Visualized.Feel.Abundance

Hey Folks,

If you have been following us for the past 5 post, you know we are currently on the topic of goal setting. If you have missed them, you can revisit them below:

What Are Goals and Goal Setting?

Can Dreams Be A Good Goal?

Are You A Day Dreamer Or Achiever?

Playing To Win

Even My Hamster Has A Goal

By now, you probably have, at least, made up your mind whether you should or should not have a goal. It doesn’t matter, to me at least, if you have decided that goals are not for you. It’s your choice and I’ll respect them.

For those who decide to set goals and pursue them, Congratulations! You have taken the first conscious step towards your dream and ‘ll show you what you can do next.

In the next couple of posts, I will be sharing the following topics about goal settings:

- Where to start and what goals to set
- General goal setting techniques
- Dream big and be inspired
- Taking it one step at a time
- Understanding your strength and your weakness
- Where to focus your effort
- How to set a right time frame for your goal

So before we go on with the first topic in the next post, I strongly encourage you to download The Ladder Of Dreams™ (Left side bar, top. Free Download), so you can follow us to plan your dreams.

Once you have downloaded The Ladder Of Dreams™, leave me a comment here. I would like to congratulate you personally for taking charge of your life and walking down the road of countless accomplishments.

Cheers
James

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Hey Folks,

Welcome back to Volume 4 of Positive Articles

This week we are sharing more like 2 stories then 2 articles but both meaningful nonetheless and I hope you enjoy it

The first story is entitled “SALES 101 - LOVING THE PEOPLE” by Corinne Edwards over at Personal Growth with Corinne Edwards . In this story, Corrine talks about her son learning how to do sales and how a change in his mentality changed his results. That single change was to love his customers. What got me thinking was this: How does it apply to Self Development? Simple. If you don’t love yourself, you cannot improve. Think about it.

Corinne has a very colorful and interesting life (how often do you get a TV host to blog with us, check her “About Me” page to know more) and she shares experiences in writing books, self improvement, some sales tips and even poems.

The second story if entitled “The Power Of An Hour” by Shaun Boyd over at LifeReboot. In this story, Shaun shares his experience with what working an hour a day on something (consistently the same thing) could help you achieve or waste (depending on what you are doing). I find that so true, especially since I started blogging. Blogging isn’t about getting a ton of articles up in a week and hope that everyone will drop by and read your post. It’s about working consistently everyday. Maybe you have only 60 minutes, 30 minutes or even 15 minutes. Over a couple of months, it all adds up to be more then you could ever hope to achieve in a week. So if you have a goal, work on it consistently.

Shaun’s blog is full of articles sharing his experiences and perspective of events around him. His articles are easy to read and relates what he want to say in a story telling way. So take some time to scan through the post there, some of them are thought provoking

Cheers,
James

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Hey Folks,

Welcome back to Positive Articles Day. We are now at Volume 3 and today I will be sharing 2 different articles from 2 Blogs.

I literally stumbled across the first article while surfing at Stumbleupon.com last week. It is titled “18 Ways to Stay Focused at Work” by Dave Cheong over at davecheong.com. I don’t know Dave personally, I just found his articles interesting and valuable to share with you, my readers. He describes himself as “Software Engineer’s journey to Entrepreneurship”.

In this article, Dave shares 18 ways that could help you focus at work. Some of them are similar to what I have mentioned previously in my article “7 Tips To Improve Your Work Efficiency By More Than 100%“.

I find Dave’s articles to be well thought out and he goes straight to the point. He gives tips that are simple to understand and apply. I have some experience with most of the tips he mentioned in this article and I can safely say that they do work! Especially listening to the right type of music and remember to make your work fun. So take some time, head on over and read it. I promise you won’t regret it.

I found the second article in much the same way as the first, via Stumbleupon.com and it is titled “Fix the Problem, Don’t Just Put Up With It” by Beth over at MySimpleLife. Beth describes herself as a charter certified Family Manager Coach and you get read more about her here.

In this article, Beth explains that there are a kind of problem that we tend to put up with instead of solving them once and for all. She give a simple 5 steps process to deal with them. Again, 5 very simple steps that none of us should have problem following. Head on over and take a look, it’s a short article but I think you will find it very beneficial too.

I like this article as I have a similar problem of this nature too - I keep forgetting where I parked my car within my own condominium! It was the fact that it was nothing major and not a life threatening problem that I have never found any need to address it but occasionally, when I am in a hurry, it could make me very frustrated as I rush between different levels of my car park to locate my car. Do you have a similar kind of problem too?

Enjoy the articles and cya next week!

Love,
James

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Hey Folks,

Today I would like to ask you, How Do You Get Motivated?

There are basically 2 types of motivation:

Self Motivation
This is arguably the best form of motivation and it is commonly found in entrepreneurs. In this form, you create or find the reason(s) to be motivated. You know what you desire and usually, your goal or the results of achieving your goal IS your motivation.

People in this category are always looking for challenges, goals, objective, new things to achieve. It does not matter if they failed a hundred times, they will try new ways, new approach or new methods until they succeed!

Also, by being self motivated, you will tend to attraction opportunities as you are always on the look out for them.

Motivated By External Factors
This is the most common type of motivation. You fall into this category if your motivation is due to:

- Wanting to fulfill the expectations of other people
- Force by circumstances beyond your control to do something
- Promise of a great reward (Lottery falls into this category)

People in this category will not take any action unless there is a reason rewarding enough or more typically painful enough for them to take action and do something. Their motivation will only last long enough for them to achieve the minimum requirements to satisfy and remove the external factors (pushing or pulling them).

The people in this group tend to attract more external factors that will push/pull them by virtue that they wait for something to happen!

Illustration
Lets say if you have a kid who is self motivated, they study on their own, request for help if they need, join study groups and generally get good grades (because they put in the effort). Would you bother as much to push them? Probably not.

Lets say again that you have another kid that just study enough to pass test and exams and occasionally fails exam but do not put in the effort to study harder. Would you, as parent set targets for him, send him to tuition classes, nag at him, force him to study? Probably so.

Could you see how the the Law of Attraction is working here? I think you would

So Which Do You Belong Too?
I used to be in the second group. Now I am somewhere in between but moving slowly but surely into the first group of motivators. What about you?

Share your thoughts simply by voting in this small survey that I have set up.

Cheers,
James

PS: I’m still trying to figure out how to change the color of the button

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Hey Folks,

Today I will talk about something that has been talked about countless of times but I will talk about it again based on my perspective of the subject and the subject for today’s post is the Law of Attraction.

There are many explanations or definitions for The Law of Attraction, from Quantum Physics point of view to New Age movement to New Thought philosophy. I shall offer my view of what Law of Attraction means to me, how it works and why it works the way it works.

My Definition Of The Law Of Attraction
To me, the Law of Attraction is nothing but the reflection of ourselves! Yes, you heard me right the first time. The Law of Attraction is nothing but a reflection of ourselves. What you think, you become. It is without prejudice and it does not know the difference between a positive and a negative thought. It reflects what you are thinking and helps you attract whatever you are doing.

That is why people with an abundance mindset always seemed to able to find solutions to a problem or get good deals where none seems to exist. While people with limiting beliefs always seemed to find more problems and get no opportunities at all! Same situations with different thoughts and they get different results!

Testing My Definition
You can test out this theory anytime you like and it will work every time. I like to use driving as an example. When I am in a happy mood with ample time to take a relaxing drive to my appointment, I will tend to focus on positive things I encounter on the road. I will spot drivers signaling before changing lanes, I will tend to give way willingly and be happy about it, I will keep within the speed limit and stay off the overtaking lane. In general, I will find everything enjoyable about driving.

When I am in a bad mood and especially when I am running late. I tend to curse all the way to my destination about inconsiderate drivers hogging the overtaking lane. Why? Because I am trying to overtake on that lane too while driving at excessive speed sometimes. I get even more frustrated as I focus on little things that gets me frustrated. Oh and I won’t even notice that 70% of the other road users were nice that day.

Go ahead and try it but it may be a good idea to bring a neutral party along (preferably someone who is close to you), they tend to see the difference clearly. Karen (my wife) is usually my mirror in all these situations.

Practicing The Law Of Attraction
There you go. No complicated explanations, just simple observations that even my grandpa will understand. So if you want to apply the Law of Attraction in the positive way to get a better life, here is how you can do it in 3 simple, yet practical steps:

Step 1: Understanding Your Thoughts
Before you decide that you want to change, you must at least know from who you are changing from. I cannot decide for you what you need to change, you will have to look inwards, sort them out, discard what you don’t want and keep those that you want. Then look at your “new self” again and decide if that is what you want.

For me, thoughts that I had decided to throw away are:

- Procrastination
- Laziness
- Shyness
- Arrogance
- Fear of Failure

Now decide if there is any beneficial thoughts that you are lacking that you want to have. Add them in your “new self”. For me, I have added:

- Responsibility
- Gratitude
- Perseverance

Review your “new self” again. If you like what you see, write the qualities of your “new self” down on a piece of paper, a reminder card, your vision board or anything that you can easily and conveniently remind yourself with.

Step 2: Change Your Thoughts
Now that you have decided the new qualities you would like to have in your “new self”, you need to let your new thoughts grow its roots while you weed out those thoughts you want to throw away. The first thing you need to do is to believe in yourself and believe that you can change for the better.

Next write down a list of actions/habits that would overcome those thoughts you decided to throw away and a list of actions/habits associated with those new beneficial thoughts that you would like to gain. Here’s my example:

Habits To Overcome (Thrown Away Thoughts)
- Just Do It (Procrastination)
- Do It Now (Laziness)
- Just Asked, No One Is Going To Eat You (Shyness)
- Empty Your Cup And Learn (Arrogance)
- Gain Knowledge And Just Do It (Fear of Failure)

Habits To Inculcate (For Thoughts Gained)
- Don’t Blame Anyone But Yourself (Responsibility)
- Be Thankful For Every Little Thing (Gratitude)
- If You Start, Don’t Stop (Perseverance)

Done writing them down like mine? Great! Now erase the bad thoughts (first section, in brackets) away leaving only the habits portion! It should look like this now:

Habits To Overcome
- Just Do It
- Do It Now
- Just Asked, No One Is Going To Eat You
- Empty Your Cup And Learn
- Gain Knowledge And Just Do It

Habits To Inculcate (For Thoughts Gained)
- Don’t Blame Anyone But Yourself (Responsibility)
- Be Thankful For Every Little Thing (Gratitude)
- If You Start, Don’t Stop (Perseverance)

Now you have to focus on drilling in your new habits. To do this effectively, you need to remind yourself that this are the habits you want, consciously, by reading what you have written daily. Reward yourself when you followed your new habits successfully - this actually strokes your sub-conscious mind and reprograms it to accept your new thoughts/habits.

Notice that we never even mentioned anything about bad thoughts? We only focus on the good habits that can overcome the bad thoughts. Why is that so? Because you don’t want to be reminded of the bad thoughts and in the process attracting them back again!

Step 3: Follow Your Thoughts
I have been told that it takes about 28 days to change one thought (completely) so does it mean that you need to change one thought at a time? I am not sure because I did it all at once. What I am sure is that you need to at least follow your new habits, keep track of your progress for at least 30 days, probably more. But once you cross that imaginary line where your new habits take hold. You will be surprise at the benefits it brings.

I believed that you have heard of the phrase “Birds of a feather flock together”. That’s what will happen once you are transformed, you will start to notice that you get to know more people with similar thoughts. If you got rid of procrastination, those “friends” that procrastinate will drift away from you and you get to attract new friends that are oriented towards taking action. The more you attract, the more you are motivated to do whatever is in line with your thoughts.

Summary
By now some of you may be asking “I thought this was about using Law of Attraction to attract things that I want?”, well, that is where most people got it wrong! Many believers of “Law of Attraction” just sit around trying to manifest their dreams. When their dreams are small and only requires a shift in focus to achieve, it comes true. But when the dream is beyond their current capabilities to attain, it will never come true no matter how hard they manifest. This is especially true when they have some limiting thoughts. Then they start to assign blame.

The natural path of “Law of Attraction” begins with changing yourself. When you are properly geared towards achieving success, even the sky won’t be a limit. This is my way of applying “Law of Attraction” practically. It is that simple and it has been around for ages!

I believe each human being has the potential to change,
to transform one’s own attitude, no matter how difficult the situation.
- 14th Dalai Lama

I believed that everyone can change and be successful if he allows himself to be. Nothing I say or do will have any effect until you are ready to receive. If you are ready, the way is open. Do leave me a comment to share your thoughts.

Love,
James

If you have benefited from the post, you could help us spread the word by stumbling, vote, digg or social bookmark it! Good things are meant to be shared not kept! I told you I got rid of being shy right!

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