Jack Canfield -Tap into the Powers of Your Brain

Tap into the Powers of Your Brain

Your brain will work tirelessly to achieve the statements you give your subconscious mind. When those statements are your goals, you are certain to achieve them! Giving yourself goals can be tricky however, and your subconscious mind needs things put a certain way.

You need to be specific with yourself. The more specific you are with your goal, the more your brain has to go on to make just those things happen. Remember, vague goals produce vague results. Don't be afraid to be detailed with what you want! Write it all down as if you were putting in an order. Your subconscious will make it happen for you by steering you toward those opportunities.

Your goals might seem a bit overwhelming at first glance. But look again! Do you see how your goals can be broken down into a series of steps? When looking up a recipe you do not simply find in large letters "Perfect Lasagna Every Time." No! That of course is the end result, just like your goal. The recipe is there to help you achieve that goal. Create your own recipe for your goal. Break it down. What needs to be done first and next and after that? Keep writing the steps until you reach the goal.

Here's a fun fact to help you attain your goals: your brain does not know the difference between actually doing something and just visualizing something being done. Your brain processes the two the same way! Have you ever imagined yourself making a total flop out of yourself moments before you really do? That is because your brain really experienced it when you visualized it. And as stated earlier, your brain will work to make happen whatever is being inputted. So what do you daydream about? Do you visualize yourself being successful? Do you visualize other people judging you? What you think about, you bring about!

Make it a habit to spend time visualizing your goals in detail as if you are living them right now. Do it every day, several times a day! Your brain will be functioning as if your goals are already attained. You will start being the person you want to be simply because that is what is being processed in your brain. Your brain will make you notice all the resources available to you that you never noticed before. You will attract all the things you need to accomplish your goal.

Don't visualize what it will be like, visualize what it is like! Live it right now in your mind, everything in the present tense. What does it look like right now? What does it sound like and smell like? How does it feel? Create these detailed images and show your brain what it all looks like already complete. Your brain brings to your awareness only the things that match your beliefs about yourself, others, and the world. Everything else it filters out. When you visualize your completed goals in detail, your brain filters out everything that doesn't pertain to those goals!

Write down your goals, break them down into achievable bits and every night visualize them completed. Then every morning visualize them completed. Take the time that is necessary to go through each goal in detail. Trust this process; the power of your brain has been greatly undervalued in the achievement of your goals!

Dr. Denis Waitley - Mini-Goals to Maxi-Achievement

Mini-Goals to Maxi-Achievement

One of the best escapes from the prison of procrastination is to take even the smallest steps toward your goals. People usually procrastinate because of fear and lack of confidence and, ironically, become even more afraid when under the gun.

Experience has shown that when people go after one big goal at once, they invariably fail. If you had to swallow a 12-ounce steak all at once, you’d choke. You have to cut the steak into small pieces, eating one bite at a time. So it is with prioritizing. Proactive goal achievement means taking every project and cutting it into bite-sized pieces. Each small task on the way to the ultimate goal becomes a mini-goal in itself. Using this method, the goal becomes manageable. When mini-mistakes are made, they are easy to correct. And with the achievement of each mini-goal, you receive reinforcement and motivation in the form of positive feedback. As basic as this sounds, much frustration and failure is caused when people try to “bite off more than they can chew” by taking on assignments with limited resources and impossible timeline expectations.

This week, make your mantra, “By the inch it’s a cinch, by the yard it’s hard!” —Denis Waitley

Reproduced with permission from the Denis Waitley Newsletter. To Subscribe to Denis Waitley's Newsletter Use this link © 2010 Denis Waitley International. All rights reserved worldwide.

Chris Widener - Using Failure to Further Your Future

Using Failure to Further Your Future

“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.” —Margaret Thatcher

Failure. Even the word sounds bad, doesn’t it? That’s because since the time we were just young children we were taught that failure was bad. But is that true? Is failure bad? Let’s consider some things.

I like a baseball analogy. Do you know who set the record for a season batting average (that means how many times the batter successfully hit to get on base)? It is a gentleman by the name of Ted Williams, and his season batting average was .411 one year. That means that out of 1,000 times at bat, he would get a hit 411 times. That is considered by baseball fans as one of the greatest records ever. There are players making millions of dollars who hit .280!

But what does that stat also tell us if we flip it around? It tells us that the best season any batter ever had in the major leagues was a failure rate of .589! Even the best fail on a regular basis!

What about the richest people on Wall Street? Do they fail? Of course, they do. They pick the bad stocks sometimes, but they cut their losses and learn from their failure.

Did Michael Jordan miss shots? More than 50 percent of them!

So what about all this? What does this mean for us? The fact is, I think we can learn a lot about failure that will actually make us a great success. So here are some thoughts to help you use failure to further your future!

Failure is inevitable if you are trying for greatness. Failure is something we must accept as a part of the road we travel to success. This is a very important item, and it’s No. 1 on the list because a lot of what stops people from pursuing success is the fear that they may fail and not reach their destination. When we embrace the fact that we will fail, and that is OK, then we have nothing to fear anymore. Instead, we keep our eyes open and pick ourselves up, adjust from the failure, and move on.

Failure is never failure unless you fail to learn something from it. That’s right; we ought to stop calling these bumps in the road “failures” and start calling them “learning experiences!” When you fail, the first thing you should think is “What can I learn from this?” If you can pull just one idea out of that question, then the experience was worth it.

Sometimes failure is a blessing in disguise. Just ask 3M. They were looking for an incredible adhesive and actually got a sticky paste that held, but not permanently. What a failure! No, instead, they spread some on the back of little sheets of yellow paper and called them “Post-It Notes.” Have some? I’m sure you do. 3M thanks you for rewarding their “failure.”

People won’t think poorly of you if you fail. This is perhaps the biggest myth, and it’s the one that causes us to never attempt our dreams. We don’t try because of what Aunt Martha may say about us at the family reunion. The truth is, however, people will actually respect you for trying. The only thing I have found that people think poorly about you is if you handle yourself badly when you fail. Sore losers get the bad press, not people who attempt great things!

Failure isn’t the end but the beginning. One of our greatest fears is that our whole world will collapse if we fail—or at least the project will. The truth is that that rarely happens! Most of the time we can pick back up again, make some adjustments and be on our way! This is a new beginning. Now, there is no need to go down the road you have already taken, so there is one less option you have to try on your new journey.

Sometimes we miss out on success because we quit in the middle of a problem, and it becomes a failure instead of an obstacle we could have persevered through. When people encounter trouble, they have a tendency to quit and then they see themselves as having failed. My question is this: What if they would have kept on going—if they had persevered? Perhaps they would have struggled a bit and then broken free again. The failure happened only because they quit! So don’t give up. Keep pushing, and perhaps you will see yourself through to victory!

The greatest thing to overcome is the fear of failure. Most of the battle is right between our ears. It has been said that “we have nothing to fear but fear itself,” and that is true because in most of our “failures,” the end result is usually much less than we feared it would be. Yet in giving into fear and not trying, we suffer the ultimate consequence: no success! So begin to tell yourself the good stuff! Change the direction of your thinking and begin to see the possibilities of success, not failure.

Remember, properly looked at, failure can help you further your future!

Reproduced with permission from the Chris Widener Newsletter.To subscribe to Chris Widener's Newsletter Use this link
© 2010 Chris Widener International. All rights reserved worldwide.

Dr. Denis Waitley - Overcoming the Fear of Rejection

Overcoming the Fear of Rejection by Dr. Denis Waitley

To conquer your fear of rejection, you need to handle the word “no” in a constructive way. When people turn you down after a presentation, you have to interpret the “no” as “no, this is not right for me now.” We also can interpret “no” as meaning, “I need to know more about this opportunity or the products before I can say yes.”

I look at the service I offer to others as a gift that almost everyone desires. It’s like a nutritious dessert. What if waiters or waitresses in a restaurant said to customers at their tables: “Would you like our special strawberry parfait for dessert? It’s the best in the world!” And they were told “no” by their patrons, three out of five times.

Would they go to their manager, throw up their hands and quit, lamenting, “They don’t like me or my strawberry parfait”? Of course they wouldn’t. They’d go on about their business, thinking the patrons had missed out on something delicious.

That’s why I treat products as a gift, much more nutritious and beneficial than a fruit dessert. But what is being rejected is the presentation, not the presenter. When I can separate my self-esteem from offering the products or business opportunity, I can live with rejection and look for ways to get a positive response more often.

When you experience rejection, that’s the time to network with mentors and role models. It’s also the time to listen to upbeat music and read articles like this, to attend meetings and conference calls, and to hang around with optimists and winners.

There are basically four things we do in selling our products and services, and only four. We use the products and services ourselves, we talk to people about the products and services, we talk to people about the financial benefits we offer, and we coach them to refer us to others who do the same thing. First, we are coachable and willing to learn something new every day. Then, we become coaches. All you really need to move up to the next level is have faith in yourself.

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out for another is to risk involvement. To expose your feelings is to risk revealing your true self. To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk rejection. To love is to risk not being loved in return. To live is to risk dying. To hope is to risk despair. To try is to risk failure. But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing at all. People who will risk nothing do nothing, have nothing, and become nothing. They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love or live. Chained by their certitudes, they are trapped.

They have forfeited their freedom. Only a person who risks is truly free. And one last idea you can live and believe: the more you give, the more you’ll receive.

Reproduced with permission from the Denis Waitley Newsletter. To Subscribe to Denis Waitley's Newsletter Use this link

© 2010 Denis Waitley International. All rights reserved worldwide.

Jack Canfield - Expand Your Prosperity Consciousness

Expand Your Prosperity Consciousness

Understanding the relationship among consciousness, action, and prosperity is crucial to your success.

In my seminars I sometimes stand in front of the room and hold up a $100 bill, state that I’m wiling to give it away, and ask if anyone would like to have it.

Usually lots of people raise their hand – and do nothing else. I keep waiving the dollar bill until someone finally jumps out of his or her chair, walks or runs all the way up to the stage and reaches up to take the bill.

There are two lessons here. One is that money goes to the person who takes the necessary action. The other is that a certain state of consciousness makes it possible to take action – or to avoid it.

When I ask people what kept them from walking up to the front of the room to claim the money, I always get the same answers: they felt shy. They worried about what other people would think. They thought it was a trick. Those answers come from a consciousness dominated by fear, scarcity, and cynicism.

The same forces can operate in our daily lives. In each moment we either feed those forces – or replace them with something better. Following are some essential ways to expand your prosperity consciousness and claim the wealth you deserve.

Monitor Your Conversations

We swim in a sea of conversation. Every time you attend a meeting, make a phone call, or send an email, you start up a conversation. Whenever you listen to an audio recording or pick up a book, you start a conversation with an author. And whenever you write in your journal or just a take a few minutes to sit and think, you start a conversation with yourself.

Consider the combined effect of those conversations. My friend Jim Rohn liked to say that we are the average of the five people with whom we spend the most time. The quality of our conversations creates the quality of our lives.

Who are the five people that dominate the “conversation space” in your life? What did you talk about the last time you saw each person? And did that conversation build up your prosperity consciousness or tear it down?

Stay in Prosperity Conversations

Make it a point to drop out of the “aint it awful” club – toxic conversations with people who dwell on resentments or complaints. Instead, get engaged in conversations that support your path to prosperity.

For example, spend more time with the people who are already doing the kind of work you want to do. Ask them how they entered the field and what it takes to succeed.

In addition, read at least one book per week. Focus on uplifting stories and biographies of successful people. Read more and learn ways to build your skills at managing money, raising happy children, creating loving relationships, and maintaining your health. Feed your prosperity consciousness with a constant stream of useful, positive ideas.

Keep Catching Your Dream

Have you ever shared your dream with someone who then doubted your ability to achieve it? This happened to Mark Victor Hansen and me during a conversation with the publisher of Chicken Soup for the Soul. We asked him how many copies of the book we should expect to sell. The publisher said that we’d be lucky to sell 20,000 copies.

Believe me, that was NOT our dream! Our goal was to sell 150,000 copies in six months and 1.5 million in 18 months. Our publisher just laughed out loud and said it was impossible.

We ended up selling 135,000 copies in six months and 1.3 million in 18 months. We didn’t quite meet our initial goals, yet we sold much more than our publisher estimated. That first book went on to sell over eight million copies in America and 10 million copies around the world.

Whenever you have a dream-killing conversation, you have two options. Give up your dream or return to your original intention with even more energy and commitment. Focusing on your original intention sends an urgent message to your mind: I am going to persist until my dream manifests. Starting right now!

Support this deeper level of intention with affirmations, such as:

• I always attract the perfect people to work with me.
• No matter what is going on in the economy, I attract people I can help – and who can help me.
• Our customer base is expanding.
• Repeat business and referrals keep coming my way.

Then add supporting visualizations. See yourself holding bigger paychecks, rent checks, or royalty checks in your hands. Visualize people handing you cash.

Give Back

Round out these images with visions of sharing the wealth. Many of the world’s wealthiest people are dedicated tithers, meaning they give 10 percent of their income to charitable organizations.

Visualize yourself doing the same thing. Those who give also receive, and service always comes back multiplied.

© 2010 Jack Canfield

Jack Canfield, America's #1 Success Coach, is founder of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul© and a leading authority on Peak Performance and Life Success. If you're ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com

Les Brown - Your Dream Begins Today

What will your life be like when you’ve achieved your most deeply held dreams? Let’s take a look at how you can start living your dreams this very day.

Do you have a dream, a vision of the life you wish to live?

How specific is that dream?
How clear is that vision?
How do you intend to reach it?
What obstacles stand in your way?
Are your fears holding you back or are you using them to move you forward?

Your fears can actually lead you to success. Fear is an intense emotion. But that doesn’t mean it has to control you, or even stop you. Fear can prepare you and push you forward just as strongly as it can hold you back. Fear heightens your awareness and increases your physical strength. Fear brings your mind to sharp focus. With all that going for you, does it make sense to just run and hide? Of course not. Fear gets you in shape to take action!

Are you waiting for things to get better before moving ahead? If you’re serious about success, you need to start taking action today. If you’re waiting for things to be perfect, you’ll wait forever and nothing will ever get done.

The way to achieve is to bloom where you’re planted, to do what you can, where you are, with what you have. It’s easy to think up excuses for not taking action. “If only I had more hours in the day. If only I had a better job. If only I could meet the right person.” But excuses won’t bring you anything of value. You’ve got to change your “if only” into an “I will.” “I will make better use of my time. I will work on improving my career. I will create and nurture my relationships.”

Take a chance. Have faith in yourself. Your circumstances will improve when you make the effort to improve them. Start where you are right now. You have everything it takes to reach for whatever you desire. Stop wishing. Use your time, your energy, your thoughts and efforts to make it happen! You’ll be glad you did!