the skills and knowledge you’ll need to support them. Is there something you could learn, improve or investigate? Find a course, read a book, speak to somebody with experience or start experimenting. Every new skill adds another brick to your empire.