The user. Often the user won’t use what they’ve bought.

I was as big a self help junkie as anybody, anywhere. Buy the product, listen to it once (or less), and then put it on the shelf beside all those other products I already had.

To be sure, I have made miles of progress from where I began my journey, but it hasn’t been all forward, straightline motion. And the thing that has held me back the most was always an unwillingness to keep my promises to myself. I would decide to do something and then renege, waffle, sidestep, back out and just generally undercut every promise I made to myself.

• I’m going to exercise more!
  Oh but I don’t really feel like it today.
• I’m going to write one article or short story every day!
  Oh but I can’t think of anything today.
• I’m going to call my family more often!
  Oh but there’s nothing to tell this month
• I’m going to contact two new prospective customers every day!
  Oh but I didn’t meet anybody today.

What always prompted this consistently lax behavior was a serious lack of respect for or honesty with myself.

Some time back I wrote a report titled In a Far and Foreign Place which tells how that promise-breaking habit began changing. It came late to me, but eventually I did begin treating myself with more respect. And one of the prime signs of self respect is keeping one’s promises to oneself. The ability to follow through.

Now, over the years I’ve tried and use a number of different methods for building more consistency in my follow through. Some worked better than others. One of the things I’ve discovered is that without the follow-through habit, no “time management” system on earth will help anybody succeed. The one unspoken assumption in every time management book ever written seems to be that the reader, once they have a system in place, will just do it. But you know, usually they don’t. And it’s not the system’s fault.

Trouble is, most of those systems can only give us a way to manage all our time. One big, multi-piece bite. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve always choked on that. I needed something smaller.

I needed a way to begin building the follow-through habit, but in little, bite-sized chunks. One aspect of my life at a time. And what better place to begin than on self-image building?

So back on January 6th, I decided to break with the past and start doing things a little differently. I already had a recording I’d made for myself that inputs good, solid suggestions about confidence, self worth and persistence. It’s a 30-minute MP3 with brainwave entrainment sounds in the background, and I enjoyed it (when I remembered to use it). So I decided to listen to that recording twice every day. On some days I’d listen to it both times, while on other days, I would listen to a different version without the suggestions – just the entrainment sound alone – and do freeform creative visualizing.

Now, one thing I know from past experience is this: no matter how enthusiastic and determined I am when I start, if I don’t keep some kind of visual record, I’ll lose track and wander off course. So I made myself a small action tracking tool. A simple little table with a square for each day of the year – yep, a calendar – where I can put a little dot for each time I listen to the MP3. And I kept it simple, with only one new behavior and one way to track its consistency.

You know how they say it takes 21 days to form a new habit? According to my records, that simply is not true – at least, it’s not true for me. Take a look at the graphic below. On the left side is the blank calendar, and on the right is my track record. You can see that it took me a bit over six weeks – 45 days or so – before I could consistently remember to do this thing twice every day.

But since passing that 45 day mark, I’ve only missed 4 days out of the last 12 weeks. That’s a hit rate of better than 95 percent.

And that brings us to discipline.

Frankly, this discipline thing is not popular. We give it lip service, and we say we think it’s a good thing… but when it comes to actually acquiring some for ourselves, we aren’t very disciplined.

I’m not trying to point any fingers here. I’m just telling it like it is in most folks’ lives. Getting more discipline has never really been at the top of my wish list. Nor my action list. Maybe things are different at your house. Maybe you’re much more in charge and on top of things and always get stuff done before anybody ever has to remind you. If so, that’s great. But for the rest of us…

In any case, I found that this simple little calendar has been helping me remember what I’m doing, even when I get busy and my mind strays to other things. The main reason this works so well is because discipline, like almost everything else, is largely a matter of habit. We get in the habit of doing what we say we’ll do, and then people praise us like crazy because we’re so “disciplined.” Interesting, huh?

If you think you’d like to try the same thing, here’s a link for downloading your own copy. It’s a one-page PDF, so all you’ll need to do is print it out, trim it down to a convenient size, then tape it in a place where you’ll see it every day. Probably better to put it on a wall or the side of your computer. Laying it down on a table or desk only makes sure it quickly get covered up, pushed to the back, neglected and forgotten.

In my case, I taped the calendar to a clipboard. I even glued refrigerator magnets to the back of the clipboard so I can hang it on the side of my computer. Makes it easy to pick up, mark my day’s dots, then put it back in plain sight.

It’s May right now, so there’s more than half of this year left – plenty of time to start a new habit of your own. Plenty of time to begin mastering this discipline habit. But here’s a little secret… discipline seems to come as a side effect of doing other things consistently.

Like I say, it’s just a habit, and any habit can be made or unmade. All it takes is consistent repetition, plus a little something that lets us track how we’re doing.

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles

When we’re deep in conversation with someone, our words can flow so freely. It can be easy – almost effortless – finding the right words to express our ideas. Then, at other times, the words come slowly, reluctantly, and we find it difficult to say what’s on our minds.

But those thoughts that we’re putting into words – whether it’s easy or it’s hard for us to do – where are those basic, underlying thoughts coming from before we start assembling the words around them?

If we look up and see that a friend named Frank just came through the door, then our knowing of ‘friend,’ ‘Frank’ and ‘door’ took place in our consciousness before any words got involved in the process. Obviously, we have the basic, underlying thoughts, concepts or ideas first without the words, and afterward, as we add the verbalizations, this becomes our ‘stream of consciousness.’

But there’s this deeper subterranean flow of awareness – this deeper thinking – that we’ve largely forgotten how to access directly.

You see, we do a lot of thinking that we’re not consciously aware of. And we do it at this silent, non-verbal level. Only after we become aware of something do we start describing that awareness to ourselves in words. And we think that this verbalized description of our awareness is our ‘thinking.’

While I was playing with this little experiment, I learned about a Dr. Les Fehmi who, sometime back, was experimenting with ways to get people’s brains to produce alpha waves. He discovered that asking people to imagine the space between two known points (between your left shoulder and your right thumb, for example) would kick them into alpha brain wave production every time.

Interestingly, when we imagine a volume of space, we’re almost completely out of verbal mode and into our primary, or silent thinking mode. This way of thinking is, quite literally, our silent space. And it’s available at any time for us to use for getting ourselves to alpha level.

I began wondering:  What if we could do more of our thinking in this silent, wordless mode – living much of our day there? And if we could, would there be any advantage to it? Well, let’s see… if we could drop ourselves into alpha (or even theta) level at any time, dependably and repeatably, we might find that our problems are easier to melt away. And we might find that our manifesting and attraction work bring surer results.

But that’s still coming from the attitude that ‘going to level’ or ‘dropping into alpha’ is the exceptional state and that our continuous verbalizing is the norm. What if we could reverse that belief? What if we could simply live there in our direct awareness without the thick curtain of our words obscuring our experience? Is it possible that we could live directly connected to all the things we desire, without any separation?

And that’s what I’ve been experimenting with lately. I’ll keep you posted.

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles

That’s right, I’m talking about answering meaningless tasks with an equally meaningless act of rebellion that declares (at least to ourselves): “I’m bored as hell and I’m not going to take it any more.”

Today’s guest author Jennifer Robinson suggests that a bit of private liberation could be a good thing. All you’ll need are…

Backside + Photocopier = Personal Revolution!
by Jennifer Robinson

The photocopier is amongst the most mind numbingly pragmatic and banal devices ever invented in the history of office based technology. Upon inserting a banal item of bureaucratic detritus and pressing the relevant keys, one is left with two items of bureaucratic detritus and a slight increase in the level of one’s self hatred/murderous rage.

The photocopier is a device which, given the opportunity and the timely intervention of a sufficiently twatish and merciless superior, will devour your time and convert it into an ever expanding pile of irrelevant garbage (working under the assumption that the vast majority of offices in this world deal with documents that are of very little interest even to the people who deal with them).

But every so often, something magical happens. Every so often, between one set of tiresome invoices and the next, a soft, plump, joyful pair of buttocks graces the indignant glass face of our most hated office chum. A flash of light and an irksome, mechanical groan later, and this wondrous event is recorded forever, thereafter a part of our history as a species!

From time to time, it happens with boobs as well. Verily, the urge to photocopy one’s unmentionables is strong, but what is it that makes this activity so compelling? (Apart from the fact that any activity that has a greater than 7% chance of including boobage must automatically be graded as “awesome”).

Perhaps the key to the matter is subversion; the desire to undermine and disregard the systems that stamp themselves over who we are.

Fully one third of a full time office worker’s waking life is given over to “the company”, organised and structured according to the company’s needs, their dress, their hair, their manner of speech all regulated and stifled by the needs and goals of the company. Everything in the office environment reminds the worker of the grim functionality or his situation (save for the trivial “personal touches” allowed by management, e.g. a kitten themed calendar or a mug declaring oneself “BEST DAD EVER”).

The hole-punch punches holes, the ring binder receives that which is punched, the stapler staples, the franking machine “franks” away merrily until we’re all dead.

But the photocopier… now that’s a different beast. The distinction is that the photocopier is meant to do a particular thing, but could potentially do things that it’s not meant to do!

It’s subvertable!

It’s a chink in the armour, one of perhaps only two or three. This could well be the explanation for that unshakable urge: that the photocopier represents one of the only opportunities we have for semi-genuine self expression in an environment hostile to it. The hole-punch will punch holes and the stapler will make staples, but the photocopier grants us a choice if we only have sufficient cunning! Be gone foul invoices! Let mine own rump be the subject matter! Let my hearty bosom be the business of the day! In this moment, let me be the boss!

There’s a lesson here. The human spirit demands expression, it demands subversion, and if that has to involve naughty-bits, so be it.

Jennifer Robinson writes for Online Connect UK together with Kasim Aka. Online Connect are a specialist supplier of photocopiers and office equipment. Find Cheap office copiers at there website http://www.onlineconnect.co.uk/

Back to Charles:
Hmmm… private liberation indeed. But doesn’t it sometimes feel good to do the forbidden, slightly wacky thing? To silently thumb your nose (or other parts) at the dull, hide-bound authorities who never seem to get it that you’re human and have self-expression needs too?

So if you’re feeling stifled lately, maybe it’s time to head for the copy department and let your hair down – or whatever.

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles

To most folks – who don’t yet understand how luck really works – it all looks like random chance (that’s why they call it luck… duh). But as you may suspect, there are things you’re doing every day that always and unvaryingly cause events that we call “good luck” or “bad luck.” Ready to find out which ones you’re doing?

It’s true that we often don’t even know we’re doing these things, but even if we do know, their importance may not occur to us. But what if you did become aware of the connection? So the question might occur to you: could you then…

Change Your Luck at Will

Yep, you bet you could.

There are a number of ways to get luck in your life, but today I’ll share just one of them with you. This one is so dead-simple, so easy to do, that you might be tempted to dismiss it with a casual “oh, I already know that.” If you find yourself falling into the “I already know that” trap, please stop yourself. Instead, ask yourself if you’re consistently putting it into practice.

Here’s the Big, Magical Technique (note the touch of irony): Just choose to recognize the luck you already have. Do this every day, every hour. Do it so often and so consistently that your mind becomes trained to be aware automatically. We call this making a new habit.

Changing Your Luck

You know how, once you buy a particular car, you’ll suddenly start seeing that same model everywhere. Those cars were always there, but now you’re noticing them. That’s because your mind is now sensitized to that model. This is how our minds function. We see more of whatever we are sensitized to – including lucky opportunities. It really is as simple as being aware of good luck. That’s all it takes to see more and more of it.

This works for you in at least two ways. First of course, when you feel that you’ve already got some lucky things going on in your own life, you feel better about yourself. This is good, solid psychology, and in the helping professions they call this cognitive therapy. But you and I don’t need some Latin-derived, jacked up technical term to know that we’re simply changing our thinking. Nor to recoginze that it makes us more aware of other things that match the good luck we already have. (Ever heard the phrase “like attracts like”? This is exactly what they’re talking about.)

The result of this re-tuned awareness nudges us not only to begin seeing the good luck we already have, but to recognize more good luck when it comes our direction. This isn’t imagination, and it isn’t Pollyanna fluff. It’s actually sharpening your perception to see a different set of circumstances in your daily life.

For example: remember those optical illusion puzzles where there’s a picture hidden within another picture? You look and look, then suddenly it pops out at you, and after that you can see it anytime you want to. Well, that’s how the awareness of good luck works, too.

Create Good Luck out of Whatever Comes

I’ve heard so many people say that God, the angels or the Universe chooses to “bless” you if you’re good enough. But they’re stuck in magical thinking. They’ve connected the wrong cause-effect pair.

Sure, it’s important to be “good” and to do no harm to others, but not because good behavior is some kind of cosmic coin you’re paying into a Universal vending machine. That kind of thinking keeps the cause of your results “out there,” somewhere outside yourself.

Besides, you’ve seen enough “not good” people who are more successful than you, perhaps healthier and live to a ripe old age – you’ve seen enough of them to realize at some level that the “be good” approach (although it’s a good idea) isn’t the cause of good luck.

It has much more to do with expectations and actions than it does with the blamelessness of a person’s heart.

Face it, when you actively recognize your own good luck, and systematically, habitually open your awareness to more of the same, you’re creating a certain mindset. This mindset is tuned in to the opportunities that you used to miss. They’re always right there, just like the hidden picture in the optical illusion, but once you’ve developed the knack for seeing them, then the opportunities available to you vastly expand.

A friend once told me this story:

“One day my brother mentioned that he’s earning money from placing other people’s adverts on his website. I wasn’t yet interested in the Internet, and I could have just said ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ and let it pass on by, unnoticed. But I’ve developed the habit of seeing things in the light of good luck, so I asked my brother more about it. Now it’s a couple of years later, and about half my income is from writing for the Internet.”

Ever heard the old proverb: “If life hands you lemons, make lemonade”?

This is how a lucky person’s mind works – all the time. Every situation, every event, even if it initially appears to be “lemons,” contains more possibilities than the untrained glance can see.

And the way you start getting this mindset is to begin recognizing how lucky you already are, even in small ways. This makes your good luck immediate and real to you. This, in turn, opens your awareness to how these lemons – the ones that everybody else is complaining about – could make great lemonade. And although this whole idea may seem too simple, too childish even, it’s exactly, precisely how to change your luck.

Now, Command More Luck ! Get ready to discover more ways to turn your mind into a “good luck spinning machine.” It’s true – your mind can automatically drive lucky breaks and red-hot opportunities in your direction 24-7. Click here to score more good luck now.

How do you keep your mind from getting all swept up in the storms of daily drama and upset that rage all around you? Is it even possible in today’s frantic, ultra-busy world? Well, actually it is possible. But it takes a little training, a little practice, and a little perseverance.

Today’s article presents five simple tips for getting calm and staying that way, no matter what outrageous nonsense is going on around you. I don’t know who the author is – I recently found it buried in a pile of articles I downloaded some time ago, but it’s excellent. So, even though I don’t know who authored this advice, I pass it along to you for the simple, commonsense suggestions it gives.

5 Zen Tips to Calm Down Easily

Calmness is easy. Even better, it can be achieved quickly. No matter what is happening around us, we never have to become trapped in stress or anxiety. It’s important to learn how to calm down quickly as negative emotions can easily become addictive. The longer we hold onto them, the harder it can be to let go.

The ancient practice of Zen offers many pathways to becoming free of negativity. By using simple Zen principles and value-centered counseling, you can take enjoyable and effective steps to calming down, feeling good about yourself and finding that peaceful place in the storm.

Calmness Tip 1. Open The Treasure House Within

In Zen students are told: “Open the treasure house within.” This is a reminder that we are all endowed with many resources hidden within. In order to access our innate abilities, we must stop looking everywhere else and forget about depending upon others. Instead, we are told to spend time each day taking responsibility for what’s going on inside. We turn our attention within, discover who we truly are and stop rejecting ourselves and others. As we do this, we begin to open the treasure house within.

Calmness Tip 2. Pay Attention

We are what we think about. When we stay fixated on one person, thought or situation, it is easy to become caught in the grip of self centered, obsessive thoughts. The more we pay attention to that which is negative or upsetting, the more strength it has to rule our lives. This can be counteracted easily.

Take control of your attention and what you’re focusing upon. Spend time each day developing concentration. This is also called meditation (or zazen).

Sit with a straight back, do not move, lightly focus your attention on your natural breath. Let random thoughts come and go. Do not suppress them, but do not let them grab your attention away. (At first you may be besieged by many surprising thoughts and feelings, but if you simply notice them and then return your attention to your breathing, these will soon die down). Count your breaths from one to ten, then all over again. Do this for at least ten to fifteen minutes without moving. By not moving we are stopping what is called the monkey mind.

Calmness Tip 3. Stop The Monkey Mind

The monkey mind is the mind that jumps from one thing to the next, fears, demands, criticism and sabotage of our lives. It is the part of ourselves which causes sorrow and fear. By taking charge of our focus, by not paying attention to or responding to the many negativities the monkey mind throws our way, we become balanced and calm. As we do this regularly, we are no longer carried away by passing feelings and thoughts. Instead, we discover a peaceful place in the storm to which we can always return for comfort and strength.

Calmness Tip 4. Focus on Strengths not Weaknesses

As we focus upon our strengths, rather than our weaknesses, little by little the fear, anger and depression fade. Rather than struggle with problems, we learn to become available to solutions. This is accomplished by working with focus.

The question we always keep before us is: What am I focusing on this moment? Am I dwelling on problems or open to solutions and new ideas? Am I aware of where I am right at this moment, or lost somewhere in a dream? Am I grateful for what I have, or dwelling upon the wrongs I think others have done me?

Life continually renews and confronts us with new tasks, challenges, opportunities and solutions, day after day. Are we in touch with this ever-flowing reality? Are we focusing on the gifts we are always receiving, and ways we can give back to others as well? By choosing to take charge of our focus we dissolve the primary cause of our suffering – a monkey mind that has run wild.

Calmness Tip 5. Take Constructive Action

Once we take charge of our focus, we place it upon what we are receiving, what we have to be grateful for. Then it is easy to take the next step and naturally become aware of what others need from us, what we have to offer, how we can give back. Then we do it. We take action. We do not hesitate. We focus upon simple, daily actions, which are constructive for ourselves and others.

We spend some time each day doing “deeds of service”, finding ways we can give to others, make their days easier and happier. As we focus upon giving and encouraging others, a strange thing happens – our personal anxiety vanishes, and we, ourselves, become filled with joy. Before long, we become filled with something even more important than joy – self respect.

A primary source of stress and anxiety is low self esteem; feeling badly about ourselves. The most powerful way to get rid of this is to have a healthy dose of self respect. When we fill our lives with constructive actions, self worth develops naturally. It does not come about through artificially boosting self esteem, but as a result of living a life worthy of respect. In this manner we grow able to handle any situation life presents us with.

When we are able to do that, not only do we calm down easily, but we enjoy all aspects of our days. We feel like life is a gift we are receiving; and we become a gift to life as well, even as we enjoy the untroubled feelings of calmness.

Of course, when you’re first beginning, it can seem unfamiliar and hard to concentrate. But here’s a way to help you achieve calmness very simply and quickly. This is an exceptional set of CDs that could possibly speed up your progress dramatically, and help you reach calmness much faster than trying to do it on your own.

Download audio file (5-tips-for-calmness.mp3)

Doing the same things over and over again, but yet expecting different results is insanity.
- Albert Einstein

So keeping Einstein’s definition in mind, let me ask that question again. Are you sure you can recognize insanity on sight – especially in yourself? Or are you feeling just a touch less sure now? For example, are you consistently getting the results you say you’re aiming for? This starts with the goals you pick.

Here’s what I mean. If your idea of progress is “I’m experiencing amazing new breakthroughs in my inner landscape”), then you’re deep into kidding yourself, and you’d better read every word of this post carefully, because that statement doesn’t mean jackshif.

Other ways to know if you’re kidding yourself…

If you’ve started a business or money-making enterprise of any kind, but for the longest time you’ve continued not making money, you’re kidding yourself.

Or if you’re seeking peace, love and happiness, but are still writhing around in despair, malaise and depression, then for sure something is seriously wrong with your approach.

Or if you have a specific goal (like a promotion at work, a newer home, a happier relationship, more savings, etc.), and you’re either standing still or moving backwards, then you’ve got some serious self-kidding going on.

What you’re doing is not producing the results you say you want. So what to do? Let’s confine ourselves to facts here and work backwards.

Results… What Results Are You Trying to Get?

Do they involve money? Love and companionship? Fame and recognition? Peace of mind?

Or are your results – your goals – a little fuzzy around the edges, a bit hard to put into specific words? If that’s the case, there’s no mystery why results may be eluding you, but let’s assume that, if you sat down right now and wrote out what you desire, you could do it in a hundred words or less.

So have you done that? Have you written out (on a real sheet of paper) your desires, aims, targets, goals, outcomes or wants? If not, why not?

If you’ve been studying self help material for more than 15 minutes, you already know it’s important to have written goals. And of course you’ve got yours listed out on paper in exquisite detail. Of course.

And as a practical, results-oriented person, you recognize the importance of taking consistent, focused action toward your goals (or your outcomes, if you prefer that term).

You’re also well aware of the importance of refreshing your mental and emotional connection with your goals, and that it must be done again and again, every single day.

You Already Know All of This, Right?

• Knowing and holding a vision of what you want
• Committing your goals to paper, in specific detail
• Regularly reviewing your goals
• Having an action plan, including backup contingencies
• Implementing that plan
• Adjusting the details of your plan when needed
• A plan also for controlling your own attitudes
• Persistence

Yep, you already know all of this, and you know that anything on earth you want to achieve can be done by following this list. But how are you doing with it? Please notice that the list features four primary factors.

1. Vision
2. Commitment
3. Implementation
4. Persistence

This is all well and good, but the point I want to make here is that there’s nothing glamorous or sexy or dazzling about that list. It’s plain, pedestrian stuff. All just commonsense and work.

There’s no magic pill, no mention of the famous Law of Attraction, no requirement for genius, nor extra-powerful mental faculties. Just doing the basics. And keeping on doing the basics. Every day, every day, every day.

Unfortunately, in the self help field, there’s a huge emphasis on the glitter of “the Universe will do it all for you” but there’s less mention of just how much you can (and should) do for yourself.

So for what it’s worth, and I truly do hope you’re paying attention here, because this is a biggie:

The Universe never wastes synchronicity on people who are not already in motion.

If you’ve been doing visualization, programming, chanting, meditation, or any other technique in the hopes that you won’t have to go out into the real world and get your hands dirty doing “real stuff,” then you need to wake up. The clean-hands approach is out of favor with the Universe, folks. In fact, the Universe appears to prefer people with a little grime under their fingernails. Folks who aren’t too good to pitch in and work, who don’t get discouraged if something doesn’t succeed the first time, who will scramble back up after repeated falls and try and try again.

The Universe rewards vision and positive thinking, yes, absolutely. But… only in the presence of a catalyst. Without that catalyst, there’s no power to a vision or a wish. They’re a dime a dozen.

That catalyst is grit. Scramble. Moxie. Spunk. Spirit. The ability to pick your ass up off the ground again, dust yourself off again, and go at it again, even harder than before.

Vision alone is worthless. Hopes and desires and wishes unaccompanied by drive will buy you exactly… nothing.

Of course in some circles this kind of drive is considered low and coarse. Maybe even abrasive and distasteful. The only problem is, it’s this kind of drive that gets results. It’s what receives the smile of the Universe in the form of synchronicity, and so-called “good luck.”

So the things you’re doing to try and reach your goals, are they working? Or are you still right where you were one or five or ten years ago?

Are you still doing the same things today that didn’t work last year? If so, I’ve got some bad news for you. You’re insane.

The good news is, that kind of insanity can be cured. And quickly, too. All it takes is making some changes to what you’re doing. But not just any old random changes. After all, such moves might or might not lead in a useful direction. No, random change alone is not the answer.

Want to know the secret of effective, success-causing change? Here it is. Pay attention.

No, Really, That’s it… Pay Attention.

When you try something, pay attention to the results you get. If they’re not what you want, try something else. If the results you get are better, then do more of that. If the results are worse, go in the opposite direction. This will gradually lead you to where you want to be. Simple, huh?

Also pay very, very careful attention to what other people are doing. Especially note those who are successfully doing what you want to do. Notice their behavior, their methods and their techniques. If they’re getting good results, it means that they’ve already done a lot of the trial and error for you. Model what they’re doing. (By the way, “model” is a nice, scientific sounding word that simply means you should shamelessly copy and imitate successful behavior.)

Note also that it’s impossible to copy and imitate without action, motion, doing things. Here we are back to the need for action again.

Let me reinforce this idea: The Universe loves focused, directed action. It saves its richest rewards for creativity – for people who make things happen – while it utterly ignores passivity and stasis.

So get your butt in gear, because just sitting there visualizing or wishing, with no supporting action and no change in results – that’s just insanity.

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles

Of course, it doesn’t mean we’ll actually carry out those goals and resolutions, but most of the time we do think we will (or at least hope we will).

With that thought in mind, how would you like to prepare your mind in advance to succeed with your next batch of goals (resolutions)?

Implement these 7 suggestions and you’ll find yourself persisting with your projects, achieving them rather than giving up.

1. Stop asking others for their approval

Your dream is yours, and you don’t need anybody else’s okay to go after it. Permission only needs to come from you. Of course you’d like to have the encouragement of those around you, but don’t make that a condition of beginning.

It’s your dream, your vision of a future reality, and talking about it with anybody who’ll listen is the surest way possible to drain all your creative energy out of the idea. It’ll waste your time and energy. And worse, your idea will simply die from inattention. All the time you spend chasing others’ approval of your project takes time away from the project itself.

2. Don’t get it perfect, just get it out there

If you’re the kind of person who won’t turn loose of your “baby” and instead endlessly adjust and fine-tune and tweak it, trying to get it perfect – if that’s you – then stop it. Stop it now.

If you wait till you can do something perfectly, you will die never having done anything at all.

Just dive in and make a start. Drive forward and make it good, but not perfect. Then turn it loose to the world. Frankly, the world neither needs nor wants perfect. It just wants something that’ll do the job for them right now.

Achieving goals and resolutions is a bit like riding a bicycle. If you wait till your balance is perfect before you start peddling, you’ll never get anywhere. It’s far easier to adjust your balance, your direction and your speed once you’re in motion.

3. You’ll have to MAKE the time

If you’re waiting till you can find the time to get started, I have some bad news for you. That extra time will never be available. You’ll have to make the time, or your precious project won’t get done. Ever

Talking about how you don’t have the time right now – well, that’s a bit of a foolish thing to say. It’s an excuse. You always, always do the things that are most important to you. And if your “goal” isn’t important enough for you to make the time, then no matter what excuse you cover it with, the truth is that you don’t want to do your goal very much.

But if you’ll push aside the things that are “getting in the way” and just boldly, stubbornly insist on doing what you’ve promised yourself you’ll do, then you’ll achieve your goals.

4. But it takes a REAL decision

If you think you’ve made decisions in the past but didn’t follow through with them, you’re kidding yourself. REAL decisions produce results. Period. If a decision doesn’t lead to achievement, then it wasn’t a decision.

And if you want a good indicator of the strength of your decisions and your determination, make a list of all the projects you’ve started in the past couple of years. Now check off all the ones you completed.

All the rest, no matter what your “reason” may be, are a measure of just how gullible you are for your own excuses. If you’re not finishing most of the things you start, we know two things.

First, you aren’t very careful about the goals you choose, picking up things that you don’t care very much about. In other words, you’re taking wishes and calling them goals.

And second, you don’t keep your promises.

5. You’re the one in charge – so be bold

Have some moxie! Some balls! You’re the one responsible for your dreams. Nobody else will bring them into reality, and if you don’t do it, it isn’t going to happen. Be proactive and even a little aggressive in going after what you want.

And for goodness sake, quit sharing your ideas with anybody who isn’t an active member of your project. Are you waiting around for somebody to give you permission? Or offer suggestions and guidance? Don’t.

Don’t sit. Don’t wait. Don’t fiddle around. It’s your life – quit wasting it.

6. What is your dream worth to you?

Ideas are – as they say – a dime a dozen, and nobody is going to be bowled over by yet another “brilliant” idea. What people will be impressed by is action. Leadership and initiative. Taking charge and getting things done.

Sure, you hear great stories of some angel investor who puts up funds and helps a project become a huge success. But don’t sit around on your thumb waiting for an angel to appear. Investors are just like the rest of the world. They don’t need more ideas. But they do need doers – people who will pick up the ball and run with it on their own.

Now, in order to achieve your goal, you may need to educate yourself, gain know-how and expertise, before you can get things moving. Well, more know-how never hurt anybody. And I’m not talking about endless studying, or analysis paralysis. This is about getting the expertise you need to keep the project moving unremittingly forward.

7. You can’t do everything first

Guard yourself against getting drawn off into tangents. Stay focused on the central task, so that you can avoid side projects and activities which don’t lead directly to your goal. Try to do too many unrelated things, and you’ll just confuse and frustrate yourself. It’s easy to recognize when this is happening. You begin feeling overwhelmed and your energy starts to ebb.

The easiest way to keep yourself on target is to write down your goal, and then write a detailed list of the tasks that lead directly to it.

Trying to do everything won’t work. But when you focus down on one thing at a time, it’s easy to keep on track.

Do these seven things and your goals and resolutions for 2011 are far more likely to become reality.

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles

As you probably know, Tourettes syndrome is characterized by being unable to stop oneself from bursting out with inappropriate exclamations. Most people know the form that forces the suffer to spout profanity at unexpected moments. This condition is no laughing matter, and nobody should ever make fun of anyone with Tourettes.

At the same time, it’s also important to maintain a healthy sense of humor and the ability to imagine the kind of situations that may result from this condition.

Okay – you’ve been warned. If you still want to click the play button, it’s at your own initiative.

More self help therapy…Banjodeano style

The second item was about a brain research discovery.

It seems that a brain researcher (sorry, don’t have his name) accidentally found that simply asking a question can nudge people instantly into producing alpha brain waves.

He had someone wired up to an EEG machine, which was displaying their brain waves. At that point he simply asked them a casual question, and immediately their brain waves shifted into a perfect synchronous alpha pattern.

Just a simple question, for goodness sake.

Now, you may have heard of afformations before. If so, you’ll already be up to speed on this. But if not, read the article below and keep in mind that anytime your mind entertains a question, that’s enough to pop you instantly into alpha level. Yes, the same alpha level where life changes are created.

So today’s guest author Trevor ES Smith challenges us with…

Affirm! Affirm! Affirm! Here’s Why NOT
by Trevor ES Smith

The reality is that Affirmations are an established part of life today. We rely on them to boost us to achieve success. And they work to some extent. They keep our goals in focus and motivate us at the conscious level.

The challenge with affirmations is that sustained results are really controlled at the subconscious level. The subconscious records all our actions and identifies patterns of behaviour that it uses to formulate an image of who we are. This image that is etched into our subconscious plays a significant role in determining our future actions.

We are all fitted with an internal “teleprompter”. Our teleprompter throws up thoughts, words and actions for us to use. Right now, a range of those are coming into your head. Your teleprompter is at work.

Your Teleprompter’s Only Job

Now, you will notice that your teleprompter usually presents content that it thinks will be appealing to you. The source that supplies us with prompts does not want to send ideas that will be rejected. It prompts in accordance with deep-rooted habits. Some prompts will just not appeal to you.

The fact is that your teleprompter is directed by your subconscious which has a record of your every thought, word and deed. So the teleprompter is guided to motivate you to think thoughts, speak words and perform actions that are aligned to the image that your subconscious has of you.

That is why behavioural change is so difficult. While we are reciting affirmations at the conscious level the subconscious is funnelling invitations to our conscious mind that might be diametrically opposed to the affirmations.

The Critical Factor

Hypnosis guru Gerald Kein presents the concept of what he calls the Critical Factor that plays a gate-keeping role between our conscious and subconscious minds. The mechanism that filters messages coming from our conscious minds to our subconscious is focused on protecting the status quo. It recognizes our established style and any ideas that run contrary to that image are blocked.

That explains why so many attempts to quit smoking are not sustained. The same thing with fitness programmes. We march into those projects with affirmations in tow. However, the subconscious crowds out the affirmations with prompts that fit the image that is etched into it.

That is why the distinction between affirmations and Afformations is so vitally important in your quest for success. Afformations is a clever technique for bypassing the gate-keeper to the subconscious mind and getting ideas into your teleprompter that would normally be blocked.

Taking the Side Door In

The technique tricks the gate-keeper, whose role is to stop new ideas that come from your conscious thoughts, from interfering with what your subconscious has grown used to accepting as reality.

Afformations use the mind’s need to find answers to unlock paths to greater happiness, improved health and fitness, stronger relationships and overall fulfillment.

The mind is trained to find answers to questions that are asked of it. It is in automatic research mode. Its job is to find answers. So, the secret to success then, is to ask our minds the right questions!

Think back to times when something slips your mind and you just can’t put your finger on it when you need it? You then give up in frustration and move to something else. Presto: “I remember now…” This is an instance in which by giving our subconscious minds room to find answers we get the desired result.

That is how Afformations work. Ask the right (empowering) questions and move on so that your mind gets the opportunity to find the answers. Do NOT interfere. That would be like storming around fuming in search of the misplaced item. Ask your positive, empowering questions and move on!

I am a firm believer in the effectiveness of Afformations in support of believing prayer.

How to Use Afformations

If the goal is to be a great spouse, you raise it in prayer and afform it in the form of this type of empowering question: “Why am I such a thoughtful, caring spouse?”

Resist the urge to give up because of the flood of prompts from the subconscious that questions how you could even think that, given the historical situation. Your job is to ask the empowering questions repeatedly and leave the answers to your mind.

This much is true. Show me the output of your teleprompter and I will tell you where you have been and where you are headed. Start re-programming your subconscious today with empowering Afformations!

Trevor ES Smith is an author and a people skills and performance enhancement specialist with the Success with People Academy. He is a hands-on practitioner in the areas of Inter-personal relations, Marketing, Sales, HR and Management processes.

He presents unique perspectives on inter-personal relationships, leadership, team building, customer service, supervisory management, technology and time mastery. Learn more here

Back to Charles:
Sort of simple, isn’t it? Sit down, get a little bit quiet, and then, instead of telling yourself about your desired future, just ask yourself a question about it. And keep on asking it. And keep on still further.

Here’s a tip – whatever you do, don’t sit there and try to answer that question. That’s your subconscious mind’s job. You’re just asking and exploring.

And waiting to accept the ideas, revelations and answers that will come later.

Did you catch that? They come later.

So here’s my question for you: How would this simple method change the results you’re getting?

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles

In a recent video, he demonstrated one of his techniques for quickly ending anxiety and worries. This technique, which he calls his “double duo,” appears to be loosely based on the highly regarded EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). EMDR is highly regarded and is used by mental health professionals all around the world.

Now watch this short video as Burt gives us a fast, easy way to create the same effect. Believe me, using it is a snap.

Burt Goldman’s Dynamic Duo Method to Defuse Problems Fast

Take this technique, use it, and enjoy feeling better fast.

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles