Inspiration

Exploring Beliefs

2006-11-12T13:04:00.000+01:00

This is a step by step method to identify beliefs that cause any form of emotional conflict, and then explore and resolve those beliefs.

Knowledge grows with experience. With an expanding ability to accept and to trust ourselves just the way we are, life becomes a very different journey, one that we can enjoy now (even before we fix everything we believe needs changing). We wage an internal war with the parts of our selves we want to correct or change. When you accept this moment, you free yourself to move in any direction you choose. You avoid using your energy to fight with what has already happened. It just is.

Acceptance allows change. The acceptance mode includes everything, even your judgments. It allows you to be okay now, even before you reach your goals. Acceptance permits happiness, clear perception and love. An attitude of acceptance offers a starting point for healing, learning, finding new direction. It provides a foundation from which to learn and grow.

When you begin to accept yourself the way you are right now, you begin new life with new possibilities that did not exist before because you were so caught in the struggle against the reality.

Find a quiet, comfortable place to be and get a pen or pencil.
Ask yourself: “What has been hard for you in the past?”
Give yourself enough time with that questions (at least ten minutes). Let the memory float up their own rate. All you have to do is ask yourself “What has been hard for you in the past?” and receive the response, the gift of self-revelation.

This is an exercise you can do many times. It will reward you with the gift of self-knowledge. It will help you to allow things to creep out of shadows.

Take time to look over what you’ve written. Reading it is different from writing it. It provides you a new perspective and allows you to access the information in different ways. Just be there. See what you see. Remember what you remember. Feel what you feel. If you’d like to drop all excess baggage, make accepting yourself and others the first step. Acceptance is strength. Denial never works. I doesn’t change anything; it prevents anything from changing.

We are going to learn how to discover liberating truths in those memories, so that you can change the way that they affect you, so that you can learn more about the underlying causes of the emotional pain and self-imposed limits you live with.

Choose one thing that has been hard for you in your life.
Here are some examples:
Being mistreated as a child was hard for me.
When my father died, it was hard for me.
When I was out of money, it was hard for me.
Always trying to be good enough so that I’d be safe was hard for me.
Losing money in the stock market was hard for me.

Ask: “What was hard for you about that?” Dare to question the obvious. The question is not intended to challenge you or your beliefs. It is meant to shed light in the corners where you never look.

Do at least five examples to see the relationship between what happened and what was hard for you about it more clearly.
Now you know more about what made you difficult or painful for you.

The conclusion you came to when you were three years old might not seem valid at all if you look at them now.

The meaning we attribute to the events and circumstances in our lives gives form to our perception of those events. That meaning determines how we react emotionally. The meaning that causes the pain. The conclusions you come to about yourself, your life, your chances for happiness hurt more that any event in and of itself. It is beliefs that keep the pain alive long after the situation has gone.

An example:
An attractive young woman, Susan became romantically involved with a young man. This man pursued a romantic, and to some extent sexual, relationship with her and then ended it abruptly in order to focus his attention on another attractive woman.

When the intensity of the moment softened, I asked, “What was hard for you about that?”
“I felt so ashamed.” She said, simply.
“What did you feel ashamed about?” I asked.
“That he dumped me,” she whispered.
“What did that mean to you?”
“It mean that I was nothing. That I was less than nothing. That no one would ever want me because I was just nothing.”
Susan covered her face. Her tears fell between her fingers. Her voice trembled with anger and pain and shame.
“Do you believe that?” I asked after a few moments. Susan’s body relaxed slowly. She leaned back against the couch. A soft smile moved her face.
“No, I don’t.” she said, her voice softened.
Sweet freedom. Susan moved forward free from belief: “I am nothing, less than nothing.”

You can trace the chain that links experience-perception-belief to a way of life more clearly using the same method. You will be able to see how those elements work together to create your very life.

“. . . . . . was hard for me.”
“What did it mean to me then?”
“What did it mean to me now?”
Again, take as much time as you like to be with this question. Let the question roam around in your consciousness, your memories, your body. Notice what you find.

The next step is to find out how an experience from your past and the conclusions you came to about it might affect you now. Becoming aware of how events from your past affect you today will mark a path you can follow that leads to freedom and bring you to the present with less baggage.
Here is an example:

Bernd has lost a lot of money in the stock market.
When I asked him, “How do you feel about that?”
He replied, “Awful. I feel really awful, like I’m a failure. I feel guilty and I’m afraid I’ll make a big mistake again. It haunts me. It’s with me all the time.” The following dialogue went like this:

Me: “Imagine that I have a magic wand. If I wave it, your fear will disappear, and you will feel okay about what happened, do you want me to wave it?”
Bernd: “No!”
Me: Why not?”
Bernd: “Because I might do it again.”
Me: “Do what again?”
Bernd: “What I did before.”
Me: “What did you do before?”
Bernd: I’d be careless: I’d repeat what I did and I’d lose a lot of money . . . and I am tired losing money now!”
Me: “Do you believe that?”
Bernd: “Yes!”
Me: “You would? Knowing what you know now. If you weren’t afraid, you’d make the same investment all over again?”
Bernd: “Well, not the same investment. I know about that. But I might be do it with one I didn’t know about.”
Me: “How would being afraid help you deal with an investment you don’t know about?”
Bernd: “It wouldn’t help me. In fact, it hurts me. When I’m afraid, it’s hard for me to learn. It’s hard to concentrate. I can’t pay attention. I can’t be alert. Being scare all the time wouldn’t help me to avoid mistakes at all! Do you really have magic wand?” (He laughed right out loud.)

Bernd gives us such a clear example of how a conclusion about an event can influence the rest of your life. He believed he had to be afraid in order to prevent another disastrous mistake. He lived with that possibility. The very thing that he did to protect himself increased the likelihood of his making an error because his fear made it impossible to think clearly.

Write down one thing that was hard for you in the past.
Ask yourself, “How does that affect me now?”

Take as long as you want with this question. It helps to stay with it a bit longer when you think you’re ready to move on. That allows more to come forward – more insight, more consciousness.

If, for instance, it was hard for you when a love relationship ended, how does that effect you now? Or, if you have lost a lot of money in the stock market, how does that affect you now? Or, if you suffered a business loss, how does that affect you now?

If you experience strong emotions while doing this, notice if they are familiar. The goal here is to locate the pain, anger, guilt, fear, or shame. Let the feeling wash through you.

Look through what you’ve written so far. See if you can spot the beliefs you have expressed. Read like detective hunting for clues that point to conclusions you came to.
Underline or highlight statements you recognized as beliefs. Remember your belief is your perception of reality, a conclusion you came to. Becoming aware of what you believe is one of the most potentially liberating experiences a person can have.

Often, when people discover that something they have believed is simply not true, they dissolve feelings of anger, guilt, fear and self-doubt that have seemed inevitable – sometimes for years.

It’s not what happens to us, so much as what we come to believe, that shapes our lives. Maybe what hurts you still runs or limits your life now, is the conclusions you came to and the beliefs you formed the seeming evidence at hand.

We can identify self-defeating beliefs to see if they hold true for us now. You can begin to recognize the self-created restrictions that you’ve imposed since you were a small child and may not have questioned since.

“What do you believe that hurts you or limits you now?”
“What did you come to believe about what happened to you in the past?”

Your belief is:
· Your perception of reality or fact.
· A conclusion you come to.
· Something we are told that we have no reason not to accept.

Belief is so simple but so powerful. Our beliefs tell us what to do, how to feel, what is. When beliefs change – and they can in a flash if we question them, whole new vistas open to us. New directions become possible that we could not perceive before.

What do you believe:
· about yourself.
· about life?
· about your chances for happiness?
· about what you can accomplish?
What conclusions did you draw from the seeming evidence at hand, that hurt you or limit you today? You have some materials to work with now.

You have thoughts, memories, images from the past, ideas, conclusions, the sensations in your body. They are all valuable information about your beliefs.

Find out what you believe before you try to change it. Remember, your belief is your perception of reality. Denial never works. I doesn’t change anything; it prevents anything from changing.

“What do you believe that may hurt you or limit you?”
Give yourself enough time (at least ten minutes) to see what occurs to you.

Listen to yourself. There is a thread that winds through your life; you are the only one that can follow it. Only you know what your experiences mean to you. You are the one who can discover what you believe and why. See if you can find at least ten self-defeating beliefs. The more self-defeating beliefs you can identify and unravel, the more unresolved issues from the past you can resolve, the more excess baggage you can drop. Every time a self-defeating belief dissolves in the light of insight, a new possibility emerges.

Choose one of your beliefs to explore. Use this form to check if it is a belief:
I believe . . . . . . . . . . .
Ask yourself the questions and write down the answers:
· Do I believe that?
· Why do I believe that?
· Is it true?

Now ask yourself: “What might happen if I didn’t believe that?”
Write down your answer. Then ask, “Would that be okay?”
One by one self-defeating beliefs can be dissolved. The baggage drop.

Find twenty things you believe that might prove limiting, self-defeating beliefs or beliefs that might cause emotional pain.

For each belief, ask yourself.:
“Why do I belief that?”
“What might happen if I didn’t believe that?”
“Is it true?”

What might your life be if you trusted yourself to want only good things?
What if you trusted your desire, your wanting, your awareness of what would be welcome to you, as if it were an inner sense of direction that would guide you through life perfectly, providing you with every experience needed along the way for your perfect development and happiness?

Perhaps everything we truly want is readily available to us and all we need is information about how to get it. What if you lived your life as a research project for getting what you want and learning what would be best for you?

A young woman Sonya had a rough time supporting herself while she studied for a career as an opera singer. She expressed angry, impatience about the obstacles she encountered, She was especially angry about waiting on tables in order to pay her bills and furious about her predicament in general. The idea of accepting her situation fueled the fires of fury.

After she looked at me as if I were stupid for a moment, she replied with all the dignity of her calling, “I have a voice that is a gift from God and I’m using it to ask people how they like their soup!”
Me: “And why, if you have a voice that is a gift of God, do you want to sing Opera?”
Sonya: “Because it would be a crime to waste it.”
Me: “Why do you want to avoid wasting it?”
Sonya: “Because I want to use it. I want to share it with other people.”
Me: “Why do you want to share it with people?”
Sonya: “Because it’s beautiful.”
Me: “Why do you want to share something beautiful with people?”
Sonya: “Because then I’ll be doing what I’m supposed to be doing. I’ll be doing what I’m here for.”
Me: “Why do you want to be doing what you’re here for?”
Sonya: “Because then maybe I could be happy.” Her eyes filled with tears and she laughed. “You mean to tell me that I have been making myself miserable for years, because I want to be happy? Ohhh, my God.

So often we become unhappy if we don’t yet have something we want. We get so lost in the feeling of frustration, anger, shame and despair that we completely forget what we want, what we welcome into our lives.

At that moment we stop actively wanting what we want. We make ourselves miserable in order to get what we want so that we can be happy.

This kind of approach to motivation is not only self-defeating, it will get you to be unhappy in order to be happy.

Knowing what you want and what you really want it for is the best way to greet each new day. It allows you to live in the moment, which is the only moment you can live fully.

I have asked hundreds of people,
“Why do you want what you want?” and
“What do you want that for?”
Their answers create the perfect definition of happiness in all of it’s wonderful forms. They say things like these:

To find peace.
To feel good.
To know I’m doing the right thing.
To feel at one with Gold and the Universe.
Bliss.
Ecstasy.
Joy.
To be true to myself.
To feel love.
To have fun.
To feel free.
To know that I’m okay.
To relax.
To unfold who I am.
To be happy.

I have seen no skill more valuable for enhancing relationships and getting more of what you want than the simple ability to ask for it. Telling someone what you’re unhappy about is very different from letting them know what you want. Rather than waiting until you’re in pain, or raging inside, ask yourself what do you welcome into your life now? Who would you like to have know that?

If you can express your desires as a gift of self-revelation rather than a demand, people can share them with you in a whole new way. Even if they can’t give you what you want, they may still be on your side and want you to have it. They may even be willing to help you get it.

Choose something that you want. If it is something that you’re unhappy about not having, that would be a good one.

Ask yourself,
“Why do I want that?” or “”What do I want for?”
When you get answer, ask again,
“Why do I want that?”
Ask again and again.

Take each answer and ask yourself: “Why do I want that?” or “What do I want that for?” until you come to the end of your answers.

The purpose is to find out more about how you come you want what you want, to live more consciously.

Take something you would like to achieve, have, or experience. Write it down.
What are some steps you can take to bring that into reality?
Look for things you could enjoy doing to move toward that goal or attract it to you.
For each of your goal, ask yourself, “Can I have that?” Answer YES or NO.
For each NO answer, ask yourself “why?”
“Why can’t I have that?”
Write down your response. You may have one self-limiting belief or many.
Ask yourself, “Do I belief that?”

A wise man once said, “I can predict the future.”
“Amazing!” the people cried, “How can you do that?”
“It’s easy,” he said, “Most likely it will be accumulation of what you do every single day.”
He continued, “If you spend your time two hours a day watching TV and the other guy spends two hours a day for productive activity - in twenty years - both of you would have a totally different kind of future. Can you predict that?”

If you want to change your life, all you have to do is to turn, perhaps ever so slightly, and take the very next step in a new direction. Choosing the results you desire purposely will clarify your intent. It will clear your mind and keep you on the path you choose.

Personal Philosophy

2006-09-17T11:26:00.000+02:00

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

Enlightened Self-Interest

2006-09-17T11:22:00.000+02:00

“You mean it’s not immoral to be selfish?”

The question does not mean, “Do I have permission to violate the right of others?” Or “Is it appropriate to be indifferent to human suffering?” Or “Are kindness and generosity not virtues?” But it means, “Do I have a right to honor my own needs and wants, to act on my own judgment, to strive on my own happiness?” Ultimately it means, “Do I have a right to exist for my own sake?”

If my right to exist is contingent on services I render to others, I exist only by permission or favor. My life does not belong to me. If my life does not belong to me, to whom does it belong?

From the time we are children, our parents, teachers, religious leaders - those authorities - assert that it is easy to be selfish and that it takes courage to practice self-sacrifice. But the opposite is true: it takes courage to cherish our own desires, to formulate independent values and remain true to them, to fight for our goals whether or not family or friends approve.

Most people begin practicing self-sacrifice almost from the day they are born. With each year they give away more and more of their desires and ambitions in order to ‘belong.’ Predictably, the result of this self-sacrifice is that, in a kind of perverted rebellion, they often end up being petty, narrow minded, and ‘selfish’ over trivia. Trivia are all they have left to fight for, after they have surrendered their souls.

“Do you mean it’s not immoral to be selfish?” is a way of asking, “Do you mean I don’t belong to others? Do you mean my first obligation is not to live up to someone else’s expectation?” Such a thought is both exhilarating and frightening. It promises liberation but only if we are prepared to challenge the teachings of a lifetime and step forth into autonomy and self-responsibility.

If one’s goal is a happy and fulfilling life, self-interest is best served by rationality, productivity, integrity, and a sense of justice and benevolence in dealings with others. It is served by learning to think long-term and to project the consequences of one’s actions, which means learning to live self-responsibly. Irresponsibility is not to one’s self-interest. And neither is mindlessness, dishonesty, or brutality.

Consider the following example. A young woman - I will call her Anita - decides she would like to become an architect. Her father is deeply disappointed, because he had always dreamed that after college she would join him in the dress business. “Must you so selfish?” Anita’s mother says to her. “You’re breaking your father’s heart.”

“If I don’t study architecture,” Anita answers, “I’ll break my own heart.”

So Anita goes to college to become an architect. While at college, she dates a young man who falls in love with her. He begs her to marry him, give up architecture, and become the mother of his children. “In the first place,” Anita tells him gently, not wishing to cause pain, “I don’t love you. And in the second place, I don’t plan to have children, at least not in the foreseeable future.”

“Not having children?” the young man cries. “How can you be so selfish? (The Pope would tell her that her practice of birth control is sinfully egocentric.) And don’t you care at all about my happiness?”

“Don’t you care at all about mine?” she responds, smiling.

A few years later, now a practicing architect, she meets a man with whom she falls in love. Anita sees in him the embodiment of the traits she most admires: strength, self-confidence, integrity, and a passionate nature unafraid of love and intimacy. To marry him, share her excitement and joy with him, nurture him at times, support him in his struggles as he supports her in hers -join with him in fighting for causes in which they both believe -is experienced by her as selfish in the most natural and benevolent sense of word. She is living for her values. Her life is productive, stimulating, and filled with love.

When her husband becomes ill, for a long time she curtails many of her activities to take care of him. When friends praise her for her ‘unselfishness,’ she looks at them incredulously. “I love him” is her only answer. The thought of selfless service would not occur to her. She would not insult what she feels for her husband by calling her caretaking self-sacrifice. “Not if you hold the full context,” she explains, “What would I do if I were ‘selfish?’ Abandon him? Whose notion of self-interest is that?”

(Another example. A man continually neglects a wife he loves, goes off to a party, leaves her ill at home and unattended, and if she leaves him and he is then devastated and miserable, we might say that he was ‘selfish.’ But it would be truer to say that he had a fool’s notion of his self-interest. His irrationality did not consist of his being selfish, but of being thoughtless, careless, and irresponsible about his self-interest. As is obvious in this example, there are persons so deficient in maturity, so narrow in their vision of their own interests.)

Later, when her husband recovers and life has stabilized again, she returns to work with great passion. She is eager to make up for lost time. When certain of her friends call to discuss personal problems, she accommodates them for a while, but when she realizes how much of her energy is being drained by them she finally calls a halt. “Sorry,” she says, “I don’t want to disappoint you, but right now I’ve got more urgent priorities.”

“God, but you’re selfish,” she is told.

When she deals with other human beings, she respects the legitimacy of their self-interest and does not expect them to sacrifice it, any more than she would sacrifice her own. And she cannot understand why other people do not necessarily feel this way. She notices that ‘selfish’ is what some people call her when she is doing what she wants to do rather than what they want her to do. She also notices that while she is not intimidated by this accusation, many others are.

Is Anita a virtuous woman or an unvirtuous one? Is she moral or immoral? What can we say about her?

The first thing I would say about her is that she operates consciously. And the next thing I would say is that she stands outside traditional moral categories: she is an exponent of rational or enlightened self-interest - a possibility not even acknowledged by those who talk about self-sacrifice as the moral ideal and imply that the only alternative to sacrificing self to others is sacrificing others to self. Anita does neither; she does not believe in the practice of human sacrifice.

Observe that everything she does is motivated by loyalty to her values. She acts on her judgment. And her judgment is thoughtful, not impulsive. For her husband, whom she loves most in the world, there are almost no limits on what she is prepared to do within a rational framework. For her friends, there are many more limits; she is generous, but not to the point of ignoring her higher values. If she supports certain causes, it is because they concern values that are important to her and to the kind of world she wishes to live in. She respects self-interest but understands that what is or is not to one’s self-interest is not necessarily self-evident -it requires thought. And her range of concern is a lifetime, not the convenience or inconvenience of this moment. That is why I say she operates consciously.

If our intention is to live consciously, we need to focus the searchlight of awareness on the moral values we have been taught since childhood -to question the moral issue critically and consider what serve our life and well-being and what is inimical.

If we are operating consciously, the most obvious question to ask, when someone proposes ‘a life of selfless service,’ is why? Why is it moral to serve the happiness of others, but not your own? If enjoyment is a value, why it is moral when experienced by others, but immoral when experienced by you? Why is it immoral for you to desire, but moral for other to do so? Why is it immoral to produce a value and keep it, but moral to give it away? And if it is not moral for you to keep a value, why is it moral for others to accept it? If you are selfless and virtuous when you give it, are they not selfish and vicious when they take it? Does virtue consist of serving vice?

Most people do not try to practice the moral code of self-sacrifice consistently in their everyday choices and decisions. That would not be possible. But to the extent that they accept it as right, they are left in confusion, if not in a moral vacuum. They have no adequate set of principles to guide their actions. In relationships, they do not know what demands they can permit themselves and what demands they can permit to others; they do not know what is theirs by right, theirs by favor, or theirs by someone else’s sacrifice. Under the pressure of conflicting external injunctions, they fluctuate between sacrificing themselves to others and sacrificing others to themselves. They swing between the beliefs that self-surrender is a virtue and the knowledge that they must smuggle some selfishness into their lives in order to survive.

Small wonder that when some people do decide to be selfish, they are so often selfish in the narrow and petty sense rather than in the rational and noble sense. No one taught them that rational self-interest is possible and that it is the obligation of a conscious human being to think carefully about what does in fact represent long-term self-interest. When they hear selfishness castigated as petty, cruel, materialistic, anti-social, or mean-spirited, these epithets strike a responsive chord within them: their own guilt feels like a validation of the charge.

Prior to industrial revolution and the birth of capitalism, poverty was the natural condition of almost all of the human race. It was not perceived as an aberration but as the norm. Ninety-eight percent of the world’s population lived in conditions unimaginable to a twentieth-century citizen. That was poverty of a kind that makes what we call poverty today look like luxury.

It is not kindness, compassion, or selflessness that lift people out of poverty. It is liberated human ability - combined with perseverance, courage, and the desire to achieve something worthwhile and (most of the times) make money in the process. But of course, such motives are not unselfish. And that is why they can accomplish ‘miracles.’ Wealth could be created. New industries would offer employment to millions of people, build communities, heal poverty, and create undreamed of possibilities of survival and well-being.

Why are religious leaders and moral preachers not celebrating the nobility of the entrepreneurial spirit and the power of the liberated mind to accomplish ‘miracles?’ Why aren’t they stop talking about self-sacrifice, decide to step out of the Middle Ages and rethink their code of values - and began proclaiming the glories that were possible when human intelligence is liberated and people are free to act on their own initiative? Why are they not championing such life-serving virtues as independence, productive ambition, competence, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, integrity, and the drive to innovate?

Kindness and compassion are virtues, to be sure, but what has carried the world and moved it forward, lifting humankind out of the cave and beyond a life expectancy of thirty-five - what has conquered disease and steadily lightened the burden of human existence - what has created and goes on creating new possibilities for fulfillment and joy on earth - is the rational, self-assertive egos of audaciously imaginative men and women who refuse to accept suffering and stagnation as our destiny.

Productive Work

2006-09-17T11:21:00.000+02:00

The drama of our life is the external reflection of our internal vision of ourselves. The higher the level of our self-esteem, the more likely it is that we will find a work and a relationship through which we can express ourselves in satisfying and enriching ways.

A person may exhibit a degree of particularized efficacy and yet profoundly lacking in the sense of fundamental efficacy essential to healthy self-esteem. For example, a man or woman may be skilled and confident on the job but terrified by any wider need for independent thinking in the moral, ethical, or intellectual sphere, fearing to step outside a familiar frame of reference established by the particular group to which he or she belongs. Thinking about the essential of life is left to others. Others determine the context in which this individual operates - the moral context, the value context, the intellectual context.

On the other hand, a person may posses a healthy self-esteem, a profound sense of fundamental efficacy, but, being highly specialized in his or her interests, may lack many of the practical skills that most people take for granted, such as how to drive an automobile, cook a meal, or perform some simple task of home repair. Rather than fearing such tasks, however, he or she normally feels confident of the ability to acquire the requisite skills should the need arise. A sense of fundamental efficacy imparts a confidence in the ability in principle to learn whatever is necessary.

It would be impossible, of course, to acquire or sustain a sense of fundamental efficacy without also acquiring some forms of particularized efficacy, in other word, without engaging in some form of productive work. We maintain our fundamental efficacy by continuing to expand our particularized efficacy; that is the meaning of growth as a way of life.

Every achievement is a value in itself, but every step upward also opens to us a wider range of action and achievement and creates the need for that actions and achievement. Survival demands continuing growth and creativeness. There is no final, permanent plateau.

If we do not discover the necessity and joy of using our productive work and creative powers, we have missed one of the highest rewards available to our species; we have deprived ourselves of one of the great, distinctively human experiences. Productive work is supremely human act; animals must adjust themselves to their physical environment; human beings adjust the physical environment to themselves.

By productive work I mean any purposeful activities involving mind and labor and serving the purposes of life, from digging a ditch, driving a tractor, designing a building, and operating a business to engaging in scientific research.

Many factors such as intelligence, energy level, and available opportunities influence the scope of a person’s productive ambition, but certainly one of the most powerful determining factors is the degree of self-esteem. On any level of intelligence or ability, one of the characteristics of high self-esteem is an eagerness for the new and the challenging, for that which will allow an individual to use his or her capacities to the fullest extent.

It takes a person who is already well centered within him- or herself and who understands that some of the forces operating are beyond personal control and that, strictly speaking, these do not have (or should not have) significant for self-esteem at all.

Whenever we are weighting whether or not a matter bears on our self-esteem (or should bear on our self-esteem), the question to ask is, Is this issue within my direct, volitional control? Or is it at least linked, by a direct line of causality, to matters within my volitional control?

If we are willing to take responsibility for that which is within our power, it frees us to see clearly that which is not, and to understand, therefore, the limits of our accountability. But if we too often fail to take such responsibility and feel vaguely guilty over our avoidance, the paradox is that in our confusion we often end up blaming ourselves for events beyond our control. Further, one of the most common forms of evading appropriate responsibility is to clutter up one’s thinking with notions of utterly inappropriate and absurd responsibility like the person who is unwilling to assume responsibility for his or her own existence but who professes to feel ‘responsible for the whole word.’

Our basic means of survival is our mind. To live, we must think, we must act, we must produce concrete values our life requires. This, fundamentally, is human mode of existence. Our life depends on achievement, not on destruction. Mindlessness, passivity, parasitism, or brutality are not and cannot be principles of survival; they are merely the policy of those who, not wishing to face the issue of survival, live off the thinking and achievements of others. The criminals who attempt to survive by violence specifically seek to escape life as his standard of value. He wants to reverse the nature of reality and to survive, not by producing, but by destroying.

To hold life as a standard value means a good deal more than survival for the next moment of time or what is sometimes called ‘mere physical survival.’ It means recognition of and respect for the life principle, the ongoing process by which life sustains itself and advances. Life, for a human being, is a constant process of thought, of motion, of purpose, of achievement; it is not the state of merely not being dead.

Many an individual, feeling he or she is not ‘enough,’ may be driven to more and more demanding levels of performance and accomplishment, in order to ‘prove’ him- or herself- and if the person has intelligence and energy, he or she may succeed in achieving a great deal. What this individual will not achieve, of course, is high self-esteem.

One of the commonest errors made by people of poor self-esteem about people of high self-esteem is the assumption that the latter always feel cheerful, confident, and secure, never feel anxious or demoralized, never know anguish or despair, always are certain about what they are doing. Not all anxiety is self-esteem anxiety, and not all despair pertains to doubt of personal worth. To posses healthy self-esteem is not to be immune to the vicissitudes of life or to the pain of struggle. One of the forms of psychological heroism is the willingness to tolerate anxiety and uncertainty in the pursuit of our values whether those values be work goals, the love of another human being, the raising of a family, or personal growth.

To stay with the arena of productive work, for example, an artist, a scientist, or an industrialist of high self-esteem may set extraordinarily difficult goals that may generate times of anxiety, doubt about choices made, uncertainty about the possibility of success, and periods of depression. This person is likely to feel, “If this, sometimes, is the price I have to pay for the attainment of my goals, I am willing to pay it” - an attitude that a person of lower self-esteem would not be likely to adopt.

The person of high self-esteem may even revel in the struggle, in spite of all the painful feelings that sometimes occur; people of high self-esteem tend to preserve a spiritual point that remains untouched, even by their own suffering.

To accept the process of struggle as part of life, to accept all of it, even the darkest moments of anguish - that is one of the most important attitudes that differentiates individuals with high self-esteem from individuals with low self-esteem. The wish to avoid fear and pain is not the motive that drives the life of highly evolved men and women. Rather it is the life-force within them thrusting toward its unique form of expression - the actualization of the self.

All of the values on which our life, well-being, and happiness depend require a process of thought and effort. A morality that holds life as the highest value also holds rationality as the highest virtue. Rationality is an attitude of responsibility toward that which exists, acceptance of the facts of reality.

Reflecting on commitment to self-responsibility, it fosters the growth of individualism but not of narcissism. It reminds us that other people do not exist to satisfy our needs and wants, they are not our servants, as we are not theirs. This view is entirely incompatible with the ethics of altruism. The essence of altruism is the concept of self-surrender and self-sacrifice. It is the self that altruism implicitly regards as evil, since selflessness is its moral ideal; it is an anti-self ethics.

When we come across human suffering, it is natural and appropriate to wish to offer help or relief. And, generally speaking, it is a virtue to do so. But helping victims (whatever kind of victims they may be) is not the most important part of morality. If it were, one would wish to see other people suffer just so that one could achieve virtue by offering help. What, then, are we to feel toward people who do not need us? They deprive us of the opportunity to be moral. Among people who are happy, we will have no way to gain self-esteem. Such is the moral corruption toward which altruism tends.

Living Authentically

2006-09-17T11:19:00.000+02:00

Honesty consists of respecting the difference between the real and the unreal and not of seeking to gain values by means of faking the reality; that is, not seeking to accomplish my goals by pretending that the truth is other than what it is.

Living authentically does not mean announcing every possible thought, feeling, or action, regardless of context, appropriateness or relevance. It does not mean volunteering private truths indiscriminately. It does means that the self within and the self manifested in the world be in accord. If I choose to fake the reality of my person, I do so to mislead the consciousness of others and as well as my own. I do so because I feel or believe that who I really am is not acceptable. I value delusion in someone else’s mind above my own knowledge of the truth. The penalty is that I go through life with the tormented sense of being an imposter. This means, among other things, that I sentence myself to the anxiety of wondering when I will be found out.

First I reject myself; that is implicit in living lies, in faking the truth of who I am. Then I go around feeling rejected by others or looking for possible signs of rejection, which I am typically quick to find. I imagine that the problem is between myself and other people. I do not grasp that the worst of what I fear from others I have already done to myself.

Jenny said, “Instead of going into the question of why I fixate on getting other people’s approval, I just keep seeking approval. I see very clearly that I am continually motivated by the fear that I will always be alone because I will be rejected and ‘not be chosen.’ So I get caught up in ‘Pick me, see me, don’t leave me out, choose me.’ My behavior around others is motivated by the thought, ‘Who do you want me to be so you’ll choose me?’ But the irony is, even if someone does choose me, I don’t believe they chose the real me because I was never being really authentic in the first place! I was only being certain way to get their attention. Therefore, I can’t trust them because I ‘sold’ them a certain persona, but not the real me. To get accepted, I’ll run through so many different, and falsely accommodating, behaviors that any authentic part of me gets entirely lost. So when they do respond to me, I don’t know what part they were responding to - the real me or the false me! Therefore I can’t trust the relationship or really settle into it. I just keep trying to figure out which behavior they responded to. What did they like, so I can do more of that.”

The lies most devastating to our self-esteem are not so much the lies we tell as the lies we live. We live a lie when we misrepresent the reality of our experience or the truth of our being. Thus I am living a lie when I pretend a love I do not feel; when I present myself as more than I am; when I present myself as less than I am; when I present myself as embodiment of values I do not feel or hold; when I am kind to everyone except the persons I profess to love; when I fake beliefs to win acceptance; when I allow my silence to imply agreement with convictions I do not share.

When we attempt to live unauthentically, we are always our first victims, since the fraud is ultimately directed at ourselves. That the ordinary lies of everyday life are detrimental to self-esteem is obvious - “No, I didn’t have a third piece of strawberry shortcake”; “No, I didn’t speculate the money”; “No, I didn’t fake the test results”; and so on. The implication is always that the truth is shameful or worse than shameful. That is the message we transmit to ourselves when we tell such lies.

Most of us were raised and “educated” in ways that make an appreciation of authenticity exceedingly difficult. We learned very early to deny what we are feeling, to wear a mask, and ultimately to lose contact with many aspects of our inner selves. We became unconscious of much of our inner selves – in the name of adjustment to the world around us.

Emotionally remote and inhibited parents tend to raise emotionally and inhibited children, not only through their explicit communications, but also through their own behavior, which proclaims to the child what is proper, appropriate, and socially acceptable. Since so much in childhood is frightening, bewildering, painful, and frustrating, we learn emotional repression as a defense mechanism, as a way of making life more tolerable. One of the most painful and disorienting experiences of childhood that people are driven to repress is the realization that most adults are liars. This, too, may become a barrier to understanding and valuing authenticity. I see a teacher flagrantly deny the truth to another student rather than acknowledge that she, the teacher, made a mistake. I hear mother lecture me on the virtue of honesty and then I hear her lie to others. Many people conclude that growing up means learning to accept lying as normal - that is, accepting and embracing unreality as a way of life. But if we permit ourselves this form of mind-sacrifice, if we allow ourselves to be ruled by fear, if we attach more importance to what other people believe than to what we know to be true we will not attain authenticity.

To attend authenticity, courage and independence are needed, especially since we encounter these qualities so rarely in others. But this should not deter us; if people who are authentic are a minority, so are people who are happy; so are people who have good self-esteem; so are people who know how to love. While the quality of their relationships is clearly superior to that of persons of low self-esteem, high self-esteem men and women are far from universally liked. Being more independent than average, they are more outspoken. They are more open about their thoughts and feelings. If they are happy and excited, they are not afraid to show it. If they are suffering, they do not feel obligated to “make nice.” If they hold unpopular opinions, they express them nonetheless. They are healthily self-assertive. They are not afraid to be who they are - to live authentically.

The relationships of high-self-esteem persons are characterized by higher-than-average degrees of benevolence, respect, and mutually supported dignity. Growth oriented men and women tend to support the growth aspirations of others. Persons who enjoy their own excitement enjoy the excitement of others. Persons who appreciate straight talk appreciate straight talk in those they deal with. Persons who feel comfortable saying yes when they want to say yes, and no when they want to say no, respect the right of others to do likewise. Persons who are authentic make the best, most trustworthy friends because others know where they stand with them – and because such persons inspire others to match their authenticity. In being authentic, we not only honor ourselves – we offer a gift to whomever we deal with. Living authentically is one of the ways we cultivate self-esteem.

To assert our own wants and needs (without expecting, of course, that anyone else be responsible for their fulfillment), even when it is difficult to do so – this is what our self-esteem asks of us? Yes.
To tell the truth about what we think and feel, without knowing in advance how others will respond? Yes.
To allow others to see and know who we are? Yes.
To remain loyal to our own consciousness, even if we are alone to see what we see and know what we know? Yes.

In thinking about the issue of living authentically here are some basic questions to consider. Using, a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 representing optimal authentically and 1 representing the lowest conceivable, rate yourself on each of these items. Of course, your willingness to be authentic will be challenged in how you rate yourself. Perhaps you will see clearly the areas in which you are inadequately self-assertive. Next, take a few minutes to sit quietly alone and meditate on the lies you are presently living. Do so without self-reproach; the purpose of this exercise is not to evoke guilt but to achieve greater clarity and self-understanding.

Am I generally honest with myself about what I am feeling, accepting my emotions, experiencing them, without necessarily being compelled to act on them?
Am In generally honest with others about my feelings in contexts where talking about feelings is appropriate?
Do I consciously strive to be truthful and accurate in my communications?
Do I talk comfortably, openly, and straightforwardly about that which I love, admire, and enjoy?
If I am hurt, angry, or upset, do I talk about this with honesty and dignity?
Do I stick up for myself and honor my needs and interests?
Do I allow other people to see my excitement?
If I know I am wrong, do I acknowledge this simply and candidly?
Do I feel that the self I experience internally is the self I present to the world?

You can explore this territory further via sentence completion, writing at least six endings for each of the following:

The hard thing about being honest with my self about what I’m feeling is . . .
The hard thing about being honest with others about my feeling is . . .
If I strived to be true and accurate in my communications . . .
If I talked openly about the things I love, admire, and enjoy . . .
If I were honest about feeling hurt, angry, or upset . . .
If I were willing to show others my excitement . . .
If I were honest about it when I knew I was wrong . . .
If I were willing to let people hear the music inside of me . . .
When I think of what I surrender for fear of being condemned . . .
When I think of what I surrender for fear of being laughed at . . .
If I were no longer need to hide or cheat . . .
If I were willing to experiment with being a little more authentic every day . . .
(No one leaps from being relatively unauthentic to being relatively authentic in a moment.)

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

A Visionary Life

2006-04-22T19:42:00.000+02:00

It was something I learned, slowly, over many years. There are no secrets of success – but there are keys to it that can be learned.

There are distinct stages to worthwhile learning:

First, we have to hear or read the information, and we have to understand it. To do this, we need to be open and receptive. Our minds have to be relatively quiet, and we have to be willing to listen and hear.

In the second stage, we reflect on the information, so that we relate to it personally, and assimilate it into our own experience. At this stage, we not only understand it but see its truth in our lives – and understanding becomes knowledge.

Finally, we have to live this knowledge fully, embody it, and practice it every moment of our lives. The words penetrate to our hearts, to our subconscious minds. The words then have power to affect our life.

You have the ability to create the life you want, the life that embodies your deepest dreams and your highest aspirations. Take some time to consider what you want to create in your life. It will be time well spent. Take time to dream, to fantasize, and to eventually develop a plan, a mental map, that will lead you where you want to go.

Everything we have created in our lives was first a thought, and then a feeling. When a thought and feeling are combined and held onto, it results in a focused vision, and finally manifests as something tangible. The key is to imagine your ideal scene. Clearly imagine your ideal scene; write it down on paper, and keep reviewing it.

Imagine five years have passed – or two years, if you’re impatient, or ten, if you’re patient. Imagine that everything has happened to you in the best way you can imagine. You’ve created your dreams; you’ve become a success, in everyway you can imagine, in everything you most desire. And best of all, it’s happened in an easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive way.

What will you be doing, ideally?
What have you accomplished?
Where will you be living?
What does your home look like?
What are your relationships like?
What’s a typical day for you?

Just let your imagination go. Be as farfetched as possible. Shoot for the moon! Let it be ideal! 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. And at the same time remember that 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.

Be sure to write it down. Don’t worry that writing will make it too concrete. Don’t worry that it’s too big a dream. Take a sheet of paper and write “MY IDEAL SCENE” at the top. Suspend doubts and limitations and let your imagination soar.

Keep reviewing your ideal scene. Keep in your mind. This is the most important work you can do. It’s your visualization of your future. It’s the first part of your map to success - no matter what you define that success to be.

The picture of my ideal - the vision I created for myself - felt so good. Even just dreaming of it was empowering to me in some way. I knew there were voices of fears and limiting beliefs. But I don’t listen to my doubts and fears. They’ll dissolve over time.

At the top of your ideal, write, in big capital letters:

IN AN EASY AND RELAXED MANNER, IN A HEALTHY AND POSITIVE WAY, IN ITS OWN PERFECT TIME.

Then write your ideal scene.

Keep repeating them to yourself, until they sink into your subconscious mind. Before you know it, you’ll be accomplishing everything you need in an easy and relaxed manner; in a healthy and positive way, in its own perfect time.

Within your ideal scene is your vocation. Don’t just find a job – find your vocation. Discover your vocation and your mission or purpose in life, and write them down as simply and clearly as possible. Everyone of us has a vocation and a mission or purpose in life that is absolutely unique, and it’s up to each of us to discover what it is.

James Allen wrote beautifully in “”As You Think:”

Until thought is linked with purpose there is no intelligent accomplishment. Those who have no central purpose in their lives fall an easy prey to petty worries, fears, troubles, and self-pity and which lead to failure and unhappiness.

We need to conceive of a legitimate purpose in our heart, and set out to accomplish it. We should make this purpose our supreme duty, and devote ourselves to its attainment. Even if we fail again and again to accomplish our purpose – as we necessarily must until our weakness is overcome – the strength of character gained will be the measure of our true success, and this will form a new starting point for future power and triumph.

These words are worth reflecting on.

By writing down your vocation and purpose or mission, you’ve taken another step to focus your creative energies in the highest and most effective way possible. Powerful people have a calling. They know their purpose - their mission - in life.

We’ve imagined our own ideal scene, we’ve reflected on our vocation and our mission or purpose in life, and we put it all down on paper. Now we’re ready for the next key, one that’s challenging and exciting: making a list of long-term goals.

Your goals should arise out of your own desire and be emotionally exciting for you. The key to real fulfillment is to create the life you want, not the life someone else wants for you. This is not necessary the life your parents or your partner want for you, or your siblings or your friends want for you, or even the life you think you should have, because it is safe, secure, and sensible. It is the life of your dreams, whatever they may be. What do you really want? If you could be, do, or have anything, what would it be?

To live your life in your own way, to reach the goals you’ve set for yourself, to be the person you want to be – that is success.

If the words ‘billionaire entrepreneur’ leap to mind, for example, that’s certainly a challenging goal. Even if you never achieve it, the life you create by reaching for it, stretching for it, will be fulfilling for you.

Take a sheet of paper or go to your computer and write or type at the top:

IN AN EASY AND RELAXED MANNER, IN A HEALTHY AND POSITIVE WAY, IN ITS OWN PERFECT TIME.

Put into the list every worthwhile long-term goal you can think of. Read your list as often as necessary to keep those goals implanted in your mind. Rereading the list keeps you focus on your goals; it keeps them in the forefront of your mind. This put your powerful subconscious mind to work. It helps you to expand and become a more creative person, simply by repeating the goals to yourself. If they’re written clearly, it feels wonderful to repeat them. It’s stimulating, emotionally and mentally. Subconsciously you expand in exactly the way that’s necessary for you to fulfill your dreams.

The simple act of reading your goals also helps you dissolve doubts and fears, limiting beliefs and emotional blocks; it reinforces the fact that you are, in reality, a creative person.

And repeating the phrase, In an easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive way, in its own perfect time . . . at the beginning of your goals has a great side effect: After reading your list for several days the words sink deeply into your subconscious mind. Before you know it, without conscious effort, things that would have been stressful in the past are resolved in an easy and relaxed manner. The words automatically come to mind, just you need them, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, and you relax and open up to more possibilities, more opportunities. And you find it’s much easier to do things in an easy and relaxed way than in a stressed-out-way.

It’s something we should all learn and remember. It makes life much easier. Repeat that phrase before you read your goals - and anytime you can remember it throughout the day. Repeat it until your subconscious accepts it as absolute truth: to do things in an easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive way.

It’s not only possible, but it’s desirable to create a life experience for ourselves that is emotionally satisfying. We don’t need to be under constant stress at work, or frustrated at home. We don’t need to be adversely affected by our frenetic, workaholic society. We don’t need to be trapped in addictive behavior. We don’t need to feel pressured about money, or resentful about past or present relationships.

In its own perfect time is a reminder that things are unfolding with their own time schedule – and often it’s beyond our control, beyond our power to affect. Even though it’s essential to make specific timelines, it’s just as important not to get frustrated or worse yet, defeated if those goals aren’t reached as quickly as you’d like. The trick is to make clear goals, and yet be unattached to the results.

We live and grow like every other plant and animal on the planet, according to nature’s timetable. Growth takes time. As Rainer Maria Rilke wrote in his great book ‘Letter to a Young Poet’ – “ten years is nothing.” I often think of that. We live in a frenetic, work-oriented, even workaholic culture; many of us feel that looking even five years ahead is an impossibly long time.

When you reflect on any long-term goal, the short-term steps – at least the first one - becomes obvious, for every long-term goal consists of a series of short-term goals. Once you reached the first short-term goal, the next series of short-term goals become obvious. Create short-term goals that move you toward your long-term goals.

Mark Twain put it so simply and clearly:

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.

Developing these goals is an ever-changing process. It involves playing with every possibility that comes to mind, then sitting down and making a list of priorities.

A subtle but powerfully creative process is set in motion when a long-range goal is supported by focused short-term goal activities.

Create long-term goals on paper (or computer), and then break them down into short-term goals. Once you start this process, and focus firmly and clearly on your goals, you’ll discover you’ve begun to release, or connect with a mysterious energy field. The first indications of it working are usually the number of ‘coincidences’ that start happening that move you toward your goal in ways you couldn’t have foreseen. By focusing on your goal and making a step toward it, you’ve set in motion powerful creative forces. I’ve seen this happen over and over.

It’s not necessarily to know why this miracle works. All we need to know is that by daring to stretch out and reach for our highest dream, aspiration, and mission in life, we’ll receive the support we need. Goethe summed it up beautifully in two lines of poetry:

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”

Genius, power, and magic! All three come from sources beyond our conscious mind. And small steps are powerful because they affirm to our limitless, ingenious subconscious mind that we’ve created a goal of where we want to go in life, and we’ve infused ourselves with power by being willing to take whatever action is necessary to move ourselves toward that goal.

The main work, the most effective work I’ve done, has been within my mind – holding more and more of the vision of my dreams and my ideal scene in my mind. Then I take steps toward those dreams – the steps that reinforce my confidence, hope, and belief.
The most powerful work we can do is visualizing. As you focus on your goal, feel yourself attaining it. Create a picture of it in your mind – see it, as clearly as you can, and feel it as well. Keep on holding it in your mind and heart. Eventually, your visualization becomes so clear that one day you find you can step right into it.

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.

Starting with our ideal scene, we’ve created a clear mental map of where we want to go in life, and we’ve started moving step-by-step, goal-by-goal, toward it. We’re visualizing our success, and keeping the visualization fresh in our mind. Most of these keys have involved mental processes – focusing our thoughts. Now we’re ready for another key – creating what we want emotionally.

As soon as we create a worthwhile goal, we’re challenging ourselves to expand, to explore new territory - and new territory can be frightening. We’re forcing ourselves to be creative, we’ve begun our conscious evolution, and it means growing and changing and doing new things in knew ways. This brings up a lot of emotional resistance in most people.

Every goal involves taking risk, and taking risks is frightening. Every risk we take, after all, has the possibility of failure. We should be students of failure. It is part of the world experience – part of the life experience. Failure also means gaining the other side of experience that is also valuable, sometimes invaluable. It makes us grow and expand.

Failure serves an invaluable purpose: it creates the foundation for success. Failure is far more educational than success because we learn more with every failure than we do with success. Every failure I’ve had has contributed greatly to my success. My failures are the cost of my education and education is essential to succeed.

George Bernard Shaw said it very well: A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

The experience you gain from your failures, miscalculations, and poor judgment will inevitably lead you to success, if you keep at it.

All of us have psychological blocks that affect our attitudes and behavior in some ways. These blocks are built on various fears usually conditioned during our lives – usually quite early in life. They prevent us from taking risks, trying knew things, making positive changes.

Doubts, worries, and fears inhibit us. They create low self-esteem and an overly critical attitude toward ourselves and other as well. Much of what we ‘consider’ normal behavior really stems from fear: worried parents, frustrated teenagers, and highly stressful work environments are often accepted as ‘normal,’ or even inevitable, yet this situation can be changed. No universal law says that parents have to worry, teenagers have to be frustrated, and work environments have to be stressful. These emotional states can be changed. The challenge is to take an honest look at them, and discover how to move beyond them.
If you haven’t created the kind of life you want, if you haven’t attained the kind of success you dream of, then some psychological blocks need to be examined, and to let go of.

Core beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies. If you believe you can, or if you believe you can’t, you’re right. Henry Ford said that. He knew what he was talking about.

Watch what you say. So many people constantly repeat negative, limiting thoughts and words, and then wonder why their lives are a mess. “This job is killing me.” “That makes me sick.” “I am so stupid.” etc. These words, like all words, send powerful messages to your subconscious mind and eventually manifest in your life. Words have a great deal of power, for good or for ill.

Ultimately, by doing what feels right, in every moment, we’re led step-by-step to the greatest success we can imagine. Our feelings are our guide - and they are much more reliable than our rational, logical mind. The voice of our intuition is directly connected with our feelings. Simply tuning in to your feelings - to the voice of your intuition. Our intuitive voice is always calm and clear. It’s supportive. It’s always positive. It always feels right.

Over the time it became perfectly clear to me, whenever I let the “compass” within guide me, life always seemed to work out. The decisions I made turned out right not only for me, but also for other as well. I will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle me.

Trust your intuition. Trust this loving, subtle voice at the center of your being. Your intuition can be your constant companion, and it will always guide you to your highest good. Life is not only magical when we live by our inner voice but also extremely efficient. From the life-changing to the mundane, your intuition is always your best guide.

When our head is guiding us, we THINK we know what’s going on, but when we’re being guided by intuition, we KNOW what’s going on. And that knowing comes from the place within us – as the Bible says “the secret place of the most high.” Our intuition always knows what’s best for us and our circumstances. Intuition is inner knowing.

Talk to your inner wisdom throughout the day, and ask for guidance whenever you need it. Turn off the radio and television once in a while so that you regularly have periods of silence. Take time away from people, so that you can focus within at times. Spend some quiet time each day getting in touch with the powers that watch over you. Solitude, away from the everyday distractions, opens channels to an intuitive inner voice.

There are so many forms of mediation, active and passive. Taking a walk alone can be a wonderful meditation. So can gardening, driving – anything where you’re alone with your thoughts.

For many people, life is so chaotic and demanding that they lose their focus as they move through each day. The most concrete block to a person’s intuition is having a disorganized life. If too many responsibilities are burying you alive, there will be no opportunity for reflection, as you will be too busy frantically holding everything together. Frantic, disorganized, dramatic people have very low levels of awareness. This kind of chaos creates an emotional anxiety and shut down all intuitive ability. A life lived that way is a life lived in drama and frustration.

Desires are natural, desires are wonderful. Desires are the driving force in our endless evolution. It’s our attachment to those desires that causes the problem. It’s when we can’t accept things the way they are. Learning detachment makes your life a lot easier. Relationships are smoother, because you’re not insisting that the others have to change for you to be happy. Things are less frustrating in your work and in your relationship with money, once you learn detachment.

Keep visualizing, keep affirming that your goal is being created in an easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive way, in its own perfect time. And be detached to the results. Enjoy yourself in the present moment, enjoy who you are, and what you have, enjoy the others around you.

It’s a matter of balance, as always, the middle way: You need to be passionate about your dreams, to desire your goals, but you also need to be detached to the results, to whatever unfolds day-by-day.

If you get too passionate and serious, you can get too attached to wanting certain results – and happiness will slip by you. You forget to enjoy the journey because you’re always wanting to be at the destination. The key to your happiness and fulfillment is by following your true desires and enjoying the process.

An exercise in visualization

Take a deep breath and relax. As you relax, enjoy the feeling of simply breathing, simply relaxing.

Now picture whatever you want to create as clearly and as detail as you can. Imagine your ideal scene as clearly as you can, as if you have already created it, and you are enjoying it . . . Picture as many details as possible . . . . Spend a minute or two focusing on it, enjoying the scene you’re creating.

Take a moment to enjoy and savor whatever vision you’ve created. Add a few more details and visualize until it feels as if it already exists in your life.

Finish by taking one more deep, relaxing breath and affirm to yourself, “This or something better is now manifesting for the highest good of all concerned. So be it – so it is!”

Repeat this exercise – focusing on the same thing – at least four or five times a week, preferably everyday. Soon within two or three weeks you will have absorbed your visualization deeply into your subconscious mind, and you’ll begin to see results in your life. Some exciting ‘coincidences’ (synchronicities) will start to happen.

Living Consciously

2006-04-20T22:34:00.000+02:00

Two broad areas in which the issue of living consciously arises for all of us are relationships and work. When we deal with another human being, we can bring a greater or lesser level of consciousness to the encounter. When we confront the tasks of the day, we can do so mindfully or we can bring minimal attention and thought. In both cases, we have choices and are responsible for the level of awareness we generate.

All of us are moved by ideas and values of which we may or may not be consciously aware. When asked to articulate their beliefs, people have often difficulty. Their philosophy is largely subconscious and has never been brought into the light of full awareness. This makes it more difficult to check against reality or to revise; they are stuck with old thinking that might not even have been theirs in the first place but merely absorbed uncritically from others. The unexamined idea is not worth holding. Independent and critical thinking need to be cultivated in our daily life.

What would it mean to say, “I love you,” if I neither see you nor know who you are nor exhibit any desire to do so? It can only mean, “Please don’t distract me with the reality of who you are. I am preoccupied with the dream of you.” Many people have an affair with or marry not a person but a fantasy – then resent the person for not being like their fantasy. They do not examine the mental processes that led to their selection of a partner. One of the ways I know you is by observing the ways you affect me. One of the ways I discover who you are is by identifying the ways I experienced myself in our interactions. If we’re willing to look without blinders, if we’re willing to see everything that’s there to be seen, shortcomings as well as strengths – and we still love passionately – that’s what it called mature, romantic love. If I do not know my own values, I am unlikely to be able to articulate what I value in you. If we are strangers to ourselves, others will be strangers to us.

If we love consciously, we are aware that how we respond to our partner entails a continuing process of choice. Talk to people who have remained deeply in love over many years and you will find that they operate at a high level of mindfulness with regards to their partners. They do not take their partners for granted. They remain conscious of the values and traits that initially inspired their love, and they note those values and traits in their daily encounters and interactions. They have retained the capability to see and to appreciate. Their love is mentally active. If people are mentally passive, no excitement can last, neither romantic love nor any other passion. The more we operate consciously and benevolently, the more we nourish our self-esteem. And of course, the reverse is also true. Through learning to meet challenges, we evolve as a person. This is one reason why a relationship can be a vehicle for personal growth.

It is generally recognized that in our modern information economy, a far higher level of knowledge, education, and skills is required of employees than was true in the past. What is less well understood is that what is also required is a much higher level of self-esteem, self-responsibility, and mindfulness. Organizations today need people who are willing to think, act on their own initiative, exercise independent judgment, be creative, and take responsibility for solving more and more of the problems that confront them without referring those problems to “higher ups.” The muscle worker has largely replaced by the knowledge worker. This means that, to be economically adaptive, we need to be not merely able-bodied but also able minded – to bring a high level of consciousness to our tasks. People who function at a heightened level of awareness actively seek to learn everything they can learn about the business, looks for ways to work better and more productively, seek to take on new challenges and responsibility as a path to growth and advancement. They make work as a source of joy or a means of self-expression or self-fulfillment, or a path to self-development.

Life has always meant growth, but never so obviously as today. Not to move forward is to move backward. Not to expanding in consciousness is to be contracting. What business organizations need today are people who are willing and able to think – to be self-directing and self-managing – to respond to problem proactively rather than merely wait for someone else’s solution – to be initiators – to be, in word, self-responsible. The employees with the brightest futures are those who, having mastered the challenges of today, are studying to meet the challenges of tomorrow. These are the men and women for whom learning is not a response to crisis but a way of life. They know that the only real source of security in this world lay in their knowledge, skills, and competence – which they could carry with them from one job to another.

The simplest application of mindfulness: being present to what I am doing while I am doing it. Stated in negative, being present to what I am doing means not act while my mind is somewhere else; not acting mechanically. Stated in the positive, it means acting in a mind-state appropriate to being effective.

If we are present to what we are doing, we tend to be alert and sensitive to incoming information that bears on the situation with which we are dealing. Our consciousness is open to receive. Mentally, we are proactive rather than passive. In such circumstances we are not operating mechanically; that is, we are not running old automatized routines with no fresh participation of mind brought to the occasion. In this moment of time, we are alive in the full sense. Life is not happening while we are somewhere else.

Being present to what we are doing does not mean “being in the now” in a way that drops all connection to past and future. We are in the moment but not trapped in the moment. The injunctions like “be here now” are sometimes interpreted /or misinterpreted to mean a shrinking of awareness to encompass only the immediate moment, with the rest of one’s knowledge cast into oblivion and with no concern for the future consequences of one’s acts. The ultimate absurdity of this understanding of “be here now” is captured in the cartoon showing a man falling from a skyscraper who remarks in mid-flight, “So far, so good.”

We can use the sentence completion exercise to illuminate the issue of being present to what we’re doing. For instance, “If I were to be more present to what I am doing . . .” The endings could include:
- I wouldn’t make so many mistakes.
- I’d see more.
- I’d see things I might not want to see.
- My family would feel more visible to me.
- My children would feel heard.
- I’d get more things done.
- I‘d know what was going on.
- I’d become aware of my emotions.
- I’d have to face what I was feeling.
- I’d feel stronger; at first I think I’d be more anxious.
- I’d feel I was living my life.

One of the themes one can notice in these endings is fear that, if we are present to what we are doing, emotions we have been denying or avoiding may rise to the surface of awareness and we will have to confront them. Often, a flight from the present is a flight from the reality of our inner state. This is not the only motive, to be sure, but it is one of the most common.

To live consciously means to seek to be aware of everything that bears on our actions, purposes, values, and goals - to the best of our ability may be - and to behave in accordance with that which we see and know.

The practice of acting in accordance with one’s knowledge is essential. If I do not act on what I see and know, if my awareness is not reflected in my behavior - if my behavior contradicts my knowledge - I am in that regard not operating consciously. On the contrary, I am betraying consciousness. I evade what I know; I evade the motives for my evasion; I evade the fact that my behavior continues to defy my knowledge. Among other things, this is a sure formula for the undermining of self-esteem. It is also sure formula for the undermining of one’s long-term happiness and well-being. And yet people practice this betrayal every day, and when things go wrong, they wonder why life is so malevolent or why they are so “unlucky.” Thus: “ I know I ought to be giving more to my job and that I’m really unfair to my employer, but . . . ; I know it’s wrong to abuse my children, but . . .; I know our policies are causing the business to go to hell, but . . .” To some, “living consciously” may sound like an abstract idea, but in it’s consequences, it is as real as life and death.

And too often when we suffer the consequences of our unconsciousness, we do not ask, “How can I learn to be more conscious?” Instead we ask, “Why is life so difficult? Why do unhappy things always happen to me?” To remain stuck in this predicament is humiliating. It is offensive to one’s dignity. It deprives one of the experiences of personal power. There is no better beginning for personal power than a determination to choose and act consciously and take responsibility.

If we wish to parent consciously, we need to be aware of what we say to our children, remembering that what we say to them, they may later say to themselves - and in fact often do. Before we call a child stupid, sloppy, a coward, or bad, we need to ask ourselves:
Do I really want my child to think of him- or herself in the terms I am about to use?
Will that contribute to my child’s healthy development?
Will it foster growth and self-esteem?
Does it serve my child’s interests to learn self-contempt?
You may recognize some of these examples uninformed parents have told their children:

“You’re just not good at that.”
“Your room is always a mess.”
“You’ll never be an artist.”
“You’re lazy.”
Etc., etc., etc.
And some children are being told the most assuredly destructive words:
“You’ll never amount to anything.”

In doing so, by using words which program the child in the wrong way, parents unwittingly direct the child in the wrong way, they unwittingly help the child create a self-identity which believes that what they are saying is “the truth” - the parents create a picture portrait of how the child sees himself or herself inside, and eventually become. If we wish to live consciously, we need to be conscious of and take responsibility for the words coming out of our mouths.

It is quite common for husbands and wives who love each other to nonetheless say terrible things in the heat of an argument - things that they will regret, apologize for, and perhaps feel mortification at having said. Yet we know that words wound. Long after a quarrel has seemingly been resolved, we remember the abusive, hurtful things said to us, and sometimes they fester in the soul for a very long time. Worse still, we may come to believe them -believe that we are “mean,” “rotten,” “stupid,” “cowardly,” - and then act accordingly. Insults that are internalized have the power to generate self-fulfilling prophecies.

So in the sphere of human relationships, it is a mark of high consciousness always to be aware of the issue: Am I willing to take responsibility for the words coming out of my mouth? Do I intend the reaction I am likely to evoke?

This consciousness is merely an instance of a wider issue: Am I conscious of and willing to take responsibility for my choices and actions? The tragedy of many lives is that we make the most fateful decisions with little or no awareness that our choices will change the shape and direction of our existence. This is one of the meanings of the idea that often people are sleepwalkers through their days and years of their time on earth. They make choices without conscious awareness of doing so. They commit themselves to actions without projecting the consequences down the road. They are ruled more by impulse or routine or conformity than by critical reflection. This does not deny that their impulses may sometimes be good ones. Nor does it deny that their uncalculated actions may sometimes produce positive results. But as a basic way of life, their policy is dangerous. Choosing blindly is dangerous. Leaping without looking is dangerous. Living mechanically is dangerous. Letting others write one’s life script is dangerous. When you make choices and actions ruled more by impulses than by critical reflection, you’ll have the same success as you do in poker game if you bet without looking at your cards.

When people elect to operate without appropriate thought, they often profess astonishment at their unhappiness, as if the problem were that life is malevolent. “Why me?” they wonder, and of course the answer is easy to escape from self-responsibility by retreating into a tragic sense of life, or they might say, “It’s so hard to have to think about consequences.” But not as hard as what they’re going through now.

Life consists of the pursuits of goals. The goals maybe short-terms or long-terms, simple or complex, or anywhere in between: getting married, acquiring money for new home, raising a child, establishing a successful career, developing a business, preparing one’s organization for the challenges of the twenty-first century, etc. To the extend we live consciously we ask questions:
If such is my goal, what do I need to do in order to achieve it?
What information do I require?
By what criteria will I judge whether I am on course or off course?

If, for example, I want to raise a happy, well-functioning child, how do I propose to do it?
Is knowledge on this subject available?
Are there relevant books I ought to be reading?
What other useful resources exist?
What do I need to know to do a good job?
And what are the limits of what it is realistic to expect of myself?
What is in my power and what isn’t?

To the extend I operate consciously, I continually reach out for information relevant to my purposes. To the extend I don’t, I assume knowledge is unnecessary, that I know all I need to know, or that what I don’t know won’t hurt me. So here the questions are:
Do I stay alert to any information that might cause me to modify my course or correct my assumptions, or do I proceed on the premise that there is nothing new for me to learn?
Do I continually seek out new ideas that might be helpful, or do I close my eyes even if it is presented?
Mindfulness leads to increased effectiveness and possibility for success; its abandonment leads to failure and defeat.

During the last and this decade, many companies lost market share or went out of existence entirely because their leaders chose to ignore evidence that old ways of doing business were no longer appropriate,
just as employees remain stuck and are passed over by colleagues because they choose to ignore evidence that they need to acquire new skills to remain adaptive in a rapidly changing economy,
just as married break down because one or both partners choose to ignore evidence that their behavior is destroying the relationship,
just as children grow up without learning self-responsibility or self-discipline because parents believe all they have to do is feel “love” and that no knowledge or skill is needed to raise children properly.

If there is one certain indication of unconscious living, it is indifference to the question “What do I need to know (or learn) in order to achieve my goals? Such indifference is intimately related to the absence of a sense of reality. When that sense is lacking, when there is little or no grasp of facts or objectivity, goals (it is imagined) are achieved by wishing, not by appropriate action.

A relationship of reciprocal causation exists between the practice of living consciously and self-esteem. Just as living consciously strengthens self-esteem, so self-esteem inspires living consciously. If we have confidence in our mind, we are not deterred by challenges of new learning. Persevering, we tend to succeed in our efforts, which reinforces our initial confidence.

Just as living consciously entails taking responsibility for learning what is needed to achieve our goals, so it entails knowing where we are, relative to our goals at any time.

If one of my goals is to have a satisfying married, what is the present state of my married?
Do I know?
Would my partner and I answer the same way?
Are we happy with each other?
Are there frustrations and unresolved issues? If so, what am I doing about them?

If one of my goals is to build my business and increase the market share, what am I doing about it?
Am I closer to the goal than I was a year ago?
What are the signs that I am on track or off?
What are my criteria for measuring progress?

Think of some long- or medium-term goal of your own. Ask yourself where you stand in relation to it, as compared with a year ago. Are you making progress? What are the indicators?

Living consciously entails paying attention to the relationship between our professed values, goals, and purposes and our daily behavior. Sometimes there is a lack of congruence between what we say our goals are and how we invest our time and energy. If we are mindful, we monitor our actions (how we spend our times and energy) relative to our goals.

In pursuing our values and goals mindfully, we pay attention not only to our actions but also to their outcome. Are our actions producing the results we anticipated?
Our actions may be perfectly in alignment with our values, goals, and purposes, but the problem is that we miscalculated what our actions would achieve. If we are operating mechanically, it is very easy to be oblivious to this fact and go on repeating what does not work without ever drawing nearer our destination. Doing more of what doesn’t work doesn’t work. So we need feedback from our environment to be able to adjust or correct our course when necessary. To be open to such feedback is one of the meanings of being mindful - paying attention - living consciously.

If we are operating a business and our ads are performing calamitously below expectations, we may need to rethink the content of the ads, the media in which we advertise, our assessment of the market, or even our offering itself. What we do not do is ritually keep running the same ad.

If our child’s behavior is unacceptable to us and our sole response is to give lectures and make threats and the behavior does not change, the solution is to discover an alternative way of responding that yields better results. This requires that we bring a higher level of consciousness to the situation.

If we are a legislator who sponsors programs that not only fail to solve problem addressed but result in a worsening of that problem, the solution is not to spend more money or pass more laws. The solution is to reexamine our premises. However, when programs are paid for out of public treasury, there is no great incentive to pay attention to outcome or to painstakingly rethink our assumptions. When there is little accountability, there is little felt need to raise the level of our consciousness.

If we are wise enough to base our self-esteem not on being “right” but on being rational - on being conscious - and on having integrity, then we recognize that acknowledgement and correction of error is not an abyss into which we have fallen but a height we can take pride in having climbed.

Sometimes we need to do things that scare us. Sometimes we need to look at things that are painful. If we don’t, the consequences will be bad for us. Understanding this, we know that sometimes all we can do is draw a deep breath and proceed. One application of mindfulness is that of learning to manage the feeling that pulls us away from where we need to look. We can will ourselves to stand in the presence of that which we need to understand - we can choose to remain conscious. We can rule rather than be ruled by our avoidance impulses. We can value growth above immediate comfort. A simple sentence completion exercise that is usually helpful in this context (done daily for at least a week) consists of writing at least six endings of the stem “If I bring more consciousness to my fear (anxiety, pain, sadness, this situation, this problem, or whatever) . . . “ Radiating the dreaded area with awareness tends to reduce discomfort and generate deeper levels of understanding of what needs to be solved or healed.

Indeed, new light can be cast on almost any problem one has been avoiding by doing the exercise “If I bring more consciousness to X . . . “ (where X is the problem we need to confront). Thus: If I bring more consciousness to
- my emotions . . .
- my needs . . .
- my deepest longings . . .
- my deepest frustrations . . .
- my anxiety . . .
- my depression . . .
- my relationship with my boy (or girl friend) . . .
- my relationship with my spouse (or child, or supervisor, or friend . . .etc.) . . .
- my fear of self-assertiveness . . .
- my passivity . . .
- my procrastination . . .

And then write endings as rapidly as one can, allowing the unfamiliar and unexpected to emerge, stimulating the mind toward new understandings and new integrations and, ultimately, to the kind of mind shifts that result in new behavior.

Creating A Life with Passion and Purpose

2006-04-19T23:10:00.000+02:00

I will not die an unlived life.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me more accessible,
to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a commitment
to live fully, on purpose,
to live a life with passion,
to live so, that which comes to me as seed goes to the next as blossom,
and that which comes to me as blossom goes on as fruit.

Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Those rewards create almost as many problems as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense of how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will at least be a little bit different for our having passed through it.

All great individuals are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of the spring day, or in the red fire on a long winter’s evening. Some of us let those dreams die, but other nourish and protect them; nourish them through bad days until they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true. Passion is the fuel that helps us nourish and protect our dreams. Once you discover your passion, tap into it!

As living organism, we stretch, learn, and expand or we shrink and deteriorate. Think of how different older people can be. I have met alert and energetic 90-year-olds who bowl, swim, and take college courses. I have also met frail 70-year-olds who don’t even leave the house. Let alone take college courses.

If we are not growing, learning, and evolving, we will begin to wither inside. Our energy will wane and our vitality will weaken. To enhance passion in life, try moving toward new horizons as they appear. Do not wait for them to come to you. Make room for something you have not done before by doing less of something that neither expands your mind and experiences nor tickles your soul. A sense of aliveness is reinforced every time you move out of your comfort zone. When we expand, we feel alive. When you take a risk, learn something new, or move into places you haven’t known before, your life is never the same.

We have an opportunity to act and learn, thereby growing to a new level where we can act and learn again, and then advance to yet another level. If we learn, we grow and evolve. If we do nothing, our system will not stay the same, it will deteriorate. People who seem younger than their years often make learning a lifetime adventure.

Another way to feel exquisitely alive is to stop and give thanks for all the blessings in your life. It’s nearly impossible to feel deprived when you are showing appreciation for the bounty at your feet. All abundance is based on being grateful for what we have. True happiness, and well-being are found in the fine art of gratitude. Being grateful for what you have. If we do not know how to appreciate the things and people we have now, why would we be able to appreciate more things, people, and power when we get them? We won’t, because we have never worked on our “gratitude muscle,” we never learned or practiced being grateful. Instead, we will think, “this second million dollars, this bigger house, this luxurious car, are still not enough. I need more.” And so we will live, continually wanting more or wishing things were different than they are, playing the game of “more” instead of being grateful for all we have.

Plato said, “A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things.” A tremendous insight! A grateful person is great because he or she has turned on all the lights within. The grateful heart actually opens the way to the flow and becomes an attractive force to draw to itself great things.

The grateful heart will always attract to itself in one way or another, through human hands or through wonder-working ways, the great things needed to solve the particular situation. It is an outworking that you can stake your life on. You do not need something to be grateful for. You need only the desire to feel grateful. As you feel grateful, you become attractive, not only in your beauty and radiance, but in your relationship with people. More important, you release a vital energy that draws to you opportunities, employment, and a secure flow of money.

We seldom hear a dying says he wishes he had made more money or had more professional success. More often we hear are regrets of relationships not fully realized or life not fully lived. They wish they had spent more time with loved ones and appreciated what they had more fully. Reflecting on this we begin to search for more meaning and to develop more direction from the inside out. Meaningful activities go beyond earning a paycheck.

People who are happiest in life seem to have mastered the art of living from the inside out. Instead of living as others think they should, they live a life that feels right. They passionately pursue what they are drawn to do, envision what they intend to accomplish. They seem so focused and so good at what they do. It’s as though they know a secret to living a fulfilling life and they do.

Define your purpose and how you can use your unique gifts to the benefit of others. Reflect on your positive traits and how you enjoy expressing them. Even a work-for-income job has meaning when it enables you to do what you love and keep your dreams alive. Try to reflect on these three questions:

· Do you love what you’re doing so much that time flies and you feel exceptionally alive?
· Are you presently expressing what you intuitively know are your positive personal traits?
· Are you serving human need . . . somehow making the world a better place to live?

If your answer is “yes” to those questions, you probably would describe your life as being fulfilling. It is likely that you start each new day with focus, energy, and sheer delight.

To finding your purpose, sit quietly, relax with a few deep breaths and then when you are still and focused simply pose this question to whatever you recognize as the source of love and wisdom. “What is your will for me?” Do this exercise again and again until you know intuitively just which path is right for you. Your soul came here on earth for some very specific reasons and your intuition knows what your soul plan is. The Infinite Intelligence has a plan for us and is always trying to get us in touch with that plan, it creates a deep desire in us that we feel through our whole being. When we’re asking for guidance, we need to quite ourselves enough to hear the still, small voice within. By listening to the still, small voice within, we are led to fulfill our dreams and our highest potential. Take time to listen to your intuition and answer the following two questions:

· For what have I always had a natural inclination or talent?
· If I could improve just one thing in this world, what would it be?

When unique talent is applied to meeting some human needs, the results will be uncommon and effortless wealth. When we express our unique talents and use them in the service of humanity, we lose track of time and create abundance in our lives as well as in the lives of others.

If you want material affluence, help others become materially affluent. In fact, the easiest way to get what you want is to help others get what they want. Expressing your talents to fulfill the needs of others creates effortless wealth and abundance. Focus on asking yourself how you can serve humanity and asking yourself what your unique talents are. Because you have a unique talent that no one else has, and you have a special way of expressing that talent, and no one else has it. You are the sum of your own personal experiences. No one in the world has had the same experiences. Your background and life experiences make you a unique and valuable human being.

Ask yourself, if money was no concern and you had all the time and money in the world, what would you do? If you still do what you currently do, then you are in your purpose, because you have passion for what you do – you are expressing your unique talents. When your creative expression matches the needs of your fellow humans, then wealth will flow easily to you in avalanches of abundance. Affirm,

“Wealth flows to me in avalanches of abundance” Be sincere and mean it, and your subconscious mind will respond.

“Day by day I am prospering spiritually, mentally, and financially. I am open and receptive to new ideas; therefore I am successful; very successful; very, very successful. The law of increase is working for me now.”

“God wants me to be happy and prosper. God’s will for me is life, love, truth, and beauty. I mentally accept my good now, and become a perfect channel for the Devine. I am divinely directed in all my ways, and I am always in my true place, doing the things I love to do. I am always poised, balanced, serene, and calm, for I know that God always will reveal to me the perfect solution to all my needs. God’s ideas unfold within my mind in perfect sequence. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want for any good things. I am divinely active and divinely creative. I sense and feel the rhythm of God. I hear the melody of God whispering the message of love to me.”

Once you reflected on your ideal life, your purpose will become clear. When you are ready, begin creating 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.

Do not impose your idea of how things should be and force solutions on problems, thereby creating new problems. Participate everything with detach involvement. Giving up your rigid attachment to a specific result and live in the wisdom of uncertainty. The harmony is achieved not through control but through surrender to life’s flow. Surrender to the womb of creation, trusting that when things don’t seem to go your way, there is a reason and that the cosmic plan has designs for you much grander than even those that you have perceived. When you step into the field of all possibilities, you will experience all the fun, adventure, magic, and mystery of life.

A passion life is founded on purpose, structured on core preferences, and embellished with personal desires. The more detailed your vision, the more likely you are to see it. We receive what we desire by imagining what we want and knowing why we want it. Winners focus on what they want.

You are your deep, driving desire. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny. When you have a few moments, focus on all that you desire. Make a list of all your desires, carry this list with you whenever you go. Look at this list before you go into silence and meditation. Look at it before go to sleep at night. Look at it when you wake up in the morning. Whatever you pay your attention to will grow stronger in your life. Whatever you take your attention away from will wither, disintegrate, and disappear. Intention is the real power behind desire. Your intentions and desires have infinite organizing power. Intention organizes its own fulfillment. Your intent is for the future, but your attention is in the present. Action in the present becomes the fertile ground for the creation of the future.

If you want to be courageous, act courageously. Use the self-starter DO IT NOW! And then get into action. The self-starter is the self-motivator: DO IT NOW! When the self- starter “DO IT NOW!” flashes from your subconscious into your conscious mind, then follow through with desirable action: Act! It’s the habit that will make you an outstanding achiever.

Self-starter “DO IT NOW!” can effect every phase of your life. It can help you do the things you should do, but don’t feel like doing it. It can keep you from procrastinating when an unpleasant duty faces you. But it can also help you to do those things that you want to do. Keep your mind on the things you should do and want and off the things you shouldn’t and don’t want. The secret of getting things done can change a person’s attitude from negative to positive. A day that might have been ruined can become a pleasant day. For the truth is NOW is the time. NOW must be seized before it becomes “yesterday I could have . . ..“

Successes are not born out of fear or from negative focus, but out of the power of strong intent and desire to achieve the goals we set for ourselves. Following your goals releases great energy from deep in your soul. Goals focus your energy and keep you on the path to your destination. Try to list several goals that - if achieved – would bring you closer to a life that tickles your soul. To know when you have achieved each objective, which will bring you closer to your goals, add a time deadline. It will create a sense of urgency and avoid procrastination. At the same time, reflect, meditate, and focus on your intent to strengthen your belief that you can be, do, and have anything you wish. There is four Cs for success. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and consistency. The greatest of all is confidence.

For highest motivation, you must believe that your goals are attainable and that they will result in a reward that you desire. See if your goals are related to something that is really important to you. Ask yourself why you want to accomplish them. To feel confident and capable of influencing your life, try to become more internally motivated, seeking self-validation instead of approval from others. The happiest people all demonstrate a commitment to do whatever it takes. They decide. If your desire is great and your intent is clear, you are unstoppable.

A clear direction and a list of goals can only guide you to success if you are aware of which behaviors support your growth and which will block any progress. With such sharpened awareness of any habits that are getting in the way, you’ll better prepared to direct your energy in constructive manner. If you continue to do what you have always done, you’ll continue to get what you’ve always got. So if you want a different life, you’ve got to stop doing what isn’t working and establish new patterns of behavior. Raise your awareness of life pattern that might be blocking you from creating the life you want.

Explore your past to uncover unconscious self-defeating habits that sabotage your life and change any negative pattern that are getting in your way. You can choose and design incredible future and act in alignment with that intent and create whatever circumstance you need.

How many of us talk to ourselves? What is it that we often say? Are our internal dialogues uplifting? We typically play the same mental “tapes” day in and day out without considering either the quality of the messages or the impact they have on our attitudes. Positive thoughts, prayer, and meditation have a positive impact on our health and well-being. The more you fill your mind with positive self-talk, the less room there will be available for negative talk. Our thoughts create our reality. Thought is the cause and manifestation is the effect.

If we can recognize self-defeating behaviors such as negative self-talk, self-blaming, always need to be right and perfect, projecting our perceived “flaws” onto others, blaming other for our own unhappiness, etc., we have a good shot at changing them. If the past memories were particularly painful counseling professional can guide you through the process of releasing strong feelings and allowing old wounds to heal.

It is easy to look at the lives of those around us and wish we had it so good. Whatever it is, other people seem to have it easier. The grass is always greener on the other side. The grass may be greener on the other side, but it’s just as hard to mow. When we are longing after someone else’s life, we need to remember that every result is the consequence of an action. What we get out of life is usually in direct proportional to the choices we make and the actions we take. When we are thinking how great it would be to look as fit as our coworker down the hall, are you also thinking of how great it would be to work out at 5:30 every morning and maintain low-fat diet? If not, you’re only seeing half of the picture – you’re only seeing the end result without the action that participated the result.

Your future is generated by choices you make in every moment of your life and actions you take. Witness your choices you make in each moment. When you make any choice ask yourself two things: what are the consequences of this choice that I’m making? And will this choice bring happiness to me and to those around me? If yes, then go ahead with that choice. If you are unclear, then pay attention to the body sensations and feelings. Your body experiences two kinds of sensations: one is a sensation of comfort, the other is a sensation of discomfort.

At the moment you consciously make a choice, ask yourself, “If I make this choice, what happens?” If your body sends a message of comfort, that’s the right choice. If your body sends a message of discomfort, then it’s not the appropriate choice. You should pause and see the consequences of your action with your inner vision.

Over the time it became perfectly clear, whenever I let the “antenna” within guide me, life always seemed to work out. The decisions I made turned out right not only for me, but also for other as well. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us – trust your intuition. Trust this loving, subtle voice at the center of your being. Your intuition can be your constant companion, and it will always guide you to your highest good. Life is not only magical when we live by our inner voice but also extremely efficient. From the life-changing to the mundane, your intuition is always your best guide.

When our head is guiding us, we think we know what’s going on, but when we’re being guided by intuition, we know what’s going on. And that knowing comes from the place within us – as the Bible says “the secret place of the most high.” Our intuition always knows what’s best for us and our circumstances. Intuition is inner knowing.

Inner voice is not a chatty voice or an intellectual voice and, in fact, it doesn’t really come in the form of sound. It’s more like a thought that comes from deep within you. It’s usually quick and to the point.

If you are searching for your soulmate and wondering if you should join a dating service, go to a single group at a local church, or search the bars for Mr. or Ms. Right, ask to whatever you recognize as the source of love and wisdom and then just listen to what your inner voice, inner knowingness tells you to do rather than doing what everyone else is doing.

If you want to meet someone significant, you need to tell God you’re ready and then you need to pay attention. Your inner voice will give you a nudge to call so and so, or maybe direct you to go to a certain place, or join a specific dating service, or put an ad in the paper. It nudges you through your gut feelings to take the steps you need to in order to meet that certain someone. Remember, all you need to do is ask and then listen.

There is nothing in your life that intuition can’t help. Your intuition really is your best ally and your key to living a more enchanted life. Your intuition will guide you to deal with all the challenges and opportunities that come your way. Look within, and you will find every answer you need. You’ll get a feeling, an inner knowing, when you ask and pay attention to the answer, and it will always feel like the right thing to do. When we don’t listen or we go against the inner guidance, there is a nagging feeling in the pit of our stomach that we’re not on the right tract and that never feels good.

As the years have passed and the quiet inner voice has never misled me, my mind has gotten better at accepting direction from my intuition. The mind sees things from a limited three-dimensional viewpoint; intuition is based on higher, more comprehensive reasoning. Your inner guidance knows what’s going on at all times.

Your goal is to have the two parts of you work in an exciting partnership with each other, with our intuition – the “antenna” within – receiving inspiration, guidance, and divine wisdom from the Infinite Intelligence and our minds then creating and manifesting based on that guidance. The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We need to go to our intuition for guidance and then to our brilliant, creative minds for support and implementation.

Talk to your inner wisdom throughout the day, and ask for guidance whenever you need it. Turn off the radio and television once in a while so that you regularly have periods of silence. Take time away from people, so that you can focus within at times. Spend some quiet time each day getting in touch with the powers that watch over you. Solitude, away from the everyday distractions, opens channels to an intuitive inner voice.
For many people, life is so chaotic and demanding that they lose their focus as they move through each day. The most concrete block to a person’s intuition is having a disorganized life. If too many responsibilities are burying you alive, there will be no opportunity for reflection, as you will be too busy frantically holding everything together. Frantic, disorganized, dramatic people have very low levels of awareness. This kind of chaos creates an emotional anxiety and shut down all intuitive ability. A life lived that way is a life lived in drama and frustration.

Disorganization is energy leak. We need to simplify and restore the balance in our lives.
Remember that everything in our lives requires attention and energy. Are your attention and energy being drained away on vast accumulations of old, unnecessary, outdated, disorganized, useless stuff surrounding? Realize the importance of simplicity in your life and clear out of your life what really contributes nothing. Rethink your priorities, goals, and values. Focus on the necessary and give up trying to be all things to all people, meeting all demands at once. The truth is, we are responsible only for ourselves.

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:

· What is it that I’ve been holding on to that I need to let go of?
· What is not longer serving my life that I need to release?
· In what area of my life right now do I feel the need for some change?
· 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.

There is a classic Buddhist story about a man who was traveling for many years on pilgrimage to holy places. At one point he began walking along the side of a wide river. Now, the side on which he walked was very rocky and dangerous, thus slowing his progress and making his days strenuous. When he looked across the river, he noticed that the other side of the river was flat and smooth, appearing to be much easier to walk on.

“I want to go to that side of the river,” he decided, “but I have no way of getting across. What should I do?” So the aspirant sat down to meditate and received a message to build a raft out of braches and mud. And this is what he did. He spent days constructing a raft, drying it in the sun until finally it was ready. Then, he laid the raft in the water, stepped onto it, and safety crossed to the other side.

As he pulled the raft out of the river, the man thought to himself, “You know, this raft has been so useful to me, and I worked so hard to build it. I cannot just abandon it here on the riverbank. The wood will rot and the rain will wash it away until it disintegrates. No, I cannot do this to the raft. I’ll carry it with me.” So that is what the man did. He pulled the heavy raft onto his back and began to walk, dragging it behind him as he struggled to take his now even more difficult steps.

The teaching of this story is that even a good thing that has been useful to us becomes an unnecessary burden when we no longer need it. That which we longer need should be set aside, or it weights us down. And when we leave behind what doesn’t serve us anymore, we do it with gratitude, not with condemnation.

A lot of things that we see as so important here in the material realm are not that important at all in the bigger scheme of existence. We so often get caught up in appearances and in what others think – we allow others dictate our worth, and we judge our worth by external standards that simply aren’t that important in the long run. In the long run they have nothing to do with who we are. It may seem easier to follow the crowd and do what everyone else is doing – following what appears to be the safe road in life – but the truth is that road doesn’t encourage individuality.

Since 95% of people are imitators and only 5% initiators, people are persuaded more by the actions of others than by any proof we can offer. When people are uncertain, they are more likely to use others’ action to decide how they themselves should act, they look to the actions of others to guide their own actions. We seem to assume that if a lot of people are doing the same thing, they must know something we don’t. Especially when we are uncertain, we are willing to place an enormous amount of trust in the collective knowledge of the crowd. Quite frequently the crowd is mistaken because they are not acting on the basis of superior information but are reacting themselves to the principle of social proof. A snowballing effect occurs.

Search for superior information within you. The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. That is a truth! You will look inside and recognize the guidance within. You will stop living by someone else’s thoughts and values and you will stop looking for your reflection in the eyes of others. You are coming home to your true self. You enjoy the freedom to be yourself and to be true to yourself. You develop what it called firmness of character. The firmness of character is to act on one’s belief.

When you stop living by other people’s voices and begin to get your guidance from the calm and clear voice within you, you become aware of a magical flow at work with all the people you interact with. You constantly find synchronicity and coincidences happening. The Infinite Intelligence has an awareness of everything that’s going on and can guide you accordingly. The more we are in touch with our own intuitive voice, the more “in the flow” we will be.

Divine timing naturally occurs when we follow our intuition – our divine guidance. When we live according to divine guidance, which also means we live our lives in harmony with the whole universe, we always end up in the right place and at the right time and all the right pieces fall into place. The pieces of life experiences fall into place like a jigsaw puzzle.

In LBL session (www.spiritualregression.com) when people see their guides for the first time a strong emotional response is usually happened. Many become tearful or break down and cry over being in the presence of this loving teacher who has been assigned to them. Other clients will laugh for joy at what they are seeing and feeling after recognizing their guides. They soon realize this pre-eminent beings their own personal teacher who has been assigned to them from their beginnings rather than a great prophet from one of the world’s major religions. It is no wonder some people call personal guides “guardian angels.” These floating beings don’t have wings but sometimes the halo of bright white light around them gives this impression.

It is my belief that guides are assigned to each soul because they have some particular affinity toward the strengths and weakness in the immortal character of that soul. It is almost as if the teacher’s character is similar to their student, or that they struggled at one time with the same tasks. The love our guides feel for us is overpowering. They are never rigid or controlling. During our lives often what we think is intuition or instinct is actually our guide trying to tell us something. They help keeping us on track according to what we came here to do. We need to be focused to accomplish what we came to do.

If we don’t manage our own time, there will be no time for us. Most truly successful people do not see any virtue in being overworked, overscheduled. They have a clear picture of their priorities and aim for a balanced life. They know how much time something will take to accomplish. Their direction is crystal clear. What they intend to achieve is always in the forefront of their minds. They know what their goals and are intent on achieving them. They recognize which actions will move them forward. They wake up in the morning knowing what they need to do first. They know what points they want to make and what outcome they hope to see. They know on Friday what their next week’s goals are, and what they will have to do to accomplish them.

To take responsibility for a fulfilling life is to choose how we use each day of our lives. Check any sabotaging habits, let go of old anger and resentment, become responsible and take care of yourself, and manage your time intentionally. Whenever you find yourself feeling overwhelmed, remember we have two incredibly helpful tools available to us at all times:

· Living by the help you get from your intuition, your divine guidance.
· By taking life one day at a time.

Ask The Infinite Intelligence for daily guidance and listen throughout the day to your internal voice, you will truly live your life to the fullest. And then, when you do leave this lifetime, you will leave feeling completely fulfilled. Each morning before you leave the house to work, affirm:

“Devine Intelligence inspires, directs, and governs me in all my undertakings and instantaneously reveals to me the answers to all things I need to know. Devine love goes before me, making all roads a highway of peace, harmony, love, joy, and happiness. It is wonderful!”

Keeping a sharp focus means surrounding ourselves with reminders of what it is that we want in our lives. Visualizing a positive outcome as if it were already a reality increases the probability of success. Use whatever method will remind you several times each day of the kind of person you are in the process of becoming and the kind of life you are in the process of creating. To see it, repeat it in your thoughts, images, words, and daily deeds. You might think of visualization as a series of affirmations in pictures. If you acquire of using both, you will soon see many positive changes in your life.

People who live a happy and fulfilled life radiate an inner confidence, a capacity for joy, and unusual generosity. Feeling loved and appreciated gives us an inner richness that does not come from success or possessions. Relationship begins with the respect and flourish with trust. To demonstrate love and respects we must pay attention to what others need and honor what they value most. This understanding of the needs of others is important to all relationships including business partnerships. For instance, you are not ready to negotiate with someone until you can state their needs accurately and convincingly than they can themselves. Only then should you come to the table.

Through paying attention of what other needs by asking, listening, and observing, we forge strong bonds with people when we show interest in them, letting them know that we care about them. We can be more successful in relationship if we honor the need of others, as we attempt to meet our own needs. In fact, the most powerful forms of giving are non-material. The gifts of caring, attention, affection, appreciation, and love are some of the most precious gifts you can give, and they don’t cost you anything.

If trust is low, there will be little synergy; connections will be weak and intermittent. We can build trust with positive intent, emotionally honest and open, and keep commitment. If you’re afraid, worried, or confused let those close to you know. How else can they help and support you? If you don’t ask what you want, your best supporters won’t know what to give. The key to satisfying relationships is communicating what you do want. Being master of your own fate does not mean doing everything alone. It often means securing the support you need to achieve professional and personal well-being. We also need to keep commitment and do what we say we will do. We trust those who do as they say, people we can count on.

We can learn to become experts in what Buddha called “the right speech.” Buddha said that we should learn to say things in such a way that others always feel loved, until we can figure out such a way, we should maintain “noble silence.” The great spiritual teachers like Jesus and Buddha become great because of their revolutionary and life enhancing teachings.

You can wish for thing to be different in the future, but in this moment you have to accept things as they are. Having accept things as they are, you take responsibility for your action and for all those events you see as problems. You know that every problem is an opportunity in disguise, you can transform it into greater benefit.

Once we truly know that life is difficult, once we truly understand and accept it, then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters. Most of us do not see this truth that life is difficult. Life is a series of problems, continuous succession of problems, large or small. They never stop. The only thing about problems you can change is your response to them, positive or negative, helpful or hurtful.

Self-discipline is the basic set of attitudes we require to solve life’s problems. Without self-discipline we can solve nothing. With only some self-discipline we can solve only some problems. With total self-discipline we can solve all problems. 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.

What makes life difficult is that the process of confronting and solving problems is a painful one. Indeed, it is because the pain that events or conflicts engender in us all that we call them problems. Yet it is in this process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning. And since life poses an endless series of problems, life is always difficult and full of pain as well as joy.

Most people wish to have a comfortable life. That’s awful because nothing can be learned and you cannot grow through it. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn. Things that hurt instruct. Nothing is more effective in showing us where we are stuck, where we need to work, where we need to grow, and what lessons we need to learn than the obstacles that cross our path. It is for this reason that successful people learn not to dread but actually to welcome problems. Self-confidence, fulfillment, contentment, and even happiness are the byproduct of the succession of solving problems.

Fearing the pain involves - to a greater or lesser degree – attempt to avoid problems. The result is procrastination. We procrastinate in hoping that problems will go away. In case we avoid dealing with problems, we also avoid the growth that problems can offer us. We become stuck. Self-discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life’s problems. That means face the problems and work them through to solve them successfully, learning and growing in the process.

You’ve got a problem? That’s good! Why? Because repeated victories over your problems are the rungs on your ladder of success. With each victory you grow in wisdom, maturity and experience. You become a better, stronger, more successful person each time you meet a problem, and tackle and conquer it.

Everyone has problem. Why? This is because we and everything in universe are in a constant motion and process of change and growth. Change is an inexorable nature law. If you are looking to experience a life without problems, visit a graveyard and rest in peace. Being alive means movement or change and growth. What is important to you is that your success or failure to meet the challenge of change is dependent upon your mental attitude, positive or negative. One man said, “I have a problem. That’s awful!” The glass is half-empty. The other said, “I have a problem. That’s good!” The glass is half-full.

People who seize upon their problems as opportunities in disguise and scrutinize them for the good element that is going to be there, are people who understand the very core of positive mental attitude. People who develop an idea that can work and follow it with action will turn failure into success. Time after time the pattern repeats itself: Problems and difficulties turn out to be the best things that could have happened to us – provided we translate them into advantages.

When you are faced with a problem that needs a solution, regardless of how perplexing it may be:
1) Ask for Devine Guidance.
Ask for help in finding the right solution. As you ask for help you set the Universal Forces in motion in helping you. Affirm,

“There is only one power of creation, and it is the power of my Deeper Self. There is a solution to every problem. This I now decree, and believe.” As you claim this truth boldly, you will receive guidance pertinent to all your undertakings, and wonder will happen in your life.

2) Think
Engage in thinking for the purpose of solving the problems. Remember that every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit for those who have positive mental attitude.

3) Define the problem and analyze it.

4) Adopt the positive mental attitude, “That’s good!”
5) Ask yourself some specific questions such as:

What’s good about it?
How can I turn this adversity into a seed of equivalent or greater benefit?
How can I turn this liability into a greater asset?

Keep in searching for answers to these questions until you find at least one answer that works. It often takes only one idea, followed by action to turn failure into success. Look at things not as they are, but as they can be. Visualize what can be done and what can be in the future. Don’t be stuck with the present.

When you don’t succeed at something, you are being presented with an opportunity to learn something important about yourself. If you don’t pay attention, you will most likely be presented with a similar mistake again and again until you learn the lesson. Those who do not learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them.

We’d recognized that some very painful experiences were simply designed as a wake-up call to make some changes in our lives. Such experiences are not accidental. There is a spiritual lesson to be learned in all of them. What happen to you is not important but how you react to your experiences, including your mistakes, is the all-important thing. Claim your divine right to be what you want to be and begin to take charge of your life and, to greater extent, control your destiny.

People with self-mastery take responsibility for their choices; they do not blame others for their decisions or their problems. Mastery is about taking charge of our own emotions and controlling knee-jerk reactions that we might later regret. It is about taking responsibility for all of our actions and deliberately deciding how to respond to the behavior of others. You can deliberately choose which response to the situation is the right response. Focus on what you can influence.

Very often, what seems like a bad experience at the time proves to be the perfect thing necessary to help us grow and evolve more quickly and create a life experiences that is more satisfying and fulfilling. Always knowing that no matter what happens to us during our lifetimes on earth, we’re here for our highest good and our experiences are providing us with invaluable life lessons. We are here not by biological chance. There is order and purpose and we have a part to play in this scheme.

Seeing the larger purpose behind all our experiences gives us greater perspective and we’ll address the more significant aspects of our lives with greater focus. We see life as an opportunity for learning and enrichment and feel a greater confidence in ourselves. Above all we realize that our reality has order and purpose. We look at every experience we go through as a tool for learning and learn as much from the experience as we can. We see life here as a series of experiences to learn from.

You should spend time alone. Not just minutes and hours, but days, and if the opportunity presents itself, weeks. Time spent alone will throw you back upon yourself in a way that will make you grow in wisdom and inner strength. Deep within you there is the still pool where life is more than the chatter of the small affairs of the mind. Once you arrive at the place in the center, you will be able to look out at the circle of your life that surrounds you with all its facets and things much more clearly. There is Buddhist saying: “When the lake is churned up, nothing can be seen. When the lake is still, all can be seen.”

In solitude silence becomes a symphony, we are one with the pulse of life and the flow of time. When we find part of ourselves that is firm, confident and piece, we don’t need another person to fill us. That is the peace that one finds only in solitude. You can increase your awareness of your inner self and deepen your connections beyond yourself by regularly making time to reflect in silence. Purpose and passion go hand in hand with a sense of inner peace.

During life we can become so distracted by the roles we play that we never learn who we really are. The benefits of solitude provide a time for self-evaluation and inspiration through personal energy restoration (renewal). Find the peace in yourself in the silence of solitude, and you will never know another moment of loneliness in your life. And you’ll discover who you really are and what your purpose in life is and you’re no longer to be dependent on anyone else for your happiness. That doesn’t mean that you want to be alone, but rather that you are not afraid to be alone. If we need anyone else for our happiness we will never be happy, because no one else can possibly meet all our needs or expectations. But if we are autonomous and feel whole, we can have a good and loving relationship with others.

Developing your spiritual self does not take great effort. In fact, to the contrary – this type of stretching flows naturally when you are all alone, with a still mind and an open heart. As you free yourself from all outside clatter, your inner voice will speak, you will know intuitively just which path is right for you and what you need to do to create the life you want. All you need to know is available to you; practice regular silence, so you can hear your intuition speak to you. In quietness and confidence shall be your strength. Whenever you go in the midst of movement and activity, carry your stillness within you, access the reservoir of knowledge and creativity. The more deeply you are able to go within, the more powerful and effective you will be when you come out. You will be clear and powerful.

When you fashion a life where the decisions you make and the actions you take are considered, deliberate, and in harmony with what’s important to you, you are living an authentic life. What you do reflects what you believe, how you feel, and what you know. It is not necessary a life that others admire or think is right for you, but a life that you know in your heart is right for you. It is the kind of life that makes you greet each day with enthusiasm and sleep peacefully at night. When you live authentically, you know what you stand for and make conscious choices. When you are complimented, you feel personally validated because it is the real you that is being appreciated. For high self-esteem and inner peace we must know at our core that we are enough just the way we are and all by ourselves. You are lovable just the way you are. You have value to others in the cosmos, regardless of your present surroundings in life.

You realize that some events may occur outside of your control, but you can choose your response to those events. You take responsibility for the choices you make and how you spend your time. You feel as though your are producing, directing, and starring in your own masterpiece. You set achievable goals and reasonable schedules. You are able to say “no” to unreasonable requests and honor your own priorities. Because you do so, you find time for renewal and reflections and invest in relationships that are important to you.

If you’ve reached a high level of mastery you’ll have a strong faith. You take responsibility for your actions and seek guidance through prayer and meditation. You employ the best strategy for the most productive life. You go after what you want by taking risks and continuously improving your competence. With clear desires in mind and a belief that a power greater than your own will guide you, you move confidently toward the life you choose.

Also, since an accumulation of things can come at a high price for maintenance, you choose to simplify your life by lessening your attachment to things that you don’t need … all of must-haves that gnaw away at your precious time.

When you become master of your own fate, a river of calmness flows through you. You don’t panic when adversity strikes. You trust that you will work things out. After all, you are the master of your own life.

When you tickle someone else soul, you tickle your own soul.
Good luck is nothing but preparedness meets opportunity.

“There’s No Such Place As Far Away”

2006-04-19T14:52:00.000+02:00

Richard Bach's bewitching classic: “There’s No Such Place As Far Away”
Can miles truly separate us with our loved ones. If we want to be with someone we love aren’t we already there?

There’s No Such Place As Far Away

Rae!
Thank you for inviting me
to your birthday party!

Your house is a thousand miles
from mine, and I travel only
for the best of reasons.
A party for Rae is the best
and I am eager to be with you.

I began my journey
in the heart of the hummingbird
you and I met long ago.
He was friendly as ever,
yet when I told him that little Rae was growing up
and that I was going to her birthday party
with a present, he was puzzled.

We flew for a long while
in silence and at last she said,
“I understand very little of what you say,
but least of all do I understand
that you are going to the party.”

“Of course I am going to the party,” I said.
“What is so hard to understand about that?”

He was quiet,
and when we arrived at the owl’s home, he said.
“Can miles truly separate us from friends?
If you want to be with Rae,
aren’t you already there?”

“Little Rae is growing up
and I am going to her birthday party
with a present,”
I said to the owl.
It felt strange to say going like that,
after talking to Hummingbird,
but I said it that way so Owl would understand.
He, too, flew in silence for a long time.

It was a friendly silence, but as he delivered me safely to the home of the eagle,
he said, “I understand very little of what you say,
but least of all do I understand that you call your friend little.”

“Of course he is little,” I said,
“because she is not grown up.”
“What is so hard to understand about that?”

Owl looked at me with his deep amber eyes,
smiled and said, “Think about that.”

“Little Rae is growing up and
I am going to her birthday party with a present,”
I said to Eagle. It felt strange now to say going and little,
after talking with Hummingbird and Owl,
but I said it that way so Eagle would understand.

We flew together
out over the mountains,
and soared the mountain winds.

At last she said, “I understand very little
of what you say, but this word birthday.”

“Of course birthday,” I said.
“We are going to Celebrate the hour
that Rae began, and before which she was not.
What is so hard to understand about that?”

Eagle curved her wings into steep dive-flaps
and stepped to a smooth landing on the desert sand.
“A time before Rae’s life began?
Don’t you think rather that
it is Rae’s life that began before time ever was?”

“Little Rae is growing up and
I am going to her birthday party with a present,”
I said to Hawk. It felt strange to say going and little and birthday,
after talking with Hummingbird and Owl and Eagle,
but I said it that way so Hawk would understand.

The desert poured by far below us
and at last she said,
“You know, I understand very little of what you say,
but least of all I understand growing up.”

“Of course growing up,” I said.
Rae is closer to being an adult,
one more year away, from being a child.
“What is so hard to understand about that?”

Hawk landed at last upon a lonely beach.
“One more year from being a child? That does not sound like growing!”
And she lifted into the air and was gone.

Seagull, I knew, was very wise.
As I flew with him
I thought very carefully and chose words so that
when I spoke he would know I had been learning.

“Seagull,” I said at last,
“why do you fly me to see Rae
when I know in truth
I am already with her?”

Seagull turned down over the sea,
over the hills,
over the streets,
and landed gently
upon your rooftop.

“Because the important thing,” he said,
“is for you to know the truth.
Until you know it,
until you truly understand it,
you can show it only in smaller ways,
and with outside help, from machine and people and birds.

“But remember,“ he said,
“that not being known doesn’t stop the truth from being true.”
And he was gone.

Now it’s time to open your present.
Gifts of tin and glass
wear out in a day and gone.

But I have a better gift for you.
It is a ring for you to wear.
It sparkles with a special light and
cannot be taken away by anyone;
it cannot be destroyed.
You are the only one in all the world
who can see the ring that I give you today,
as I was the only one who could see it when it was mine.

Your ring gives you new power.
Wearing it, you can lift yourself
into the wings of all the birds that fly.
You can see through their golden eyes,
You can touch the wind that sweeps
through their velvet feathers,
You can know the joy of going way up
high above the world and all its cares.
You can stay as long as you want
in the sky,
past the night,
through the sunrise,
and when you feel like coming down again,
your questions will have answers and
your worries will have gone.

As anything
that cannot be touched with the hand
or seen with the eye,
your gift grows more powerful as you use it.

At first you might use it only when you are outdoors,
watching the birds with whom you fly.

But later on, if you use it well,
It will work with birds you cannot see,
and last of all you will find
that you’ll need neither ring nor bird to fly alone
above the quiet clouds.

And when the day comes,
you must give your gift to someone you know who will use it well,
who can learn that the only things that matter are those made of truth and joy,
and not of tin and glass.

Rae, this is the last day-a-year,
special-time celebration that I shall be with you,
learning what I have learned
from friends and birds.

I cannot go to be with you
because I am already there.
You are not little because you are already grown,
playing among your lifetimes as do we all, for the fun of living.

You have no birthday because you have always lived;
you were never born, and never will you die.
You are the child of the people you call mother and father,
their fellow-adventurer on a bright journey to understand the things that are.

Every gift from a friend.
is a wish for your happiness,
and so it is with this ring.

Fly free and happy beyond birthday and across forever,
and we’ll meet now and then when we wish,
in the midst of the one celebration that never can end.

A new edition of Richard Bach's bewitching classic with wonderful new illustrations by H Lee Shariro.