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“It's not strength that matters; it's focus.”
— Bruce Lee
Usually, when we want to improve our lives we focus on the things we can see. We might watch what we eat or try to revive our exercise routine. We may even invest in learning new skills to grow our careers. When we focus on something it brings it into our conciousness. The power of focus is that it creates awareness.
And there's that time of day for all of us when we find the ability to focus comes much easier than at any other time of day. For me, it's first thing in the morning. For you, it might be those last two hours at the end of a workday as the deadline looms. Whenever it may be, you must make the most of it. Clear the schedule, eliminate all distractions, and focus. That's one key component of harnessing the power of your mind. The other is knowing where you want to go.
Lack of focus is a stealthy killer that plagues us all. It's one of the most difficult things we must fight against every single day. In today's hectic world we are constantly bombarded by information of all kinds from multiple sources. By the time the average person has arrived at work they have already received a deluge of distracting information, from the morning news on TV to the multiple tweets and emails received on your mobile phone to the radio and billboard ads on your drive to work - it's incessant. Everyone and everything in your life is competing for your most prized possession - your attention, or rather, your focused attention.
Your attention is a supremely powerful force, and like sunlight it can be either diffuse and divided amongst many different objects, or funnelled into a focused laser-beam of light that has the power to burn whatever it touches (think Cyclops in the X-Men - when he removed those glasses, now that is some focused attention!).
Experts say that we have that power, too. Our focus is one of the most powerful weapons we have in our life arsenal. You've probably noticed the power of focused attention in some areas of your life. If you have children you know that the single greatest gift you can ever give them is your undivided, focused attention.
Likewise, if you have ever done any goal-setting you know how important it is to state your goals positively and specifically ("I will eat 5 servings of fruit and vegetables each day") versus negatively and vaguely ("I will NOT eat any junk food"). This is because you will focus your attention on whatever you write, and of course you want to focus on the positive (healthy fruit and vegetables), not the negative (junk food).
And when it comes to information relating to the motivation and mindset side of fat-loss, some nutritionists employ what they called the S.M.A.R.T. formula on their clients. Abraham Lincoln once said, "A goal properly set is halfway reached", and it seems that this is nowhere more true than when it comes to weight loss.
However, most people don't even know how to set goals properly, let alone achieve them. And you can't just ignore goal setting or chances are you'll end up fat or unhappy - or both.
Click here to find success in wellness goals.
For many of us goals serve as a target or road map to give us direction. They give us a sense of purpose and fulfilment. The thinking behind it is, if you don't have a target to shoot at, you'll never hit it. In this sense, goals are guaranteed to improve your overall quality of life. However, some experts take on goal setting is different, suggesting that we shouldn't focus on goals.
There is a often quoted saying that, "You'll never achieve your dreams if they don't become goals." The intent of this statement is to underscore the importance of setting tangible goals and remaining focused on attaining them, but some experts have been disagreeing with this concept. A few go even further to say that embracing the meaning behind this quote may actually thwart you from successfully achieving your coveted end results.
In some ways it feels as though life coaches are playing with semantics, when they embark upon a debate of "goals versus dreams", and you have to be wary. There are many products out there by self-marketing, so-called self-help gurus that purport to be selling the miracle cure for unhappiness, or to transform our lives forever.
They claim that if we delve a bit further into the realm of the universal laws, we will rapidly see that the process of setting goals undermines the very intent of their acquisition. They believe that to set a goal, in and of itself, is to illuminate "what you don't have". Thus they say, making a goal to get a luxury sports car highlights you don't have one, but in contrast to "dream" of that fancy sports car in effect puts you in the driver's seat. You are in the zone, at one with your dream - revelling in the moment.
But the astute reader will wisely challenge this theory, because sitting around dreaming all day about being in a sports car isn't going to make it magically appear in the driveway, now, is it? Most life coaches will tell you that they're a huge proponent of a) staying focused, b) being organized and c) mapping out a plan.
Life coaches that claim we shouldn't focus on goals say that once we set our sights on a target, they are in favour of letting the universe take the wheel. However, they are quick to emphasise this is not a prescription for passivity – but to the contrary, it's all about inspired action.
Read about the wisdom of inspired action.
Setting goals like a flowchart which starts at the top with a topic or a goal and then branches out into branches of action items, they say is not helpful, because the very nature of a flow chart is a downward path. Some experts become metaphysical at this point to suggest that spiralling downward is in direct contrast to the nature of the universe. Likewise, some claim a "to do" list follows that same symbolic, linear descending direction.
In focusing on a plan, some suggest using a technique known as Mind Maps - credited to Tony Buzan in 1996 as a means of note taking and brainstorming. In Buzan's model, this technique encourages a non-linear approach to learning or mapping out a project and enhances creativity as a means of sorting out a complicated idea. Critics of this model however, say a Mind Map, or "spider map" as it is also often termed, focuses on what exists or a "to do" list - so it never quite fits the bill for projections into the future and manifesting your own intentions.
A third technique called milestone mapping, utilises the spider map model, it begins in the centre of your plan with an intention or topic (rather than a limiting goal) which it's claimed allows you to implement a flexible formula that adapts to your own internal being without formal constraints that interfere with the natural laws of the universe.
In this third technique, it's said that you're not pre-determining the path you will take (that is up to whoever or whatever you look to as your higher force) - and how you interact with the universal laws at work along the way. You're actually writing down "after the fact" what happens, tracing your journey along the way.
Leaving things open is meant to remove resistance, and see detours as part of the bigger picture rather than a block on a linear line. Subsequently, you'll come to accept its existence as part of the journey, instead of meeting it with resistance as the tendency may be if you're too focused on your goals. Adherents to this theory also claim that the realisation of your target will also feel as though it were meant to happen, because you allowed events to unfold in their natural course. They stipulate that by embracing this technique, you are no longer endeavouring to pre-determine "how" you will arrive - you are simply at ease in learning to enjoy the journey along the way.
Naturally, for some people having no goals can be liberating, but the bottom line on how you should live your life is the same, whether you choose to set goals or not. But no matter what the self-promoting gurus might say, no technique is foolproof, or guarantees success. If we are the creators of our own reality, then every journey of identifying an intention and heading towards it will be different for every individual.
In real life, no formula will work with a "ask, believe and receive" process (whether you map our your goals in a linear flowchart or keep your options open and just map the milestones) if we lack balance in our lives. Even though we all have our share of ups and downs throughout life, there's one thing that those who rise above their problems instinctively hold close to their heart - and that's striving to maintain BALANCE in all areas of your life.
Love is the true balancer in life.
You often arrive on the doorstep of change seeking assistance - even though you may not always be able to articulate it - with your focal point being "a lack of balance". In fact, most of the time, we have no idea that a lack of balance makes up 90% of our issues - referencing the old adage that success is 90% attitude and 10% aptitude.
For your every heart's desire to flow into your life with ease and abundance you need to achieve optimum balance in your life. The pivotal resource for manifesting all that you desire, each and every time you set an intention for manifesting whatever you want in life, is balance.
When you are balanced, this allows you to identify and focus in on the exact goal or core intention you're setting, and to bring clarity and focus around the path you will take to achieve it. When you bring your life into balance, you manifest your desires by identifying with laser sharp focus exactly what you want to achieve, and how to take the most direct and effortless route to get there.
Being balanced is a strongest link to staying focused. Whether you follow core intentions, or highly specific goals targeted towards realisation of your dream, no "magic formula" with make your desires manifest into your reality, if you don't know how to maintain balance in your life. There is a level of fear that keeps us alive - and there is a fear that keeps us from living. The balance point in life is found where you are able to surrender to the moment and live it to the fullest - not for it (that could be wasteful) but in it - aware that the past is gone, and only the present truly exists.
Restoring balance means to be in alignment with the energies of our mind, body and soul, and we must first acknowledge that balance is energy. When we can control this energy, it will make us more intuitive to our mental, physical and spiritual health, helps us identity what methods work best for us, and give us a strong emotional foundation in our relationships with others.
So, if you think being goal orientated are reasons are powerful enough to help you transform your life, then you need to pay attention to the rest of the formula for setting goals below.
Experts claim that after knowing "why" we need to set goals, we should move on to a few action steps and goal basics to help us identify "how" to set them. This exercise also helps us practise focus.
- First, write down on a sheet of paper the following such things like: What exactly do you want and desire in life? What do you want to be? What do you want to do? What do you want to have? What body do you want? What size clothes do you want to wear?
Once you've done this, you'll have a strong foundation to structure your goals. Don't skip this step.
- Second, they must be meaningful.Some examples: What's important to you? What's the ultimate purpose? What are the immediate and long term rewards? What sacrifices am I willing to make for this? Must cause me to be emotional? Must be exciting and make you feel energized when you think about it. Must be balanced (fat loss AND other areas of your life too). Must be aligned with your values and your passions. Must be prioritised. Must be flexible.
- Third, they must be FEW in number. Adherents of this formula claim that productivity studies show that you really can't focus on more than 5 goals at any one time (so try and stick with just 3 to 5 to start with if you can). Focus on a handful of goals that you can almost repeat from memory after reviewing them for a month or so. Set goals in areas that will give you the most reward for your effort. For example, being comfortable with your body weight can help improve every area of life.
The S.M.A.R.T. part of the formula is designed so you can get laser focused on your goals. Here's how it works:
- Specific. Break them down. When, where, what time, how many, etc.
- Measurable. You can't track if you don't consistently measure. Tracking and measuring equals consistent progress.
- Action-oriented. Based on Action. Always use a verb (e.g., "Achieve," "Finish," "Eat, "Exercise," "Complete," etc.)
- Realistic. You need to make sure you stretch and push yourself, but don't create disappointment or a lack of balance by being unrealistic. This is different for every person.
- Time-bound. (with a deadline) 5 year, 1 year, quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily, etc.
- Health, Fitness, and Fat Loss
- Family and Relationships
- Career, Hobbies, or Passion
- Personal Growth
- Spirituality
- Love Life or Marriage
- Money and Finance
Next, you the experts using this formula say you need to write them down. Most advocates of goal orientation always recommend written goals - some recommend writing by hand, touting studies show which show you're more likely to remember and apply things that you physically write down.
Write 3 to 5 goals based on the criteria above and set up a few different time frames for each like:
- A daily goal
- A weekly goal
- A monthly goal
- A 6 month or yearly goal
- Read your goals (out loud if you can) to yourself at least one time a week - but the general recommendation is daily if possible. Write them out on cards and keep your goals visibly in front of you somewhere you'll see them everyday. Out of sight equals out of mind.
- Visualise the goal already achieved in your head when you say it. This is an important step according to the experts, who claim your mind doesn't know the difference between what you visualise and what you actually see, so focus on seeing the goal achieved. This is probably the most powerful aspect of goals setting. If you struggle with visualisation, find some pictures you can look at to help you see the goal already achieved.
- Use an affirmation statement by re-stating the goal in present or past tense as if it were already achieved.
- Take action. If you don't act on your goal after using these 5 steps, you're obviously just wasting your time and energy.
The lesson and action plan above is not only one way experts have suggested to set and achieve any goal in any area of your life, it actually is a good lesson in focus.
The power of focus
“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.”
— Bruce Lee
In kung fu there is a well-known example of the power of focus. Called "Iron Hand" or "Iron Palm", practitioners learn to focus their attention and their energy, or chi, into the palms of their hands with enough force to break bricks or blocks of ice without hurting their hands. What you focus on, you will master.
Focus is a powerful force in all areas of life, particularly while learning and a tool to aid you with that is your vision. As already mentioned, writing your vision down on paper will instantly help you focus your attention on what you want from your life. It's a critical first step in narrowing your all-important focus down to something that is manageable and achievable for you. From there, you can continue to narrow your focus down to short and long-term goals that will enable you to make your vision a reality, and can narrow it even further down to the best strategies you will pursue to achieve those goals.
When you do this, the power of your focus will astonish you. When I did this back in 2000 it had an immediate positive effect on my finances. Just by focusing on where my money was going and what had happened to it I was instantly able to plug the gaps and start saving much more money. And once I had plugged the obvious gaps in my money, I began focusing on what to do with the extra money I had each month.
Many life coaches will offer you similar formulas and action plans, with the advice that you just need to have a solid plan and follow through. Problems arise because people tend to be disorganised, unmotivated, or simply lack the intense desire to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals. getting organised can also create an awareness of this, and help direct your focus to changing what isn't working in your life.
If you work on developing a good plan and you have the enthusiasm to succeed, you'll soon find that nothing can hold you back from the life you deserve. Here's another tried and tested formula some life coaches use with their clients. Follow through with these action steps to get to your destination:
- Figure out what you want. It doesn't matter how organised or motivated you are, if you don't know what you want you'll never achieve your goals. Just wanting to be wealthy, in love, famous is not enough; you need to have a solid plan in place. Be specific, for example if you want to be wealthy, how much money do you want to be making?
If you want to build wealth, playing the lottery or other shot in the pan strategies will rarely get you where you want to go. Instead, focus on a true means of making money. Remember that such a grand journey will take time. Few people can achieve wealth overnight. As already noted, here to experts suggest you have to start with smaller goals. As you reach each goal you'll find that it's easier and easier to scale up.
- Get organised. Once you've figured out how you're going to achieve your goals, it's time to organise yourself. In order to get there in the shortest time possible, you have to be strategic. No matter how many steps it's going to take you to reach your end goal, write down each individual step. Give yourself a time-line for your goals and cross off each task as you complete it.
- Take action. This is where many people find themselves stuck. You're now beyond the idea and planning phase, and it's time to get to work. If you have your days properly planned out, then you'll know exactly what you should be doing.
- Fight the urge to procrastinate.
- Establish a day-to-day routine that takes you forward. Once you're used to the work that you're doing, it won't be as hard to continue doing it.
- Remember that the beginning is most often the hardest part. If you can survive the initial plunge towards success, you can prove to yourself that you can get all the way there.
- Maintain motivation. Having the motivation to continue is huge. Most people who make it to the action phase start taking action, but stop when they don't experience immediate results. Do everything in your power to maintain your drive to succeed.
When you have a grand goal, it can be tempting to give up and claim that you're goal was impossible in the first place. However, there are plenty of people in the world who are living proof that you are rewarded when you work hard and smart.
Experts claim that if we use these strategies to help us work hard and smart, the journey to our heart's desires won't be as long as we thought. But is it enough to just toughen up those Iron Hands and unleash your inner Cyclops? What about the times when what we most need - what would most help us to grow and unlock new possibilities - is what we can't see so easily?
Spirituality: one word that means something different to everyone. And it's a part of life that can be easy to overlook. But digging into questions of meaning and purpose is essential if we want to live bigger, to expand our lives (beyond even our own dreams for what is possible) and find greater hope for the future.
For instance on the subject of increasing prosperity in your life, self-help gurus that focus on spirituality will say that to create many streams of money flow into your life, you must first learn to give and receive freely. You want to receive as well as give. Thus, if you love to give to others, but find it harder to allow yourself to receive from them, then it's claimed you empower others by letting them give to you, for then they have the opportunity to demonstrate their abundance.
People feel good about themselves when they give you something that you can use and appreciate. If no one could receive, no one would be able to give, which, it's believed, would block the flow of energy necessary to create abundance. Rather than see it as selfish for you to receive, it's suggested to see it as the completion of the circle of energy. The more you open to receive, the more you can give. Receive money from people, receive the form and substance of what they give you, and do so with warmth and graciousness. Imagine ten times the amount of money people give you coming back to them every time you receive money.
The theory here is that as you envision success for other people, you increase your own magnetism to prosperity. Therefore as you receive money if you say, “I don't know how I'm going to make this last; I wish I had received more", then the amount becomes less, and less will come next time. If you receive money with an image of more coming, with a feeling of joy and thanks, believers say you create more ways for the universe to give you prosperity.
However, this can all begin to sound like a bunch of hooey, because when we get into the subject of the spirit, things feel as though they're starting to enter the realm of fantasy. And when something sounds outrageous, that's probably because it is - only when you follow the science can you generally see whether a theory begins to add up, or fall apart.
For instance, there is a statistic that some experts in this field throw at us which states that out of every 100 individuals who start at the age of 25 and "believe" they will be successful - only 5 will make the grade by age 65. One will be wealthy. Four will be financially independent, 5 will still be working, and 54 will be broke.
Now before we start to think that the focus of this article isn't about money, it isn't. Money is just the easiest measuring stick. As Earl Nightingale said in his 1950s audio cassette tape The Strangest Secret success by definition is, "The progressive realisation towards a worthy ideal".
But whether it's monetary or it's your body or just overall health and happiness, if those statistics are correct, the numbers don't lie. So what happened? if there are so many self-help gurus out there touting positive thinking, and spiritual alignment, WHY do so many fail?
The lie about positive thinking
You've heard it all before:
Think more positively and you'll get what you want. Visualise, affirm, and manifestation will happen effortlessly. Oh and be sure to overcome those pesky limiting beliefs! Affirmations, gratitude, and positive thinking will cover that one for you. Life is easy if you just think positively enough!
This kind of positive thinking wrapped up in money-generating products by self-help gurus are delusional, misleading, uninformed and detrimental. This doesn't mean positive thinking is bad. It's fundamentally important to living a happy, fulfilled, engaged life. However, the lie and myth is that positive thinking is all that's needed. Or that there is one magic product to fix all your ills.
Read more about money-making gurus.
The reality is that we have difficult and painful emotions for a reason. They arise out of a self-protective compassionate need to SERVE our selves more effectively. Like physical pain, emotional pain is a compass that helps us see when things aren't quite working right inside ourselves. When we ignore physical pain or mask it over with over-medication, our body degenerates and ultimately finds more pain (not less). The same is true when we use positive thinking as a form of over-medication for our soul.
It's like avoiding reality. By not honouring and owning our emotional pain, then our soul, our heart, our spirit - call it what you will - ultimately will degenerate. Our psyche isn't designed to repress and suppress pain indefinitely. That's a big reason why some highly successful people have emotional breakdowns. They just kept over-medicating (or ignoring) until finally they couldn't do it any more.
Read why you shouldn't avoid reality.
The flip-side is equally as dangerous. When we completely identify with the negative painful thoughts, when we allow them to run our lives, to make us forget how magnificent we inherently are, then we also breakdown. We aren't designed that way either. The universe is about balance, and we must know balance - and bring balance - into our lives.
You become imbalanced when you feel that you are reacting to everything, because your body and mind have become confusingly entangled. You have created a tension loop where your body and mind give each other negative signals.
Your body feels tense because you are verbally repeating your fears to yourself. The body responds to your thoughts by generating physical tension. And then, when your mind senses the tension building in the body, your mind generates even more negative self-talk. That makes your body even more tense. And so the loop continues. It is a vicious circle.
Self-blame here is non-productive if it takes on a defeatist attitude - this should be a moment of empowerment, where you take charge of a tension loop that is of your own making. You may think that the emotions and thoughts that you so strongly feel are the only natural responses that you can have to the situations in your world. This is the limited thinking that keeps you stuck in the tension trap.
Freeing yourself from the tension requires recognising that you created your own emotionally unbalanced pattern. Why is it empowering to recognise this? Because experts suggest if you created the situation, then you can choose a more balanced response to your experiences.
First, you need to understand how you became trapped in the tension loop. The theory is that the trap was caused by your own endlessly repeated, verbal descriptions of your world - your self-talk or mind chatter. You generated your own dramatic descriptions of your self and your situation. And when your body felt tense in response to your words, you became even more enmeshed in your problems.
Naturally, the problems really did happen, but this is not a denial of the events that occurred. In fact, your basic descriptions of the events that have occurred could be accurate.
However, your verbal interpretations of these events may be needlessly dramatic, you may attach more importance than is owed to the events. This is where you have control of the situation. You can take a step back and explore the situation using neutral descriptions, rather than heightened dramatic terms and emotionally charged interpretations of reality. You can choose your words, because you are speaking and thinking them. They are yours to shape as you consciously choose.
When you examine your choices of verbal descriptions, and shift the dramatic words and scenarios into more neutral descriptions, then your body and mind can begin to achieve balance. This neutral atmosphere creates more space for your deeper spiritual wisdom to manifest. In this way, it's believed this creates a new healthy pattern where the body and mind are in deeper harmony.
Here are examples experts give of dramatic language, changed into neutral language. The first example is dramatic, the second is neutral:
- 1. I lost my job, and this is terrible.
1. I lost my job, and I am looking for a new job. - 2. He left me, and I can't stand it.
2. He left me, and I am still a good person. - 3. They were rude to me, and it's terrible when that happens.
3. They behaved childishly, and I choose to be around people who are more supportive.
You can explore neutral self-talk for yourself. Take any situation that you are reacting to. Write down the way that you have been describing it. Are you starting to recognise the blame, the judgemental tone, and the dramatic descriptions in what you wrote? Compare what you have written to the examples above. Now take a breath, and explore rewriting your description. Here are some things to check for:
- Shift strong judgements about other people into neutral terms. Shift from blame to neutral descriptions of events.
- Shift helpless descriptions of you into empowered descriptions. Emphasise your true abilities and your deeper potential, so that you support your moving forward in a healthy way.
- Shift negative assessments about the world. Aim yourself towards the people in the world who do believe in you, and who are supportive of you.
Read what you rewrote. And discover how you are breathing, and how you feel in your body. You are beginning to get a sense of how you can balance yourself, even when you seem to be affected by everything. Experts claim in this way you are rediscovering your ability to choose your states of consciousness, even amidst everything that is happening. Meditation can also further support you in learning to balance yourself.
Read about the power of meditation.
As you do this you'll find that, instead of ignoring the painful aspects of our lives, accepting and acknowledging painful emotions as a compass - like a thermometer - to help you more effectively focus your attention and energy is more beneficial. Notice the warning signs that negative thinking presents to you, because it's not like we never have negative thoughts.
For instance, I have them every day. The thing is, I don't take them so seriously. I strive to see them for what they are: helpful information that can point me TOWARDS living a happier and more positive life. They show me where more attention and self-care is needed in my life.
By using negative thoughts and painful emotions in that way, then the positive thinking is no longer a crutch - it's no longer an addictive medicine that silently degenerates us until it's too late. Instead, positive thinking becomes a support to help you through the negative thoughts and ultimately take your happiness to the next level. Thus, I'm optimistic, but that optimism is grounded in reality.
This could be on major reason (and not coupling positive thought with positive action) why so many of us are failing in our lives, and it this failure Nightingale refers to in his audio as the "strangest secret in the world".
But some experts point out that ultimately the difference between those that fail and those that succeed is working the ONE muscle we should be working EVERY day of the week. Our mind muscle. We must learn to focus our mind on worthy goals. Nightingale reveals his opinion as to controlling our mind and the impact it can have on our lives (click here for audio):
The difference is goals. People with goals succeed because they know where they're going. It's that simple. Failures, on the other hand, believe that their lives are shaped by circumstances... by things that happen to them ... by exterior forces.
Think of a ship with the complete voyage mapped out and planned. The captain and crew know exactly where the ship is going and how long it will take -- it has a definite goal. And 9,999 times out of 10,000, it will get there.
Now let's take another ship -- just like the first -- only let's not put a crew on it, or a captain at the helm. Let's give it no aiming point, no goal, and no destination. We just start the engines and let it go. I think you'll agree that if it gets out of the harbour at all, it will either sink or wind up on some deserted beach -- a derelict. It can't go any place because it has no destination and no guidance. It's the same with a human being.
Throughout history, the great wise men and teachers, philosophers, and prophets have disagreed with one another on many different things. It is only on this one point that they are in complete and unanimous agreement -- the key to success and the key to failure is this: WE BECOME WHAT WE THINK ABOUT. This is The Strangest Secret.
Now, why do I say it's strange, and why do I call it a secret? Actually, it isn't a secret at all. It was first promulgated by some of the earliest wise men, and it appears again and again throughout the Bible. But very few people have learned it or understand it. That's why it's strange, and why for some equally strange reason it virtually remains a secret.
Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman Emperor, said: "A man's life is what his thoughts make of it."
Disraeli said this: "Everything comes if a man will only wait ... a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and nothing can resist a will that will stake even existence for its fulfilment."
William James said: "We need only in cold blood act as if the thing in question were real, and it will become infallibly real by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real. It will become so knit with habit and emotion that our interests in it will be those which characterize belief."
Nightingale continues:
... only you must, then, really wish these things, and wish them exclusively, and not wish at the same time a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly. My old friend Dr. Norman Vincent Peale put it this way: "If you think in negative terms, you will get negative results. If you think in positive terms, you will achieve positive results."George Bernard Shaw said: "People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them."
Well, it's pretty apparent, isn't it? We become what we think about. A person who is thinking about a concrete and worthwhile goal is going to reach it, because that's what he's thinking about.
Conversely, the person who has no goal, who doesn't know where he's going, and whose thoughts must therefore be thoughts of confusion, anxiety, fear, and worry will thereby create a life of frustration, fear, anxiety and worry.
And if he thinks about nothing ... he becomes nothing.
According to Nightingale, when we learn to consistently control our thoughts towards the progressive realisation of a worthy goal, whether it's health and fat-loss, career, hobbies or passions, finances, or spirituality and personal growth, we just "feel" better about ourselves and have a sense of purpose and fulfilment in our lives.
However, this does require ACTION too. You can't just "think" your way to a worthy goal, but your thoughts are the starting point. They become the catalyst for massive action to take place. So the advice seems to be to take action and learn to "control your thoughts" - because we become what we think about.
How to know you're going to be successful
To know something is very powerful. It means it's absolute, it's certain to you. It doesn't mean that it is true, but it does mean it is true for you.
It's been said we create our reality based around what we know to be true. If you listen to any successful person they all say that they knew they were going to be successful, that they were just waiting for that success to show up. Lady Gaga is quoted as saying, "I was always famous, it just took everyone else some time to realise it."
Life coach Tony Robbins constantly tells the story of Sylvester Stallone beating all the odds to make the motion picture Rocky and win an Oscar, when everyone told Stallone he could never do it. If the story is to be believed, Stallone never lost his focus or let anything keep him from the life of his dreams. "He never forgot his outcome, and went after it," Robbins says.
There are those that will emphasise this is not about self-confidence, as successful people will have that in abundance - sometimes to a fault. But there is no need for self-confidence when you know something. Why? Because you know it! It needs no support.
The theory is that we as humans were all born with the natural ability to create the state of knowing something would be true. We used it to learn to walk. We were not able to communicate fully at that time, but if we were you would speak to the child and the child would be able to say, "Hell yes! This walking thing, I am so gonna own that! That's happening! I don't care what I have to do. I KNOW I am going to be walking soon!"
It's very powerful when you slow down and start to look at it. This is what experts call your natural success mind-set. We were all naturally 100% self-confident when we were born. We had no low self-esteem or lack of confidence. We were complete as people; however, most of the world's population appears to have lost their natural born self-confidence on their journey through life.
The secret for how to be confident lies in getting your natural mind-set back - which is part and parcel of controlled positive thought and action. So ask yourself, do you know you will become a success or do you know you will become a failure? Do you want to say "yes I will succeed", but secretly do you know you will fail?
It's the state of knowing which is important to attain. You have to first know how it can be possible to conceive something. Every single thing you've achieved in your life, which when you started out you weren't sure you would achieve or not, you attained the state of knowing you would at some point.
This is how to become successful at anything you desire, but the same is of course true of failure. The power of knowing can be used to create or undo. It is just a law of how things work and it has no feelings one way or the other about how it is used. Just as gravity has no feelings, it just is.
The dark side of knowing
However, knowing has a dark side too. The human race knows things on different levels. The first level is intellectually knowing something. But without apply what you know, you won't get far.
A human ailment is that because we know something on an intellectual level, that sometimes somehow we don't think we need to apply it. This is the dark side of knowing and basically we only know it on the intellectual level, which of course is of intellectual value, but may have no practical value to our lives whatsoever.
However, when we take what we know and absorbed it and apply those tools which we know are needed - like the action plans given in this article - we no longer just know it intellectually, we have now absorbed it. The plan is a part of us. In other words, we now live what we know to be true.
Experts say that level of knowing is a hundred times greater than the intellectual level. Staying at the intellectual level is the principle reason that people never succeed. If you don't apply what you know, what's the point of knowing it? In effect it becomes of no practical value.
To use the power of knowing - to KNOW you are going to be successful - some believe is simply a question of KNOWING what you want to be successful in, and KNOWING what you may have to do to get there. Here again the connection is made with FOCUS and the AWARENESS that brings.
If you know what your success will look like then you already HAVE success in your mind. So you KNOW what it looks like. Then if you KNOW what steps you may take to get there then you have provided your mind with stepping stones. Little bridges, if you like, which when combined take you from where you are to where you desire to be. The gradual steps that many life coaches talk about.
Once you have provided your mind with the destination and options for how to get there, then your mind can KNOW it is possible to get there. Your mind can conceive it happening.
Adherents to this theory then state that next you just need to keep looking at the destination and picturing it in all its reality. some suggest to be very goal orientated and specific, but others also suggest that you need to picture as many different ways of which you can get there. You are providing your mind with multiple options, different ways to achieve it. And your mind will seek out the ways to make it happen.
It is often said that you are the navigator of your life. In this context, your job as the pilot of your plane is to provide different options and let your subconscious mind know where you want it to take you. Thus, your subconscious mind will evaluate everything and then start to take you on the journey. Of course you have to step foot outside and walk in the direction you think you want to go in, and then your subconscious mind will reward you with the right steps
Click here to rewire your mindset for success!
So the theory goes, at some point in all this you will attain the state of knowing you will be a success. And then pretty soon after that you will attain the state of knowing how you will become a success.
To achieve the state of knowing you will become successful you just have to cultivate your ideas and dreams. It is believed as you water them with options of ways to go, you will come to KNOW that it is impossible for you not to create the success you desire, because you already have the success in your mind now.
As a child you "knew" you would one day walk and then one day you did. If we follow this theory, it suggest that the difference between you and successful people is that they are still in contact with the same mind-set they had as a child. Those who see themselves as failures have just allowed society to reprogramme their mind with negative beliefs, and therefore you need to reprogramme your mind back to how it was before all of the junk programming was added. Do that, experts say, and success is inevitable.
Yours in love,
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