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
The keys to your future happiness may lie safely tucked away in your past where they can be withdrawn and used - free of charge! Link to Full Story
Are your barriers to personal growth due to the fact that you are not providing enough service to yourself, or to others? The examples in this post will help to clarify whether or not that is happening to you. Link to Full Story
The way that you act in public needs to match the way that you act in private if you truly want to create success in your life! Link to Full Story
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.
Human beings have no shortage of motivation once they have decided to do something, but is it possible that you may be jumping the gun in your personal development efforts?
Most people get involved in a personal development or self improvement program with a very specific end-result in mind. 
However, in each case we tend to jump on the first great idea that comes to mind, thinking that this one concept or plan for success is going to be our ticket to fame, fortune, and happiness.
Now, that is not to say that any given idea won't serve as a huge step in the right direction. However, if you think about the original mission, you may realize that you have purchased your ticket to Success Land a bit prematurely:
PERSONAL development.
SELF improvement.
These terms say nothing of financial windfalls, incredible career opportunities, rapid weight loss, or romantic bliss. Those may be the results that you are looking for, but if you haven't "taken care of your own backyard" so to speak, the opportunities for success in those areas will still only lead you right back to where you were when you started.
People who suddenly find themselves with a lot of unexpected money almost always find a way to either lose that money very quickly, or to allow their lives to fall apart as a result of suddenly having a lot of cash, yet not knowing how to handle it.
People who hire a top-notch personal trainer and lose 50 lbs in 6 months tend to invariably end up putting the weight back on because it wasn't their own state of mind that allowed the weight loss, but rather the order-barking, non-yielding personal trainer who forced that person to clean up their act.
People who have consistently failed to maintain happy and fulfilling long-term relationships will continue to fail in that area of their life, even if they suddenly find themselves surrounded by an excessive amount of potential suitors. Until they figure out the self-destructive trigger that has caused them to sabotage past relationships, no amount of new relationship opportunities is going to change how they handle a new partner in their life.
Each of us carries around a nasty little virus called the Self-limiting Belief. It causes us to find ways to sabotage our own success, no matter how great of an opportunity or a learning experience is put before us.
Self-limiting beliefs cause us to shoot ourselves in the foot, as it were, to make sure that we are never able to cross the finish line of any success path that we put ourselves on.
The only way to ensure success - in any area of life - is to find out why we have failed to be successful in that area in the past, recognize our own shortcomings, and then take whatever action is appropriate to eliminate the self-limiting beliefs.
The irony of this situation is that once a self-limiting belief has been recognized, the mere act of recognizing it is often enough to eliminate it's negating effect on our lives.
If you want to practice personal development or self improvement, don't run right out and buy the newest program or system that is going to walk you from point A to point B to point C.
First, ask yourself why - deep down inside - you haven't already achieved success in that area.
When you have that answer, then it will be time to specialize in bringing that success into your life by finding the proper system for doing so.
Fear is keeping us from living our lives to the fullest, and in most cases, it is keeping us from achieving anything even close to what we are capable of.
Fear is elusive, however, and is often disguised as something a bit less debilitating, which is why it is not always seen as the true culprit behind so many of our shortcomings.
I am not talking about fear as in being afraid for your life itself, 
Whenever we get into an argument with our spouse or other family member, it is because we are afraid that the situation is not going to be resolved the way we feel that it should be.
Let's look at another example - our careers.
What about health and fitness? Is that driven by fear as well?
These examples could go on and on and on to encompass every single aspect of the human existence here on planet earth. However, you do not need to read endless examples to see the affect that fear has on your own life every single day.
Simply start examining any given situation that you are feeling anxious or nervous about, and ask yourself what it is that you are afraid of in that situation.
You will find across the board that there is always a resounding reason why you feel anxious about everything from where to find a parking space to whether or not to accept a marriage proposal, or a job offer.
Your fear that something bad will happen if you make the wrong decision is what is driving the thought process for pretty much every decision that you ever make.
Do you really think it is a very good idea to make every decision that you make in your life based on a negative emotion such as fear?
The answer, of course, is No, and you can start eliminating fear from your life right now. All you have to do is realize the simple fact that whatever it is that you are afraid of is going to happen anyway, whether you are afraid of it or not.
In fact, believers in concepts such as the Law of Attraction will recognize that by expressing fear about something, you will only serve to cause the thing that you are afraid of to actually happen.
However, whether or not you believe in your ability to consciously create your life, it is a rock-solid fact that if you express fear about something, no good will come about as a result of that.
Should you respect things that could potentially cause negative circumstances to manifest in your life? Absolutely.
Should you prepare for things in order to minimize the chance that you will not be happy with the results of any given situation? Sure.
However, being afraid that life in general is not going to go your way will only serve to make you ACT from a position of fear. That will very often have implications for your life that are at least as negative as - if not more so - than what would have happened if you had never expressed that fear in the first place.
Remember the following very wise quote:
"Anything that doesn't kill us only makes us stronger."
Unless you are in a situation where your life is in actual danger, always ask yourself if being afraid at that moment is even worth it.
The Self Improvement industry is booming. What started with the likes of Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, and Earl Nightingale has morphed into one of the biggest and most densely populated industries in the world today.
You can’t read a newspaper, watch TV, listen to the radio, or surf the Internet without seeing or hearing about people who are trying to make their lives better.
Self improvement products are available in all shapes and sizes, people are flocking to personal development seminars by the thousands, and even the pseudo-amateur Blogging population has taken up the Self Improvement gauntlet.
So why isn’t our world a utopia full of enlightened individuals who weigh less, have more money, enjoy incredible business success, and partake in decades long picture-perfect romances?
I’ll tell you why, and considering my own positive outlook and teachings that I bring to the world, please understand that this is an observation of fact, not an opinion:
Yes, they are learning about it. Yes, they are talking about it. Yes, they are spending plenty of their time and their money on the concepts. However, there is one absolutely mission-critical thing that is still missing, and that thing can be summed up in one simple word:
Consistency.
Think about it. The methods for how to lose weight and be healthy have been known for decades. The power of positive thinking, visualization, and even affirmations have long since been proven to be effective. The methods for making at least a decent living - if not an opulent one - are no mystery to anyone who takes the time to learn them. Even relationship success can be had by anyone who cares to make a consistent effort with that goal in mind.
So why is that even though the answers are clearly available, people still fail to follow through on their self improvement efforts?
For a lot of people, it is nothing more mysterious than falling victim to their own self-limiting beliefs. No matter how much someone truly wants to succeed at any given endeavor, they are so used to not having what they want, that they will unconsciously sabotage their own efforts to achieve success.
Here is the real kicker, though: All of the methods that we know - and have known for decades - WILL work if you only consistently put them into practice.
Even if you don’t have a lot of faith in the beginning, by simply going “by the numbers” and consistently applying the success principles that are freely available to all who want to learn them, success is not only possible, but it is a guarantee.
Between the readership of this Blog, and my own newsletter distribution list, there are quite a few people who have access to the knowledge about self improvement that I write about in my articles, products, and blog posts.
I have decided to start leveraging that reach (Yay - I got to use a corporate term!) in order to start turning the tide in the favor of those who truly want to start making positive changes in their lives.
If you’re interested in seeing what I’ve put together, simply click on over to the Self Improvement 30-Day Challenge that I am sponsoring. See if you’re up to the challenge of realizing how much progress you can make if you will truly commit yourself - even if only for 30 short days.
Do you need my help in order to start improving your life? Absolutely not! You have that power inside of you at this very moment.
However, if you want some assistance, check out the program, and feel free to send me an email if you have any questions.
Whether you check out my program or not, I do implore you to take the message of this post to heart:
Your “knowledge” about self improvement won’t do you any good unless you use it - over and over and over again. You know, consistently!
Equanimity, although it hardly falls under the category of a word that gets used in a sentence every day, it is still a concept that everyone should understand if they are going to practice the art of conscious creation.
Conscious creation is basically the act of creating your life by being mindful of your thoughts and feelings, and in so doing, controlling the experiences that are brought into your life via the Law of Attraction.
For example, if you tend to worry excessively about negative things that might or might not happen, you will tend to attract negative things into your life. On the other hand, if you have a “whatever happens, happens” attitude, and you manage to keep up a cheerful or positive outlook, then you will in turn attract experiences and circumstances that you consider to be positive.
This is where equanimity enters into the equation. Over at The Probabilist as well as The Comedy and Humor Blog, there are excellent descriptions of equanimity and how it enters into your life.
For the purposes of this post, we will define equanimity as the ability to control your reaction to the external events of your life. The ability to remain calm and emotionally in control, even though the present circumstances may seem to call for a more negatively-charged reaction.
The reason why this is so important when it comes to the Law of Attraction is because each of the emotions that you experience are magnets that attract similar emotions back to you.
If you experience positive emotions, then that is a good thing. However, if you are having a negative emotional reaction, then the last thing that you want to do is attract more negativity, which will just make the situation even worse.
This is especially true when it comes to relationships, or dealings with people that you see frequently, such as co-workers. The emotions that you experience not only attract similar emotions, but they will also tend to elicit similar responses in the people that you are interacting with.
In the case of a close personal relationship, have you ever noticed that during a disagreement, the more upset you get, the more upset the other person tends to get (equanimity masters notwithstanding, of course)?
The same things happens at work. A negative experience with a co-worker will tend to “stain” both of you with a negative charge that will serve to attract more negativity to both of you - either immediately, or later on down the road.
However, just as you may be able to identify with the 2 examples just given, you can probably also remember experiences when you got really upset about something, but the other person seemed to remain “nonplussed” about the whole thing.
They just sat there talking to you in the same tone of voice, that same (infuriating!) look on their face, and it seemed that no matter how amped up you personally became, their emotional reaction changed little, if it all.
That’s equanimity in action. And, as annoying as it may be to the person who is letting their emotions control them, the person who is practicing equanimity is actually protecting not only their own circumstances, but yours as well.
Now, don’t misunderstand. As The Probabilist pointed out (link above), the other side of equanimity is empathy. Empathy basically means that via an understanding of someone else’s emotional state, you allow yourself to be influenced by the emotions that you perceive them to be experiencing.
However - and here is where it all comes together - allowing your own emotions to be controlled by the emotions of others, or recognizing their emotions, but retaining control of your own feelings - are two different things.
If you find yourself in a situation with the potential for negativity - from a disagreement all the way up through an emergency situation - ask yourself what is more valuable; The ability to retain control of your emotions and think clearly about how best to handle the situation, or flying off the handle and allowing your emotions to dictate your actions.
Do emotions have their place? Absolutely! In fact, our emotions are arguably the most powerful and valuable gift that humans have been given. However, using our emotions for benefit vs. allowing them to rule our lives are certainly two different situations.
Equanimity does not mean living without emotion.
Empathy does not mean living as a slave to emotion.
The trick to your own personal success - as well as to benefit the people around you - is to realize that by controlling your emotions, you literally dictate what happens next.
If you want what happens next to be in your favor, then “feel” accordingly. If you want what happens next to be the random result of whatever emotion you happen to feel as the result of what life throws at you, then ignore this entire post.
It is absolutely guaranteed that the world will deliver what you expect it to deliver.
When you expect (via your feelings) to get whatever it is that you want out of life, then you are free and clear to not experience surprise when that is exactly what shows up for you.
If you are reading this post, then there is a good chance that you have spent a fair amount of time reading about self improvement, positive thinking, conscious creation, or other lifestyle-enhancing concepts. Big props to you for having soaked up all of that information, but do you think there might be a chance that some things are starting to slip through the cracks?
Most people believe that we remember everything that we are ever exposed to, and I would have to say that I agree with that.
Considering the small percentage of the potential of the human mind that we use, I would even say that we’ve got WAY more storage space than we probably need. At least during this stage of our evolution.
Either way, whether your mental hard drive is bursting at the seams, or if you feel that you are intellectually running on empty, when it comes to self improvement, it is very easy to start thinking that there is so much information out there, you’re not sure which end is up!
Positive Thinking. The Law of Attraction. Goal Setting. Conscious Creation. Brain Wave Therapy. Meditation. The Power of Intention. EFT. Ho’oponopono. Subliminal Messaging. Photo Reading. Lucid Dreaming. Energy Healing. Hypnotherapy. Visualization. Affirmations.
The list goes on and on and on. How do you choose a discipline that is going to work for you when everyone claims that their system is the best one?
Simple - you don’t.
You are about to be given the one very simple, no degree required, no purchased needed, no holds barred answer to the Self Improvement Question:
Want whatever it is that you want, and don’t stop wanting it until whatever it is comes into your life.
Whew! That was a hard one, wasn’t it? Years of experimentation, millions of dollars worth of research, thousands of books, programs, and seminars, and the simple answer is that all you have to do is really want whatever it is that you want.
It doesn’t matter what “it” is. Weight loss. Financial success. Career satisfaction. Wonderful relationships.
Everything that you could ever want in your life will come into your life by the simple act of you constantly thinking about it. And I do mean constantly!
If I called you up in the middle of the night and said, “What are you doing?” your only response should be “Thinking about my dreams.”
If I came to your place of business and said, “What are you doing?” your only response should be “Thinking about my dreams.”
If I walked into your bathroom while you were taking a shower in the morning, handed you a cup of coffee and said, “What are you doing?” your only response should be “Thinking about my dreams.”
If I gave you a fresh stalk of broccoli to cut up and put into the salad that you were making for dinner and said, “What are you doing?” your only response should be “Thinking about my dreams.”
I could go on and on with examples just like those above, but by now you should get the picture. You have to have what Napoleon Hill called a “white hot” desire to have whatever it is that you want.
That desire should set your very soul ablaze, and you should spend your life on a constant and never-ending quest to put out that fire.
Your very existence should be powered by the unending pursuit of your desire, to the point where you will burn your ships and run wildly into battle screaming “GIVE ME MY DREAMS, OR GIVE ME DEATH!”
That is when you will finally understand. That is when it will “click” for you. That is when you will draw your desires into your life just as surely as you were born, and just as surely as you will one day pass from this physical existence.
When you truly embrace your desires with such a passion and a ferocity that no obstacle will stop you, no circumstance will slow you down, nothing on this earth can sway you from your destiny - THAT is when you will cause yourself to run headlong into your destiny at breakneck speed.
You can cite whatever self improvement “system” that you want for this process. Conscious creation, the Law of Attraction, even just old fashioned good luck.
It is not necessary for you to know how your dreams are brought to you. All you have to know is that if you truly want them, then focus on them as if your very life depended on it, and do not let that laser-focus waver for even a moment.
What will happen then? How will your dreams magically manifest?
Doors will open for you. Opportunities for success will fall into your lap. Necessary people will come into your life. Circumstances will appear, disappear, or change in your favor. By the force of your own WILL, your world will rearrange in such a way as to give you everything that you wish for.
This system is absolutely 100% guaranteed to work. It works for every person, in every circumstance, regardless of who they are or what it is that they want.
Don’t believe me? Then try it for 30 days. Spend the next 30 days thinking of nothing but the thing that you desire more than anything else in all the world. You can use visualizations, affirmations, day-dreaming, subliminal programming, goal setting, etc. Choose the system or systems that work for you, or don’t choose any at all.
Just think about what you want all day, every single day, for 30 days. Not for 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there, a couple more minutes over there. All day. Every day. Picture your life in your head as if you have already achieved whatever it is that you want.
Be careful, though! When you do this properly, you will find yourself dangerously closer to success than you have ever been in your entire life. When that happens, don’t get scared and run away. Just spend some quality time patting yourself on the back, and keep right on doing it the next month.
Before you know it, you will run out of dreams and you will have to now make some even bigger and better ones. How cool will THAT be??
Would you subscribe to the point of view that there are problems in the world?
For that matter, would you agree that there are problems much closer to home, such as your job, your friends, and even your own household?
Most people would answer “yes” to both of those questions, and most people would also back up that answer by pointing out that a whole pile of other people are either the cause of those problems, or that they keep the “problem engine” running by not cleaning up the way that they handle any given set of circumstances.
You will get no argument from me that there are plenty of problems that need to be solved, and I’ll even put my own “stuff” out there by saying that there are plenty of things in my own circle of influence that I would like to see happen differently than they do.
However, what if everything that happens around you is actually your fault? Which, by the way, is another point of view that I subscribe to, at least on a “local” level, if not worldwide.
Awhile ago I put up a post about the self improvement system known as Ho’oponopono. Although Ho’oponopono is based on healing imbalances with others, it is actually a system that is completely internal, and practitioners of that art claim to be able to solve issues with other people without even meeting or talking to them.
There is some very convincing evidence that we have the ability to influence others by working on our own inner-thoughts, and I will recommend that you grab a copy of Zero Limits by Joe Vitale as soon as it is released, and I will also refer you to this excellent post by Steve Pavlina where he gives some examples of how this concept has benefited his life.
For my part, I want to take it one step further, however, and explain a vicious circle that you can find yourself in that will keep replicating itself over and over until you find a way to break out of it.
In a nutshell, Ho’oponopono and similar beliefs state that our surroundings are powered by our own inner beliefs and perceptions of the way that we think things are, or should be.
To keep it “local”, I will stick with the example of your spouse or your significant other.
If you expect that your spouse is going to get mad at you because you spent too much money, or you stayed out too late with your friends, or because you shirked your responsibilities around the house, there is a very real chance that is exactly what you will get because you expect it.
However, the real truth of the matter is that the anger or disappointment that you expect to see in someone else’s eyes is merely a reflection of what you are already feeling.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that you won’t feel 100% happy with yourself if you allow yourself to succumb to a desire that you know for a fact is not in your best interest, or in the best interest of the people that you care about.
So, whenever it comes time to “face the music” with the person that you believe is going to be angry with you or disappointed, most of the time you will find that anger and disappointment waiting right there for you, just as you expected.
Then, to make matters worse, as you have already beaten yourself up (usually without even knowing it) because you know that you did something that wasn’t up to your own personal standards, your spouse or significant other reacts to you in a negative manner about what you did.
Does the term “rubbing salt in an open wound” mean anything to you at this point? Not only have you done something that you consider to be wrong, but then you have to face it out in the open, usually with people that you care about and whose opinions you respect.
It’s like stubbing your toe, and then falling over in pain only to hit your head on the wall on the way down!
Also, this concept is certainly not limited to when you have done something that you consider to be wrong. The same thing applies whenever you see things in other people that do not please you.
When you expect your children to not make enough of an effort in school, you are actually coming face to face with the fact that on some level you feel that your own education is not up to par.
When you expect your co-workers to find the most effective way to cause your job to be more difficult, you are actually choreographing their performance due to the fact that you feel your own work ethic is not high enough, or that you are unhappy about your career status.
When you expect your neighbors to be loud and obnoxious, what you are really coming face to face with is the fact that you have not achieved the level of success that will allow you to live in a big house on a private lot, or that you have self-limiting beliefs about money.
Fortunately, for every instance that you find your negative expectations of others to be 100% fulfilled, you are actually being given a wonderful opportunity. You can help them to be the kind of people that you want to be around, and help yourself at the same time.
All you have to do is start managing your expectations of yourself as well as the people around you in order to keep those expectations at a happier or more harmonious level.
It all starts with you being honest with yourself, and working on your inner beliefs.
The next time someone does something that you find displeasing, simply ask yourself why you find it displeasing. Dig deep and find the true answer, not the answer that you think is appropriate.
As is often the case with self-limiting beliefs, your reaction to the circumstances of your life can be colored by the self-limiting belief, simply because that is what you are used to.
However, by simply coming to terms with your own “inner demons” you will then start to project happiness, confidence, and prosperity to all who are in your immediate vicinity, not to mention the positive vibrations that you will be sending out into the universe as a whole.
So, the next time you get upset with someone, find out why you are actually upset with yourself. You will then have found the path to your own resolution, which will spill over onto every circumstance that is affected by your new level of understanding.
Think about how great it is to have control over every single moment of your life - even the circumstances that right now might seem hopeless!
