Are You Living a Watered Down Life

0:00Everything you desire is waiting for you to claim it. There's no creating involved only invention through imagination and building through action. You are at the center of all your desires, dreams and achievements. Welcome to Designing Your Life today, the podcast that's all about your success, achieving your goals, building well through your business, and building your most passionate, powerful, magnificent life. Discover ways to use your purpose to connect to serving others and living your dreams. I am Pat Council and I know we are built by design to win. And it all begins with knowing how to tap into your success in you. Let's get on the path of discovery, the size of action, development, and unwavering dedication to your life's quality.

1:00It's time to embark on a transformative journey where your deepest passions become your most rewarding achievements. Embrace your power to shape your destiny because this is your moment to do like the path. Hello, Power of Nation on Pat Council. And I'm designing your life today. I want to ask you a question. Are you a watered down version of yourself? Well, you're probably thinking she's got some nerve asking me that. Well, I'm asking. And it's something that I think at some point in our lives, we all have to take a moment and think about that. This is the month of March. And as I said, you know, spring is right around the corner. And usually in this month, you hear a lot about spring cleaning. And that's in relation to or connection with your home. Well, we're doing spring cleaning across the board.

2:01And this is a good time because it is about to be the end of the first quarter. This is a good time for you to take a look at yourself and do some spring cleaning, mentally, emotionally, and physically. So when I ask you the question, are you a watered down version of yourself? We're going to talk about how not to be a watered down version of yourself and what you really want to look at. So when it comes to being a or determining if you are a watered down version of yourself, here's a question. And I think this one is an easy question for all of us to answer. I mean, are you constantly in fear? Are you afraid of being your most successful self? Are you afraid of following through on your purpose and stepping up to your calling and doing things that you're excited about just personally

3:02and living that kind of life that you've imagined or what you thought your life would be like? When I was a kid and sometimes I would get upset. And so I can remember getting upset and this was a long time ago. Maybe I was 10 or 11. And I was spending the summer with my aunts. And so I was upset about something I don't remember what it was. But I remember they were kind of teasing me a little bit. And I remember saying to them, well, that's fine. When I grow up, I am going to go and live where Mickey Mouse lives. And then I'll have a gate around my house and you won't be able to come in unless I say so. And I remember saying that. And as I said, I was upset. When you're a kid, you're saying things because on some level you feel like you need to defend yourself. And don't get me wrong. My aunts, they were very nice to me.

4:03However, you know, kids, we get, when you're a kid, we get upset for different things. And so with that being said, this was kind of a vision that I had in my mind. Back then, Disney was cleaner and it made more sense. And it was a lot more family oriented and that kind of thing. And so sometimes we'd watch the wonderful world of Disney on Sundays. And I would think, wow, this is a great place. You know, when the amusement park, they would show it once the amusement park came on the scene. And I would wish that I could visit this amusement park and just kind of be there. In my mind, I guess that was a safe space for me or a fun space. But where I'm going with this is when I became an adult. Now, I wasn't thinking about this. I ended up living in Florida, which is where I live. I lived less than, well, about two hours away from Disney World.

5:03And when I bought my house when I was in real estate, the house I was living in, it had a gate around it. I lived in a gated community and of course no one could come in without them calling me and asking for permission. So I guess in a sense that did come true or I decided to live life on my terms, my way as an adult. So what are some of the things that you thought about when you were a kid? And it kind of became a part of you. You carried it into adulthood and you saw this kind of a certain type of life for yourself. And what does that look like? And are you living it today? And if not, why? Now we can always change our minds and decide that we want something different. And we can go and get that something different. So what about you?

6:04This tells you if you're living a watered down version of yourself. A watered down version of yourself is all about you, the settling, whether you're paying attention to it or not. I've settled at different points in time in my life in certain areas. And then at some point I would decide this does not work for me. So this whole settling thing, it's not working. It's not about being selfish. Because when you become your highest and best, you live your highest and best life. You live your most magnificent life. You're excited about life. You are living a fulfilled life. And at that point, people around you can sense that and they want to be in your space. And of course you want to be in theirs. So you're not here to live a watered down version. You're not here to operate in fear or be like a coward. But you are here to accept the fact that as human beings, while we make all through certain challenges, you are here to be the victor.

7:04So you're here to have the victory. And that's where you're no longer living that watered down version of your life. You're not here to be crushed by life. We live in a time where every other commercial on television is about a medicine of some type. Because there's some illnesses. And I've talked about this more than once, where people actually kind of own their illnesses by calling it my whatever the illness may be. And they preface it by saying it's my, like it's mine. You know, they've accepted the fact that this is who I am. Now, that does not mean that these medicines aren't needed. But what I'm saying is, when you see something that is more prevalent, and it goes against, put it this way, it's more about here, you all need this medicine because you're all going to be sick or you all have some illnesses, or they're using the power of suggestion through these commercials. And you're thinking, hmm, I wonder if I have that.

8:04I'm going to ask my doctor about that. As opposed to you thinking more about doing what it takes to prevent certain things, then that's something very different. That means that you're kind of allowing life to dictate to you how you should behave, how you should feel, and what your life should be like. So again, are you a warded down version of yourself? That waters you down when you allow these kinds of things to come into your mind. You're not here to be crushed by life. You're here to conquer it. Okay. The Bible tells us we're more than conquerors. And so you are, and of course I'm only giving you a piece of that scripture, but you are. We are all more than conquerors, but you have to make the decision. So what does your most powerful life look like? Because you have to keep in mind that are part of that too. And I'm seeing this more often where it's like people are upset with people that are wealthy

9:08or upset with people that have money and upset with people who are not struggling financially. And they say bad things about them. They talk about them. And they always have to make it seem like somehow these people are crooked or dishonest. It nowhere does it dawn on them that these people actually worked and went through trial and error, learned some things and through trial and error. Once they learned it, they implemented without fear, but with faith. And as the Bible says, it is God who gives us the power to get wealth. And the same way he would give it to any person that you're thinking about who's super wealthy, he would give it to you. The same way he gives me the power to get wealth, he will give it to you also. But you have to act on it. You see when you're not acting on the greatest powers, the greatest opportunities that you have, you are accepting the fact that you know what? I'm going to be awarded down version of myself.

10:10So how do you turn this around? And how do you start to kind of rise up and be this person that you've always wanted to be and become excited about who you are? You have to understand the concept of doing life with power. And that's all about harnessing that power that you have and amplifying that power through your connection through God. And of course the Bible does talk about that, the branch and the vine. So the thing about that is you have to make that connection, spin that quiet time. You know, strengthen your spirit over time. Another thing I want to point out before I begin to talk a little bit more about how not to be awarded down version of yourself, is that when people make a mistake in this world, and thanks to YouTube and some of the other platforms, Facebook and some, and a few others,

11:13other people feel like they can take it and make a video about that person, and they can talk about the bad thing that that person did. Now granted, some things we need to be made aware of if it's going to affect all of us, especially when it's time to vote in these kind of things. But you also have to keep in mind that because people see you as awarded down version of yourself, they're giving you awarded down versions of what to place. So whether the person is guilty or not or made a mistake, at some point what happens is we have to be gracious enough and compassionate enough to forgive that person or to move that person out of the way so that they don't inflict harm on, let's say, a lot of people. Okay, on the masses, so we have to move that person out of the way, but people bring things up that people did, I don't know when they were so much younger and so much. Okay, I was going to say so much, don't worry, not nice, but they were not as smart.

12:15Okay, they didn't use the wisdom, wisdom is not an age thing. Okay, but they didn't use the wisdom that they had. Wisdom is a God thing. The Bible says any man who likes wisdom, let him ask it of God, it didn't say once, as you get older, you're going to get wiser, that's kind of traditional thinking. Okay, and an old wives tale, I've met some people who are much, much older than I am and I'm thinking, wow, that was so not smart. But yeah, I know, I just said judge the person, but okay, I'm judging what they said, not the individual. But the point that I'm making is that we have to learn to kind of let these kinds of things go. So, in order, and I brought that up because in order for you to not be awarded down version of yourself, you have to let go of all the mistakes of your past. And you have to not stress over what you think the future, your future is going to look like and what your future is going to bring you.

13:19There's power in the present moment. So right there, then and there, in the present moment, this is where you plant your seeds. This is where you see the life that you desire to have. This is where you see your most magnificent life. And this is where you begin to build in the present moment. The past will cause you to water down who you are, who God made you to be. And so you want to make sure you're not doing that. So how does the past do that? The minute you think about doing something more, something better, something greater, you start to remember your past. Well, oh man, I remember when I was, I don't know, 20, I did this and this. You know, I remember I did this dumb thing. I remember I said that dumb thing. This kind of thing or whatever. I remember I made this person angry or whatever. It doesn't, whatever that situation is. You have to let all of that go so that you can in fact become your most powerful self. One of the best ways for you to start doing life with power and harnessing that power is you have to use your will imagination and your desire.

14:29In a constructive way, you have to guide it in the direction that of that magnificent life that you see in your mind. You see, we use our imagination to imagine the worst. And this is why we have television and the news and see, I'm not blaming the news reporters for this. Okay, I don't blame CNN. I don't blame Fox. I just because as a person who's in control of my own imagination, I can just not watch it. I cannot allow this to go into my head. Someone else's opinion who wants me to think a certain way. Okay, and sometimes don't get me wrong. I'm not saying whether this is watching the news is good or bad. What I'm saying is if you want to have your most magnificent life, if you don't have it now because you're living this warded down version of yourself, you're putting your gifts and talents on the back burner because you're afraid or you don't think you're good enough or you don't think you can make money.

15:29And you're constantly talking yourself out of some of the greatest gifts that God has given you such that you can have the life that you desire. You have to start to take control of some things, your will, your imagination, and yes, your desire, you have to guide it. You have to replace destructive desires with constructive desires. So what's a destructive desire? A destructive desire would be worrying about not having enough or worrying about, oh no, the end of the world is coming. You know what, just because you worry about the end of the world coming, that doesn't mean it's not going to stop coming. It's going to come. So what do you do? You live your life to the fullest in the meantime. You put your imagination in the direction or you guide it in the direction that matches your magnificent life and what it looks like. You stop telling yourself that you're supposed to be poor. You stop telling yourself that there's nothing you can do. You stop telling yourself that you're weak.

16:31You stop telling yourself that, oh, I have to put my life in the hands of the government, another human being, and they can barely control their own lives. Now they may have money, but when they open their mouths and I'm talking across the board, the rudeness that happens and the disrespect that happens, why would you put your life in the hands of that? So if you're going to harness your power, each person has power, including the people in DC, but they're using theirs. Now whether it's constructed or destructed, destructive, they have enough courage to at least use it. So we have to do the exact same thing, have enough courage. If you don't want to live a watered down version of your life, you have to not be afraid to declare what you desire. Now that doesn't mean you declare it to strangers or you go and tell everybody, this is what I'm doing. And I know a person like that. And he would just tell even a cashier what he was doing. And he never got it done. And we're not going to talk about why that happened. I've talked about that on previous podcasts, but we're probably going to unpack that in detail in the future.

17:42I've got a whole bunch of stuff to share you guys this year. So when you're looking at your life and you're thinking about the life that you truly desire, if you don't have it, that means you're settling and you're living a watered down version of yourself. And you don't have to do that. Okay. You are in charge of you. I hear people say certain things. I'm not going to leave the church. I'm going to because my family will get upset with me. That's not their call. You're an adult. And this is a conversation between you and God. So you have to think about these kinds of things. You have to be a person who decides that you know what? There are things that I don't want to face, but you know what? I'm going to be responsible and face these things. So you don't evade responsibility because it's difficult. And I've known people like that. You don't leave just because it's harder. You don't have a conversation or want to have a conversation. You have to grow up and be well, a grown up. And I've met people like that.

18:48People who use excuses. Well, this is why I cheat on my wife or my husband because they're this, this and this. Okay. Well, here's the thing about that. You need to have a conversation with that person with your wife or your husband. You have to be an adult. You have to be responsible. So when it comes to, which by the way, not living awarded down life, I can say it was going to always be easy, but it is going to be worth it. So you also have to be or tell yourself I'm not going to be satisfied with less than the best. And you have to actually be courageous enough to do what it takes to not have less than the best. You have to recognize that that the problems that pop up that you're not going to just say, okay, these are problems. So what is the path of least resistance that I can take that will allow me to just kind of get beyond this.

19:54In other words, if you have a couple of bills and you say, you know what, why don't I take a job. And there are people who are still doing this. Okay, not a few. And they take a job and absolutely hate the job. And they go, well, at least my bills are paid. When you find yourself saying that, that's awarded down version of who you're designed to be. And it's important that you think about what that means, not just as it relates to your life, but as it relates to perhaps the lives of the people who you're supposed to impact. And that might include your family members, children, nephews, nieces, cousins, all of that. You see, it's funny when you can look back. And when I know I said, you don't bring the past with you, but I'm not saying you, when I say you look back, I'm saying you do an assessment, temporarily, and then you state you come to the present moment. You do it so you can make the best decision. Okay. In other words, you're examining your life. You're not beating yourself up about the past.

20:57But when you take that assessment and when you examine your life, you go, wow, you know what, this is the impact I desire to make. So right then in there in the present moment, you decide what actions you must take. And if you don't know what actions to take, then you need to connect with someone who could perhaps give you some insights. This is how you begin to plant the seeds that will bring you the life that you desire. When you're living that water down version of your life, it's kind of like a plant that you over water. Eventually, it just becomes so soggy, the roots rot, and that plant dies. And it's just there. Okay. And no one should ever live like that. The other thing is that in order for you not to live that water down life is stop dulling your light. You know, you know, you're dulling your light, two things. Number one, when you're constantly wishing in your, whether you share it out loud or whether you think it, man, I wish I had done that, you know, I could be really good at that.

22:05Okay, that's the one way. The other way you know that you're dimming your light is when you're looking at someone else who's letting their light shine and you're jealous and you're and you're whining or you're talking about them behind their backs and that kind of thing. You see gossip, when people gossip about other people, what they don't realize is that is a form of jealousy, but it's also a form of inadequacy. In other words, you feel as though somehow this person is better than you, even if the person did something that was really like wrong, but it was bold. In your mind, you're thinking I could never do that and they're so wrong and or you're thinking, you know what, I'm not on a higher level. So here's something wrong that someone else did. So let me point the finger at them and say something bad about them because I think I'm better than them. That's going to make me feel better, even though you're not the minute you start doing that. So the point that I'm making is don't run away from you embrace you because you are built by design to win. You're fearfully and wonderfully made.

23:14You are magnificent, but you have to embrace it. And the minute you start to do that with magnificence comes a bright, bright light that shines into your life. And when that light shines into your life, you're able to let your light shine and it goes into the life of others and you will be an inspiration and you're no longer living that watered down version of your life. Sometimes when people are like disrespecting you and saying things that perhaps they shouldn't say to you, and you're like, wow, I can't believe they just said that's because you're living a watered down version of your life. Now that doesn't mean you always have to mouth off and tell somebody off and kind of, you know, that kind of thing. Sometimes you just walk away. Okay, and even then if somebody says something to disrespect you, if you're not a watered down person, then you're going to say, I don't think you meant to say that or excuse me. I didn't hear you this kind of thing, but you're saying it in a nice way and they get the message that that's unacceptable. So I hope this kind of gives you some insight and so think about what you want your life to look like and spend that quiet time.

24:23Yes, I'm saying quiet time again and decide that you know what I'm going to go into confidence mode and run away from coward's mode if that's you. And so you know what coward's they run away. Okay, they run away from everything. And what they don't understand is each time they do that, they lose momentum in their lives. And so, but when you're confident, you become smart enough to work through it and to work it out instead of saying, you know what, this thing, it's too hard. Now, there's always a caveat you guys, like if somebody is just sucking the life out of you and draining you, I'm not going to tell you to stay in that situation. And when I say draining you, whatever, they're either emotionally abusive or they are physically abusive or they're unwilling to do their part.

25:23And as a result, you are exhausted because you're having to do their thinking and you're thinking and we're talking about two adults. So you have to, there's always some caveats, but that's your decision to make. I'm talking about running away because in your mind, you're thinking it's too hard. And one last thing on that, another part of that whole kind of coward being a coward versus being confident is where you don't run away, but behind the person's back, you do things that you shouldn't do. Like for example, and I mentioned a husband or wife cheating on the other one, like that kind of thing, you do those kinds of things. And when you're doing that kind of thing, yeah, that's still coward mode. But the object of the game is for you to switch to confidence mode. You see, just because if you are living a warded down version of yourself, there's no judgment there.

26:24It's just about you becoming more aware. So in the interest of the whole concept of spring cleaning, this would include perhaps emotional spring cleaning, mental spring cleaning, and physical spring cleaning. And of course, you want to spend that quiet time with yourself because you also want to have spiritual strengthening. You want to be able to hear your spirit. You can figure out which way, who to talk to, what groups to connect to, if you need to keep the same friends you have, or warded down to a few friends, you know, have friends from a distance, as I always say. But it is important for you to do that assessment on your own. And part of the mental cleaning involves first assessing where you are and being honest with how you're living your life. And so again, it's not for me to say, and it's not for me to judge your life, but it is for me to put the information out in the hopes that some awareness will kick in where you will look in the mirror and go, you know what?

27:35And why am I acting like a person who is less than or substandard or inferior? Why am I doing that? Okay, this stops today. So what do I need to do in order to continue to stay on the confidence, superior, powerful track? What do I have to do? So that's what the spring cleaning part is all about. So with spring cleaning, we look at things that we want to discard. We look at things that we want to clean up. We look at things that we want to rearrange and make them look nicer. And that's what you want to do when it comes to actually you. So take a look and just jot it down. And this isn't about you making you making yourself feel bad. This is not about you beating yourself up. This is not about you judging yourself. It's about it is about, as I said, awareness and it is about you being honest with yourself. And you guys know I usually give you some kind of biblical scripture or something that supports what I'm saying.

28:43And so when I talk about the fact that you should examine yourselves, you're going to find that in a couple of places in the book of Corinthians. And it's in second Corinthians. And I think it's 13.5. I'm pretty sure. Yes, it's 13.5. Also Galatians and Galatians chapter 6. It encourages each person to test their own actions. So it tells us that it tells us to take a look at ourselves. So self-examination is extremely important. And in order for you, it's, and if we look at it in terms of let's say spring cleaning, let's say hypothetically if you were cleaning your house or you're getting ready to do some spring cleaning, you don't just start jump up and start cleaning. You look around to see, okay, you have a plan. You get a vision in your mind as to how you want things to look. You start to go through everything. You go, okay, this part needs dusting because I have dust this in three months or six months or a year or whatever.

29:45You start looking, oh, outside the yard, I need to put new solder or some plants and flowers or something. So you start to come up with a plan, but you first assess, do the same thing for yourself. This will keep you from being awarded down version. One thing about being awarded down version of yourself, and I kind of mentioned this a few months ago, but when you're awarded down version of yourself, people can manipulate you. I'm just saying a little differently now, but people can manipulate you and they can send you in a direction that you're not meant to go in. Listen, you're here to do life with power. You are built by design to win, but just because you're built that way, that doesn't mean that you're going to behave in that manner. That doesn't mean you're going to use yourself or present yourself in a way or use yourself in a way such that you are that winner.

30:46Okay, and such that you are winning because you have choice, you have free will, you can choose not to. So as I start to wrap up, I want to encourage you to become, you know, have a better relationship with you. I can tell you it is so worth it. When I learned to have a better relationship with myself, I learned to be more content with myself, I learned to be more content with my life, and the things that I didn't like, I took steps to start changing those things. And it doesn't mean that it doesn't get out of order every now and then. Okay, but I notice it and I start to work on it. So that's the beauty of life you guys, and that is how you don't live this watered down version of yourself. Okay, this is not about you trying to be operating around my perfection. Okay, because actually people who think they're perfect, they are far from perfect, they're less than perfect and slightly annoying.

31:46So the thing is look at your life. This is going to help you become so much stronger, so much more content, so much happier. It's going to help you create a better plan for your life because you will be fully aware of not just that you're built by design to win, not that you're here to do life with power, but you're going to be fully aware of what you're calling it. And you're just going to be happier. Okay, so with that being said, I'm going to wrap up on this, but we're going to talk more about kind of that spring cleaning in terms of mental, physical, and emotional, our emotional selves. So with that being said, I want you guys to have a magnificent day and do life with power knowing that you are built by design to win. Spend some quiet time, get your notepad, start being a little bit honest about what you want to, you know, the things that you want to improve on or things that you want to allow to evolve and when it comes to you.

32:50All right, so I want you guys again, have a magnificent day.