Tag Archives: limiting beliefs

22

Think About What You Believe

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Beliefs are the ideas we have chosen to provide a particular attachment to. These are thoughts we have been told during our lives that have been backed up by experience and our emotional reactions to them. It is essential to recognize our beliefs because they will form the paradigms of our lives. These rules will determine the reality we experience in our lives, so identifying the limiting beliefs and actively working to change them can make your life much more positive.

The Birth of Beliefs

Our fundamental beliefs come to us early on in life. One’s parent’s attitudes about life builds our own belief system, and we will create our reality and ideas about almost everything out of this. From money to personal relationships. They are all created and imprinted on our subconscious by our parents and family. These beliefs will be either positive or negative, empowering or enslaving, depending 0n  experience. If you get messages “like, can’t possibly accomplish”that ” or arena aren’t smart enough to do” that” or isn’t realistic, you will never be able to make a living ” it.”  The reality of your life is going to be limited by those beliefs.

If, on the other hand, the messages received were more supportive and encouraging, these beliefs will propel you into success much more accessible. The things we believe and the paradigms of our lives dictate our reality. It goes deeper than what you say in words and includes the example you set. If there are general mistrust and unhappiness in your life, you are building a belief that the world is full of peoplcan’t can’t trust. Although some can’t be charged, many are very trustworthy and kind. Your belief will carry over to the next generation, embedding itself and creating the reality that exists.

How to Change a Belief

Once a belief is embedded, and you accept it as true, it won’t change until new evidence strongly refutes it and causes the old paradigm to be discarded, and the new belief takes its place. This process will be different for everyone, depending on your ideas and how open you are limitationsto change.

If you are set in your ways and look at change as a danger, it will be challenging to change your belief. Simply put, you will not seek change until it becomes apparent there is a problem with what you are thinking and believing right now. Wanting to change and, in fact, seeing the need to change is the first step. Then it is a matter of deciding what you want to believe about money, relationships, charity, work, friends, family, or any other area affecting your life.

Then it is a matter of reprogramming your subconscious, and there are many ways to do this. Some involve changing your belief bit by bit, and others involve rapid and immediate change. The best way to change a limiting belief is to recognize the idea, where it came from, and how it is hurting your life now. Constructing a new belief will involve using your imagination and introducing images that connect to emotion about what you want to believe.

Changing A Limiting Belief is Simple but Not Easy

Some information I have read on this topic has stressed the difficulty of creating changes that last in your belief system, but most people who purport this message want to sell you something. My experience is that most beliefs can be changed quickly, which can last.

Simple method: 1. identify the problem in writing 2. write down the change you want to see in your beliefs. 3. Create positive thoughts (affirmations)  that support those thoughts  4. Read them, say them, and repeat them with emotion until the positive thought replaces the limiting belief. You will know it has happened in your experiences as thoughts change, life changes.

You may think that nothing is that simple, but it is a choice to keep letting the beliefs that limit you control your reality or move on to something better.

“Thoroughly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life. Worse still, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and our ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the progrlife’slife’s morning, for what was great in the morning will be little at evening and what in the morning was true, at evening will have become a lie.” ~C.G. Jung

“You begin to fly when you let go of self-limiting beliefs and allow your mind and aspirations to rise to greater he gets.” ―Brian T

“Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do, and you can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.” 

“Do just once what others can’t do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again.” 

“Learning too soon our limitations, we never learn our powers.” —Mignon McLaughlin.

“Every person takes the limits of their field of vision for the limits of the world.” —Arthur Schopenhauer.

22

Happiness is an Inside Job

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finding happinessI don’t know about you, but finding happiness in life depends on my perceptions of things and the people around me.   When you focus your actions around the things you can control (inside/out)and avoid letting the stuff outside of your experience, you can’t control the behavior you are living outside in. You will continually find yourself living at the whims of the things that happen to you rather than dictating what you would like to happen to you.

There seem to be two choices in life. Either I live from the outside in or from the inside out. The choice dictates how large the portion of happiness I  experience at any particular time is. But what does it mean to live from the inside out? There are factors we can control in life and others outside of us that we do not. We are blessed with the choice of the outside or inside dominating our consciousness, so we control the amount of happiness we experience. Awesome!

From the Outside In Not Finding Happiness

Too often, We can find ourselves allowing the things and the people who come into our lives to dictate our mood. A great example of this would be when a finding happinessperson cuts you off in traffic, and you let that act affect your mood negatively, your anger rises, and you let your whole day get away from you. When we allow others’ decisions and choices to dictate our moods and actions, we are far from finding happiness in life. It can be the same as the people we care about. If they are in a bad mood for no fault of your own or are mad about something else, it is all out of your control.

That leads to me not taking responsibility for my life. It is too easy to send blame in the direction of whatever or whoever has changed my mood. I blame the traffic, blame the crowd, blame loved ones, or blame my friends. All of these are a cop-out because the only one who can choose to be angry or suffer because of someone else’s act is you. All you can control in this situation is your reaction to someone or something. Make sure it comes from a place of love. Finding happiness starts with accepting responsibility for our actions and lives, which means seeing the outside influences for what they are.

From the Inside Out

This is when you are at your best because the opposite of what is described above is happening. All thoughts and emotions about life events come from inside, and we choose their influence on us. We do not have to be angry unless we decide to be. There is no need to be frustrated unless we choose to be. We don’t have to let the non-stop external stimulus dictate our mood because the choices are made from our positive perspective, accepting full responsibility for all aspects of our lives. When your emotions radiate from inside yourself out, they will be more positive, and they will also radiate outward from you either positively or negatively.

This is the ultimate responsibility because when you choose the reactions that you experience, your true self is allowed to come through. Each of us has this ability, but it gets clouded through the lens of what society has told us is essential, rather than making decisions based on what we feel is right or wrong. There is no unhealthy attachment to things outside of you because you’re living from the thoughts, words, and actions inside of yourself.

You Are The Shot Caller for Finding Happiness

finding happiness
Whatever Walter White says goes!

Living from the inside out allows us to be the best representation of ourselves that we can be. What the media tells you about how you should look no longer matters. Finding happiness does not come from what “they” tell you to do, be or look like; it isn’t relevant anymore. What they ask you to enjoy isn’t a part of your story anymore  (unless you allow it), and you are becoming your best self if you pay attention to the thoughts and emotions that radiate from you.

You are responsible for your moods and emotions because what you think, say, and do comes from inside you and radiates in waves out into the world rather than the other way around. Your inner goodness is a force that needs to be shared with the world. We are all happier when we focus on what we can control and make good choices and leave the things we can’t control, helping ourselves and others find happiness. Please focus on the things you can manage and push them in the direction you want to go. You have no idea what power you possess until you focus on deploying it in a valuable and vital way from the inside out.

“You can’t teach anybody anything, only make them realize the answers are already inside them.”
– Galileo Galilei

“How soon will you realize that the only thing you don’t have is the direct experience that there’s nothing you need that you don’t have?”
– Ken Keyes, JR

“Uncertainty is the only certainty, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.”
— John Allen Paulos

“If the only thing people learned was not to be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world.”
— Sydney Banks

“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”
— Maya Angelou

22

Knowledge Will Change You

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BeliefOur minds work overtime sometimes, and we must establish a clear representation of our thoughts, goals, and perspectives on life to find our direction based on the things we truly believe. All knowledge will change you and move your consciousness one way or another and leave you with a final set of core beliefs representing your experiences and how you choose to interact with the world. Looking at my experiences over the last year, I needed to revamp my collection of what I think and look at other people.

So here is the current version of MY Mission Statement. Presented in no particular order, here are a few things I hold as truths in my life.

We Are All Connected

Call it God, the Universe, or whatever your religion dictates, but to me, we are all connected through a divine order. All people have the same abilities for great love and equal power to commit evil, which is just a part of this crazy game called life. We are given individual gifts at birth to make our unique mark on the world if we choose to do so. When you look at all things, events, and people in your life, you can see the thread that connects everything.

This connection runs through the hearts of all people. There is an illusion that our experiences are seperate events; a universal force is running between us all, connecting all of our stories. Remember this the next time judgment of others and separation’s effects enter your life. There but for the good fortune of your circumstances, go you. There is no difference between you and anyone else but choices and details. We are all connected.

Our Beliefs Control Our Lives

Each of us has developed throughout our lives a core belief system. We established most of these beliefs early on in life. These are limiting beliefs that delay or even stop our development completely. Our expectations were built by our parents, grandparents, siblings, teachers, religion, and peers. Most were developed before age ten and have remained with us to this day. Our beliefs have to power to achieve goals or stop us from becoming what we should be.

The great thing is that all beliefs can change at any point in life when we look and find irrefutable evidence that contradicts them. All of the “you can’t,” “no’s,” “you’re not good enough’s,” “You can’t make a living doing that’s,” or any other limiting statement from your youth making you feel like you are not good enough can be eliminated — the processing and acceptance of new information about you and your abilities.

Here is a secret; you are powerful and can do anything you set your mind to accomplish. You have the chance to try anything. Look honestly at the barriers stopping you; most often, you will find insecurities and limits that we place on ourselves because of limiting beliefs we choose to accept. Accept new ideas to guide you.

Your Actions Define YOU

Talk is cheap; what you do is the definition of your character. I have heard the soft and sympathetic words that were worth nothing but have been blessed by the actions of many great people. Saying you are something means nothing, and being that thing means everything.

Each day is a new opportunity to take action toward a goal or a dream that you have. Take a step, mail a letter, make a call, or do whatever small thing you can that will lead you toward your goal. Action is the power source for people’s dreams and will cancel out fear.

Every person that has ever been born has had a dream of some kind, and there are no exceptions. When a person takes action, they can make their dream come true. If that action leads to failure, then at least you know, and a direction more suitable to you may show itself from the effort.

Thinking Positively Leads to Positive Results

Bad stuff happens to everyone at some point in life; how you deal with it is crucial. Life is full of things that we define as good or bad. Positive thinking is not about ignoring the “bad” in life and always looking on the bright side, although those factors result. Positive thinking is bringing the focus of love, understanding, kindness, acceptance, and peace to all you experience—ignoring your counterpart’s hate, judgment, separation, meanness, and conflict.

All experiences have the power to bring the positive or negative inside a person to the surface, and what emotions and thoughts you let dominate your behavior will decide what actions come from you and what feelings are happening inside you. All things are just things until we assign a value to them and determine how we look at them.

All People Have Value

A person’s value is difficult to remember when I am angry or someone has hurt me, but that doesn’t change the fact that I believe this is true. People live differently, make poor decisions, and look differently, but they are all valuable and unique individuals.   All that separates us from the circumstances of another is mere chance. At our core, we are all beings of love, and understanding and are looking for acceptance in the world.

We are all born with a unique gift that can contribute to the world’s good. It is the meaning of life to find out what that gift is and how to use it. Some people lose their way through the experience of life and bury their talents too profoundly to be retrieved, but the reward is still there. With the right nurturing, perhaps it could resurface.

Gratitude is the Gateway to Abundance

How often do you appreciate all the positive things in your life? Moving through life each day is easy; let events and people swirl past you without absolute acknowledgment. Stop for a moment and give thanks for each experience. Even when the lessons are not what you are looking for, they will provide clues as to the direction you should be moving in.

Being grateful and putting yourself in that mindset each day creates an energy of acceptance around you, and that energy attracts more into your life. What you focus on multiplies; if you are grateful for what you have, you will have more things to be thankful for having in your life. Take time and reflect a bit each day on the blessings in your life. Breathing in and out and having an experience is a blessing many lose daily.

Forgiveness is Necessary to Move Forward

To forgive someone for something they did that harmed you is very difficult. It can’t just be lip service of saying you forgive; it has to be inside your heart. The only one who can give forgiveness is you, and the sooner you give it, the sooner you can move on. Letting go of pain, sadness, anger, or any other negative emotion is key to enjoying life.   I read somewhere that you know forgiveness occurs when you think of that person, and there is no subtle searing inside your heart. It can take a conscious effort, but with forgiveness comes freedom and strength.

Embrace Love, Avoid Fear

All people carry this inside of them, and the one you pay attention to will determine how much you enjoy this ride we call life. Focus on the love-based emotions like kindness, understanding, generosity, acceptance, patience, and love while avoiding the fear-based feelings and thoughts of anger, hate, separation, jealousy, stereotyping, and judgment. It can be harder to do than it sounds, but the effort is well worth it.

Remember that fear will be a continual battle for you throughout your life. It will attack you both outwardly with dangers real and imagined. It will also subtly invade your life through indirect methods, invading your thoughts and being powered by your emotions. All things will work out if you let them. Some powers exist which are far wiser than you. Learn to trust them.

Our beliefs are essential to the type of life that we live. If you do not work to control them, they will direct you. We all have to live with the results.

22

Achieving Some Personal Growth

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personal growth
These walls are built when we are young and live in our minds as limiting beliefs.

Look around and see what is there to stop you from achieving personal growth. As I examine the life that I am living, I see things that limit what I can accomplish. There are walls, both literally and figuratively, around me, making taking some actions seem difficult to nearly impossible.

The excuses of life are used, one on top of another, each with their own fear. Unfortunately, it appears that once you start to accept limits in one area of life, they will creep into all parts of your life and stop you from being your best and accomplishing your worthwhile goals and dreams. Don’t be discouraged. The exciting thing is that if you look inside, there is an answer. It is the strength and courage to accomplish great things. You have to believe in yourself, and doing this is the best kind of personal growth.

Beliefs Lead to Personal Growth

I believe that all of us are born with the ability.

personal growth
Escape to the greatness of your potential. Look deep inside of yourself and see what is there.

And the potential to be great and to accomplish fantastic things. The barriers we have built for ourselves often hold us back from achieving success in our pursuits. The simple belief that “I am simply not good enough.” Or “I don’t deserve it.” can stop almost any endeavor before they have a chance to get off the ground. These barriers are some of the most significant factors forcing us to act in a small way when more meaningful, dynamic actions are required. If we operate with a slight intention, we can’t be too surprised when the results are negligible. Only through a concentration on personal growth will we see a bigger target and act more significantly.

Understand Limits Honestly for Personal Growth

So it comes down to learning to look at your limitations with honest thought and recognition, understanding what is in your way and what is an excuse. All of us have built walls called beliefs that

personal growth
It can be frightening and painful, but action is the only way to find what you can do.

have been ingrained into us since we were very young. Some served us well and helped to keep us safe. Yet it is my recent experience that safe isn’t going to lead to growth, and only through growth and change can new things come into your life. If you never do anything differently, your life will never change, and you will never meet the goals you dream about. They will remain wisps of thought, floating out in front of you like a movie on a screen. It is just imagination, and it isn’t real. By making a plan for personal development and taking action, they can become real and tangible parts of your life.

Positive Choice for Personal Growth

The choice is to start to look for a boulder answer. To stop limiting ourselves and move forward toward our dreams with an understanding that success, in one form or another, is out there and only through action and belief in ourselves is it attainable. There is greatness in each person, and it is time to knock down the walls that limit you, which are merely the creation of your thoughts and experiences. Your

personal growth
Only escaping the walls of your limiting beliefs can make others see your contribution.

The ego will be pleased to keep you in a safe place without challenges, safe and sound. That is because safe and sound provide an illusion that looks like an excellent way to live. Ask yourself: are you satisfied? Have you reached your potential? Have you found the gold that lies inside you? Perhaps you are one of the lucky ones that have, but if you haven’t, then I urge you to reach for your goals and find the board that you were meant to play your game on and by all means, PLAY IT BIG! Escape from the walls of your perceived limitations, pick a dream, and chase it for personal growth.

With personal growth, you may even reach the Hall of Fame…………………….

“Income seldom exceeds personal development.” ―Jim Rohn

“Every moment of one’s existence, one is growing into more or retreating into less.” ―Norman Mailer

“You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.” ―Henry David Thoreau

“Life is growth. If we stop growing, technically and spiritually, we are as good as dead.” ―Morihei Ueshiba 

 

22

Treasure Inside

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It can be fantastic to think we spend so much time and effort in our lives looking for things that are outside of our existence to make us happy. We seek riches, fame, love, and acceptance from others out there……somewhere.

The place we should be looking for is much easier to locate and closer to us. It is situated in the confines of our being. The thoughts, beliefs, and actions we take in pursuit or because of these things are all contributing factors to what we have and do not have in our lives. We are always looking for gold and treasure outside. We undertake a journey because we feel compelled to seek our fame and fortune. But the hidden gem is not buried under and X on an island in the Pacific Ocean. Our greatest treasure is hiding in the last place we think to look. But like pirates of old legends, we search the world over with a flourish. We look at our job, relationships, or even our family, but we never seem to be looking in the right place.   Your treasure exists. You need to know where to start looking for it.

Why We Look In the Wrong Place

People are continually looking for a break that will allow their greatness togold 2 be shown to the world and bring the success they dream will make them happy and free. That break we are looking for has to come through the minefield of issues that we have developed over a lifetime.

Some blocks stop us from achieving the goals that we dream of. All blocks come from unresolved issues within ourselves, so if we can resolve these things and arrive at a place of acceptance, we are on the right path. This power is in yourself and nowhere else, and it is up to you to tap into this reservoir of energy. Reading books and learning can help show you the way, but that will never change until the individual takes the initiative. All things you want to accomplish, big or small, all begin with how you think. Get your mind in order, come to grips with your limits, overcome them, and see what is there. Limiting thoughts and beliefs are built on our experiences, and we can change them any time we choose by changing how we think about our experiences.

Look Inside of You

Take a moment and take that honest look inside yourself and decide how you feel about what you see. Do you know the power that you have? Or do you see all the excuses your beliefs tell you? Ask yourself, why not? Your mind will answer you with the programming you have built over the years. Could you write it down? Once you see your limiting beliefs in writing, you can eliminate them and create a more positive perspective on the action. Your thoughts will become your beliefs, and your views will dictate the reality that you experience. If you feel you are not suitable or not worthy of love or afraid of putting yourself out there, then it can’t be a surprise when that is your reality.

Focus on what you can do, the actions you can take, lead the gold inside you, or nothing, depending on your attitude and actions. Do this, and the world outside of you will fall into place. It will not be easy or automatic, but the thoughts inside you will dictate your world, and it is your choice which thoughts you give acceptance to and which you do not. If most people saw the beauty and power they possess and ignored everything they don’t like, we would see many more dreams come true.

Our Purpose

All of us share the wealth inside of us that the world is looking for. There is a wealth of talent, kindness, and caring waiting there and in many.

This is the wealth that lies within each of us waiting to be used.
This wealth lies within each of us, waiting to be used.

cases, it’s dormant. You are seeking the opportunity to come out and see its fate in the world. It never will if we don’t give it a chance. That chance can come when outside forces convince you or you to convince yourself. There is no value that you can find outside of you that doesn’t exist inside of you first. To create a treasure in your mind and take action toward making it a reality. The only person who can make this wealth evident is you by honestly looking at the things holding you back and replacing limiting beliefs with more positive ideas. Let your kindness and quest for service push you in the right direction.

‘Learning too soon our limitations, we never learn our powers.’-Lydia Sweatt.

“You begin to fly when you let go of self-limiting beliefs and allow your mind and aspirations to rise to greater heights.” ―Brian Tracy.

“Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do, and you can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.” ―Mary Kay Ash.

“Do just once what others say you can’t do, and you will never notice their limitations again.” ―James Cook.

 

22

Filling Up Your Space

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empty space inside of you
What do you fill the space inside of you with?

We each have space inside us that exists to fill with all of the things that matter in life. From birth until we leave this experience, people decide what will fill their space most enjoyable. All of the things we pay attention to and the actions you take fill that space. As we grow older, the decisions about space will be more critical. When we were 20 years old, when something that filled our space no longer seemed to fit and we let it fall away.  There were events, relationships, and other experiences that filled the spaces inside of us. But they are long over and we have to let them go, so there is more room for new life to get in. We have to let things slip away from us and move comfortably into the past. What is in your space that you should let go of? What should you keep?

What Fills Space?

We are always looking for the “stuff” to fill the space inside us. Sometimes we think it is another person who will fill up space and allow us to feel complete. Other times it is material things that we

What are your hands full of right now that is stopping you from grabbing what you really want?
What are your hands full of right now stopping you from grabbing what you want?

Purchase to feel useful and valued. Still, there are other unhealthy activities that we delve into to fill the space inside of us. It can be the overconsumption of alcohol or drugs that we use to fill the holes. Each of these attempts to feel complete falls utterly short because They are temporary solutions to the problem.

You can never fill your space from outside of yourself. We always look for the next “thing” to make us happy. The following relationship is going to be the one that makes us happy. The next job will provide a feeling of competency, and the next new gadget we buy will fill that space.  However, we never really get what we are looking for because the thing that can fill the hole inside us is accepting and loving ourselves and who we are. That is what fills the space.

Limiting Beliefs

Most of us have limiting beliefs about our abilities and what we deserve to

Simple model to follow to rewrite the beliefs that limit you.
A simple model to follow to rewrite the beliefs that limit you.

Receive in life. Most are based on feelings and experiences we learned when we were very young and have hung onto, allowing them to affect us negatively years later. One of the bigger ones many people carry around inside is that they don’t deserve to have things. Money, love, material possessions, all are game for this. If you believe that you don’t deserve to be happy in life, you certainly won’t experience happiness.

The beginning of filling that space in you will come when you start to evaluate your own limiting beliefs about your self-worth. Each of us has an individual value that can’t be duplicated. You are the only one who can be you and make the contribution that you can make to the world. There is a space inside us waiting for us to find our talent, skill, and gift, and then we will feel whole.

Fill your space by discovering your passions and following them. Often we follow what we think we should be doing, from the job we work to the place we live. Each decision is based on society’s collective “dream” and what should be the safest and most realistic.

The empty space you feel inside won’t be filled by doing what others think you should do. It can only be filled by what your heart knows it must do.
Follow your heart and fill the space with the substance of your unique abilities.

“You begin to fly when you let go of self-limiting beliefs and allow your mind and aspirations to rise to greater heights.” ―Brian Tracy

“Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.” ―Mary Kay Ash

“Do just once what others say you can’t do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again.” ―James Cook

“Learning too soon our limitations, we never learn our powers.” —Mignon McLaughlin

“Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.” —Arthur Schopenhauer

22

Choose Your Change

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Every day is a new chance to rise!

Sometimes you reach the point where things are just not working in your life. There needs to be a change. The path you follow is dictated at this moment. Good, bad, propitious, right, or wrong, all of these adjectives will be applied to you and your journey depending on the tenor of your choices when change comes knocking. Some people will look at their circumstances and see no choices at all. But there are always choices, and they usually are triggered by the questions we ask ourselves about moving forward. There has to be a fundamental belief that life can be different from what you are experiencing now.

Believe Change is Possible

The first step to initiating change is to believe that it is possible. Many people have been told so many believe in Changelimiting things in their lives, and change seems like a fairytale located in the far reaches of reality. We hear, “You can’t do that.”, “You are wrong for thinking that way.”, “You can’t make a living doing that.”, “Your dreams are unrealistic or impractical.”, or “That is not normal.”.

All of these ideas that we have chosen throughout our lives have provided us with limiting beliefs that have led to painting us into the corner of life we are currently living in. If you are unhappy, it is time to change, and it is going to start with your limiting beliefs. All of them will have as much power as you give them. It may not be easy, but it can be done, and it can be done now, today, here this very second. Change the way you pay attention to your thoughts.

It Can Be Hard To Let Go

One of the funny things about being human is that even though things may be wrong, not enjoyable, hard to changeunhappy, or even downright depressing. We seem to be wired to resist change, to avoid it at all costs. Change is the only real option. The road to change is right in front of us, and we either standstill, refusing to take it, or worse, retreat from it. It exists, and we are moving down that road, like it or not. Change is inevitable and constant.

The devil you know is better than the one you don’t know, and even an attractive change can seem covered in peril. Our beliefs have been guiding us for a long time, and yes, change might be better, but what if…………..they get worse. This feeling is a fear that keeps many people away from changing behaviors that are not making them happy or even causing them harm.

Letting go of these comfortable, all be it, limiting beliefs always seems to start with a question. How can this be better? What can I do to make this better? If I was happy right now, what would it look like?

What Changes am I looking for?

Any journey needs two things, a starting point, and a destination. The starting point is where you are, and the target will change as your understanding, life experiences, and knowledge grows through time.

Hit your target by being clear about your desires.
Hit your target by being clear about your desires.

But it all begins with having the guts to create a goal to reach that destination you want to arrive at. What is it that you want? If you don’t have it right now, something is blocking you from having it. If you are looking for the right relationship and don’t have it, look inside yourself and see what you believe about relationships. Find the opposing points of view you have about love and relationships and recognize them as simply thoughts. They only have the power that you give them. Ask yourself, how can I change this? Why do I think this? LET IT GO!

It is like being in a prison where the doors are unlocked, and all you have to do to leave is push open the doors and walk out. Many stay, though, because it is safe and secure, and you always have the prison to blame for the things you aren’t happy about. It would be costly, and I would be satisfied. I would be in love if it weren’t for these prison walls around me. You are the warden of your prison, and you can walk out. Just choose to follow that change. Some people find all those walls, cells, and bars too safe to leave. Don’t be one of them.

A Time For Action

All things of power need power to fuel them. Your power comes from taking action. Action will eliminate fear. Answers to many questions will rise to the surface of your consciousness. Action will take you from where you are to the described destination. Sitting around, wishing will get you another day living exactly where you are. No house gets built without the action of putting up a frame, pounding nails into boards, and putting on the roof. The blueprints are great, but the act of putting them all together will give you the result you want. Taking action can be difficult, and taking the first action toward a dream can be intimidating. But there is a time for action, and this is it for you.

Make a plan, decide what you want, ask for it, take action to get there, and have confidence that you deserve what will happen. Get rid of limiting beliefs and weak points of view and move forward into a future that is made up of things you want and steps away from the situation that you are currently unhappy with. You are the master of your journey. It is time to start changing, and it is inevitable and constant.

“Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.” ―Thomas Jefferson

“The path to success is to take massive, determined actions.” ―Tony Robbins

“An idea not coupled with action will never get any bigger than the brain cell it occupied.” ―Arnold Glasow

“God provides the wind, but man must raise the sails.” ―St. Augustine

“People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do.” ―Lewis Cass

21

You Deserve It

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you deserve to be happyDo you deserve happiness? This thought is a question most of us ask either on the conscious or subconscious level, and the honest answer we give too often is NO.  This limiting belief comes with us through the experiences that have taught us to expect less than the best. There is no reason to look at yourself and believe that you don’t deserve happiness. The only thing stopping you from living a happy life is own negative stories that you tell yourself in your mind. You always have the choice to look at yourself with softer eyes and admit that you deserve to be happy.

Your Mind is the Key on How to Feel Happy in Life

Your mind is a beautiful tool, but sometimes the wiring is off, and we 0b13574e717dd8cedbe9d364b21885a6listen to everything it tells us. Your ego has the job of making sense of the world and finding out why you are where you are.  Your ego evaluates all of your actions and most often uses negative stories to do so. These stories in your mind are the negative limiting beliefs we carry throughout life until we consciously choose to change them. Most of them come to light to keep you safe.  Your ego remembers that you tried and failed, loved once, and were hurt or trusted and disappointed.  That is where the negative stories come from, fear.

If your stories are telling you in any way you don’t deserve to be happy because of an action in the past or an event that happened to you, you have two choices, believe it and allow the limitations of that thought to destroy any happiness you have. Or you can choose to realize that you deserve to be happy, no matter what has happened in the past.

Keep in mind that no matter who you are and what you are going through, you are doing the best you can with what you have to work with at the time. That is a simple truth. You may not like the results of the situation, but learn from it, develop and grow and see what happens in the future. Your positive feelings will guide you on the path to feeling happy in life. 

Everyone Can Feel Happy in Life

Happiness truly comes from within oneself. If you need an outside stimulus to how to be happy in lifebring happiness, it will be challenging to find constant joy in your life. Every day you are given a group of opportunities to experience. Whether they make you happy or not is a choice. You decide your attitude toward them and how it makes you feel.

“A great attitude becomes a great mood, which becomes a great day, which becomes a great year, which becomes a great life. “~ Zig Zigler

If you are looking for a stimulus to bring you happiness, your moments will be short-lived and sporadic. When that thing that supplies satisfaction, material possessions, money, drugs, sex, or anything else is removed, where are you?

You deserve to be happy as often as you decide you should be because you are a  unique person, the only one that has ever existed. Each of us has an originality that allows us to contribute our special gift to the world.

Each person is the only one who can decide whether they are happy or not. Nobody else can do this. You deserve it as much as anyone. Make the choice today to feel satisfied in life.

“If you want happiness for an hour — take a nap.’
If you want happiness for a day — go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year — inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime — help someone else.”—-Chinese Proverb

“It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.”—–Dale Carnegie

“Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”——-Winnie the Pooh

 

21

Suffering

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There are two sides to every coin, and in my life, I have found joy on one side and suffering on the other. The pain appears as the worst of things to experience in life and should be avoided at all costs.

Although I agree it is something that is not pleasant, it provides a necessary function for people. I wish things were always easy, and there was nothing but joy in my experience, but life offers difficult obstacles for each of us to overcome. How we think about our experience will bring us suffering or lessons. Pain is a choice of how we feel about each situation we are in life. It is a natural and inevitable part of life. We will have catastrophic loss and sadness in our lives. How we deal with it will define much of who we are and how successfully we live our lives. Your suffering is a choice and one I have made all too often.

Crutches of Life

Crutches are everywhere in life. These are things in our experience that limit us in one way or another. Some fall prey to wild pleasures and excesses in life, which distract you from your purpose and determine what can be accomplished. Others find jobs that are just enough above water to be acceptable but will never allow you to grow into the person you could be. All crutches of the world we adopt to “help” get us through life will cause suffering and move us further from ourselves. Life can seem like a prison if we let it. Keeping us confined to a particular place and set of circumstances. This limit is only the case if you choose to allow it. Or you can choose to be free in your actions and your mind.

Limiting my options is a game I played from early on. Allowing others to put their labels on me and the corresponding limits from the earliest moments in life. “You just aren’t athletic.” “That’s nice, but you will never make a living from it.” “You just aren’t very book smart.” Or one of a million other limiting statements I accepted as crutches and eventually even stopped questioning. Any belief that I have allowed to limit me in any way needed to be reevaluated and changed, even in a small way, because these are the chains that life has put on you, and you won’t eliminate the suffering they cause until you change them.

This reaction is a choice, and it isn’t as difficult as most would have you believe. Change is a constant and inevitable part of life, and you can fight against it or learn to choose to move with it. Ending this limiting suffering is a race between your mental capacities and your biological limitations. Some will win, and some will not. Which side will you be on?

Becoming Your True Self

All people are born with a purpose in life. All of those intentions are positive, and there is some message to bring or a goal to accomplish before our time is done. Unfortunately, we are almost immediately piled with expectations and experiences that push us further from that mission. The programming we receive is mainly in the name of love but delivered in the voice of fear. Parents generally want the best for their children, but often their idea of precisely what the “Best” means can make your choices seem “worst,” even if you are following your heart. Chasing your dreams is your life; nobody else’s.

The suffering that this can cause is lifelong and painful. With each step, a person takes in the direction of someone else’s expectations the further they get from their true self, and soon that person you were born is hidden behind a lot of trees and weeds. It can be challenging to find your way back. The further you have moved from your true essence, the higher the suffering is going to be. It seems like the journey back to who you are is never too far to reach or too late to start looking. The limits we accept are the ones that will affect us. So begin today looking for what message you were born to send and what gift you have to give.

Loss and Suffering

To live life and love others opens you up for the loss, which leads to suffering. If you have lost someone close to you, you know this kind of pain is a painful experience nobody wants to have. But life is a tenuous experience with no guarantees. We never know when the ride will be over should. It is easy to get lost in the routines of the days and take things for granted. Each day is a gift. Open it! Be motivated to do what you want to do, be with those that make you happy, and enjoy every moment.

Not only are the days a gift, but you should take the time to look at the beauty of your day. All the people in our lives are precious too. It is human nature to take things for granted, only realizing how consequential or special someone was when they had left us. Then we mourn the loss. Which is natural, but there is an opportunity every day to celebrate all those in your life, contributing to the experience of living life. It is a short ride, this life, and it makes no sense to spend the bulk of it in misery when you don’t have to. Spend it in appreciation of the magic that is you and your unique presence.

Emotional Rescue

We will all have emotions that bring us down. Anger and fear are natural reactions to life when you start to look at things from the perspective of, “What am I getting out of this?” Then you have to learn to deal with it and either let it consume you or change your thoughts, emotions, and actions to something more positive. I know it sounds natural, and when you feel anger or fear, it isn’t too easy to change. But YOU can modify it by looking at the thoughts causing your suffering and changing them to something else.

Find something or someone who brings out the positive in you. It seems like much of our suffering comes from our feelings of inadequacy, and to change means doing something more worthwhile. Learn what your emotions are telling you and how to change them from negative to positive for you, and you will find a tool to help you end some daily pain nobody needs to deal with in life.

Suffering is a message in life that we are attached to something temporary in a permanent way. Nothing in life is stable, and that is what makes it unique. So the choice is up to you in the end as it always is, spend your time suffering or spend your time in joy. It is all up to you.

“Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but the greatness of mind.” Aristotle

“The reward of suffering is experience.” –Harry S Truman

“Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.”- Arthur Schopenhauer

“Suffering is but another name for the teaching of experience, which is the parent of instruction and the schoolmaster of life.” Horace

“Suffering is the substance of life and the root of personality, for it is only suffering that makes us persons.” – Miguel de Unamuno

 

 

21

Your Elephant Rope

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What is holding you back?

Let me tell you a story about the power of your beliefs. One of the most powerful creatures in the world is being hindered by a barrier that couldn’t control me. Elephants in captivity are restrained using a simple rope tied to a small stake in the ground. This belief happens because when they are young, the elephant is connected to the same rope around its leg, and no matter how hard it tries, it can’t escape.  Eventually, the elephant gives up and accepts the belief the cable can’t be broken.  This belief sticks with them as they grow, and they never try to escape as they could if they just tried.   It makes you wonder what types of ideas you might have accepted as accurate over the years. What is limiting you today, which you could break free from if you just tried today?  Have you received an elephant rope in your life? Let’s look at some of the elephant ropes out there.

Intelligence

All people can learn. Once you set your mind on becoming something or learning about a new idea, there is nothing that can stop us.  But, too often, people allow experiences from their youth to control their abilities as adults.  A bad elementary school math class experience leads to a lifelong idea that a person is “no good at math.” Or perhaps, you were laughed at for awkwardly drawing a picture.  This experience makes you adopt the idea that you are not artistic or, worse yet, not creative.  Whatever experience you had in your education, making you feel unintelligent or untalented, is time to reexamine it and find your fundamental truth.

Too often, we get painful scars as young people, which we carry through life. Like elephant ropes restraining us from being the best, we can be at something.  If you want to know what your beliefs are, think about doing what limits you. The answers your mind gives you are your beliefs, limiting, supportive, or otherwise.  You are smart enough to solve problems, learn new information, and become whatever you want to be. Just break your elephant rope and do it.

Age

If you think you are too young or too old to do something, then your elephant rope is age.  You get a lifetime to experience the world, learn, plan, try, experiment, grow, succeed, and sometimes fail.  The only person who can allow your age to limit you is you.  Age is just a number and will restrict you as much as you let it or believe it will.  Use all of your years to live, not to accept the limits of your mind.

There is a collective story about age the world seems to accept as gospel, that we should all aspire to get old and retire on our lives to recede into the waiting arms of death gently.  I am never retiring or losing my general purpose in life because through ambition, I am living and finding meaning in living.  The truth, as I see it is, you are never too young or too old to do anything. It is only the elephant rope of perception that limits you.  If you want to try something, give it a shot and see what happens.

Can’t Make Money Doing That

One of the elephant ropes holding us back is that we have found our passion, but people will quickly point out that you will never be able to make money at it.  The idea is putting a monetary value on something that determines how worthwhile it is. Look inside of yourself and see how you feel when you’re creating that.  Photography, drawing, painting, writing, running, gardening, playing corn hole, or whatever it is that makes you feel alive.

The wise person follows their intuition towards the activity that makes them feel alive and away from the thought of how much money you can make from doing this.  The money will take care of itself when things you are creating from authenticity.   You shouldn’t plan on making money and what intelligent financial decisions you should make. But instead, don’t let the fact that you lack the final vision of financial reward stop you. It will come to you as you follow the path.  How many people never start down the road? Leaving the wealth, joy, and success they dream of never materialized.  Doing what your heart guides you toward will never steer you wrong.

LET GO OF LIMITS

Whatever thoughts you have in your mind, which are holding you back.  Are they absolute limits, or are only your elephant ropes holding you back, keeping you from being great at what you want? Maybe the roadblock in front of you is something that limits you because of your beliefs about it. Change those beliefs and see what you can do.  Life has a way of conditioning you to accept limits, and the only way to change them is to decide to do things differently.

“You begin to fly when you let go of self-limiting beliefs and allow your mind and aspirations to rise to greater heights.” ―Brian Tracy.

“Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.” ―Mary Kay Ash.

“Learning too soon our limitations, we never learn our powers.” —Mignon McLaughlin.

“Every person takes the limits of their field of vision for the limits of the world.” —Arthur Schopenhauer.