Healthy Living DIY

For several weekends over the past month and a half, I spent time at the Pride of Dakota holiday showcases. For those of you who aren't familiar with them, the North Dakota Department of Agriculture sponsors these holiday shopping fairs to showcase North Dakota products suitable for gift-giving.

In keeping with the theme, I had selected several products to show, all on the theme of Healthy Living Tools to enhance personal power and resourcefulness:

1. Word Cures (the book)
2. Stress In The Background: How to Thrive in a High-Stress World (audio book)
3. Encouraging Words Affirmation Greeting Cards (art by Judith Greenwood)
4. Saboteur's Guide to a Productive Life: 7 Simple Steps to Freedom (healthy living manual)
5. Intuition-Enhancing Bath Salts set (each with 3 essential oils directly designed to support the user in changing his or her state -- Inspiration, Courage, and Reward -- taken from the Ultimate Stress-Buster Kit)
6. Mini Stress-Buster gift set (Word Cures, Encouraging Words, Intuition-Enhancing bath salts)
7. And a Stocking-Stuffer "Pure Relaxation" bath salts single (smells great with just lavender & sandalwood ... mmmmm)

Here's my point.

How many people do you suppose spent most of their time at my booth telling me why they couldn't / wouldn't use bath salts? If I had counted, I'd be willing to wager that I had more conversations about people's skin conditions and their aversion to sitting in the tub (too busy to relax, you know) than about all the other factors associated with my products combined.

As I've described, the bath salts were an add-on product. Not the mainstay of what I have to offer, that's for sure.

Does it seem to you that we're "defaulted" to look for what won't work?

And in the face of identifying what might not work, does it seem that we're defaulted to throw out everything associated with it -- even if what we're discarding could be exactly what we're looking for?

This isn't just about me, by the way. The guy on one side, who operates a vineyard, heard all about why people don't drink. Another guy, with scented candles, listened to a litany of people's aversion to "smelly" products. Still another neighbor heard about how they might not like the feel of a natural spray-on muscle relief product (I suspect it worked well, and the creators had designed it to feel light, not greasy -- but the skeptics would never find out).

Of course, other shoppers came through who loved all those same qualities. Ultimately, nothing appeals to everyone. I get that part.

But let's get back to the point and use this observation to empower our lives. What if we all were to police our thoughts for a single day? Instead of searching for "why it's not possible" or "why it can't work," we'd try on something entirely new:

"How could my life be closer to the life I desire by bringing this rich possibility into existence?"

What about that for a new "default" option? To explore rich, new possibilities you may have not considered before. And to cause them to work in your life.

Still more on creating change in the next article. Stay tuned.