Sunday, June 29, 2014
Vitamins for the Mind 29/06/14 by Jim Rohn
Success/Failure
“Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.”
***
“Don't take the casual approach to life. Casualness leads to casualties.”
***
“Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don't fail overnight. Instead,
failure is a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.”
***
“Average people look for ways of getting away with it; successful people look
for ways of getting on with it.”
***
Encouraging Yourself Brings About Change (Motivation) by Zig Ziglar
One of the most moving experiences of my life took place on September 13, 1997,
when I was autographing books. One lady who asked for an autograph had such a
compelling expression on her face that I knew I had to listen carefully to what
she had to say. She shared with me that when she got the self-talk card that
was included in one of my audiotape programs, she couldn't even read the first
list of qualities that she was supposed to claim.
Throughout her life she had been so beaten down by her family and
husband, that it was impossible for her to believe that she had the character
and success qualities that I identified. It took two or three weeks of
listening to the tapes to build herself up to the point where she could look
herself in the eye and claim that she was an honest, intelligent, goal-setting
person. She continued to claim additional qualities until she could go
through the entire list of 60-plus positive qualities. As a result, her
demeanor and attitude changed dramatically. She started standing up straight,
smiling, and even laughing.
Then something truly fascinating happened. Her husband watched her
new attitude emerge...and decided maybe claiming the qualities could do the same
for him. He started claiming the qualities and he, too, started to change.
"He especially changed in the way he treated me," the woman told me.
"Today we're getting along better than ever and are happier than we've
ever been." The first part of her story was interrupted by tears. She was
very emotional. In the last part of her story, as she talked about the changes
in her husband and their relationship, she smiled.
The most important opinion you have is the opinion you have of
yourself, and the most important conversations you will ever have are the
conversations you have with yourself. The reality is that you cannot
consistently, consciously claim all the qualities on the self-talk card without
changing.
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Zig Ziglar is known as America’s Motivator. He authored 32 books and produced numerous training programs. He will be
remembered as a man who lived out his faith dailySaturday, June 28, 2014
With Problems Come Lessons by Vic Johnson
"As a progressive and evolving being, man is where he is that
he may learn that he may grow; and as he learns the spiritual lesson which any
circumstance contains for him, it passes away and gives place to other
circumstances." –As A
Man Thinketh
It has taken me a long time to be able to look at a problem I'm
having as a necessary spiritual lesson. To be frank, I'm still not always
really excited to be enduring the pain and frustration that negative
circumstances usually cause. Some days I'd like to "play hooky" and
skip the lesson.
But as I look back at my life, it is easy to see that the
times when my wisdom and understanding grew to new levels; those times when I
approached becoming the person I long to be; it was always the times that
followed negative circumstances. The greatest growth you're going to
have is going to come from the negative circumstance you have today that
sometimes seems too overwhelming, too big to scale.
Writing in Byways of Blessedness,
James Allen is strong in his call for us to embrace our circumstances. "Let a person rejoice when he is
confronted with obstacles, for it means that he has reached the
end of some particular line of indifference or folly, and is now called upon to
summon up all his energy and intelligence in order to extricate himself, and to
find a better way; that the powers within him are crying out for greater
freedom, for enlarged exercise and scope.
"No situation can be difficult of itself; it is the lack of
insight into its intricacies, and the want of wisdom in dealing with it, which
give rise to the difficulty. Immeasurable, therefore, is the gain of a
difficulty transcended."
Maybe that explains why it
sometimes seems that I can't shake a particular problem, or I have one that
keeps rearing its ugly head. Instead of fighting it, I need to jump in and gain
the insight and wisdom to handle it. Then it would be gone, and I would be
ready for the next lesson—only stronger, both in spirit and in wisdom!
And that's worth thinking
about.
Friday, June 27, 2014
Vitamins for the Mind by Jim Rohn
A Sampling of Impact Quotes
“Life and business is like the changing seasons. You cannot change the seasons, but you can change yourself. Therein lies the opportunity to live an extraordinary life--the opportunity to change yourself.”
***
“The greatest step toward success is self-confidence. The greatest builder of self-confidence is self-esteem, and self-esteem comes from doing the daily things you know you should do. Sometimes your self-esteem will start to soar when you make some critical decisions--decisions to walk a new road, to start a new direction, to start a new discipline.”
***
“What you want will pull like a magnet. Here's the other part. What for? Purpose is stronger than object. It's the 'What for?' that's even more powerful than the object. And the more you can describe in detail to stir the emotion and the intellect and the spirit and the soul, then the more powerful the 'what for' is.”
***
“Ideas plus Inspiration; that's the mixture that really turns things on, sends an entrepreneur program into high gear. We need ideas for the goals and plans and we need inspiration for the emotional vitality. To put it to work, to make it flow, to make it multiply.”
Stop Writing About Your Past—And Start Writing About Your Future by Chris Widener
"The
history of free men is never written by chance, but by choice—their
choice." — Dwight D. Eisenhower
Many
people spend a lot of time on their history. Some do it purposefully with such
hobbies as journaling, while others simply write and rewrite their history over
and over in their minds. Depending upon the way you go about this, this can be
good or bad. If you are doing it so you can reflect back on your life, that’s
good. If you are doing it so you can learn from your past, that’s good, too.
Unfortunately, many people do it simply as a subconscious act of running
themselves into the ground over and over.
What
you "write" in your mind is an act of mental discipline, just as what
you write on a sheet of paper is a discipline. Keep that in mind.
So
if this is true, that we can make a choice as to what we want to write, both
literally and figuratively, we have an extraordinary opportunity. Instead of
going over and over our past, we can choose to write our future. Have you ever
thought about writing your future before it even happens to you? Well, now you
can—and you will!
Here is
a process that will let you determine and write your own future:
Choose to choose your own future. If you don't make the decision to accept
responsibility for your own future, then you are choosing to not write your
future. You must choose to choose. Do you?
Determine what you want your future to be. Be specific. What do you want to earn? Where do you want to live?
What do you want to weigh? What do you want to do for a living? What do you
want to do in your leisure time? How much do you want to retire on?
If you don't know the answers to these questions, then you may as
well not even begin to write your future. Take some time to answer them fully.
Get a good understanding of your strengths
and weaknesses. If you are
going to write your future, you will have to have a sober understanding of what
you are good at and what you are not particularly good at. Maybe ask a good
friend or your spouse to give you an honest appraisal of your strengths and
weaknesses.
Focus on playing to your strengths while ever
improving your weaknesses. Be sure
that what you are doing is utilizing your strengths to their fullest. And you
don't want to forget your weaknesses, even while you are trying to stay away from
them. Instead, set smaller goals for improvement in your areas of weakness
while you set grand goals for the areas you are strongest in!
Get out a three pieces of paper. On the top of one, write, "One year from today I will…"
On the next write, "Three years from today I will…" On the last
write, "Ten years from today I will…" Then begin to fill them out.
Make commitments to yourself. As you write them, end each sentence with a
transition to how you are going to do it. For example, you may write, "One
year from today I will… Have $4,800 in my savings account by saving $400 per
month."
Start putting only information into your mind
that will benefit the fulfillment of the kind of life you are writing about.For
example, if you have a hard time spending money rather than saving it, you
should probably cancel all of the catalogues that come each day that entice you
to spend. Instead, spend the time you would have spent thumbing through
catalogues going through financial growth material instead.
Discipline yourself to spend your time in a
manner that will help you get to your goals. For example, cut out five hours of television
a week and spend that time on your goals instead. That would be a difference of
260 hours in the next year. Wow! What could you do with another 260 hours?
Almost anything!
You do not have to be a paper cup
blowing to and fro in the wind. You do not have to live at the whims of other
people or circumstances. You CAN choose your future. You can write it out just
the way you want it to happen. Yes, ups and downs will come, but you will
outlast them and eventually arrive at your destiny. Then, when you get to the
end of your life, you will know how it all turns out because you will have been
the author.
Get going—write your own future! 
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