www.PersonalJoyandSuccess.com
Finding Personal Joy, Happiness and Success
To help you in your quest for personal growth and success

Articles

Previous Articles are Posted Below. Scroll Down for more, including by author Jack Canfield.
 
Becoming a Perpetual Student and Allowing Difficult People and Challenging Situations to Be Your Teacher

By Dr. Joe Rubino

While the vast majority of people view the daily challenges that life throws across our paths as inconvenient at best and a real nuisance that we should attempt to avoid at nearly all costs at worst, there is another possible perspective we might adopt to maximize our personal power. Rather than avoid these unpleasant and disruptive challenges, we can instead embrace them as an opportunity to learn something about ourselves and our ability to deal effectively with the trials they pose.

When things do not go our way, rather than blame someone or become resigned to seeing the circumstances as yet more evidence demonstrating our bad luck or deficiency in character, we might instead look for ways that we can learn and grow from the experience. If we take on the perspective that each challenge is sent our way with a gift of wisdom attached to it, we can transform how we see and respond to each episode. How we react to difficult situations will depend upon how we see our role in having brought them about. We can decide to be a victim, at the mercy of each difficulty or we can look for what part we may have played to contribute to it in some way.
Now, I am not suggesting that we blame ourselves or find fault with our performance as those lacking high self-esteem might be prone to do. Instead, I am proposing that we look at the stressful situation to see if we might have handled it differently had we realized some insight we now were able to glean by studying the event. By looking for possible contributory factors that resulted in having the situation turn out as it did, we can learn from our inquiry and act differently in the future.

This possibility to impact our experience is particularly rich when it comes to interacting with difficult people. We can shun the people we hold as having little or nothing of value to teach us, or we can hold them as a precious resource being sent our way to support our personal development. The more difficult the personalities, the more effective we will need to become in dealing powerfully with them and the more we have the potential to learn about ourselves and our ability to impact a result.

The key to interacting effectively with those we consider to be challenging people is to create the space for them to be the unique, imperfect individuals that they are. This means accepting their quirky behavior, at times difficult interpretations, irritating habits, and less than effective communication skills. Rather than hoping to change them, reprimand them, or try to fix them, it is more productive to accept what you might consider to be their faults and allow them the ability to be who they are. When you cease to oppose who they are, they will, in turn, no longer have to defend themselves or try to avoid being dominated by you. They will be less likely to find fault with you and less likely to need to exert control over you. With the generous allowance you’ve created for their humanity, you can now look at how you might be most effective in influencing them so that life works for both of you.

As we’ve discussed before, the secret to effectively interacting with people who would normally present us with a challenge is to manage our emotional state. Rather than react to what they say and do and thereby give away our personal power, we have the ability to monitor what would have been our typical emotional responses and act intentionally instead, without the driving emotion of anger, sadness, fear, or any other negative force that breeds upset and makes effectual communication unlikely.

When we give up our need to dominate a situation, control the other person, or be right about something, we gain the ability to interact powerfully and without a damaging reaction fuelled by negative emotions.

Allowing Difficult People and Challenging Situations to Be Your Teacher

1. As you go about your day, identify each challenging event to reflect upon how you might deal with the situation most effectively.

2. Practice allowing others to have the space to be who they are, complete with all their faults and shortcomings, and without the need to change or fix them. How does doing so influence your relationship with someone you would consider to be a difficult person?

3. For each problematic situation you find yourself in, record in your journal how you may have contributed to the difficulty by your action or inaction. What could you do differently next time?

Author's Bio
Dr Rubino is the CEO of The Center for Personal Reinvention, Http://www.CenterForPersonalReinvention.com, an organization committed to the personal excellence and empowerment of all people. He has impacted the lives of more than 1 million people through self-esteem work, personal and group coaching, and personal and leadership development. Dr. Rubino was featured on the cover of Success Magazine and in their cover story, “We Create Millionaires” for his ability to impact people’s lives. He is a certified success coach in life planning technology and the co-developer of the life-changing course, Conversations for Success, a program that provides participants with the tools to maximize their self-esteem, productivity and personal effectiveness with others. His vision is to personally impact the lives of twenty million people to be their best and to shift the paradigm around resignation - that is, that anyone can affect positive change in their own lives and in the lives of others - if they believe they can.

7 Steps to Attracting What You Want
by Jack Canfield

We all aspire to be, do and have great things. Yet most of us simply aren’t creating the results we want. We don’t have enough money, romance, success or joy in our lives. But what we need to understand is that greatness exists in all of us. It is simply up to us to pull it out of ourselves. We all have the ability to create the life we want. We just need to learn how to do it. Here are 7 of my top tips to jump-start your success and start "attracting" what you want into your life.

1. Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life
One of the greatest myths that is pervasive in our culture today is that you are entitled to a great life-that, and that somehow, somewhere, someone is responsible for filling our lives with continual happiness, exciting career options, nurturing family time and blissful personal relationships simply because we exist. But the real truth is that there is only one person responsible for the quality of the life you live. That person is YOU.

2. Be Clear Why You’re Here
I believe each of us is born with a life purpose. Identifying, acknowledging and honoring this purpose is perhaps the most important action successful people take. They take the time to understand what they’re here to do-and then they pursue that with passion and enthusiasm.

3. Decide What You Want
One of the main reasons why most people don’t get what they want is they haven’t decided what they want. They haven’t defined their desires in clear and compelling detail... What does success look like to you? Not everybody's definition of success is the same, nor should it be.

4. Believe It’s Possible
Scientists used to believe that humans responded to information flowing into the brain from the outside world. But today, they’re learning instead that we respond to what the brain, based on previous experience, expects to happen next... In fact, the mind is such a powerful instrument, it can deliver to you literally everything you want. But you have to believe that what you want is possible.

5. Believe in Yourself
If you are going to be successful in creating the life of your dreams, you have to believe that you are capable of making it happen. Whether you call it self-esteem, self-confidence or self-assurance, it is a deep-seated belief that you have what it takes-the abilities, inner resources, talents and skills to create your desired results.

6. Become an Inverse Paranoid
Imagine how much easier it would be to succeed in life if you were constantly expecting the world to support you and bring you opportunity. Successful people do just that.

7. Unleash the Power of Goal Setting
Experts on the science of success know the brain is a goal-seeking organism. Whatever goal you give to your subconscious mind, it will work day and night to achieve...To engage you subconscious mind, a goal has to be measurable. When there is no criteria for measurement, it is simply something you want, a wish, a preference, or a good idea.

© 2006 Jack Canfield
Jack Canfield, America’s Success Coach, is the founder and co-creator of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul and a leading authority on Peak Performance. 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: http://www.jackcanfield.com/

 
Meditation and Intelligence
By: Rebbie Straubing

By quieting the mind and bringing it to a state of wholeness, the mind reveals its deep intelligence.

Spiritual culture often depicts the mind as the bad guy. We often recognize the mind as the source of our disconnection and the instrument that scatters and shatters our sense of well-being. In meditation, we move toward a quiet and disengaged mind. The Yoga Sutras tell us right upfront that our mission is to "unthink." Swami Satchidananda translates verse two of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras this way: "The restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga."

And yet, we think as naturally as we breathe. We think incessantly. So, how do we go from automatic thinking to no thinking?

It helps to have a ramp. It helps to have a system that allows the mind to think, and yet, by its thinking, it leads to no thinking. Or more integrated thinking. Or more "whole" thinking.

Rather than screeching on the brakes and crashing into your thoughts at high speed, it helps to have a way to gradually and naturally decelerate your thoughts so that you glide into higher states of awareness in mediation.

By approaching the mind in a nonresistant mood, we immediately dissolve one of its biggest obstacles. In fact, it is the mind that has decided that the mind is a problem!

Here are three steps you can take to begin the process of preparation for mediation. With this approach, you achieve greater wisdom and more precise intelligence. As you honor your mind and treat it with love and respect, it reveals its true brilliance.

Step One
Recognize that you are your world. The Upanishads urge us to recognize all beings in the self and the self in all beings. Contemplate this notion as you interact with your neighbors and your family. Take on this challenge as you read the newspaper or when you consider your political leaders. This practice dissolves blame. Blame feeds the conflicted mind. The less the mind has to blame, the more peaceful the mind becomes. As the mind becomes an instrument of peace, so does your world.

Step Two
Speak your truth. This is not to be confused with reporting about conditions. Just because something terrible may have happened, it is not necessarily your truth to speak about it. Your truth can be found in words that feel like nectar as they flow from your lips. They soothe a difficult situation. They uplift you and others. You can recognize their truth because everyone within earshot feels better from having heard them. These are words of truth.

Step Three
Know when to keep silent. If speaking something that seems to be your truth will cause harm or injury to yourself or another, that is the time to remain quiet. Step two (speak your truth) does not command you to go around telling everyone everything you don't like about them. Knowing when to hold your tongue (and enjoying the deliberate silence) is a cause and an effect of wisdom.

By approaching the mind with honor, friendship, and respect, we bring its chaotic and conflicted waves of activity into a harmonious and beneficial hum. I like to call this song of the mind "meditative intelligence."
Copyright (c) 2006 Rebbie Straubing
For more information about preparation for mediation, get a Free instant download of the beginning of Dr. Rebbie Straubing's book "Rooted in the Infinite: The Yoga of Alignment" at RootedintheInfinite.com Rebbie's free e-course "7 Secrets to Your Heart's Desire" is available at YOFA.net
Visualize and Affirm Your Desired Outcomes:
A Step-by-Step Guide
By Jack Canfield
You have within you an awesome power that most of us have never been taught to use. Elite athletes use it. The super rich use it. And peak performers in all fields are now starting to use it. That power is called visualization. The daily practice of visualizing your dreams as already complete can rapidly accelerate your achievement of those dreams. Visualization of your goals and desires accomplishes four very important things.

1. It activates your creative subconscious which will start generating creative ideas to achieve your goal.

2. It programs your brain to more readily perceive and recognize the resources you will need to achieve your dreams.

3. It activates the law of attraction, thereby drawing into your life the people, resources, and circumstances you will need to achieve your goals.

4. It builds your internal motivation to take the necessary actions to achieve your dreams.

Visualization is really quite simple. You sit in a comfortable position, close your eyes and imagine — in as vivid detail as you can — what you would be looking at if the dream you have were already realized. Imagine being inside of yourself, looking out through your eyes at the ideal result.

Mental Rehearsal

Athletes call this visualization process “mental rehearsal,” and they have been using it since the 1960s when we learned about it from the Russians. All you have to do is set aside a few minutes a day. The best times are when you first wake up, after meditation or prayer, and right before you go to bed. These are the times you are most relaxed. Go through the following three steps:

1. Imagine sitting in a movie theater, the lights dim, and then the movie starts. It is a movie of you doing perfectly whatever it is that you want to do better. See as much detail as you can create, including your clothing, the expression on your face, small body movements, the environment and any other people that might be around. Add in any sounds you would be hearing — traffic, music, other people talking, cheering. And finally, recreate in your body any feelings you think you would be experiencing as you engage in this activity.

2. Get out of your chair, walk up to the screen, open a door in the screen and enter into the movie. Now experience the whole thing again from inside of yourself, looking out through your eyes. This is called an “embodied image” rather than a “distant image.” It will deepen the impact of the experience. Again, see everything in vivid detail, hear the sounds you would hear, and feel the feelings you would feel.

3. Finally, walk back out of the screen that is still showing the picture of you performing perfectly, return to your seat in the theater, reach out and grab the screen and shrink it down to the size of a cracker. Then, bring this miniature screen up to your mouth, chew it up and swallow it. Imagine that each tiny piece — just like a hologram — contains the full picture of you performing well. Imagine all these little screens traveling down into your stomach and out through the bloodstream into every cell of your body. Then imagine that every cell of your body is lit up with a movie of you performing perfectly. It’s like one of those appliance store windows where 50 televisions are all tuned to the same channel.

When you have finished this process — it should take less than five minutes — you can open your eyes and go about your business. If you make this part of your daily routine, you will be amazed at how much improvement you will see in your life.

Create Goal Pictures

Another powerful technique is to create a photograph or picture of yourself with your goal, as if it were already completed. If one of your goals is to own a new car, take your camera down to your local auto dealer and have a picture taken of yourself sitting behind the wheel of your dream car. If your goal is to visit Paris, find a picture or poster of the Eiffel Tower and cut out a picture of yourself and place it into the picture. With today’s technology, you could probably make an even more convincing image using your computer.

Create a Visual Picture and an Affirmation for Each Goal

We recommend that you find or create a picture of every aspect of your dream life. Create a picture or a visual representation for every goal you have — financial, career, recreation, new skills and abilities, things you want to purchase, and so on.

When we were writing the very first Chicken Soup for the Soul® book, we took a copy of the New York Times best seller list, scanned it into our computer, and using the same font as the newspaper, typed Chicken Soup for the Soul into the number one position in the “Paperback Advice, How-To and Miscellaneous” category. We printed several copies and hung them up around the office. Less than two years later, our book was the number one book in that category and stayed there for over a year!

Index Cards

We practice a similar discipline every day. We each have a list of about 30-40 goals we are currently working on. We write each goal on a 3x5 index card and keep those cards near our bed and take them with us when we travel. Each morning and each night we go through the stack of cards, one at a time, read the card, close our eyes, see the completion of that goal in its perfect desired state for about 15 seconds, open our eyes and repeat the process with the next card.

Use Affirmations to Support Your Visualization

An affirmation is a statement that evokes not only a picture, but the experience of already having what you want. Here’s an example of an affirmation:

I am happily vacationing 2 months out of the year in a tropical paradise,
and working just four days a week owning my own business.

Repeating an affirmation several times a day keeps you focused on your goal, strengthens your motivation, and programs your subconscious by sending an order to your crew to do whatever it takes to make that goal happen.

Expect Results

Through writing down your goals, using the power of visualization and repeating your affirmations, you can achieve amazing results. Visualization and affirmations allow you to change your beliefs, assumptions, and opinions about the most important person in your life — YOU! They allow you to harness the 18 billion brain cells in your brain and get them all working in a singular and purposeful direction.

Your subconscious will become engaged in a process that transforms you forever. The process is invisible and doesn’t take a long time. It just happens over time, as long as you put in the time to visualize and affirm, surround yourself with positive people, read uplifting books and listen to audio programs that flood your mind with positive, life-affirming messages.

Repeat your affirmations every morning and night for a month and they will become an automatic part of your thinking — they will become woven into the very fabric of your being.

© 2007 Jack Canfield
Home Email Articles Stories Music Labyrinth
Films Video Clips Audio Books Photo Gallery Interviews