Tag Archives: goals

Jul 10 2015
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Life Coaching Strategies

The Magic Formula For Creating Meaningful and Compelling Goals

how to set goals, goal setting, better goals, best goal

“What do I want?”

This is the most important and compelling question you can ask yourself, because without a clear answer to this question you are like a crewless boat in the middle of the ocean with no direction. You can put in a lot of effort into what you are doing, and you could be the best at what you do; but even then, without knowing what you want or where you are going, you could end up anywhere and likely it may be somewhere you don’t like.

Imagine going to a travel agent and saying, “I’d like a plane ticket please.” The agent then replies, “Absolutely! Where would you like to go?” And you respond by saying “I don’t know, just somewhere, anywhere!” The travel agent, being a helpful service person, wants nothing more than to be able to serve you; however, without clarity as to where you want to go, he is confused and doesn’t know how to serve you to your satisfaction, because where you end up may not be to your liking. Nevertheless, many people do just that, and then they turn around and blame the travel agent or give the agency a bad review because it performed poorly according to them.

Now imagine going to a restaurant and telling the waiter, “I’d like to have some dinner, please.” The waiter replies, “My pleasure! Here’s a menu for you. What would you like?” And you reply, “Oh, I don’t know, anything will do.” Again, the waiter, being a helpful service person, wants to serve you; but without clarity as to what you want he is unable to assist, so he looks at you with a confused look on his face in an effort to solicit a more specific response from you. You sigh impatiently and proceed to say, “Oh all right; look, I don’t want this… And I don’t want this… And I don’t want that….” and on and on you go, pointing at each item on the menu you don’t want and stating that you don’t want it. Now this happens to be a restaurant that prides on its wide variety of foods, so it takes you a very long time to go through the entire menu pointing out what you don’t want instead of what you do want, and by then the waiter is so confused that he still doesn’t know what it is that you do want!

It all sounds very silly doesn’t it?  Yet, many people go through life being unclear about what it is that they do want; in other words, without any goals; and like the example of the travel agent, they are lost or confused about where they are going.  Or they spend their days going on and on about what it is that they don’t want out of the menu of life (imagine how thick that menu is) instead of learning to focus and getting clear about what it is that they do want, and like the example of the restaurant, they spend months and often years without getting what they want because they were so focused on what they didn’t want instead.  And then they spend their lives complaining about this or that, or blaming this person or that person, or this circumstance or that circumstance, for not having a better lot in life, instead of taking responsibility. Can you imagine how long your personal waiter (your subconscious mind) has to wait and how much unnecessary junk it would have to sift through in order to get to what you actually do want?

As Earl Nightingale puts it in his book “The Strangest Secret”:

Think of a ship with the complete voyage mapped out and planned. The captain and crew know exactly where the ship is going and how long it will take — it has a definite goal. And 9,999 times out of 10,000, it will get there. Now let’s take another ship — just like the first — only let’s not put a crew on it, or a captain at the helm. Let’s give it no aiming point, no goal, and no destination. We just start the engines and let it go. I think you’ll agree that if it gets out of the harbor at all, it will either sink or wind up on some deserted beach — a derelict. It can’t go anyplace because it has no destination and no guidance. It’s the same with a human being.

So the first thing that we need to do in order to ensure we’re headed in the right direction is get clear about what it is that we want; in other words, we need a goal or outcome that is specific, measurable, achievable, and appropriate.  It must be something which we, and only we, desire, rather than something that society desires for us; in other words, it must be something for which we are 100% responsible from beginning to end. And it must be an outcome that is stated in the positive and something that we move towards rather than away from.  This is what is commonly known as “SMART Goals” or “Well Formed Outcomes.”

But having a goal, even if it meets the above criteria, is not enough. We must be able to keep the goal front and center, and we must be able to communicate the goal to our subconscious mind effectively, so that our subconscious can then do what it does best: serve us, and help us to achieve our goals following the past of least resistance.

Over the next few weeks I will be sharing specific strategies to help you get clear about what you want following the “SMART Goals” model, as well as sharing strategies to embed these goals in your subconscious so that your probability of success is multiplied, so be sure to subscribe or follow me so you don’t miss any of it. It’s going to be a fun ride!

To your success!

JC

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Jun 06 2015
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Life Perspectives

How To Eradicate Failure From Your Life Using These 3 Basic But Powerful Principles

failure, stop failing, reach goals, succeed, success

Whenever I find myself down emotionally because of something that is happening (or not happening) in my life, I like to put into practice the tips and techniques that I’ve learned in my journey to turn the situation around.  This is not always easy, because sometimes the emotions that arise as a result of my current focus just feel too overwhelming.

One of my favorite things to do is to search for a new perspective, one that allows me to see the good and the positive in the situation.  Over the years I’ve come to realize that no matter how bad a situation seemed at the moment, there was always, always something good, a blessing in disguise if you will, that would improve my life experience in some shape or form.

At first I would come to this realization in hindsight, after the storm had passed, because I was just too overwhelmed by what we know as negative emotions to truly understand what was happening. When I did not have any tools to use or techniques to apply, I allowed myself to be dragged into the negative vibe and soon after I would find myself feeling down in the dumps.

But over the years I’ve learned to apply this “New Perspective” technique and this has helped me to build an energy shield that blocks the negativity from dragging me into it, and allows me to use what is currently happening as fuel to keep moving forward. I especially like to use it when I find myself doubting my ability to succeed at what I’m doing.  When fear and self-doubt creep in, rather than dwelling on these thoughts and feelings and thus allowing them to attack and destroy my confidence and drive, I immediately turn to this technique and apply it.

This technique is based on 3 basic principles: 1. You started off as a winner, 2. You are already getting results, and 3. There is no such thing as failure.  I will now elaborate on each of these principles:

You Started Off as a Winner
Think about it.  The reason you are here is because at the time of your conception when the sperm and the egg came together, one sperm won the race! That’s one in one hundred million! And because of that one, here you are.  And do you know how many things can go wrong during pregnancy? Tons! But the fact that you are alive reading this is proof that you’ve been a winner since the beginning. And that was before you even had use of your senses and your intellect, so imagine how much more of a winner you can be now! So the next time you feel fear and doubt creep in remember this: you started off as a winner and a success, and you can definitely continue to be successful.

You Are Already Getting Results
This is an obvious one, but is generally missed by many (myself included).  I invite you to come to the realization that in every one of your endeavors, in everything you’ve attempted throughout your life, you did get some results; sometimes they just weren’t the results you wanted, but you got results nonetheless.  Now, what happens to many of us is that when we didn’t get the results we wanted on the first pass, we take that to mean that we’ve failed and therefore we bring our efforts to a halt. If it’s a goal, we drop it like a bad habit; if it’s a dream, we give up on it.  We allow the unwanted results to dictate the fate of our endeavors because we believe that we have failed, which only hurts our self-confidence and the belief in our ability to accomplish whatever we set our minds to, which in turn will only increase the fear and self-doubt the next time we set off to attempt something.

There Is No Such Thing as Failure
I’ve said this in a previous post but I want to reiterate it because it’s a very important principle.  There is no such thing as failure; there is only feedback indicating that the approach we tried did not work.  Notice the difference in the feeling that results from thinking “I have failed” Vs. what I call the Edison Mentality which is thinking “Ok, that approach did not work; I wonder if this one will?”  Even without being in the middle of a challenging situation you can see that the “I have failed” mentality not only creates a feeling of depression and/or hopelessness, but it also automatically brings your efforts to a halt; “I have failed, therefore there is nothing else for me to do.” When we have this mentality creativity flies out the window, and our mind closes its doors to new options, new approaches, new possibilities.

However, the Edison Mentality opens the doors to all kinds of possibilities which causes us to develop a child-like curiosity and determination.  When we have this mentality our creative juices flow freely and we feel practically dared to make it work. We learned from what did not work, and use that knowledge in our next approaches until at last, we experience the results we wanted.

Remember Edison’s words the next time you feel like you’ve failed or are failing at something.  When asked about how he felt after failing to invent the lightbulb ten thousand times, he replied: “I have not failed ten thousand times.  I simply discovered ten thousand ways not to make a light bulb.”  His so-called failures were no such thing; they were simply data and feedback, which he continued to use until he got the result he wanted.  Where would we be today if Edison had said after his first few attempts, “I have failed”?

I have shared with you the 3 principles behind my “New Perspective” approach. I have used and continue to use this approach in my daily life with wonderful results, and I invite you to do the same. Remember, you are already a winner, and you are already getting some results; if the results you’re getting are not what you want, remember that there is no such thing as failure. Use your current results as feedback and, like Edison, move on to the next approach.  You will find that if you apply this technique, there is just no way for you not to succeed!

If you’ve enjoyed this read please feel free to share it!  Do you have any questions or comments? Please share in the comment box below. I’d love to hear from you!

To your success!

JC

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May 31 2015
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Life Perspectives

How to Use The Power of Focus To Improve Your Life

focus, how to focus, focus on the positive

Focus is a powerful thing. When used correctly, it has the potential to help us get our life back in balance and have more objective perspectives of what is going on in our lives, which in turn allows us to take a step back and make better and more informed decisions.  When used incorrectly, however, focus has the potential to cause us to feel utterly out of balance and become subjective, which in turn causes us to make rushed, uneducated decisions or poor choices that we may later regret, not to mention causing us added stress and anxiety about what may be going on.

Let me give you an example:

Take a moment to quickly evaluate your life as a whole and rate your current situation using a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 means you are at your ideal, exactly where you want to be, and 1 means there is MUCH room for improvement.  Now fold a piece of paper in half, and on one half of it make a list of the good or positive things in your life as it is right now and on the other half make a list of what you consider bad or negative things that you would like to change or improve on.

Let’s say rated your current situation a 4.  On one side of the paper you would list what’s good about your life right now; these are the things that helped you to rate your situation at this number. You could add things like:

I have a home
I have a job
I am healthy
I have a family that loves me
I do make some money
I can pay most of my bills on time
etc…

On the other side of the paper you would list the bad or negative things currently going on in your life.  These are the things which, when changed or improved, would help you to rate your life a 9 or a 10. You could add things such as:

My relationship with (…) sucks
I have no savings in the bank
I am fat
My car is old and broken
I don’t have money to vacation
etc…

So, in this example, the positive side is a 4 (because that’s what you rated your current situation) and the negative side is a 6 (the difference in the 1-10 scale).  Now take a look at your paper with your lists side by side and read them again. How does it make you feel?  Do you still believe you rated your life accurately? If you did this exercise honestly, you’ll probably realize that your initial rating was lower than it should have been.  I’m also willing to bet that as you were doing the exercise you had an easier time coming up with things to write on the “negative” side of the paper than on the “positive” side.  This is because on a day-to-day basis we’re generally mostly thinking about what is lacking in our lives rather than on the blessings that we already have.  Our focus is mostly on what is missing, what is wrong, what is broken, what needs to be improved.

Imagine that your life is graphed on a line like this one. We’ll place an x on it to indicate your rating:

Balance1

Now we’ll turn this into a scale or a balance by adding a support under it like this:

Which way is the scale currently going to tilt? It’s pretty obvious, right? It will tilt towards the “bad” side like this:

But now we’ll add something to our diagram; we’ll add focus which, for the purpose of this illustration weighs a full 10.  If we add it to the “bad” side of the scale, we’re stuck. In spite of the good things that are going on in our lives, we’ll continue to feel like nothing is working, like everything is bad, like this is a hopeless situation, because our focus is on what’s wrong, missing, or broken in our lives.  When this happens, we may enter a state of despair, depression, hopelessness, anxiety, sorrow, etc., and we miss out on appreciating and enjoying the blessings that we do have.

But what would happen if we shifted that focus and placed it on the “good” side of the scale? What will happen is that even with the rating remaining at 4 we will have managed to tilt the scale in favor of what’s good in our lives, and here’s where we can truly shift our perspective.

Here’s where we can truly see and accept that, while there is plenty of room for improvement, our life is already good. Here’s where appreciation and gratitude can truly take place, because our focus is now on our blessings, on what is working and what is positive in our lives. We’re not denying that there is room for improvement; we’re simply focusing our attention on what is already working because that is what’s going to help us get even better so that our diagram looks like this:

What we focus on expands

What we focus on expands, and what we resist persists. Focusing our attention on what is “bad” in our lives and resisting it or fighting it will only cause it to increase and persist.  It’s like trying to get out of a hole by digging the hole deeper.  This is not an efficient way of going about improving our situation. A more efficient and effective way would be to focus on what is already working and then figuring out how we can do more of it or expand it to other areas of our lives.

I picked a very low rating as an example to demonstrate that even with such a low rating we can shift our focus and gain a better perspective.  No matter how bad we think our life situation is, there is definitely much good going on already and there are definitely many things that are working. So I invite you to add the weight and power of focus to all the good that is already going on in your life and see how much better you’ll instantly feel as a result of it. You will not regret it.

To your success!

JC.

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May 17 2015
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Life Perspectives

CAUTION! Do Not Join Sarah Arrow’s 30 Day Blogging Challenge!

Sarah arrow blogging challenge

On April 9, 2015 I made a bold move that would change my life.  The people closest to me know that I’ve always been a person prone to procrastination; although, to be honest, I prefer to call it “taking my time because I don’t want to make a rushed decision.” Wish there was a word for that.  OK, I can hear you say, “There is! It’s called procrastination!” Moving on.

Over the past year I’ve grown enough to be able to admit to myself that many times I used that “need to think it through” excuse to not feel obligated to take action.  I was buying myself some time (stalling) so that I could analyze the situation from any and all angles, to ensure that I would not fail.  Heck, never mind failing, I did not even want to make a mistake.

The perfectionist voice in me kept asking “what if” questions that would take me down Disaster Road. I’ve always tried to adhere to that wise saying “Expect the best, prepare for the worst.”  The problem with that saying (for me, at least) was that as soon as I started “preparing for the worst”, I would begin expecting it!  And at that point, no matter how hard I tried, it was very difficult to keep myself from going down (and staying on) that road.

Until rather recently, I lacked the tools necessary to help me snap out of that disaster mentality and become more proactive in my own success.  Slowly but surely, though, I learned many techniques that helped me change and grow out of a lot of my limiting beliefs and negative thought patterns.  Some may argue that I took the long route.  I would argue that I took the route that was the best fit for me.  There are many people out there who have this wonderful “sink or swim” mentality.  “You know what you gotta do” – they say – “so just jump in with both feet and do it!” In my case, though, I needed to feel the water with my toes first, although admittedly at first I would spend a very long time contemplating the water and thinking “Wouldn’t it be nice if I could get in?” Followed by a prolonged period of research about water temperature, water quality, water salinity, etc. and another prolonged period of meditation where I would ask my higher self whether getting in the water was a good decision. I’m not even kidding. That was me, procrastinating.

Now, I don’t think there is a single right or wrong way to approach goals.  I think that as long as you are doing something to get to your destination you are in good shape.  The way I look at it now is, “There are more than one ways to get to any destination.” And while some may argue that you can get there faster by flying (just do it), my answer to that is “that may be true, but you’ll miss the experience of the scenic views you see when you drive.” Notice I said “when you drive” and not “when you think about driving, read about driving, contemplate driving” etc. That’s not moving towards your destination.

That being said, only you can determine how fast or how slow you’re willing to go, and there are many factors that will influence that. But you gotta be doing something.  There is one thing that’s guaranteed not to get you to your destination, and that’s inactivity. If you never set off on the journey, you’ll never get there no matter how much wishful thinking, research, meditation, and journaling you do.

And so when I finally learned that lesson I made a decision to begin my journey from the person I was to the person I wanted to be; from already good to even better.  And I am happy to report that the journey has been an amazing one.  Depending on the area of my life that I was working on, sometimes I took a plane, and sometimes I walked. Sometimes I got there faster, and sometimes slower. But of one thing I am certain: as long as I was doing something, it all happened the way it was meant to happen so that I could assimilate as much of the experience as possible.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my post, one of the things I struggled with was procrastination.  I would analyze a situation so much that it often led me to inactivity; “paralysis by analysis.”  I finally accepted something that my wife had been trying to tell me for years: this paralysis, this inactivity, was preventing me from reaching my destination in this area of my life.  If you haven’t figured this out already, she’s one of those with the “sink or swim” mentality.  You can imagine the lively discussions we have sometimes.  She often reminded me of the Andy Griffith episode where Andy is contemplating making a big decision and saying that he needed to think about it some more. Aunt Bee’s reply was, “Come along Opie; let’s leave your father to his slooooooow thinkin’.”

But anyways, I finally accepted that I needed to get off my couch and actually do something rather than just talk about it.  And slowly but surely I started doing less thinkin’ before my doin’.  After reading the book “How To Stop Worrying and Start Living” by Dale Carnegie, I followed his advice.  He recommends that in order to eliminate worry and get out of this paralyzing “what if” mentality (which doesn’t serve us), we need to come to terms with the worst case scenario and then make a decision right there and then as to how we’re going to handle it.

So I started asking myself this question: “If I move forward with this goal, What’s the worst that can happen?” and once I answered it, I would follow it with, “So what?” By being honest with myself, I determined that if the worst did happen, it wouldn’t be the end of the world, and there were ways I could recover from it. This practice alone helped me to get past my procrastination and start taking action. I also decided to follow Edison’s example. I read a story in which it’s reported that he was asked how he felt about failing 10,000 times in his efforts to invent the lightbulb. His response was, “I have not failed 10,000 times. I just found 10,000 ways not to make a lightbulb.”

I learned that mistakes are not failures. They are data that tells us that modifications are needed, and that data gives us the opportunity to make whatever we’re working on that much more effective. But the key is that we have to be moving. We have to be working on something.

Case in point: I had decided that I wanted to share the lessons that I had learned along the way, and which helped me grow into a better me, with the world.  I wanted to bring hope to anyone struggling with situations similar to mine, and share with them the techniques I had used to help me deal with those situations successfully.  Only I didn’t know how to go about it.  In doing a little research I realized that a blog would be an excellent way to make this happen.  But there was another problem, or rather two problems.  One, I was not sure that what I had to share would truly be of value to others, and two, I was terrified of writing!

I started looking for books related to the subject of blogging and came across the book “Zero To Blogger In 30 Days!” by Sarah Arrow.  The reviews were very positive so I decided to give it a try.  But here’s something else I did.  I read the very inspiring “About Sarah Arrow” section followed by the “How to use this guide” section in which Sarah mentions that the book is organized in two sections: the first section helps you to set up your own self-hosted WordPress blog, and the second section covers the challenge, blogging for 30 consecutive days. She also offers readers the ability to sign up for the Facebook support group for encouragement and accountability.

Without giving it another thought, and without allowing time or room for procrastination or doubt to creep in, I joined the 30 Day Blogging Challenge offered by Sarah Arrow.  I went to the Facebook page and requested to be a member, then signed up for the challenge emails. Just like that. Within 10 minutes of making a decision to share my life experience with the world I had not only gotten a book to help me do it, but I had signed myself up for a 30 day challenge to write a blog post for 30 consecutive days. What? I had not even read the book yet!

The old me would have read the book, highlighted it, read it again, gone online to do additional research, read 3 more books, journaled about it, meditated on it, before considering joining the group. Some might argue that in doing all of this I was still moving forward. But the truth is that I know myself, and I know that for me, that was just another way to procrastinate, a way to look busy while in the back of my mind still stalling under the pretense of not wanting to fail.

I determined that if there was anything else that I needed to learn, I would learn it along the way. If I made mistakes, I would use the data to correct them. If I got stuck, I would ask for help. Besides, that’s what the support group was for. So in short, the worst that could happen wasn’t anything I wouldn’t be able to recover from.

So I joined the challenge and the rest, as they say, is history. Today I complete my challenge with this post, and I want to thank Sarah Arrow and everyone else in the Facebook support group for their comments and words of encouragement.  I also want to thank my wife who believed in me from the beginning, and who put up with my nervousness, panic, and excitement, and read every single post! I could not have done it without her unending support and encouragement.

Did I do it in 30 consecutive days? No, it took me 35 days actually. I started off with a bang but somewhere down the road I got sick and that set me back a few days.  The old me would have been completely bummed about it, and I would probably have given up on the challenge because it wasn’t perfect. I had failed.  But had I?  The purpose of the challenge as stated in the book intro was to “build your writing muscle and give you the discipline to carry on blogging and get great results.”  And that I had definitely accomplished.

The new me recognizes that we set goals to accomplish something, and we have an ideal about how we’re going to accomplish it. But guess what? Life happens. Stuff (for lack of a better word) happens.  And it’s what we do when stuff happens that will determine whether we’ll succeed in reaching our goal or not.

So while I did not do it in 30 consecutive days, I did write 30 posts and that did build not only my writing muscle but also my confidence in my ability to do what I wanted to do.  Do I count this as a failure? Heck no! Would you?

Thank you for joining me in my journey!  If you have any input, questions or comments, please feel free to share them in the comment box below. I’d love to hear from you!

Oh, and about my “caution” statement in the headline? I’ll finish that statement now:

Caution! Do Not Join Sarah Arrow’s “30 Day Blogging Challenge”… unless you are ready to increase your self-confidence, build your writing muscle, and start on your way to a blogging success in 30 days or less!

Made you look, didn’t I?

To your success!

JC

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May 14 2015
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Life Perspectives

Achieve Your Goals Each And Every Time With This Simple Tip

I’m about to share with you a tip I recently learned which has the potential to change how you approach goals from now on.  If you’ve struggled with reaching your goals in the past, you’ll want to read this because it’s very likely that you’ve been going about it wrong.  What I’m about to share with you will not only explain why you’ve had difficulty in reaching your goals, it will also tell you what you can do about it.

Let’s start with this: Why do we set goals in the first place?  Generally, people set goals because they see their current situation as bad or wrong or as something that needs to be fixed.  They label their starting point, whatever it is, as bad, and they set goals so that they can turn their bad situation into a good situation.

But if we really think about it from an objective point of view, we’ll realize that our situation, whatever it is, is already good.  The only way a situation can be labeled as bad is if there is nothing good about it.  Imagine that you place your situation on a scale. A bad situation would register anything below zero.  So take any situation, no matter how bad you think it is, and place it on this imaginary scale.  Would it ever register below zero?  I doubt it.  If we’ve accomplished something, anything, whatever it is and no matter how small we think it is, it is already above zero and by definition, it is already good.

Now consider the emotional effect of saying “My situation is bad and I want to make it good,” versus saying “My situation is already good, and I just want to make it better.”  Which one has a better emotional effect?  Which one feels worse when you say it?  Which one has a more optimistic feel?  Which one produces better energy?  So let us begin here and agree that whatever our starting point, whatever our situation, it is already a good one, and we just want to move towards making it even better.  This shift in attitude towards viewing our situation as already good can make us feel more motivated and make us want to be more proactive in achieving our goals whereas before we might have felt ashamed, guilty, frustrated, angry, etc. and therefore unmotivated and inactive because we saw our situation as bad.

Now that that’s settled let us discuss what may prevent us from reaching our goals.  Let us say that I have a goal and set an actionable plan to double my income this year, and I make this a SMART goal, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.  It meets all the qualifications of a SMART goal, right?  But let’s think about this for a moment.  Doubling my income in and of itself is just that, an increased income, but in the grand scheme of things, it means absolutely nothing.  If I just imagine twice the amount of cash available to me sitting right there on my table, it has no effect on me.  The thought of more money alone does not even excite me.  More income in and of itself means nothing to most people.

Now if I imagine what I can do with that income, that would be a different story, wouldn’t it?  Now I can begin to feel a little more excited about the increased income because I now envision being able to afford better things, helping others in need, going on vacations, taking better care of my family, etc. This excites me.  There is a strong emotional connection to the goal, and so it seems more attractive to me and I feel more motivated to achieve it.

And herein lies the reason we may not have been achieving our goals in the past.  If our goals are not creating a strong emotional response in us, it is very possible, in fact probable, that we will give up on them midway. A goal that does not create a strong emotional response in us when we think about it is not even worth starting.  Our efforts will be half-efforts, and there will be no sense of urgency to complete it.  Is it possible to achieve a goal without having a strong emotional attachment to it?  Sure it is. But its achievement will probably not bring us much satisfaction, and we may realize that having accomplished that goal did not improve our situation at all, which was the very reason we set that goal to begin with.

Now I’m not saying that a worthy goal should not be pursued simply because it does not produce that strong emotional response in us; what I’m saying is that if we really want to pursue it, we must first ensure that it creates a strong emotional response in us.  That means that we may need to dig deeper or reframe our goal in such a way that it produces that response we’re looking for.  If we really want to set any goal and see it through to fruition in a way that will feel rewarding to us, we must do whatever it takes to create that strong emotional response when we think about it.

One final thought: we must make sure that we acknowledge any progress made in our working towards the achievement of any goal.  This is very important.  Sometimes we become disheartened or disappointed in ourselves because we did not reach the results we set off to achieve.  For instance, if we set a goal to lose 50 lbs. and we end up losing 20 by our deadline, does that mean it did not work? Does it mean we should give up? Does it mean that we’ve failed? Of course not! We made progress, and any progress towards the achievement of any goal is worth acknowledging and celebrating!  As Earl Nightingale states in his book “The Strangest Secret”:

“Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.”

Therefore let us celebrate our success! Any progress we’ve made towards a goal that we set for ourselves automatically places us in the category of those who are successful.  So let us acknowledge our success, rewards ourselves for it, and keep pushing forward!

To your success!

JC

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May 04 2015
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Life Perspectives

The Reason That Your Tangible Desires Are Not Manifesting in Your Life

Do you have any unfulfilled dreams or desires?  Most people do; in fact, I’ll even venture out to say that everyone does.  The human race has desires as one of its characteristics. It comes with the territory; if you’re human, you have desires.  In a previous blog I shared with you my understanding of the underlying desire behind the desire for any physical or tangible thing.  Today I’m going to talk about those physical, tangible things that we all want and wish to have, but for some reason we have been unable to achieve.

Regardless of our gender, race, nationality or age, we all have a desire to improve our physical body, our financial condition, gain more confidence, more courage, improve our relationships, increase our self-esteem, and the list goes on.  At any point in time we have a plethora of desires that we want to have fulfilled, some of which have been with us for a very long time, and their fulfillment has been eluding us just as long.

The new age movement has been telling us for a long time now that through the power of our thoughts we create our own reality.  We have been told that we can “think and grow rich” or “think and grow slim”; we have been told that “thoughts become things” and that we can get whatever we want through the use of positive affirmations, dream boards, journals, movie minds, visualization etc.

More recently we have been told that thoughts alone are not enough, though. So we were instructed to incorporate our emotions in the process.  We were told that in order to manifest our desires we must not only “think” but we must also “feel” these things into manifestation.  We were told that when we use positive affirmations, dream boards, journals, visualization, we must include the feeling of already having those things; a task which has proved to be easier said than done for most folks, including me.

Even more recently we were told that the real secret to manifesting of our desires is to use those same manifestation tools incorporating both thought and feeling to feel as if we are already in possession of the thing we want, but use them so effectively that we suddenly lose the need or want for it.  And that’s – we’re told – when the physical manifestations will come.

There is a lot of value and wisdom in all of those teachings. Each of those methods definitely adds a piece to the manifestation puzzle, but does not quite complete it. Something still seems to be missing, because many people who put these teachings in practice and follow those instructions to the letter still complain of not manifesting their desires.  While most people are able to achieve some level of success with these methods, they don’t succeed in manifesting their biggest and greatest desires.

In my search for the missing piece to this puzzle I came across the works of Greg Kuhn widely known as the Law of Attraction Science Guy and author of the “Why Quantum Physicists” series. Greg assures us that there is, in fact, something missing from the commonly known approaches to manifestation, and this missing piece revolves around the subject of BELIEFS.

Greg explains that while our thoughts, words, and feelings do play a part in the manifestation process, it is our beliefs that are ultimately responsible for what we experience in our reality; in other words, it is our beliefs that actually determine whether our manifestations will occur or not.

Our belief system resides in the subconscious mind, and it’s a mechanism which is uniquely ours.  Each person has his or her own set of beliefs.  While there are some beliefs that we can say are “commonly shared” by some or many people, still each person has his or her own individual version and interpretation of those beliefs.

As we discussed in a previous post, our belief system is based on history and it’s composed of those programs which got past our conscious mind (with or without our awareness).  The subconscious mind, being the loyal friend that it is, has as one of its primary functions to protect us and prevent us from suffering or feel like we’re going crazy.

At every moment of our lives and in every single situation we encounter, our subconscious mind is at work, gathering data and presenting it to us to support the beliefs that we’ve held.  For instance, if a woman believes that all men cheat on their wives, her subconscious mind will be constantly at work gathering evidence from past experiences, stories, news, etc. in support of that belief.  It will also tweak her present awareness in such a way that she will come across plenty of evidence in her everyday life to support that belief.  This is not to say that there will literally be more of it, period; rather, it is to say that out of the sea of evidence that includes examples of both, men who are loyal and men who are disloyal to their wives, all she will see, notice, and experience are the disloyal ones.  In other words, there will be more of it in her individual current reality and experience.

If we’re presented with a new belief or idea, our subconscious mind quickly searches for evidence in our belief archives to support it.  If it finds it (if the new belief or idea is in agreement with what we believed in the past), it will accept it and provide us with evidence of it.  If no such evidence is found, it will flat out reject the idea and build an iron wall in front of it to ensure that it doesn’t get through.  It works with unbelievable speed; to the point where the effect is practically instantaneous, even without the conscious mind’s awareness of what just happened. See how good a friend the subconscious mind is to us.  It is always on our side allowing us to see and experience only that which we believe to be true. Now this is awesome if the beliefs that we have serve us, but if they don’t, it can set us up for self-sabotage.

Let’s bring this back to our desires now.  I’m sure we can now better understand why it is that the tangible things that we’ve desired for years have eluded us.  If the acquiring of those things is not in alignment with our subconscious beliefs, there is just no way that they will come to pass.  Like a good friend who covers our eyes so that we don’t see something on the side of the road that we believe will cause us any negative emotion, so does the subconscious mind protect us from experiencing those things which go against our beliefs and make us feel like we’re crazy or deluded.

Let’s revisit the example of a belief that may be held by a woman:

Belief: All men are cheaters
Sea of evidence: There are both loyal and disloyal men
Subconscious response: she believes all men are cheaters, and my job is to prove her right; if I let her see that many men are not cheaters she will think she’s deluded and possibly crazy, therefore I will only let her see evidence of what she believes.
Result: news, reports, stories, of men who cheated on their wives; possibly even marrying a man who will eventually cheat on her.

I hope you can now see the ramifications of this.  These beliefs, if left unattended, become self-fulfilling prophesies and they will produce a series of undesirable results even though we remain consciously unaware of the reason behind it. Try as we might, we will be unable to achieve new and lasting results so long as those beliefs remain in place, so it behooves us to take a good look at the beliefs that we hold in any area of our lives where we’re not experiencing the tangible manifestations we desire and ask ourselves this most important question: Does this belief serve me?

If the answer is no, then it’s time to let that belief go and replace it with one that will serve us and help us to manifest those desires.  In a future post I will talk about how to go about releasing or replacing those beliefs, so make sure you follow me or sign up to receive updates via email.

Do you have any questions or comments you would like to share?  Please drop me a line in the comments box below or email me directly at jc@effect180.com.  I’d love to hear from you!

To your success!

JC

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May 03 2015
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Life Perspectives

Do You Think You Know What You Really Want?

Do you know what you want?  Do you know what your desires in life are?  Most people have at least a vague or general idea of what things they want to be part of their life experience.  Or at the very least, they know (usually with certainty) what it is that they do not want.

Do you believe that your desires today are the same ones that you had 10 years ago, 5 years ago, last month, last week?  I’m willing to bet that you don’t think they are.  “Maybe” – you say – “maybe my desires today are the same as last week’s, but not the same as last year’s, and certainly not the same as 5 or 10 years ago!”

The reason most of us believe this is because we have grown up.  We have matured and evolved over the years and we believe that our desires have evolved with us. For instance, when we were babies our prominent desire was to have a full tummy and a dry bottom.  When we got a little older (and wiser) our prominent desire changed to playing with our favorite toy, perhaps.  And when we got older it evolved again to whatever it was that we most wanted at the time, until we got to where we are today, desiring more money, good or better relationships, more status, a bigger house, a newer car, etc.

But I’d like you to think for a moment about the things that you want (house/car/money or whatever it is) and ask yourself these questions:

Try it with any of the material, tangible things that you believe that you want.  Do you ever get to a YES?

In my case the answer was always a NO, and this was very revealing to me.  This meant that the material, tangible things were not what really I was after.  It was definitely something else, but what? I reviewed the answers I had provided to Question 2, and realized then that those things were what I really wanted; but they were not things at all. They were feelings!

I was looking for feelings or emotions of love, peace, satisfaction, fulfillment, etc. and the reason I thought I wanted the material things is because I believed that in the having of those things I would experience those emotions.  Did you have the same experience?

Now consider my previous question. Do you still believe that your desires have changed?  The truth is that we believe that our desires have changed or evolved with us because we generally look at our desires as the material or tangible things that we wish to see manifested in our lives. But if we think about it and look past the tangible aspect of it for a moment, we’ll realize that we aren’t really after the material things, but the emotional effect that those things have on us.  So in reality, our desires have not changed over time.  What has really changed over time, are the material, tangible things that we believe will bring about what we really desire.

I also realized that I did not have to wait until I acquired those things in order to experience my desired emotions. I could do it right now by doing simple things like going for a walk, meditating, hugging my kids, or sharing a moment with my wife.  Once I made it my intention to feel those emotions, I found myself looking for (and finding) every day moments and situations that brought about those emotions in me.  This made those moments and situations so much more valuable to me, and my gratitude for them increased tremendously.

This was an extremely powerful realization to me, as was the feeling of freedom that I felt as a result of it.  I was able to let go of my need for those things in order to be happy, and I was able to put them in the proper perspective as things that would add levels of ease and comfort to my life, rather than as the source of my happiness.

Do you have any input on this subject?  Feel free to share it with me in the comment box below, or email me at JC@effect180.com.

I’d love to hear from you!

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