Organized Thinking Skills And Successful Achievement
The Practical Side Of Self Improvement
Primary topic: Personal Development
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The Practical Side Of Self Improvement
Self Esteem The level of self esteem that we take away from our early childhood influences will have a major impact on how much confidence we have or don't have in ourselves. But the impact those influences have on us are not set in stone, since they are set up as thought and behavior patterns that have become habitual and over time have also become unconscious and automatic behaviors, then we have the power and the tools to change them if necessary.
Discipline Or Indoctrination Many of us associate the terms self discipline with images ranging from a grocery list to managing a giant construction project to memories of Mom and Dad trying to get us to conform to the norms of society. But what is self discipline really? And how does it relate to success? Why do so many of us perceive self discipline as something to be avoided, as if it was some kind of threat? A threat to what?
A Consciousness Of Mind When we talk about a well disciplined and managed mind, what are we really talking about? Do we mean the tightly controlled and narrowly confined mind of the person consumed by fear? Or are we talking about a mind under the direction of a strong will being applied by conscious intention for a well defined goal? And what does this have to do with success?
Fear Grows Only In The Dark Fear has many faces and not all of them are recognizable as fear. We have such a strong negative social perception of being afraid that we often disguise it as something more acceptable to our conscience. But fear is so prevalent in our civilization today that it could easily be viewed as a global pandemic because fear, like any disease, is contagious and is easily spread by the power of words and even body language. But the most important fact to know about fear, is that it grows in the darkness of ignorance.
The Textures Of Life The Human species has raised self deception and denial to an art form, but how and maybe more importantly why? I can tell already that this will not be the easiest article I've ever written and probably won't be the easiest to read.
Testing Our Strength
Are We Actually Conscious? Just how much of what we perceive as ourselves and our life is actually the result of our conscious, intelligent and knowledgeable decisions, and how much is the result of our automatic and unconscious response to the influences of economic, political and social conditioning? And are we even aware of not only what we are, but how we became what we are? And perhaps more importantly, are we afraid of learning the truth about such things? We seem to assume so much these days, and some of those assumptions can become real problems.
What We Don't Want To Know Can it really be true that we don't live in the real world but rather a conceptual representation of the world? What do we even mean by the idea of living in the world? One of the most powerful realizations that meditation can reveal to us is the true nature of what is real and what is the abstract constructs of our mind, and many people are unable to deal with this kind of truth when they encounter it. So, what exactly is going on?
The Human Factors Success is as much about attitude as it is about skills. You can have all the skills in the world and still fail to achieve an objective. Setting goals, defining objectives and creating plans designed to achieve those objectives is essential of course, but really successful people know that there is a human factor to the success equation that can and often does make the difference between success and failure. These human characteristics are usually invisible and work in the background and this is why they rarely receive the attention they deserve.
A Ticket To La La Land For decades I thought I knew what reality was, and in a way I did. Imagine my surprise when, years later after going on a long journey of developing my awareness, I discovered that I was not only clueless but a long time resident of La La Land and didn't even know who had been living there all those years. I thought it was me, but was it?
The Dysfunctional Landscape It should be stated from the start that the obstacles mentioned in this article are those of a severe nature. I share the strategies and techniques for dealing with them because they are the same for minor dysfunctionality as they are for major train wrecks, the difference is only in dagrees and depth. Also, one of the most common questions people ask conce ing self change is "how can things that happened to us so long ago still affect us now?" and the second most common question is "how do you know if something is wrong in the first place?".
The Negative Programming
Got Recognition? It is surprising just how many people simply don't recognize their own successes. I know this sounds funny, but think about it, do you always acknowledge your accomplishments? And just how important is this? And what is it saying about us if we don't give ourselves our props? Do we not deserve recognition and respect from even ourselves? What will be the consequences if we never acknowledge our own successes? Is this a setup for failure?
What Are We Missing?
The Swiss Army Knife Of Self Improvement? Few of the tools available to us that are designed to help us bring about needed changes in our personality or even our basic spiritual makeup are as powerful and versatile as meditation. It could be said that this is the master key that can potentially open all the doors to all the mysteries that have eluded a species that have chosen to exclusively pursue the material reality rather than the spiritual reality.
Dealing With A Complicated World Success often means being able to deal efficiently and appropriately with the inevitable unexpected challenges that come our way. However, this becomes more difficult as life becomes more complicated. Fortunately we have a capability that allows us to turn over many of the redundant tasks in our lives to an auto pilot feature of our consciousness. But while this is a powerful capability, like so many other powerful tools we have available to us, this one can work against us if we don't maintain a firm grip on it through awareness.
The Two Edges Of Self Talk It wasn't long ago that the idea of self talk carried the connotations of multiple personality disorder, but that view was the result of a lack of good information. The truth is that self talk has come a long way in recent years and is now considered a powerful technique not only for changing unwanted behaviors, but also for discovering those behaviors in the first place. Neither one of which is an easy task to accomplish. Most people live their whole lives without ever realizing that they could have been so much more had they only looked closely enough.
Going Backwards To Go Forwards Have you ever encountered one of those people who seem to be happy and peaceful all the time and who seem to be successful at everything they try? Have you ever wondered just how this is possible when so many others struggle so hard to achieve even a little success at one or two things? It just doesn't seem fair! And have you ever heard that little voice in your head that wonders if those people know something that you don't? And if that is true, what exactly is it that they know that makes everything come so easy to them?
How We See Ourselves Creative visualization is one of the most powerful tools we have available to us for successfully achieving any objective. It has the power to define our goal with the detail and intensity necessary to enlist the aid of our subconscious mind and thereby set into motion all the resources that will come together and result in success. But don't make the mistake of assuming that this tool is only used for spiritual and self realization purposes. It is a practical all purpose tool that can and will serve any objective you set yourself.
The Origins Of Self Confidence
Consciousness And Awareness
Tools For Change Our tools represent capability and therefore power. Personal development has an array of tools specially designed to work with the unique characteristics of Human behavior and here I look at three of the most effective and powerful of these tools, meditation, visualization and affirmation. An e-book could be written about each of these three tools by themselves, but I chose to write about these three together because of the fact that when they are used in an integrated manner their power is multiplied many times over.
The Ultimate Power Tool Many people still don't realize that meditation is simply a high end tool used to achieve high end objectives. The fact that most of the worlds religions take advantage of this tool should be a testament to it's power. But for the most part, this tool's association with religion has resulted in one of the world great misconceptions, which is that meditation is somehow the exclusive domain of religion.
Our Spiritual Journey Through The World Of Things I am often asked how I can separate meditation from spirituality and the answer of course is that I can't and don't. We are spiritual adaptations of life who are currently in physical form, therefore anything we do is spiritual.
The Insight The popularity of meditation rises and falls according to the levels of fear, insecurity and uncertainty experienced by any give Human population. But meditation is not like many other disciplines that are less difficult to master, and what makes it so difficult is found in the very nature of meditation itself.
The Foundations Of Success Self confidence is a key element of success. Self esteem is a key element of self confidence. Both of these are either directly or indirectly dependent on how we perceive ourselves. So, how we perceive ourselves is a critical area of conce if we are having problems with achieving success in any area of our lives. But what is self confidence, and what is self esteem, and for that matter, what is self image? Who painted that image and when? Can we paint a new self portrait? One that is more effective, friendly and better serves our happiness and positive growth?r
Who Are You?
The Failure Mindset We all experience successes and failures during the course of normal creative activity, they are natural indicators of results. But the idea of failure can get out of control and become a complete mindset that begins to feed and perpetuate itself in ways that create limiting conditions on our consciousness, and thereby shut down many of the unlimited possibilities that are a natural consequence to our creative power. Once we determine that we are under the influence of such a mindset, is there anything that we can do about it?
What Do You Have Faith In? Self confidence can be a transient experience that can depend on the balance between successes and failures or even our core beliefs about ourselves. For example; we may not believe that we deserve success, or that we are destined to be failures. But is there such a thing as total self confidence? A kind of confidence that is certain and unshakable and not vulnerable to the results of our efforts or our core beliefs? Yes! There is such a thing as absolute self confidence and it arises from having complete faith in ourselves.
A Critical Piece Of The Puzzle
The Origins Of Behavior
The Challenge Of Self Discovery The idea that we can live successfully without achieving a certain level of self awareness probably depends on what we think of as successful living. To me, successful living is not only about having material wealth, but also peace, happiness and spiritual well being. In a normal world where the human being is allowed to develop naturally these things might come as part of that natural developmental process. But that is not our world today.
The Ring That Rules Them All Few of us understand the importance of time. We take it for granted, and once we take something for granted we no longer give it our attention, we no longer wonder about it and in so doing, we deny ourselves the deeper understanding necessary to take advantage of the power of time. If this idea is new to you then it is all the proof you need that you have taken time for granted and do not understand its importance, especially as it applies to successful achievement.
Hypnosis Weight Loss And Too Much Information Over weight and obesity are a problem of epidemic proportions in the United States. So many people have been wrestling with this problem for so long, and there are so many real and not so real solutions going around, that it is all but impossible to figure out what to do and frustration is beginning to rule and leading to hopelessness, defeat and acceptance of a condition that is often life threatening. It is actually mind boggling how many weight loss and appetite control programs are out there now. The industry is huge.
Self Imposed Ignorance The idea that there is a connection between the thoughts generated by our mind and the physical phenomenon we experience has never received much attention. Awareness of this particular reality carries too many potentially dangerous implications for those of us who have a vested interest in maintaining a certain level of ignorance in this area.
Power Lost? These days the perception that we as individuals have little power over the quality and direction of our lives is common. As our society gets larger and larger our lives get more and more complicated, which is a kind of trickle down affect as a result of the fact that the infrastructure of society gets more complicated in proportion to the growth it experiences. This seems to always translate into less and less efficiency on the part of the bureaucracy and more and more frustration for the average citizens.
Meditation Mindfulness and Mules When it comes to meditation it is easy to get confused as to just what is going on and how to figure it out.
A Limited Point Of View
Mind Most of us make the mistake of taking consciousness for granted as we do so many other things. The act of taking things for granted can have really bad consequences because it affectively limits the possibility of achieving a deep understanding of a given subject because we simply don't investigate the things we take for granted. One of the consequences of taking the landscape of consciousness for granted is the shallow superficial world we live in today. How many of us even give a moment's thought to the idea of consciousness?
Invisible Forces Many people today are not experiencing the quality and quantity of success in their lives that they would like and feel they deserve. Why are some people very successful and others seem to be unable to get beyond a certain level? Why is success easy for some, difficult for others and impossible to achieve consistently for many others who struggle with this concept their whole lives? Sometimes exploring things that seem at first glance to be simple, can take us to places we did not expect to go.
Self Confidence And Self Esteem Normally, something as basic as self confidence takes a while to develop, and even with the aid of self improvement tools like affirmations, meditation and hypnosis, it will not be a case of instant gratification which so many of us have come to expect these days.
The Basic Mindset What do we mean by self confidence? What do we mean by success? We toss these words around and use them in our communications with each other as well as the thoughts in our own mind, but do we really understand what these concepts really mean? What does self confidence have to do with success and what does success have to do with self confidence?
The Fear of Intuitive Perceptions What if someone told you that there is a very good chance that you don't live in the real world perhaps 90% of the time, that we only directly experience life maybe 10% of the time? I remember that I laughed when I first encountered this idea. But even while I was laughing I was aware of a small voice deep in the back of my consciousness that was trying to sound an alarm or send a message or something.