Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Are You Intentional?

Rachel — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:11:27 +0000

Intention focuses our attention. And energy follows attention. Having an intention is like drawing your bow and aiming for a specific target. The more you focus on the center of the target, the more accurate your aim. Practice will make you more skilled in hitting what you aim for, in drawing to you what you intend.

Your intention affects your action, which in turn attracts the outcome. At any point in this manifestation process you can change your choice, your intention or your action but those changes will affect the outcome Our intention is our arrow, the means by which we reach our target. Aim it well. Aim it accurately. Aim it for the highest good of all. Expect only the very best and expect every need to be met, even the most seemingly impossible.

If I have an intention to pay off all that I owe, everything that I do will be influenced by my decision when I focus on that intention. I might buy only one of something rather than two, or I might not buy it at all. Your intention keeps you focused.

Commitment brings the full force of your attention to your objective. It affects every choice you make, every thought you think, and every circumstance you attract to your life experience. The step of commitment seals your intention.

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe said:

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.

Intention has genius, power and magic in it.

How to Stop Procrastinating

Rachel — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:00:28 +0000

When we are tackling a large project, it can be easy to become overwhelmed, stuck in paralysis, and begin to procrastinate.

In his book, Eat that Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, Brian Tracy recommends that we “eat that frog” each day. This is based on the old saying that if the first thing you were to do each day was eat a live frog, nothing could be worse the rest of the day. Often our frog is the most important or difficult task on our list. START with that! Once accomplished, you will feel a burst of energy to move forward on some of the other tasks on your list. This will also help you to create a big surge of momentum, increase your confidence and perk up your self esteem.

If you do not do the important things first and leave them hanging around on your To Do list, every time you look at them you will actually be draining your energy.

Action Steps:

1. Identify what the “frog” is in order to reach your goal.

2. Commit to eating that “frog” today or for a specified amount of time each day until it is completed!

How to Take Back Your Control

Rachel — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 22:00:25 +0000

Self-control is within your control. Taking back that control will help you grow and prosper beyond your wildest dreams!

Following are a few tips that may help:

1. Take Control

Take deliberate control of your thoughts and emotions. Think back to moments when you were in control. How did it feel? Use those positive memories to reinforce the power of being in charge all the time.

Self confidence and feeling good has a major 'hormonal' element and you can change the way you feel by re-living good times.

2. Think About Other Things

When you start feeling self-conscious or embarrassed, think about something else. Anything. Look at what is on your desk. Or on the wall in front of you.

Study the different textures and colors. Wonder who made it? What skills might have been used to do it? As long as you keep your attention off yourself, the moment of self-consciousness will pass and you can get back in control.

3. Remember Your Purpose

When you are not sure about what to do, it is difficult to retain self control or lack self-consciousness. If this happens, think for a moment about the reasons you are doing what you are doing.

If there are other people, make contact. They may be just as uncomfortable as you! Try and make them feel easy. Talk business. As long as your mind is occupied, you will not feel self-conscious.

4. Do Not Be Self Critical

Criticism is rarely constructive, often harmful. The worst of all forms is self-criticism.

Remember how many folks think: "Oh, I dropped that glass. How clumsy of me. I am good for nothing."

A confident person, on the other hand, thinks: "Oops, that slipped out! Let me clean up and then get back to doing that important task I am here to do."

Never let yourself make sweeping negative remarks about yourself. It will destroy your self image. By controlling it, you take charge of your self-confidence. And in time, this impact is huge.

Who is the REAL You? (Part 2)

Rachel — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 22:00:54 +0000

We make the change through awareness. By becoming our own observer. As soon as you think a negative thought about yourself, stop and ask where that thought came from. Ask yourself if it is true. Was it caused by something someone said to you in the past? Was it due to an experience in life? Sometimes parents repeatedly call their children names such as “stupid” and the child becomes conditioned to undervalue their skills and feel as though they are not 'clever enough' to be successful even though they may be a brilliant communicator and is an expert at sales and marketing. A child reared in this way does not have the success they deserve because of their self-perception. Have you had similar experiences? If so, recognize them as other people's stories and re-frame your interpretation.

Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. We cannot be expert at everything. Some things come easily to us and we love doing them. Other things we struggle with and hate doing. I have been on a self-discovery path for several years. A personality test revealed why I behave in a particular way and the kinds of things that come naturally to me. Rather than beat myself up about not being good at budgets and plans, I accepted that these were things I would have to try harder to do and be more self-disciplined about. Awareness of your strengths and weaknesses is not so you can justify your behavior–it is a tool to help you address them.

If you have not taken a Myers Briggs personality test, there is a free 'lite' version you can take at http://humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm. It only takes a few minutes. Once you understand more about yourself and accept and love who you are, you become unaffected by other people's opinions of you because their opinion is only their perception of you and not what is real.

Observe every situation and consciously choose how to respond so you do not give your power away and you create the outcome you want. Observing in a neutral state gives you incredible power to deal with any situation that presents itself. By starting to understand and appreciate yourself, you immediately become stronger, more centered and grounded. By observing in a neutral state, you start to control your fear response and you will eventually become. It will take a lot of practice and self-discipline and it helps to have the help of an experienced coach, but you can do it. It really is the key to success as it removes the barrier to your success: fear.

The world crisis in economics, politics and the environment is predicted to continue in 2012 and get worse. Reacting in fear will create a miserable existence. Everything that happens to us each day evokes an emotion. Almost always, the emotion is a product of our programming, with the exception of primal survival responses. However, even these can be controlled.

We are constantly being bombarded with messages and situations intended to trigger our fear response. From advertising to politics, we are being manipulated into a fear response that compels us to buy into the solution presented to us. Whether it is to sell us insurance, pharmaceutical drugs or persuade us to give up basic freedoms, our emotional response seals the deal. Learn to respond consciously rather than react emotionally and consciously choose the way you respond to any situation so that you achieve the outcome YOU want.

Who is the REAL You? (Part 1)

Rachel — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:35:40 +0000

Who is the REAL you? Do you really know yourself or the people closest to you? In the book 'The Fifth Agreement', an imaginary story about a man in a movie theater who watches a movie about himself and all his family in which he plays the lead role. He then goes into another theater and finds his mother watching a movie with the same characters in which she plays the leading role. He finds that his mother appears to be different than the person in his movie and, although he recognizes his physical self in her movie, he does not recognize his character. The same happens when he enters a third, fourth, fifth, etc. theater and watches the movies of his siblings, friends, etc. He learns that everyone has their own perception of themselves and of other people and everyone creates their own story about themselves and others.

The book says that we create our own story based upon how we want other people to perceive us. We are acting out different roles according to the situations we find ourselves in and the expectations that others have of us. The more we do this, the more we lose sight of who we really are and become fearful of revealing our true self because we do not believe that we can live up to the illusion we have created.

Who do you think you are?

We project who we think we should be to the outside world and yet internally we criticize ourselves for perceived faults and failings. We are our own greatest critic and we build the barrier that keeps us from being successful, happy and fulfilled. We have been conditioned over time to believe in a story about ourselves, which is the product of the way we think other people perceive us. We develop subconscious beliefs such as:

I am too fat
I am unattractive
I am not good enough
No one likes me
I am dumb
I will never amount to anything

How can you be happy when you are constantly being criticized by someone you cannot shake off –your own inner voice? If it were a friend or a partner who continually said these things to you, you would most likely have ditched them by now. Don’t you think it is time you ditched that inner voice and started to appreciate the magnificence of the REAL you?

We are programmed by negative reinforcement all our lives; consequently, we become conditioned to respond through fear. Most of what we do in life is because we fear the consequences of NOT doing something. To be truly free and empowered, we may want to switch off the fear reaction, shut out the critical and negative noise, and operate from a position of conscious awareness that moves us towards a positive outcome, with positive energy. This is how we become successful–by getting out of our own way and allowing our magnificent self to operate at full power.

Visit us again on Thursday when we blog about how we make this change.

The Window of Opportunity Sprint

Rachel — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:00:47 +0000

The New Year signals the start of a three-month period that I like to refer to as the Window-of-Opportunity Sprint.

Research shows that the people who are the most successful in the FIRST 100-DAYS of the year tend to take very specific steps on a very clear path.

If you are SERIOUS about accomplishing great things in 2012, you would be wise to come out of the starting gate fast, focused and fired up.

And keep going at FULL SPEED through at least the end of March.

Why? Because, if you do not make major strides toward achieving your goals from January through the end of March, you are going to be playing catch-up the remainder of the year… which is one giant pain in the rump.

With that in mind, my friend Gary Ryan Blair, otherwise known as The GoalsGuy has put together what I believe to be a comprehensive approach to goal setting and performance enhancement.

It is called the 100 Day Challenge and it is all about getting things done, getting massive results quickly, and STARTING the year with a bang.

Among all of the programs and respected authors that I know, this particular program is one of a few that will ensure that you begin 2012 in the best way possible!

If you have not already participated in this extraordinary program, I implore you to check it out. It is that good.

I promise you will be glad — make that ecstatic — that you did.

P.S. I almost forgot, the best part is that you can take it for a seven-day test-drive and prove to yourself how powerful it really is!

Where Will You Be 10 Years From Now?

Rachel — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 04:21:53 +0000

Where will you be 10 years from now if you keep on going the way you are going?

Many people do not realize that big success is the result of little successes achieved, often over a very long period of time.

Most successful people are long-term thinkers. They know that they must build upon each achievement and constantly learn new and better ways of doing things.

A regular review of your progress is an essential part of goal-setting. Our goals are little more than a wish unless they have a timetable for completion. Make sure your plan for your life includes three types of goals: short-term, medium-term, and long-term.

Revise your goals as circumstances dictate. Check them off when they are completed and set new and bigger goals for yourself as you grow. Be sure to take time to reflect often to make sure you are on the right course…for you.

All the best in 2012,