Bring your "Potato Salad"

Posted on May 29, 2011 by Ben Dooley, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

OK, how many times have you gone through your day feeling empty? Or maybe you’ve gone someplace hoping that experience will make you feel better, only to discover that the reward in only fleeting. It could be that you’re not connecting to your values.
I know you’re asking at this moment, “My values? What does that mean?”
Well, it’s pretty simple. Your Values—your CORE Values)—are those qualities and experiences that you must have in order to feel alive and connected, to feel possibilty and hope, to be able to create and move forward. If you’re feeling lit up and “awake” and “alive” then your values are being connected to. Likewise, if you’re feeling stuck, frustrated, empty, hopeless, shut down, lost, and dead inside, chances are that you’re Values are being ignored or stepped on.
The problem is that we continually look to our outside world to charge our Values. “When I get this job, then…” or “When I get that date, then…” or “When I win the lottery, then my life will be better.”
And sometimes those things happen, and the satisfaction is only fleeting. It doesn’t last. And we find ourselves hungry for more.
In other words, we’re looking outside to satisfy something inside. It just doesn’t work that way.
Here, let me illustrate with something as simple as potato salad.

Let’s say you’re going to a party, and you love potato salad (just go with me on this one, okay?). I mean, every time you have potato salad your tummy twirls with delight. In fact, you go to every party desperately hoping against hope that there will be potato salad for you to consume with passion.
The trouble is, sometimes there is potato salad… and sometimes there’s not. When there is potato salad, it’s a party. You have a great time and just love being there and you don’t want to leave. And those times when there’s no potato salad, you can’t wait to end the evening and just go home and wait for the next party to come—hoping that they will get it right.
Apparently, not everyone thinks to provide potato salad for their guests. (What heathens.)
“What are they thinking?” you might say. “Don’t they know how wonderful potato salad is? What’s wrong with them?” Then you might start to take it personally. Maybe they don’t want me to have potato salad. They heard I was coming and they hid it so that other people could enjoy it and not me. Maybe they’re holding out on me."
The mind starts to wander and dig deeper.
“Maybe they have their own plan as to what is needed at their parties and they don’t care if I’m there or not. Obviously if they wanted me there they would have provided potato salad.”
And if you really go deeper, we’ll start to judge ourselves and wonder who am I to tell them what they should and should have at their party?"
So here’s the dilemma. These is another party coming up, and you really want to go to that party, but you have no way of knowing if they’re planning on serving potato salad.
What are you going to do?
How are you going to guarantee that potato salad will be there at the party?
Well, it’s pretty simple. If you really want potato salad—I mean, really, really, really want it—then the only way to guarantee it will be at the party for you to enjoy is… (can you guess what the solution is? Go ahead, take a guess) …that’s right, to bring it yourself. Stop at the store on the way and purchase a tub of your own. Or make some of your own the night before.
This way, not only will you have your deeply coveted potato salad, but others will most likely be there who will enjoy your potato salad, and in fact, be so inclined to bring their own next time to share with you.
So going back to your values, the best way to insure that you’ll have those elements that you desire in your life is (come on, take a guess)… that’s right… to bring them out yourself.
Most often we fall into the trap of waiting for someone else to connect to our values, like somehow it’s their responsibility to bring connection and energy and abundance and whatever our values are in our lives. What we fail to realize is the simple fact that this is about our values, not anyone else’s. They’re having a challenging enough of a time trying to connect with their own values than to be responsible for providing you with yours.

If you want play in your life, then don’t wait for someone else to provide you with it, create it yourself. If you come alive when you experience success, then discover and celebrate every single success—big and small—that you possibly can. if you want love, then give love. if you want respect, then GIVE it. If you want someone to reach out and connect with you and tell you they’re proud of you, then GET OUT THERE AND GIVE IT TO SOMEONE ELSE NOW!!!
The key is to do so without expectations. That’s what’s so great about Values, it doesn’t matter if you’re giving or recieving, love is love. Values is Values. And when you’re living through your Values, you’re making powerful choices, you’re BEing a creator instead of being a victim, you’re showing up Confident, and authentic, and alive. And that (I can tell you) is incredibly attractive.
That means that when you show up to the “party” with a big bowl of your Value Potato salad, you can bet your sweet bippy that there will be someone else at that party looking for some potato salad, too.
And guess who is the bringer? YOU.
And that’s how you have a great “party” in your life ALL the time.

NOW, if you want to learn more about your values, how to strengthen them, and how to connect with them, then find a coach to help you. That’s what we do. We help you discover your “potato salad” (the recipe, if you will) and then get you able to bring it to any party, any where, any time.