How To Be A Winner In Everything You Do
Experts, including many leading psychologists, agree that what separates life’s winners from its losers are certain patterns of thinking and behavior. Losers tend to perceive the path to success as a straight, unbroken line from beginning to end. As a result, these people are unable or unwilling to cope with setbacks along the way.
If their progress is slowed or halted for any reason, they often become frustrated and give up. For these people, setbacks are failures that can not be overcome. Their motto might be, “if at first you don’t succeed, give up”.
Here are some of those winning characteristics found in common among successful people in all walks of life.
1) Goal-Oriented
In order to be a winner, you must have a goal- some point you wan to reach. That’s the first and most important requirement for success. Simply put, you can’t be a winner if there’s nothing to win.
Both short- and long-term goals are essential elements in providing a sense of direction and purpose. Without a specific, clearly defined goal, you’re like a traveler who has no destination. You have no idea of where you’re going or why. You don’t know how to use your time and resources to their fullest advantage. On the other hand, goal-oriented people know exactly where they are headed and why. They plan their journey carefully, keeping in mind all the detours they may face along the way, and never lose sight of their destination- their goal.
2) Motivation
Once you have set your goal(s) you must have the drive or motivation to reach it regardless of the obstacles in your way. Winners are all highly motivated people who press forward until their goals are reached. That doesn’t mean that in order to achieve your goals you must exclude everything else from your life. You’ll still need to socialize and relax, but you must set priorities. Consider how much time you spend each day in unnecessary pastimes that do little more than sap your energy.
If you use that time instead to focus on and work toward a specific goal, you’ll increase your chances for success dramatically. The bottom line is, in order to be a winner, you must want to reach your goal more than anything else.
3) Positive Mental Attitude
Having a positive outlook doesn’t mean blissfully ignoring the many harsh realities of life. Winners understand that risks and potential setbacks are a matter of fact. Instead of dwelling on these negative aspects of life, winners are constantly looking for alternate ways to pursue and achieve positive results. After all, how much can anyone accomplish with a defeatist attitude?
A positive approach with allow you to be your most creative and productive- both mentally and physically. Negativism will make you more vulnerable to stress and less likely to pursue your goals.
One way to become a winner in everything you do is to study successful people and then follow their examples. You don’t have to make yourself over in someone else’s image. But you should learn and develop the winning characteristics these people have in common. It’s not an impossible task.
If you are willing to make the necessary changes in thinking, attitudes and behavior, you can realize your full potential and achieve whatever goals you set.
Enrique Villalobos is the owner of http://www.MakingExtraMoneyAtHome.com, which provides free articles and resources about working from home. Visit it now and download the free ebook “Dotcomology, The Science of Making Money Online.”
Learn Meditation in 7 Amazingly Easy Steps
While meditation is an important spiritual element of major religions like Buddhism and Hinduism, it is used every day by millions of people who meditate purely for the health benefits.
Western medicine recognizes meditation positive, calming effects, with doctors advising patients who suffer from stress, high blood pressure and chromic pain to take a few relaxing minutes each day to meditate.
It is like a trip to the gym for your brain, by focusing the mind on a single thought or image, even for only 10 or 20 minutes each day, your body relaxes, the mind becomes clear, and stressful problems become easier to manage.
1) Why meditation has a measurable effect on mind and body
To understand how meditation works, it helps to understand how the brain functions. The largest part of the brain is the cortex, divided into left and right hemispheres.
The left side of the brain is usually dominant, controlling speech, logic, calculation and writing. The right hemisphere controls creativity, imagination and emotions. Researchers believe that when we meditate we create a connection between the two hemispheres.
When subjects hooked up to ECG machines meditate, researchers can measure the intensity of alpha waves and the brain waves when we are in calm, relaxed state which is produced while meditating. During meditation, alpha waves are far stronger and more consistent between both hemispheres than during other forms of relaxation, even sleep.
When the brain is in an alpha state, the parasympathetic nervous system takes over the part of the nervous system that conserves and restores energy, slows blood pressure and heart rate, and controls the digestion and absorption of nutrients by the body.
When the parasympathetic nervous system takes over, the high-stress fight-or-flight response which is accompanied by secretion of stress hormones like adrenaline, plus tension in the head, neck and lower back is overruled, and the body releases other, more positive hormones that promote relaxation and healing.
2) Proof that meditation works
Medical researchers have done a great deal of study into the benefits of meditation. Studies show it encourages better brain function, improved circulation in the extremities, increased cerebral blood flow and lower levels of stress hormones.
A 1987 found that people who practiced Transcendental Meditation made less than half the number of visits to doctors and spent 50 percent less time in hospitals than people who did not meditate.
There are countless ways to meditate, and you can teach yourself how to do it from, books, tapes, or via the Internet in a very short time. There are often classes available at local community centers, holistic health centers and even community colleges, as well. Among the most popular methods of meditation are:
a) Mantra meditation: A word or phrase which is repeated over and over, either out loud or in your head. You can choose a phrase that relates to your personal beliefs, one that is a positive statement, or a one-syllable word-sound like Om or Hum.
b) Breath awareness: You concentrate on rhythmic breathing, possibly counting each breath in and out, often breathing in through the nose and out the mouth.
c) Object meditation: You focus on a specific object, noting each detail of its shape, presence and color.
d) Active meditations: Using rhythmic movements, like walking, swimming, t’ai chi or yoga to focus the mind.
3) A simple, 7-step meditation anyone can do
a. Set aside 10 to 20 minutes, once or twice a day.
b. Find a place which is quiet where you are unlikely to be disturbed, and sit down. You do not need to sit cross-legged, or in any special posture. A comfortable chair is fine. Wear comfortable clothes, and arrange your arms and legs in a relaxed posture.
c. Set an alarm so you don’t have to worry about keeping track of time. If you are concerned that it may startle you, place it in another room or under a cushion, so the sound will be muffled but audible.
d. Breathe slowly and rhythmically, consciously relaxing your feet, legs, torso, on up your body until all your muscles are loose.
e. Choose a word to repeat to yourself. The classic mantra is Om, the Sanskrit word for perfection. Or you could choose a simple word that reflects what you hope to achieve in your life, like peace or happiness. You could also, instead, count your breaths from one to 10, then over again and again. If thoughts drift into your mind, allow them to float gently out again as you re-focus on your word or breathing.
f. When your alarm sounds and you have finished, don’t jump right up but allow yourself to slowly open your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and rejoin the world in a relaxed manner.
7. Stretch your arms and legs, and stand up slowly.
Most people who start meditation find they have trouble motivating themselves to meditate, and letting go of the Western tendency to constantly think, think, think about every little thing.
This is one reason why you might consider taking a class or using tapes. It can be valuable to have a guide to take you through meditation your first few times. Once you get the hang of it, you will find meditation is simple and effective. You can even move on to more advanced techniques as you find yourself progressing.
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How To Change Limiting Beliefs
The first step to changing limiting beliefs is actually to recognize that you have them. This can be very hard for people who have had a genuinely difficult life and have experienced adversities not of their own making. The idea that they are blocking their own good because of limiting beliefs can seem like another slap in the face. However, acknowledging the power of limiting beliefs to affect one’s life should not be taken as a criticism. If you are a human being, then you will have some limiting beliefs. Different limiting beliefs in their various combinations will affect everyone differently, but no one is immune. When we realize this, we don’t feel quite so lonely or attacked.
Limiting beliefs are beliefs that cause us to act and react in ways which limit our potential. However, unless people have done some inner work, they are often unable to identify their limiting beliefs if asked. This is because an unquestioned belief is considered a truth and not a belief at all. How then, can we shine a light on our limiting beliefs in such a way that we are willing to stand still and examine them?
The first step is to spend some time listening to your self talk. Don’t judge your thoughts and don’t try to change them; just observe them and listen for repetitions and patterns. Write down the things you say to yourself often. Don’t think about them, just record them. There’s no stress. Do this for a week and then go through your notes. This can be a very uncomfortable experience as most of us do not pay much conscious attention to our inner dialog.
The second step follows on from the first. Carefully examine your notes and highlight often repeated statements you make to yourself. You may be surprised how negatively you speak to yourself. Write these statements on a separate piece of paper leaving a few lines blank under each one. Write down the area or areas of your life each statement refers to.
The third and final step to discovering your limiting beliefs is to evaluate how these areas of your life are working. If you regularly repeat a statement to yourself that relates to an area of your life that is stressful, disappointing or simply not working on some level, there is a very good chance that your self talk reflects a limiting belief which is blocking your success in that area.
Limiting beliefs can have devastating effects on our lives such as creating poverty, preventing us from getting the job we want, keeping us lonely or keeping us fat. They usually reflect the profoundly deep “I can’ts” of life. Whenever you really feel that you just can’t do something, have something or be something, you are probably being influenced by a limiting belief.
Limiting beliefs are like vampires; they suck the life out of you. But also like vampires, they cannot exist in the light of day. Limiting beliefs can only exist because they hide in the dark recesses of the mind, unexamined. Once they are brought to light, they can be seen for what they are and they must die.
Once you have identified a limiting belief and acknowledged its effects on your life, you can change it. To change a limiting belief, it is most effective to work backwards from your desired result. What is holding you back from achieving the outcome you want? What do you think other people believe about themselves that allows them to have it? What do you think you need to believe about yourself in order to get the results you want? Once you have worked out one or more positive beliefs that will support you, you need to program them into your belief systems.
The first step to reprogramming your mind is to recognize that your limiting belief is a lie and the new belief is the truth. You must answer the lie with the truth. Whenever you repeat to yourself a negative statement supporting the old belief, immediately answer it with the truth. Speak out loud if you have to (hopefully no one will be around) and say “No, that is not true,” and then state the new belief. To give the new belief power, it is important to look for reasons why it is true. As your mind finds more and more reasons why the new belief is true, it will gain precedence and the limiting belief will have no power.
If you need additional help to defeat limiting beliefs, a biofeedback therapy such as kinesiology can be useful. If you know the belief you need to overcome and the belief you need to program, kinesiology and similar therapies can short cut the process. It is particularly useful in situations where the limiting belief has occurred as a result of trauma or strong emotion and has become locked in at a physical level, not just mentally. Biofeedback therapies use muscle testing to measure the body’s response to different beliefs and can help a person release damaging beliefs and set positive new ones.
Limiting beliefs are a part of the human condition. However, we do not have to hold onto them. Changing a single belief can have a dramatic impact on our whole lives. If we seek to discover and change all our limiting beliefs, each of us can totally shift our experience of life and become the person we were born to be. This is a gift no one can give us, but ourselves.
Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of My-Personal-Growth.com, a site that provides information and articles for self improvement and personal growth and development. http://www.my-personal-growth.com
Addiction: An Attempt to Get Enough
You can’t get enough of something if it isn’t what you really need. This statement attributed to philosopher Eric Hoffer, is the basis of understanding all addictive behavior.
If you need something (perhaps rest), but think that you should not need it, you may stumble upon something that makes you feel better temporarily (perhaps coffee) and think that is a solution to your problem. However, no matter how much coffee you drink in an attempt to feel better, it only masks your exhaustion instead of providing the rest you really need.
Eventually, you get so accustomed to having large amounts of caffeine in your body that you need it to feel normal. No matter how much you have, it doesn’t feel like enough, because you don’t really need coffee, you need rest.
Everyone has similar basic physical needs, but our emotional needs are very diverse. An emotional need is something you MUST have for you to BE YOUR BEST. When I ask people to choose their top ten needs from a list of over 200 possibilities, no two people make the same choices. The more you know about what you really need, the more likely you are to be successful and happy.
Misidentified emotional needs lead to addictions too. If you did not grow up in an emotionally literate family, you may never have correctly identified your emotional needs. You learned to do whatever was normal in your particular family and if that happened to coincide with what you needed, great. If it didn’t, it was just too bad.
In fact, you may now find yourself repeating uncomfortable behavior patterns that seem to be a good idea when you were a child, but now cause you repeated problems.
If you learned to wait to be noticed and to be nice to others instead of asking for the recognition you needed when you were a child, you may still be doing the same thing now. But now you may be angry that others get more rewards than you do because they call attention to themselves, and you don’t.
Procrastination, repeatedly saying yes when you want to say no, and getting into relationships that hurt you are other examples of behaviors that are misguided attempts to get what you need.
Addictions to physical substances like alcohol, drugs and tobacco also start as attempts to get what you need. Unfortunately, the craving that develops from the use of these substances becomes a new problem that may be very challenging to solve.
Even when the addiction is treated, if the underlying needs are not addressed, those unmet needs will still cause distress. It is worth your time to understand your own needs and find effective ways to manage them.
When you do identify and accept your most important emotional needs, you can consciously arrange your life so those needs are regularly filled, giving you the vitality that comes from being your very best self.
Communicate skillfully about sensitive subjects. Http://www.DareToSayIt.com/blog
Laurie Weiss, Ph.D. is a Master Certified Coach and communication expert. Dr. Weiss has spent 35 years helping clients resolve conflict in business and personal relationships. Email feedback@laurieweiss.com
Communication is Not The Most Important Relationship Skill
The single most important relationship skill is not communication, it’s taking ownership.
Successful relationships require taking ownership of your “experience.”
What is Your “Experience?”
Your “experience” is what happens inside your body and your mind in response to events. It is composed of your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations.
Your experience is involuntary, it just “happens.” It’s neither good or bad or right or wrong. Your experience is always OK and valid.
Your Thoughts
We spend a lot of time in our head listening to our thoughts. Sometimes thoughts just pop into our consciousness automatically, and sometimes we direct our thoughts with intentionality to solve a problem, express ourselves, make a decision, etc.
And some of our thoughts are judgments. A “judgment” is making a meaning or interpretation in response to an event (right, wrong, good, bad, theory, explanation, reasoning, logic, etc).
Facts vs. Judgments
You and a friend go for a walk. You say “It’s a beautiful day.”
Your friend responds “No, it sucks.”
Your reaction is to be surprised. You can’t imagine how anyone could experience such a warm, sunny day to “suck.” Your impulse might be to argue with them- “Are you kidding? Look at that clear blue sky. It’s a gorgeous day!”
This is a very small example of a huge dynamic that creates more relationship conflict than anything else you can imagine.
So let’s take a look at this. You observe the following facts:
The sky is blue
The temperature is 76 degrees
You are walking in a park
Facts are typically measureable events and can be observed through a video camera. If you poll 100 people about a fact, such as “Is the sky blue?” you will typically get almost unanimous agreement that it is blue (except from the color blind!).If you poll 100 people and ask “Is the sky pretty?”, you are asking for an opinion or judgment and will typically get less than 100% agreement.
Your experience of the day is positive. You interpret the blue sky as “beautiful,” the temperature as “perfect” and “comfortable,” and your body “feels good” to get exercise by walking. These are meanings you’ve created from your experience of the facts or events.
Your friend’s experience is negative. We don’t know why yet, but there are many reasons why they might judge the day to “suck.”
You Have a Choice
In the above example, you have a critically important choice to make in your response to your difference of opinion about the day-
Option 1: Focus on the difference (e.g. “Are you crazy? Look at that blue sky and tell me it’s not a beautiful day!”
Option 2: Focus on curiousity, compassion (e.g. “What’s going on for you?”
The unconscious knee-jerk response is often to focus on the difference in our experiences and judgments. This choice discounts and argues with any point of view that doesn’t mirror ours and leads to conflict.
It requires a conscious choice to accept differences and not impose our own experience and judgments on others. To come from a place of curiosity about and compassion for a human being who we care about who thinks and feels differently from ourselves.
The Importance of Ownership
It is not someone else’s fault that you are thinking or feeling something good, bad, or indifferent. It is coming completely from inside you.
The principle of ownership can be hard to grasp when our partner provides the trigger for how we feel and react, but the fact is that while our experience is involuntary, we do have complete choice over the meanings we create and the actions we take.
Behavior follows patterns. Nothing ever happens just once. If you don’t strive to take complete ownership of your thoughts, feelings, and judgments, you will follow a pattern of blaming others, playing victim, and your life and relationships will suffer.
How to Take Ownership- A Four Step Paradigm
I have found that the easiest way to take ownership of your experience in a relationship is to keep in mind the triad of Facts, Judgments, and Feelings-
Facts- usually a measureable event (“the sky is blue”)
Judgments- the meaning we make of the event (“the blue sky is pretty”)
Feelings- our emotions and sensations (warm, cold, happy, sad, etc)
Oftentimes, what we human beings do, especially when we’re upset or excited, is we make judgments about something and try to make that be the fact.
“You make me so angry.”
“You’re a jerk.”
“I love you.”
“War is hell.”
“Ice cream is good.”
These are all judgments you might feel so strongly about you believe them to be true. While they might be your personal truth at the time, they are not facts, no matter how strongly you believe them to be true.
It all starts with an event or stimulus. Something happens that gives us a certain experience.
Then, we react to our experience by making meaning of it and forming judgments.
Then, our judgments stimulate our emotions- mad, sad, glad, fear, shame.
And this all happens in the blink of an eye.
We can then react consciously or unconsciously. If we react unconsciously we will act out our feelings and judgments, whatever they are.
If we react consciously we will separate the facts from our feelings and judgments and then decide what meanings to make and actions to take.
This begins by reviewing the facts in your head and making sure you’re not mixing in judgments.
Step One: Review the facts
“OK, the sky is blue, we’re walking in the park together, the temperature is about 76 degrees, I just said “It’s a beautiful day” and my friend said “No, it sucks.”
Step Two: Review your judgments
“Hmm, I believe it’s a gorgeous day, walking here is wonderful, and I judge that my friend isn’t getting it at all.”
Step Three: Identify your feelings
“I’m glad it’s such a beautiful day, sad that my friend is troubled and not enjoying it, frustrated and angry at their negativity.”
Step Four: Make a conscious choice
Once you’ve separated the facts from your judgments and feelings you are in a much better position to decide what to think, feel, and how to react. Notice in the above example that the judgments and feelings are mixed, which is common. If you are conscious you can choose amongst the mix of judgments and feelings that you will embrace and act upon, and which you will discard or leave alone.
In the above example you might decide to focus upon your sadness that your friend is having a bad day and choose a compassionate response, and to discard your judgment that they aren’t “getting it.”
The Power of Taking Ownership
It is our nature to have lots of thoughts, judgments, and feelings; some that we want to identify with, and some that we don’t. It is common to confuse judgments with facts because we believe them so strongly. It is common to confuse feelings with judgments as well (e.g. “I feel like you’re so wrong about that!”). It is common to have conflicting reactions, such as “You’re a jerk” and “I love you” at the same time.
While our experience is involuntary and overwhelmingly strong and real for us at times, as conscious beings we can pick and choose our truth and what we say and do about it.
Therefore, we are responsible for what we feel, think, say, and do. There are no victims in the conscious adult world. Taking ownership gives us power over our choices and destiny, and thus is the key to a successful and happy life and relationship.
David Steele, MA, LMFT is founder of Relationship Coaching Institute and author of the ground-breaking new book for singles Conscious Dating: Finding the Love of Your Life in Today’s World. http://www.ConsciousDating.com/book.htm