A few decades ago when I was much newer to life and very new to California, I'd drive day after day from the San Fernando Valley over beautiful Coldwater Canyon into Beverly Hills where I had a funky job in the corporate office of a major aerospace company. I adored the drive, but not the job. However, it wasn't the right time in my life to be rocking boats, since most of my energy was going into working my new Alcoholics Anonymous program, and I was loving every moment of it. For two years I drove the canyon, searched for things to do on my job, and had a blast getting sober in Los Angeles. Then I got bored.
One beautiful afternoon as I was enjoying the drive back to the Valley past the gorgeous homes of Beverly Hills, I said out loud to the power I thought then was only outside of me, “Okay, Higher Power, let's see how well you operate. I'm bored at work and want to do something else. Give me an idea. In fact, if you'll just give me the seeds, I'll plant them.”
Without realizing it, I was in that perfect feeling place where my frequency was higher than a kite, loving my drive, enjoying the scenery, feeling at peace with the world yet a little feisty with this Being my A.A. friends and I called Higher Power. Sort of like, “All right, Buster, either put up or shut up!” But the statement was sincere and shot out into the ethers powerfully magnetized with high vibrations of impish Feel Good.
The next day on my way to work I went through the same routine. “Just give me the seeds and I'll plant 'em.” And again coming home. I didn't know squat about vibrations or flowing energy then, and sadly, I didn't know a thing about my own power, or that the power “out there” and I were one and the same. As far as I was concerned, the Head Honcho was separate from me, that wise force of Good I was quite sure was running my life. All I was doing was powerfully, though unknowingly, focusing on a Want and testing my Higher Power to see if it was really there to lend a helping hand.
Then one wondrous homeward-bound day as I crested the top of the hill where the vista explodes into a thrilling see-forever panorama, the idea hit me, and I do mean hit. I felt as if I had been socked with a cosmic two-by-four. The idea was to form an educational publishing company using the very new and highly innovative audio tape cassette. It was 1965. Most of the world had never heard of a tape cassette, and I didn't have a clue how to form a company or make things start to happen.
No matter. Every day coming home over the hill I'd recite, “Okay, Higher Power, you just keep giving me the seeds, and I'll find ways to plant them.” And sure enough, every day without fail, going back over the hill to work, ideas would be going off in my head like roasting popcorn. I was envisioning magazines on tape, auto tape tours of national parks, sales training programs, and programs for school kids. For as long as I took that drive, ideas seemed to envelope me, because as long as I took that drive, I was in a Feel Good place, my valve was wide open, and inspiration was easy to access.
The spiral had begun. The more the ideas poured in, the more excited I'd get; the more excited I'd get, the more the ideas poured in. I was buzzing without even knowing it.
People who knew about audio tape cassettes and forming companies started appearing out of nowhere: financial people, legal people, technical people, marketing people, all poking their heads up out of the blue. It was incredible. I finally left the aerospace company to form Listener Corporation, and we became one of the pioneers in dispensing information via the innovative new audio tape cassette.
But pretty soon the excitement wore off, the fear of making it on my own took over, and my flow of inspiration dried up like a desert after a flash flood. The long, slow downward spiral had began, even in the midst of our growing renown.
We were the first company to put auto tours on tape for national parks, and they bombed. We were the first company to put an original monthly business magazine on tape. That took a year before it fizzled. We were the first to have business-related materials on headsets in transcontinental flights, and that bombed. We were one of the first to offer high-powered sales motivational trainers in package form to various industries. That bombed. The formula was simple: fear within me that these things wouldn't work equaled … they didn't!
We finally found our niche with a much less public (and far less fearful) program: in-service training packages for elementary teachers, as well as audio-visual educational materials for elementary education. We became well-known, highly respected, loaded with happy sales reps and delighted customers, and I could barely make my mortgage payments.
I'd bang, I'd whack, I'd pound, I'd hammer, and I'd push any way that came to mind. I was Hi Ho Silvering all over the place, yet the harder I'd try to attack a problem, the slower would be our progress. Our new programs were receiving electrifying raves coast to coast, and with good reason; they were extraordinarily good, utilizing the finest educational minds of the day and the most innovative approaches to learning. But rave reviews notwithstanding, not one of our programs ever soared into that heady land of really big profits.
All I could think was, “What else can I DO-DO-DO to make this thing happen?” The harder I worked, the more fearful I became. And of course the greater my fear, the more resistant I was to the energy of well-being, so the more I was magnetizing my fears of less-than-smashing sales.
Intuitive guidance had gone out the window. There was not the tiniest crack for my Expanded Self to jump in with those fantastic nonstop tips I had once received. I shouted constantly at this so-called Higher Power, telling it where it could get off, and vibrating so far out of alignment with it that I might as well have been nonexistent. I seemed to be right in the middle of that old saw, “The worse it gets, the worse it gets.” Brother, was that ever true.
This went on for thirteen years until, exhausted and totally disconnected from anything remotely resembling my Source of well-being, I sold the company and tried to run away to an isolated hideout up the coast by the sea. Instead, I ran smack-dab into the lowest, most painfully disconnected years of my life. From that dark place came the fervent knowing of what I surely did not want any longer, and soon there blossomed the years that were to become the most fantastically beautiful of my life as I began to discover my Expanded Self.
The only reason I'm recounting this from-great-to-grim story is because it's a classic demonstration of the hugely different outcomes that occur between inspired action and fear-based action. With the former, we sail off into happyland with apparently very little effort, as I did when getting the company started. With the latter, we can push and shove and strive and hustle until the cows come home, only to end up going either nowhere … or down.
Most of us have always had this notion—well, it's more than a notion, we were raised that way—that in order to obtain the things we desired to have, we had to match the level of those desires with equivalent personal efforts.
In other words, if all we wanted was an ice cream cone, that would take only a minimal personal effort on our part. If, on the other hand, we desired to become the first governor of our state heading a brand new political party, we would gear ourselves up for an entirely different level of personal effort called push and shove. Indeed, we have always believed that in order to even come close to obtaining any of the larger, more significant things we desired beyond ice cream cones, it has meant either knocking our brains out to obtain them or forgetting them altogether.
But knocking our brains out means we're into Hi Ho Silvering with grossly uninspired actions. It means we're operating from a purely physical, pushy stance. It means we're into gottas, and shoulds. It means, in a nutshell, we're forever trying to push rivers upstream blindfolded, without our own higher Guidance. It means we're operating with very closed valves, causing the kinds of internal stress and negative energy flow that can't possibly produce our desired results.
It would seem, then, that the logical approach to getting where we want to go, or making things happen the way we'd like them to happen, is to operate off guided inspiration instead of the negative vibrations of social-conscious stress. How do we do that? Where do we start? How do we stop whacking?
Well, first comes the inspiration, the ideas. They come because you've been spending more time in those higher frequencies feeling good (or better), buzzing, and turning on.
Then, after flowing goodly amounts of Feel Good energy to one or more of those great new ideas, you start to act on them, yes, but now from a place of hallowed inspiration rather than negative pushing. And so your actions now become as inspired as your idea, and everything that's coming to you is coming from a place of high frequency.
Then Yeow-eee! Something amazing begins to happen. No matter how complex or involved the ideas seem to be, you find them falling into place and flowing along with the ease and sureness of an uninterrupted mountain stream. And why not? Your ideas were inspired; now, too, are your actions to bring those ideas into reality. All from your higher-frequency energy flow.
Let's say one day you're just bippin' along, feeling great, and you get an idea. It's a fantastic idea, just the kind of thing you know would work if you only knew how to do it … or had enough money … or enough education … or enough support … or enough … ?
There are only two ways you can go when you get a bucketful of Guidance downloaded on you:
You can say “Oh, that's just nuts … a good idea maybe, but …” and promptly close your valve.
Or, you can decide to shut up and listen, and trust what you're getting.
If you've been regularly stating some Wants, and your valve has been open more than usual, you can bet you'll soon be receiving Guidance in the form of ideas to help direct you toward those Wants. If you decide to go ahead with one of these ideas and follow the course of activities that will continue flowing into you as hunches or concepts, you'll be going into action, yes, but now we're talking inspired action versus Hi Ho Silvering; inspired ways to accomplish your goal, inspired activities which will be fun, inspired techniques and methods which you'll find yourself performing with the greatest of ease instead of trying to push everything upstream against an unyielding current.
So when inspiration hits, or an idea for how to further your Want just happens to slip in one day, start thinking in Can Dos rather than Yeah Buts. Never mind the How Tos, they'll come once you relax into that higher frequency. Instruction books always accompany inspiration.
Now the flow begins. What it might take a disconnected person years to do, you whiz through in a few months, guided only into the most productive activities by your thoroughly jubilant Expanded Self.
Right in the middle of that year of years when the mortgage business and income were pouring in so fast it was laughable, I had an idea. I really didn't need any ideas, as my Wants were streaming in faster than I had time to enjoy. Nonetheless, I had an idea, and it blew me away.
The idea came while I was in the shower one night when, for some reason I don't remember, I was really buzzing. And I have to tell you, my first response—out loud—to what came in was “Give me a bloody break! You gotta be kidding!”
The idea was to do an infomercial (a half-hour TV commercial) for an unusually large and complex self-help product that I had not yet created, had never even thought about, and for which I had not the slightest notion where to begin. The whole concept was mad and totally illogical. I was up to my armpits in a booming mortgage business, in the middle of the biggest year I had ever had, and was suddenly being downloaded with droves of ideas about producing a TV program about which I knew nothing. Insane! Not to mention that it would cost fourteen arms and a leg to accomplish, take an inordinate amount of talent to coordinate, and be a full-time job for someone who knew what the hell they were doing, which I most assuredly did not. (Never mind I hadn't even turned out the product.)
But my valve was open even though I didn't understand that, my frequencies were high, and everywhere I looked I saw only positive conditions, so the ideas for having fun kept coming, whether I was asking for them or not.
Just four months—four months!—after getting the idea … then manifesting the staggering sums of dollars to pay for the lavish production of product … and the sums required for the first-class production of the TV show … and the dollar or two required to purchase extensive coast-to-coast TV time … and the time to write, narrate, act in, and produce it all, I was filming on location with a sizable professional crew. Just four months, that's all it took!
By March of the following year, I was on the air promoting Life Course 101, the monumental audio-visual home-study course I had authored on inner growth. Amazing!
I was performing the work of a dozen people, running one business and creating another while authoring and producing an elaborate new program … by myself … in almost vintage years. To be sure, most of my friends thought I had gone mad.
Ah, but what they didn't know was how effortlessly everything was materializing. There was no Hi Ho Silvering, no frantic pushing or shoving. This time I was connected. Everything flowed as if on a greased slide. Pieces fell magically into place. I'd wonder how to do something, the answers would float in, and I'd easily accomplish whatever needed to be done. No fret, no worry, and not a doubt in the world. Truly, I was having a ball.
Sure it was a lot of work, but it was easy work because the plays were being called straight from the sidelines by my Guidance coach. Any problems that came up were solved as fast as they appeared. Everything—for both companies—kept falling into perfect alignment. I was in the flow of Life. I never questioned a new idea or a new direction, for the How Tos were always right behind the idea. And never once did I feel down.
Spontaneity became my middle name. I stopped worrying about time. The high-frequency magnetics emanating from me were so powerful, they were mobilizing the next circumstances and events for me to walk into almost before I had finished the last ones. I was dazzled by what was happening, yet all I was doing—without knowing it—was flowing positive Feel Good energy and implementing the inspired ideas that were coming in a steady stream. It doesn't get more exciting than that.
How many times have you said to yourself, “I just got a hit (or a hunch, or a gut feeling) to go there.” And so you did; you went there, and then found out it was a good thing you did. You were following your Guidance. Or you got a crazy idea to try such-and-such. And you did. And it was a success because it was fun. You were following your Guidance.
But you don't have to be starting a new business to have ideas, or hunches, or insights. Whether your Want is to find the fastest way around the traffic downtown or to find a new mate, all you have to do is pay attention to the signs that will come to make it happen … and learn to trust them!
A phone call that comes out of the blue from an old friend, a TV show you normally don't watch, a feeling you got to read something, or call someone, or take that other road instead. These are all gentle little shoves from your Expanded Self, your Inner/Outer Guidance helping you stay on course towards your joy, even if it's just a better parking place in the rain. You've blasted Feel Good energy out there, mixed it with Wants, created corridors of energy flowing into massive vortexes, and now as you step into those vortexes, the Guidance comes. Your impulses to act—to do this, go there, call them—are coming from the magnetic activity initiated by your focused energy.
Shortly after embarking on this new path of deliberate creation, I was on my way to Portland in my beloved old '77 Mercury Monarch, a car that had been rebirthed many times since I'd had it because I loved the thing. New engines, new this's, new that's. But because of its age, my mechanics had recommended I start using a synthetic oil to reduce wear and tear. That was fine, except not only were synthetic oils somewhat rare at that time, this was some weirdo brand that had to be special ordered out of town.
I hadn't been out of the house farther than the grocery store for ages, and the two-hour drive to Portland was more than welcomed. I put on some of my soaring music and was just about on the edge of high-frequency bliss an hour later, flowing energy to this and that, when I remembered I hadn't put in the much-needed oil. I usually carried a couple of quarts of the oddball stuff in the car, but had forgotten that, too, and the prospect of finding this kind of oil—that was never to be mixed with any other kind, of course—was between zip and forget it along that farmland stretch of freeway in southern Washington.
I drove a few more miles, wondering what to do, when I got a hit to pull off at the next exit. Since I was pretty much following my hunches without hesitation by then, I shrugged my shoulders and pulled off onto a desolate country road not more than a quarter mile from the freeway.
What I found looked like an old abandoned mining town, or ghost town, replete with cockeyed, broken-down buildings all boarded up and so dilapidated they were tilting. I didn't see signs of life anywhere, but for some reason I stopped the car and got out, strangely aware that I was not questioning my decision to pull off the freeway, or thinking things like “what in the hell am I doing here,” but just going along with the strange lead.
Then I saw it and couldn't believe my eyes. Not fifty feet in front of the car was another broken-down building with a hastily hand-painted sign that said “Auto Shop.” I don't know how I'd missed it when I stopped, yet there it was, right smack in front of me. Dumbfounded, I walked in and asked if they carried any synthetic oil. Yes, they did, but they were sorry that the only kind they carried was Blurp, just the kind I needed. “Yes, Ma'am, our last two quarts, right over there!”
My head was whirling when I got back to the car. Sure, I was thrilled and excited beyond words. Sure, I was overjoyed to see the Law of Attraction so blatantly in action. But truthfully, I was numb. It was all so bloody obvious, so indisputable. My vibrations had been at an all-time peak. Then came a pressing requirement, but without an ounce of resistance such as, “I'm in trouble, I'll never find it, what'll I do?” With my vibrations at that pitch, I had instantly magnetized the solution, receiving loud and clear directions from my Expanded Self in the form of a super-strong hunch which I decided to follow. But man alive, how melodramatic can you get?
How did it happen? Who knows. Who cares! I got the hit, trusted it, acted on it, and it worked.
The point is to get off auto pilot and pay attention. Listen! Stay alert for that little push, watch for signs, tune into hunches. If it feels good, it's Guidance.
Most of us don't let ourselves believe something can happen unless we can see ahead of time how all the pieces are going to fit together. So start watching for clues. Watch for the masterful coming together as all the missing parts take form and start dropping into place like magic. Now you've entered the uncanny world of synchronicity, you're plugged in, connected to your Source energy, going with the flow. But you'll never see it, or learn to trust it, if you're not watching for it.
With the possible exception of prayer, which is more often a plea from a closed rather than opened valve, precious few of us were ever taught to go inside, shut up, and listen, much less follow! Follow what? Listen to whom? Nonsense! Take a pill. That's just imagination. It has no substance, no intellectual empirical data to back it up.
I love how we pretend that something doesn't exist, then turn right around and name it. We turn our noses up at “divine guidance,” but curiously give it this wide range of names like gut feeling, motivation, hit, intuition, sense, inspiration, impulse, urge, premonition, desire, imagination. It's all Guidance, the real You sending messages from the infinite intelligence You are, doing everything in Its power to pass on some ideas or direction before you shut down again.
Guidance is Soul-talk, God-talk, Inner Being-talk, Expanded Self-talk, Cosmic Escort-talk. Guidance does whatever is necessary to get our attention and help us step into our Wants, be it oil for the car or new hair for a shining head. But to make it work, we've got to learn to trust what we're picking up on that station.
A couple who were mortgage clients of mine—I'll call them George and Sally—were a little shaken when I got to their home one evening to take their loan application. When I asked what was wrong, George said he and his wife had just missed being in a serious eight-car pile up on the freeway, and they were still feeling “really spooked,” as he put it.
They worked at different places, but commuted together. Seems they were coming home from work on the freeway as usual, and George was beginning to get antsy being stuck behind a large, red, wobbly truck in front of them, so he decided to change lanes. Out of nowhere Sally said, “Honey, don't do that! We've got to get off this freeway right now!” There was the customary explosion about how silly that was, then finally, to keep the peace, George turned off at the next exit and headed for some very out-of-the-way back roads.
When they got home, George switched on the local TV news as usual and saw his wobbly red truck in the middle of a pileup, squashed between two cars not a mile down the freeway from where they had exited. There were two fatalities.
That was one tuned-in lady who followed her Guidance without hesitation. How many of us would have listened, much less acted by taking another road?
The cosmic joke is that we were designed to do just that, to live by our senses, not by our brains. But over the eons we've learned to think our responses instead of feel them, totally backwards from the way all the rest of nature lives. Animals and plants do it (live by their senses), while all of us closed-down, disconnected humans snicker at it. But when you really start playing the Feel Good game, I promise, it's better than an all-day ticket to Disneyland. You listen and do, listen and do, listen and do, trusting your Guidance without hesitation.
So if you have five dozen friends and family telling you to do “this,” but your deepest impulse is to do “that,” always, always follow your impulse (provided it feels good!). Why? Just do it a few times and you'll see why. Your Guidance system is doing all it knows how to get you where you want to go to follow your Original Intent. So give it a chance. Tune in and listen up; that Expanded Self knows what it's doing.
Therein lies the fourth and final step in this process of creating by design.
The first, you remember, is to identify what we DON'T want.
The second is to clarify and state what we DO want.
The third is to get into the feeling place of those Wants. And now the fourth:
Translated that means no more pounding something into place to make it happen. It means we tune in and listen to our Guidance. It means we follow what we get without hesitation.
It means we stop trying to figure out how we could ever make our Want transpire, because we aren't the ones who have to figure it out anyhow. All we have to do is act on the inspirations coming from our Expanded Self, keep our valve open, expect that our Want is on its way, then step back and let the universe do its thing, staying out of the trap of impatience as much as possible. (For that matter, even staying out of patience, because patience is just a closed valve pretending to be open with all its focus on what hasn't happened.)
The universe is a better organizer than you could ever think of being, so give it a chance and stay out of the way. You've given the universe a task, you've sent out your magnetic energy, now settle back and allow the manifestation to unfold.
Okay, you're keeping your frequencies up, staying tuned to the Guidance station, listening, getting your hunches, watching the synchronicity of events, but where in the Sam Hill is this terrific Want of yours?
“How can I stay all revved up and excited about something when I keep talking, feeling, and flowing energy until I'm blue in the face, but nothing happens?”
If your Want hasn't shown up in whatever you consider to be a reasonable amount of time, it simply means you've been more in the feeling place of not having it, and less in the feeling place of having it.
That's all right. You're not doing it wrong; you didn't lose the instruction book. The deliberate flowing of positive energy is so foreign to us, it often seems to be an impossible task, while the resistant feelings we're so accustomed to—and therefore never notice—continue to dominate our day.
That's when it's time to let it be okay—let it be okay—that your Want hasn't shown up yet. You know that it will, but it's perfectly normal that it hasn't … yet.
The ultimate goal, of course, is to stop seesawing with open valves, shut valves, open valves, shut valves. That's like calling a dog and telling him to stay at the same time. Everything jams to a halt. How, then, does one retain passion for something that hasn't shown up or happened?
First, check out what you're flowing energy to. There's not much point in flowing energy to—and manifesting more of— any of your Don't Wants.
Next, check out your intensity of energy flow. The greater your excitement, the more ardent your passion; and the more ardent your passion, the faster your manifestation. (Ask your Guidance for help with your passion and you'll get it.)
Next, check your repetitions. How often do you get yourself jazzed about your Want? If you had a great start, got all worked up about it for several minutes and then never thought about it again, it may come someday (though doubtful). But if you keep yourself hyped up about it, talk about it several times a day to yourself, your parakeet, and your roses, and embellish the story every time you do, you're not only keeping the momentum going, you're building it.
Although sixteen seconds is all that's necessary to add to the forming vortex, if you'd get turned on and really buzzing about this thing for just ten or fifteen minutes every day, it will be in your face before you know it, providing you keep your focus off its absence.
There's something else that goes on in regard to a show or no-show, which I hesitate to mention because it can be such a cop-out, such a perfect excuse for why something has not happened or shown up yet, and that is timing. You may have been flowing energy passionately toward a subject with a wide-open valve, doing everything by the book, flowing with the force of a space shuttle rocket, and still have a no-show on your hands. Timing! It simply may not be the best time for this Want to happen if you're to derive from it all you desire.
Since that may be the case, then just step back, relax, and let the universe and your Guidance do their things.
The Law of Attraction is never inconsistent. The universe will bring you whatever you want in the appropriate time. The key—always—is focus!
We already know the only thing that messes up our experience is resistance to our own higher energies, but sometimes being in those energies can cause things to happen that are not always too pleasant. Pulling in higher frequency is sort of like aiming a hose at a muddy old sidewalk. The heavy stream of water squirts away the mud to reveal some nasty cracks in the walkway. If you're not careful as you step on the sidewalk now, you might trip over one of those long-hidden cracks.
Those cracks are our resistance, our inner critic or naysayer, our old ideas of social rights and wrongs, our old low-frequency security blankets being laid bare by the higher frequencies. The greater our wanting is, the greater the energy we're pulling in, just as the more forceful the stream of water is, the more cracks will be uncovered. All of a sudden we feel rocky, vulnerable, exposed to the elements without protection as what has been hidden away for so long surfaces to struggle for survival. Ultimately what has been hidden will die away, but not without a fight. This can make for some rather bumpy, emotional rides.
Not to worry, there's a fast way out. The moment you become aware that you're feeling a little shaky or off base, ask yourself: What's been bothering me? and keep at it until an answer comes. It will.
As you discuss it with yourself, whatever it is that has been uncovered to cause those unpleasant old feelings to re-emerge will show itself in the form of an old belief, an old fear, an old Don't Want. Once you unveil whatever it is, if you'll take just three minutes a day to talk it out and talk it down (as in Tender Talking), talk it out and talk it down, talk it out and talk it down, most of that fear will dissipate within thirty days, along with the unconscious resistance that's been blocking your Want.
Passion. We've talked a lot about it. It's one of those words that sounds great, but what does it mean? How do we get it? And do we really need it?
Here's your clue: passion is creation!
Contentment is swell, but passion makes it happen.
Contentment is an open valve, a nice safe haven with no negative focus, a place of rest. But passion makes it happen. Passion is living. Passion is creation.
Passion is about feeling your power. When negative conditions pop up for whatever reason (as they always will because we require the contrast), instead of talking about how tough things are, dig down and feel your power. You're not only connected to the force of well-being, you are that force. That force is Life. That force is passion. And passion is creation.
Passion comes from the excitement of having something in the making. Contentment, on the other hand, comes from looking at something already achieved, more like a satisfaction. Contentment is positive energy, true, but it's not a fuel; it won't take you any place. It is not an energy of creation.
If you think you're lacking this most intoxicating of feelings, passion, check to see if you're still talking about or focused on a Don't Want. There's not a Don't Want in the universe that can evoke passion, for all that Don't Wants will ever get you is negative energy, closed valves, greater resistance, and more Don't Wants.
So here's yet another reason for giving more time to your Want, for the more time you spend on it, the more passionate you will become. And passion is creation.
Passion doesn't mean rah-rah cheerleading, or spastically bouncing off walls. Sure, passion comes in various degrees of excitement and enthusiasm, but more important, passion is a strong inner knowing. It's a quiet sureness that life no longer has you by the ear lobes, and that the tiger you're holding by the tail is actually you!
You want more passion? Then follow your joy! Go smell more roses, watch more sunsets, find more grass to walk barefoot on, visit more favorite restaurants, laugh more, find more places to explore, go to more ball games or plays, indulge in more hobbies, be more spontaneous, play more golf, listen to more music, find more places to skinny-dip, smile more, have more fun. Now you're vibrating in open-valve passion. And passion is creation.
Hey, you won't get an argument from me. All this energy business is a total about-face from the way we've been used to living and being, so give it time. Cut yourself some slack. If you've read this far, major changes are already in progress.
Sometimes it will be easy. Most of the time early on it won't be, which is why watching for those so-called coincidences is so important. They are validation that something's actually happening; they keep you going.
Mainly, just lighten up. Be natural. Get off your case for not being perfect. Pat yourself on the back for effort. Give yourself credit for wanting to take control of your life. You will, sooner than you think!
If you're spending some time each day talking about each of your Wants, not worrying about if or when they're coming, not trying to force the how tos of bringing them in, staying plugged into your Guidance and following it without hesitation, those Wants will come. By your own power, they must.
You are not separate from the power of infinite well-being. You are not separate from the power of creative Life force. You are not separate from the universal power of All That Is. That power is your power, because that power is You. And your power, like the divine laws by which it is governed, is absolute.