Personal Philosophy
I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they plan their lives. The reason why most people face the future with apprehension instead of anticipation is because they don’t have it well designed. They are disturbed by those tough days because all they have is the days. They haven’t designed or described or defined the future.
If we are not aware of what causing our success or failure, we end up at the mercy of chance. Life is not a matter of luck or fortune. We are not playing our lives out at a gaming table. If we live our lives up to chance, chances are, we’ll fail.
The guy says, “When you work where I work, by the time you get home, it’s late. You’ve got to have a bite to eat, watch little TV, relax, and get to bed. You can’t sit up half the night planning, planning, planning.” And he’s the same guy who is behind on his car payment!
This is the great secret of mastering our own destiny: If it’s to be, it’s up to me. Walk away from the 97% crowd. Don’t use their excuses. We take charge of our own lives. Our attitude, not our aptitude is the chief determinant of our success. We are either masters or victims of our attitudes. It’s a matter of personal choices . . . blessing or curse.
Success is 20% skills and 80% strategy. Strategy is destiny. That’s why the deliberate development of our own lives is so important. There is no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of human being to elevate his or her life by conscious endeavor.
We all have two choices: We can make a living or we can design a life. Like the architect, we must learn to see in our minds the results we want to achieve, and then go to work on building a solid foundation to support this vision. Once the vision is clearly defined and the foundation has been firmly established, then the choices required to complete the structure are easily and wisely made.
Think about what you really want to achieve and how you want things to look in a couple of years. Once you have a clear vision in front of your inner eye – start executing things so that event will move in that direction.
Success comes to those who know that life is first born in thought, who seek the vision before the deed, and conform the deed to the vision. We are what and where we are because we first imagine it. If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet a success unexpected in common hours.
The primary reason for great success is clear, specific, measurable goals and plans, written down and accompanied by a burning desire to accomplish them. Successful people have clearly defined goals and action plans. They have a specific sense of direction, and that direction is based upon their earnest, sincere desires. They know what they are doing. They love what they are doing, and believe in what they are doing. The greatest thing that we can do in this world is to make the most possible out of the talent or ability that has been given to us.
The primary reason for underachievement and failure is fuzziness and confusion about goals. A person without goals is like a ship without a rudder, carried whichever way the tides and wind are blowing. They are the “wandering generalities.” A person with clear, specific goal is like a ship with a rudder, sailing straight and true to its destination. Goal may not be the only reason for success, but no success is possible without goal.
If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us. We all need powerful long-range goals to help us past the short-term obstacles.
The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get. The ultimate reason for setting goals is to entice you to become the person it takes to achieve them. Success is not to be pursuit; it is to be attracted by the person you become. Success is not so much what we have as it is what we are.
The major value in life is not what you get. The major value in life is what you become. That is why I wish to pay fair price for every value. If I have to pay for it or earn it, that makes something of me. If I get it for free, that makes nothing of me.
If you want to create a cripple, just give a man a pair of crutches for a few months – or give him a “free lunch” long enough for him to get in the habit of getting something for nothing. More recently many of the huge winners of the state lotteries of as much as one million dollar have had an overwhelmingly negative results. Lives have been disrupted, families upended, careers wrecked, old friends lost, attitudes and images have been severely damaged. Free lunches do not put you on easy street. More often you lose more than you win. People are seldom really happy without making any contribution in life.
What do you think is the greatest value in becoming a millionaire? It is a million dollar? I don’t think so. No, the greatest value is the skills, knowledge, discipline, and leadership qualities you have developed in reaching that elevated status. It’s experience you have acquired in planning and developing to have enough courage, commitment, and willpower to attract a million dollar.
We achieve rewards and we make progress not by our intense pursuits, but by what we become, for it is what we are that finally determines the results we attract. To have more we must become more. To really achieve your dreams, to really have your future plans pull you:
First, your dreams must be vivid. See your future in your mind’s eyes. See yourself as already there. For each goal describe in detailed how it looks like and how you feel. Imagination is a much stronger force than will-power; when the two are in conflict, the imagination always wins. Let’s say you are an inveterate smoker of good cigars and decide to break yourself of the habit. You greet your teeth, shove out your chin, and solemnly declare that you are going to use your will-power to break yourself of the habit. Then suddenly comes the idea of the taste of a good cigar, its aroma and its soothing effects – the imagination goes to work and the resolution to break the habit goes out the window. Whatever we steadily focus our imagination upon that is what we attract. Imagination leads to goal achievement. What we vividly imagine, ardently desire, enthusiastically act upon, must inevitably come to pass.
Second, the reason why you want to achieve them. Motivation requires motives. If you have enough reasons to accomplish your goals, if you have enough motivation you could do incredible things. When you know what you want and you want it badly enough, you will find a way to get it. The answers, methods, and solutions you need to solve the obstacles along the way will be revealed to you.
A major factor in determining how our lives turn out is the way we choose to think. Everything that goes on inside the human mind in the form of thoughts, ideas, and information forms our personal philosophy. Your own personal philosophy or core value is the sum total of all that you know and what you decide is valuable. Our personal philosophy or core value then influences our habits and behavior, and this is really where it all begins.
We have all made and will continue to make decisions based upon what we think is valuable. Whether the decisions we are making will lead us toward inevitable success or unavoidable failure depends on the information we have gathered over the years to form our personal philosophy or core values. What guides us to different destinations in life is determined by the way we have chosen to set our sail. The way each of us thinks makes the major difference in where each of us arrives. The major difference is not circumstance, the major difference is the set of the sail. Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Our life is the creation of our mind.
The fact is everything we are encountering in life can become meaningful and purposeful. For example, two people might face a similar circumstance – say the loss of the job – yet each person might deal with the situation in a very different manner. One might spend a great deal of time and energy becoming bitter and angry over what happened; the other might see it as a wonderful opportunity to start all over and do something which has always been a desire. Although the situation is the same, each person’s response is quiet different. The way a person responds to a situation determines the next cycle, the next crossroads called into action.
One may lose money. “Well, it’s gone, and worrying about it won’t bring it back but hard work will.” He went to work harder than ever, and soon became wealthy again. Your viewpoint, your personal philosophy – how you see and deal with a situation – is paramount in whether you achieve success or failure. It shapes your actions, which therefore, produces your outcomes. The fact that the same circumstances can be harmful or helpful to different people proves good and bad exist not in the circumstances but in the mind of the person involved.
It is not what happens that determines the quality of our lives, it is what we choose to do when we have struggled to set the sail and then discover, after all of our efforts, that the wind has changed direction. When the wind changes, we must change. We must struggle to our feet once more and reset the sail in the manner that will steer us toward the destination of our own deliberate choosing. The set of the sail, how we think and how we respond, has a far greater capacity to destroy our lives than any challenges we face. How we decide to deal with adversity is far more important than the adversity itself. Once we discipline ourselves to understand this, we will finally conclude that the great challenge of life is to control the process of our own thinking. We are the master of our fate, the captain of our souls, because we have the power to control our thoughts.
We have the ability to train our thoughts in any direction we want. It is like a horse that turns off its path and begins to go on another. The rider can seize the horse by its reins and redirect it into the proper path. It is exactly the same with thoughts; as soon as a person sees his thoughts deviating from the proper path, he must seize and redirect them.
As matter of fact we live in negative society and deal with constantly negative individuals. Most of the news from TV or radio are bad news. For self-preservation I suggest you not to listen to bad news very often. If a lot of garbage is dumped into your minds, you will have the problem of stinkin’ thinkin’.
What do you do to those people who dump negative garbage into your mind?
How do you respond to the people who say unkind things about you?
If someone comes into your home with a pail of garbage and dump it on your living room floor, what would you do? The person who dumps garbage into your mind will do you considerably more harm than the one who dumps garbage on your living room floor. Keep the weeds of negative influence from your life. Instead, farm the seeds of constructive influence. You will not believe the harvest of good fortune you will reap.
Whatever you put into your mind becomes a part of the total you. For example, had you been born in Russia and listened to their ideology all of your life, you would in fact be Russian because you are the sum of what goes into your mind. Every action you take and every thought you put into your mind is going to have its effect.
The mind works like a fertile soil in garden. Everyone knows if you plant beans you will raise beans. Obviously you don’t plant a bean to raise a bean – you plant a bean to raise a lot of beans. That’s the way the mind works. It does not care what you plant – it always nourish. Whatever you plant in your mind it’s going to come up and multiplied. We needed to cleanse our minds of negative thoughts. Feed your mind constantly with inspirational books or tapes on a regular basis. You will grow with the right mental attitude. Over a period of time we can so condition our mind with these positive inspirational ideas that we will instinctively and automatically react positively to the negative situations we encounter in our lives. The rule is when we are driving listen to inspirational tapes. When we are seating read good books. This literally saturates our mind with the optimistic outlook on life. It also gives us an excellent overall education and a set of values and attitudes that will be tremendously helpful in our lives. The investment in books and audiocassettes will brings greater earnings plus an infinitely richer and more rewarding life. We will enjoy the richer life on a permanent basis.
Learning to reset the sail with the changing winds rather than permitting ourselves to be blown in a direction we did not purposely choose requires the development of the whole new discipline. It involves the work on establishing a powerful, personal philosophy that will help to influence in a positive way all that we do and all that we think and decide.
The greatest influence on what we decide to do with tomorrow’s opportunity is not going to be circumstance, but rather what and how we think. What we think and the conclusions we reach regarding life’s challenges is going to be the sum total of what we have learned until now. The problem is that much of the information we have gathered has resulted in erroneous conclusions about life that can actually block the achievement of our goals. The only way to eliminate these mental barriers is to review, revise, and refine our personal philosophy.
All of our counter-productive beliefs and choices are the results of years of accumulating misinformation. We have simply been around the wrong sources and gathered up the wrong information. The decisions we are making are not wrong based on the information we have; it is the information we have that is causing us to make wrong decisions. Unfortunately, these wrong decisions are leading us further away from rather than closer toward the achievement of our goals.
The only way to change our thinking habits is to input new information. Unless we change what we know but wrong, we will continue to believe, decide and act in manner that is contrary to our best interests. Getting the information that success and happiness require – and getting it accurately – is essential. Otherwise we will inevitably drift into ignorance. Inward achievement includes brushing aside all our old internal enemies or wrong beliefs as we advance.
The key factor that will determine our financial future is not the economy; the key factor is our personal philosophy. Develop your own philosophy and it will lead you to unique places. Your personal philosophy is the greatest determining factor in how your life works out. It’s the thoughts that guide your life. You are where you are and what you are because of the thoughts that dominate your mind. We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make our world. If you learn to set a good sail, the wind that blows will always take you to the dreams you want. Our philosophy determines whether we will go for the disciplines or continue the error.
Economic disaster begins with a philosophy of doing less and wanting more. If we want to amend our error, we must begin by amending our philosophy. Only human being can reorder their lives any day they choose by refining their philosophy.
One of the best ways to expand the dimensions of our knowledge is by conducting a serious review of our past experiences. Past failures and errors must prompt us to amend current conduct, or the present and the future will be little more than a duplicate of the past. The key is to make the past events our servants, lest the repetition of those events makes us their slave. Those who do not learn from mistakes of the past are condemned to repeat them. We must reflect on our past, reliving the moments, pondering the lessons, and refining our current conduct based on the lessons of our personal history.
We should take time to gather up the past so that we will be able to draw from our experiences and invest them in the future. We should not let learning from our own experiences take too long. It’s easy to carry the past as a burden instead of a school. It’s easy to let it overwhelm us instead of educate us. An objective appraisal from someone whose opinion we respect will enable us to see things that we do not see. We are wise indeed, if we discipline ourselves to take counsel and suggestion from someone who cares, lest life and circumstances force us to take it from one who does not care. It's not only the most difficult thing to know one's self, but the most inconvenient. We should be students of failure. It is part of the world experience – part of the life experience. Why do we want to study failure? So that we can learn what not to do.
Life is not just the passing of time. Life is the collection of experiences and their intensity. Be like a sponge when it comes to each new experience. Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well. Learn how to turn frustration into fascination. We will learn more being fascinated by life than we will by being frustrated by it. What is life worth without trials and tribulation which are the salt of life? Trials and tribulation have cleansing and purifying character. Develop a childlike fascination with life and people, and live as though your life is your soul mate. Affirm,
“I am exceedingly joyful in all my tribulation. No matter what happens, the Living Spirit Almighty within my subconscious mind has something wonderful in store for me. I rejoice and give thanks, for the wonders and blessings of God are operating in my life now.”
Other people and their personal experiences offer untold opportunities for learning. All experiences can serve as our teachers provided we learn from the information and invest its value in our own lives. If we ignore the lessons from the past, from whatever source, then we may become victims of the process of trial and error.
Great projects are always built from a blueprint. In this lifetime there is no greater project than the deliberate development of our own lives. Therefore we need a blueprint – something or someone to look at and pattern ourselves after – if we want to make change and progress. It is much better to deliberately choose the people we will permit to influence us than to allow the power of the wrong influence to weave its effects on us without our knowledge or conscious choice.
Regardless of our age or circumstances, we are never beyond the reach of influence. The key is to find unique human beings whose personalities and achievements stimulate, fascinate and inspire us, and then strive to assimilate their best qualities.
One of the major reasons why people are not doing well is because they keep trying to get through the day. A more worthy challenge is to try to get from the day. Be alert. Be awake. Observe. Let life and all of its subtle messages touch us. Only when we found a source of valuable information should we allow the message to touch us so that it might add value to who and what we already are.
Most homes valued at over $500,000 have a library. That should tell us something. Some people claim that it is okay to read trashy novels or watching TV because sometimes you can find something valuable in them. You can also find a crust of bread in a garbage can, if you search long enough, but there is a better way. You may be entertained by it, but you will never grow from it. Those who wish for the better life cannot permit themselves to miss the books that could have a major impact on how their lives turn out. Only by actively pursuing new knowledge can we sufficiently refine our personal philosophy.
Learning is the beginning of wealth. Learning is the beginning of health. Learning is the beginning of spirituality. If we wish to find a good idea, we must search. Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea. Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins.
The events that take place in our lives – experiences that we live and learn from – should not just happen; they should be captured so that their lessons can be invested in the future, in this way we advance in experiences. Be a collector of good ideas. The best collecting place for all of the ideas and information that come your way is your journal. Don’t use our mind for a filing cabinet. Use our mind to work out problems and find answers; file away good ideas in your journal.
The very act of writing our lives helps us to think more objectively about our actions. Through writing we can ponder and analyze the experience more clearly. It is the small discipline that leads to great accomplishments. When average people give care and attention to important matters, their own growth into greatness merely awaits the passage of time.
Journals are the tools that enable us to document the details of the failure as well as the progress of our existence, and in the process, allows us to become more than we otherwise might have been. Learn from the negative as well as the positive, from the failures as well as the successes. Failure is an integral, anticipated part of the success process. We should look upon every obstacles as down payment towards our success. We will use them to strengthen us and not weaken us. The alchemist is one who learns the secret of turning every situations into gold, who learn how to make every situation serve him. The measure of mental health is therefore the disposition to find good everywhere.
Both small disciplines and mirror mistakes in judgment tend to accumulate, the former to our benefit and the latter to our detriment. Neither success nor failure occurs in a single cataclysmic event. Both are the results of the accumulation of seemingly small and insignificant decisions whose collective weight over the period of a lifetime presents the individual with his or her proportionate reward.
Life is a process of accumulation. We either accumulate the debt or the value, the regret or the equity. That’s why we must make a commitment to develop our full human potential, one discipline at a time, one book at a time, and one small entry in our journal at a time.
If we are inclined to spend major time on minor things, or even major money on minor things, then it is essential for us to take a closer look at our decision making process. The world is filled with those whose decisions are destined to destroy their chances for success. Those who do not operate from a sound philosophy often do that which they should have left undone and leave undone that which they should have done. They sense that they should be doing something, but lack the discipline to convert this awareness into action. They fail to set goals and establish priorities. Just as the sum total of our past decisions has led us to our current circumstances, the decisions we make today will lead us to the rewards or the regrets of the future.
In those moments of choice or decision, it is the knowledge we have acquired and the philosophy we have developed from this knowledge that will either serve us or destroy us. Only through careful mental preparation can we consistently make wise choices. What we think determines what we believe; what we believe influences what we choose; what we choose defines what we are; and what we are attracts what we have. As we add new knowledge, we will begin to refine our philosophy. As our beliefs change for better, so too will our choices. And from better choices come better results. The development of sound philosophy prepares us for making sound decisions. What ultimately determines what we become and where we go in life are our decisions. These decisions shape our destiny.
Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. We do not fail overnight. Failure is the inevitable result of an accumulation of poor thinking and poor choices. Failure is nothing more than a few errors in judgment repeated everyday.
Now why would someone make an error in judgment and then be so foolish as to repeat it every day? Because they do not think that it matters. Failure’s most dangerous attribute is its subtlety. In the short term those little errors don’t seem to make any difference. We do not seem to be failing. Since nothing terrible happens to us, since there are no instant consequences to capture our attention, we simply drift from one day to the next, repeating the errors. The sky did not fall in on us yesterday, therefore the act was probably harmless. And herein lies the great danger.
Everything we need to become rich and powerful and sophisticated is within our reach. The major reason that so few take advantage of all that we have is simply, neglect. Why do we not do it? Because the things that are easy to do are also easy not to do. That is how subtle failure is. Failure is largely a function of neglect. We fail to do small things that we should do. Neglect is like an infection. Left unchecked it will spread throughout our entire system of disciplines and eventually lead to a complete breakdown of a potentially joy-filled and prosperous human life.
Failure is rarely the result of some isolated event such as a company going bankrupt or a house being repossessed. Rather, it is a consequence of a long list of accumulated little failures, which happened as results of too little discipline. Failure to do the things that we could and should do results in the creation of a negative spiral, which once started, is difficult to stop.
Failure occurs each time we fail to think . . . . today.
If your goal requires that today you write ten letters and you write only three, you are behind by seven correspondence . . . today.
If you commit yourself to making five phone calls and you make only one, you are behind by four phone calls . . . today.
If your financial plan requires that you save five dollars and you save none, you are behind five dollars . . . today.
The danger comes when we look at a day squandered and conclude that no harm has been done. After all, it was just one day. But add up these days to make a year and then add up these years to make a lifetime and perhaps you can now see how repeating today’s small failures can easily turn your life into a major disaster.
Success follows exactly the same pattern . . . in reverse.
If you plan to make five calls and you go beyond your quota to ten, you’re ahead by five calls . . . today.
If your plan requires that today you write ten letters and you write beyond your quota to fifteen, you’re ahead by five correspondence . . . today.
If your financial plan requires that you save five dollars and you save ten, you are ahead five dollars . . . today.
And soon you will see the accumulated fruits of your diligence over a year and, eventually, over a lifetime. Like the formula for failure, the formula for success is easy to follow: A few simple disciplines practiced every day. It is not what we do once in a while that counts, but our habitual actions. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit.
Why are we so frequently inclined to do the things that are least important but so reluctant to do the essential things that success and happiness demand? If we did develop a new discipline to take just a few minutes every day to look a little further down the road, we would then be able to foresee the impeding consequences of our current conduct.
To change a life we must first change our thinking habits. We must begin with those few basics that affect the way we think. We can greatly change the course of our lives by spending more time and making a greater conscious effort to refine our personal philosophy.
One of the best places to start to turn your life around is by doing whatever appears on your mental “I should” list.
Whatever new discipline we begin to practice daily will produce exciting results that will drive us to become even better at developing new discipline. If we are to start today to read the books, keep a journal, attend the classes, listen more and observe more, then today would be the first day of a new life leading to a better future. These are some of the fundamental activities that lead not only to the development of a new philosophy, but also to a new life filled with joy and accomplishment. Each new and positive activity weakens the grip of failure and steers us ever closer to the destination of our choice.
We must keep a watchful eye on the subtle differences between success and failure. We must not allow ourselves to think that the errors do not matter. They do. We must not allow ourselves to assume that a lack of discipline in one small area of our lives will not make a difference. It will. And we must not allow ourselves to believe that we can have all that we want to have and become all that we want to be without making any changes in the way we think about life. We must.
All discipline affects each other. Every new discipline affects not only the discipline that we have already begun to practice, but also the discipline we will soon adopt. Everything affects everything else. Some things affect us more than others, but everything we do has an effect on everything else we do. The key is to keep looking for every small discipline we can find that will cause us to refine our thinking, amend our errors and improve our results.
Our lives are greatly affected by what we know since what we know determines the decisions we will make. Just as we are affected by what we know, we are also affected by how we feel. Every action we take is first filtered through our feelings. How we feel about something will always determine or affect what we do and how well we do it. If we feel good or positive about something, we will behave more positively about it. Our feelings will directly influence our actions. How you feel about your job, your mate, your family, you finance, your health, yourself, and other people around you, will determine how you behave in each of these areas. If your feelings are positive and productive, your actions will work for you instead of against you. Your feelings are created, controlled, determined, or influenced by your attitude.
Whatever attitude we have about anything will affect how we feel about it, which in turn determines how we’ll act about it and that in turn determines whether or not we will do well. Attitude is the little thing that makes a big difference. In life the difference between success and failure is often only an inch or two. The story of life proves that it is often the little things that spell the differences between triumph and tragedy, success and failure, victory and defeat.
Over 20 years ago Dave Anderson and Jim Murphy had started to work for the railroad on the same day. One of Dave’s new associates half jokingly and half seriously asked him why he was still working out in the hot sun and Jim Murphy had gotten to be the president of the railroad. Rather wistfully Dave explained, “twenty-three years ago I went to work for $1.75 an hour and Jim Murphy went to work for the railroad.” This is the little thing that makes a big difference. If you work only for salary, you will get one, but it will probably be small. If you work for the betterment of the company you represent, not only will you get a bigger salary, but also you will get personal satisfaction as well as respect from your colleagues. Your contribution to your company will be infinitely greater which means that your personal and professional rewards will also be greater.
What we know determines our philosophy. How we feel determines our attitude. In order to possess the kinds of feelings which work for us, we’ve got to have the right attitudes to start with. Our attitudes are created, controlled, or influenced entirely by our beliefs. We have all made and will continue to make decisions based upon what we believe is valuable. What we believe about anything will determine our attitudes about it, create our feelings, direct our actions, and in each instance, help us to do well or poorly, succeed or fail. The thoughts and feelings we allow ourselves to have today are crucial, for they are contributing to our future. What our future holds will simply be a mirror image of our current philosophy and attitude about life.
In designing a better future we begin with an idea about how the future will be. Over a period of time we refine and perfect the vision. There is a very special emotional magic that takes place when we design the future and set new goals with a specific purpose in mind. As we see the future clearly in our mind’s eye, we experience a level of excitement in anticipation of the day when all that we dream will become a reality. The more clearly we see the vision of the future, the more we are able take advantage from its inspiration. This inspiration find its way into our conversation, our energy level, our relationships and our attitude. Before long, our every thought, decision and activity are all working in harmony to bring into existence what we have mentally concluded about the future.
The more excited we become by our future dreams, the easier it is to develop the necessary disciplines and make the refinements to our philosophy. Our dreams inspire us to think and act and feel and become exactly the kind of person we must be to realize our dreams. We become pulled by the future and guided by the past because we have learnt from the past and have chosen to take intelligent action in the present.
Once you reflected on your ideal life, your purpose will become clear. You are pulled by a clear and compelling picture of the kind of life you’d like to have. With this clear and compelling picture about the kind of person you are in the process of becoming and the kind of life you are in the process of creating your life feels more like a journey. You will know exactly what your priorities are and do more of what you need to do to create the life you want. Your relationships will deeper and you’re taking better care of yourself.
Success is not something to be possessed. Success must be constantly renewed. We must understand that success is a process, a journey, not a destination, let alone a summit. It is the ongoing process of becoming all we can and should be, and there is no limit. The secret of success is therefore constancy of purpose. Success is an active process of accomplishments along the way. Joy lies in the effort, satisfaction in the attainment. Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling. Joy of achievement occurs in direct proportion to the effort expended, and the greatest fulfillment comes from the realization that we have accomplished something.
We need a variety of input and influence and ideas. We cannot get all the answers to life and business from one person or from one source. But be careful with your associates. Remember you acquire much of the thinking, mannerism and characteristics of the people you are around. This is true whether people around you positive or negative. Pick out those people who are optimistic and enthusiastic about life and I’ll guarantee you some of it will “rub off “ on you. When you associate with the “right” people with positive attitudes and positive outlook on life you will greatly enhance yourself and your chances of success and happiness.
There are two parts to influence: First, influence is powerful; and second, influence is subtle. You wouldn’t let someone push you off course, but you might let someone nudge you off course and not even realize it. You must constantly ask yourself these questions:
- Who am I around?
- What are they doing to me?
- What have they got me reading?
- What have they got me saying?
- Where do they have me going?
- And most important, what do they have me becoming?
- Then ask yourself the big question: Is that okay?
We must frequently assure ourselves that the wrong voices of influence have not invaded our garden of thoughts, sowing seeds of negativity and doubt. Never underestimate the power of influence. Like failure, influence is subtle. Occasional influences are very subtle because they can have an accumulative effect that is difficult to see. In an effort to protect ourselves from the wrong influences and voices, we may be forced to walk away from people we have known for many years in order to develop more positive and motivating friendships. Attitude is greatly shaped by influence and association. In your working life, don’t join an easy crowd; you won’t grow. Go where the expectations and demands to perform are high.
In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the results. It is not chance. Those who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; those who would achieve much must sacrifice much; those who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly. So called “gifts,” powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort; they are thoughts completed, objects accomplished, visions realized.
The thoughtless, the ignorant, and the lazy, seeing only the apparent effects of things and not the things themselves, talk of luck, of fortune, and chance. Seeing someone grow rich, they say, “How lucky they are!” Observing another become a renowned scholar, they exclaim, “How highly favored they are!” And noting the saintly character and wide influence of others, they remark, “How luck aids them at every turn!” They do not see the trials and failures and struggles that these men and women have voluntarily encountered in order to gain their experience; they have no knowledge of the sacrifices they have made, of the undaunted efforts they have put forth, of the faith they have exercised, that they might overcome the apparently insurmountable, and realize the vision of their heart.
They do not know the darkness and the heartaches; they only see the light and joy, and call it luck; they do not see the long and arduous journey, but only see the pleasant goal and call it good fortune; they do not understand the process, but only perceive the result, and call it chance.
If you have someone who finds a great deal of pleasure in trying to peck away at your dreams, goals, or beliefs (what you stand for), get rid of his or her influence. What sounds like censor chip is, in fact self-preservation. Keep the weeds of negative influence from your life. Instead, “farm” the seeds of constructive influence. You will not believe the harvest of good fortune you will reap.
Life is not designed to give rewards in proportion to our level of need, it gives them in proportion to our level of deserve. That’s why starting with a sound personal philosophy and the right attitude is so important. Whether we actually achieve our goals is ultimately determined by our activity. We can have a well-balanced philosophy, great depth of character, and a good attitude about life, but unless we put these valuable assets to work, we may find ourselves making more excuses than progress.
What we know and our attitudes are important factors that affect the quality of our lives. They are the foundation upon which to build a better future. Completing the rest of the picture requires action. No matters how carefully you plan your goals, they will never be more than pipe dreams unless you pursue them with gusto. We must learn to translate wisdom and strong feelings into labor.
If we have a sincere desire for progress, a sincere desire to get ahead, then we are compelled to find every possible means to implement all that we know to do a certain thing. In this way, we’ll acquire the capacity to do it even if we may not have it at the beginning. We need to find ways to demonstrate to the outside all of the value that we possess on the inside. Otherwise, our values will remain unappreciated and our talents unrewarded. We must learn to apply all that we know so that we can attract all that we want.
Your job or your occupation does a lot more than pay the bills. It gives you the opportunity to excel, to expect the best of yourself and to put that expectations into practice. The quality of people’s lives is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor. To love what you do and feel that it matters – how could anything be more fun.
The greatest success stories were created by people who recognized the problem and turned it into an opportunity. In translating problem into opportunity, act as if it were impossible to fail. The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel, are the things that endure. These qualities are so much more important than the events that occur. Ingenuity, plus courage, plus work, equals miracles. If our desire to succeed is strong then:
- We work at achieving our goals.
- We take all that we are to the marketplace and put it to work.
- We stay up late at night developing new plans to achieve our dreams and work hard day after day to make those dreams a reality.
- We learn all that we possibly can about our industry and our markets.
- We make every effort to get around the right sources of influence, to associate with those people who can help us achieve our goals.
We do all these things consistently and with intensity and a level of commitment. We enter the fertile fields of life with seeds (ideas), knowledge, commitment, and a determined effort. It is our intense, disciplined activity that makes us flourish. The unique combination of desire, planning, effort and perseverance will always work its magic. Happiness is a by-product of what we do. The happiest people I know are those who are busily working toward specific objectives.
What a life we could then share with our families – a life filled with excitement and achievement and a wealth of virtue, integrity and substance – and all because we cared enough to do something with our lives and to put our skills and talents to work.
We will all experience one pain or the other – the pain of discipline as we work at achieving our goals or the pain of regret – but the difference is that the pain of discipline weighs only ounces while the pain of regret weighs tons.
When Shakespeare wrote the words: “To be or not to be . . . ” he touched the essence of self. To do or not to do; to achieve or not to achieve; to become or not to become; to be or not to be. If it’s to be it’s up to me.
We can develop a new discipline of doing rather than neglecting. Every time we choose action over ease or labor over rest, we develop an increasing level of self-confidence. It is activity that converts human dreams into reality. For the means to be filled by intense activity, we must be obsessed by the ends – by the promise of the future. It is not what we get that makes us valuable, it is what we become in the process of doing that brings us value into our lives.
Nothing great has ever been accomplished without enthusiasm. The difference between the good salesman and the great salesman, the good mother and the great mother, the good engineer and the great engineer, the good speaker and the great speaker is often enthusiasm. Enthusiasm makes a difference. It creates endless energy, the source of all accomplishment. Enthusiasm, if fuelled by inspiration and perseverance, travels with passion and its destination is excellence. Enthusiasm comes from the wellspring of all the resources within us.
Enthusiasm has nothing to do with being loud or noisy. Many extremely enthusiastic people are fairy quiet, yet every fiber of their being, every word and action, attest to the fact they love life and what the life has to offer. They are filled with the sparkle and joy of life.
When we get up with enthusiasm and go to breakfast with enthusiasm, we are beginning to set the stage for a good day. Once we have enthusiasm, it will spread to our family and associates and everybody benefit. The most enthusiastic people I know are those who are busily working toward specific objectives. The most bored and miserable people are those who are drifting along with no worthwhile objectives in mind. It should be just as obvious that how we get up in the morning will be a good prediction of how high we will go up in life.
Make rest a necessity, not an objective. Only rest long enough to gather strength. If we rest too long, the weeds will surely take over the garden. The erosion of our values begins immediately whenever we are at rest. That’s why we must make rest a necessity, not an objective.
There is a time and a place for everything. There are times to act and times to reflect. Most of us don’t take the time for serious reflection. With our busy schedules we often neglect this crucial part of the formula for success. Take time to review, ponder, and reflect on everything that has happened in your life. In studying our lives be sure to study our failures as well as our successes. Our so-called failures serve us well when they teach us valuable lessons. Often, they’re better teachers than our successes.
It is easy to mistake motion for progress and movement for achievement. It’s easy to get faked out by being busy. The question is: Busy doing what? That’s why activity must be deliberately planned, carefully refined and consistently executed.
Never begin the day until it is finished on paper. Learn how to separate the majors and the minors. If you do that, you are in control of your life. If you don’t life controls you. Something will master and something will serve. Either you run the day or the day runs you; either you run the business or the business runs you. A lot of people don’t do well simply because they major in minor things.
Time is our most valuable asset, yet we tend to waste it, kill it, and spend it rather than invest it. Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time. So make sure we use time wisely. If we feel ourselves valuable, then we will feel our time is valuable, and if we feel our time is valuable, then we will use it well.
Know the true value of time! Snatch, seize and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination. Never put till tomorrow what you can do today. It’s the cutting down the distance by the little that you win; it’s the iron will to do it, and the steady sticking to it, so whatever your task, go to it! Keep your smile and drive on.
It is desire that gives you the needed momentum and inspiration. Fuel your desire daily and watch the small spark of hope that now exists within you to ignite into a blazing fire of determination. To succeed in life one must have determination. The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too.
The secret of unleashing your true power is setting goals that are exciting enough to inspire your creativity and ignite your passion. This is the magnificent obsession. This is the very nerve center of our ambition. This is what drives us. Through our daily activity and discipline we provide the push to propel us toward success. But it is the dream of the future achievement of our objectives that pulls us along day after day and pulls us through the major obstacles we encounter along the way. The exciting thing about this process is that the more we push, the more the future begins to pull, the pull becomes stronger and the future more certain. The most important part of planning and goal setting is to see in our mind eye the major objective that we are pursuing.
Like everything else that success requires, developing the discipline that it takes to achieve our dreams is easy to do . . . and it is also easy not to do. Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.
A few simple disciplines can have a major impact on how your life works out in the next 90 days, let alone in the next 12 months or the next 3 years. Discipline is the foundation upon which all success is built. Discipline has within it the potential for creating future miracles. The least lack of discipline starts to erode our self-esteem. Lack of discipline inevitably leads to failure. All discipline affects each other. Mistakenly a man say, “This is the only area where I let down.” Not true! Every let down affects the rest. He who gains victory over other men is strong; but he who gains a victory over himself is all powerful. Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.
The smallest of disciplines, practiced every day, start an incredible process that can change our lives forever. The major accomplishments in life begin with the mastery of the small discipline. The mental, emotional and philosophical muscles required to write a letter, clean the garbage or pay our bills on time are the very same muscles involved in running a company or managing a department.
When you choose a habit, you also choose the end result of that habit. Good habits are difficult to acquire, but easy to live with. Bad habits are easy to acquire, but difficult to live with. We acquire the habit of the people we associate with on a steady basis. Pick out those people who are optimistic and enthusiastic about life. When you associate with the “right” people with positive attitudes and positive outlook on life you will greatly enhance yourself and your chances of success and happiness.
Habit is like a cable; we weave a thread of it each day until it becomes too strong to break. Then the strength of the cable takes us to the top or ties us to the bottom, depending on whether it is a good or a bad habit. All bad habits start slowly, easily and gradually and before you are aware of that bad habit, that bad habit has you and it’s difficult to break.
Exercise regularly is a good habit.
Eating healthy food is a good habit.
Reading on a regular basis is a good habit.
Going extra mile at work is a good habit.
Staying up early is a good habit.
Saving and then investing the money we’ve saved regularly is a good habit.
Putting ideas and information that come your ways in your journal is a good habit.
Spend time alone on regular basis for reflection and self-evaluation is a good habit.
We build our character from the bricks of habit we pile up day by day. Each one might seem like a little thing but before we’re aware of it, we’ve shaped the house in which we live. Initially, you might have to work at all of these good habits, but their affect on you and the people you’re around will be so profound that soon you will have much happier, richer, and fulfilled life. Those good habits will be working for you and that’s the basic of which success and happiness are made. We need to work hard to build good habits and as they become our habits they will work for us. First you make your habits, then your habits make you.
Momentum is really our best friend. Sometimes it’s the only difference between winning and losing. If we have no momentum, even the simplest tasks can seem to be insurmountable problems. Getting started is a struggle, but once you’re moving forward, you can really start to do amazing things. With enough momentum, nearly any kind of achievement is possible. Momentum puts victory within reach. Once you have attained that valuable momentum, maintain it. Cling to it. And as momentum increases, the steps in your progress become more rapid. Momentum must be attained and maintained if we are to reach the heights of achievement.
It is an exhilarating feeling to realize that it is not a matter of discovery who we are so much as deciding what we want to be, and then work on becoming it. In designing a better future the major focus of our plan should be on becoming more than we already are. If we are not happy with our current results, then the place to begin is with ourselves. Everything we have in life – the tangibles as well as the intangibles – is a direct result of who we are. Results will always be predictable because results are always determined by what we are in the process of becoming.
The real answer lies in becoming more than we are so that our increased potential becomes an integral part of everything we do. That is how life gets better – when we get better. Income seldom exceeds personal development. What you become directly influence what you get. We can have more than we’ve got because we can become more than we are. We cannot have more without becoming more. That is one of the basic.
Always do more than you get paid for as an investment in your future. We cannot increase our rewards until we increase our level of intelligent activity. From increased activity we can produce new results and become more capable and therefore more valuable in the marketplace.
Don’t bring your need to the marketplace. Bring your skill. We get paid for bringing value to the marketplace. It takes time to bring value to the marketplace, but we get paid for the value, not for the time. Lack of homework shows up in the marketplace. To settle for doing less than we could do is to fail in this worthiest of undertakings. The greatest rewards are always reserved for those who bring great value to themselves and the world around them as result of who and what they have become.
Giving is better than receiving because giving starts the receiving process. Nothing teaches character better than generosity. Sharing makes you bigger than you are. The more you pour out, the more life will be able to pour in. What you give becomes an investment that will return to you multiplied at some point in the future. Only by giving (your talents, time, efforts, helping hands, etc.) are you able to receive more than you already have.
Pity the man who inherits a million dollars and who isn’t a millionaire. Here’s what would be pitiful: If your income grew and you didn’t. The most important question to ask on the job is not “What am I getting?” The most important question to ask on the job is “What am I becoming?” It is hard to keep that which has not been obtained through personal development.
Give a million dollar to someone who does not posses the attitude of a millionaire and that person will most likely lose it. But take away all the wealth from a TRUE millionaire and in no time he or she will build a new fortune. Why? Because those who EARN their millionaire status develop the skills, knowledge, and experience to duplicate the process again and again. As you can see, when someone becomes a millionaire, the least important thing is what he or she has. The most important thing is what he or she has become. Physical liberty, freedom from bondage, is not the goal, but only a stepping-stone towards the achievement of life’s nobler goals – freedom of spirit and mind.
After you become a millionaire, you can give all of your money away because what’s important is not the million dollars; but what’s important is the person you have become in the process of becoming a millionaire.
Financial independence is the ability to live from the income of our personal resources. We all know a variety of ways to make a living. What’s even more fascinating is figuring out ways to make a fortune: the rich invest their money and spend what is left; the poor spend their money and invest what is left. When people tell themselves that money is what’s missing in their lives, but what’s really missing is the ability to make it and keep it.
Twenty years ago, two people each earned a thousand dollar a month and they each earned the same increases over the years. One had the philosophy of spending money and save (invest) what’s left; the other had the philosophy of save (invest) first and spending what’s left. Today, if you knew them both, you’d call one poor and the other wealthy.
Saving (investing), like any form of discipline, has a subtle effect. At the end of the day, a week, or a month, the results are hardly noticeable. But left five years lapse, and the difference becomes pronounced. At the end of ten years, the differences are dramatic. It makes a difference between poor and wealthy. Reduce your liabilities and increase your assets. That’s the key to financial success.
I found out that just making good money isn’t good enough. I found out that a person could make ten thousand dollars a month and still go broke. You say, “How can you go broke making ten thousand a month?” It’s easy! Just spend eleven thousand. If your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep will become your downfall.
Personal value is the magnet that attracts all good things into our lives. The greater our value, the greater our reward, therefore we must in constant search for new ways to increase our value in the marketplace. Our employer has no control over our value, but we do. We do have charge of whether we read, develop new skills, and take new classes.
Self-control, the practice of discipline, patience, planning, intensity of effort, the wise investment of a good portion of our results, the development of a well balanced attitude, frequent reading and a sensible personal philosophy are all examples of ways in which our value can be increased.
Our objective must be to work harder on ourselves than we work on anything else. By giving careful attention to our philosophy, our attitude and our daily activity, we are making a positive contribution to what we are becoming, and in the process of becoming more than we now are, we will attract more than we now have.
We become and then we attract. We grow personally and then we advance materially. Remember, it takes time to develop and grow. The twin killer of success are impatience and greed. There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste; there are no honours distant to the man who prepares himself with patience. The journey toward success is a journey of a thousand steps, and it begins with a single book or a single promise finally kept. It begins with the awakening of our sleeping spirit brought on by dreams of all that could be.
We can all go from wherever we are to wherever we want to be. No dream is impossible provided we first have the courage to believe in it. Why not stretch to the full measure of the challenge and see what all we can do? Your ultimate goal is to become all you can become and to accomplish all you can accomplish. Each of us is endowed with innate resources that enable us to achieve all we’ve ever dreamed of and more.
He who only lives on the surface enjoys but the outer crust; he who reaches beneath the surface begin to claim his hidden treasure. We must challenge ourselves with the impossible. It is better to aim the spear at the moon and strike the eagle, than to aim at the eagle and strike only a rock. The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible. No matter how high one’s aspirations may be, it must be achieved step-by-step. Even the greatest castle is built one stone at a time. And as we have discovered, it is those single stone – few simple disciplines practiced every day – that actually create successes we achieve.
Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end up by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.
Vince Lombardi, the most revered football coach, walked over to his football player and put his arms around his shoulder and said, ”Son, I told you the truth. You are the lousy football player. However, in all fairness to you, inside you son, there is a great football player and I am going to stick by your side until the great football player inside of you has a chance to come out and assert himself.” Deep within us dwell those slumbering powers; powers that would astonish us, that we never dreamed of possessing; forces that would revolutionize our lives if aroused and put into action. If we did all the things we are capable of doing; we would literally astound ourselves. Jerry Kramer went on to become one of the all-time great football players in the first 50 years of professional football. That was Lombardi. He saw things in men that they seldom saw in themselves. He had the ability to inspire his men to use the talent they had. He gives them something to live up to. He convinces them they can – and they will. When their self-image changes, so will their performance.
If we don’t get rid of our own self-imposed limitations, the next five years will be about the same as the last, except that we’ll be five years older. But by taking responsibility and getting rid of our self-imposed limitations, we can, instead, become five years better and wiser. Doesn’t the last one sound more exciting?
Human beings can do remarkable things. We can turn nothing into something, pennies into fortune, and disaster into triumph. We can change all things for the better, when we change ourselves for better. We are a human being, a most remarkable creation. Yes, we can! But how?
First, find the courage to let go of whatever doesn’t serve you anymore, weather it’s your job, old possession, a relationship or beliefs and emotions you’ve been clinging to. Ask yourself these questions:
o What is it that I’ve been holding on to that I need to let go of?
o What is not longer serving my life that I need to release?
o In what area of my life right now do I feel the need for some change?
o What area has been trying to change, but I’ve been resisting?
Practice “zero-based-thinking” in every part of your life. Ask yourself continually:
“If I was not doing this already, knowing what I now know, would I get into it again today?
Examine each part of your personal life and work activities and evaluate it based on your situation today. If it is something you would not start up again today, knowing what you know now, it is a prime candidate for abandonment. By getting rid from things that don’t serve you anymore, you will have more time for things that are important to you. Remember: Success depends upon using our time wisely by planning and setting priorities.
We generally change ourselves for one of two reasons: inspiration or desperation. Desperation is the final and inevitable results of months or years of accumulated neglect and few errors in judgment, repeated every day. The overwhelming sense of desperation finally forces us to look for the solutions. Hopefully the source that drives you to make changes in your life is inspiration – about to become sufficiently inspired to make major or even dramatic changes in your life.
Six thousand years of recorded history the word ‘crisis’ written in Chinese is composed of two characters – one represents difficulty and the other represents opportunity. Opportunity mixed with difficulty. It isn’t going to change. “So,” you ask, “how will my life change for better?” When you change for better! If one desires a change, one must be that change before that change can take place. The external world is but a mirror. Whatever you see therein is but a reflection of yourself.
We will find that as we alter our thoughts toward things and other people, things and other people will alter toward us. If we radically alter our thoughts, we will be astonished at the rapid transformation it will effect in the conditions of our lives. We do not attract that which we want, but that which we are. The divinity that shapes our ends is in ourselves. It is our very self.
All that we achieve is the direct result of our own thoughts. We can only rise, conquer and achieve by lifting up our thoughts. We can only remain weak and abject and miserable by refusing to lift up our thoughts.
Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think of these things.
All you need to do is to add. Add to your growth, wealth, influence, knowledge, faith, experience and wisdom. You imagine and feel yourself successful and prosperous, and your subconscious mind will responds to your habitual thinking. Your subconscious mind always magnifies and multiplies. Affirm,
“Wealth flows to me in avalanches of abundance”
Be sincere and mean it, and your subconscious mind will respond.
“By day and by night I am prospering spiritually, mentally, and financially. I am open and receptive to new ideas; therefore I am successful; very successful; very, very successful. Wealth is flowing to me freely, joyously, endlessly, and ceaselessly. The law of increase is working for me now.”
“I know there is a perfect law of supply and demand.
I am instantly in touch with everything I need.
I am guided to my true place now.
I am giving my talents in a wonderful way.
I am doing the thing I love to do and I have a wonderful income consistent with integrity and honesty.”
Life is a mixture of opportunity and difficulty. That the way it is. The big question is how you handle the difficult times? Let me tell you what mature people do: They get stronger. They get wiser. They get better. They use tough times for personal development. A person of character can appreciate difficulty, for it is through difficulty that he can realize his potential. Don’t wish the situation were easier, wish you were better. Don’t wish for fewer problems, wish for more skills and knowledge. Don’t wish for less challenges, wish for more wisdom. Don’t try to become better than anyone else but yourself. I only tried to become better than myself each day as each came. The goal each day must be to get a little better, to build on the previous day’s progress. Self-improvement is to become better than oneself every day.
The development of new skills is vitally important if we expect to make major progress and improve the level of our performance. You can cut down a tree with a hammer, but it might take 30 days. If you trade the hammer for an axe, you can cut it down in about 30 minutes. The difference between 30 days and 30 minutes is skill. The key to life more abundant is to become skillful enough to be able to do rewarding things. Learn to magnify your skills. Life and labor get easier when knowledge is combined with new skills.
The purpose of our activity is results. Results are always in direct proportion to the effort. Results do not respond to need. Results respond to effort . . . to labor . . . to activity. If we have done our part, the results we need will appear in a reasonable amount of time. Checking our results on a regular basis provides us with an excellent indicator of how well we are using our time. If our current results are not as we would like them to be, then we need to take a closer look at those factors that may have nudged or even pushed us in the wrong direction. We may need to make some major changes in our current level of activity in order to increase our results.
How often we need to check our results depends on how far we want to go. The greater the distance the more frequently we need to check. If we are only going as far as the next block, being off a few degrees isn’t going to make much difference. But if we have our sights set on some distant star, then miscalculating by even one degree can lead us millions of miles off target.
Progress must be measured on a regular basis. If we are not making measurable progress in a reasonable amount of time, then something is clearly wrong with either our objective or the execution of our plans.
Neglect and delay can be costly. To ignore the symptoms is merely to perpetuate the cause. Rarely will a problem repair itself. Instead, a neglected problem intensifies. The longer we wait to discover this small error in judgment, the harder we will have to work to get back on course. And of greater consequence is that the passage of time tends to diminish our desire to get back on course.
If we don’t like how things are, change it! We’re not a tree. We cannot change our destination/destiny overnight, but we can change our direction overnight. Decision-making can sometimes seem like inner civil war.
It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off! We cannot make progress without making decisions. Don’t say, “If I could, I would.” Say, “I will.”
That is the great challenge of achievement – making measurable progress in a reasonable amount of time. The difficulties we encounter serve a unique purpose. Difficulty tests the strength of our resolve. If our intent is strong enough, then we will be driven to seek solutions. As we invoke the power of creativity and intensify our efforts to conquer each new problem, we actually speed up our progress. Without challenges to capture our attention we may take twice as long to arrive at our objective. Because if the way is easy, we tend to drift along at a leisurely pace. If the way is fraught with obstacles, we will dig deeper within ourselves calling upon more ingenuity, more abilities and more strength than we even knew we possessed. Conquering these challenges leads us to a new level of self-confidence that drives us further and faster toward our inevitable success.
We all have opportunities mixed with difficulties. Whatever happens, happens to us all. Some choose to use them as an excuse for poor performance while other use those same circumstances as a reason to grow and to drive themselves to new heights of accomplishment. They see difficulty as the struggle for greatness. It is not what happens that determines the quality of our lives, it is what we choose to do about what happens. Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another. The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials. Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into thin air.
Ten years from now we will be somewhere, the question is where? Now is the time to fix the next ten years. Life will present us with enough obstacles without purposely attracting them. One of the best ways to minimize future obstacles is to anticipate the results of our current neglect. It begins with asking ourselves important questions about our attention to the basics:
- How many times have I written in my journal to integrate the experiences to strengthen and nurture me last month?
- How many books have I read in the past ninety days?
- How much of my income have I invested last year?
- How regularly did I exercise last month?
Every error defeated by disciplined activity paves the way for our future success – a single victory at a time. Every result we experience, no matter how small, is another certain step toward a life of achievement.
Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying basic fundamental. Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines or our error in judgments that leads us to either success or failure.
We’ve all heard the expression, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Well, I’ve got a good question for you: What if it’s true? Wouldn’t that be easy to do – to eat an apple a day? Here is the problem: It’s also easy not to do. Some things we have to do every day. Eating seven apples on Saturday night instead of one a day isn’t going to get the job done.
One of the reasons why many people don’t have what they want is neglect. Neglect starts out as an infection then becomes a disease. Cardiovascular problems alone create over a thousand funerals a day . . . and 90% of the problem is neglect.
Our ultimate success or failure depends on three fundamental things:
- What we know.
- Our attitudes
- What we do.
We must challenge ourselves right now with a new level of thinking, and drive ourselves toward a new level of achievement.
The final results of your life will be determined by whether you made too many errors in judgment, repeated every day or whether you dedicated your life to a few simple discipline, practiced every day:
- The discipline of strengthening and broadening your philosophy.
- The discipline of developing a better attitude.
- The discipline of engaging in more intense and consistent activity that will lead to the achievement of your goals.
- The discipline of studying the results and writing in your journal in order to anticipate the future more objectively.
- The discipline of living life more fully in the present moment.
The secret is here in the present. Wherever you are, be there. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it, and, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better. When you work, work. When you play, play. Don’t mix the two. The only way to deal with the future is to function effectively in the Now. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year.
We don’t have to postpone our appreciation of the finer things in life until we have reached our career goals. The price of admission to a fabulous sunset is still free. It is in the enjoyment and not in mere possession that makes for happiness. You can enjoy a beautiful garden without owning it. We don’t have to be rich to live richly. All of the happiness and fulfillment we want can be ours right now simply by changing how we feel and what we think about this concept called lifestyle.
Many of us dream of becoming wealthy, of having a beautiful home that is tended by others so that we will be free to enjoy ourselves. We dream of winning lotteries that will enable us to quit our jobs tomorrow and go off in pursuit of the good life. We dream of chauffeurs to drive us and servants to take care of us so that we can have all the time in the world to do whatever we want to do.
The big question is what would we do? In a very short time, most of what we dream of one day doing would become uninspiring. There is only so much traveling, so much partying, so much sleeping, and so much ‘enjoying’ that we can experience before this too would become tedious. If it is not a life of endless fun and laughter that we are after, then what is it that we are in pursuit of? What is this thing call lifestyle?
It is not something we get simply as results of having more. Lifestyle is a result of living more: living more fully, living more consciously, living more joyfully, and living more appreciatively. That exquisite feeling called happiness can begin wherever and however we are because it has nothing to do with things. Having more isn’t the answer to happiness.
Happiness isn’t something you withdraw from your bank account. It is something you withdraw from life and from those around you. If we cannot learn to be happy with what we have right now, then we will never be happy no matter how much good fortune comes our way. There is no better opportunity to receive more than to be thankful for what we already have. Thanksgiving opens the windows of opportunity for ideas and happiness to flow.
Lifestyle is a function of attitude and personal values. The things we do, the things we say, even our appearance is suggestive of an inner attitude about life. It doesn’t take more money to change how we live. It takes more deliberate thought and a greater appreciation of the real values in life.
Lifestyle means designing ways to live uniquely. It is the art of discovering ways to live uniquely. It is a skill to be mastered, not a condition to be pursued. A more abundance existence does not necessarily mean a more enjoyable lifestyle. Joy is not in things, it is in us. Lifestyle is finding new ways to bring joy, pleasure, excitement, and substance into our lives and to those we care for while we are working on our goals, not once we achieved them. We must not let the years, and the chances and the small opportunities for creating moments of joy slip away. It’s not just achieving a goal that matters, but the quality of life you experience along the way. Find simple ways to bring joy in your life.
THE END
If we are not aware of what causing our success or failure, we end up at the mercy of chance. Life is not a matter of luck or fortune. We are not playing our lives out at a gaming table. If we live our lives up to chance, chances are, we’ll fail.
The guy says, “When you work where I work, by the time you get home, it’s late. You’ve got to have a bite to eat, watch little TV, relax, and get to bed. You can’t sit up half the night planning, planning, planning.” And he’s the same guy who is behind on his car payment!
This is the great secret of mastering our own destiny: If it’s to be, it’s up to me. Walk away from the 97% crowd. Don’t use their excuses. We take charge of our own lives. Our attitude, not our aptitude is the chief determinant of our success. We are either masters or victims of our attitudes. It’s a matter of personal choices . . . blessing or curse.
Success is 20% skills and 80% strategy. Strategy is destiny. That’s why the deliberate development of our own lives is so important. There is no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of human being to elevate his or her life by conscious endeavor.
We all have two choices: We can make a living or we can design a life. Like the architect, we must learn to see in our minds the results we want to achieve, and then go to work on building a solid foundation to support this vision. Once the vision is clearly defined and the foundation has been firmly established, then the choices required to complete the structure are easily and wisely made.
Think about what you really want to achieve and how you want things to look in a couple of years. Once you have a clear vision in front of your inner eye – start executing things so that event will move in that direction.
Success comes to those who know that life is first born in thought, who seek the vision before the deed, and conform the deed to the vision. We are what and where we are because we first imagine it. If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet a success unexpected in common hours.
The primary reason for great success is clear, specific, measurable goals and plans, written down and accompanied by a burning desire to accomplish them. Successful people have clearly defined goals and action plans. They have a specific sense of direction, and that direction is based upon their earnest, sincere desires. They know what they are doing. They love what they are doing, and believe in what they are doing. The greatest thing that we can do in this world is to make the most possible out of the talent or ability that has been given to us.
The primary reason for underachievement and failure is fuzziness and confusion about goals. A person without goals is like a ship without a rudder, carried whichever way the tides and wind are blowing. They are the “wandering generalities.” A person with clear, specific goal is like a ship with a rudder, sailing straight and true to its destination. Goal may not be the only reason for success, but no success is possible without goal.
If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us. We all need powerful long-range goals to help us past the short-term obstacles.
The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get. The ultimate reason for setting goals is to entice you to become the person it takes to achieve them. Success is not to be pursuit; it is to be attracted by the person you become. Success is not so much what we have as it is what we are.
The major value in life is not what you get. The major value in life is what you become. That is why I wish to pay fair price for every value. If I have to pay for it or earn it, that makes something of me. If I get it for free, that makes nothing of me.
If you want to create a cripple, just give a man a pair of crutches for a few months – or give him a “free lunch” long enough for him to get in the habit of getting something for nothing. More recently many of the huge winners of the state lotteries of as much as one million dollar have had an overwhelmingly negative results. Lives have been disrupted, families upended, careers wrecked, old friends lost, attitudes and images have been severely damaged. Free lunches do not put you on easy street. More often you lose more than you win. People are seldom really happy without making any contribution in life.
What do you think is the greatest value in becoming a millionaire? It is a million dollar? I don’t think so. No, the greatest value is the skills, knowledge, discipline, and leadership qualities you have developed in reaching that elevated status. It’s experience you have acquired in planning and developing to have enough courage, commitment, and willpower to attract a million dollar.
We achieve rewards and we make progress not by our intense pursuits, but by what we become, for it is what we are that finally determines the results we attract. To have more we must become more. To really achieve your dreams, to really have your future plans pull you:
First, your dreams must be vivid. See your future in your mind’s eyes. See yourself as already there. For each goal describe in detailed how it looks like and how you feel. Imagination is a much stronger force than will-power; when the two are in conflict, the imagination always wins. Let’s say you are an inveterate smoker of good cigars and decide to break yourself of the habit. You greet your teeth, shove out your chin, and solemnly declare that you are going to use your will-power to break yourself of the habit. Then suddenly comes the idea of the taste of a good cigar, its aroma and its soothing effects – the imagination goes to work and the resolution to break the habit goes out the window. Whatever we steadily focus our imagination upon that is what we attract. Imagination leads to goal achievement. What we vividly imagine, ardently desire, enthusiastically act upon, must inevitably come to pass.
Second, the reason why you want to achieve them. Motivation requires motives. If you have enough reasons to accomplish your goals, if you have enough motivation you could do incredible things. When you know what you want and you want it badly enough, you will find a way to get it. The answers, methods, and solutions you need to solve the obstacles along the way will be revealed to you.
A major factor in determining how our lives turn out is the way we choose to think. Everything that goes on inside the human mind in the form of thoughts, ideas, and information forms our personal philosophy. Your own personal philosophy or core value is the sum total of all that you know and what you decide is valuable. Our personal philosophy or core value then influences our habits and behavior, and this is really where it all begins.
We have all made and will continue to make decisions based upon what we think is valuable. Whether the decisions we are making will lead us toward inevitable success or unavoidable failure depends on the information we have gathered over the years to form our personal philosophy or core values. What guides us to different destinations in life is determined by the way we have chosen to set our sail. The way each of us thinks makes the major difference in where each of us arrives. The major difference is not circumstance, the major difference is the set of the sail. Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Our life is the creation of our mind.
The fact is everything we are encountering in life can become meaningful and purposeful. For example, two people might face a similar circumstance – say the loss of the job – yet each person might deal with the situation in a very different manner. One might spend a great deal of time and energy becoming bitter and angry over what happened; the other might see it as a wonderful opportunity to start all over and do something which has always been a desire. Although the situation is the same, each person’s response is quiet different. The way a person responds to a situation determines the next cycle, the next crossroads called into action.
One may lose money. “Well, it’s gone, and worrying about it won’t bring it back but hard work will.” He went to work harder than ever, and soon became wealthy again. Your viewpoint, your personal philosophy – how you see and deal with a situation – is paramount in whether you achieve success or failure. It shapes your actions, which therefore, produces your outcomes. The fact that the same circumstances can be harmful or helpful to different people proves good and bad exist not in the circumstances but in the mind of the person involved.
It is not what happens that determines the quality of our lives, it is what we choose to do when we have struggled to set the sail and then discover, after all of our efforts, that the wind has changed direction. When the wind changes, we must change. We must struggle to our feet once more and reset the sail in the manner that will steer us toward the destination of our own deliberate choosing. The set of the sail, how we think and how we respond, has a far greater capacity to destroy our lives than any challenges we face. How we decide to deal with adversity is far more important than the adversity itself. Once we discipline ourselves to understand this, we will finally conclude that the great challenge of life is to control the process of our own thinking. We are the master of our fate, the captain of our souls, because we have the power to control our thoughts.
We have the ability to train our thoughts in any direction we want. It is like a horse that turns off its path and begins to go on another. The rider can seize the horse by its reins and redirect it into the proper path. It is exactly the same with thoughts; as soon as a person sees his thoughts deviating from the proper path, he must seize and redirect them.
As matter of fact we live in negative society and deal with constantly negative individuals. Most of the news from TV or radio are bad news. For self-preservation I suggest you not to listen to bad news very often. If a lot of garbage is dumped into your minds, you will have the problem of stinkin’ thinkin’.
What do you do to those people who dump negative garbage into your mind?
How do you respond to the people who say unkind things about you?
If someone comes into your home with a pail of garbage and dump it on your living room floor, what would you do? The person who dumps garbage into your mind will do you considerably more harm than the one who dumps garbage on your living room floor. Keep the weeds of negative influence from your life. Instead, farm the seeds of constructive influence. You will not believe the harvest of good fortune you will reap.
Whatever you put into your mind becomes a part of the total you. For example, had you been born in Russia and listened to their ideology all of your life, you would in fact be Russian because you are the sum of what goes into your mind. Every action you take and every thought you put into your mind is going to have its effect.
The mind works like a fertile soil in garden. Everyone knows if you plant beans you will raise beans. Obviously you don’t plant a bean to raise a bean – you plant a bean to raise a lot of beans. That’s the way the mind works. It does not care what you plant – it always nourish. Whatever you plant in your mind it’s going to come up and multiplied. We needed to cleanse our minds of negative thoughts. Feed your mind constantly with inspirational books or tapes on a regular basis. You will grow with the right mental attitude. Over a period of time we can so condition our mind with these positive inspirational ideas that we will instinctively and automatically react positively to the negative situations we encounter in our lives. The rule is when we are driving listen to inspirational tapes. When we are seating read good books. This literally saturates our mind with the optimistic outlook on life. It also gives us an excellent overall education and a set of values and attitudes that will be tremendously helpful in our lives. The investment in books and audiocassettes will brings greater earnings plus an infinitely richer and more rewarding life. We will enjoy the richer life on a permanent basis.
Learning to reset the sail with the changing winds rather than permitting ourselves to be blown in a direction we did not purposely choose requires the development of the whole new discipline. It involves the work on establishing a powerful, personal philosophy that will help to influence in a positive way all that we do and all that we think and decide.
The greatest influence on what we decide to do with tomorrow’s opportunity is not going to be circumstance, but rather what and how we think. What we think and the conclusions we reach regarding life’s challenges is going to be the sum total of what we have learned until now. The problem is that much of the information we have gathered has resulted in erroneous conclusions about life that can actually block the achievement of our goals. The only way to eliminate these mental barriers is to review, revise, and refine our personal philosophy.
All of our counter-productive beliefs and choices are the results of years of accumulating misinformation. We have simply been around the wrong sources and gathered up the wrong information. The decisions we are making are not wrong based on the information we have; it is the information we have that is causing us to make wrong decisions. Unfortunately, these wrong decisions are leading us further away from rather than closer toward the achievement of our goals.
The only way to change our thinking habits is to input new information. Unless we change what we know but wrong, we will continue to believe, decide and act in manner that is contrary to our best interests. Getting the information that success and happiness require – and getting it accurately – is essential. Otherwise we will inevitably drift into ignorance. Inward achievement includes brushing aside all our old internal enemies or wrong beliefs as we advance.
The key factor that will determine our financial future is not the economy; the key factor is our personal philosophy. Develop your own philosophy and it will lead you to unique places. Your personal philosophy is the greatest determining factor in how your life works out. It’s the thoughts that guide your life. You are where you are and what you are because of the thoughts that dominate your mind. We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make our world. If you learn to set a good sail, the wind that blows will always take you to the dreams you want. Our philosophy determines whether we will go for the disciplines or continue the error.
Economic disaster begins with a philosophy of doing less and wanting more. If we want to amend our error, we must begin by amending our philosophy. Only human being can reorder their lives any day they choose by refining their philosophy.
One of the best ways to expand the dimensions of our knowledge is by conducting a serious review of our past experiences. Past failures and errors must prompt us to amend current conduct, or the present and the future will be little more than a duplicate of the past. The key is to make the past events our servants, lest the repetition of those events makes us their slave. Those who do not learn from mistakes of the past are condemned to repeat them. We must reflect on our past, reliving the moments, pondering the lessons, and refining our current conduct based on the lessons of our personal history.
We should take time to gather up the past so that we will be able to draw from our experiences and invest them in the future. We should not let learning from our own experiences take too long. It’s easy to carry the past as a burden instead of a school. It’s easy to let it overwhelm us instead of educate us. An objective appraisal from someone whose opinion we respect will enable us to see things that we do not see. We are wise indeed, if we discipline ourselves to take counsel and suggestion from someone who cares, lest life and circumstances force us to take it from one who does not care. It's not only the most difficult thing to know one's self, but the most inconvenient. We should be students of failure. It is part of the world experience – part of the life experience. Why do we want to study failure? So that we can learn what not to do.
Life is not just the passing of time. Life is the collection of experiences and their intensity. Be like a sponge when it comes to each new experience. Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well. Learn how to turn frustration into fascination. We will learn more being fascinated by life than we will by being frustrated by it. What is life worth without trials and tribulation which are the salt of life? Trials and tribulation have cleansing and purifying character. Develop a childlike fascination with life and people, and live as though your life is your soul mate. Affirm,
“I am exceedingly joyful in all my tribulation. No matter what happens, the Living Spirit Almighty within my subconscious mind has something wonderful in store for me. I rejoice and give thanks, for the wonders and blessings of God are operating in my life now.”
Other people and their personal experiences offer untold opportunities for learning. All experiences can serve as our teachers provided we learn from the information and invest its value in our own lives. If we ignore the lessons from the past, from whatever source, then we may become victims of the process of trial and error.
Great projects are always built from a blueprint. In this lifetime there is no greater project than the deliberate development of our own lives. Therefore we need a blueprint – something or someone to look at and pattern ourselves after – if we want to make change and progress. It is much better to deliberately choose the people we will permit to influence us than to allow the power of the wrong influence to weave its effects on us without our knowledge or conscious choice.
Regardless of our age or circumstances, we are never beyond the reach of influence. The key is to find unique human beings whose personalities and achievements stimulate, fascinate and inspire us, and then strive to assimilate their best qualities.
One of the major reasons why people are not doing well is because they keep trying to get through the day. A more worthy challenge is to try to get from the day. Be alert. Be awake. Observe. Let life and all of its subtle messages touch us. Only when we found a source of valuable information should we allow the message to touch us so that it might add value to who and what we already are.
Most homes valued at over $500,000 have a library. That should tell us something. Some people claim that it is okay to read trashy novels or watching TV because sometimes you can find something valuable in them. You can also find a crust of bread in a garbage can, if you search long enough, but there is a better way. You may be entertained by it, but you will never grow from it. Those who wish for the better life cannot permit themselves to miss the books that could have a major impact on how their lives turn out. Only by actively pursuing new knowledge can we sufficiently refine our personal philosophy.
Learning is the beginning of wealth. Learning is the beginning of health. Learning is the beginning of spirituality. If we wish to find a good idea, we must search. Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea. Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins.
The events that take place in our lives – experiences that we live and learn from – should not just happen; they should be captured so that their lessons can be invested in the future, in this way we advance in experiences. Be a collector of good ideas. The best collecting place for all of the ideas and information that come your way is your journal. Don’t use our mind for a filing cabinet. Use our mind to work out problems and find answers; file away good ideas in your journal.
The very act of writing our lives helps us to think more objectively about our actions. Through writing we can ponder and analyze the experience more clearly. It is the small discipline that leads to great accomplishments. When average people give care and attention to important matters, their own growth into greatness merely awaits the passage of time.
Journals are the tools that enable us to document the details of the failure as well as the progress of our existence, and in the process, allows us to become more than we otherwise might have been. Learn from the negative as well as the positive, from the failures as well as the successes. Failure is an integral, anticipated part of the success process. We should look upon every obstacles as down payment towards our success. We will use them to strengthen us and not weaken us. The alchemist is one who learns the secret of turning every situations into gold, who learn how to make every situation serve him. The measure of mental health is therefore the disposition to find good everywhere.
Both small disciplines and mirror mistakes in judgment tend to accumulate, the former to our benefit and the latter to our detriment. Neither success nor failure occurs in a single cataclysmic event. Both are the results of the accumulation of seemingly small and insignificant decisions whose collective weight over the period of a lifetime presents the individual with his or her proportionate reward.
Life is a process of accumulation. We either accumulate the debt or the value, the regret or the equity. That’s why we must make a commitment to develop our full human potential, one discipline at a time, one book at a time, and one small entry in our journal at a time.
If we are inclined to spend major time on minor things, or even major money on minor things, then it is essential for us to take a closer look at our decision making process. The world is filled with those whose decisions are destined to destroy their chances for success. Those who do not operate from a sound philosophy often do that which they should have left undone and leave undone that which they should have done. They sense that they should be doing something, but lack the discipline to convert this awareness into action. They fail to set goals and establish priorities. Just as the sum total of our past decisions has led us to our current circumstances, the decisions we make today will lead us to the rewards or the regrets of the future.
In those moments of choice or decision, it is the knowledge we have acquired and the philosophy we have developed from this knowledge that will either serve us or destroy us. Only through careful mental preparation can we consistently make wise choices. What we think determines what we believe; what we believe influences what we choose; what we choose defines what we are; and what we are attracts what we have. As we add new knowledge, we will begin to refine our philosophy. As our beliefs change for better, so too will our choices. And from better choices come better results. The development of sound philosophy prepares us for making sound decisions. What ultimately determines what we become and where we go in life are our decisions. These decisions shape our destiny.
Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. We do not fail overnight. Failure is the inevitable result of an accumulation of poor thinking and poor choices. Failure is nothing more than a few errors in judgment repeated everyday.
Now why would someone make an error in judgment and then be so foolish as to repeat it every day? Because they do not think that it matters. Failure’s most dangerous attribute is its subtlety. In the short term those little errors don’t seem to make any difference. We do not seem to be failing. Since nothing terrible happens to us, since there are no instant consequences to capture our attention, we simply drift from one day to the next, repeating the errors. The sky did not fall in on us yesterday, therefore the act was probably harmless. And herein lies the great danger.
Everything we need to become rich and powerful and sophisticated is within our reach. The major reason that so few take advantage of all that we have is simply, neglect. Why do we not do it? Because the things that are easy to do are also easy not to do. That is how subtle failure is. Failure is largely a function of neglect. We fail to do small things that we should do. Neglect is like an infection. Left unchecked it will spread throughout our entire system of disciplines and eventually lead to a complete breakdown of a potentially joy-filled and prosperous human life.
Failure is rarely the result of some isolated event such as a company going bankrupt or a house being repossessed. Rather, it is a consequence of a long list of accumulated little failures, which happened as results of too little discipline. Failure to do the things that we could and should do results in the creation of a negative spiral, which once started, is difficult to stop.
Failure occurs each time we fail to think . . . . today.
If your goal requires that today you write ten letters and you write only three, you are behind by seven correspondence . . . today.
If you commit yourself to making five phone calls and you make only one, you are behind by four phone calls . . . today.
If your financial plan requires that you save five dollars and you save none, you are behind five dollars . . . today.
The danger comes when we look at a day squandered and conclude that no harm has been done. After all, it was just one day. But add up these days to make a year and then add up these years to make a lifetime and perhaps you can now see how repeating today’s small failures can easily turn your life into a major disaster.
Success follows exactly the same pattern . . . in reverse.
If you plan to make five calls and you go beyond your quota to ten, you’re ahead by five calls . . . today.
If your plan requires that today you write ten letters and you write beyond your quota to fifteen, you’re ahead by five correspondence . . . today.
If your financial plan requires that you save five dollars and you save ten, you are ahead five dollars . . . today.
And soon you will see the accumulated fruits of your diligence over a year and, eventually, over a lifetime. Like the formula for failure, the formula for success is easy to follow: A few simple disciplines practiced every day. It is not what we do once in a while that counts, but our habitual actions. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit.
Why are we so frequently inclined to do the things that are least important but so reluctant to do the essential things that success and happiness demand? If we did develop a new discipline to take just a few minutes every day to look a little further down the road, we would then be able to foresee the impeding consequences of our current conduct.
To change a life we must first change our thinking habits. We must begin with those few basics that affect the way we think. We can greatly change the course of our lives by spending more time and making a greater conscious effort to refine our personal philosophy.
One of the best places to start to turn your life around is by doing whatever appears on your mental “I should” list.
Whatever new discipline we begin to practice daily will produce exciting results that will drive us to become even better at developing new discipline. If we are to start today to read the books, keep a journal, attend the classes, listen more and observe more, then today would be the first day of a new life leading to a better future. These are some of the fundamental activities that lead not only to the development of a new philosophy, but also to a new life filled with joy and accomplishment. Each new and positive activity weakens the grip of failure and steers us ever closer to the destination of our choice.
We must keep a watchful eye on the subtle differences between success and failure. We must not allow ourselves to think that the errors do not matter. They do. We must not allow ourselves to assume that a lack of discipline in one small area of our lives will not make a difference. It will. And we must not allow ourselves to believe that we can have all that we want to have and become all that we want to be without making any changes in the way we think about life. We must.
All discipline affects each other. Every new discipline affects not only the discipline that we have already begun to practice, but also the discipline we will soon adopt. Everything affects everything else. Some things affect us more than others, but everything we do has an effect on everything else we do. The key is to keep looking for every small discipline we can find that will cause us to refine our thinking, amend our errors and improve our results.
Our lives are greatly affected by what we know since what we know determines the decisions we will make. Just as we are affected by what we know, we are also affected by how we feel. Every action we take is first filtered through our feelings. How we feel about something will always determine or affect what we do and how well we do it. If we feel good or positive about something, we will behave more positively about it. Our feelings will directly influence our actions. How you feel about your job, your mate, your family, you finance, your health, yourself, and other people around you, will determine how you behave in each of these areas. If your feelings are positive and productive, your actions will work for you instead of against you. Your feelings are created, controlled, determined, or influenced by your attitude.
Whatever attitude we have about anything will affect how we feel about it, which in turn determines how we’ll act about it and that in turn determines whether or not we will do well. Attitude is the little thing that makes a big difference. In life the difference between success and failure is often only an inch or two. The story of life proves that it is often the little things that spell the differences between triumph and tragedy, success and failure, victory and defeat.
Over 20 years ago Dave Anderson and Jim Murphy had started to work for the railroad on the same day. One of Dave’s new associates half jokingly and half seriously asked him why he was still working out in the hot sun and Jim Murphy had gotten to be the president of the railroad. Rather wistfully Dave explained, “twenty-three years ago I went to work for $1.75 an hour and Jim Murphy went to work for the railroad.” This is the little thing that makes a big difference. If you work only for salary, you will get one, but it will probably be small. If you work for the betterment of the company you represent, not only will you get a bigger salary, but also you will get personal satisfaction as well as respect from your colleagues. Your contribution to your company will be infinitely greater which means that your personal and professional rewards will also be greater.
What we know determines our philosophy. How we feel determines our attitude. In order to possess the kinds of feelings which work for us, we’ve got to have the right attitudes to start with. Our attitudes are created, controlled, or influenced entirely by our beliefs. We have all made and will continue to make decisions based upon what we believe is valuable. What we believe about anything will determine our attitudes about it, create our feelings, direct our actions, and in each instance, help us to do well or poorly, succeed or fail. The thoughts and feelings we allow ourselves to have today are crucial, for they are contributing to our future. What our future holds will simply be a mirror image of our current philosophy and attitude about life.
In designing a better future we begin with an idea about how the future will be. Over a period of time we refine and perfect the vision. There is a very special emotional magic that takes place when we design the future and set new goals with a specific purpose in mind. As we see the future clearly in our mind’s eye, we experience a level of excitement in anticipation of the day when all that we dream will become a reality. The more clearly we see the vision of the future, the more we are able take advantage from its inspiration. This inspiration find its way into our conversation, our energy level, our relationships and our attitude. Before long, our every thought, decision and activity are all working in harmony to bring into existence what we have mentally concluded about the future.
The more excited we become by our future dreams, the easier it is to develop the necessary disciplines and make the refinements to our philosophy. Our dreams inspire us to think and act and feel and become exactly the kind of person we must be to realize our dreams. We become pulled by the future and guided by the past because we have learnt from the past and have chosen to take intelligent action in the present.
Once you reflected on your ideal life, your purpose will become clear. You are pulled by a clear and compelling picture of the kind of life you’d like to have. With this clear and compelling picture about the kind of person you are in the process of becoming and the kind of life you are in the process of creating your life feels more like a journey. You will know exactly what your priorities are and do more of what you need to do to create the life you want. Your relationships will deeper and you’re taking better care of yourself.
Success is not something to be possessed. Success must be constantly renewed. We must understand that success is a process, a journey, not a destination, let alone a summit. It is the ongoing process of becoming all we can and should be, and there is no limit. The secret of success is therefore constancy of purpose. Success is an active process of accomplishments along the way. Joy lies in the effort, satisfaction in the attainment. Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling. Joy of achievement occurs in direct proportion to the effort expended, and the greatest fulfillment comes from the realization that we have accomplished something.
We need a variety of input and influence and ideas. We cannot get all the answers to life and business from one person or from one source. But be careful with your associates. Remember you acquire much of the thinking, mannerism and characteristics of the people you are around. This is true whether people around you positive or negative. Pick out those people who are optimistic and enthusiastic about life and I’ll guarantee you some of it will “rub off “ on you. When you associate with the “right” people with positive attitudes and positive outlook on life you will greatly enhance yourself and your chances of success and happiness.
There are two parts to influence: First, influence is powerful; and second, influence is subtle. You wouldn’t let someone push you off course, but you might let someone nudge you off course and not even realize it. You must constantly ask yourself these questions:
- Who am I around?
- What are they doing to me?
- What have they got me reading?
- What have they got me saying?
- Where do they have me going?
- And most important, what do they have me becoming?
- Then ask yourself the big question: Is that okay?
We must frequently assure ourselves that the wrong voices of influence have not invaded our garden of thoughts, sowing seeds of negativity and doubt. Never underestimate the power of influence. Like failure, influence is subtle. Occasional influences are very subtle because they can have an accumulative effect that is difficult to see. In an effort to protect ourselves from the wrong influences and voices, we may be forced to walk away from people we have known for many years in order to develop more positive and motivating friendships. Attitude is greatly shaped by influence and association. In your working life, don’t join an easy crowd; you won’t grow. Go where the expectations and demands to perform are high.
In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the results. It is not chance. Those who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; those who would achieve much must sacrifice much; those who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly. So called “gifts,” powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort; they are thoughts completed, objects accomplished, visions realized.
The thoughtless, the ignorant, and the lazy, seeing only the apparent effects of things and not the things themselves, talk of luck, of fortune, and chance. Seeing someone grow rich, they say, “How lucky they are!” Observing another become a renowned scholar, they exclaim, “How highly favored they are!” And noting the saintly character and wide influence of others, they remark, “How luck aids them at every turn!” They do not see the trials and failures and struggles that these men and women have voluntarily encountered in order to gain their experience; they have no knowledge of the sacrifices they have made, of the undaunted efforts they have put forth, of the faith they have exercised, that they might overcome the apparently insurmountable, and realize the vision of their heart.
They do not know the darkness and the heartaches; they only see the light and joy, and call it luck; they do not see the long and arduous journey, but only see the pleasant goal and call it good fortune; they do not understand the process, but only perceive the result, and call it chance.
If you have someone who finds a great deal of pleasure in trying to peck away at your dreams, goals, or beliefs (what you stand for), get rid of his or her influence. What sounds like censor chip is, in fact self-preservation. Keep the weeds of negative influence from your life. Instead, “farm” the seeds of constructive influence. You will not believe the harvest of good fortune you will reap.
Life is not designed to give rewards in proportion to our level of need, it gives them in proportion to our level of deserve. That’s why starting with a sound personal philosophy and the right attitude is so important. Whether we actually achieve our goals is ultimately determined by our activity. We can have a well-balanced philosophy, great depth of character, and a good attitude about life, but unless we put these valuable assets to work, we may find ourselves making more excuses than progress.
What we know and our attitudes are important factors that affect the quality of our lives. They are the foundation upon which to build a better future. Completing the rest of the picture requires action. No matters how carefully you plan your goals, they will never be more than pipe dreams unless you pursue them with gusto. We must learn to translate wisdom and strong feelings into labor.
If we have a sincere desire for progress, a sincere desire to get ahead, then we are compelled to find every possible means to implement all that we know to do a certain thing. In this way, we’ll acquire the capacity to do it even if we may not have it at the beginning. We need to find ways to demonstrate to the outside all of the value that we possess on the inside. Otherwise, our values will remain unappreciated and our talents unrewarded. We must learn to apply all that we know so that we can attract all that we want.
Your job or your occupation does a lot more than pay the bills. It gives you the opportunity to excel, to expect the best of yourself and to put that expectations into practice. The quality of people’s lives is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor. To love what you do and feel that it matters – how could anything be more fun.
The greatest success stories were created by people who recognized the problem and turned it into an opportunity. In translating problem into opportunity, act as if it were impossible to fail. The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel, are the things that endure. These qualities are so much more important than the events that occur. Ingenuity, plus courage, plus work, equals miracles. If our desire to succeed is strong then:
- We work at achieving our goals.
- We take all that we are to the marketplace and put it to work.
- We stay up late at night developing new plans to achieve our dreams and work hard day after day to make those dreams a reality.
- We learn all that we possibly can about our industry and our markets.
- We make every effort to get around the right sources of influence, to associate with those people who can help us achieve our goals.
We do all these things consistently and with intensity and a level of commitment. We enter the fertile fields of life with seeds (ideas), knowledge, commitment, and a determined effort. It is our intense, disciplined activity that makes us flourish. The unique combination of desire, planning, effort and perseverance will always work its magic. Happiness is a by-product of what we do. The happiest people I know are those who are busily working toward specific objectives.
What a life we could then share with our families – a life filled with excitement and achievement and a wealth of virtue, integrity and substance – and all because we cared enough to do something with our lives and to put our skills and talents to work.
We will all experience one pain or the other – the pain of discipline as we work at achieving our goals or the pain of regret – but the difference is that the pain of discipline weighs only ounces while the pain of regret weighs tons.
When Shakespeare wrote the words: “To be or not to be . . . ” he touched the essence of self. To do or not to do; to achieve or not to achieve; to become or not to become; to be or not to be. If it’s to be it’s up to me.
We can develop a new discipline of doing rather than neglecting. Every time we choose action over ease or labor over rest, we develop an increasing level of self-confidence. It is activity that converts human dreams into reality. For the means to be filled by intense activity, we must be obsessed by the ends – by the promise of the future. It is not what we get that makes us valuable, it is what we become in the process of doing that brings us value into our lives.
Nothing great has ever been accomplished without enthusiasm. The difference between the good salesman and the great salesman, the good mother and the great mother, the good engineer and the great engineer, the good speaker and the great speaker is often enthusiasm. Enthusiasm makes a difference. It creates endless energy, the source of all accomplishment. Enthusiasm, if fuelled by inspiration and perseverance, travels with passion and its destination is excellence. Enthusiasm comes from the wellspring of all the resources within us.
Enthusiasm has nothing to do with being loud or noisy. Many extremely enthusiastic people are fairy quiet, yet every fiber of their being, every word and action, attest to the fact they love life and what the life has to offer. They are filled with the sparkle and joy of life.
When we get up with enthusiasm and go to breakfast with enthusiasm, we are beginning to set the stage for a good day. Once we have enthusiasm, it will spread to our family and associates and everybody benefit. The most enthusiastic people I know are those who are busily working toward specific objectives. The most bored and miserable people are those who are drifting along with no worthwhile objectives in mind. It should be just as obvious that how we get up in the morning will be a good prediction of how high we will go up in life.
Make rest a necessity, not an objective. Only rest long enough to gather strength. If we rest too long, the weeds will surely take over the garden. The erosion of our values begins immediately whenever we are at rest. That’s why we must make rest a necessity, not an objective.
There is a time and a place for everything. There are times to act and times to reflect. Most of us don’t take the time for serious reflection. With our busy schedules we often neglect this crucial part of the formula for success. Take time to review, ponder, and reflect on everything that has happened in your life. In studying our lives be sure to study our failures as well as our successes. Our so-called failures serve us well when they teach us valuable lessons. Often, they’re better teachers than our successes.
It is easy to mistake motion for progress and movement for achievement. It’s easy to get faked out by being busy. The question is: Busy doing what? That’s why activity must be deliberately planned, carefully refined and consistently executed.
Never begin the day until it is finished on paper. Learn how to separate the majors and the minors. If you do that, you are in control of your life. If you don’t life controls you. Something will master and something will serve. Either you run the day or the day runs you; either you run the business or the business runs you. A lot of people don’t do well simply because they major in minor things.
Time is our most valuable asset, yet we tend to waste it, kill it, and spend it rather than invest it. Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time. So make sure we use time wisely. If we feel ourselves valuable, then we will feel our time is valuable, and if we feel our time is valuable, then we will use it well.
Know the true value of time! Snatch, seize and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination. Never put till tomorrow what you can do today. It’s the cutting down the distance by the little that you win; it’s the iron will to do it, and the steady sticking to it, so whatever your task, go to it! Keep your smile and drive on.
It is desire that gives you the needed momentum and inspiration. Fuel your desire daily and watch the small spark of hope that now exists within you to ignite into a blazing fire of determination. To succeed in life one must have determination. The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too.
The secret of unleashing your true power is setting goals that are exciting enough to inspire your creativity and ignite your passion. This is the magnificent obsession. This is the very nerve center of our ambition. This is what drives us. Through our daily activity and discipline we provide the push to propel us toward success. But it is the dream of the future achievement of our objectives that pulls us along day after day and pulls us through the major obstacles we encounter along the way. The exciting thing about this process is that the more we push, the more the future begins to pull, the pull becomes stronger and the future more certain. The most important part of planning and goal setting is to see in our mind eye the major objective that we are pursuing.
Like everything else that success requires, developing the discipline that it takes to achieve our dreams is easy to do . . . and it is also easy not to do. Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.
A few simple disciplines can have a major impact on how your life works out in the next 90 days, let alone in the next 12 months or the next 3 years. Discipline is the foundation upon which all success is built. Discipline has within it the potential for creating future miracles. The least lack of discipline starts to erode our self-esteem. Lack of discipline inevitably leads to failure. All discipline affects each other. Mistakenly a man say, “This is the only area where I let down.” Not true! Every let down affects the rest. He who gains victory over other men is strong; but he who gains a victory over himself is all powerful. Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.
The smallest of disciplines, practiced every day, start an incredible process that can change our lives forever. The major accomplishments in life begin with the mastery of the small discipline. The mental, emotional and philosophical muscles required to write a letter, clean the garbage or pay our bills on time are the very same muscles involved in running a company or managing a department.
When you choose a habit, you also choose the end result of that habit. Good habits are difficult to acquire, but easy to live with. Bad habits are easy to acquire, but difficult to live with. We acquire the habit of the people we associate with on a steady basis. Pick out those people who are optimistic and enthusiastic about life. When you associate with the “right” people with positive attitudes and positive outlook on life you will greatly enhance yourself and your chances of success and happiness.
Habit is like a cable; we weave a thread of it each day until it becomes too strong to break. Then the strength of the cable takes us to the top or ties us to the bottom, depending on whether it is a good or a bad habit. All bad habits start slowly, easily and gradually and before you are aware of that bad habit, that bad habit has you and it’s difficult to break.
Exercise regularly is a good habit.
Eating healthy food is a good habit.
Reading on a regular basis is a good habit.
Going extra mile at work is a good habit.
Staying up early is a good habit.
Saving and then investing the money we’ve saved regularly is a good habit.
Putting ideas and information that come your ways in your journal is a good habit.
Spend time alone on regular basis for reflection and self-evaluation is a good habit.
We build our character from the bricks of habit we pile up day by day. Each one might seem like a little thing but before we’re aware of it, we’ve shaped the house in which we live. Initially, you might have to work at all of these good habits, but their affect on you and the people you’re around will be so profound that soon you will have much happier, richer, and fulfilled life. Those good habits will be working for you and that’s the basic of which success and happiness are made. We need to work hard to build good habits and as they become our habits they will work for us. First you make your habits, then your habits make you.
Momentum is really our best friend. Sometimes it’s the only difference between winning and losing. If we have no momentum, even the simplest tasks can seem to be insurmountable problems. Getting started is a struggle, but once you’re moving forward, you can really start to do amazing things. With enough momentum, nearly any kind of achievement is possible. Momentum puts victory within reach. Once you have attained that valuable momentum, maintain it. Cling to it. And as momentum increases, the steps in your progress become more rapid. Momentum must be attained and maintained if we are to reach the heights of achievement.
It is an exhilarating feeling to realize that it is not a matter of discovery who we are so much as deciding what we want to be, and then work on becoming it. In designing a better future the major focus of our plan should be on becoming more than we already are. If we are not happy with our current results, then the place to begin is with ourselves. Everything we have in life – the tangibles as well as the intangibles – is a direct result of who we are. Results will always be predictable because results are always determined by what we are in the process of becoming.
The real answer lies in becoming more than we are so that our increased potential becomes an integral part of everything we do. That is how life gets better – when we get better. Income seldom exceeds personal development. What you become directly influence what you get. We can have more than we’ve got because we can become more than we are. We cannot have more without becoming more. That is one of the basic.
Always do more than you get paid for as an investment in your future. We cannot increase our rewards until we increase our level of intelligent activity. From increased activity we can produce new results and become more capable and therefore more valuable in the marketplace.
Don’t bring your need to the marketplace. Bring your skill. We get paid for bringing value to the marketplace. It takes time to bring value to the marketplace, but we get paid for the value, not for the time. Lack of homework shows up in the marketplace. To settle for doing less than we could do is to fail in this worthiest of undertakings. The greatest rewards are always reserved for those who bring great value to themselves and the world around them as result of who and what they have become.
Giving is better than receiving because giving starts the receiving process. Nothing teaches character better than generosity. Sharing makes you bigger than you are. The more you pour out, the more life will be able to pour in. What you give becomes an investment that will return to you multiplied at some point in the future. Only by giving (your talents, time, efforts, helping hands, etc.) are you able to receive more than you already have.
Pity the man who inherits a million dollars and who isn’t a millionaire. Here’s what would be pitiful: If your income grew and you didn’t. The most important question to ask on the job is not “What am I getting?” The most important question to ask on the job is “What am I becoming?” It is hard to keep that which has not been obtained through personal development.
Give a million dollar to someone who does not posses the attitude of a millionaire and that person will most likely lose it. But take away all the wealth from a TRUE millionaire and in no time he or she will build a new fortune. Why? Because those who EARN their millionaire status develop the skills, knowledge, and experience to duplicate the process again and again. As you can see, when someone becomes a millionaire, the least important thing is what he or she has. The most important thing is what he or she has become. Physical liberty, freedom from bondage, is not the goal, but only a stepping-stone towards the achievement of life’s nobler goals – freedom of spirit and mind.
After you become a millionaire, you can give all of your money away because what’s important is not the million dollars; but what’s important is the person you have become in the process of becoming a millionaire.
Financial independence is the ability to live from the income of our personal resources. We all know a variety of ways to make a living. What’s even more fascinating is figuring out ways to make a fortune: the rich invest their money and spend what is left; the poor spend their money and invest what is left. When people tell themselves that money is what’s missing in their lives, but what’s really missing is the ability to make it and keep it.
Twenty years ago, two people each earned a thousand dollar a month and they each earned the same increases over the years. One had the philosophy of spending money and save (invest) what’s left; the other had the philosophy of save (invest) first and spending what’s left. Today, if you knew them both, you’d call one poor and the other wealthy.
Saving (investing), like any form of discipline, has a subtle effect. At the end of the day, a week, or a month, the results are hardly noticeable. But left five years lapse, and the difference becomes pronounced. At the end of ten years, the differences are dramatic. It makes a difference between poor and wealthy. Reduce your liabilities and increase your assets. That’s the key to financial success.
I found out that just making good money isn’t good enough. I found out that a person could make ten thousand dollars a month and still go broke. You say, “How can you go broke making ten thousand a month?” It’s easy! Just spend eleven thousand. If your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep will become your downfall.
Personal value is the magnet that attracts all good things into our lives. The greater our value, the greater our reward, therefore we must in constant search for new ways to increase our value in the marketplace. Our employer has no control over our value, but we do. We do have charge of whether we read, develop new skills, and take new classes.
Self-control, the practice of discipline, patience, planning, intensity of effort, the wise investment of a good portion of our results, the development of a well balanced attitude, frequent reading and a sensible personal philosophy are all examples of ways in which our value can be increased.
Our objective must be to work harder on ourselves than we work on anything else. By giving careful attention to our philosophy, our attitude and our daily activity, we are making a positive contribution to what we are becoming, and in the process of becoming more than we now are, we will attract more than we now have.
We become and then we attract. We grow personally and then we advance materially. Remember, it takes time to develop and grow. The twin killer of success are impatience and greed. There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste; there are no honours distant to the man who prepares himself with patience. The journey toward success is a journey of a thousand steps, and it begins with a single book or a single promise finally kept. It begins with the awakening of our sleeping spirit brought on by dreams of all that could be.
We can all go from wherever we are to wherever we want to be. No dream is impossible provided we first have the courage to believe in it. Why not stretch to the full measure of the challenge and see what all we can do? Your ultimate goal is to become all you can become and to accomplish all you can accomplish. Each of us is endowed with innate resources that enable us to achieve all we’ve ever dreamed of and more.
He who only lives on the surface enjoys but the outer crust; he who reaches beneath the surface begin to claim his hidden treasure. We must challenge ourselves with the impossible. It is better to aim the spear at the moon and strike the eagle, than to aim at the eagle and strike only a rock. The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible. No matter how high one’s aspirations may be, it must be achieved step-by-step. Even the greatest castle is built one stone at a time. And as we have discovered, it is those single stone – few simple disciplines practiced every day – that actually create successes we achieve.
Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end up by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.
Vince Lombardi, the most revered football coach, walked over to his football player and put his arms around his shoulder and said, ”Son, I told you the truth. You are the lousy football player. However, in all fairness to you, inside you son, there is a great football player and I am going to stick by your side until the great football player inside of you has a chance to come out and assert himself.” Deep within us dwell those slumbering powers; powers that would astonish us, that we never dreamed of possessing; forces that would revolutionize our lives if aroused and put into action. If we did all the things we are capable of doing; we would literally astound ourselves. Jerry Kramer went on to become one of the all-time great football players in the first 50 years of professional football. That was Lombardi. He saw things in men that they seldom saw in themselves. He had the ability to inspire his men to use the talent they had. He gives them something to live up to. He convinces them they can – and they will. When their self-image changes, so will their performance.
If we don’t get rid of our own self-imposed limitations, the next five years will be about the same as the last, except that we’ll be five years older. But by taking responsibility and getting rid of our self-imposed limitations, we can, instead, become five years better and wiser. Doesn’t the last one sound more exciting?
Human beings can do remarkable things. We can turn nothing into something, pennies into fortune, and disaster into triumph. We can change all things for the better, when we change ourselves for better. We are a human being, a most remarkable creation. Yes, we can! But how?
First, find the courage to let go of whatever doesn’t serve you anymore, weather it’s your job, old possession, a relationship or beliefs and emotions you’ve been clinging to. Ask yourself these questions:
o What is it that I’ve been holding on to that I need to let go of?
o What is not longer serving my life that I need to release?
o In what area of my life right now do I feel the need for some change?
o What area has been trying to change, but I’ve been resisting?
Practice “zero-based-thinking” in every part of your life. Ask yourself continually:
“If I was not doing this already, knowing what I now know, would I get into it again today?
Examine each part of your personal life and work activities and evaluate it based on your situation today. If it is something you would not start up again today, knowing what you know now, it is a prime candidate for abandonment. By getting rid from things that don’t serve you anymore, you will have more time for things that are important to you. Remember: Success depends upon using our time wisely by planning and setting priorities.
We generally change ourselves for one of two reasons: inspiration or desperation. Desperation is the final and inevitable results of months or years of accumulated neglect and few errors in judgment, repeated every day. The overwhelming sense of desperation finally forces us to look for the solutions. Hopefully the source that drives you to make changes in your life is inspiration – about to become sufficiently inspired to make major or even dramatic changes in your life.
Six thousand years of recorded history the word ‘crisis’ written in Chinese is composed of two characters – one represents difficulty and the other represents opportunity. Opportunity mixed with difficulty. It isn’t going to change. “So,” you ask, “how will my life change for better?” When you change for better! If one desires a change, one must be that change before that change can take place. The external world is but a mirror. Whatever you see therein is but a reflection of yourself.
We will find that as we alter our thoughts toward things and other people, things and other people will alter toward us. If we radically alter our thoughts, we will be astonished at the rapid transformation it will effect in the conditions of our lives. We do not attract that which we want, but that which we are. The divinity that shapes our ends is in ourselves. It is our very self.
All that we achieve is the direct result of our own thoughts. We can only rise, conquer and achieve by lifting up our thoughts. We can only remain weak and abject and miserable by refusing to lift up our thoughts.
Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think of these things.
All you need to do is to add. Add to your growth, wealth, influence, knowledge, faith, experience and wisdom. You imagine and feel yourself successful and prosperous, and your subconscious mind will responds to your habitual thinking. Your subconscious mind always magnifies and multiplies. Affirm,
“Wealth flows to me in avalanches of abundance”
Be sincere and mean it, and your subconscious mind will respond.
“By day and by night I am prospering spiritually, mentally, and financially. I am open and receptive to new ideas; therefore I am successful; very successful; very, very successful. Wealth is flowing to me freely, joyously, endlessly, and ceaselessly. The law of increase is working for me now.”
“I know there is a perfect law of supply and demand.
I am instantly in touch with everything I need.
I am guided to my true place now.
I am giving my talents in a wonderful way.
I am doing the thing I love to do and I have a wonderful income consistent with integrity and honesty.”
Life is a mixture of opportunity and difficulty. That the way it is. The big question is how you handle the difficult times? Let me tell you what mature people do: They get stronger. They get wiser. They get better. They use tough times for personal development. A person of character can appreciate difficulty, for it is through difficulty that he can realize his potential. Don’t wish the situation were easier, wish you were better. Don’t wish for fewer problems, wish for more skills and knowledge. Don’t wish for less challenges, wish for more wisdom. Don’t try to become better than anyone else but yourself. I only tried to become better than myself each day as each came. The goal each day must be to get a little better, to build on the previous day’s progress. Self-improvement is to become better than oneself every day.
The development of new skills is vitally important if we expect to make major progress and improve the level of our performance. You can cut down a tree with a hammer, but it might take 30 days. If you trade the hammer for an axe, you can cut it down in about 30 minutes. The difference between 30 days and 30 minutes is skill. The key to life more abundant is to become skillful enough to be able to do rewarding things. Learn to magnify your skills. Life and labor get easier when knowledge is combined with new skills.
The purpose of our activity is results. Results are always in direct proportion to the effort. Results do not respond to need. Results respond to effort . . . to labor . . . to activity. If we have done our part, the results we need will appear in a reasonable amount of time. Checking our results on a regular basis provides us with an excellent indicator of how well we are using our time. If our current results are not as we would like them to be, then we need to take a closer look at those factors that may have nudged or even pushed us in the wrong direction. We may need to make some major changes in our current level of activity in order to increase our results.
How often we need to check our results depends on how far we want to go. The greater the distance the more frequently we need to check. If we are only going as far as the next block, being off a few degrees isn’t going to make much difference. But if we have our sights set on some distant star, then miscalculating by even one degree can lead us millions of miles off target.
Progress must be measured on a regular basis. If we are not making measurable progress in a reasonable amount of time, then something is clearly wrong with either our objective or the execution of our plans.
Neglect and delay can be costly. To ignore the symptoms is merely to perpetuate the cause. Rarely will a problem repair itself. Instead, a neglected problem intensifies. The longer we wait to discover this small error in judgment, the harder we will have to work to get back on course. And of greater consequence is that the passage of time tends to diminish our desire to get back on course.
If we don’t like how things are, change it! We’re not a tree. We cannot change our destination/destiny overnight, but we can change our direction overnight. Decision-making can sometimes seem like inner civil war.
It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off! We cannot make progress without making decisions. Don’t say, “If I could, I would.” Say, “I will.”
That is the great challenge of achievement – making measurable progress in a reasonable amount of time. The difficulties we encounter serve a unique purpose. Difficulty tests the strength of our resolve. If our intent is strong enough, then we will be driven to seek solutions. As we invoke the power of creativity and intensify our efforts to conquer each new problem, we actually speed up our progress. Without challenges to capture our attention we may take twice as long to arrive at our objective. Because if the way is easy, we tend to drift along at a leisurely pace. If the way is fraught with obstacles, we will dig deeper within ourselves calling upon more ingenuity, more abilities and more strength than we even knew we possessed. Conquering these challenges leads us to a new level of self-confidence that drives us further and faster toward our inevitable success.
We all have opportunities mixed with difficulties. Whatever happens, happens to us all. Some choose to use them as an excuse for poor performance while other use those same circumstances as a reason to grow and to drive themselves to new heights of accomplishment. They see difficulty as the struggle for greatness. It is not what happens that determines the quality of our lives, it is what we choose to do about what happens. Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another. The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials. Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into thin air.
Ten years from now we will be somewhere, the question is where? Now is the time to fix the next ten years. Life will present us with enough obstacles without purposely attracting them. One of the best ways to minimize future obstacles is to anticipate the results of our current neglect. It begins with asking ourselves important questions about our attention to the basics:
- How many times have I written in my journal to integrate the experiences to strengthen and nurture me last month?
- How many books have I read in the past ninety days?
- How much of my income have I invested last year?
- How regularly did I exercise last month?
Every error defeated by disciplined activity paves the way for our future success – a single victory at a time. Every result we experience, no matter how small, is another certain step toward a life of achievement.
Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying basic fundamental. Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines or our error in judgments that leads us to either success or failure.
We’ve all heard the expression, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Well, I’ve got a good question for you: What if it’s true? Wouldn’t that be easy to do – to eat an apple a day? Here is the problem: It’s also easy not to do. Some things we have to do every day. Eating seven apples on Saturday night instead of one a day isn’t going to get the job done.
One of the reasons why many people don’t have what they want is neglect. Neglect starts out as an infection then becomes a disease. Cardiovascular problems alone create over a thousand funerals a day . . . and 90% of the problem is neglect.
Our ultimate success or failure depends on three fundamental things:
- What we know.
- Our attitudes
- What we do.
We must challenge ourselves right now with a new level of thinking, and drive ourselves toward a new level of achievement.
The final results of your life will be determined by whether you made too many errors in judgment, repeated every day or whether you dedicated your life to a few simple discipline, practiced every day:
- The discipline of strengthening and broadening your philosophy.
- The discipline of developing a better attitude.
- The discipline of engaging in more intense and consistent activity that will lead to the achievement of your goals.
- The discipline of studying the results and writing in your journal in order to anticipate the future more objectively.
- The discipline of living life more fully in the present moment.
The secret is here in the present. Wherever you are, be there. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it, and, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better. When you work, work. When you play, play. Don’t mix the two. The only way to deal with the future is to function effectively in the Now. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year.
We don’t have to postpone our appreciation of the finer things in life until we have reached our career goals. The price of admission to a fabulous sunset is still free. It is in the enjoyment and not in mere possession that makes for happiness. You can enjoy a beautiful garden without owning it. We don’t have to be rich to live richly. All of the happiness and fulfillment we want can be ours right now simply by changing how we feel and what we think about this concept called lifestyle.
Many of us dream of becoming wealthy, of having a beautiful home that is tended by others so that we will be free to enjoy ourselves. We dream of winning lotteries that will enable us to quit our jobs tomorrow and go off in pursuit of the good life. We dream of chauffeurs to drive us and servants to take care of us so that we can have all the time in the world to do whatever we want to do.
The big question is what would we do? In a very short time, most of what we dream of one day doing would become uninspiring. There is only so much traveling, so much partying, so much sleeping, and so much ‘enjoying’ that we can experience before this too would become tedious. If it is not a life of endless fun and laughter that we are after, then what is it that we are in pursuit of? What is this thing call lifestyle?
It is not something we get simply as results of having more. Lifestyle is a result of living more: living more fully, living more consciously, living more joyfully, and living more appreciatively. That exquisite feeling called happiness can begin wherever and however we are because it has nothing to do with things. Having more isn’t the answer to happiness.
Happiness isn’t something you withdraw from your bank account. It is something you withdraw from life and from those around you. If we cannot learn to be happy with what we have right now, then we will never be happy no matter how much good fortune comes our way. There is no better opportunity to receive more than to be thankful for what we already have. Thanksgiving opens the windows of opportunity for ideas and happiness to flow.
Lifestyle is a function of attitude and personal values. The things we do, the things we say, even our appearance is suggestive of an inner attitude about life. It doesn’t take more money to change how we live. It takes more deliberate thought and a greater appreciation of the real values in life.
Lifestyle means designing ways to live uniquely. It is the art of discovering ways to live uniquely. It is a skill to be mastered, not a condition to be pursued. A more abundance existence does not necessarily mean a more enjoyable lifestyle. Joy is not in things, it is in us. Lifestyle is finding new ways to bring joy, pleasure, excitement, and substance into our lives and to those we care for while we are working on our goals, not once we achieved them. We must not let the years, and the chances and the small opportunities for creating moments of joy slip away. It’s not just achieving a goal that matters, but the quality of life you experience along the way. Find simple ways to bring joy in your life.
THE END
posted by Inspirational Articles at 11:26:00 AM
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