Category Archives: Goals

The Unstoppable Power of Silence

If you are a smoker, or a drinker, or an overeater, and you’ve ever decided to cut back, or quit, you’ve probably heard the advice that you should tell as many other people as you can about your goal, in order to give yourself some social support to keep going, and some social pressure in case you backslide. This can be great advice. Many times I’ve had weight loss bets with friends to keep motivation high. I’m sure you can remember a time when you wanted to achieve a goal, or stop or cut back a habit and have been able to enjoy support form friends and family.

Other, more lofty goals, may require a different tact. These might be better left secret. There is an ancient law of magic that goes as follows:

To Know

To Will

To Dare

To Be Silent

Let’s break them down, shall we?

To Know.

Sounds simple enough. You want to do something. It helps if you know what you are doing. Skills. Techniques. Where to get resources. Many places can help you in this regard. Library. Friends. Mentors. Websites. Humans are by nature, very curious creatures, so finding information can be the easiest part of creating a reality that you desire.

To Will

This is where the fun begins. You have a vague idea of what you want. Happiness, wealth, sexual and emotional intimacy. To will you need to create a plan and make a decision to bring it into being. This is different from a wish, or a hope,  or a longing. This is a strong decision to create what you want, by hook or by crook. Or as the character in Apollo Thirteen put it so succinctly, you must decide that “Failure is Not an Option!”

To Dare

This is the scary part. You’ve decided you want to create a relationship. You’ve studied material on how to be socially adept, how to flirt, how to ask the right questions. You’ve made the decision to make this happen. Now there he or she is. You must walk over and introduce yourself. What separates the Bill Gates and the Tiger Woods and the Oprah Winfreys from the rest of the wanna be hacks is your ability to try and try and try again and again until you get it right. To be able to take action, over and over again, until there world is exactly how you want it. When you realize that life affords you as many chances as you are willing to take, this can be easier. The opportunity of a lifetime comes along just as often as you are prepared to take it.

To Be Silent.

This is where the metaphysical cool stuff starts. Some say that by keeping your goal silent, you build up psychic energy that will increase the your will and your ability to take action over and over again. Some say that you shouldn’t tell others about important goals, because they might give you reasons that you hadn’t thought of as to why you can’t achieve it. Sometimes this can be a blessing. When I was in high school I had decided to run a marathon. I told my best friend, and he told me, with as much good intentions as possible, that he didn’t think I could finish, and I might injure myself. I took this as a challenge, and allowed his disbelief in my ability to spur me on to finish. And hobble around in pain for a few weeks, but that’s another story. 

This is a rare case. Many times when you share your goal with somebody, unless you are a hundred percent decided that you will succeed, even the best intentions can derail you.  Another theory is that if you have a huge goal, even support can derail you. It works like this. Say you want to start your own company. You have this fantastic image in your mind with yourself being successful, with people giving you all kinds of props because of your great business. You use this visualization to pull you through rough patches of doubt. If you tell others, and they believe you and support you, their support and well wishes might take away the attractive pull of your visualization. If people in the present are giving you props for your dreams, the props you imagine receiving in the future might have less effect, and give you less incentive in those times of doubt.

So it boils down to the type of goal you want. If you want to lose weight, or give up a habit, it can help to enlist the support of others. If you want to create something fantastic in your life, be careful who you tell. Perhaps it’s better not to tell anybody until after you’ve already achieved success. If you are lucky enough to have a special relationship with somebody that will support you as much as you support yourself, teamwork can be a great asset. 

Otherwise, be silent. An powerful goal, unspoken to others, can grow to enormous proportions, giving you more power than you’ve ever dreamed. And you may be surprised how being able to tap this power will automatically give you an incredible mastery over reality unknown to most, and envied by many.

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Feel Youthful Dreams At Any Age

So today I was hanging out with these four junior high school kids. Which isn’t really something I normally do, but sometimes when you find yourself in an odd situation that happens every once in a while, you can use this opportunity to learn something new that maybe you’d forgotten about. Like sometimes when you get older, you sort of forget what it’s like to be a kid, so when you talk to them, they seem to have a fresh and new perspective on things, until you realize that they are really looking at the world through eyes that you’d had before, and you’d neglected to look through for too long of a while.

So I was asking these kids what they wanted to be when they grew up. One kid said she wanted to be a nurse. Ok, sounds good. A job where you can help people, work in a hospital, wear a cool uniform. The next kid said he wanted to be a teacher. So far, so good. Help out kids to learn about life, help them to discover new things everyday. Next kid said he wanted to be a professional soccer player. Now we’re talking.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a professional baseball player. That was before you learned that you sort of had to be good at what you want to be when you grow up. Because I wasn’t all that great in baseball. In fact, when I was as old as these kids, I didn’t even make the junior high school team. Before you feel sympathy, realize that I was kind of relieved, because by that time, I’d learned that the baseball team was always the last to go home everyday.

Kind of strange how that works out. You develop these big dreams, then you sometimes realize that your dreams aren’t really based on anything other than a wish. You sort of make your goals based on what you see on TV, which really is just a bunch of imaginary stuff when you think about it. Not that watching baseball on TV is imaginary. It’s just that they only show the fun part, or at least what they think that you’ll think is the fun part. Who wants to watch the part where they stretch and practice and line the field? Unless you really enjoy that, which I guess professional baseball players do, which is why they are professionals, and I didn’t make the junior high school baseball team.

But as you go through life and learn new things, you start to really get a taste for what it is you want to spend your time doing something rewarding, right? I don’t suppose you could be a professional singer unless you really enjoyed band practice.

The thing that struck me the most, is that you can develop a realistic view of life as you grow and learn and experience, and still retain your youthful expectation that you always have the possibility of being able to become something greater than you are. I mean, who wants to stay a junior high school student your whole life?

And the fourth kid said that he wanted to be a taxi driver, which is actually my favorite answer of them all. Because instead of saying something that he thought other people might approve of, he said something he thought would be really cool, for whatever reason it was. And when you can combine your youthful expectation of greatness with saying what’s really on your mind, you got yourself a winning combination. 

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Powerfully Develop Bullet Proof Self Esteem

Try this little mind experiment, just for fun. Say to yourself “I can do whatever I want.” Or if you want to, you can say something specific like “I can sell anything to anybody,” if you are a salesman. Or you can try “I own my own house,” or “I will own my own business,” if those are appropriate. After you say them, do you hear any responses from your mind? Are there any insidious voices inside saying “yea, right,” or “get real,” or “ha ha ha!”

If you do hear those voices, or sense that they are there, don’t worry. Most people have them. How they got there is not really important. What’s important is how to get rid of them. Most of us go through carrying judgments of ourselves that didn’t even come from us. Maybe when you were six, your teacher said something, that she thought might’ve been helpful at the time, but turned out to be a limiting statement like “you can’t do that!” when you trying to do something that you weren’t supposed to. I remember once in kindergarten I was having a ball painting blue paint all over everything. How was I supposed to know you were supposed to keep it on the paper?

Other times an adult will say something out of anger, when they are not really angry at us, but it seems that way at the time. So we carry that judgment with us, almost without knowing.

These judgments and opinions that others have given us over the years build up and mix with our own opinions of ourselves. Even if we have great ideas and plans, it’s hard to achieve them if we have those old tapes playing over and over in our heads.

A great way to help yourself to easily achieve what you want in life is to choose to release others’ judgments of you, release those old voices. Choose to listen to yourself, and yourself only. Let the others go. They aren’t important any more. The more you work on releasing their influence, the easier it will be to achieve greater success in your life.

One of the things that I’ve found that works fantastically well for this is a product I’ve been using for at least ten years. It’s only about thirty dollars, and it’s amazing to listen to. It uses a kind of hypnosis called a dual voice induction. You can hear a different voice in each ear. Each one telling a beautifully crafted metaphor, which are specially designed to guide your brain into more resourceful thinking. The particular one I’m talking about is called the Self Esteem Supercharger. Even though I’ve listened to it hundreds of times, I’m still not completely sure what’s on it, because I zone out completely every time. It doesn’t use any subliminals or any other secret technology, so there are no hidden messages. It’s a completely relaxing experience that can free you to feel more resourceful and less dependent upon the opinions of others. The name of the company is called Learning Strategies. I’ve bought and used several different products from them, and I can confidently say that they are one of the best companies out there if you are interested in self improvement. And trust me, I’m a self development junkie.

In the future I’ll be posting more reviews of their products, as they are incredibly helpful in making it almost automatic for you achieve whatever you want in life.

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Your Incredible Power of Thought

Have you seen the movie, Titanic? The one where that ship crashed into the iceberg, and sank? I’m sure you realize that the reason they crashed into the iceberg is because ninety percent of the iceberg is below water, where they can’t see it. And of course, since they didn’t have very advanced sonar back in those days, they didn’t really see it coming. The fact that they were trying to go fast to impress the newspapers, and weren’t willing to always pay attention didn’t help either.

How about that episode of Seinfeld, where George went the movie theater and that guy was shining a laser pointer at the screen? Because everyone thought it was so funny, George decided he would try the same thing, only he got different results.

Or how about those books that have all those satellite pictures from space? When you look down at small towns in sparsely populated areas, you can barely see a dot of light. Yet in that dot of light are hundreds if not thousands of people, all with thoughts, dreams, fears, hopes, and memories of wonderful pleasure.

Your brain is like that. The thoughts that you are thinking now are the proverbial tip of the iceberg, because there are literally millions of thoughts that are going on in your mind that you aren’t aware of. And the difference between the thoughts that you know about, and the thoughts you don’t know about, are a lot different than the 90/10 ratio in that iceberg. George’s laser is a little bit closer, with the dot being the thoughts you are conscious of, and the whole screen being your other than conscious thoughts. 

For example, what are you thinking right now? What were you thinking before you thought that? What are you thinking now, as you read these words, and remember to feel your left foot? How about as you feel your left foot and begin to wonder what is going to happen exactly one week from now? And when you think about that, can you remember your birthday when you turned seven years old? How about your first kiss? How about the first amount of money that you truly earned? How about the first time you were alone with that someone special? How about the night you were so scared, you didn’t think you were going to make it? (But thankfully you did!) How about that time you were so happy you cried, and then wondered if anybody noticed?

One of the most fantastic thing about the brain being set up like this is that there are literally millions of thoughts in your mind that you can harness to support you. While the magnificent potential is always there, sometimes our thoughts aren’t as cooperative with each other as you’d like. It’s when you give your brain a clear, strong, direction, infused with good emotions, that these thoughts start to sychronize.

A great way to do this is to think of something you want to accomplish or attain. Imagine how it will look when you accomplish it. What will you see, what will you feel, what will you hear that will show you, without a doubt, that you were able to accomplish this? Make another picture, filled with other pieces of evidence of your accomplishment. 

For example, imagine that you want to earn a certain amount of money. Decide on the exact amount. How many things can you picture that show evidence that you have your goal, already achieved? What do you hear people saying to you about your achievement? How do you feel? Can you feel the paper? Is it a bank statement? Are you opening an envelope? Can you feel the weight of the actual cash in your hands?

Once you have a picture in your mind of what you want, close your eyes and sit with it for a few minutes, and really feel gratitude for having it. Really feel thankful for yourself, already achieving it. Feel thankful for all the people that have helped you achieve this goal.

Do this at least twice a day, every day. This will powerfully align the thoughts in your brain to be more cooperative so you can achieve what you want.

And if you think that this is encouraging, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

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The Power of Focus

Drifting aimlessly. Meandering here and there. Wandering up and down, back and forth, left and right. Not traveling in any discernable direction. Seemingly without aim or purpose. Reacting, rather than acting. Reacting automatically to an environment that is as unpredictable as the earth is old. These are your thoughts. And unless you learn to control your thoughts, your thoughts will control you.

Unfortunately if you allow that to happen, which all too many people do, you place yourself under the control of a infinitely complex feedback loop to which you have no option other than follow blindly, and hope everything works out.  You know too well that it rarely does.

And the worse part is that those times when it doesn’t work out, although it seems like the responsibility lies outside your wonderfully developed mind-body biological system, in truth, the responsibility lies with you. And only you. I believe it was Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin that said it best.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way. God, Mother Nature, the wonderfully random process of Darwinian Natural Selection, whoever or whatever it was that created you, didn’t create such a magnificent collection of cells and bones and muscles, and your fantastically powerful brain to just wander aimlessly through life.

You were created for a purpose, a reason, a destination. You are a missile with a highly sophisticated guidance system that scientiests are just now starting to understand. And known to only a few people, and put into practice by even fewer, is one of the easiest ways to harness the awesome power of your mind. To develop the power of concentration.

Remember when you were a kid, and you or some of your friends would play with a magnifying glass? You could take a very inexpensive magnifying glass, even one made of cheap plastic, and use it to focus the passive rays of the sun into incredible power. Power to burn, power to start fires. That power was harnessed by taking only a minuscule sliver of the suns total power and focusing it. The sun is a giant ball of fire, much bigger than the Earth fueled by the process of nuclear fusion, changing hydrogen atoms into helium atoms. One substance, one process, and enough energy to power an entire planet through eon after eon.

Your brain is infinitely more complex and intricate than that. Infinitely more rich. Infinitely more resourceful. The sun produces heat, and fire, and radiation. Your brain can produce ideas, which can turn into cities, art, cathedrals, poems, songs, equations. Whatever you can imagine, you can create. And you have the power to focus yourself.  Strengthen your mind so you focus your thoughts only on what supports and enlightens you. Focus your thoughts only on ideas that can increase happiness and abundance for you and those you love.

How to do that? How to gain that elusive power that through simple practice will give you an edge almost unheard of in today’s world?

Consistent practice. Opposite of the practice of meditation, in which you practice the emptying of your mind. To practice focus, think of an object. An apple. A bright red apple. Hold the thought in your mind of only an apple. Hold it for as long as you can. If you can hold it for five seconds, you’re doing pretty good. Practice whenever you get a chance. Red lights. In the bathroom. On the elevator. Decide to choose a thought, and hold only that thought for as long as you can.

When you can hold a simple thought, of a simple picture, move on to more complicated pictures. Ones containing a small amount of motion. A hummingbird floating next to a feeder. A clown juggling three bowling balls. A seal with a phone book balanced on its nose.

When you get good at that, you can move on to the next step. You’ll need to prepare yourself with five fantastic memories. If you ever notice your thoughts drifting to unhappy imaginations about the future, you can pull up your five happy memories, and force out the bad guys.

Start by remembering a happy memory from childhood. Really get into it. Close your eyes and easily allow yourself to float back into that memory. Really relive it. Relive it several times. Every time you relive this, put the memory into your left thumb. That’s right, put that wonderful memory into your left thumb. Use what you learned about pegging in the articles on memory and associate that memory with your left thumb.

Do the same with your forefinger, middle finger, ring finger and pinky. Take your time. They don’t have to be childhood memories. Any good memory will do. Make sure it’s a strong, powerful memory. Sex, money, sports, anything that causes you to automatically remember good feelings will work.

You might need to practice a few times before it really sets. But after you take the time to really attach those good memories to your left hand, you will have a powerful source to instantly and powerfully re direct your brain should you ever find yourself thinking less than supportive thoughts. Just open your left hand, and take a moment with your thumb and your fingers recalling all those good memories you’ve programmed in. Once you cycle through all five, make a fist and hold it up to sybolically chase the bad thoughts that have crept into your brain.

After you do this consciously a few times you won’t even have to recall the memories. By training your brain in this manner, simply by clenching your left hand into a fist will immediately flood your brain with good thoughts.

In future articles, I will teach you how install resources, goals, and other skills so you can automatically direct your brain, giving you the power to accomplish great things in your life.

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Christmas Camellia

This morning I saw this old guy that I usually pass by on my morning walk. “Ohayo Gozaimasu!” I said, as I usually do. (‘Ohayo gozaimasu’ is Japanese for ‘good morning.’) It seemed that he ignored me. I slowed down a bit, because he always responds in kind, and very cheerfully. He didn’t even seem to make any attempt at eye contact. I turned to look and see what he was looking at, and all I could see was a bunch of camellias over across the road.

Camellias are an interesting flower. They are nice to look at, and bloom when all the other flowers around them have decided to take the winter off. Maybe they think they got the short end of the stick, but I’m not so sure. Being a contrarian can have it’s advantages. Especially if you are a contrarian just because of chance.

For example, when you make a choice, some people base their decisions on internal factors, and others make their decisions on external factors. If you decide largely by internal factors, you will have your own reasons for doing that, without any regard to what other people will think. Like when you decide to get up a 5 AM and exercise every morning. You don’t do it because it’s popular, you do it because you’ve decided to do it for your own reasons. Other people make decisions based on external factors, or other people. Those people make decisions based on how other people think, or how they imagine other people will think. It’s almost like allowing a giant group of imaginary people make your own decision for you.

Like sometimes I’ll see a group of kids walking to school. They are supposed to walk in a straight line, with some designated kid the leader. Sometimes, though, I see a kid hanging out in the back, like you do sometimes when you decide to march to your own drummer, and kick a rock while you walk.

And sometimes when you decide to be a contrarian just for being a contrarians sake, you get extra benefits. That’s one of the reasons why the camellia leaf is used to make popular tea. One of the most popular ones is called Christmas Camellia.

And it turns out that old guy didn’t say hi because his wife had bought him a pair of earmuffs that affected his hearing a bit. Hear I was thinking he was marching to a different drummer, but that different drummer turned out to be his wife.

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What’s Important About That?

I met an old friend of mine for dinner the other night. He seemed really upset about something. I kept pressing for details, but he didn’t want to upset my seemingly good mood. I have been on an interesting diet lately, and many people have been telling me that I look like I’ve lost weight, so I’ve been able to act a little happier than normal. But finally, my friend caved and told me his problem.

Turns out he and his wife had been planning on taking a vacation as soon as they could get their respective vacation times at their jobs to coincide. Their bigger plan is to take on last vacation together, kind of like a second honeymoon (even though they’ve only been married 2 years) before starting to build a family.  Seems that they take a pragmatic approach. Get married. Save money. Have kids.

“So what’s the problem?” I asked. “You guys sound like you’re really together! You guys are able to plan your life together, and make your plans that that you an easily achieve them. You are a lot better than most people. Most people shoot first, then maybe think about aiming in couple weeks. What gives?”

After my friend explained his problem to me, I understood. It seems that they both had their respective hearts set on a specific vacation place. And they both assumed that the other person had agreed to go to their place. And when they sat down to plan their fun, they realized that they weren’t on the same page. And since they both kind of viewed this as a ‘last vacation together’ kind of thing, neither of them wanted to budge.

Which is interesting in and of itself. Most people can make plans, and then follow through. But we can run into problems when you don’t communicate well with others who will be involved in those plans. It’s like when other people don’t object, we assume that they will go along with us. I reminded my friend about this, as raising a kid requires that you be flexible and communicate well. I asked my friend that since they were both guilty of the same thing, if they could compromise.

“What do you mean, compromise?” My friend asked. “I want to go here, and she wants to go there. They are totally different. One person has to lose for the other to win.” Aha. I thought I saw the problem.

I was reminded of a business negotiation seminar I took. We would role play being different business situations, and practice these negotiation skills. For example, a Union Boss would want more health benefits, more vacation time, and higher pay. The Business Manager would want to save money wherever possible. The trick in being a negotiator, was to keep asking “What’s important about that?” Until you got a point where the Union Boss and the Business Manager could find a solution that would satisfy both of their respective deeper needs.  

For example, the Union Boss’s underlying concern was that the workers would realize that the company was serious about taking care of them, as the increases in health benefits and wages were really only symbolic. And the Business Manager was concerned with the long term growth of the company. As a ‘pretend’ negotiator, I explained to the Union Boss that the more stable the Business manager thought the future of the company was, the more willing he’d be to extend their long term contracts. And I explained to the Business Manager that by giving just a little bit of a raise, they would be much more willing to lock in that rate if it were for an extended contract period.

It was an interesting seminar that taught a lot about negotiating, and the importance of communication. Especially when you are able to find out what’s important to the people you care about, so when you make plans for the future, you can be sure to involve everyone.

I explained this to my friend, and we actually role played a few scenarios between him and his wife.  After a few practice rounds, he was convinced that they would be able to find a new place which would satisfy both their vacations needs for their second honeymoon. 

They invited me over to dinner a few days later. I tepidly asked them about their vacation, hoping I wasn’t precluding myself from any future dinners by starting world war three.

They both immediately broke into huge grins. Aha! I thought to myself. Maybe they would at least give me partial credit for solving their marital problems. Where would they go? Greece? Italy? Mexico? Maybe they’d let me house sit. They have a really nice, really HUGE flat screen HD TV.

“We canceled our vacation!”

Huh?

“We decided to put the money into an extra room. We’re building a nursery!”

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Eruption

Once upon a time there were two rabbits.  Rupert and Rectangle. They were hanging out, doing rabbit stuff. Looking for carrots, finding turtles to race, and resting from making more rabbits, as it was their day off. Rupert, the younger rabbit, decided he wanted to make a model volcano. Kind of like Peter Brady, only without the electricity. Most rabbit experts will tell you that rabbits generally don’t use electricity.

So this young rabbit was building this volcano, but he couldn’t quite get it to work right. He didn’t have the lava mix quite down. I think he was using a combination of egg whites and mulch, or perhaps some kind of gelatin derivative.  He kept getting really frustrated, and he was about to give up. The wise older rabbit, Rectangle, said “Don’t give up yet, Rupert!” But Rupert just threw down his volcano making tools in dismay.

“Nothing is going right. I want to do this, and instead it does that. I want to make it lean right, and it wants to lean left.”

“Relax, Rupert relax. Go with the flow. Don’t fight against the natural order of things. It will come in time. It always does. Just remember to do things one step at a time. If it doesn’t go the way you want it, change what you are doing. Step back, take a bigger look, and figure out what to try next. It’s only practice, after all.”

Poor ruper was following along, but he didn’t quite understand the last part. “Practice? Practice for what?”

“Why tomorrow, of course. Everything you do today, is just practice for tomorrow. Because if you allow yourself to release your expectations, and let things be just the way they are, you’ll be fine. As long as you learn from what happens, you can do it better next time. Especially because you always have tomorrow to look forward to, right?”

“I guess so,” Rupert replied, “But how will I ever finish, if I only practice?”

“Take a look around you young sir, take a look at everything. Does everything look finished to you? Are all your friends not still growing? Are all the trees not still getting bigger? Does father not upgrade and improve your rabbit hole every winter? Do you not need to learn new things in school every year? Does your Uncle, the carrot farmer, not have to learn new carrot planting methods every year? Practice. It’s all just practice.”

 “Practice for tomorrow. I got it,” Rupert said, getting back to work on his volcano.

“And one of the best parts about realizing that everything is practice for tomorrow, is that no matter how bad you mess up or how well you do, you can always look forward to being able to get better.”

And Rupert proceeded to make the best volcano ever.

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I’d Like to Change My Order

I was having dinner with a friend the other night. I was in a pretty good mood (as I usually am,) but he seemed to be out of sorts. I could tell because he usually orders a mixed cocktail (he has a really strange system based on the day of the week and the general weather pattern to choose his drink. Either that or he’s been pulling my leg all this time,) but that night, he ordered a beer. Not just any beer, well actually, yea, he just told the waitress “whatever’s on tap is ok.”

I asked him what was wrong. He said that he was having second thoughts about going forward with his business that he’s been planning on starting. “What changed?” I asked.

He said that he’d been talking with another guy that his advisor had put him in touch with, that had successfully started a business in the same general line of work. He said that he had worked 7 days a week, about 12 hours a day for the first two years. He had a supportive family, and finally after two years, his business was successful enough that he could hire other people to manage it for him.

“So what’s the problem?” I asked. He said he wasn’t really prepared to put in 12  hours a day for a year before he saw a profit. He seemed to think that all businesses need that level of commitment to get off the ground and become profitable.

I told him about this book I read (I forgot the title) about a kind of study they did on successful entrepreneurs. Now that I think of it, I think it might have been a tape program, and I’m pretty sure I got it from Nightingale Conant. If you’ve never had a look, I recommend it. They got some good stuff there. If you find something you like, you might check ebay first, because lots of times people buy stuff, listen and get great benefit, and then sell it at a pretty cheap price.

So what this program said was that there was a huge range of variables that went into successful business creation. Some people were successful right from the start, some had to work at it over several years, others had all kinds of loans and help from family. It really didn’t matter. The term ‘work’ is really a relative concept. What might seem like ‘work’ to some, may be totally enjoyable to somebody else. Some people might consider putting two weeks of effort to get a ton of money a huge burden, but others might consider three or four years total enjoyment, even if you don’t make a lot. So long as you enjoy what you do.

I asked my friend if he enjoyed doing what he thought he was getting himself into. He thought about, an decided that he really did enjoy it. Then I asked him if he would enjoy doing what the other guy did for two years, 12 hours a day for, and he said no way. Then he confessed that the other guy said the only reason he quit after two years, well not really quit but hired other people to take over, was because his wife had their second baby and really needed his help around the house. So it turned out my friend was imagining himself doing what the other guy was doing and imagining not enjoying it, while in reality the other guy was enjoying it so much it took a second baby and his wife’s demands that he ease off a bit.

When he put it into that perspective, it made total sense to him. Although the waitress was pretty confused when he sent back his beer and asked for a Vernal Equinox.

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Towards Pleasure and Away From Pain

As I write this article, it is a time of year where many people around the globe resolve to do certain things, or stop doing certain things. While this article can help in that regard, you can easily use it to create new goals, or get rid of bad habits any time of the year.

If you’ve read my articles on goal setting, or creating a compelling future, this one will blend right in. If you haven’t had the chance yet, you might consider it so that you can receive maximum benefit.

In this article, you will learn an easy to learn and simple to implement technique to motivate yourself to put into action a plan that you’d like to begin, but for some reason, haven’t yet (until now) been able to find the motivation.

It’s based on the idea that all humans are generally motivated by two broad categories. Toward pleasure, and away from pain. And this procedure makes use of those two tendencies to supercharge your brain to naturally move you in the direction you want to go.

Step One

Think of something you’d like to do more of, or something you’d like to do less of. For example, lets say exercise more. So the thing you want to do more of is exercise more.

Step Two

Brainstorm all the great things that will happen on three different levels, if you exercise more. On three different levels, I mean three different levels of cause/effect. For example, if I exercise more, I’ll sleep better at night. If I sleep better at night, I’ll be able to do better at my job everyday. If I do better at my job everyday, the chances I’ll get promoted will increase. See how that works? Keep in mind your main goal is to start to exercise more, and the second and third things are simply the carrot to keep pulling you in that direction. Once exercising more is a firm habit (in this example,) you can move on to other things.

Step Three

Brainstorm all the negative, things, along with the three levels of cause/effect of the bad things that will happen if you don’t start your program. For example, if I don’t start to exercise, then I’ll gain weight, and if I gain weight, then I’ll have to buy more clothes, and if I buy more clothes, I won’t have as much money, and so on and so on. Remember, these are to keep you focusing on negative aspects of life, but to give you impetus to move away from the things you don’t want to happen.

Now if you picked something you wanted to stop doing, like biting your nails, the process is the same. Brainstorm all the good things that will happen if you stop, and all the bad things that will happen if you don’t.

If you spend a few minutes to do this every night, you will soon find that you almost automatically start to move in the direction you want to go. And before you know it, you will be keeping a journal filled with all your easy successes in life.

If you enjoyed this article, remember to check back often for more, as I update this site daily. And be sure to share or link this site, because when you help others, you are really helping yourself.

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