Personal Development is just like anything else in the world - in order to get the most out of it, you'll need people to help you along the way. The trick is to find the right type of people who will help you attain your goals without bogging you down in the process. Link to Full Story
Improve your life by simply managing your expectations about what life is going to throw at you, and then responding accordingly! Link to Full Story
This edition of the Doing it Differently Blog Carnival covers an incredible variety of information! We've got getting rid of social norms, finding a job, creating success, overcoming obstacles, humor, sex, making babies, and more! Link to Full Story
Is this the death of positive thinking? Hardly! However, knowing how to use positive thinking as a tool means understanding how it works - both the good, as well as the bad. Link to Full Story
Attention Splatter, intuition, health, happiness, kisses, and even lessons from someone who has been at the helm for almost a century. Be sure to check out this edition of Self Improvement and Law of Attraction Link Love! Link to Full Story
When our lives change in a way that we perceive to be negative, it can be rough. However, it IS possible to get through these times, and this outline will help you to do exactly that. Link to Full Story
Are you using the technology that is at your fingertips to make the most of your life, or are you squandering the vast resources at your disposal? Link to Full Story
Personal development and victory as taught by the success principles of Vulcans! Link to Full Story
This week's self improvement and law of attraction information runs the gamut from productivity to happiness to visualization to wake up calls. Check it out! Link to Full Story
This is Volume 12 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
1) Intensive Care for the Nurturer's Soul - In the very appropriate context of "keeping it simple," Hueina Su brings on guest blogger Kevin Gianni who teaches us the 10 Commandments of the Best Exercise and Weight Loss Programs.
2) LifeHack - Adrian Savage has a great post called Has Your Fire Burned Low? which includes some great tips on bringing our desires back to a roaring flame, as well as a great bit at the end of the post that you don't want to miss about what happens with fire.
3) Abundance Journal - Still having trouble deciding if the whole Law of Attraction thing works? Belle's great post "It's Not Working!" does a very effective job of addressing the common pitfalls that people experience, and what to do about them.
4) Optimist Lab - Cardin Routh has an incredible post called Keeping Your Precious Things Precious. She discusses how our feelings always tell us if we are on the right track or not, and also how we can achieve maximum success by listening to our own inner voice, rather than what other people tell us. Great wisdom!
5) Life Optimizer - Having trouble getting the job done? Donald Latumahina's post What is the Key to Productivity? brings up the very real fact that many of us are too focused on things that are not mission critical - thus causing us to not always accomplish the mission!
6) Inspiring and Empowering Lives - Do you find yourself thinking that the grass is always greener on the other side? Take a peek at Jacklyn's post Why Is It Important To Improve Your Self? and follow her great advice to stop saying, "If only…"
7) Coffee2Code - Not a personal development site, but if you use WordPress for your blog, make sure to grab the Customizable Post Listings plug-in. See that section down below that says "Random Great Posts from the Past"? That is the Customizable Post Listings plug-in in action!
Blogs that have recently featured Today is that Day
MUCH gratitude to all of the following bloggers who shared the Link Love by telling others about posts here at Today is that Day!
Christy's Coffee Break - I am truly grateful to Christy for picking Today is that Day for this edition of her Best of the Blogs positive blog review series. You rock, Christy!
Something Good - Lorna referenced the Today is that Day blog in a GREAT post that she put together called Creating and Using Affirmations. Awesome stuff, Lorna - and thanks!
Debra Moorehead - In her post Your Magic Wand, Debra packs a lot of information into a small space, including a list of motivational, educational, and inspirational sites that includes the Today is that Day blog. Thanks, Debra!
Abundance Tips - The web links section of the Abundance Tips site is a great (and growing) list of powerful places to visit on the web, and they were kind enough to list Today is that Day among the other click-worthy entries. Thanks a bunch for the Link Love as well as the great format of the list!
Live the Power - Karen has put together a very cool feature called Joy Links, and she referenced the recent Today is that Day post about affirmations. Ironically, I also mentioned her site in that post. Reciprocation of reciprocation? I love the blogosphere! Thanks a million, Karen! Love the Joy Links concept!
Blog Carnivals that have recently included Today is that Day posts:
Personal Development Carnivals - The Urban Monk showed the post 'The Agony of Victory: Personal Development Breaking Point', and Balanced Life Center included 'Personal Development Roadblock: Are you Specializing too Soon?'.
Law of Attraction Carnival - Edward at Evolving Times put out another great edition, and he featured the Today is that Day post 'The Death of the Law of Attraction'.
Carnival of Powerful Living - Another information-packed edition hosted over at Verve Coaching which featured the post 'You're about to get hit.'.
Positive Mindset and Wealth Creation - The Women Internet Marketers site put together a huge list of posts about staying positive, making money, and achieving success! The Today is that Day post 'No Rocket Science Required: Self Improvement Starts Now!' was piled in with the rest of the quality knowledge included in that blog carnival.
That's it for this week, and if that list doesn't keep you busy learning and growing, then I don't know what will! Thanks as always to the many bloggers who contributed their time, knowledge, and their generosity!
Random great posts from the past:
Insert Your Mental Reprogramming System of Choice Here: Affirmations, Visualization, Hypnosis, Meditation, Self-talk, Brain-wave Synchronization, and on and on the list goes…
There are so many ways to reprogram your mind these days that I'm beginning to wonder if we're all just running around in a brain-wash induced state of self-imposed denial.
OUCH! That came out a bit more harshly than I had intended! However, in truth, there is a slight grain of irritation here, because, much like the Law of Attraction, there is so much confusion about how to use some of these tools that their meaning is starting to get lost in the shuffle. This post is my attempt at setting the record straight on one of the most popular systems: Affirmations.
As Karen Lynch points out in her post "Words," the end result that you are after with an affirmation is a feeling. That's it. That's all you get.
You can't manifest a new house or a new car with affirmations. You can't bring forth a huge pile of money with affirmations. You can't conjure up a rewarding career, nor magically create a loving and loyal romantic interest.
Affirmations, do not do any of those things. In fact, affirmations don't "do" anything - not in the 3-dimensional world anyway. The job of an affirmation is not to conjure up the things that we want to have in our lives, but rather to conjure up the feeling that having those things will create in our lives.
Then, once you have that feeling, you Law of Attraction junkies will recognize that the feeling will then create the vibrations which will speed the house, the car, the job, the money, the mate - whatever - directly to you at a rate that is proportionate to your level of allowing and belief.
However, for those of you who aren't so sure about the whole LOA thing, don't despair! You can use affirmations just as effectively to generate feelings of happiness and success.
You see, by feeling what it will be like to attain your goal, what you are doing is building something.
Oh yes, Grasshopper, you are building something truly wonderful. You are building something as large as the tallest building, as far-reaching as the infinite dreamscape, and as real to you as anything ever possibly could be.
You are building Belief.
By constantly creating the feeling of having something that is not (yet) physically in your life, you are creating a new belief system from scratch. This belief system will allow you to "know" what it is like to have the things that you desire because - in your mind - you already have them.
By continually reaffirming the feeling of having the things that you want, you will find ways to bring those things into your 3-dimensional existence. This may be through a burst of inspiration, a sustained motivation to take action, or it may happen by you actually coming across the method needed to bring you what you want.
So, the question of whether or not affirmations actually work, and if so, how to create affirmations that really work for you, is answered simply by asking yourself the following question:
"What can I tell myself that will create the feeling of having {insert the thing that you are affirming for here}?"
Here are a few examples from my own life, and I use them to reaffirm whenever something actually happens, so that the feeling that the thing generates is clear and present in that moment in time:
"Money comes to me easily and frequently." - Stolen from 'The Secret', I say this every single time I get money in any amount. Since I "work" on the Internet, I receive revenue from many different sources, and every time I get a check or a deposit into my PayPal account, I say this affirmation - no matter what the sum of money is.
"I am so grateful for…" - Gratitude is one the keys to success, and I practice it all day, everyday. From saying "I am so grateful that I don't have to get out of bed yet" to saying "I am so grateful that today was a good day with my family," not a day goes by that I don't actually say some rendition of a gratitude affirmation several times throughout the day.
"Since I live …" - One of my primary life goals is to own a house on the beach in St. Augustine, FL. I live in northeast Florida already, so anytime anything "beach-like" crosses my mind - even in a visualization - I reaffirm it. "Since I live on the beach, I can spend my upcoming day off there." "Since I live on the beach, I can run along the shore as the sun is rising." "Since I live on the beach, I can hear the surf from my window as I am working in my home office".
These are just examples, and are obviously specific to my lifestyle, but that is also why they work! If I ran around all day affirming things that had nothing to do with me, or that were so far out of my belief system that it would not be possible for me to take my affirmations seriously, then those affirmations wouldn't do me much good.
If you try to affirm "wild and crazy" success into your life with off the wall affirmations, the only feeling that you will be creating is one of disbelief, and that will get you nowhere.
So, if you want affirmations that really work, think of affirmations that work for you. Once you have done that, it is just a matter of repeating them as often as you want to feel that feeling of success!
Random great posts from the past:
Have you ever had to sit by and watch a wonderful thing die a slow, humiliating death?
That's pretty much how I feel right now as I watch from the sidelines as the glorious Law of Attraction is being both misunderstood by non-believers, and perverted into some grand money-making scheme by supposed followers.
The whole thing makes me ill, yet being a true believer and a true follower of the proper ways to utilize conscious creation in my life, I neither dwell upon nor give consistent thought to these negative circumstances.
Why, then, am I writing a blog post that calls attention to these things? After all, the LOA teaches only to notice - not to dwell upon - things that do not resonate with our desires.
There are two very basic reasons why the movie The Secret and subsequent teachings about the Law of Attraction have caused so much potential negativity in the world, and it boils down to nothing more exotic than human nature.
The need for Security
As a race, we have always had an instinctive need to know that "everything was going to be alright". This need goes back as far as the days of prehistoric man seeking shelter in rock-solid caves, and continues as an integral part of society all over the world.
This quest for security has led us to scientific discoveries, philosophical understandings, and religious belief systems. Science, philosophy, and religion have been part of the human condition since time immemorial, yet suddenly an idea has come into the mainstream that challenges all three.
According to the Law of Attraction, science as we know it may not be as we know it anymore. Need proof? Go find me a quantum physicist who says he has all of the answers.
Philosophy itself has also been challenged by people who now say that humans have always had the ability to consciously create their lives. This throws historical record itself into chaos when you consider that this belief would have changed the very face of history had it been widely practiced centuries ago.
And what about religion? By using the LOA, are you denouncing your deity? Are you saying that there is no God? Are you saying that each of us IS God???
Whoa! This whole thing is starting to get a little bit out of control, isn't it? Challenging science? Challenging philosophy? Challenging RELIGION??
I'm sorry, but this is just bringing up way too many questions that humans just don't have answers for. Better to go bury that whole "attraction" business under a rock somewhere. We'll all feel a lot better - a lot more secure - when things are back to the way they used to be and we had answers for all of this stuff.
Greed
I'm sorry to have to be the messenger for this less than savory bit of news, but it's true. Greed is running rampant and everyone wants to cash in on the deliberate creation money train!
Ya know, it's really funny that this is the case, because true believers know that abundance is everywhere and that greed itself is not only unnecessary, but that it will actually retard the power of the LOA, leaving the greedy person without the pot of gold they were hoping for
This greed has come up in every way imaginable, including teaching and coaching programs, books, seminars, audio programs, teleclasses, eBooks, and last, but not least, let us not forget the SPECIAL REPORT!
Whatever is in the SPECIAL REPORT must be really special, because this blog alone gets at least half a dozen spam comments every single day from alleged LOA practitioners who are offering the SPECIAL REPORT, and it's FREE!
Okay, here's a clue from me to you, SPECIAL REPORT PROVIDERS: I already know how to consciously create my life. If you had read through this blog you would know that I teach my readers how to create their lives, and your SPECIAL REPORT is of no interest to me or to my readers, which is why your daily spam comments keep getting deleted.
What about the rest of these product and service providers, though? There must be someone who really knows how to teach people to take control of their lives by using these principles.
You are absolutely right! Please don't mistake my previous comments to mean that you shouldn't listen to - and even pay for - the teachings of people who truly understand these concepts.
However, on that same token, do your homework. Any products or services that are being offered to you should at a bare minimum come with a money-back guarantee, and the seller or coach should have plenty of data to back up his/her expertise.
A blog that teaches about the Law of Attraction, a list of articles that teach about conscious creation, or a decent track record are all positive indicators. If someone has none of those, yet they are claiming to be an expert, what exactly are they an expert in, I wonder?
After reading all of this, is this really the end?
No, of course not! The principles of deliberate creation have been around literally since the dawn of time, and no present day insecurities or levels of greed are going to change that.
However, greed and insecurity are at the moment still an integral part of human nature. For that reason you will continue to see plenty of negativity surrounding these concepts, and you will continue to see a lot of people exercising their greed in order to take advantage of those insecurities.
Draw your own conclusions! Don't believe me, and don't believe your friends, co-workers, or family members.
Do your own research and decide whether or not you want to believe in and practice the many wonderful concepts that make up the Law of Attraction.
At a bare minimum, these concepts will make your life a happier and more positive place to be, and that is a fact that I am willing to share with you free of charge, no security blanket needed.
If you can say your ABC (skip the rest of the alphabet), you can consciously and successfully create the life of your dreams.
Back in my network marketing days, I was taught a very useful acronym for success called A.B.C. - Always Be Closing. In a nutshell, it meant that everywhere you went and in everything that you did, you always acted as if you were "closing" the sale.
Everything was done with confidence, poise, and surety of purpose. It was (and still is) GREAT advice. However, I have come up with a modified version of that acronym, which I think is even more powerful - regardless of your career field or what your individual goals are:
It seems overly simplistic to say what I am about to say, but it certainly must not be as simple as it sounds, because most people - even the supposedly "enlightened" people - still have trouble grasping this on a day to day basis:
You always have a choice about how you react to life.
Sure, everyone claims that they know and understand this concept, yet they still don't practice it.
Whenever a job interview doesn't go their way, they CHOOSE to get upset and to start having fears about their career status.
When someone's spouse or significant other is acting in a negative way, they CHOOSE to have a negative reaction to that, which invariably leads to plenty of continued negativity.
When a scheduling issue causes chaos in someone's daily activity, they CHOOSE to throw up their hands in despair and just give up, cursing their bad luck. Then they resolve to allow that scheduling problem to change the entire course of their day.
In each of those examples, there is no doubt that each of those situations did not go the way that the individual would have preferred. However, it was not the circumstances themselves that caused problems, but rather that person's reaction to those circumstances.
If a job interview does not go your way, you can choose to either get upset and let fear and doubt begin to cloud your future judgment and actions, or you can choose to see it as a positive thing.
For all you know, there is a very good reason why you didn't get that job, and a better or more appropriate opportunity may be right around the corner. You will not see that next opportunity if you are busy wallowing in self-pity, however.
If your spouse or your boyfriend/girlfriend is being argumentative or causing negativity in your environment, how do you know that an opportunity isn't being presented to you?
Fate/God/The Universe or whoever might be tapping you on the shoulder to get your attention. Maybe you need to open up communication lines with your mate and frequent arguments are a telltale sign of that. Maybe that person really isn't for you and you are being guided to make that realization.
However, if you just get angry and start shouting back, what is going to be accomplished? Nothing positive, that's a safe bet.
What about when a scheduling issue causes chaos for you? How do you know that by getting caught by a slow train that you didn't just miss a drastic 10-car pile up that would have happened if you had made it to the other side of the tracks?
How do you know that what you perceive to be a day that has been ruined because of a blown schedule is not a great opportunity for you? Maybe you need to reevaluate your scheduling practices, reassess your daily task list, or maybe you are just getting a big wallop to your ego telling you that you need to slow down and stop trying to get so much done every single day.
Do you know that Americans work longer hours yet have less life-happiness and contentment than any other country in the world?
All of the examples that I just gave are merely random circumstances that I came up with while I was writing this post, and there are millions of other situations that could apply specifically to you. However, in each case, the lesson is still the same.
No matter how many curve balls that life chooses to throw at you, no matter how much negativity you are exposed to, and no matter how much your "mettle" is tested, there is always one - and only one - way to deal with it:
The way you CHOOSE to deal with it.
By choosing negative reactions, you will ensure continued negativity in the future. By choosing positive reactions, you will always give yourself a fresh start, a fresh perspective, and in some cases, a completely fresh slate from which to start all over again.
So, are you going to be a victim in life, or you are you going to choose to be in control?
The, uh, choice - is yours.
Apocalypse: any universal or widespread destruction or disaster: i.e. - the apocalypse of nuclear war.
Skipping the non-biblical references (for the purpose of universal agreement on the term), the above definition of the word apocalypse should illustrate for you - dear reader - just what we are talking about here.
Or, to be more specific, we are talking about the end of all things here in the blogosphere:
What would you do if the concept of "blogging" was about to suddenly and completely go away forever? Would you shed a bitter tear? Would it matter to you at all?
More importantly, would you have succeeded in getting your message across to the people who needed to hear it??
These are the kinds of questions that have been asked by The Urban Monk in a group blogging project for charity that he has coined 'The Blog Apocalypse'.
Having started my own project called Simply Successful Secrets, and then also partnering with Alex Shalman for Gotta Get Goals, I was originally not very excited about the idea of running through this again.
However, The Blog Apocalypse has the potential to truly open up some hearts and minds about why people do what they do in the blogosphere, and more importantly - if you should even care!
So, with no further introduction, I invite you to check out The Urban Monk's instructions, and I implore you to see this as a chance to really learn something not just about bloggers, but about why you read what they write, and the Urban Monk will make a donation to charity just for you making the effort.
Also, if you see the value in this project as I have, you can participate by putting together your own apocalyptic blog scenario and sharing it with your readers! Here we go.
Well, Grasshopper, it looks like you are finally going to be on your own.
I started this blog when I realized that blogging was the best way to consistently and easily share knowledge with you that would one day allow you to become empowered and self-reliant, and to embrace a true excitement about your life.
I have worked at attaining those goals by holding absolutely nothing back when I have written to you, and it is my sincere desire that you have recognized that fact as you have read my words.
When I taught you about the Law of Attraction, I gave you workable strategies for using that amazing belief system, but I kept it all grounded at the same time by maintaining an objective point of view whenever possible.
When I taught you the unlimited power of Gratitude, my own heartfelt gratitude should have jumped from the pages as you read those words, because I am truly grateful for you, for me, and for this existence as a whole.
When I taught you ways to consciously create your life, or to get rid of your self-limiting beliefs, it was my sincerest desire that you actually practice the methods that I taught you, and not just continue to cruise through your life without making the positive changes I knew you were capable of.
When I taught you about positive thinking, personal development, and self improvement, I truly gave you every bit of knowledge that I had, hoping that just one more word, or one more moment of clarity would help you to finally leap the barriers that you had put around yourself, and allow you to finally become the person that I always knew that you could be.
But, alas, our time has come to an end, Grasshopper, and you must now stand upon your own two feet, as my teachings will no longer be available to you.
As the blogosphere comes to an end, so to does my means of continuing to be a guiding force in your life. However, I walk away from this teaching post with neither a regret, a concern, nor even a tear, for I know that you have been taught well!
I know that this tome of knowledge - this "blog" - contains all of the answers that you will ever need in order to literally do whatever it is that you want to do with your life.
You can have, do, or be anything - and the knowledge of how to make that happen is indeed contained in the very pages that are before you at this moment.
So I will end my final message to you, Grasshopper, not with a final bit of a advice, one last nugget of wisdom, nor even a parting vote of confidence.
Those trinkets are unnecessary, because, you see, the power that is inside of you right now - the very knowledge that fuels your existence - has always been there.
My words simply helped you to awaken it.
Remember to seek not the advice of others, but to realize that your answers are - and always have been - right there inside of you.
It is up to you to let them out, Grasshopper.
I will not say Goodbye at this time, for we are all one, and I will most certainly see you "out there".
Create Life in Your Image!
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!
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!
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
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!
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.
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!
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?
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 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:
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?
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.
Well, if we were in the movie “Wayne’s World” I guess the appropriate phrase at this point would be…
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.
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…
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 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.
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.
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:
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…..
The very connotation of improving one’s life has “it’s all about me” written all over it. Truth be told, though, you can create a glorious life for yourself and lead others to victory at the same time.
The industry jargon seems to point to a perfectly selfish course of action. SELF improvement, SELF empowerment, PERSONAL development. To be sure, you can hard wire yourself for success on every imaginable level using every imaginable system.
However, suspend your own needs and desires for one moment and think about how wonderful life would be if you led the people in your circle of influence on a quest for success at the same time that you create that success in your own life.
Let’s start by identifying a few habits that are shared by most successful people:
That is a short list, but if you have achieved any measure of success in your life or if you know of people who have, you will recognize those types of traits as common among successful people.
In order to double the return on your personal development time and financial investments, why not practice great leadership by helping the people around you to achieve success as well?
You are probably familiar with the negative effect that “energy vampires” can have on your life. Even if you are keeping a positive and energetic outlook on life, people around you who are not on track to personal or professional success can suck the life right out of an otherwise positive situation.
However, everyone loves a good success story, and by becoming that success story, the people around you will often want to emulate your behavior so that they, too, can experience success. Consider the following examples:
If you have decided to lose weight or start cleaning up your health, you will inspire the people around you to do the same when they start to see you achieving results.
On the other hand, if you tell people that you are going to start leading a more healthy lifestyle, but then you don’t do it, why would they respect the things in the future that you claim you are going to do?
Finances fall under the same umbrella, especially in the home environment. Whether you have a family or if you live with roommates or friends, by making an on-going and dedicated effort to stop living outside of your means, the people around you will at least respect that, if not pick up the habits themselves.
Oppose that scenario to one where you tell your spouse or your partner that you are going to start saving money, but then you squander hundreds or even thousands of dollars on non-critical expenses such as recreation, material possessions, etc.
This concept could even be applied to something non-tangible like keeping a positive attitude. Actually keeping a bright and cheerful demeanor in the home or in the workplace will have an almost domino-like effect on the people around you. Even people who are normally very negative will at the very least start avoiding you, if not actually cheering up themselves.
I’m sure that you can think of many similar examples where this type of thinking could come into play, and the takeaway point for you to remember is that it is only by doing that you will become a Leader who will actually inspire the people around you to start achieving success.
You can talk, talk, talk all day long about how you are going to lose weight, get rich, or stop living your life in a funk. However, talk is cheap, and no one is buying it.
If you truly want to inspire the people around you to succeed, then you have to succeed! Nothing less than proof positive that your ideals are solid will get the people around you to consider following in your footsteps.
Does all of this mean that you need to become a great leader in order to achieve your own desired levels of personal development? Absolutely not.
Personal development and self improvement do not require you to help anyone but yourself. However, before you put the “it’s all about me” cap back on, take a few minutes to think about how great it would be if the people around you started picking up some positive habits.
At the very least, it would keep them from constantly trying to drag you down to their level of negativity!
