Gotta Get Goals

As most of you will recall, awhile ago I started the Simply Successful Secrets interactive research project.

I am proud to say that the project is still going strong and I haven't tallied up the responses yet because so many people are still participating.

Also, my buddy Alex Shalman has put together a wonderful addendum to this project called Gotta Get Goals, and I am very happy to help Alex get his version of this idea off the ground.

As with the Simply Successful Secrets project, Alex's version is truly going to help people by causing them to take a moment and actually write out the details of what makes them tick.

This has proven to be an invaluable effort that Simply Successful Secrets participants have made, and when it comes to the subject of Alex's version - Goal Setting - I see a huge similar benefit for the people who participate.

Alex, is the model of "giving back" as you can see from his many posts, not the least of which being his awesome Donation Contest.

So, without any further rambling from me, let's get this party started!

Summary of the Rules

In a new post, write about the top 5 to 10 goals that you "gotta get" so that you can truly say you have achieved your wildest dreams in life. These have to be your best, most exclusive, and over-the-top goals.

Put a link and/or a trackback to Alex's original post so he can track the project, and also so he can put up a link to your website after the project has run its course.

Tag as many people as you like, and be sure to put a link in your own post back to the site of the person who tagged you.

These "memes" are not about utilizing your valuable time, but rather about interacting with, learning from, and supporting each other. Spread the link love and the love will come right back to you!

That's it, that's all. Easy and fun to do, and also beneficial to you, as well as to all who read your list.

On that note, here is MY list, and you will see from reading it that I aim for the stars because I know that I can reach them. I encourage every single one of you to do the same!!

Aaron's Gotta Get Goals

1) Build my business ventures so that they bring in $50,000 per month in residual income.

Why $50,000, you ask? Isn't that a bit greedy? Hardly.

That money will be used to pay healthy salaries to employees, to sock away enough cash for all of my family members to live comfortably forever, and for me to travel the world helping my friends and family members, as well as spending quality time with them on a VERY regular basis. Come to think of it, I might need more than $50,000 each month…

2) Travel frequently to visit the aforementioned friends and family, and have complete time and financial freedom during those visits.

I have lived in many places, and I have been an Internet junkie since the get-go. I know and care deeply for people all over the U.S. and my goal is to be able to visit them often, and stay for long periods of time.

3) To maintain a high level of health, and to live for a very long time.

Anyone who knows me well also knows that I like to party and have a good time. However, most people will also attest to the fact that when the party is over, my body goes looking for a salad and some exercise.

I enjoy physical fitness so that I can also enjoy bouts of not worrying about every single calorie that I ingest. Everything in moderation!

4) Travel just for the sake of travel.

I love being on the open road, and it is a rare occasion when I will turn down a road trip.

Whether you are talking about the sands of Key West, the Na Pali Coast (thanks Michelle for the picture and the memories), or just kicking around whatever town I happen to be in, I am all about exploring the world.

Europe, Africa, Australia, Alaska - yup, they are all on the list, and many more!

5) The beach, Bitterman! You know how much I LOVE the beach!

(Sorry, Arthur reference)

My daily visualizations include me standing on the back deck of the house that I own in St. Augustine, FL. I only live about 45 minutes north of there right now, so that journey is already well underway!

6) A beautiful house in the mountains.

The only thing that trips my homesteader trigger as much as having a house on the beach is having a house in the mountains.

I love to hike and would like to learn to ski sometime, and I also FULLY appreciate the majesty and the timelessness of mountain and hill country.

The ideal spot will include a huge back deck that looks down into a lush, green valley, beyond which mountain peaks can be seen for miles. The Pacific Northwest is the likely geography, probably north of Seattle, WA.

Well, I think that about covers it!

I did not include things like successful relationships because I feel that I create those from moment to moment. I am already married and I have a great family and a lot of wonderful friends. The "people factor" in my goals is to just keep what I already have, and to meet new people as well.

I also did not include the cars and other mechanical or technical toys that I want because although I enjoy those things, they are secondary to things like seeing the world, having nice homes, and spending time with the people that I care about.

Tagging

Alex has already tagged a lot of the people that I want to hear from, but here is an addendum to his original list:

Chris Garrett - Chris Garrett on New Media

Drew McLellan - Drew's Marketing Minute

Kathy Mallary - The Inspired Market-her's Blog

Kelly - A Yoga Coffee Outlook

Grigor - Behind the Glasses

Christine Kane - Christine Kane Blog

Shauna and Ophelia - Breathing Prosperity

Liz Strauss - Successful Blog

Gayla McChord - MomGadget

Johan Holmberg - The Probabilist

Antonio Thornton - ThinkBanc

Don't forget! Everyone has goals, so tag to your little heart's content! Maybe if we can find out what is making us humans "tick," we can also start creating a world where those things are available in abundance!

p.s. - This is a chance to write in stone (aka - on the Internet) what you are planning to accomplish in your life. If you can't even take the time to write it down, what makes you think you will take the time to actually do it?

The 4 Hidden Secret Steps to Starting or Maintaining a Successful Business

Although this blog is primarily about personal development, self improvement, and the Law of Attraction, I don't know very many people who are not involved in some sort of business venture.

Even people who do not "work" in the traditional sense of the word are still involved in various endeavors that they wish to attain or maintain success in.

If you define success as the attainment of a given goal, whether that goal is personal or professional, understanding the effective success strategies is just as important.

So, whether your "business" is a business in the traditional sense of the word, or if it is merely the day to day plan that your life follows, your success can be assured by knowing the following secret steps:

1) Realizing that the success of your business is not a hard and fast destination.

By considering a point in the future that you will deem yourself as having accomplished the mission or achieved success, you are already limiting the energy that you will put into your efforts to get to that point.

A simple way to demonstrate this is in the physical fitness arena. Almost all exercises are done with a defined stopping point where you have crossed the finished line, finished moving the weight, completed the movement, etc.

In repeated studies, it has been shown that athletes, as they near the end of any particular event or movement, begin to anticipate the completion point, and start to measurably decrease their effort.

Athletes who were made aware of this tendency before their event put forth a more explosive and sustained effort every single time, and as a result lifted more weight, used more muscle fibers, ran faster, etc.

Don't anticipate the "end" of your endeavors. Whether your endeavor is as simple as ordering a cup of coffee, or as complicated as building a multi-national business, never foresee the end.

Play full-out in every single thing that you do, with absolutely no end in site.

Pretend that every action you take is the one single opportunity that you will have to bring success into your life, and give that action the attention and the effort you would give it if that were actually the case.

2) Realizing that it is all about You.

In every single moment of your life there is one person - and only one person - who dictates whether or not that moment is a success. That person is, of course, you.

However, especially when we get involved in larger and more complicated endeavors, we tend to start being critical of how others are performing, even to the point of laying blame when something goes wrong.

Well, things will go wrong. That is just the nature of life. However, it is your individual reaction to both the successes as well as the roadblocks that are part of your project that will deem whether or not that project is ultimately a success.

If you "roll with the punches" as unexpected things happen, and then you get back up with a smile on your face, ready to face the next challenge, then every challenge you face will become something that can be overcome.

However, if you let the performance of other people (or lack thereof) become a defining factor in how you feel about your success, then you instantly put the success of your endeavors (or lack thereof) into the hands of other people.

On the other hand, by remaining calm, centered, still, and strong no matter what happens, you will remain in control of everything that is involved with you attaining success.

3) Focusing on the goal, regardless of the circumstances.

If you have ever worked in a corporate environment, you have probably heard a manager use some sort of buzz-phrase like "team cohesion" or had them refer to the company's "mission" as an end-around way of saying that you need to modify your plan of attack for the "greater good".

Those of you focused on a family or socially-centered goal may have heard this referred to as "taking one for the team".

Ummm….what is the best way to put this?

NO!

Don't do it. A lack of focus on a defined goal is the cause of more sub-par results in life and in business than could reasonably be measured on any scale that I have ever heard of.

By allowing yourself to be distracted by the circumstances and events that unfold after you have gotten started on your path to goal attainment will only allow you to get cleanly and efficiently OFF of that path!

I am not saying that you shouldn't consider the needs of others, or that you should not give time and consideration to the other people who are affected by your actions.

However, there is a difference between throwing your own plan of action out the window vs. modifying your plan so that you can remain focused and effective while also being flexible enough to handle unexpected factors.

Use your "peripheral vision" as needed to adjust the course of your own path, but never take a completely different road because something unexpected happens.

If you take your eyes off the prize, someone may steal it when you aren't looking!

4) Remembering why you are doing it to begin with.

Everyone has great ideas about having success in various endeavors, and there is usually a large amount of excitement in the beginning.

People who start exciting new positions, get involved with a great new weight loss program, or simply decide to start making some positive changes in their lives are all very into the idea at first.

However, it is human nature to not sustain a high level of emotion about anything for any extended period of time. Whether you are talking about extreme happiness or extreme sadness, eventually the "effect" wears off and the feelings aren't as strong as they once were.

In order to combat this issue, you need to remind yourself frequently - preferably on a daily basis - about why it is that you are involved in that endeavor to begin with.

Some people are firm believers in affirmation and visualization techniques, while others think such non-measurable practices are less than effective.

Regardless of which of those camps you fall into, one clear benefit of visualizing and affirming your success is that you are constantly being reminded of what it is that you are working towards.

Someone who is proficient at affirming and visualizing also knows that in order to really get the most bang for their buck, they must also use the power of emotion.

By constantly putting yourself into the feeling place of having accomplished your goals, you will also constantly remind yourself of why you want to accomplish them. There is a certain feeling that goal attainment will bring into your life, and you want that feeling.

Remember, it's not the cars, the houses, and the money that we are after, but rather the way that the cars, the houses, and the money will make us feel.

Find a way to remind yourself daily of what feelings you are trying to bring into your life.

Bringing it all together

As you have seen, these "secret steps" are not tasks that you need to accomplish in order to achieve success, but rather something far more important - your state of mind.

Your state of mind is far and away the most productive tool that you have at your disposal, but if used improperly, it can also be the most destructive tool as well.

Do not allow yourself to be caught up in the day to day details of how to be productive, how to dot your i's and cross your t's, or how to stay on the "right" path to achieve success.

By keeping your state of mind where it needs to be, you will find a way to ensure that every road ultimately leads to your destination!

Self Improvement and Law of Attraction Link Love, Volume 6

This is Volume 6 of the Self Improvement and Law of Attraction Link Love series.

This series will be published weekly and will be comprised of links to quality blog posts that have proven to be extraordinary in their ability to assist, inform, or empower the reader. Enjoy!

1) Practical Personal Development - Alex Shalman at Practical Personal Development (a blog about self help and personal growth is hosting a Donation Contest in which you press a button and he donates a dollar. Alex is a stand up guy, and I definitely recommend that you check out his cool effort for charity.

2) Success from the Nest - Tony Clark's post Make Envy Your Friend explains how our reaction to things that happen can be used as fuel for our own success.

3) The Positivity Blog - Henrik Edberg's post One Simple Way to Get a Good Idea is valuable not just for writers or people in business, but for people struggling to find solutions for personal issues as well.

4) Scott H. Young - Double Your Reading Rate is an excellent piece that includes several different levels of consideration for ways to get the most out your reading time.

5) Steve Olson - Leave it to a quality individual like Steve to come up with something positive out of what most consider to be a bad thing. Read his take on What Death Teaches Us About Life.

6) Live the Power - In No Matter What, Karen does an excellent job of pointing out why some people get what they want with the Law of Attraction, while others don't. Even more importantly, she teaches about following your passion!

7) Achieve-IT - Brad Isaac has a great post called Advantages Of Acting Over Being Careful in which he puts forth the obvious as well as the not so obvious benefits of taking action to achieve your dreams.

8) Brian Kim - In his post Why The Underdog Team Pulls Off The Upset, Brian not only breaks down a real-world truth of existence, but he also explains why some people tend to ignore this obvious, but simple concept.

9) Breathing Prosperity - Shauna has a great post entitled Law of Attraction: You Are Who You Hang Out With where she explains that if you want to move forward in life, you must be prepared to hear and deal with the implications of the phrase "You've changed".

10) Random Cool Sites - Item #10 this week includes a couple of websites that I think are worth a few minutes of your time, even though {gasp!} they aren't blogs!

MyGratitudeRocks.com - Cool tools to remind us all that the power of Gratitude is one of our greatest assets.

Don't Click It - Think you can kick the habit? Try out this new concept on web design - No clicks allowed!

That's it for this week! As always, much appreciation to our contributors for their time and their insights!

Is the Law of Attraction the Perfect Scam?

Did you ever seen the original Terminator movie?

There was one part where the psychologist is saying that Reese is crazy, and that his belief in the Terminators being from the future is the perfect fantasy because it doesn't require a shred of evidence.

The Law of Attraction is just like that!

Whether you are a believer or a non-believer there is absolutely no way to prove that you are right - or that you are wrong.

Much like the concept of religion, you see what you want to see when it comes to the Law of Attraction.

Believers will tell you that everything they manifested was a direct result of them properly following the LOA principles.

However, non-believers will try some of the techniques, not see astounding results, and exclaim (if I may borrow James Arthur Ray's comments):

"This stuff doesn't work!"

To once again compare conscious creation to religion, most people will say that having faith or belief is the key to invoking the almighty powers that be.

However, just like religion, if you see (or don't see) results when using the Law of Attraction it is quite impossible to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the LOA was responsible for your results - or lack thereof.

This becomes even more apparent (and non-believers will love this) when the acquisition of dreams by people who use the LOA always and only end up coming about as the result of very down-to-earth and explainable events.

Believers will say that those events would never have happened if it hadn't been for their faith and proper application of the methods, while non-believers will say that the whole thing is a bunch of nonsense.

Who is right?

What if someone were to come up to you and ask you for irrefutable evidence that your faith in and proper practice of your religion was responsible for some amazing turn of events in your life?

Could you prove scientifically that your religion was the direct and only cause for that turn of events?

And before someone calls out the dogs and wants to burn me at the stake for sacrilege, I am not saying that people should not honor their religious beliefs.Quite to the contrary, actually.

If your belief in your religion and your faith in your deity is what allows you to believe that you need to make a conscious effort to live a proper lifestyle, and that you will be rewarded for doing so, then by all means, please keep the faith.

After all, that is exactly what is expected of LOA believers. There are methods and systems for properly and deliberately creating the life that you want to live, and if you fail to honor those guidelines, you don't get what you wanted.

So, is the whole Law of Attraction thing just a scam that is being pulled on the world at large just to line the pockets of a few choice individuals?

Or maybe it is just a belief system that provides a guideline for how to live a prosperous and wonderful life.

There is no way to know, because as I mentioned before, the entire thing - whether you believe it or not - does not require a shred of scientific evidence.

You know. Just like religion.

Personal Development Pop Quiz: Why do you Work?

I am just going to lay this on the line from the get-go:

If your answer to the question of why you work was anything other than because you enjoy what you do, then you need to quit your job.

Maybe not today or tomorrow, or even next week or next month, but certainly in the very near future.

Why? Because if you do anything in life that you don't actually want to do - career-related or otherwise - you are sending the message to yourself that you have no choice. You are a victim of circumstance, and even though you hate your job, you have no choice but to work there.

• Every single time you commute to a job that you do not like, you are reinforcing the fact that you are not in control of your life.
• Each time you have an unpleasant experience with a co-worker or customer at a job that you don't want, you are reinforcing the belief that you have no choice but to put up with those types of circumstances.
• Every time you get a paycheck that is less than you want it to be, you cement in your subconscious that you can't find a way to make more money.
• Each time your job keeps you from attending a family or social event that you want to attend, you are pounding the message home that your life's path is being dictated by someone other than yourself.

You can probably come up with dozens of other ways that your job or your present career choice helps to reinforce your inner belief that this is "just the way it is".

NOTHING is just the way it is! If you don't like "the way it is," then change it!

Why do people keep jobs that they don't want?

Oh, there are as many excuses reasons as there are individual circumstances, but each of them boils down to exactly the same thing: self-limiting beliefs.

People don't pursue work or business opportunities doing the types of things that they truly want to do because they don't believe that it is actually possible.

They think that given their upbringing, their heritage, their geography, their resources, their education, {insert more excuses reasons here}, that it is not possible for them to achieve career success or enjoyment.

That, of course, is ridiculous.

Anyone can do anything that they want to do, if they truly want to do it.

The problem is that even though the average person would be happy to admit that there is some circumstance of their life that they would like to change, only about 1%-5% of those same people will actually do what it takes to effect that change.

Desire is the first and most important key to attaining all things in life. If you do not have the job that you want to have right now, you need to realize the painful truth:

You don't want out of that situation badly enough, because if you did, you would make it happen.

Yes, yes, I know. This all sounds good "on paper" but in reality, there are bills to pay.

LACK!

That is all that is demonstrated by a statement like that. You are perceiving the world as being a place of LACK, when in all actuality, the world is a place of ABUNDANCE.

Check out this post at Breathing Prosperity and then see if you don't reconsider whether or not there is enough money in the world.

Unfortunately, most people tend to think that there isn't enough "stuff" for everyone. There isn't enough money. There aren't enough good jobs. There aren't enough business opportunities. There isn't enough time for training and education.

LACK. LACK. LACK. LACK.

If that is your attitude, then you will be involved in a career that is less than what you want it to be for the rest of your life.

Am I advising you to just chuck it all, tell your boss to take a hike, and then hope a miracle shows up to save your car before it gets repossessed? No, not at all.

However, I am telling you that if you want to do something that you will truly enjoy as a career, then you need to take whatever steps are necessary in order to make that happen.

Get the ball rolling by doing some research, looking into your options, getting some education, putting together a list of goals, maybe even a vision board.

Do SOMETHING to send the message to yourself that you are going to find work that you want to do, stay focused on that dream on a daily basis, and eventually (sooner, rather than later), the opportunity for you to make a positive and permanent change will present itself.

Or, you can just ignore this entire message, and go back to doing whatever work you were doing before you read it. If you take that route, however, ask yourself this:

If you can't take control of something as simple as enjoying what you do for a paycheck, how much control do you think you will have over the other areas of your life?

Think about it.

Interview with Success Training Network President Darren Hardy

In the recent post entitled Personal Development Success on Demand, I detailed some of the reasons why The Success Training Network(aff) is an incredibly valuable resource for anyone who wants to maximize their personal development efforts.

Just this morning I received an update from the blog of Darren Hardy, the president of TSTN, with a link to a short video interview that Darren did on the Modest to Millions show.

Darren became a self-made millionaire at the age of 27, and when you watch this short clip, you will see that he clearly has the most critical factor for success - passion.

He is already a millionaire, but when you see him in action you would think that he was still at the start-up phase of his business. He is so passionate about what TSTN stands for, and what they can help other people to accomplish.

The interview is only 7 minutes long, and is worth you checking out. Click the picture below to open a new window to view the video, and then click on over to check out The Success Training Network(aff) for yourself.

Click to watch Video

New Law of Attraction Blog Carnival Posted

Edward at Evolving Times just put up the new Law of Attraction Blog Carnival, and it is chock full of great posts!

This edition was dedicated specifically to discussing the movie 'The Secret' and I am happy to say that people chimed in with a lot of different points of view.

Not everyone thinks the movie is the best thing since sliced bread, but all positive thinkers know that we can all improve our lives by practicing conscious creation.

Check out this edition of the carnival over at Evolving Times, and be sure to read through the many different points of view that are presented by the authors.

Also, I am proud to announce that the Today is that Day blog will be hosting the next edition of the Law of Attraction Carnival, which will be based around the following topic:

"How to properly use emotions or reactions to other people in order to maximize the benefits of the Law of Attraction."

If you would like to submit a blog post to that edition of the carnival, or if you just want more information, be sure to click on over to the Law of Attraction Carnival homepage.

Much appreciation to Edward for his efforts at maintaining the longest running blog carnival about the Law of Attraction ever created. Edward also hosts a BlogRadio program now, so be sure to check that out as well!

I have a WAY? Is that better than a plan?

I just saw a Sci-Fi movie called 'Serenity', and I wish I could recommend it, but it really wasn't that great. However, it was corny and fairly off-kilter full of special effects, so if that is your thing, be sure to check it out.

However, this post isn't a movie review, but rather a big tip of the hat to one of the things that was said in the movie that made the 90+ minutes worth the time invested…

One of the main characters is your average space-cowboy ship captain, and he is trying to keep his rag-tag ship and crew in one piece as they go about trying to save the day.

At one point he is consulting with the ever-present wise old mentor-type, and relaying the fact that his plan of action to get out of their present mess is something less than heroic.

Certainly not what you would expect from the space-cowboy captain and star of the show…

His mentor gives him the all-knowing smile and tells the space-cowboy that he isn't going to pursue that plan of action because it isn't his "way".

Space-cowboy, who was feeling pretty good about his plan to cut losses and leave the battle, says the following:

"I have a way? Is that better than a plan?"

I wanted to get off the couch and applaud! What a simple and telling set of questions that describe our entire lives!

Each of us is a conscious creator of our own lives, and we live the lives that we do based on - and only on - the things that we truly want to experience.

Yes, I can hear the objections coming out of the audience already, but in your heart, you know it to be true. We create both the success in our lives, as well as the lack of it.

You don't have to believe in the Law of Attraction in order to believe that you are in control of your own destiny. Your thoughts become your beliefs, which become your habits, which in turn become your lifestyle. It's a point of fact.

However, in blindly trying to control our lives and to take the actions that we believe are going to bring us the experiences that we want, we tend to flail about wildly believing in something as fleeting and non-grounded as a plan?

Whose brilliant idea was that? Base your entire future around a plan of action that you make which only includes the beliefs and experiences you have had up to that point?

Sure, I have no doubt that your "plan" sounds great when you make it, but what happens when the circumstances change?

What are you going to do when your master plan falls flat on its face because the beliefs and experiences you had when you made that plan were not sufficient to see the big picture?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that you shouldn't plan things out. To the contrary - I am a firm believer in a good solid plan of attack.

However, a plan is meant to be 2 things:

1. Temporary
2. Flexible

Your plan should be a temporary solution that will take you from point A to point B. Also, your plan should be flexible enough to allow for the variables that will most likely effect the outcome of any given situation.

Who you are on the inside, however - your way - is infinitely more important.

• You wouldn't plan to get married to someone who wanted children if you didn't want to be married or if you had no interest in child-rearing.
• You wouldn't plan to go to law school if you didn't want to be a lawyer or have some other job in the justice system.
• You wouldn't plan to become an entomologist if you hated bugs.
• You wouldn't plan to open up a restaurant at the mall if you disliked crowds and/or if you detested teenagers.

In each of those examples - and infinitely more just like them - people don't plan to do things that they have no interest in or aptitude for. It is not their way.

A "plan" is just that - a plan. It is a series of events or circumstances that will ultimately lead to the accomplishment of some goal. Some plans are long-term, some are short-term.

However, being true to who you are as an individual is a lifelong pursuit. You've been doing it since you were born and you'll keep on doing it until you die.

Your understanding of who you are and what you are all about may change as you learn more about life and about yourself. Nonetheless, as you learn more, you simply learn better ways to become who you believe you are supposed to be.

As you go through life asking yourself at various moments whether or not you should turn left or turn right, ask yourself which choice will allow you to honor your way.

I think you will find there is always a transport willing to take you in that direction.

Self Improvement and Law of Attraction Link Love, Volume 5

This is Volume 5 of the Self Improvement and Law of Attraction Link Love series.

This series will be published weekly and will be comprised of links to quality blog posts that have proven to be extraordinary in their ability to assist, inform, or empower the reader. Enjoy!

1) Steve Olson - The Truth About Oprah Winfrey - The Secret - and Poverty - If you read nothing else on this page, read this post! Steve lays it down like it really is, and I got up and gave him a mental standing ovation after reading this post, which clearly came from the heart!

2) Creating Passionate Users - Too many companies are like bad marriages - Whether you own a business, or just want to keep your relationships on the right track, this is a down-to-earth must read.

3) The Positivity Blog - One Easy Way to Remember Someone´s Name - For many people, their brain deals in images better than in words, and this simple lifehack is a great way to take advantage of that fact.

4) Practical Personal Development - Becoming An Outstanding Person | Silence - Week 2 of 12 - Turns out that the phrase "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" has real merit, and Alex brings it home in a short, but informative manner.

5) Seth Godin - Where do you park? - Once again with Seth, this is geared more towards businesses, but I very much see how his concept of which type of attitude to have can apply to every single situation that we find ourselves in. Also, it's a quick read.

6) Live the Power - Lucky - Karen cranks out some SERIOUS wisdom about just who is holding your lucky charm.

7) Shards of Consciousness - What will I do later? - Excellent observations about exactly which timeframe you should be focusing on to achieve success. Care to take a guess before you read the post? Also, be sure to catch the "snifty" name!

8) Success from the Nest - Distractions Speak Louder Than Words - This is great stuff that I have been telling people for a long time. Be prepared to work and focus, but be just as prepared NOT to!

9) Successful and Outstanding Bloggers - Time to Spend and to Save - Liz does a great job of capturing a beautiful concept in a short amount of time. Be sure to catch the last line right before her signature…

10) Live the Power - Lessons in Visualization - I know that we already heard from Karen at Live the Power, but this post of hers was too good to pass up. She clearly shows the power of visualization when considering it as a path to your future, not a chore to be done today. If you visualize - and you should - read this post!

Okay, that's it for this week, and once again, my extreme gratitude to our authors. I am both inspired by their works, and grateful for their presence!

See you next week!

Naked pictures of Antonella Barba Kill Captain America!

NEWSFLASH: A blow was delivered to the American spirit of safety and security today when superhero Captain America was felled by an assassin’s bullet!

Apparently he was caught with his guard down after gazing longingly at pirated naked pictures of American Idol contestant Antonella Barba.

Clay Aiken will be using his Dell laptop computer to record video interviews about the incident that will be posted on both MySpace and YouTube.

Reality Check!

Okay, whether you are a regular reader, or if this is your first time reading this blog, allow me to assure you that my interest in naked celebrity pictures, American Idol, or Clay Aiken rank right up there with my interest in a tax audit.

I do have a Dell laptop, though!

No, the reason for this post is to demonstrate a point about focus and how it is often influenced by the world around us - often in negative ways.

Most people who are familiar with the blog-ranking site Technorati will undoubtedly recognize many of the keywords in my mock newsflash as being recent entries in the list of popular terms that were being searched for on the date of this posting, March 8, 2007.

I used those terms for the express purpose of luring more people to this blog so I could demonstrate that - although entertainment is well worth your time - keeping your reaction to the world at large in check is more than just necessary.

This blog and my entire website are dedicated to helping people to improve and empower their lives, yet whenever I cruise over to Technorati, it is plain to see that most people aren’t searching for ways to improve their lives, they are searching for the latest “buzz” words and concepts.

Don’t worry - I’m not about to throw in the towel and give up on my niche! I’m all about helping people, and that isn’t going to change.

However, I wanted to risk the link baiting title of this post to remind people that although you should by all means enjoy your life, you also need to remember that you HAVE a life!

• Antonella Barba will either be a superstar or she will be gone from the Hollywood scene in 5 years. Either way, you spending hours watching her, talking about her, and surfing the net for information about her is not going to use anyone’s valuable time but your own.
• Captain America may be dead, but his legacy will undoubtedly live on. Also, do yourself a favor and consider the political message behind the way he died. Search Technorati for Captain America if you want those details.
• Clay Aiken will continue to be adored by some, and despised by others. It’s really not worth you hotly debating the issue and burning through time that you could be spending… I don’t know… watching a sunset, enjoying a slice of New York Pizza, or maybe just {gasp!} turning off the TV and spending time with your family.
• Dell will continue to make computers that - like Clay Aiken - people will either love or hate. However, if you do insist on surfing for multimedia offerings about your favorite celebrities, might I recommend that you keep that in mind when deciding which Dell model to buy…
• And finally, the only person in America (or anywhere else) that you should Idolize is YOURSELF! Respect others? Yes. Love others? Absolutely. Help others? Please do.

But idolize others? No way. YOU are the Idol in your life. Don’t ever forget it!

Go

You!

Personal Development Success on Demand

The Internet resources available for anyone who is looking for self improvement or personal development advice are all but unlimited. In fact, as with most information that can be found on the Internet, the trick is not in finding the information, but rather in deciding which products, services, or advice are worth your time or your money.

This blog and the Today is that Day website are both supported by numerous advertising partners, and in most cases, those partners were hand-picked by me.

I have some limited control over the content that is displayed in the Google Adsense advertisements, but the rest of the text or graphical advertisements that you see were specifically picked by me for my blog and website readership.

As I detailed in the post entitled Law of Attraction Naysayers and Rampant Capitalism, I have no problem admitting to the world that my efforts at providing consistent, insightful, and empowering information are funded by the site’s advertisers as well as sales of my own self improvement products.

Normally, that is where my involvement with the buying decisions of my readers ends. If you are interested in the products and services provided by me or my advertisers, you will check them out. If not, then the content of this blog as well as my articles are still free as tools for you to use in order to improve and empower your life.

Today, I am going to take a rare moment outside of that non-interference policy, however, as one of my advertisers has made a change to their offering that I feel is worth you finding out about sooner rather than later.

The advertiser is question is called The Success Training Network, and you have undoubtedly seen plenty of text or graphical links to their website here on the blog. I personally use their information on a regular basis, and you can see some recent quotes from their teachers in the post Your Kung Fu is Weak, Self Improvement Slacker!

Their incredible programming has always been a one of kind service that anyone looking to stay inside the “personal development bubble” would be wise to take advantage of.

However, the recent news they announced that I felt strongly enough about to break my advertising non-interference code is that they are now offering their incredible programming ON DEMAND.

In the past, they had a regular television-style programming guide, and in order to watch any given segment, you needed to be able to be in front of your computer whenever that segment was being aired.

In today’s world where most people have schedules that border on insanity, it was previously not always possible to see the speaker or the program that you wanted to watch simply because of scheduling conflicts.

With TSTN’s new On Demand programming schedule, you can decide to watch what you want, when you want!

Why does that matter?

I have been working in the personal training and/or self improvement industry for years, and if I have seen one thing that consistently happens, it is that people are inconsistent with their lifestyle improvement efforts.

They allow the very lives that they are trying to improve to get in the way of them achieving the success that they want to achieve. The results are plain to see for anyone who hasn’t yet gotten rich, lost the weight, landed the dream job, or gotten into a relationship with Mr. or Mrs. Right.

The most effective way that I have found to stay “on task” with personal development is to constantly stay in touch with your goals by surrounding yourself on a daily basis with empowering circumstances.

There are books that you can read, MP3’s that you can download from the Internet, podcasts easily found using iTunes, free and at-cost eBooks available all over the place, videos on YouTube, and subscription television services such as TSTN and Spiritual Cinema.

No matter how you get your “stuff” into your system, there are unlimited free and low-cost options available for you to surround yourself with empowering and action-oriented content.

With TSTN’s new On Demand service, you now have one less excuse to not follow through with your personal development efforts.

You can choose from their entire library of amazing content, and watch whatever segments resonate with you, and you can watch them when it is convenient for you to do so. A lack of convenience is near the top of the list why a lot of people do not follow-through on their lifestyle improvement efforts.

What kind of Content?

You can take a look at the handy bar to your left to get a quick overview of the type of content offered by each of those speakers, although there are over 70 mentors, coaches, and teachers who make up the Success Training Network.

You can get a much more in-depth review as well as the opportunity to sign up for a free trial by simply visiting the TSTN website.

Also, you can sample almost 50 segments from The Success Training Network on YouTube. Just go to the Success Training channel.

WHY???

Why have I plowed by loyal as well as my new blog readers with such a blatant advertisement?

Basically, because not only do I believe in TSTN, but I believe that it is in your best interest to consider this or a similar method of staying inside the personal development bubble on a daily basis.

There has been so much talk lately about the Law of Attraction being a scam, and about how people who teach others to be successful are just in it for the money, yada, yada, yada.

Whether you subscribe to any of that nonsense or not (and I recommend that you don’t) one concept has been very clear across all conversations that have to do with leading a successful life:

If you consistently think thoughts about what you want, feel positive and confident about getting what you want, and consistently take action towards getting what you want, then your desires will come to you.

The Success Training Network offers an opportunity for you to be frequently empowered, informed, and even entertained, and with their new On Demand service, a good thing just got even better.

So, with all of that being said, feel free to ignore this post completely and go on about your business. Be sure to come back tomorrow, though. Blatent advertisements are the exception, not the rule ’round these parts.

Mini Personal Development and Self Improvement Link Love

I just published the weekly Link Love series the other day, but I have already stumbled across so many other things that I wanted to share with my readers.

For that reason, I have decided to shoot out one more quick version before getting involved with some other posts that I have planned for the blog later this week. Enjoy!

Blog Carnivals

If you aren’t familiar with the blog carnival concept, it is basically the sharing of a large selection of posts from around the blogosphere about any given topic, and the host Blogger then puts that list together for his or her audience.

The Today is that Day Blog has recently been featured in several blog carnivals, and each of them is worth your time to see the great content provided by the other bloggers:

Leadership Edition of the Personal Growth Carnival, hosted by Bryan C. Fleming

Towards Better Life Carnival, hosted by Victor-fam.com

Personal Develop Carnival, hosted by the Balanced Life Center

Success and Growth Blog Carnival, hosted at Cultivate Greatness

Other click-worthy Stumblings

Change your life with a Computer and a Headset - An excellent and totally free way to reprogram your head for success in any given endeavor.

Stumbling on Happiness - This came out awhile ago, but I finally got around to watching it. Very interesting data on our ability to “manufacture” happiness.

The Ultimate Gift - What looks to be a GREAT movie, including a “weekend of giving” that is to coincide with the launch weekend, March 9th-11th, 2007.

No Condition is Permanent - If you’ve ever thought that your past history or your heritage has the ability to keep you from success, this video is well worth the time to watch.

Okay, that’s it for the mini link love break! We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming!

CCSS: The Simple Secret to Empowerment

There is a simple, yet incredibly powerful mindset that you can literally base your entire life upon, and the Living by Design blog coined it with the phrase “Make Like a Mountain”.

Click on over there to learn the specifics of the grounding technique they describe, but here at Today is that Day I want to talk about the massively empowering concept.

You can - and should - live your life by “making like a mountain” using the CCSS point of view:

Be calm. Be centered. Be still. Be strong.

This concept resonates with me for 2 reasons. One of them is the concept itself, while the other is the innumerable times that I come across people who could instantly “fix” their lives if they would learn how to ground themselves in this manner.

Each of us is the center of our own Universe. When someone says to you, “What, does the universe revolve around what YOU want?” you should reply with an emphatic, “Yes! It does!”

I don’t care if you are the lowliest amoeba on the germ scale, or if you are the ruler of an entire continent, your size or your perceived “influence” have nothing to do with it. Every living organism is - and always has been - the center of its own Universe.

Yet, despite that fact, people are still allowing other people and the circumstances of their lives to dictate their happiness.

No one holds that power over you!!

No one can make you happy. No one can make you sad. No one can make you rich. No one can make you poor.

There is not a soul on this planet who can control your reaction to the things that they say or the things that they do. YOU are the only one who has the power to do that.

If you are pining away for some romantic interest who isn’t returning the favor, you are the only reason that you are miserable over that.

If you hate your job and think that your boss is out to get you, whether your job is lame or whether your boss is a jerk are completely irrelevant. You are the only one who can have a negative reaction to that situation.

If you are overweight and have low self-esteem as a result, it is your reaction to being overweight that you do not like. The fact that you ARE overweight doesn’t matter in the least.

In each of these cases, your emotional reaction is the only thing that you can control 100% of the time, which also means that if you are not enjoying that emotional response, you are 100% responsible for that as well.

There are people all over the world who have an unresolved romantic interest, an ex-lover who has fled the scene, or some other intimate desire that is not being fulfilled.

There are scores of people who are in career situations that would be considered by most to be “negative”.

There are certainly plenty of people in the world who are overweight.

However, in each and every one of those cases, there are people who are miserable about the situation, and there are also people who are living happy and fulfilling lives despite the situation.

Are the happy and fulfilled people “special” and that allows them to be happy and fulfilled despite having the exact same circumstances as the people who are miserable?

Nope! The happy and fulfilled people have simply learned how to “make like a mountain”.

They realize that they are the centers of their world, and that as they become still, the world will literally revolve around them.

They realize that by remaining calm and that by staying strong, the world will do what it is going to do anyway, and they will only be as affected by those happenings as they choose to be.

If you want to become your life, then learn how to make like a mountain:

Become calm, centered, still, and strong, and make life come to you.

You have that power.

Self Improvement and Law of Attraction Link Love, Volume 4

This is Volume 4 of the Self Improvement and Law of Attraction Link Love series. This series will be published weekly and will be comprised of links to quality blog posts that have proven to be extraordinary in their ability to assist, inform, or empower the reader. Enjoy!

1) Success Consciousness - Instant or Gradual Self Improvement and Spiritual Growth? - EXCELLENT riff on the truth of how it all works! In light of some of the latest media, this is a timely yet quick to read piece that lays it down like it truly is.

2) Evolving Times - The debate regarding the Law of Attraction in the media lately is likely causing more confusion than is even remotely necessary. It’s really not that difficult, and Edward at Evolving Times hosts probably the best resource on the LOA that exists on the Internet today. Check out his Law of Attraction Blog Carnival, and also be sure to see this blog featured in the latest edition, The Law of Attraction And Physical Health.

3) Practical Personal Development - Alex Shalman has started a great series of posts, and if this edition, ‘Becoming An Outstanding Person | Temperance‘, is any indication, this will be a series worth tracking.

4) Christine Kane - I am always so amazed at Christine’s insightful, yet easy to understand take on how things really work in the world. One of her latest works You Teach People How to Treat You is absolute gold!

5) Breathing Prosperity - I have to say that when I first found Breathing Prosperity, I had also just found about 99 other blogs, and I added it to my RSS reader thinking I would just check in once in awhile. Well, that has turned into a daily check in, and it is always time well spent. A new series going on there is called ‘Personal Development:21 Days and 22 Exercises Towards a Wealthier Mindset’, and I LOVE what was written on Day 3 about Today vs. 5 Years from now.

6) Success from the Nest - Tony Clark just wrote an excellent piece called Finding Your Passion Amid the Hate and if you have ever wondered if you are doing the right thing with your career, then check out Tony’s great insight and advice.

7) The Happiness Project - In her post Don’t let the PERFECT be the enemy of the GOOD, Gretchen does an oh-so-wonderful job of showing that just because you can’t do it perfect doesn’t mean that you can’t do SOMETHING!

8) Live the Power - Karen’s post The Secret is Out addresses the very real fact that the Law of Attraction is far from being a “secret,” and that it has been practiced and endorsed by an amazing list of influential people throughout history, including the formidable list of those individuals that is included with her post.

9) Brian Kim - The Power in Serving Others is an excellent post that shows the difference between helping others for your own good, or helping others while expecting nothing in return. Ironically enough, not expecting anything in return is the best way to GET something in return!

10) Shards of Consciousness - Rick has put together a great resource in his Happiness, Emotion, and Fulfillment series. In Part II of that series, he points out that happiness is not dictated by external events, and then goes on to put together an awesome list of ways that you can keep your internal happiness level exactly where it needs to be.

WOW!

This link love series is always the best of the best, but this week was amazing. I had to turn away a few links I had bookmarked because there were so many!

I truly hope that you take the time to read through the content provided by these excellent bloggers, and more importantly, that you make some positive changes to your life with what you learn!

See you again for Volume 5 in about a week!

Your Kung Fu is Weak, Self Improvement Slacker!

Just what is it that you think you’re doing?

No, really. What are you doing here? Why are you reading this? What is it that you plan to do with whatever self improvement tip that you might pick up?

I only ask because there is a lot of reading, listening, and talking going on in the personal development community, and yet there are still a lot of readers, listeners, and talkers who haven’t really done a whole lot with what they’ve learned.

As I and many others have cited many times, knowledge itself is useless. It is only the application of knowledge that will provide benefit in your life.

Yet despite an inexhaustible supply of learning opportunities, most people are still just collecting information and not consistently doing anything with it. As Brian Tracy says, people are living on “Someday Isle.”

As in:

• Someday I’ll start my own business
• Someday I’ll start eating right and exercising
• Someday I’ll get out of debt
• Someday I’ll leave this dead-end job
• Someday I’ll {INSERT YOUR DREAM HERE}

Someday you will also leave this plane of existence and all of your chances to have been voted off of Someday Isle will be gone!

Another incredible speaker, Charlie “Tremendous” Jones talks about how these days everyone has to talk things out, get some advice, maybe even hold a meeting.

Charlie maintains that people don’t talk to other people in order to get encouragement to follow their dreams. They talk to other people in the hopes that someone will talk them out of it!

After all, success takes work. Who wants to work hard? After all, wouldn’t it be easier to just talk to a bunch of people, get really excited, but then never actually have to do anything?

An individual will talk and talk and talk about their dreams, including as many other people as possible in the discussion. However, the dream is YOURS, not theirs. Sure, you can inform them, even seek their opinion, but then go right ahead and do what you were going to do anyway! If I may quote Charlie:

“Have you ever seen a statue in a park dedicated to a committee?”

So, I’ll ask the same question again:

Just what is it that you think you’re doing? Are you looking for advice? Permission? Persecution?

Get off your butt and Take Action!

Not tomorrow, this weekend, next week, or next year. Right now.

Success is built from the inside out, so if you think you need to wait for the right set of circumstances in order to create your dream life, don’t hold your breath.

Is preparation part of the equation? Sure.

Is education part of the equation? Sure.

Is planning part of the equation? Sure.

You can use all of those tools, and many more as part of your success. However, take a moment to turn your mental clock back a number of years and remember when you first learned how to walk.

I bet you fell down plenty of times at first. You may have even gotten hurt in the process. In fact, in your toddler mind, you may have even used preparation, education, and planning as part of learning how to walk.

However, the most important thing wasn’t what you did before you tried to walk, but the fact that you did try to walk. And you kept on trying until you got it right.

You certainly didn’t hold a meeting to think of the best way to proceed before making the attempt, did you? It was what you wanted, so you risked everything to make it happen.

What happened to that wonderful mentality?

This post was inspired by watching several of the amazing speakers over at The Success Training Network, and I highly recommend you look into their program. However, before you go, I want to leave you with this final quote:

“I’m not gonna ease up, let up, shut up, give up, ’till I’m taken up. Matter of act, I’m just getting WARMED up!”

Related Resources
The Success Training Network
Life Success Productions
The Science of Success
Self Improvement ResourcesAuthor of that quote? Zig Ziglar, who just turned 80 years old.

Have a nice day.

The Top 3 Law of Attraction Secrets - Especially for Non-believers

Well, if we were in the movie “Wayne’s World” I guess the appropriate phrase at this point would be…

GAME ON!

Now that the Law of Attraction concepts have hit the mainstream, both the believers as well as the non-believers are coming out of the wood work.

A search on Google for the term “law of attraction” brought back well over 2 million websites, although it also won’t take you long to find plenty of people who who think it’s all a bunch of nonsense. Check here, here, and here if you would like some examples.

Now, any regular readers of this blog know my views on this whole concept, and this post is not meant to discuss my personal ideals, but rather to plug some of these concepts into a typical life scenario to see if they actually hold water.

To that end, I picked 3 specific practices that are commonly used by the LOA believers, who also call themselves “deliberate creators” since they believe that via these practices they can literally create their existence here on planet Earth.

So, whether you are a believer or a skeptic, if you truly feel that your point of view is the correct one, then you shouldn’t mind a little bit of close scrutiny to see if these concepts are worth considering.

If they are, then here are 3 possible ways to use them. If they are not worth considering, then you now have 3 great examples of the uselessness of these tools that you can use in your on-going crusade to debunk this whole affair. Here we go…

Visualization

One of the primary weapons of mass abundance that the teachers from the movie ‘The Secret’ endorse using in order to invoke the law of attraction is visualization. In fact, Joe Vitale goes even further to say that you should use “holographic visualization” which is basically the art of both mentally and emotionally putting yourself inside your vision of success. You experience those moments so precisely in your mind that it seems that you are actually there.

Proponents - From a believer’s standpoint, this type of visualization will send actual vibrations out from the visualizer into the Universe, and will in turn attract similar vibrations. Done consistently over the course of time with a high level of emotion and belief, and the vibrations will all coalesce into a series of circumstances, people, events, or inspired actions that will eventually lead to the visualizer actually being in the situation that they visualized.

Opponents - People who do not believe in this concept simply say that there is no scientific basis for this idea, and that there is no way to prove that doing this will be anything other than a complete waste of time. They believe that if you want to have an experience in your life, you need to take whatever action is needed in order to marshal the resources that will allow you to have that experience.

The Benefit for Non-Believers - Believers in the LOA do not need any further convincing of the validity of this practice. However, for non-believers, the act of visualizing has one very, very important side effect that has nothing to do with the Law of Attraction, and that benefit is FOCUS.

Even if you do not believe that some magic genie is ripping around town on a magic carpet finding ways to turn your daydreams into reality, any reasonable and logical person will agree that staying focused intensely and consistently over the course of time on any particular goal will bring about positive steps toward that goal.

Those steps may come in the form of financial or career maneuvers that will lead to the goal, or they may come in the form of the simple ability to keep from getting distracted by things that would normally take the person off track. Taking your eyes off the prize runs the risk of delaying or preventing the attainment of whatever it is that is being focused on.

A simple example of this is weight loss. It is a common belief that if you eat a lot of junk food, you will not have a body like a super model. If your goal is to have a body like that, and you consistently visualize yourself having that body, it is going to be very difficult for you to believe that scarfing down an entire pepperoni pizza all by yourself is a good idea.

Will your weight loss be “magic” or will it be a result of you continually taking part in healthy exercise and eating habits as a result of having a super model picture of yourself that is playing over and over again in your head? Well, once you have that super model body, who cares HOW it actually happened?

Affirmations

Affirmations come in many shapes and sizes, but in a nutshell, it is the act of writing down what you want to have in your life, and then repeatedly saying it either out loud or in your head for the purpose of changing your mental point of view regarding those desires.

Proponents - Believers in the power of affirmation basically think that by continually repeating something to oneself, that thing will eventually become a reality. Where the LOA comes into this part of the equation is that the common belief behind conscious creation is that the vibrations that are sent out into the Universe are acted upon in order to bring our goals into existence. However, as most people carry around years worth of self-limiting beliefs, the only vibrations they are sending out are those of NOT having whatever it is that they want. By consistently practicing affirmations, the vibration is changed to one of confidence and belief, thus attracting the object of desire.

Opponents - Non-believers in affirmations once again cite the fact that there is no evidence to support the belief that anything less than taking action will bring about goal attainment. They may even go so far as to say that by repeatedly talking about something that you don’t have will actually only serve to make you even more convinced that you’ll never have it.

The Benefit for Non-Believers - By repeatedly affirming that you want something, you assign the task of finding a way to bring that thing into your existence to your brain and your subconscious mind. In order to do this, though, you must ask for solutions, not affirm non-existent realities. For example:

“I am independently wealthy and I never have to work another day in my life.”

vs.

“How can I create a situation that makes me independently wealthy so that I never have to work another day in my life?”

The first example stated something that wasn’t true, and by continually saying that statement over and over again, you may not activate the amazing power of your subconscious mind in order to help find a solution.

However, by continually asking yourself that question over and over again, your mind will be constantly looking for a solution as you go about your day to day business. Eventually - maybe sooner or maybe later - you will get slapped in the face with a great idea or the beginnings of a plan of action that will lead you to that life of riches and relaxation.

Positive attitude

This is probably the oldest and most well-known tool that is in the bag of tricks that believers in the LOA carry around with them. Long before today’s gurus were touting the power of positive thought, yesterdays authors and visionaries were extolling the benefits of this practice.

Proponents - People who believe they can activate the Law of Attraction by living in a constantly positive state of mind will once again point to the power of their vibrations as the catalyst for attaining their desires. By staying in a constant positively-charged state of mind, they also maintain a constant positively-charged emotional state. In so doing, they will only attract vibrations that are in resonance with theirs, thus attracting “fuel” that will drive their machines of success. That fuel may come in the form of intense coincidences that are in line with their desires, or they may take the form of opportunities or circumstances that will eventually bring forth their dreams.

Opponents - Non-believers in the power of positive thinking will say that just thinking about good things will do absolutely nothing to bring those things into your existence. They will point out the fact that everyone wants health, wealth, and happiness, so if just thinking good thoughts about those things was the key to having them, everyone would already be living happily ever after.

The Benefit for Non-Believers - Having a positive mental attitude is something that can - and does - benefit everyone. Even if you don’t believe that your positive state of mind will help you to actually attract good things into your life, at a bare minimum, keeping a good attitude will help you to enjoy life more.

This could fall under the umbrella of what people call “managing their expectations” or it could simply be called being “mentally prepared” for any given situation.

For example, if your job is lame, and you know that it is lame, you can’t simply “think” yourself out of having to go there. However, by setting your mental set point to one of being prepared for the experience, you will help yourself to not be as miserable as you otherwise would be. On the other hand, if you just sit around thinking about how bad your job is, there is no way that you are going to see anything but how bad your job is when you get there.

Another example is finances. You could sit around thinking about how much you don’t enjoy watching prime time on your 19″ television with bad reception because you can’t afford cable and a big flat-screen TV, or you could turn the situation around to actually be glad that you have that opportunity. In order to do so, just consider how bad it would be if you couldn’t even afford your own home or apartment, or if your electricity had been turned off because you couldn’t pay the bill.

You can apply that same formula to any situation in your life in order to receive the benefit of positive thinking. By simply taking on the habits of mentally preparing yourself for a potentially negative situation, or by showing gratitude for the fact that things aren’t worse (and they always could be), you will slowly but surely pick up the habit of being happy about situations that in the past made you miserable.

Who Wins?

Now that you have seen some common ways that the LOA is used by people to “magically” manifest the lives that they want, you should also see that there is really no magic to it. The same practices that the believers are using to bring success into their lives will help non-believers to improve their quality of life as well.

Also, there are 3 potential benefits that a non-believer gets from this whole process:

1. All of this is completely free of charge. You don’t have to spend a dime to visualize, affirm, or to keep a positive attitude.
2. Each of the practices that were discussed will have a positive impact on your life, even if you are just using your copy of ‘The Secret’ as a coaster or a Frisbee
3. What if it works? What if the Law of Attraction actually works, and you stumble upon that truth by practicing LOA techniques, even from a non-believers standpoint?

After all, not only are these techniques free, but no one even has to know that you are doing them. How cool would it be to achieve some amazing success in your life without having to admit to anyone - even yourself - that you ever considered whether or not the magic actually works?

Something to think about…..