The Boat And The Pontoon: Navigating Life’s Choice Points

In my last blog, I discussed symptoms that arise when our unconscious mind tries to guide us back on track. These signs help us achieve equilibrium and align with our true purpose. I spoke about the transition from Belief to Knowing. We feel drawn toward something new in our life, career, or business. This shift leads us in a new direction.

It’s this sense that as we move from the state of Belief to a state of Knowing, a lot of different symptoms start to show up in our lives. I discussed this in the previous blog.

But I want to drill down a little further between these two states – the state of Belief and the state of Knowing. Now, what shows up in people’s lives as we’re moving between these two states is what I refer to as Choice Points. It’s these choice points that the feathers, the bricks, and the trucks show up in our lives. And as I said in the previous blog, if we listen to the feathers, well, then life becomes a lot easier. If we don’t listen to the feathers, the bricks will come. The bricks are more subtle than the feathers. We would prefer it if the bricks didn’t show up. If we don’t listen to the bricks, the truck will eventually come. And trust me, we don’t want that truck in our way.

I use that as an analogy to explain how our unconscious mind influences our decisions. It shows up in different ways, nudging us to make choices. And ultimately it’s a Choice Point. The terminology that I use is it’s a choice point in our life. We face many choice points throughout our lives. Some decisions are much easier to make than others.

In the last blog I also spoke about the sense and feelings when you’re moving from a state of Belief to a state of Knowing, is this sense that you’re at a crossroads? That could be a four-way route or it could be a two-way route or a three-way route. It’s literally those crossroads that show up in people’s lives. So it can be quite confusing for a lot of people. You’ve faced many choice points in your life up to now. However, they may have been relatively easy decisions to make. You just saw it at that time as being just a choice. You got to make it, and you just take the choice and you move forward.

As we move through life, challenges become more difficult. At the same time, the choices we face grow harder to make. That’s when it becomes, “How do we actually make this choice? Am I going in the right direction? And if I make this decision, is it the right decision to make?”.

Let me explain some elements that show up in people’s lives. Consider if you’re at a choice point, or if you can recognize past ones. What happens is, as I said, that the feathers, the bricks, and the trucks show up in our lives. If we keep ignoring the feathers, the bricks and trucks appear, and if we continue ignoring the trucks, then we lose everything. By “everything,” I mean what is most important to us, especially to our ego. Our ego is at its peak when we are in a state of belief.
The biggest impact on our ego will strip away whatever it is. How that shows up means that relationships will literally fall apart, and our business will completely decimate. Not only will it have a major impact, but it will also completely decimate. Our health can have a significant impact, one that may be difficult to overcome. We might have to live with that issue for the rest of our lives. We will completely lose our major finances.

When we ignore whispers (feathers), life presents louder lessons (bricks) and more intense challenges (trucks), pushing us to embrace transformation and trust our inner guidance.

These represent a higher level of challenge, if you want to view it that way when we fail to listen to the guidance we receive. The strongest trigger impacting the ego is the one that strips it away. If we don’t address it, the trigger will influence other elements, especially when multiple triggers are present. Essentially, the unconscious mind tries to shift you away from your conscious thoughts. The goal is to move you away from your ego. It’s about trusting, believing, and having faith in your unconscious mind and its guidance.

It’s this inner knowing or this inner desire for you to move towards a much, much altered, or different direction.

The unconscious mind can only make us choose if we haven’t listened to the subtle signs. When we ignore the feathers, bricks, and trucks, it makes life difficult. This forces us to make a choice. That you now have to make a decision. Because ultimately we can go through our life and we can have the sense that we’ve got to be doing something different. We need to do something different and change our business direction. You may also need to rethink your career or change paths.

But we just don’t make the decision, we don’t change anything. We have this inner sense that we should do, and we want to, and we have a desire to, but we don’t change anything. We keep going year after year, stuck on the treadmill. It’s like a hamster wheel, repeating the same things we’ve always done.

So the only way if the unconscious mind is not getting your attention to make a decision, literally is to strip every single thing away from your life. But what it does is it starts at the highest trigger of what that is for you. If finances are your biggest trigger, you may start feeling fear and anxiety when your business or bank account begins to deplete. This reaction occurs because your unconscious mind is pushing you to make a decision. It’s prompting you to choose a course of action based on this concern.

You’ll notice this more in businesses, especially since I work with many business owners. I see it happening frequently in that context. They continue the same activities, but their financial health doesn’t improve. This happens because they keep doing what they’ve always done.

If you’re continuing the same marketing and advertising efforts that have worked in the past, but it’s not impacting your finances, unexpected expenses may be to blame. This could include costs you incur from lawsuits, losing clients, or other financial drains on your business. These issues can prevent your turnover from increasing, despite your efforts. You’re doing a lot of sales and marketing to bring the business back. However, you need to recognize when it’s time to do something completely different. Ultimately, the decision is yours.

The thing you need to do differently is to listen to what is guiding you. I’ve told them many times the path they need to take to reach their purpose. Yet, they continue doing the same thing they’ve always done. They don’t follow the track I’ve recommended.

When they don’t do it or they take a long period of time in order to do it, literally their business will start to dismantle. They lose staff, they lose their turnover, they lose customers. You name it, all of that shows up because one of their highest triggers is finances. Only when everything has been stripped away, or nearly all of it, do they realize they need a change. That’s when they decide to do something different.

And therefore they start to do things differently, of being on the right track, being on the right purpose, and then lo and behold, the money starts to come into the business. Things have started to change because literally, they’ve altered their course.

When this happens, you recognize it by seeing how these elements impact your life, especially the triggers that affect your ego. Your unconscious mind is pushing you to shift from a state of belief to a state of knowing. In a state of Knowing it’s moving closer to a state whereby you’re allowing your unconscious mind to direct you more in your life. Ultimately in that shift, it’s your unconscious mind wanting to be expressed. It wants full expression in a shift between those two states.

So ultimately it’s going to get rid of everything that it needs to do in order for you to make that shift into operating more so from your unconscious mind, than your conscious mind. Now, ultimately what happens is, as I said at the very beginning, a choice point. We’ve got a choice as regards, whether we go one way, or we go another way.

We can continue doing whatever we’ve always done. And you know, the definition of madness, you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’re always going to get the exact same results. But in this case, unfortunately, you’re not going to get the exact same results, you’re actually going to get worse results if you keep doing what you’ve always done. The whole point is that you have to do something slightly different. And it ultimately is what your unconscious mind is trying to guide you towards. What is that slightly different that you should be doing?

Well, I use the analogy of when you’re at this choice point of the boat and the pontoon. If you can imagine a rowing boat it’s moored up against the pontoon. So it’s this analogy that I get people to understand what’s actually happening in their lives. So if you can picture in your mind’s eye, you have one foot in the boat and one foot on the pontoon. The pontoon represents safe ground, the pontoon represents your comfort zone. It represents what you’ve always been doing.

It represents your career, your business, your life, and how you’ve lived your life up until now. That’s what you know, you know it inside out. You’re absolutely safe on the pontoon. Whereas the boat, it’s a little bit unsteady. You have a sense perhaps of where the boat wants to bring you, but you don’t have an image or a direction or a satnav GPS of where that’s actually going to go. But you have a sense that it really does want you to step into the boat and guide you towards moving towards that new direction.

What happens while you’re at a choice point, for many, many people, is they have that one foot in the boat and one foot on the pontoon. Imagine having one foot in the boat and one foot on the pontoon. If the boat starts to move away, it would feel very unsettling.

So all the symptoms that I explained in the previous blog will start to show up in that unnervingness or that unsettling in your life of where should I be going? What should I be doing? Then all of a sudden, the pontoon’s not as safe as it used to be and I need to step into the boat. But for a lot of people, it’s very difficult to step into the boat.

And how do I make that choice? How do I literally put my both feet into the boat and go in this new direction? So understand that that’s what it feels like. That’s what it looks like. That’s what a choice point is in trying to move from the pontoon into the boat. Now ultimately, what it’s trying to get you to do is to make a decision. It’s asking you, your unconscious mind is trying to ask you to trust it and to put both feet in the boat.

Once you step into the boat and move toward your true purpose, you’ll be guided to do what you love. You’ll have the greatest impact, reach your full potential, and find the deepest fulfillment. It knows all of this. It’s just asking you to trust it get in the boat and head towards that new direction.

And it only happens when you make a decision. Now, by making a decision, it’s you literally, as if you were physically moving from the pontoon into the boat. A decision looks like you’re making a firm resolve to yourself as, “Yes, this is what I’m going after. This is what I’m going to do. I’m going to get in the boat. And that’s exactly the direction that I’m going to go.” Once you make that decision in your mind, other things begin to appear. They test whether you’ve truly committed to it. Have you made that firm resolve? The conscious mind is trying to tempt you back onto the pontoon, pulling you toward your comfort zone. That’s your ego wanting to play with you to get you back to what you’ve always known.

So other things start to show up in order to tempt you back out of the boat onto the pontoon. The question for you is whether you have the resolve to step into the boat and head in your direction. Once you do, the world you knew before will be left behind on the pontoon. Another way to look at this is: Do you really want to make a firm decision? In your mind’s eye, imagine burning the pontoon. Once it’s set alight, the pontoon no longer exists. It’s gone.

You’re now firmly in the boat. To communicate this to the unconscious, you must make a firm resolve. This shows your commitment to stay in the boat and follow the guidance you’re receiving. You continue to communicate that message by taking action toward where you’re being guided.

For many people, it is a leap of faith because that choice point can be such a choice point for them that it demands a leap of faith. I’ve heard a successful business person use this analogy: “As soon as you take the leap of faith, the parachute shows up.” The parachute has always been there; you just don’t realize it until you jump. And once you take the leap of faith, that’s when the parachute starts to show up.

So when you step into the boat, you’re taking action and you’re moving towards that new direction for yourself. That’s making a firm decision. That’s making a decision at that particular choice point. How it’s a leap of faith is because fear starts to show up. Fear and anxiety because it can be around well, what about financial? Where am I going to get the money from? Will this new direction provide me with the income I need and am accustomed to? Or it could be an impact from a reputational perspective.

Am I going to lose part of my reputation and what people know me for? Until now, this is what people have recognized me for. This is how I identify myself in the world. And therefore, am I going to impact the reputation that I have in the world? Or it’s a fear that we’re going to lose something, whether it be losing more finances, losing our business, losing our career, or losing something in our life.

It’s that fear that actually shows up. But if you really think about it, each one of those fears is tapped into our ego. As I mentioned earlier, it aims to trigger your ego. The ego tries to keep you stuck in a state of belief, preventing you from moving into a state of knowing. So that’s where that fear will actually start to show up. In this blog, I’ll discuss how to dissolve fear. First, it’s important to understand what happens at a choice point. This is when we take a leap of faith, get in the boat, and move toward our intended destination.

What actually shows up then as well for other people is a question or a statement that comes open up when I have these conversations with my clients is, I don’t have the courage. I don’t have the strength or I don’t have… How am I ever going to achieve that? Or how am I ever going to go there? But ultimately what inwardly you’re saying is that you’re not good enough. You’re not intelligent enough, which again is another fear.

Once you realize that all you need is more competence in what you’re doing, taking the necessary action becomes easier. Knowing the right direction to go in helps overcome the challenge. So courage can be built once we understand the underlying essence of where the question is coming from or where that fear is coming from.
If we don’t take the leap we’re being guided toward, we’ll remain stuck. With one foot in the boat and one on the pontoon, those symptoms will persist. They will only stop once we’ve made a decision. The symptoms of restlessness, defeat, and lack of fulfillment will persist. This includes feeling a lack of meaning, motivation, and drive, or the sense of not reaching your full potential. These symptoms will continue until you make a decision.

Now, the question then I tend to get from clients is yeah, but I don’t know where I’m supposed to be going? I don’t know what direction I’m supposed to be going. I provide them with key elements of the image, showing them their purpose and direction. This helps guide them toward the steps they need to take.

For you, what I’m going to say is that the action that you’re supposed to take is the action that comes up. The more you listen, and the more you communicate with your unconscious mind, the more those actions and those inspired thoughts are going to come up. And those inspired thoughts create actions to be taken.

Navigating the unknown: Just like driving a dark country road, life often reveals only a few steps ahead, but with direction and purpose, we move forward.

Now I use the analogy of if you can imagine in your mind’s eye, whereby you’re driving down a country road, but it’s at nighttime. So if you can imagine that there are no lights around whatsoever on this country road, and you have your headlights on, on the car, but there are no road lights. There are no streetlights because it’s completely pitch black outside, but you just have your headlights on the front of your car.

All you can see when you’re driving that car down the country road is just a short distance ahead. You can only see a few meters ahead of you. That’s all you can see. So as you’re driving down, as you drive further and further down the road, all you can see is those few metres ahead of you as you move along the road, but you have a sense of where you’re heading. You have a sense of the direction that you’re supposed to be going. You have a sense of where you want to get to, but you just see a few meters down the road, because all you see is what the headlights show up for you.

When we reach choice points and need to take action on what we’re meant to do, we only see those few meters ahead. And what I mean by that is those actions, the first step that you need to take, that’s the step that appears. That next action that you’re supposed to take, that’s the next action that shows up. That’s the next action that you’re supposed to take. And even if there’s an element of fear, you take the action anyway, because you’ll always know the difference between a conscious thought and an inspired thought.

And perhaps I’ll explain that in one of the future blogs, but you’ll know the difference between a conscious thought and an inspired thought. I gave you a few different examples in previous blogs where an inspired thought could wake you up in the morning or literally pop into your mind while you’re doing something else, without consciously thinking about it. But when an inspired thought comes up, the energy is very, very different. It’s a much more fun, lighter, happier energy.

And even though there may be a fear attaching to that inspired thought because, Oh my God, I’ve never done that before.

What should I do? How should I do it? The conscious mind rushes in and tries to figure out how to accomplish the task, but you realise from the very beginning: “Oh my God, this is what I’m meant to do.” That’s the next action you should take.

If fear unconsciously attaches itself to the next step or action you feel encouraged to take, recognize that it’s still an inspired thought. Pay attention to the difference—especially that it’s an inspired thought.

Once you recognize it as such, understand that your conscious mind is kicking in, attempting to rationalize and plan how to make the inspired thought happen or figure out what action to take.

So, yes, fear can show up with inspired thoughts, but you will always be encouraged to take the action that you’re capable of at this moment in time.

When you’re at a choice point, whatever action that you’re absolutely capable of doing, even though the unconscious mind knows that you can achieve so much more, you can do so much more, it knows that it has a battle with your conscious thinking that it can only give you what the conscious mind thinks it’s capable of doing.

So therefore, that small action that starts to happen or that small action that shows up, as soon as you take the action, those actions become bigger and bigger and bigger because really what’s actually happening is you’re getting to know and the courage and the competence in doing those particular actions that show up. You will only be asked to do something that you know, or that your unconscious knows from your conscious perspective, and you can take it and actually do it.

It’s never going to ask you to do something completely wild that’s totally, utterly outside your competence level. So, from that perspective, understand that you need to make a firm decision, and then take action. Now some clients ask me when they’re in a business or if they’re in a job or a career, and they say, I can’t take that leap of faith because then I would have to give up my business, or I’d have to give up my job.

I’d have to give up the career I’ve built, spending so many years building it, and now they are asking me to either do something slightly different or something completely different from what I’ve always done. But they know in their heart that that’s exactly what they want to be doing because the energy inside of them starts to light up from the perspective, “That’s really what I want to be doing. That’s my dream. That’s absolutely what I want to be doing.”

But the fear holds them back. Clients often ask me, “Do I need to give up my business or my career to pursue what my inner desire draws me toward?” And I never ever, ever ask my clients to take that leap of faith, because they’ve got to present for themselves when they’re ready to take that leap of faith.

What I’ll do is I’ll bring about as much as I possibly can by way of dissolving their fears and ask them to take the smaller steps towards that bigger picture. So therefore their courage, or their confidence starts to build in relation to they’re going in the right direction. So I’ll never ask them to literally dismantle their existing business. I’ll never ask them to dismantle their existing career. What I ask them to do is work it in parallel.

So while you’re trying to pivot or while you’re trying to change that pattern, that course of direction that you’re trying to do, do it from a parallel perspective. As you begin to develop your goals and pursue what you’re being drawn or guided towards, you’re engaging in conscious thinking. This involves planning and figuring out how to work towards your goals from a parallel perspective.

When it comes to the conscious thinking piece, you’re trying to figure out how to approach this from a parallel perspective. It’s challenging enough, let alone making a leap of faith and completely changing what you’re doing overnight. Don’t go from a conscious thinking perspective, go from an unconscious thinking, because conscious thinking only knows black and white.

The mind learns and understands based on its past experiences, knowledge, and lessons from people, moments, events, or situations it has already encountered. That’s conscious thinking. So therefore the information that it has is only the information that it has knowledge of. It’s black and white, it’s finite.

So hand it over to the unconscious part of you and the unconscious part is infinite possibilities. And the more you align your Executive Center, with your Unconscious and to the SuperConscious, the more infinite possibilities start to show up. So what you do is you seek out those possibilities from your Unconscious. You draw them out, you draw them out towards you, of what it is that you should be doing by way of what are those next steps?

What are the actions that you need to be doing that are in line with your unconscious and in line with the SuperConscious and therefore also in line with your Executive Center? What are the actions you’re being drawn to? They’re the inspired thoughts. So draw that information out from your unconscious, not from a conscious thinking perspective, it’s two very, very different ways of thinking.

But ultimately, as I said in the previous blog, what’s happening is, that it’s trying to shift you from a state of Belief to a state of Knowing. In my last blog, I mentioned that the state of Knowing involves completely surrendering to your unconscious. It’s about trusting your unconscious to guide you to where you’re meant to go.

The more you communicate with your unconscious, the stronger your relationship with it becomes. This helps draw out the actions you’re meant to take.

That’s how it works. It seems so simple. It’s simple once you know how, but it’s challenging for people to adapt. They’re transitioning from their old ways to an entirely new way of working and being.

So, that’s the choice point. Recognizing when you’re at a choice point is crucial. Make a decision and commit to it. Only by fully resolving to act can you move forward. You’re taking action towards where your unconscious mind wants to lead you. Only good things will come from this, but for some, it’s about taking a leap of faith.

Now, all that shows up as I said was, all you’re going to see is a few metres ahead of you. That’s the car headlights when you’re driving down a country road. So whatever the actions that you are being asked to take right now at the moment, that’s what’s going to show up. The more actions you take, the closer you get to your purpose. You’re getting closer to your end goal with each step. And therefore bigger actions will start to show up. And bigger and bigger ways of how it becomes made manifest. Bigger ways of how you’re going to get the recognition, the reward, the impact. How you are going to make that difference in people’s lives?

That’s what will appear as you take action toward where your guidance leads you. Now, I ask you this: What are you feeling drawn to do differently? What is it within you that has been urging you to act? In your business or career, what’s that inner feeling telling you to do something different? Listen to it. It might be time for a change.

If you’re feeling like you need to make a change in your business, life, or career but aren’t sure what your purpose is, check out my previous blogs. I’ve outlined how to discover your purpose. But the next case is making a decision. Making the decision on the choice point and taking action on those choice points. So what are you being asked to do? What are the next steps that are showing up for you? What is your unconscious mind trying to guide you towards, to take those next steps? And then you got to take action and take those next steps.

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