Using Power of Positive Thinking To Start Investing In You!
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................2
Positive Thinking is a Bunch of Crap – and Crap Makes Great Fertilizer..........2
PLANTING YOUR SEEDS.......................................................................................2
Roots: What’s In Your Garden Now?...................................................................2
Self-Esteem: Catching the I-Love-Me Disease....................................................2
Me-ology: The Self-Esteem Dipstick...................................................................2
The Dark Ages: Childhood Programming and Past Letdowns............................2
Exercise: Connect-the-influences........................................................................2
Getting Back on the Horse...................................................................................2
Step Away from the Panic Button: Conquering Fear..........................................2
Trauma: Breaking the Chains..............................................................................2
“It Could Be Worse”: Dramatization and Awareness..........................................2
For Your Eyes Only: Journaling to Release.........................................................2
Meditation: Connecting Above Pain....................................................................2
Join the Club: Live and Online Support Groups.................................................2
Drop That Horseshoe: There’s No Such Thing as Bad Luck...............................2
Change Your Mind, Change Your Life.................................................................2
Warm-up: Shake Out Negative Kinks..................................................................2
Work Those Mouth Muscles................................................................................2
Do Some Reps......................................................................................................2
Cool-Down: Feel the Burn....................................................................................2
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Switching Terminals: Hook Up to Positive Energy.............................................3
What’s In It for Me?.............................................................................................3
The Buddy System................................................................................................3
Knowledge is Power.............................................................................................3
Sign on the Dotted Line.......................................................................................3
Dangle Your Own Carrot......................................................................................3
Surrender..............................................................................................................3
SHOOTS AND LEAVES...........................................................................................3
The First Signs of Your Spring of Rebirth...........................................................3
Conspiracy Theory: The Biggest Threat to the New You.....................................3
There’s Always Tomorrow: Eradicate Procrastination........................................3
Just Say No: How Not to Take On Too Much......................................................3
Take Me As I Am: Kicking the Approval Habit...................................................3
Know Your Code...................................................................................................3
Graduate from High School.................................................................................3
Weed Your Friendship Garden............................................................................3
Blood is Thicker than Embarrassment................................................................3
The Blame Game: Whose Fault Is It, Anyway?...................................................3
Making Your Omelet: How to Learn From Your Mistakes.................................3
Give Yourself Permission.....................................................................................3
Make Interesting Mistakes...................................................................................3
‘Fess Up................................................................................................................3
Pinpoint Your Error.............................................................................................3
Talk About It.........................................................................................................3
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Keep Good Records..............................................................................................4
If Your Buds Shrivel, Add More Fertilizer...........................................................4
When the Door Closes, Go Out the Window.......................................................4
Buried Alive: What to Do When Your Mountain Crumbles................................4
Using Your Lifelines.............................................................................................4
OPENING YOUR BLOSSOMS.................................................................................4
Poppy Fields: Visualizing in Technicolor............................................................4
Preparation: Boarding the Visualization Train...................................................4
Guided visualization.............................................................................................4
Receptive visualization.........................................................................................4
Altered memory visualization..............................................................................4
Worry-Me-Nots and You-Can-Themums............................................................4
Cross-Pollination: How to “Bee”..........................................................................4
FRUITION AND HARVEST....................................................................................4
Natural Attraction: Bringing Love, Money and Success.....................................4
Radiant Relationships..........................................................................................4
Incredible Careers................................................................................................4
Financial Freedom...............................................................................................4
Dream Delivery....................................................................................................4
Awesome Aging....................................................................................................4
THE PHYSICAL POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING.............................................4
Sit Back and Relax................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................4
Surviving the Winter: Keep Your Garden Alive...................................................4
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CHECKLIST FOR THE POSITIVE THINKING PROCESS....................................5
RESOURCES............................................................................................................5
BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................................................................................5
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INTRODUCTION
Positive Thinking is a Bunch of Crap – and Crap Makes Great Fertilizer
“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy
enough people to make it worth the effort.”
Herm Albright
At some point in your life, you’ve probably heard about the power of positive
thinking. Basically, this is a theory that contends if you believe good things will
happen to you, there will be some sort of cataclysmic shift in the energies
surrounding you which will actually
cause good things to happen to you
. For as
many people who believe in the power of positive thinking, there are many more who
believe it’s all a bunch of New Age pop psychology drivel or sugar-coated Peter Pan
platitudes.
Here’s the kicker: they’re all right.
You see, positive thinking is a system of beliefs. So if you believe it doesn’t work-
then, of course, it won’t work. And if you believe it
does
work...well, you get the idea.
For non-believers, using positive thinking is like trying to get a job after high school.
You need experience to get a job, but you need a job to get the experience. It can be
difficult to know where you’re supposed to start. But just like any other process, the
key to making positive thinking work for you is to start small. Plant seeds, if you will,
and then learn how to tend and cultivate those seeds until you have a mental garden
that bears a phenomenal crop, year after year. Anything is possible with positive
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thinking...even if you do believe it’s all a bunch of crap.
Norman Vincent Peale, the father of positive thinking, once said: “If you have zest
and enthusiasm you attract zest and enthusiasm. Life does give back in kind.” This is
the essence of positive thinking. It’s not so much a theory as it is a contagious
disease. Just as anger and negativity spread quickly from person to person, so do
humor and happiness- only good feelings spread far faster. Think about it: have you
ever noticed that the quickest way to ease a tense situation is to make a joke? The
instant someone laughs or smiles, a sense of relief spreads through everyone in the
vicinity. Even if the angered parties don’t feel better, they are at least able to discuss
the problem in a detached and objective way, and get on with their lives instead of
dwelling on negativity. For that same reason, solo drivers who get cut off in traffic
tend to remain angry for at least the rest of the drive- because there is no one else
near them to send out good vibrations and break the tension. Makes sense, doesn’t
it?
If you’ve picked up this book and read this far, the seeds of belief are already there.
Your next step is to clear your mind’s garden of doubt and get ready to plant. You’ll
learn how to take all that negativity and mulch it down into fertilizer that will let
your possibilities grow.
Now grab your shovel, and let’s head in to the garden.
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The biggest tree in the world grows from a seed you can hold between
two fingers.
“Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t...you’re
right.”
- Henry Ford
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PLANTING YOUR SEEDS
“In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable
moment.”
- Thomas Carlyle
To tune in to the power of positive thinking, you should probably start small-
particularly if you don’t believe it will work. It’s one thing to tell yourself,
“Tomorrow, when I wake up in the morning I won’t hit snooze a dozen times and feel
drowsy for the rest of the day,” and quite another to tell yourself, “Tomorrow, when I
wake up in the morning I’ll be living independently wealthy and living in a mansion.”
(Unless, of course, you are in fact independently wealthy and living in a mansion at
the moment; in which case you might try to think your way into ownership of a small
country.)
The process of making positive thinking work for you begins with destruction, or at
least a mild shift in your thought structure. In order to make room for new methods
and ideas, you must first tear out all the old negativity patterns you’ve been building
throughout your life. For some, this can be a gradual process: as you witness positive
thinking work for you, one small step at a time, you will slowly clear out those
good-things-only-happen-to-other-people thoughts, and be able to cultivate the
seeds of change.
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Roots: What’s In Your Garden Now?
“The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human
beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the
outer aspects of their lives.”
- William James
What’s holding you back? Even those who fully embrace the theory of positive
thinking may feel some qualms over entrusting their lives to mere thought. There are
many possibilities that could be producing weeds in your mental garden, and the
best way to get rid of a weed is to yank it out, roots and all. In this section we’ll
discuss some of the most common stumbling blocks people encounter on the road to
positive thinking, as well as how to overcome them and lay the foundation for a
healthy life outlook.
Self-Esteem: Catching the I-Love-Me Disease
For most of human existence, self-esteem was an unheard-of notion akin to the
theories of those heretics who believed the world was round. The term “self-esteem”
- defined by Webster’s Dictionary as “pride in oneself; self-respect” - made its way
into the common public awareness during the ‘60s and ‘70s as a catch-all term to
describe the essence of parenting problems. The “old ways” of parenting were
pronounced barbaric and damaging to the budding self-esteem of our youth, and
many parents fearful of raising unhappy, ill-adjusted children took advice that led to
a generation of children with high self-esteem...so high it eclipsed personal
responsibility and created a “me-first” mentality.
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On the other hand, most of us are taught that thinking highly of ourselves is a vain,
selfish and undesirable trait. Advice telling us to feel better about ourselves and
occasionally put us first seems counterintuitive at best. After all, isn’t self-love the
first step on the road to Ego Central? Many people want to feel good about
themselves, but guilt too often rears its ugly head and stops healthy self-esteem from
developing.
Because of these conflicting viewpoints, self-esteem is a tricky little emotion to
manipulate. It’s important to strike a balance between modesty and greed. It takes
practice to convince yourself that you are a worthwhile and deserving person, while
at the same time keeping in mind that you’re not the center of the universe. Though
it may sound impossible, it’s actually simple to accomplish.
Where do you rate on the self-esteem-o-meter? The following quiz will help you
gauge your feelings and identify areas that need improvement.
Me-ology: The Self-Esteem Dipstick
To rate your self-esteem, choose the answer that most closely reflects your likely
reaction to the following situations:
1. You know you’re good at creating databases. Your boss asks you and several
co-workers for a volunteer to organize a new client information database, and
another volunteer to write a company newsletter- which you have no idea how to
do. You:
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A. Volunteer for both, because you’re so brilliant you’ll be able to figure it out
- even at the expense of embarrassing the company the first few times you write a
terrible newsletter.
B. Volunteer for the database- and when Fred Jones also volunteers, gently
point out that you’ve had more experience, but would be happy to teach him what
you know as you go along.
C. Remain silent. Someone else is surely better at it than you, and the boss
would never pick you anyway.
2. You’re out with friends and you’ve just passed gas noisily in the middle of a
restaurant, so you:
A. Immediately blame a passing waiter or someone else at your table. You are
completely serious in your accusations, and there’s no way anyone will be able to pin
it on you. If they even think about it, you’ll let them have it.
B. Crack a joke about that four-bean salad you had for lunch.
C. Attempt to crawl under the table, then excuse yourself and head to the
bathroom. You can’t face any of them for the rest of the night, and you consider
paying the entire check right now and leaving before they notice you’re gone-
if
they
notice you’re gone.
3. When you watch Jeopardy or play Trivial Pursuit, you:
A. Laugh at the other players when they get the answers wrong. You know
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them all, and if you ever went on Jeopardy you’d clean them out.
B. Have a blast. You know some of the answers and try to guess at the rest.
You love to learn new things.
C. Don’t watch Jeopardy or play Trivial Pursuit. You’re not smart enough for
stuff like that.
4. You’ve decided to go after that promotion at work. You:
A. Make a bunch of other people look bad so there’s no way you’ll be passed
up.
B. Let your boss know you’re interested in the promotion, and then put in
some extra effort to prove you’re good for the position.
C. Decide on the drive to work that you’re not going to go for it after all. You
won’t get it no matter what you do, so there’s no point in trying.
5. When making a tough decision, you:
A. Choose the option that sounds best for you at the moment, and then stick
to your decision no matter what, even if it turns out to be the wrong one.
B. Weigh your options and think about the advantages and disadvantages of
each one before deciding on your final choice, but remain open to change if it turns
out there is a better way.
C. Decisions? You can’t make decisions. You always pick the wrong thing and
wind up making everyone miserable. You’ll get someone else to decide.
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6. You’re faced with an entire evening alone. You:
A. Gloat, because you don’t have to spend time in the company of those
miserable cretins who think they’re your friends, but can’t hold a candle to your
brilliant and sparkling personality. You know they’re all sitting around wishing they
could hang with you, anyway.
B. Take the time to do something you enjoy, like take a long bath, read a good
book, or fix yourself your favorite dinner. It’s nice to relax once in a while and be
alone with your thoughts.
C. Resign yourself to being miserable all night. You might as well go to bed
early and hope someone’s around tomorrow.
7. When performing a task that requires your full concentration, you:
A. Don’t. Whatever it is you’re doing, you could do it in your sleep. You don’t
have to bother concentrating on things.
B. Are able to tune out most distractions and complete the task to the best of
your ability. You are determined to put your best foot forward.
C. Can’t. You’re too nervous about screwing things up to concentrate, so you
tend to work on projects in short bursts and often end up finishing things late
because you’re so distracted.
8. A friend introduces you to someone new. You:
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A. Prove that you’re a better person by saying something witty or clever that
lets them know your friend is paying attention to you right now, not them. If the new
person is worth knowing, they’ll make the effort to get to know you.
B. Greet him or her warmly, introduce yourself and ask an open-ended
question such as “What do you do for a living?” or “Where do you live?” You’re
prepared to actually listen to the answer and will reserve judgment until you get to
know the person better.
C. Mumble “hello,” and then slink off in search of a friend who’s not talking to
someone you don’t know. Whoever the new person is, they wouldn’t want to get to
know you anyway.
9. You walk in to your house and you’re greeted by an awful stench: the
refrigerator is unplugged, and everything in it is spoiled. You:
A. Immediately assume someone was screwing around with it and launch an
investigation to find the culprit.
B. First plug it back in to find out if it still works, and then try to figure out
what happened. If someone else was responsible for unplugging it, they can help you
clean it out. In any case, you’ll do what’s necessary to correct the problem.
C. Decide you must have done something wrong, and now it’s coming back to
haunt you. You grumble under your breath as you clean out the refrigerator and
wonder why things like this always have to happen to you.
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10. Your supervisor calls you into the office to compliment you on the tremendous
job you’re doing on your new project. You:
A. Thank him outwardly, all the while thinking it’s about time he noticed how
great you are. Maybe now you’ll get the respect you deserve.
B. Are sincerely flattered, and tell him so. You also ask if there is anything you
could be doing better.
C. Insist that you’re not really doing all that well, and try to hurry him along
so you can escape. You don’t deserve praise.
11. You have to talk to your boss about a recent event that is affecting the way you
and your co-workers perform your job. You:
A. Act as though you and your boss are best buddies, and demand that she do
something to fix the problem. After all, you could be running the show just as easily
as her, and you’d probably do a better job.
B. Approach the matter professionally and with confidence that a solution can
be found. You offer any suggestions you might have to correct the problem, and ask
if she has any ideas about what should be done.
C. Would never presume to talk to your boss. There’s a reason she is the boss
and you’re not. You might send her an anonymous e-mail or ask one of your
co-workers to talk to her.
12. This weekend you have a hundred little projects at home that have to be tackled,
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and you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed. You:
A. Attack several things at once, starting with the easiest ones. You might not
manage to finish any of them, but you can always insist that someone else pitch in,
because you have more important things to do.
B. Decide which projects need to be completed first and take them on one at a
time. By taking things step by step, you will finish what needs to be done. If anyone
else is available at home, you’ll ask them to help out.
C. Bemoan the unfortunate twist of fate that ruined your weekend. There’s no
way you’ll ever be able to finish everything. You don’t ask anyone else for help
because they have better things to do than perform favors for you, and you wouldn’t
want to be a bother.
13. The opportunity arises for you to pursue your dream job, but it would mean
leaving your current, stable position right away. You:
A. Drop everything and go for it. Who needs a safety net?
B. Weigh your options, and plan out what you’ll do if the new opportunity
falls through. If you have a spouse, you discuss the decision with them and create a
backup plan. If it’s possible, you’ll find a way to make it work.
C. Stay right where you are. Why risk disappointment? You just know it won’t
work out.
14. You have five minutes to get to an appointment, and you’re stuck in a seemingly
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endless traffic jam at a dead stop. You:
A. Curse, fume, and honk your horn repeatedly. Don’t these people realize
you’re in a hurry?
B. Are frustrated, but you know there isn’t much you can do change the
situation. If you have a cell phone, you call to let them know you’re going to be a little
late. You use the unexpected time to relax and listen to your favorite radio station, or
just to think.
C. Want to die. Things like this always seem to happen to you. It just isn’t fair.
You’re so worried about being late you’re feeling sick, and there’s no way you’ll be
able to relax until you’re out of this mess.
15. A co-worker reviews one of your projects and tells you a few things that aren’t
pleasant, but they are valid points. You:
A. Thank him through clenched teeth, but insist that you know what you’re
doing. He has a lot of nerve criticizing your work, and his opinions don’t really
matter anyway.
B. Are grateful for the opportunity to improve your work. You thank him for
his insight and go back over the project with his suggestions in mind before turning
it in.
C. Give up. You can’t do anything right. Maybe your co-worker should have
been in charge of this project instead of you. You’ll just turn it in and hope you don’t
get fired for incompetence.
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Gloomy Gus?
Results: Tally up all your A, B, and C answers to find out where you rate on the
self-esteem dipstick:
Mostly A:
Put Down That Mirror, Narcissus. Your tank overfloweth. You may not be
aware of it, but you have far more confidence than you need. While confidence is a
good trait to possess, too much of it can make you appear arrogant, rude or
unapproachable. Try to take more notice of others’ feelings, and you’ll get much
further.
Or tenacious flower?
Mostly B:
Join the Circus, You Have Perfect Balance. You have a healthy level of
self-esteem tempered with empathy and concern for others. You’re probably the life
of the party or the person everyone comes to for help, and you’re glad to give it when
you can- but you know when you need time for yourself.
Mostly C:
If You Dig Any Deeper You’ll End Up in China. You’re a few quarts low, and
you could use a self-esteem top-off. You may think you can’t do anything right, but
with a little confidence and some positive thinking, you’ll find you are worth far
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more than you believe. If you answered C to everything, it’s time for a complete
system flush and refill.
The Dark Ages: Childhood Programming and Past Letdowns
“Upon our children, how they are taught, rests the fate- or fortune- of
tomorrow’s world.”
- B. C. Forbes
The things we learn in childhood aren’t easy to forget- mostly because we don’t
actively remember them. It is far harder to dislodge subconscious thought. When we
are unaware not only of
why
we embrace or avoid certain things, but also unaware of
the fact that we
are
embracing or avoiding them, pinpointing the roots of our actions
is a difficult process.
Childhood lessons don’t always come from our parents, and often not even the
messages we received from them were intentionally placed there. For example, if you
parents raised you to be helpful, courteous, polite, and giving, you may have learned
those lessons so well that the very idea of doing something for yourself makes you
cringe- and you may not know why. On the other hand, if your parents gave you
everything you wanted without you ever asking for it or lifting a finger, you may
project those same expectations on everyone around you- again, with no idea why
you’re doing it, or even that you are doing it at all. Many times, outwardly selfish
people are shocked to discover that others perceive them as selfish. They may even
believe themselves the kindest, most benevolent people they know.
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Another factor you may not consider when trying to access your childhood
programming is the outside influences that affected your formation. Teachers,
daycare workers or babysitters, school friends, even random adults in the grocery
store may have had an impact on your behaviors and beliefs, whether consciously or
unconsciously.
Though it may be impossible to determine all of your childhood influences, you can
give yourself a general idea of past events and personalities that shaped your current
beliefs and take steps to change them. The following brief exercise will help you get
started thinking about your triggers and habits.
Exercise: Connect-the-influences
1. Starting with your parents, list the names of every person you can recall that you
associated with during childhood in a single column down the left-hand side of a
sheet of paper. If you don’t know the name of a person, use a brief description such
as “the lady at the end of the street with the loud little dog.” Include family, friends,
teachers, caregivers, neighbors, and anyone else you remember. If you run out of
room, tape another piece of paper to the bottom of the first one and keep going down
the left-hand side.
2. On the right-hand side of the paper, list all the habits and traits you possess, both
good and bad. If you’re feeling brave, ask a friend to help you come up with some of
the traits you possess that you might not be aware of. You don’t even have to show
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anyone your list; you can call them up and tell them you’re getting a head start on
your New Year’s resolutions.
3. Now comes the fun part. Try to match each habit or trait with one of the people
from the left-hand column, and draw a line to connect them. You may find that some
people have several connecting lines, while others have none. Pay close attention to
the people who seem to have appeared on your list for no particular reason. If you
remember them clearly, they probably influenced your life in some small way.
This exercise is not meant to lay blame on the people in your past for ruining your
life. Rather, it is to illustrate that many of your flaws and negative qualities are a
result of things you learned as an impressionable child, and therefore can be let go of
without guilt. Children see things through a different lens than adults do, and what
we learn at an early age can often end up coloring everything we do as grownups.
Fortunately, we can learn to let go of those negative tendencies once we view them
with the wisdom and rationality we have developed along the way.
Getting Back on the Horse
“If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another
chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down, but the
staying down.”
- Mary Pickford
Beyond childhood, you may have experienced setbacks or letdowns for which you
clearly recall the reasoning. Often we are so opposed to change that the slightest sign
a new way of doing things isn’t working out becomes the signal to stop trying. We are
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creatures of habit, and breaking the mold we’ve created for ourselves is a challenge
few feel they have the time or the energy to face.
Fortunately, we can chip away at that mold until the cracks become wide enough to
break free. According to most psychologists, it takes 21 days to break a habit. The
actions and reactions you develop in response to letdowns are nothing more than
habits that you can rid yourself of with practice.
Your own thinking may be “fencing you in”!
Ready for another exercise? Make a list of all the things you’ve tried and stopped
doing before completing (remember, you haven’t failed at them- you have simply
made a temporary pit stop on the path to success). This list might include diets,
resolutions, exercise habits, quitting smoking, or even self-help programs like this
one. Leave yourself some space after each item. When you get to the end of the list,
go back and fill in those habits you have developed as a consequence of waiting to
follow through. For example, if you listed “The Atkins Diet,” your habit might be
“overindulging on pasta because I didn’t eat any for six months.” Some of your
habits may be simple to change; others may require deviation from your intended
course. In the pasta example, you might realize you can still eat pasta, just not as
often as you have been while making up for the loss. Come up with an alternative for
each habit that you can live with, so you don’t short yourself before you get started.
You might decide to have pasta twice a week instead of every other night.
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Now that you have a guide, you can start implementing successful changes one step
at a time. Choose one or two habits you’d like to change, and be sure to implement
the changes daily for 21 days in a row. It’s helpful to keep a journal or a chart to
remind yourself what you’re working on and why. You can also treat yourself to a
reward after the successful completion of each habit-breaking cycle. How about a
nice, big plate of spaghetti? Go ahead; you’ve earned it!
Step Away from the Panic Button: Conquering Fear
“All of us are born with a set of instinctive fears- of falling, of the dark,
of lobsters, of falling on lobsters in the dark or speaking before the
Rotary Club, and of the words “Some Assembly Required.”
- Dave Barry
Where all else fails to stop us from achieving what we want from life, fear steps in.
We experience fear on both conscious and unconscious levels, and it is one of the
most limiting emotions we possess. In some cases fear is justified, and even healthy.
For example, a person contemplating crossing a busy street will harbor a healthy
fear of being struck by two tons of rapidly moving steel commonly known as a motor
vehicle (at least, if he or she is a reasonably sane person who understands the basic
laws of physics: moving car + walking person = splat). This fear breeds caution,
which causes the person to look both ways for oncoming traffic and wait for an
appropriate time to venture across the road.
However, unjustified fear- which can be just as crippling and realistic as justified
fear- is more often the case when fear is a factor. Not many people risk their lives on
a regular basis. Humiliation, rejection, and failure top the list* of limiting fears that
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can be overcome with practice and determination.
* Actually, spiders top the list of fears for most people. Arachnophobia- fear of
spiders- is the most common type of fear in the world. However, fear of spiders is
completely justifiable, as spiders are creepy eight-legged insects with fangs, alien
eyes, and a tendency to drop on you out of nowhere.
One of the easiest and most successful methods of dealing with fear is exposure
therapy, which is actually facing your fears one small step at a time. If you don’t feel
you can handle exposure therapy alone, enlist a friend to participate- especially if
you can find a friend who doesn’t fear the same things you do. With exposure
therapy, the objective is to experience fear to a small degree several times, so that
each time it becomes easier to conquer. (Please note that exposure therapy does not
apply to every situation. For example, if you are afraid of flying, it is not
recommended that you leap from successively higher perches and attempt to
become airborne.)
Here are some ways you can implement exposure therapy for the Big Three fears:
Humiliation
1 Wear your slippers to the grocery store. If you’re feeling ultra-brave, scuff
your feet across the floor to call attention to your slippers. If you’re feeling
ultra-timid, go to a grocery store far enough from your house that the
shoppers will probably never see you again.
2 Sing at a karaoke bar. While you’re sober.
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3 Choose one completely inappropriate article of clothing (a Dr. Seuss hat,
a big pair of fuzzy mittens in the middle of summer, a headband with
bumblebee antenna) and wear it in public as long as you can. This is not
only good exposure therapy- it’s fun!
4 Join a local Toastmasters club or offer to give a public presentation on an
area relating to your expertise at a library or school. Public speaking is an
excellent channel for exorcising humiliation, especially if you do it on a
regular basis (that’s speak in public, not humiliate yourself).
Rejection
1 Call up a deejay at a local country radio station and request a song by
Metallica or Ozzy Osbourne. Be aware that you
will
be rejected; you
might be laughed at and rejected, and there is a possibility you may be
laughed at and rejected on the air.
2 If you’re single, use an online location service like Classmates.com or
PeopleFinder.com to find an old school classmate you used to have a
crush on. Contact them and ask for a date (or just initiate a conversation).
If you’re married, contact an old school classmate and invite them to
lunch. At worst they’ll say no; at best, you will have rediscovered a friend.
3 Write a poem or a short story and try to submit it to a newspaper or
magazine, or enter a writing contest. If you aren’t rejected, become a
writer immediately.
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Failure
1 Try to nail Jell-o to a tree.
2 Buy a new video game and attempt to win it in one sitting. If you play
video games on a regular basis, buy a video game that’s different from the
ones you usually play (for example, if you enjoy fighting video games, try
a quest-driven format. Or video chess.).
3 Start a new hobby that requires creating an end product, such as knitting,
model kit building, or cake decorating. Please note that if you are working
on your dietary habits, it is not advisable to embark on cake-decorating
exposure therapy to combat fear of failure. You will feel obliged to
consume your failed attempts. Instead, try vegetable sculpture or fruit
bowl arrangement.
4 Challenge Jeff Gordon to a stock car race. This will also help overcome
your fears of rejection and humiliation, as at least one of them is bound to
happen.
Conquering your fears is like climbing a mountain – do it one step at a
time.
You can determine your own form of exposure therapy by coming up with ways to
face your personal fears one small step at a time. If you can’t think of anything, ask a
friend to help. Most people are more than willing to try something new, especially if
they get to watch you do something entertaining.
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NOTE: These exercises are not intended as a substitute for professional psychiatric
care. If your fears are extraordinarily strong and interfere with normal functions or
daily activities, you should seek the advice of a certified psychiatrist. Self-induced
exposure therapy can be effective in reducing or alleviating normal fear, but should
not be used in cases of mentally crippling or trauma-induced fear.
Trauma: Breaking the Chains
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
- Sir Winston Churchill
Bad things happen to good people. It’s a fact of life. One of the most extraordinary
things about human beings is our capacity for resilience in the face of trauma.
Miraculous survival and recovery are not occasional happenings in the world. Every
day, someone survives a tragedy. Every day, someone takes another step toward a
happier life despite a past trauma. Every day, life goes on, and we adjust. And we are
stronger for it.
The suggestions in this section, once again, are not substitutes for professional
psychiatric care. However, many people have found self-help effective for relieving
the stress of trauma and taking control of themselves. Whether you choose to seek
professional help or embark on a healing path yourself, know that you can break free
and begin to live again when tragedy touches you. You don’t have to let trauma keep
you from achieving what you want out of life.
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You can choose just one, or any combination of these techniques to work on freeing
yourself from trauma. If you are uncomfortable with an approach, move on to
another selection.
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“It Could Be Worse”: Dramatization and Awareness
For mild trauma, sometimes laughter really is the best medicine. If you are able to
look at the situation objectively, you may be able to “laugh it off,” or at least arm
yourself with enough knowledge to realize you had it easy.
There are two ways to approach this method. The first is to simply use your
imagination. Picture the trauma, and then imagine all the ways in which it could
have been worse. For example, if you have a checking account, you may have
bounced a check, ended up having to pay a fee to the bank and had to postpone
paying one of your bills or go without something you planned to purchase. Now,
imagine what might have happened if you bounced multiple checks. You might have
had to put off several payments. The snowball effect could have caused you to lose
your car, or have your power shut off. Your bills could have spiraled out of control,
eventually leaving you homeless.* When you imagine the worst, it’s easier to put
setbacks into perspective.
Traumas can be seeds for more pain – or for growth.
*NOTE: Bouncing multiple checks and losing your power, your car, or your house
qualifies as major trauma, for which dramatization is not always effective.
The second approach to dramatization and awareness of minor trauma is to research
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actual cases where the situations of other people turned out worse than yours. You
can search online for news stories, or browse the periodicals archive at your local
library. Generally, you will always be able to find cases concerning people who had
more difficulty than you, yet they survived- and you will too. After all, you’re still
alive. If you want to take this method a step further, you can do something to help
others in your situation. Make a donation to a specific case or a related charity, or
start a support program or fund drive in your community. Taking action, no matter
how small, often helps to alleviate the feelings of loss and helplessness associated
with trauma.
For Your Eyes Only: Journaling to Release
Keeping a journal or diary is one of humankind’s oldest traditions. The thoughts,
feelings and emotions of generations have been preserved through countless pages
inscribed with words that are often kept private throughout the life of the writer, and
revealed only in the interests of adding to historical record.
For therapeutic purposes, sometimes the act itself of writing down past trauma
allows you to face it more fully and release the negative feelings associated with the
event. The journaling process can be a short-term program used solely for working
on a specific trauma. If you keep a short-term journal, you may wish to burn or
destroy it at the end of the process as a symbolic realization of your freedom from
trauma. If you enjoy journaling, you may wish to continue keeping a written record
of your thoughts and feelings. Many people keep daily or weekly journals their entire
32
lives. Journaling is an excellent form of self-communication that can benefit you
whether or not you’ve experienced trauma in your life.
There are many different formats your journal can take. Following are some of the
most common, but feel free to come up with your own journaling style to suit your
specific needs:
1 Freeform thought. Freeform writing is a technique used by many
authors and aspiring authors to jumpstart creativity. Keeping a freeform
journal is a good way to uncover thoughts you may be hiding even from
yourself, and for beginners it’s an excellent starting point. The
instructions for writing freeform are simple: just sit down with your
journal and writing implement of choice, and start writing. Don’t worry
about spelling, grammar, or even coherence. Simply write down whatever
comes to mind. Try to do this for at least five minutes to give your mental
engines time to warm up. If you don’t feel like stopping after five minutes,
just keep writing. Daily freeform writing is one of the most therapeutic
practices available.
2 Memory release. This technique is most beneficial for short-term
journaling, particularly if you intend to destroy the journal in a symbolic
manner when you’re finished. Memory release journaling is exactly what
it sounds like: you merely write down your memories of trauma and any
feelings associated with them, and then release those negative feelings.
Imagine that they are now on paper, and therefore no longer in your heart
or mind. For this reason, it is more effective to destroy the journal when
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you are finished with it.
3 Dear Jerk letters. If a specific person or group of people, living or
dead, was responsible for the trauma in your life, writing a letter or series
of letters to them can be helpful in transcending your trauma. You will
probably never send them the letters, but putting down in physical form
what you would say to them if you could is immensely satisfying on a
personal level. You can address the letters to their names, or give them
creative nicknames (Dear Jerk, Dear Friend-Stealer, Dear Scum of the
Earth) to protect your privacy and add more kick to your scathing
monologues.
4 Story-form therapy. Some traumas are too fresh or too painful to
relive fully. In these cases, writing a fictionalized account of the
experience can be helpful in releasing negative emotions. You can change
the names, locations, ages, or even genders of the participants in your
personal trauma to give yourself a more objective view of the situation
and assist you in coping or finding closure. Creating alternate versions of
the situation helps to displace bad feelings. You can even write yourself a
happy ending, or give your fictional self victory over your oppressor.
5 Pictorial journals. You may feel words are inadequate to convey your
traumatic emotions. If this is the case, you might consider drawing a
journal instead. Just as you don’t have to be a good writer to keep a
journal, you don’t have to be a good artist to draw one. Use whatever form
you feel comfortable with, whether it is stick figures, abstract scribbling,
or fully detailed rendering. The only important step in journaling is to get
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something concrete down on paper, and no one but you will ever have to
look at it.
Choosing the right journal can be just as important as what you place inside it. The
human mind is a powerful thing, and our thoughts and perceptions have an
incredible influence on our actions. Here are a few tips on choosing an appropriate
journal for your self-guided therapy:
1 The size, layout, look and feel of your journal should be symbolic, either
of your intentions or your personality. Take your time in picking out a
journal you enjoy looking at and holding. Give yourself permission to
spend a little more than you usually would, and avoid bargains or sales
(unless the one on sale is exactly what you’re looking for). Attaching a
slightly higher dollar value to your journal than what you might pay for
something like a typical school-grade spiral notebook gives the
importance of your journal a mental boost, and helps remind you that
what you put inside it is important to you. If you don’t want anyone else
to read your journal, no matter what, invest in one with a lock.
2 Choose a writing implement that you will use specifically for your journal.
With the exception of a pictorial journal, pencil is the poorest medium to
use, as it conveys the sense of a temporary state that can be changed with
a pass of the eraser. Pen or marker are the best choices. You should write
with the medium you feel most comfortable in, that benefits you in a
symbolic or significant way. You can choose an ink color you like, buy a
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set of glitter pens, pick up a novelty pen, or even get an old-fashioned
quill pen- they are available in ballpoint versions or traditional
chisel-point and inkwell styles. Be sure to only use the writing implement
you choose for your journal, and not for grocery lists or jotting down
phone numbers.
3 Find a home for your journal and keep it there unless you’re writing in it.
Establishing a permanent place for your journal- under the bed, on the
top shelf in the closet, in a dresser drawer, on your nightstand- is an
important step in your journaling routine. This helps to reinforce
permanence and form new habits (and eliminates the possibility of losing
your journal).
Meditation: Connecting Above Pain
Meditation is a time-honored relaxation technique that has been used successfully in
Eastern cultures for centuries to alleviate stress and focus the mind. This technique
has recently gained popularity in the United States as millions of people discover
both the physical and mental health benefits of meditation, while realizing that it’s
not as difficult as it sounds.
In trauma applications, meditation can help you rebuild the energy your negative
emotions zap and learn to cope with the difficulties associated with trauma.
Meditation is one of the easiest and most inexpensive forms of self-therapy: all you
need is yourself and a quiet room.
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There are several variations of meditation you can perform. You should choose the
steps or combination of steps you’re most comfortable with and use them on a
regular basis. Following are a just a few of the hundreds of meditation forms in
existence; or you can combine elements of different meditation programs to create
your own unique method.
NOTE: In all methods of meditation, the object is to clear your mind of conscious
thought and concentrate on simply existing in the moment.
Walking Meditation: When you perform walking meditation, you can meditate
and exercise at the same time. To meditate while walking, you simply concentrate on
either the feeling of your foot meeting the earth with each step, or on your breathing,
which should be relaxed and natural. Achieving concentration in order to block out
thought takes practice, but the natural rhythm of walking provides an excellent
starting point for the beginning meditation student.
Standing Meditation: Performing standing meditation is a good way to practice
proper breathing, as a standing position is conducive to correct posture and fully
open airways. To practice standing meditation, stand straight and comfortably with
your feet pointed forward, approximately a shoulder-length apart. Place your hands
one over the other on your lower abdomen and concentrate on breathing. Take slow
breaths and hold for about four seconds before releasing slowly. Proper meditation
breathing is done through the nose, both in and out. Standing meditation can be
performed with your eyes open or closed, according to your preference.
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Seated Meditation: This is the most popular form of meditation. In a quiet room,
be seated either in a comfortable chair with your feet flat on the floor, or on the floor
in a cross-legged position (usually Indian or Lotus). As with standing meditation,
you can concentrate on breathing and slowly empty your mind of thought. Seated
meditation is performed with relaxed, open eyes focused on a fixed point on the floor
approximately three feet in front of you. Many practitioners of seated meditation use
external stimuli for concentration (see “Meditation with External Stimulus).
Reclined Meditation: Reclined meditation is best performed just before you
intend to go to sleep, as often you will find yourself falling asleep as you do it. This
variant is the same as standing meditation, only lying down. The eyes are always
closed with reclined meditation. This is a helpful technique for people who have
trouble falling asleep.
Some forms of meditation are best done at the end of the day, when it
won’t matter if you fall asleep.
Meditation with External Stimulus: If you cannot (or would rather not) focus
on breathing, you might consider using an external stimulus to focus your thoughts
for meditation. One traditional example of external stimuli is a mantra: a word or
phrase that is repeated either aloud or silently throughout the meditation session.
Some of the more popular meditation mantras are Buddhist or Indian in origin, such
as
om
or
aum
(OHM: no English translation);
om mani padme hum
(OHM mah-nee
pah-d-may HUNG: the jewel of the lotus); or
rama
(RAH-muh: chant used by
38
Gandhi). You can also create your own mantra with a meaning significant to you or
your trauma. Other external stimulus used in meditation are: candles or incense;
instrumental music or recorded chants; fans or white noise machines; small
fountains; or recorded nature sounds such as waterfalls, bird calls or whale songs.
You can use whatever you’d like, as long as it is soothing and relaxing to you.
Join the Club: Live and Online Support Groups
You may be surprised to learn that whatever type of trauma has affected your life,
there is probably a support group of people who have been through the same thing
and are willing to talk about it with you. Many kinds of trauma are difficult to discuss
with anyone who hasn’t had the same experience. Support groups are created with
that truth in mind.
If your trauma is a common one, such as alcohol abuse, there may be a live support
group that meets regularly in your area you can attend. Most churches, community
organizations and local newspapers provide lists of area support groups with
meeting times, locations and contact information for the coordinators of the group.
If there are no live support groups in your area, you might consider forming one. You
can find guidelines for forming support groups at your local library or online.
Even if the support you’re looking for is not so common, the internet has allowed
people all over the world to connect and unite who might otherwise never have
known anyone else like them existed. There are communities, forums and private
39
chat groups online to cover just about every walk of life, from displaced homemakers
to victims of sexual abuse to reformed ex-convicts. With careful research, you can
find a supportive and friendly internet community to share your trauma with and
connect on a level that would otherwise prove difficult, or even impossible, for
someone who hasn’t experienced a similar event.
Drop That Horseshoe: There’s No Such Thing as Bad Luck
“Depend on the rabbit’s foot if you will, but remember it didn’t work
for the rabbit.”
- R. E. Shay
Have you broken a mirror in the past seven years? Any black cats crossed your path
lately? In nearly every culture, in every part of the world, there are some things
attributed to luck: the chance happening of good or bad events, also known as
fortune or fate. Luck is used as the rationalization for any number of seemingly
inexplicable circumstances. A gambler winning game after game at a casino table is
said to be “riding a lucky streak” (though his winnings can likely be attributed at
least in part to skill); a homeless person is deemed “down on his luck” (though there
is almost certainly a concrete, albeit unfortunate, circumstance behind his tragic
state); an individual for whom things always seem to go right is ascribed “the luck of
the Irish” (and just what, pray tell, is so lucky about Ireland?).
Those who subscribe to the luck theory and observe superstitions such as avoiding
the number 13 and tossing salt over the left shoulder when it spills will insist that it
40
works. For them, it does work; however, this is merely a testament to the power of
the mind to persuade us to see what we wish to see. Luck works in much the same
way as positive thinking. If you believe you are “safe” because you avoid opening
umbrellas in the house and walking under ladders, then you will be safe. On the
other hand, if you break a mirror and convince yourself that bad luck is destined to
infect you, you will subconsciously sabotage yourself and therefore attract bad luck-
or at the least, chalk up unfortunate events to the breaking of the mirror instead of
discovering what really happened so you can prevent a reoccurrence of the problem.
Seven years is a long time to wait for your luck to change.
It’s your time – how will you spend it?
Instead of rubbing the bellies of pregnant women or hoping to find heads-up pennies
lying around, why not try positive thinking? You will achieve the same results, and
you won’t have to rely on discovering four-leaf clovers or avoid stepping on sidewalk
cracks. Using the power of positive thinking is as simple as believing good things can
and will happen to you. You don’t have to memorize a complicated set of rules or
follow elaborate rituals to attract happiness and success. So toss that lucky tee shirt
from high school and tap in to positive thinking today. Your bad luck sentence is
officially discharged.
Change Your Mind, Change Your Life
“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
- Abraham Lincoln
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When tapping in to the power of positive thinking, the most important step is to
create a mindset that allows you to think positively. Once you have pulled the weeds
from your mental garden, you can begin to sow the seeds that will anchor your new
way of life.
Creating a positive mindset takes training. In much the same manner as runners
train their bodies to endure long periods of sustained activity, you can train your
mind to sustain positive thought, and naturally defer to pleasant or optimistic paths.
At first, thinking positively may feel awkward or ridiculous (particularly if you’re the
type of person who believes perky morning people should be shot). Keep in mind,
though, that it does get easier the more you do it, and eventually, sustaining a
positive mindset will be as natural as breathing.
Like any training program, there are steps you can follow to achieve your optimal
results: in this case, a positive mental outlook. You may recall that it takes 21 days to
form a new habit (what’s that...you’ve forgotten already? Go back and add
“long-term memory” to your list of habits you’d like to improve). Therefore, you
should perform each of the steps for at least 21 consecutive days. You can take on
one step at a time, or implement the whole program; just be sure you aren’t leaving
anything out.
Step up to your mental treadmill, and let the training begin!
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Warm-up: Shake Out Negative Kinks
When you think about it, it’s obvious: negative is the opposite of positive, so in order
to instill a positive mindset you need to get rid of negative thoughts. Sounds simple
enough, right? The process is an easy one, but it takes practice to make it stick.
The first step in clearing negativity from your mind is to really pay attention to your
thoughts. Whenever the words
can’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t, won’t, not,
or
never
enter
your mind, concentrate on what you’re thinking and turn it around to eliminate the
negative wording. For example:
Your spouse and children are gone for a few hours, and you have the place to
yourself. You’re indulging in one of your favorite activities. In the midst of your
enjoyment, you start to feel guilty. You think:
I really shouldn’t be doing this. I
could be getting started on the project I promised someone else I’d take care of.
Your
enjoyment starts to fade, and you stop what you’re doing, resentful that you have
to tackle this boring project when you have so little time to yourself...
Does this sound familiar? The moment you hear yourself think
shouldn’t
, stop right
there and change direction. In this scenario, you might instead think
I really
should
be doing this. Taking time for me is important, and when I’m relaxed and satisfied
I will be able to do a better job on that project I promised someone else. I’m so glad
I got the opportunity to do something I enjoy.
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Try to do this every time a negative thought creeps in. The more often you banish
negative ideas from your mind, the easier positive thinking will become. You will be
more relaxed and receptive to positive solutions.
Work Those Mouth Muscles
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a smile is worth a million. The power of
a smile is incredible. Even if you don’t feel like smiling, the simple act of lifting the
corners of your mouth can help you lift your entire spirit and find something worth
smiling about. Some of the greatest self-help advice out there comes from those who
advocate “fake it until you make it.” This is especially true when it comes to positive
thinking, and faking a smile goes a long way toward producing the genuine thing.
You may end up laughing at yourself merely because you know you have nothing to
smile about.
Another great thing about smiles- they’re highly contagious. A smile spreads faster
than a cold in a daycare. Most people can’t help smiling back when someone casts a
happy expression their way. This is a simple and exciting theory that you can test out
for yourself. Go to any public place and start smiling at random people, then keep
track of how many smile back (even suspicious smirking counts!). You’ll likely find
that 9 out of 10 of your targets return your joyful expression to some small degree,
and you’ve probably just made their day a little brighter, too.
Learning to smile on demand is an important step in developing a permanently
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positive mindset. One good technique for summoning smiles is to choose a happy
memory that never fails to fill you with good feelings. Keep this memory at the front
of your mental catalogue, and access it whenever you feel a case of the blues coming
on. It may not solve your problems, but it will at least make you smile- which in turn
helps you relax and take an objective look at your situation. Smiling often creates a
mental cue for the foundation of positive thinking and helps prime the pumps of
happiness.
You should also spend a little time in front of the mirror observing your own
expressions. At first this practice may seem uncomfortable or downright silly, but
smiling at your own reflection has a positive effect on your psyche. You can even
practice different smile variations: the amused smirk; the close-lipped leg-pulling
smile; the toothy grin; the laugh-out-loud open-mouthed smile. Think of it as an
Olympic event...it’s your personal Smile Marathon, and you’ll win the gold every
time!
Do Some Reps
When developing a positive mindset, the importance of repetition cannot be
understated. Exercise is the key to building any muscle, so by viewing your
optimistic outlook as a muscle, you can develop a reserve of happiness that will carry
you through the most grueling events.
This is not to say you shouldn’t worry about anything. Ignoring troubling events
45
won’t make them go away. It’s important to face your problems
while looking at
them through a positive lens.
The positive mindset itself doesn’t erase your troubles.
It is simply a tool to allow you to find a solution without burning yourself out
through stress and anxiety. You will find it far easier to solve problems when you can
step back and look at the situation in a positive light; and often the solution will
present itself with little effort, simply because your mind is clear and open enough to
notice it.
The more you practice positive thinking, the more naturally it will come to you. You
will find that frustrating everyday occurrences dwindle to minor nuisances, and
eventually cease to trouble you altogether. Keep practicing positive thought
processes, and you will be well on your way to a low-stress, high-energy lifestyle that
will allow you to accomplish anything you desire.
An incredible achievement – practiced and visualized a million times.
Cool-Down: Feel the Burn
As you come to the end of your daily positive thinking workout, look back and reflect
on your progress. Was there anything that seemed easier to you? Were you able to
find a faster solution to a problem that would have ordinarily eaten up a lot of time
in worrying? Do you feel more relaxed and ready to try again tomorrow?
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Congratulate yourself on your victories. By reinforcing your accomplishments, you
help to firm the foundation of your new positive mindset and lay the groundwork for
your success. Every positive thought brings you one step closer to your ultimate goal.
You will soon realize that you can do this, and you will have much greater
enthusiasm as you proceed.
Now that you’ve planted the seeds for positive thinking, the next step is to learn how
to care for your mental garden. In the next section you will discover the fuel you
need to nurture your seeds and coax new shoots from the soil of your mind.
Meanwhile, keep pumping that positive thinking iron!
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Switching Terminals: Hook Up to Positive Energy
“No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an
uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.”
- Helen Keller
Enthusiasm is the sunshine of your mind’s garden. Possessing enthusiasm for all
that you do is essential to the process of positive thinking. Just as plants require
sunlight to develop and grow, utilizing the power of positive thinking requires
enthusiasm to energize your potential and ensure an endless supply of fuel.
You will discover that the more enthusiasm you generate, the more energy you’ll
have to put in. There are some things it will be easy to generate enthusiasm over, and
others where you’ll have to stretch yourself to find what will spark your enjoyment.
For example, no one has trouble generating enthusiasm for spending an unexpected
bonus from work or taking a night out. However, you may find it hard to get excited
about washing dishes or filling out your income tax forms. But part of the magic of
positive thinking is developing the ability to find the good things in any situation and
use them to get through the difficult parts.
Like developing a positive mindset, enthusiasm must be cultivated and sheltered
from potentially damaging emotional storms. There are several methods you can use
to put a dose of passion into everything you do, whether it’s finally taking that dream
vacation or scrubbing out the basement. You can choose the method that best fits
whatever situation you’re facing and ensure yourself the energy to tackle anything
life happens to throw at you.
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What’s In It for Me?
One of the most elemental solutions for finding enthusiasm is to focus on the benefit
you will derive from completing a particular task. In some situations it’s easy to
discover the benefit. For instance, you may hate wrapping presents, but you know
the person you’re giving the present to will be overjoyed when presented with this
lovely paper-wrapped gift, and so you derive happiness from envisioning the
recipient opening the present. This is an especially useful tactic when you’re still up
at 2 a.m. on Christmas morning trying to figure out how to wrap the bicycle you’ve
just spent three hours putting together.
Other circumstances will not have such obvious benefits. If you were to find yourself
trying to change a flat tire on the side of the road in the middle of a snowstorm (or a
rainstorm, if you are fortunate enough to live in a snow-free climate) it would
undoubtedly be difficult to find your silver lining. Under stressful circumstances,
give yourself permission to think of the wildest benefit you can come up with.
Perhaps you were on your way to a party you would rather not have gone to. In that
case, your flat tire would give you the perfect excuse to turn around and go back
home.
There is some good in every situation, whether it’s in the form of a benefit or a lesson
to be learned (Lesson One: Never drive with questionable tires through a snowstorm
to a party you didn’t want to attend in the first place). You can harness the power of
49
positive thinking by finding that good and exploiting it, no matter how small or
insignificant it may seem.
The Buddy System
If you’re having trouble summoning enthusiasm for a particular task, try to seek out
someone who enjoys doing that sort of thing and ask them to partner up with you.
Like smiling, enthusiasm is contagious. If you spend some time observing another
person’s enthusiasm, some of it is bound to rub off on you.
If you don’t know anyone who might be enthusiastic about what you’re trying to
accomplish, try going online to look up articles or blogs (web logs, which are usually
personal, regularly updated online journals) pertaining to the subject. Sometimes
merely reading about someone else’s enthusiasm can help you find some aspect of
the task to enjoy, and get you through it with a minimal amount of stress, anxiety
and dread. (Be warned: it may be difficult to discover anyone who enjoys scrubbing
toilets or emptying cat litter boxes. In these cases, you might be on your own!)
Knowledge is Power
Muddling through a particular task or project can be daunting if you don’t know
what you’re doing. If you’re the type of person who never asks for directions or reads
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the instructions, you may be tempted to take on challenges in areas where your
knowledge is limited. Even if you’re not, you may find yourself faced with taking on a
task you don’t feel qualified to handle, whether it’s filling in for someone in a
different department at work or changing an infant’s diaper for the first time.
The more you know about what you’re doing, the easier it will be to accomplish. This
may seem self-explanatory, but many people don’t realize that you can always find
out more information. It only takes a few minutes to look up something on the
internet, consult a reference book, or call up someone you know has experience with
the issue you’re facing.
Gaining knowledge has other benefits as well. The more you know about a given
subject, the better you will be able to focus on your goal and work toward it. You
cannot reach your destination if you cannot find the path. Look upon knowledge as
the pruning shears of your mental garden, clearing the way for enthusiasm to grow
and spread. With the right set of tools, you can accomplish any task easily.
Sign on the Dotted Line
Being committed to achieving your aim is essential to generating a sense of
enthusiasm. Whether you want to have gleaming white teeth or flash your pearly
whites at crowds of thousands as you accept your Academy Award, you should be
completely committed to what you’re trying to accomplish.
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One way to cement your personal commitment is to outline a step-by-step plan for
reaching your goals. You can do this with any task, no matter how great or small
(though you might save time to generate a mental plan for things like washing the
dinner dishes, as it might take you more time to write it all down than it would to
actually wash them). On a sheet of paper- or for monumental tasks such as changing
careers, at the beginning of a notebook- note your starting point: where you are now.
Leave yourself some space, and then jot down where you want to be and how long
you plan on taking to get there. Then go back and break down the process of getting
from point A to point B in detailed steps. This not only helps you to visualize
reaching your goal, it also allows you to cross steps off as you complete them. Your
enthusiasm will be sustained as you move further toward your goal.
While you’re writing things down, consider creating a contract with yourself to reach
your objective. You can even ask a friend or family member to act as a witness, which
will further solidify your intentions to follow through. Your contract can be a simple
document stating your promise to yourself, or a detailed map of the things you will
do to help yourself reach your aims, with deadline dates for additional motivation
and bursts of enthusiasm. Keep your contract posted visibly to remind yourself of
your intentions. Every time you see it, you will find yourself eager to achieve your
goal and fulfill your contract.
Dangle Your Own Carrot
Ask any business owner and you’ll find out that rewards are one of the most
52
powerful motivators. People are more willing to work toward a goal when they know
they will get something out of it at the end. Since your boss probably won’t reward
you for losing weight or remodeling your bathroom, you can plan to give yourself a
reward when you meet a given goal.
When selecting self-rewards, be sure to match them to your goals. This will not only
ensure you don’t get tired of the same reward, but will also help you when you’re
planning the strategies you’ll use to accomplish your aims. For example, if you’d like
to spend less time watching television and more time outside or with your family,
you can reward yourself with a trip to the theater to see a great movie. If you’re
planning to quit smoking, part of your strategy could be to set aside some of the
money you’ll save by not buying cigarettes and get yourself a new outfit, or
something you’ve had your eye on for a while but haven’t been able to afford.
Some goals come with intrinsic rewards already built in, yours for the claiming when
you reach your objective. For example, if you’re going to start your own business,
you already know you’ll be rewarded by working for yourself, possibly even by
working out of your home. Whether you’re working for an intrinsic reward or
providing yourself with an incentive, treating yourself is a great way to generate
enthusiasm for the task at hand.
Surrender
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That’s right. Sometimes, you should just give up.
This may not be the type of advice you’d expect to find in a book about positive
thinking. However, there is a specific time when you should surrender- and that is
when you hate doing what you’re doing.
“Like what you do. If you don’t like it, do something else.”
- Paul Harvey
Too many people end up settling for the life they think they ought to have, the life
others have told them to expect, or the life they believe they’re stuck with. You must
realize that there is room on this planet for everyone, and if you’re feeling trapped in
a job you despise or a living space you can’t stand, you need to make a change- not
down the road, when you have time, or as soon as you get whatever it is you’ve been
waiting for; but
right now.
That elusive “someday” is always going to be in the
future, and you can’t catch up to the future.
Now
is the only time you have.
This doesn’t mean you should drop everything and throw caution to the wind- at
least, not in most cases. If you’re like most people, you have responsibilities that
must be taken care of. However, there is always something you can do
right now
to
cast out your net and catch “someday,” and start pulling it toward you. Do you hate
your job, but lack the experience to get a different one? Start taking night classes or
sign up for an online course. There are hundreds of accredited universities offering
distance learning classes over the internet. Is your house or apartment located in a
neighborhood that started out great, but is becoming worse every day- and you
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haven’t found the time or the money to move? Take a close look at your budget and
see if there’s anything you can do without for a few months, or ask your landlord or
bank if they have any other properties you could look into.
Waiting fuels the fires of apathy. Doing something about your situation, no matter
how small or insignificant it may seem, can start a chain reaction of enthusiasm that
will energize you to reach your goals. You deserve to get what you want out of life
while you’re still here to enjoy it. Don’t put it off another day, because your
“someday” is right now!
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SHOOTS AND LEAVES
“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
- Jim Ryan
Now that you’ve planted your mental garden, you will start to see the beginnings of
growth in yourself and your surroundings. At this stage, it is important to nurture
the tender new beginnings of your confident, positive self. You should learn to
recognize the effects of positive thinking in your life and encourage the development
of strong roots to anchor yourself in success.
Tenacity helps.
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The First Signs of Your Spring of Rebirth
“There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of
improving, and that’s your own self.”
- Aldous Huxley
As you practice using positive thinking, you will find that things begin to change for
you. Sometimes the change is so gradual you don’t notice anything at all, until one
day someone else tells you that you seem different. They may ask if you’ve gotten a
new outfit, changed your hair, lost weight, or won the lottery. Tapping in to positive
thinking not only makes you happier, it also makes you more attractive; the kind of
person others want to be around.
Now that you’ve had some experience, you might recognize some of the common
signs of positively charged people. Check out this list of things you have to look
forward to.
You Know You’re a Positive Thinker When:
1 Your grueling drive to work goes by so quickly, you wonder why it ever
bothered you in the first place.
2 The clerk at the grocery store gives you the wrong change, you point it out
with a smile- and she happily corrects the mistake.
3 You waited in line at the bank for twenty-five minutes on your lunch
hour...and your life didn’t end.
4 The new part for your car finally arrived at the garage after a week on
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backorder, but it was the wrong one. You were so nice about accepting the
delay when the garage called that they offered you a substantial discount
on your repair bill.
5 Every time you catch a glimpse of yourself in a mirror, you’re smiling-
and you don’t think you look like a moron.
6 You put the oven on too high and burned dinner...then wound up having
something even better than you’d planned.
7 Suddenly you have a lot more free time on your hands, and plenty of
things to do with it- plus enough energy to do them.
8 The last time you thought the word
can’t
was in the phrase
I can’t believe
all these great things are happening to me.
Positive thinking has the power to change your life, as long as you believe it does. As
you continue to use positive thinking techniques, you will find you don’t have to put
much effort into achieving what you want.
Conspiracy Theory: The Biggest Threat to the New You
“When a man points a finger at someone else, he should remember that
four of his fingers are pointing at himself.”
- Louis Nizer
Every path has its obstacles. Along the road to positive thinking, you will find only
one: yourself. Human beings have a tendency to create conspiracies against
themselves and impose the self-limiting beliefs that surround them on every aspect
58
of their lives, whether these restrictive ideals result from environment, upbringing,
or a combination of influential factors.
You may not even recognize your own self-defeating actions. However, the power to
access the benefits of positive thinking rests solely within yourself- and you are the
only one that can stand in your way. Therefore, you must learn how to step aside and
allow yourself to develop to your full potential.
Following are some of the most common patterns of self-limiting behavior, along
with steps you can take to get out of your own way and blaze your personal path to
happiness and success.
There’s Always Tomorrow: Eradicate Procrastination
“To be always intending to make a new and better life but never find
time to set about it is as... to put off eating and drinking and sleeping
from one day to the next until you’re dead.”
- Og Mandino
Procrastination is the easiest thing in the world to perfect- and one of the hardest
habits to break. There will always be a good reason to put off whatever you want to
accomplish, whether it’s vacuuming the living room carpet or finally taking that
European vacation you’ve been planning for years.
When you realize you’re putting something off, one of the best things you can do is to
ask yourself why you don’t want to do it. The reasons for procrastination are as
59
varied as the people who practice it: the task is boring or repetitive; you are afraid
you won’t be able to handle it; the project is difficult or time-consuming; it is going
to be an unpleasant experience; you dread the possible consequences of seeing the
task through to completion. Once you know what is stopping you from moving
ahead, you can determine your strategy for accomplishing your goal and get
un-stuck.
How do you crush procrastination in its tracks? The remedies for moving past
procrastination include:
1 Just do it. Whatever the task you’re facing, simply pick a point and get
started. Often things are not as bad as they seem, and once you start
doing something it’s easier to build up momentum that will carry you
through to the end. Tell yourself that when you finish the unpleasant task,
you won’t have it hanging over your head and you can move on to better
things.
2 Break it up, people. Take a few minutes to break up larger tasks into
small, manageable goals. For example, if you are attempting to organize
your desk at work, you might pick one drawer and get that done, and then
take a break and do something else before returning for the next drawer.
Meeting a series of small goals is more motivating and encouraging than
trying to tackle a huge project all at once.
3 Cut through the fluff. Prepare yourself to work through distractions
when you’re taking on a task. If possible, ignore the phone- and definitely
resist the temptation to play Solitaire or check your e-mail a dozen times.
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Make sure your mind is made up to do whatever it is you’re doing and
nothing else until it’s finished. You will feel better knowing it’s done, and
you’ll waste less time on sideline projects.
4 Stick to the program. Ensure you have enough time to finish the task
you’re starting. If you know you’re going to be interrupted or run out of
time before you’re through, choose one part of the task to complete
instead of trying to rush through the whole thing. Rushing to meet a
deadline you know you can’t make causes more stress, and can actually
make things happen slower because you’re worried that you won’t be able
to accomplish what you’ve set out to do. Give yourself a break, and your
stress level will thank you.
5 Expect the unexpected. Despite our best positive thinking efforts,
things do occasionally take a turn for the unexpected. Delays are a given
in many situations. When you’re planning a task or goal, it is important to
factor in time in case things go wrong. Delays are a major facilitator of
procrastination: it’s easy to convince yourself to put things off when you
already have to wait. Make sure you have a backup plan in place so you
can avoid putting things off and still meet your completion goals
comfortably.
Just Say No: How Not to Take On Too Much
“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men
to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from
meddling with them while they do it.”
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- Theodore Roosevelt
People are always going to ask you to do things for them. That’s life. Often we are
asked to make commitments we don’t feel comfortable with, don’t have time for, or
just plain don’t want to make- but saying “no” makes us feel even worse than
agreeing to something we don’t like.
Women especially fall victim to the over-commitment syndrome. You should make it
a habit to say “no” more often, particularly when you know that agreeing to take on a
certain commitment is going to wreak havoc with your life, even though the little
voice in your head is telling you accepting would be the “nice” thing to do. When it
comes to your sanity, the nicest thing is to make sure you don’t over-extend yourself
and end up performing a large number of tasks with substandard results.
You can only fit so much through that door!
The first step in learning to say no is deciding which things you should agree to
commit to, and which things are all right to pass on. This decision should stem from
your personal priorities; the things that are important to you and your life. This is
one reason why it’s important to define your goals clearly when you begin using the
power of positive thinking. Weigh each request against your goals and decide
whether agreeing to them would move you closer or further away from your
objectives.
When you come to a point where you must refuse a request, there are several ways to
62
say no without hurting feelings or making yourself appear inconsiderate. Be as
honest as possible when saying no, and you will be able to proceed with a guilt-free
conscience.
Need an excuse? Here are the top ten ways to say no nicely:
1. “No.” Sometimes, the best way to refuse is politely, but directly. If someone in
your life is constantly asking you to do things they could easily handle themselves, a
firm “no” is the only way to get them to stop. Another approach to problematic
people with frequent requests is to tell them, “I know you’ll do a great job handling it
on your own.”
2. “I’m in the middle of several other projects/commitments right now.”
Don’t be afraid to tell people when you’re busy. Most will respect your schedule and
find another way to fulfill their requests for help. You shouldn’t be expected to drop
tasks you’ve already committed to in order to complete new ones.
3. “I need to focus on [my career, my family, my personal life] at the
moment.” If you’re going through a difficult time in another area of your life that
requires your attention, don’t hesitate to refuse taking on extra requests. You don’t
necessarily have to explain your specific reasoning for taking a pass; just indicate
that you
4. “I don’t feel I’m the best person to handle that task.” When you don’t feel
63
qualified to handle something requested of you, say so. Explain that you don’t want
to do a poor job, because you know this task is important to the person asking you to
do it. Chances are, they want the task done well, too.
5. “I can’t do it, but I know someone else who can.” Only use this “no” form
if you truly know someone who can not only handle the task, but has the time to do
it. It’s nice to be able to offer alternative help, but only if you can follow through on
your offer. Referring people to someone else who won’t be able to help either will be
viewed as a brush-off; the person who originally came to you will think you never
actually wanted to help them in the first place.
6. “I’m not comfortable/don’t enjoy doing that.” Stick to your guns. If you’re
asked to do something that seems wrong or a task you despise doing, don’t agree to it
and explain why. This way you will be able to avoid repeat requests for the same
thing.
7. “I can’t help right now, but ask me later.” Again, be honest with this
statement. If you really do want to help out, but just don’t have the time when the
request is made, let the person asking you know that you’d be happy to help out
when you can. If possible, give them a specific availability, like tomorrow or next
week, when you know you’ll be free. If they need the task done before then, they will
find someone else.
8. “I have no experience with this type of task.” This is similar to stating
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you’re not the best person for the job, but more significant- at least for you. When
you take on a task for someone else, you shouldn’t have to learn a whole new skill set
just to complete one thing. However, if it’s something you were planning to learn
anyway, you might want to take advantage of the opportunity to learn something
new.
9. “I know you want to [other person’s objective] but I can’t get away
from [other commitment] right now.” This is a polite way to acknowledge the
needs of the other person while refusing to overburden yourself. This can also open
the opportunity to handle the root issue of the request in a way that is convenient for
both of you.
10. “No, but...” If for whatever reason you can’t commit to a request, you can offer
an alternative that would be beneficial to the situation. Perhaps you’re unable to
perform the specific task requested, but there is another aspect of the project you
would be able to help out with. Again, this leaves your options open without making
you seem callous or unconcerned with whomever is making a request of you.
Practice saying no both at home and at work, whenever you’re asked to take on more
than you know you can handle. Overextending yourself can be a hard habit to break,
but it is an essential step in getting out of your own way so you can accomplish your
life’s goals. You deserve time for yourself, and you must be responsible for ensuring
your personal needs are met.
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Take Me As I Am: Kicking the Approval Habit
“You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with.”
- Dr. Wayne Dyer
Everyone wants approval and acceptance from those we care about. However, too
often we depend on approval so much that we lose sight of the most important
approval of all: our own.
Do you find yourself agreeing just to avoid disagreeing? Are you constantly seeking
out the approval of others before you make a decision? This approval addiction is
damaging to your quest for improving your life through positive thinking. By feeding
your approval habit, you become less reliant on your own thoughts and feelings, and
therefore less in tune with your goals and what is truly best for you. Though it’s nice
to have the support of other people, the only person you can make happy one
hundred percent of the time is you.
How can you kick the approval habit and stop worrying about what other people
think of your actions? Here are several action plans you can follow in order to make
sure your people-pleasing prowess is used only where you want it to be, and not as a
crutch for social acceptance.
Know Your Code
In order to avoid seeking approval for approval’s sake, you have to know your own
beliefs and standards. Being aware of what you believe in will help you voice your
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opinions and choose the right path for yourself, even when others don’t agree.
Developing a healthy moral code is an important part of the process of positive
thinking.
Writing down your moral code can help to cement your ideals and beliefs and serve
as a guide for your decision-making process. Think about the issues that are
important to you. Do you believe family values come before everything else? Is your
career important to you? Where do you stand on politics: would you rather be vocal
in your beliefs, or try to make a difference in the background through voting? Your
moral code should govern your actions in every situation, and you should never
violate your beliefs simply to gain approval from someone else.
Standing up for what you believe in can be an integral part of taking control of
yourself and your life. When you stop seeking approval or validation for all of your
thoughts and ideas, you become a stronger person- and the people who truly care
about you will respect and admire you for it, rather than turning away. Be informed
and develop your moral code, then stick to it. You will be surprised at how much
better you feel about yourself...and you won’t need anyone else to second your
opinion.
Graduate from High School
For many of us, the need for acceptance began in high school. The desire to fit in is
strong for most teens, and generally when you’re in school there is nothing more
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important than friends. Once we leave the structures confines of school and enter
the adult world, it can be difficult to shake the feeling that you are only a worthy
person if you have a lot of friends, or the “right” friends.
As adults, we need to discard the petty social pecking order of our school days. Life is
not a popularity contest. It may not surprise you to learn that the most successful
adults were social outcasts in school. A large part of the reason for this is because
they did not cultivate the acceptance of their peers, they were free to invest in
themselves, gaining knowledge and developing strong personalities that did not
depend on validation from the “in” crowd.
In case you need proof, check out the following list of successful people who
struggled through high school at the bottom of the food chain:
1 Henry Kissinger was called “a little fatso” by many of his peers.
2 Voluptuous actress and model Heather Graham was teased constantly
for being quiet and physically underdeveloped.
3 Walt Disney was considered a shiftless dreamer who would never
amount to anything by his teachers and fellow students.
4 Eytan Sugarman- owner of the NYC nightclub
Suede
which is
frequented by the likes of Britney Spears, Cameron Diaz, and Leonardo
DiCaprio- was a chubby and friendless child whose guidance counselors
told him his life would go nowhere.
As an adult, you are much more capable of realizing that peer acceptance doesn’t
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matter outside of high school. You should strive to be true to yourself. Remember,
there is a place for everyone- it’s a big planet.
Weed Your Friendship Garden
Many of us tend to judge our worth by the number of friends we have. However, this
is not always an accurate assessment, and it can be tiring to keep up with your lunch
dates and Christmas card lists- particularly when you have friends who you can’t be
yourself with.
Take some time to evaluate your friendships. Are there people you spend time with
who seem to drain you whenever you’re around them? Do you constantly feel like a
phony when you’re interacting with them, and watch the clock until sufficient time
has passed so you can excuse yourself from the conversation? Friends are wonderful
to have, but some friendships just aren’t worth cultivating.
The next time you find yourself trapped in an awkward situation and are afraid to
voice your true thoughts, try speaking your mind anyway. It’s likely that one of two
things will happen: either the person you’re talking with will be interested in your
opinion and you’ll find the conversation moving into genuine territory, or you will
notice a sudden drop in temperature and hear those excuses you usually make to
escape come from the other person. If the case is the former, you have improved
your relationship and can relax around the person; if it’s the latter, you have just rid
yourself of an unnecessary drain on your energy and positive thought process.
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There is nothing wrong with ending friendships that just aren’t working out.
Chances are, the other person will be just as relieved as you are, and you will both be
able to strengthen the relationships you have with true friends. It will take some time
to cull the weeds from your friendship garden, but it will be worth it for everyone
involved. Freeing yourself from damaging relationships helps you kick the approval
habit when you no longer have to “fake it” to get along with anyone.
Blood is Thicker than Embarrassment
It’s one thing to sever relationships with friends, and quite another to do the same
with family. Most of us are raised with the idea that family is important, and we tend
to be more forgiving of family members as well as seek their approval for our actions
more often. We are afraid to be ourselves around family members; often because
people change, and we fear our close relatives won’t like the changes that come into
our lives. So we are forced to continue acting as if we are the same people we were
five, ten, or fifteen years ago. This produces an uncomfortable relationship at best,
and can lead to estrangement or avoidance if left unchecked.
Try to keep in mind that just as you are forgiving of your family members’ collective
flaws and personality quirks, they will be forgiving of yours. When you truly care
about someone, you accept them for who they are and don’t judge them on the basis
of their thoughts, opinions and habits. Why wouldn’t your family extend the same
courtesy to you?
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Being yourself and not requiring approval from your family may be even more
important than doing so with friends. We tend to derive the basis of our self-security
level from our interactions with our family, and if we cannot be comfortable around
family, that sense of false security spreads into all areas of our lives. If you’ve been
hiding some aspect of your personality or belief system from your family out of fear
they won’t accept you, try easing into your own opinions gradually. You may be
surprised to discover that the people who care about you are more accepting than
you think. Sometimes, they may have been practicing the same guarded emotional
stance as you, and will be just as relieved when it’s finally out in the open.
In any case, you don’t need approval from even your family for the things you want
to accomplish. Though it is more difficult to exclude a family member from your life,
if it is more damaging to include them, perhaps you should consider putting some
distance between yourself and the destructive family member. Many people are
content with agreeing to disagree, and in time both of you may come to an
understanding. Meanwhile, don’t let your need for approval overshadow your need
to be you. Please yourself first, because no one else is going to do it for you.
The Blame Game: Whose Fault Is It, Anyway?
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“The reason people blame things on the previous generation is that
there’s only one other choice.”
- Doug Larson
We are a society driven by blame. We blame the government for running our lives,
and our parents for ruining it. We blame the fast food industry for making us fat, the
tobacco industry for giving us cancer, and the justice system for allowing criminals
to roam among us while innocent people sit in jail. We blame our children for giving
us gray hair, and our schools for equipping our children with the behaviors that
make us old before our time. There is no wrong action, great or small, for which we
cannot find someone else to blame. The last person we lay blame on is ourselves.
Too often, though, we are the first person we should point to when problems arise.
The government does make the rules- but we are in charge of electing the
rule-makers, and most of us don’t vote, while the majority of those who do are
insufficiently informed. Our parents have an enormous impact on our lives- but they
can only raise us as well as they were equipped to by their own parents, and once we
become adults we are responsible for our own behavior. We choose to eat too much
fast food, smoke cigarettes, and try to get out of punishment when we break the law.
Our children reflect our own behavior back at us like living mirrors; and no matter
how much of their time they spend in school, their behavior is determined almost
exclusively by what we teach them at home.
It is up to each one of us to take responsibility for our lives. Even if the wrongs in our
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lives were someone else’s fault, we are the one that control our reaction to the
situation. When unfortunate events occur in your life, you can choose to be angry
and point fingers- or you can choose to do something about it. Be clear on who is to
blame for the problems in your life, and take steps to correct the situation.
Making Your Omelet: How to Learn From Your Mistakes
“Remember: you only have to succeed the last time.”
- Brian Tracy
Everyone makes mistakes. The good news is: failure can actually be good for you!
The best way- and sometimes the only way- to learn how to make changes in your
life and reach your goals is by figuring out how
not
to do things.
There is a process you can use to learn from your mistakes. The more you learn, the
closer you will be to reaching your goals in life.
Give Yourself Permission
You know you’re going to make mistakes, especially if you’re trying to do something
you’ve never done before. In order to be prepared for the inevitability of mishaps
and misadventures, tell yourself that when you make a mistake, it’s still okay- and
you’re not going to let mistakes stop you.
This is part of the process of instilling a positive mindset. When you know what to
expect, it’s harder for surprises to set you back in your journey to reach your goals.
Keep in mind that it is all right to make mistakes, and doing so is not the end of the
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world. The only people who don’t make mistakes are people who don’t try to do
anything in the first place. Don’t be the person who regrets never even trying to
accomplish your goals because you were afraid of mistakes.
Make Interesting Mistakes
Once again: you’re going to make mistakes. When this happens, you will learn more
by making interesting mistakes rather than stupid ones.
You may be wondering what, exactly, is an interesting mistake? The more complex
and challenging your ultimate goal is, the more spectacular your failures will be. The
person who experiences a spectacular failure is far more likely to realize spectacular
success. Here’s a quick example:
STUPID MISTAKE: Stubbing your toe on the rake you left lying in the yard.
INTERESTING MISTAKE: Turning $30 worth of powdered sugar and
chocolate chips into inedible bricks while trying to start your candy-making
company because you misread the candy thermometer.
The first mistake will teach you to put your tools away when you’re done using them,
but this is something you probably should have already known. The second mistake,
however, is far more valuable to you. It teaches you how
not
to read a candy
thermometer, and you will never make the same mistake again. Now you’re one step
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closer to realizing your dream to start a candy making company. What will your next
mistake be?
‘Fess Up
The ability to admit that you’ve made a mistake is crucial to the learning process.
This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to announce your mistake to the world.
However, you do have to be honest with yourself. Owning up to your mistakes is
important, not only in your attempts to learn from them, but in the entire process of
using positive thinking.
When you admit your mistakes to yourself, be careful not to judge your actions
harshly. Your thoughts should not be along the lines of
I screwed this up, and I’m
never going to get this right.
Don’t let your mistakes teach you not to try. Instead,
think
I made a mistake, and now I know not to do that again
. The biggest lesson in
making mistakes can be found in your taking responsibility for them, and then doing
something to correct what went wrong.
Pinpoint Your Error
“For want of a nail, the horseshoe was lost...”
- Nursery rhyme (anonymous)
Speaking of what went wrong...do you know
why
you made the mistake? You cannot
learn anything from your mistakes if you don’t know why it occurred. If things go
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wrong, and it isn’t clear to you what happened, backtrack along the path that
brought you to the error and figure out where you strayed.
James R. Chiles, in his book
Inviting Disaster: Tales from the Edge of Technology
,
relates the sordid tale of a floating dormitory in the North Sea built for offshore oil
workers. During one night, the dormitory rolled over in the water and killed over a
hundred people. The engineers responsible for building the dormitory raced to find
an explanation, and ultimately discovered that one small crack in the support
structure, which had been painted over instead of properly repaired, was responsible
for the chain of events leading to the disaster.
Discovering the origin of your own mistakes will help you avoid potential disaster.
Take the responsibility to investigate your mistakes thoroughly, so you can avoid the
snowball effect one small error can have.
Talk About It
Though you don’t have to confess your mistakes, it is sometimes helpful to talk over
your troubles with a sympathetic ear- particularly if that ear belongs to a person who
knows something about the goal you’re trying to reach.
If you’re having trouble getting through something, there is nothing wrong with
asking for help. Seek out an expert or someone you know who’s been through the
same experience you’re having, tell them what you feel you’re doing wrong, and
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listen to what they have to say. Often the most valuable advice we receive comes
from unexpected sources, so don’t hesitate to ask someone else.
Can’t find an expert? The simple act of talking to a friend or loved one about your
troubles can be the catalyst you need to keep going despite your mistakes. You may
be able to work out exactly what you need to change in your approach as you discuss
what you’ve been doing aloud; or you might simply end up feeling relaxed, refreshed
and ready to tackle the problem again.
Keep Good Records
Mistakes may not seem very amusing to you while you’re making them, but some
day you’ll be able to look back and laugh. You will also be able to look back and learn.
By keeping a detailed log of your progress, mistakes and all, you will have a solid
blueprint you can follow over and over again to reach your objectives.
Following is a sample error log. You can use this format, or create your own, as long
as you remember how to read it!
ERROR LOG: Replacing interior wall with built-in bookshelves
DA
Y
PROJECT STEP LESSONS LEARNED FROM
ERRORS MADE
1 Remove existing
plasterboard wall
Check to make sure no breakable
objects on opposite side before
using sledge.
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2 Cut, fit and install
backing for shelving
unit
Be sure entrance door to house is
wide enough to accommodate
lumber before attempting to bring
inside.
3 Install shelf brackets Measure shelf distance before
installing brackets. Nothing fits on
3” wide shelf.
3 Cut and fasten shelves Do not use rotary saw on couch.
4 Buy new couch See previous error.
When you follow the process to learn from your mistakes, you will notice
exponential growth in your mental garden. Mistakes are part of life; without them,
we would have no discovery- and not much to laugh about.
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If Your Buds Shrivel, Add More Fertilizer
“Fall down seven times, stand up eight.”
- Japanese proverb
Like any program, there may come a point in your quest to harness the power of
positive thinking when you begin to backslide. If your situation becomes
extraordinarily difficult, you may be tempted to stop using positive thinking
altogether. However, this is absolutely the worst thing you can do.
“Most people achieve their greatest successes one step beyond what
looked like their greatest failure.”
- Brian Tracy
Hang in there! Remember that the more changes you are trying to make in your life,
the harder you will have to work at positive thinking to make them. It will get easier.
The best thing you can do if you feel you’re starting to lose ground is to keep thinking
positively. This section will discuss things to keep in mind to help you through the
rough patches.
When the Door Closes, Go Out the Window
The goals you’ve set for yourself are worth achieving. If you continually run up
against obstacles that seem insurmountable, you may be approaching your
objectives in the wrong way. There is always a solution to every problem; it just may
not be what you expected.
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Step back from your situation and try to look at the big picture. Are you throwing
yourself repeatedly into a brick wall? If so, maybe instead of trying to burst through
the opposition, you could try going around or climbing over it.
One example might be attempting to change jobs. Have you been putting your
resume in at every available company, only to be turned down or told there were no
positions open? In this case, you might think about your career as a whole.
Your current job may be a little too high-stress for your long-term
satisfaction.
Are you truly satisfied doing what you’re doing? If you are, perhaps there are similar
jobs in other industries you could look into. If not, you may want to consider
abandoning your search for the same job at a different company and start training
yourself for a whole new career. It’s never too late to start doing what you love, and
those brick walls may be telling you that the path you’re trying to follow is not the
right one for you.
Buried Alive: What to Do When Your Mountain Crumbles
Tragedy can strike any one of us at any time. Life is precarious and unpredictable,
and there are any number of events that can trigger a major life change. Company
layoffs, a sudden and unexpected move, a crippling accident, or the loss of a loved
one can devastate the most carefully laid plans.
If a major trauma occurs in your life while you are trying to pull everything together,
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the first thing you should do is take some time for yourself. If you attempt to keep
going as though everything is fine and nothing has changed, you will end up burying
emotions that will come back to haunt you. Buried pain can poison your mental
garden as effectively as arsenic-laced groundwater. It is essential to properly mourn
major losses in life, if only so you can fully realize what is missing and learn to
compensate for it.
When enough time has passed to allow you to view the situation with more
objectivity, review the traumatic event using the lens of positive thinking. What was
the bright side of the situation? Were there any lessons to be learned from it? How
did the event change you, and can you use that change to become a stronger, more
confident person?
Facing tragedy when it occurs is an essential step in your ability to persevere during
rough times. You don’t have to hide from tragedy- but you also don’t have to let it
crush your spirit and sap your energy. Mourn your losses when they occur, but
develop the ability to discern when it’s time to move on.
Using Your Lifelines
Do you have a support network? When your good intentions start to slide off your
path to success, it is helpful to have friends and family you can turn to and share
your troubles with. Hearing words of encouragement, especially from people who
know what you’re trying to accomplish, can provide you with the impetus you need
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to keep going, even when a bend in your tunnel prevents you from seeing the light at
the end.
You should also be able to call on yourself and your own reserves of energy to carry
you through difficult times. If you made a contract with yourself to reach a certain
goal, go back and review it. Have you stuck to your original intentions, or have you
drifted away from your success blueprint? One advantage to having a detailed plan
to reach your goals is the ability to go back and figure out where you were led astray,
and retrace your steps so you can return to your intentions. If you’ve discovered
along the way that your goals have changed, you can map out a new path and start at
the beginning.
Have you been keeping your journal? If you start to lose faith in the power of positive
thinking, try looking back and reflecting on all that you have accomplished so far.
Even if things are hard for you right now, you should have already proven to yourself
that positive thinking works fairly well for being a bunch of crap. Don’t be afraid to
pile on a new load of fertilizer when your first crop doesn’t make it all the way.
Whether you’ve had a few false starts or discovered your natural green thumb, you
should soon be well on your way to the harvest, which is the realization of everything
you want out of life. Your tender shoots will develop into sturdy plants; able to
weather the worst storms life manages to send your way. You are about to see the
first blossoms of your efforts, bursting from the melting crust of your former self like
daisies in the spring.
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OPENING YOUR BLOSSOMS
“Opportunity rarely knocks on your door. Knock rather on
opportunity’s door if you ardently wish to enter.”
- Charles Forbes
Now that your new positive mindset is firmly rooted in your mental garden, you will
start to see the buds of possibility appearing everywhere in your life. You can learn to
coax blossoming success from the endless fertile fields surrounding you.
Recognizing opportunity is an essential component to achieving your objectives;
whether is it subtle as a clover or brilliant as a sunflower.
In this section, we will review tips and techniques for realizing the full potential of
the power of positive thinking
Poppy Fields: Visualizing in Technicolor
“We must be over the rainbow!”
- Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz
Anyone who has seen the timeless classic film
The Wizard of Oz
remembers that
magical moment when Judy Garland’s Dorothy steps out from the wreckage of her
black-and-white house into a breathtakingly colorful world- a world she later
discovers had been there all along. Realizing the power of positive thinking is like
capturing that movie magic for yourself. Suddenly, your surroundings appear in a
whole new light: alive with the possibilities of your life and ripe for picking.
One powerful method for accessing positive thinking is visualization. This means
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picturing yourself actually achieving your goals and being the person you want to be.
Like many of the processes we have described so far, using visualization can feel
awkward at first. The best way to start off using visualization is solo practice, but
eventually you will be able to initiate the process of visualization in just about any
circumstance, under any conditions.
The most important thing you should learn about visualization is this: it only works
if you really,
really
want it to work. Whatever you are visualizing, whether it’s a
material goal or a new mental attitude, you must be absolutely convinced of your
vision. This method runs on mental energy, so the stronger your thoughts are, the
more likely they will be to influence your life.
Shoot the works – visualize something beautiful.
Preparation: Boarding the Visualization Train
There are several varieties of visualization methods, but the first step in any one of
them is always the same. You must prepare yourself mentally to receive your vision
in order to be able to fully immerse your consciousness. The process of preparing for
visualization is nearly the same as meditation, and you can add in your own
elements as you gain more experience with the process.
1 Find a quiet, undisturbed place. At first you will need to be alone
while you visualize. Choose a room or a space that you will use on an
exclusive basis for visualization during the beginning stages. Be sure your
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surroundings are quiet and uninterrupted. White noise is acceptable for
visualization, but for most methods you should not use music or recorded
sound (you will be visualizing your own sounds!).
2 Get comfortable. The best way to perform visualization is from a
seated position. You can use a comfortable chair or the floor or ground, as
long as you seat yourself in a way that will allow you to remain
comfortable for at least ten to fifteen minutes.
3 Set a timer. The effects of visualization vary from person to person, but
in some cases it can produce a trance-like state. To ensure you don’t end
up visualizing the day away, get a silent electronic timer (no ticking!) or
set an alarm clock to go off in fifteen to twenty minutes (at this point, you
still have a few minutes of preparation before you begin the process of
visualization).
4 Relax your body. If you happen to possess the ability to relax at will;
great, do that! If you’re like most of us and you do not, you can engage in
progressive relaxation to drain the tension from your muscles. Begin at
your feet and concentrate on releasing all tension, one body part at a
time. It may take you a few tries to do this; don’t worry if it doesn’t
happen the first time. It can be difficult to achieve complete relaxation,
and in many cases there will be some tension or stiffness remaining. You
will find that the more often you practice relaxation, the less tension
remains.
5 Clear your mind. There are a few ways to accomplish this; you should
choose the one that works best for you. One way is to imagine a single,
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benign object such as a white ball or a leaf, and focus entirely on the
imaginary object until all your other thoughts simmer down. Picture your
thoughts as a crowd in a football stadium, with the object in the center.
Each thought stills as its attention is drawn to the object, until they are all
silent. Another method for clearing your mind is to “send” your thoughts
away by wrapping them in a mental “bubble” and allowing them to drift
away from your consciousness.
6 Breathe. Once you have relaxed your body and cleared your mind, you
should perform three to five minutes of deep, concentrated breathing. Try
to keep yourself focused on nothing but your breathing; this will relax you
even further and prepare your mind to experience visualization.
You can also use this introduction to visualization as an alternate form of
meditation. Taking a few moments to relax is always beneficial, and can energize you
to face the tasks you’ve set for yourself.
Before you actually begin your preparation activities, you should choose the type of
visualization you intend to use and make yourself aware of the process involved.
Then you will be able to go directly from preparation to visualization.
Guided visualization
Guided visualization is perhaps the most powerful form available. In this method,
you act as the captain of your visionary ship, guiding yourself through the images
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you conceive as though they were actually happening. When using guided
visualization, it is especially important to set your timer, as it is easy to become
caught up in your visualized reality.
To perform guided visualization, you need to do a bit of preparation beforehand.
Choose a setting or scene in which you feel comfortable and affix the setting firmly in
your mind: a sandy beach, a deep forest, or even an open-air mall (if you feel better
away from nature and would have a tendency to visualize lots of bugs).
Guided visualization is best for working on your own emotions and behaviors.
Decide before you begin the way you want to visualize yourself, whether it is being
more confident, losing weight, or simply feeling relaxed and at ease. Tell yourself
that the place you’re going will give you the power to achieve these feelings,
emotions or characteristics. When you begin your visualization after your
preparation phase, don’t imagine watching yourself perform the desired actions.
Instead, try to feel as though you are actually doing them: as if you have suddenly
lost fifty pounds, or gained a hefty dose of confidence. You might even want to make
yourself fly! (Just be sure you don’t try to translate your newfound powers of flight
into real life experience, unless it’s boarding a plane).
You can also perform guided visualization with the assistance of an audio program
or themed music. You might want to try guided meditation tapes the first few times,
and then gradually move away from them until you can perform this method on your
own. After all, it is your mind that you are trying to reprogram, and you should fill it
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with your own thoughts, feelings and emotions in order to reach your personal
objectives.
Receptive visualization
Another form of visualization is receptive visualization. This differs from guided
visualization in that you are watching yourself rather than doing something.
Receptive visualization is a good technique for working on your interactions with
other people. For example, if you want to ask someone out on a date, you may
visualize yourself doing so flawlessly and convincingly, and then visualize your
target agreeing.
Performing receptive visualization is almost like watching a movie in your mind,
with you as the director. The beauty of receptive visualization is that when things
start to go in a different direction from the way you want them, a simple thought can
change everything. You are in complete control, and the more completely and often
you visualize a situation, the more likely it will be to happen just the way you
pictured it.
After you’ve practiced receptive visualization, you can use it just about anywhere, in
any situation. For example, imagine you go to the bank to make a withdrawal, but
when you reach the teller you discover there is a problem with your account and you
have to speak with a bank manager. While you’re waiting, you can visualize your
conversation with the manager and mentally resolve the matter in your favor. Then,
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when you actually do speak to the manager, you will be ready to face the situation
calmly and with confidence. More often than not, things will proceed quite similarly
to your vision.
Receptive visualization is the most useful method of visualization for everyday
events. Because it is versatile and adaptable, you can use receptive visualization to
resolve nearly any problem. You will be able to move through each day with a sense
of confidence that everything will turn out just as you want it to, and because of your
projected confidence, other people will respond to you in a pleasant manner.
Practicing your receptive visualization skills can ease the stresses of daily life, which
in turn improves your entire situation.
Beautiful visions can lead to beautiful things.
Altered memory visualization
The final visualization technique we will discuss is altered memory visualization.
This form is especially useful in resolving past conflicts and calming anger. In
altered memory visualization, you can either “be” the image or watch yourself,
whichever you are most comfortable with. The main objective of altered memory
visualization is to envision an actual memory and alter the outcome in your mind to
reach a better, more satisfying resolution.
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You can use altered memory visualization for small issues such as being cut off in
traffic, or larger areas like past tragedy or trauma. Again, it is important to use a
timer for this method, particularly when working with major traumas. It is too easy
to become so immersed in your memories that you cannot shake them.
Whether you choose to watch or participate, begin remembering the event you want
to change the way it actually occurred. Try to recall all the sights, sounds and smells
just as they were. When you reach an unpleasant point in your memory, direct
yourself to react differently from the way you did- or direct the other person to do
something different. With practice, you will be able to quickly shift your mental
images to a more positive chain of events, and the feelings you formerly associated
with your memories will lessen in their effect on you. Using altered memory
visualization is a powerful tool for forgiveness, whether you direct it toward yourself
or someone else.
By employing visualization techniques and practicing frequently, you will heighten
and augment your positive thinking foundation. Envisioning your desires is the first
step to achieving them. You can accomplish anything you believe you can, and
visualization will help you realize your goals faster and with less effort.
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Worry-Me-Nots and You-Can-Themums
“Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.”
- Richard Bach
Believing in yourself and your abilities is absolutely the most important thing you
can do on your journey to positive thinking. It is critical to develop the
self-confidence you need to carry you through to the realization of your goals.
Self-confidence is a bit different from self-esteem. Self-esteem refers to your feelings
about yourself, your behaviors and your worth as a person. Self-confidence is your
belief in your abilities and in the way you present yourself to the world. The actions
of others are more likely to erode your self-confidence rather than your self-esteem.
However, the two emotions have quite a bit in common. Both are measures of your
inherent or developed belief in yourself- and both can be easily pushed off balance,
resulting in either over-confident or defeatist behaviors that distance you from your
ultimate objectives.
What will you plant in your garden?
As previously discussed, you need to create a balance between too little
self-confidence and too much. You cannot accomplish anything without
self-confidence; on the other hand, too much self-confidence can ensure that you
don’t try hard enough to reach your goals, and you will fall short of realizing your
possibilities.
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Once you understand that you truly can do anything you put your mind to, you will
have unlocked the key to positive thinking. There is no limit to the power of the
human mind. Your possibilities really are endless.
You can help yourself build self-confidence through a simple daily exercise you
develop yourself after learning the basic premise. Like most of the practices for
working with positive thinking, you may feel ridiculous at first (yes, we are aiming to
make you feel ridiculous. Next we break out the flowered hats and funny nose
glasses). Here are the basic steps to your daily self-confidence routine, which is best
performed in the morning as you prepare to face the day:
1 Decimate distractions. You need this time to yourself. You
deserve
this time to yourself. While you’re performing your self-confidence
routine, don’t answer the phone, check your e-mail, watch television, or
listen to the radio. Let household members know that this time is your
time, and you would prefer not to be disturbed.
2 Get physical. Pamper yourself with your daily physical preparations.
When you shower, use your favorite soap or scented body wash. Choose
clothing that makes you feel good and matches your mood. Make yourself
comfortable with the way you look, and your self-confidence will rise to
match it.
3 Focus forward. As you get ready, reflect on what you want to
accomplish for the day. Be sure to consider the mood you want to set for
yourself as well as any goals or objectives you will reach. You might even
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partake in a quick receptive visualization session to see yourself reaching
your goals and cement them in your mind.
4 Get pumped. Now comes the ridiculous part. Stand in front of a mirror,
look yourself in the eyes, and sing your own praises. Out loud. Tell
yourself that you are the person you want to be; that you possess
worthwhile qualities; that you can do that which you are now setting out
to do. Be as specific as possible. Instead of saying, “I am competent,” say:
“I know how to handle problems when they arise.” The more specific you
are, the more effective your self-confidence routine will prove to be.
Self-confidence is the glue that holds your personality together. If you are serious
about changing your life, developing a healthy self-confidence will equip you to do it
quickly and effortlessly. Don’t let fear, worry and doubt keep you from blossoming
into confidence. You can accomplish anything, as long as you believe you can. It
really is as simple as that.
Cross-Pollination: How to “Bee”
“Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working
twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount
importance that we know how to harness and control this great force.”
- Tom Blandi
Perhaps as important as what you believe is the manner in which you believe it. Your
attitude can turn a miserable event into a pleasant one; or a good time into a
nightmare. By controlling your attitude, you have the power to control any situation
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and make what you want from it.
In order to determine the best attitude for any given situation, you should take some
time to decide the kind of person you want to be, and the image you want to convey.
You may be interested in being the life of the party, the quintessential sympathetic
ear, or the strong and silent type with the ability to take the lead at any moment.
Once you are aware of your true self, you can begin to adjust your attitude to match.
Here are some important considerations to keep in mind as you develop your
personal attitude preferences:
Bee yourself
“He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself
away.”
- Raymond Hull
Whatever attitude you choose, be sure it is a reflection of your true self. Being true to
yourself is crucial to the success of your positive thinking program. You have only
one life to live, and spending it trying to emulate someone else robs the world of the
person you could have been.
You may not know yourself as well as you would like to, or as well as you should. If
you have been following the methods in this book so far, you may have discovered
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more than you knew before. One of the most wondrous aspects of humankind is that
there is always something new to discover about ourselves; always some new avenue
of interest to explore or stand to take. We possess the capacity to never succumb to
boredom. It is amazing that with all the activity happening in the world, so many
people experience lulls and cannot find anything to occupy themselves with. If you
ever become bored, you have stopped developing as a person and should take steps
to rectify the situation immediately. Knowing yourself is a constant journey that
should never cease.
How can you get to know yourself better? Try some of the following techniques to
discover aspects of your personality you may not have even known existed:
1 Date Yourself. Choose an activity you either know you enjoy or believe
you will enjoy, and make a date to do it by yourself. Treat this date as you
would any other commitment: dress nicely, arrive on time, and don’t put
it off unless an absolute emergency comes up. When you go out on your
date, notice the things that make you feel good. Enjoy the experience of
being with yourself and doing something fun. When you are finished,
reflect on the date just as you would with any other event. What did you
enjoy about the experience? What did you dislike? What would you have
changed? You should make a date with yourself at least once a month,
even if it’s just for a walk in the woods or an evening on the couch with
popcorn and rental movies.
2 Talk to Yourself. You are capable of making intelligent conversation
with other people to discover more about them. Why not do the same
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with yourself? You can hold a conversation with yourself aloud or in your
head, whichever you are comfortable with. Ask yourself leading
questions, and then take some time to think about the honest answers.
Lying to yourself is the worst offense you can commit.
3 Record Yourself. When you discover new aspects of your personality
or sparks of interest you didn’t know you had, write them down and
remember them. You may not have time to explore a particular thought
when it occurs to you, but if you jot it down and come back to it later, you
will be able to expound on it. It can be helpful to keep a small notebook or
planner with you to write things down as they occur to you, and flip
through it when you have a few spare minutes.
4 Analyze Yourself. The way you react to social situations and world
events can be very revealing about yourself. Keep yourself informed about
what’s going on in the world, either by reading the newspaper, watching
television news, or frequenting news feed web sites. Take note of your
reactions to real events and situations, and try to apply them to situations
in your life. You can use this to help you determine why you feel a certain
way about people or situations that impact your everyday life, and then
plan your attitude toward them around your newfound knowledge.
Bee happy
“Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is
something you design for the present.”
- Jim Rohn
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Perhaps you are one of those people who are thinking just now, “You can’t tell me to
be happy. I don’t have to be happy if I don’t want to be. Isn’t this supposed to help
me find my true self? What if I’m just not a happy person?” If you are one of those
people, think about this: not being happy makes you happy.
Aren’t you happy now?
“Happy” is an extremely subjective emotion. What makes one person happy will not
necessarily please someone else. You have to define your own happiness, and strive
to achieve that state whenever possible.
Happiness is also contagious. A little bit of joy goes a long way, and has a snowball
effect- because when you are happy, it makes those around you happy; then they in
turn spread the happiness to others. Finding happiness in whatever you do is a large
part of generating a permanently positive attitude.
It is a waste of time to do things that will not ultimately make you happy. When you
find yourself faced with an unpleasant task that must nevertheless be accomplished,
setting your attitude to “happy” will ensure the task is accomplished with minimal
stress and maximum results. Alternately, if you have the choice to do something, and
you know it won’t make you happy, exercise your developing skills in saying “no.”
Nothing can make you unhappy if you choose not to allow it to. This is the power of
positive thinking.
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Finding happy.
Need some help locating your spring of happiness? Try a few of
these methods for tapping happy:
1 Act like a child. Children are generally the happiest creatures on Earth.
Engaging in the activities you loved as a child is a wonderful way to
generate a sense of the carefree happiness you enjoyed. Blow bubbles,
swing as high as you can, run across the grass just for the sake of running,
do somersaults or jumping jacks, or spin in place until you get so dizzy
you fall down. A regular dose of childlike joy is a healing balm for your
soul. Be uninhibited!
2 Build a treasure box. Material reminders of happy can be a wonderful
jumpstart to your happiness reserves. If you have small tokens of
vacations you enjoyed, pleasant notes from friends or loved ones, or
significant items you picked up here and there “just because,” consider
creating a box to keep them in so you can go through it whenever you feel
an attack of the blues coming on. A great addition to your treasure box
would be something that captures your favorite smells. Scent is the most
powerful emotional trigger there is, and the ability to experience a smell
with positive connotations can lift your spirits far more effectively than
anything else.
3 Love the little things. The importance of little things that make you
happy cannot be underestimated. A favorite book, the sound of your
child’s laughter, the scent of fresh popcorn or wet earth after the rain; any
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of the hundred small things you take pleasure in can be accessed to
generate happiness. Keep a mental list of your favorite little things and
draw on them whenever you feel a few quarts low on happy.
4 Laugh. Just laugh. You don’t need a reason, or even a trigger. At any
given moment, no matter where you are or what you’re doing, just start
laughing. Laughter can give you an instant mood boost that lingers for
long periods of time and strengthens your resolve to be happy.
Bee-have
“Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they
will show themselves great.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The way you treat other people is a reflection of your own attitude. You cannot
expect to sustain a positive attitude by acting negatively toward others. Even if your
positive mood is not returned, you must strive to retain a sense of dignity and
enthusiasm. Eventually, those who begrudge your happiness will either give in and
join you, or give up and go away- and in either case, you will be rid of the negative
influence without stooping to negativity yourself.
How can you refrain from treating other people poorly? The answer lies in your own
behavior. It is not so much what you should do as what you should not do when
dealing with negative emotions from others. Following are some basic guidelines for
behaving better and retaining your positive attitude:
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DON’T Throw Fits. Many people resort to temper tantrums when they don’t get
their own way. Some do this without even realizing it. Ranting about the unfairness
of the situation will not change things; all it
will
do is generate more negative
emotions and fuel the flames. The person you’re confronting probably won’t give in
because you’re whining. Learn to recognize the signs when you start to experience a
meltdown, and force yourself to step back and take a more rational look at the
situation. There may be more to it than you first noticed.
DON’T Stay Angry. Getting angry is acceptable, and even beneficial in some
circumstances. Anger can be a powerful motivating force. However, getting angry is
far different from staying angry. Holding on to your anger is counterproductive; you
will simply remain where you are in the situation and nothing will change except the
level of your anger. When someone or something makes you mad, take that anger
and channel its energies into doing something about the situation. If there is nothing
to be done, use your anger to do something for yourself. But whatever you do, don’t
allow anger to keep you rooted to the spot.
DON’T Hold Grudges. Nearly everyone can think of at least one person they have
vowed never to speak to again for as long as they live. You may be able to think of
several people who fall into this category. Holding a grudge against someone can
occur spontaneously, or it can be a carefully planned and executed assault. Some
people have elevated grudge-holding to an art form, forcing everyone else around
them to take extra precautions with the seating arrangements at family gatherings to
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avoid putting together people who are loudly ignoring each other. It is easy to form a
grudge, and infinitely harder to let one go. However, you must let go of grudges in
order to maintain a positive attitude. Maintaining negative feelings for a sustained
length of time will taint your mental garden, and provide an automatic supply of
negativity whenever you are reminded of the person you’re not speaking to. By
nursing a grudge, you are expending energy that could otherwise be used to enrich
your own life. If you would rather not speak to whomever it is that angered you, that
is a choice you can make. The better choice is to simply agree to disagree, and go
your separate ways. Letting go makes you a better person, inside and out.
DON’T Act Superior. Believing you are better than others is a damaging attitude,
even when it’s the truth. A little humility goes a long way. When others feel
comfortable talking with you, you will find your confidence growing and your
attitude improving. Putting someone else down in order to make yourself feel better
is a dangerous proposition, and more often than not it will backfire and return to
haunt you. Be the best person you can be, but don’t allow yourself to feel superior.
We are all only human in the end.
DO Unto Others. The Golden Rule is still the best rule to follow. Treat other
people the way you want to be treated, and eventually they will follow your example.
When you extend courtesy and kindness to others, it will always come back to you in
one form or another, sometimes when you least expect it. Angry words and hurtful
action can be forgiven and forgotten, but good deeds linger for a lifetime. Even if the
people you treat with respect do not offer the same to you, take comfort in the
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knowledge that you are behaving with dignity and have nothing to be ashamed of. A
lack of shame breeds fearlessness, and those who are fearless can accomplish
anything.
Bee flexible
“If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d
never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be
too cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the
time and build your wings on the way down.”
- Ray Bradbury
When life affects your attitude, you must be willing to bend and ready to seek out an
alternative path to positivism. Living an inflexible life is akin to standing in the
middle of a hurricane. No matter what you choose to hold onto, you will be blown
away, and your plans will be changed for you. You must be willing to alter your
methods and rules, and allow life to lead you to the places you are intended to go.
We must be willing to adapt to our circumstances if we expect to develop as a person.
Eminent evolutionist Charles Darwin once said, “It is not the strongest or most
intelligent of the species which survive, but those most adaptable to change.”
Inflexible structures, no matter how solidly they are built, are more susceptible to
breaking. You must learn to bend and give.
Flexibility also allows you to discover new opportunities you might otherwise have
missed. For example, you might always drive the same route to work. However, what
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would you do if the morning traffic report indicated congestion on your usual route?
You have a choice: you can either follow the same path you always take and sit in
traffic for an extended period of time, or you can choose an alternate route. If you
choose an alternate route, you might discover a new restaurant you didn’t know was
around, or witness a sunrise over a whole new setting.
There are steps you can take to increase your flexibility and prepare yourself to be
receptive to change. Here are a few tips to maintaining flexibility and being ready to
take advantage of new opportunities as they arise:
1
Give yourself time.
If you are scheduling an appointment or planning to
travel somewhere, be sure you have more than enough time to make it.
Try to leave a window open: rather than saying “I’ll be there at 7:30,” give
yourself permission to say “I’ll be there between 7 and 8.”
2
Formulate Plan B.
Always have a backup plan ready in case something
goes wrong. This way you are not caught unprepared and will have more
of an idea what you can do in the absence of your original intentions. It is
easier to be flexible when you already have alternatives in mind.
3
Do something different.
If there are certain routines you follow for
certain things, try throwing in a few alterations. For example, if you ride
public transportation to work and always sit in the same section of the
train or bus, decide to sit elsewhere for a few trips. You may notice things
you hadn’t noticed before, or have the opportunity to meet new people.
4
Be spontaneous.
Whenever possible, do something you would not
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ordinarily have done. Spontaneity is an excellent way to generate
flexibility, because even you don’t know what to expect from yourself, and
you will be forced to compensate for your lack of planning. Practice
improvisation often, and look for creative approaches to typical
problems. Different is good, particularly if it allows you to increase your
flexibility and capacity for adaption.
Your attitude determines your ultimate outcome. When you develop the ability to
control your attitude, you can manufacture your own happiness. Nothing happens
without attitude, and the way you feel about anything you do will affect the way it is
done.
If you cannot generate a positive attitude right away, you can simply “fake it until
you make it.” Use the power of positive thinking to convince yourself of your
enthusiasm, and soon you will actually begin to feel good about whatever it is you’re
trying to accomplish. Life is what you make of it, and your attitude is your life. Tend
to it well.
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FRUITION AND HARVEST
“There is more to us than we know. If we can be made to see it, perhaps
for the rest of our lives we will be unwilling to settle for less.”
- Kurt Hahn
The benefits of positive thinking are truly incredible. They can extend to every area
of your life, and you will feel like a whole new person. The power of positive thinking
is the power of transformation. When you think positively, the changes do not only
occur within yourself. The rest of the world will respond to your new outlook as you
radiate happiness and pleasant emotions. You will become not only a better person;
you will also be a better person to be around.
A good harvest bears good fruit.
Harvesting the fruits of your labor is the most exciting portion of your journey
through positive thinking. In this section we will explore the many benefits you can
expect to gain through applying positive thinking to all aspects of your life. Once you
practice the previously outlined techniques, you will notice that good things seem to
just happen to you. You will become the fortunate person you have always envied,
the one who seems to be a magnet for love and luck.
Natural Attraction: Bringing Love, Money and Success
“Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from
themselves.”
- Sir James M. Barrie
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The power of positive thinking opens up a whole new realm of possibilities. You will
discover the effects of maintaining positive thought seeping into all the areas of your
life like water absorbed by a sponge. Nothing will remain unchanged as your
newfound outlook and attitudes infect your mind, your surroundings and your
family and friends with happiness and bring you success beyond your wildest
dreams.
Following are just a few of the multitude of benefits positive thinking will bring to
your life.
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Radiant Relationships
“A man travels the world over in search of what he needs, and returns
home to find it.”
- George Moore
Relationships are essential to our humanity; both our relationships to others and to
ourselves. Our relationships define and accentuate who we are, and our ability to
relate to others is directly proportional to the manner in which we relate to
ourselves. Utilizing positive thinking in our relationships allows us to experience
them to the fullest capacity and become infused with love and compassion.
Positive thinking expands, improves and strengthens our relationships. It also
allows us to create new relationships and reap the benefits of involvement with
others without allowing negativity to taint our lives. Some of the ways positive
thinking benefits relationships are:
1 Increased trust: In positive thinking, one of the negative practices you
will be dismissing is the tendency to lie to yourself. This will
automatically quell your tendency to lie to others. When you put forth
trust, you receive trust in return; when you trust yourself, those who care
about you will place their trust in you as well.
2 Fewer arguments: You will find that your arguments lessen in both
frequency and intensity as you progress with positive thinking. Generally,
this is because not so many things will bother you, and you will be able to
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practice forgiveness more often. If you argue frequently with your spouse,
your children, other family members or close friends, look forward to a
sharp decrease in yelling when you practice positive thinking.
3 Improved communication: When you understand yourself, your goals
and your priorities, you will be able to articulate your desires more fully.
This will lead to better communication, which is the key to any successful
relationship. By clearly stating what you are trying to get across, you will
automatically encourage others to be straightforward and clear-thinking
as well. Your new ability to describe your feelings and motivations may
even surprise yourself!
4 More understanding: This benefit builds on improved communication.
When you are able to explain why you agree or disagree with a certain
issue, it will be easier to convince others regarding your point of view- or
at least help them see why you are entitled to your opinions.
Understanding promotes stronger bonds and less friction in a
relationship, and allows both sides of the equation to relax.
5 Better sex: Yes, really. The use of positive thinking awakens all of your
sensations, including physical pleasure. Applying positive thinking to
your relationships can heighten your sex life, in part because you will feel-
and therefore be- more attractive. Beauty truly comes from within, and
the transformative power of positive thinking will make you more
desirable than a swimsuit model.
6 Stronger bonds: Positive thinking brings you closer to humanity. You will
develop a powerful sense of empathy that will allow you to see things
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from alternative points of view, including the eyes of other people.
Empathy not only lets you forgive mistakes; it also makes you a better
friend and confidante: the type of person everyone loves to be around.
You will soon discover that there is plenty of you to go around.
7 Less stress: Relationships can take a toll on us. It is often quite a strain to
keep relationships alive; you must invest time and energy in cultivating
and maintaining each one of them. However, the power of positive
thinking not only frees you to unburden yourself of unhealthy
relationships; it also allows you to be yourself under any circumstances,
which lessens the typical strain most of us experience with relationships.
Incredible Careers
“Work is not man’s punishment. It is his reward and his strength and
his pleasure.”
- George Sand
If you believe what the majority of us do, you may think that most people don’t enjoy
their jobs. However, the truth is that many people do; they have just forgotten. Many
people begin a career with enthusiasm and anticipation, only to discover down the
road that their dreams have been crushed by corporate rules.
Positive thinking allows you to wring enjoyment from your career, whether you’re a
housewife or a CEO. It is a simple matter to rediscover the reason you entered your
chosen career in the first place, and then augment those reasons in your daily work
life.
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Additionally, many people who choose to seek out the power of positive thinking
find out the career they have is not the career they want, no matter how much silver
lining they drape around their clouds. Once again, positive thinking steps in to lift
you up and settle you into your place in the world.
Here are just a few of the ways positive thinking can benefit your career:
1 Recognition: When you practice positive thinking, you become more
vibrant and alive than you have ever been. You will find that your efforts
are recognized and rewarded more often, particularly when you are not
expecting recognition. Simply performing your work with a positive
attitude to the best of your abilities will make you stand out.
2 Promotions and Raises: Those with can-do attitudes advance far faster in
the workplace. Using the power of positive thinking increases your
confidence and demonstrates your capabilities to handle greater
responsibility; and those above you at work will notice and treat you
accordingly. You will not only be offered more opportunity; you will find
yourself seeking advancement and fulfillment rather than simply waiting
for the day to end so you can return to your “real” life. Your career will
become a part of what defines you instead of a means of survival that you
just “get through.”
3 Better Working Environment: You may recall that positive thinking is
contagious. Working with a pleasant attitude will improve the attitudes of
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those around you, or at least your perceptions of them. You will begin to
notice that your workday no longer drags you down as you derive
pleasure from your accomplishments and enjoy the company of your
co-workers.
4 Less Supervision: Most of us know what it’s like to have a supervisor
breathing down our necks. When we move to a positive mindset, we
showcase our abilities to complete work satisfactorily without excessive
direction (or interference). Left to our own devices, we will accomplish far
more- and this will become evident to even the most anal of supervisors.
5 Dream Job: With positive thinking, you can live your dreams. Whether
you choose to seek a new career or transform the job you have into the job
you love, you will soon find your career providing everything you imagine
it to be.
6 Entrepreneurship: Many people long to go into business for themselves,
but most fear the consequences of losing the safety and security of
working for someone else. Positive thinking frees you from your fear of
change, and equips you with the tools you need to not only take steps
toward working for yourself, but carry your entrepreneurial vision to
success. Whatever your reasons for wanting your own business, you can
use positive thinking to bypass the pitfalls that plague most beginning
business ventures and realize your dreams of self-employment.
7 New opportunities: Positive thinking allows you to visualize possibilities
you would have otherwise missed. As you get to know yourself, your
beliefs and your desires; you will better understand what you’re looking
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for in a career. You will also have the ability to discover the means to
achieve what you want, whether it is improving your current job, getting a
promotion or new position, or heading off on your own. There is no limit
to the opportunities awaiting you through the power of positive thinking.
Financial Freedom
“If a person gets his attitude toward money straight, it will help
straighten out almost every other area in his life.”
- Billy Graham
This is not to say positive thinking will make you rich, though that is a distinct
possibility. Achieving financial freedom is releasing yourself from the worries money
brings and allowing yourself to always have enough, if not an abundance.
Some of the ways positive thinking promotes financial freedom:
1 Unlimited possibilities. When you realize that any avenue is open to
you, you can take steps toward setting and reaching your financial goals,
whether you want to be comfortable and debt-free or living in an
ocean-side mansion.
2 Productive work environment. Because positive thinking equips you
with the capacity to truly enjoy your job, you will find yourself performing
far better and automatically earning more, whether it’s in the form of
raises, promotions, or the decision that you are better off somewhere else.
3 Lower cash outflow. As you practice positive thinking techniques, you
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will find yourself spending less money. Because you are responsible and
confident, there will be fewer emergencies and disasters in your life, and
misfortune will become a rare happenstance; a mere memory. Spending
less to gain more is one of the many long-term benefits of positive
thinking. You will also find that you need fewer material objects to satisfy
yourself as you become richer in spirit.
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Dream Delivery
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; there is
where they belong. Now put foundations under them.”
- Henry David Thoreau
Whatever your dreams are for your life, positive thinking can help you achieve them.
Lifelong dreams can take many forms, whether it is traveling to an exotic place,
performing a daredevil stunt, or meeting a particular celebrity. With positive
thinking, you can take the necessary steps to make your fondest dreams a reality.
It’s said that a goal is a dream with a deadline. Positive thinking helps you realize not
only that you can live your dreams, but that you deserve to live them. Positive
thinking allows you to:
1 Understand that no dream is too great or too small.
2 Develop a mindset that is conducive to dream fulfillment.
3 Formulate a concrete, manageable plan for making your dreams come
true.
4 Equip yourself with the determination necessary to keep going until you
reach your dream.
5 Dream bigger than you ever would have, with the realization that there is
no limit to what you can accomplish.
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Awesome Aging
“Youth is a circumstance you can’t do anything about. The trick is to
grow up without getting old.”
- Frank Lloyd Wright
What’s so great about aging? Everything, when you view it through the lens of
positive thinking. Applying positive thinking methods to the aging process produces
incredible effect: studies have proven that happy people live, on average, 7.5 years
longer than unhappy people- a better advantage than not smoking, exercising
regularly, and maintaining a healthy weight combined.
By allowing yourself to view aging as an experience rather than an ordeal, you give
yourself the gift of time. Here are some other benefits of a positive outlook on aging:
1
Lowered blood pressure and reduced cholesterol.
Happy people don’t
experience much stress. They also tend to keep themselves in better
shape. Some researchers attribute the increase in life span among
positive people to the corresponding decrease in blood pressure and
cholesterol.
2
Stronger will to live.
As we age, many of us tend to lapse into a depressive
state. We often reflect on our lives and decide we have done nothing to
merit worth, and it is then we begin to die. With positive thinking, we can
realize that it is never too late to do something with ourselves and our
lives; that all is not lost.
3
Preservation of independence.
You may notice that some older people
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seem far younger and more able than others their age. The major
difference between a 70-year-old who lives at home, stays busy, and
maintains an active family life; and a 70-year-old who is inactive and
consigned to a wheelchair in a nursing home; is attitude. The senior at
home believes it is possible to live a healthy, happy life no matter how old
they get, while the senior in the home believes there is nothing to look
forward to.
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THE PHYSICAL POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING
“Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul must see
through these eyes alone, and if they are dim, the whole world is
clouded.”
- Goethe
You know that positive thinking improves your mental health. But did you know It
can also improve your physical health? The power of your thoughts is so strong, it
can actually affect the way your body behaves and improve a host of physical
ailments- or even bring you from the brink of death.
Take Christopher Reeve. The actor who will be forever remembered for his powerful
performance as Superman will also be remembered for his remarkable recovery after
a horse-riding accident left him completely paralyzed. Yet not only did Reeve live far
longer than any doctor predicted, he made great strides toward recovery and was
able to move parts of his body that were pronounced forever lost to him before his
death in 2004. Reeve survived for nine years after the accident and proved he truly
was a super man.
How did he do it? Positive thinking. According to researchers who analyzed his case,
Reeve’s optimistic attitude and can-do mindset were almost entirely responsible for
the unparalleled level of recovery he experienced.
When you banish negative thoughts from your mind, your physical health responds
tremendously. It has long been known that there is a correlation between emotional
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and physical health; often referred to as the “mind-body connection.” Improving
your outlook and practicing positive thinking strengthens your mind-body
connection and makes you healthy, even to the point of extending your life.
Studies have shown that depression and negative thought decreases antibodies and
leaves you more open to infection and disease. Those who are unhappy or stressed
exhibit weaker immune responses to vaccines; take longer to heal; are more
susceptible to colds and viruses; and experience stronger symptoms.
There is documented scientific evidence that electrical activity in the brain related to
emotion has a direct effect on the body’s ability to heal and fights off disease.
Negative thoughts produce a surge of activity in the right prefrontal cortex, which
brings about a weak immune response; while positive thoughts produce activity in
the left prefrontal cortex and strengthens immune response. It is true: happy people
are healthier, simply because they are happy!
A positive thought program may also possess the ability to protect you from
Alzheimer’s or other degenerative aging diseases. Because part of the process of
positive thinking involves a continual quest for self-improvement and encourages
you to stay mentally active, your mind will be in better shape as you age and you will
be less susceptible to degenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis and
rheumatoid arthritis. A sharp mind helps to maintain a sharp body.
Don’t underestimate the power of positive thinking in regards to your own health.
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You
can
think yourself healthy; and you will find that you have more energy, fewer
colds, and an increased vitality. Perhaps some day, science will discover a way to
inject happiness as a means to combat disease. Until then, we will have to be
responsible for creating our own happiness.
Sit Back and Relax
“It is time to break through the barriers that have held you back and
held you down for such a long time. It is time to reach out and indelibly
etch your place in history.”
- Greg Hickman
Are you ready for a new life?
Positive thinking arms you with all the tools you need to achieve your deepest hopes,
wishes and desires. You will be equipped to deal with any of the circumstances life
presents you with, and receptive to the boundless possibilities that come with true
happiness. Once you have planted and tended your mental garden, you can sit back
and enjoy the harvest of success.
When you reach fruition of your positive thinking goals, it is important to relax and
enjoy your accomplishments. You will not be motivated to move further in your life if
you do not take the time to experience the benefits of all your hard work. Many
people don’t know how to relax, and simply continue to push themselves believing
that eventually, relaxation and reward will come to them. This is not the case: you
must take the time for yourself to reap what you have sown in your mental garden.
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Following are several suggestions to help you take in the true measure of your
successes and use them to further even more positive gain:
1 Take a “me” day. When you have reached a major goal, take an entire
day for yourself. You’ve earned it. Engage in your favorite activities: read
a good book, watch a movie, dine at your favorite restaurant. Pamper
yourself: take a long bath, buy yourself a decadent dessert, get a
professional massage. Refuse to do favors for anyone else on this day. Tell
others that you are celebrating your success and indulge in good feelings.
You will feel wonderful, and you will cement your achievements in your
mind. Awareness of your progress is integral to your continued success.
2 Spread the joy. Do you know someone with similar goals and
ambitions? Take the time to share your accomplishments with anyone
you feel will benefit from them. Tell them how you achieved your goals
and share the secrets of your success. Changing your own life produces a
powerful feeling, and when you use your own transformation to help
others change as well, your own benefits are amplified. Happiness and
success cannot be contained and kept for ourselves. Facilitate the spread
of joy whenever possible, and you will find your efforts circling back to
you again and again.
3 Count your blessings. The more you accomplish, the more you stand
to accomplish. Reflecting on the full realization of the completion of your
goals will help you solidify your positive mindset. There may be benefits
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to your achievements that you have yet to realize. What have you gained
by reaching your goals? Create a mental catalogue of all the ways your life
is enriched by positive thinking and refer to it often. This practice adds to
your arsenal of empowerment tools and exponentially increases your
capacity to gain.
4 Preserve the lesson. Just as you kept a journal of your progress
toward the completion of your goals, you should keep a written record of
your successes. The ability to reflect on change and the steps that led to it
is crucial to your continued advancement. You may find yourself facing a
similar challenge in the future, and having a set of written records to refer
to saves you the mental difficulties of going through the process all over
again as though you had never done it before. Additionally, writing down
what you have learned enables you to discover the deeper meaning of all
you have achieved, and everything you have gained in excess of your main
objective.
5 Start over. The sentiment “quit while you’re ahead” has no place in
positive thinking. Though it is necessary to enjoy the rewards of your
labor, it is equally necessary to set new goals; aim for higher standards.
Never cease to learn and grow. When you have reached a point in your life
that you feel satisfies your wishes and dreams, create new wishes and
manufacture more dreams. Life is not a destination; it is a journey. To
achieve perfection is to settle for complacency and stop living. We begin
to die the moment we cease to change.
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Enjoy the good things that flow from success.
Relax! You’ve earned it. Just don’t forget to continue your quest for a fulfilled life
after each success. Use positive thinking to accomplish any goal, whether it is
organizing your desk or traveling the world. You can achieve your dreams, and you
can start today. The best time to begin your journey toward fulfillment is
right now.
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CONCLUSION
“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.”
- Michael Althsuler
Surviving the Winter: Keep Your Garden Alive
Now that you have enjoyed the harvest of your flourishing mental garden, you must
ensure that you will continue to produce a new crop, year after year. You cannot stop
the rain from falling- but you can choose how you view it when it comes. You cannot
avoid the passage of time and its eroding effects- but you can teach yourself to
recognize when it is time to replant. You cannot keep others out of your garden- but
you can choose to let them in.
With practice you will learn to weather the hard times and emerge from hibernation
stronger each time. The more you use positive thinking, the greater your mental
strength will become. You are firmly on the path to achieving what you desire from
life, and the longer you remain, the more difficult it will be for anything to deter you.
“He who chooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to.
It is the means that determines the end.”
- Harry Emerson Fosdick
Your journey has begun. Where it ends is entirely up to you.
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CHECKLIST FOR THE POSITIVE THINKING PROCESS
When you begin a project or engage in self-improvement, follow these steps to tap in
to the power of positive thinking.
1. Banish negative thoughts from your mind.
2. Decide to accomplish your goal.
3. Formulate a set of positive thoughts revolving around your goal.
4. Develop a step-by-step plan to reach your goal.
5. Keep a journal of your thoughts and your progress.
6. Practice getting out of your own way.
7. Be flexible and prepared to start over in the event of setbacks.
8. Visualize yourself achieving your goal.
9. Maintain a positive attitude toward your goal.
10. Do not allow the opinions of others to deter you from your path.
11. Engage in daily self-confidence exercises to keep your goal fresh.
12. Be yourself, behave, and be happy.
13. Recognize when you have reached your goal and enjoy your success.
14. Reflect on the path that has brought you to your goal.
15. Record your reactions and feedback for future reference.
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RESOURCES
The Happy Guy: Articles, e-books and newsletters for inspiration and happiness.
www.thehappyguy.com
Success Consciousness: Resources for visualization, positive thinking and
affirmations for growth. www.successconsciousness.com
Attitude is Everything: Books, audio programs, motivational seminars and a free
inspirational newsletter. www.attitudeiseverything.com
Self Esteem Resources: Articles, books, motivational programs and self-tests for
improving self-esteem. www.more-selfesteem.com
Mental Help Net: Loads of resources for improving mental health, including
self-help articles, programs and a community. www.mentalhelp.net
Mind Tools: Stress management, memory improvement and positive thinking
techniques geared for career improvement. www.mindtools.com
Positive Thinking Magazine: Web site for the bi-monthly publication aimed at
promoting and empowering positive thinking. www.positivethinkingmag.com
Inspirational Quotes: A large selection of positive quotations on several subjects;
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free subscription to Quote E-Zine. www.inspirational-quotations.com
Motivational Quotes: Internet database of motivational quotations and resources for
motivation. www.motivationalquotes.com
Inspiration Peak: Online guide to inspirational books, music, articles and resources.
Also features an extensive selection of quotes and inspirational forums, along with
several free newsletters. www.inspirationpeak.com
World Wide Online Meditation Center: Clear, straightforward meditation
instructions and extensive links to meditation resources.
www.meditationcenter.com
MyHappiness: A web site designed to promote happiness and the sharing of
happiness, offering resources, reviews, newsletters, articles and lessons from other
community members. www.myhappiness.com
The Happiness Foundation: Promoting worldwide happiness. An extensive
collection of resources, books, articles, videos and reports, along with a volunteer
section for those who want to help spread happiness. www.happiness.org
Humanity Quest: A community portal for the exploration of the human condition.
Includes themed articles and user discussions on over 500 human values, an
inspirational newsletter, and an online study group. www.humanityquest.com
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SelfGrowth.com: Online self improvement web site with lots of resources, free
newsletters, articles, discussions, forums, self-tests, expert listings, and a
members-only section. www.selfgrowth.com
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Beaulac, Andrew. “Yak Riders on Meditation Methods.”
http://www.yakrider.com/meditation_methods.htm, January 2000
Brescia, Michael.
Today is Your Day to Win.
New York: Michael Brescia 2000
Chiles, James R.
Inviting Disaster: Tales from the Edge of Technology.
New York:
HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2001, 2002
Hansard, Christopher.
The Tibetan Art of Positive Thinking: Skillful Thoughts for
Successful Living.
New York: Atria, August 2005
Peale, Norman Vincent.
The Power of Positive Thinking.
New York: Random House,
Inc., 1952
“Power of a super attitude: Reeve’s life bolsters theories on mind-body health link.”
USA Today
: Sharon Jayson, October 13, 2004, p. 6D
