HOW TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS: THE POWER OF A FOCUSED MIND

Image yourself at an antique store exploring the items for sale when you run across a brass oil lamp. It looks very old.  The brass is tarnished.   Immediately your mind begins to manufacture images of an Arabian young man dressed in ragged clothing rubbing the lamp you have in your hand. Your imagination gets the best of you and you buy the lamp.

When you get home you take the lamp out of the bag and give it a closer inspection.  As you raise the lid you ready a wish. You peek inside: not so much as a small wisp of smoke. You dismiss the wish from your mind.

Think back for a moment.  What was the wish you had in your mind? Was it a wish for a large house, or a new car, or all the money in the world, or a wish to be a monarch and live in a golden palace?

The wish left your mind quickly.  Your mind dropped the thought and picked up another.

It was just some trivial little fantasy; just a throw-away piece of imagination; just a passing thought.  Was it?

Humans are prone to trivialize the value of their thoughts.  There is the old saying “a penny for your thoughts.”  We value our thoughts so little.  We rarely treat thoughts with the respect they deserve.  We rarely treat our brain with the respect it deserves.  What does the attitude say about our self-worth?

The human brain has such an enormous processing capacity. On an average day it processes thousands of thoughts.   Just imagine how many of those thoughts keep you distracted from what you should be doing. Assuming that it only takes a single thought to motivate a particular task, there are thousands of other thoughts in your head competing for your attention.

How did all those thoughts get into your brain?  You let them in.  How?  By not exercising the one power that all humans have: the power to control our thinking.  Your mind has the power to achieve any purpose; make any dream come true -- if you focus the power of your mind on what you want to achieve.

All humans have the ability to focus and concentrate but they lack the discipline of will to harness the full power of their mind.  The ability to concentrate is resident in the human mind.  But you have to know how to unleash it.  To achieve success you must be able to focus your entire attention upon the purpose you want to achieve.   The person that is able to concentrate and focus their creative energy on accomplishing a goal will accomplish that goal. 

The first step, then, is to begin to pay attention to your dreams and aspirations.  Write them down. Map out what you want to accomplish. Plan it out. A written plan gives you a point of reference and a measure of your progress. And it gives you a reminder to stay focused.

The second step is to change your expectation. Our subconscious mind acts on the expectation it receives.   Sadly, most peoples' expectation is failure. Their expectation activates the Law of Attraction, and they attract exactly what they focus on: failure.

Rather than spending time looking for ways to succeed, they focus on ways to fail. They complain, they worry, they think up one thousand reasons for something not to work.

They focus on what they don't want rather than what they do want.

Believe in the Law of Attraction and understand how it operates. Believe that you are worthy of success. Start expecting good things to happen in your life. Expect the best; then, do what needs to be done to make it happen, and have faith that it will happen.

Don't give up on your dreams. No matter how distracted you may feel.   You already possess the ability to Focus.  All that’s needed is the discipline to say “no” to distractions. The first “no” is the hardest. Focus on what needs to done. Believe you can do it!  It will become a habit.  You will achieve!

HOW TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS: DON'T HOLD BACK

Society teaches that we should restrain our passions and enthusiasm.  A child is born without limits on its behavior, but as the child grows and is "disciplined" by its parents and society, AND it begins to experience limitations on its will.  The experience of limitation is reinforced continuously until the experience becomes a habit.  Limitation becomes the normal behavior pattern.  Enthusiasm and passion are suppressed and in process we loose the energy that is vital to achievement.

The "white-hot" desire mentioned in Think and Grow Rich is passion. It is not enough to give mental assent to a purpose. The intellectual understanding of a purpose is not enough to re-program the subconsious mind.  Strong emotion is the pwer of exploding gun powder that propels the bullet toward its target.

Continued suppression of exhuberance turns into a fear of some punishment if we display our emotion. Adults come to fear ridicule for displaying strong exhberant emotion.   The vast majority of society would prefer to live in the negativity of fear.  It is reasoned that to get along with other people we must exhibit the their behaviors.  We gain acceptance by suppressing our true feelings, at the same time we become an emotional cripple and doom our chances for a successful life full of excitment and accomplishment.

The old programming must be modified.  Old thinking habits will need to be changed

HOW TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS: A NEVER STOP LEARNING

A key to success is making a commitment to continuous learning.


Your goal should be to learn at least one new thing every day.

A person can go only as far as their level of understanding will permit.  You can only go as far as you can with what you now know. Any progress you make from that point on will require that you learn and practice something new.

One common quality of leaders and high achievers in every area of life id their commitment to continuous personal and professional development. They look upon themselves as “works in progress.” They never become complacent or satisfied. They are always striving toward ever greater heights of knowledge and understanding. 

One hour per day of study in your chosen field was all it takes. One hour per day of study will put you at the top of your field within three years. Within five years you’ll be a national authority. In seven years, you can be one of the best people in the world at what you do.

Read all you can about your field. Build your own library of important books in your field. Never be cheap when it comes your education.

In fact, if you make a decision today to invest a certain percentage of your annual income back into yourself; back into your own personal and professional development, you will probably never have to worry about money again.

If you read one hour per day in your field, that will translate into about one book per week. 

One book per week translates into about 50 books per year. Fifty books per year will translate into about 500 books over the next 10 years.

If you read only one book per month, that will put you into the top 1 percent of income earners in our society. But if you read one book per week, 50 books per year, that will make you one of the best-educated, smartest, most capable and highest-paid people in your field. 

 

A commitment to continuous self education will transform your life completely.

HOW TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS: START MAKING BETTER DECISIONS

How would you rate your decision-making ability on a scale of one to ten?

If you are a skilled decision maker then you should stop reading this article.  But if you rated yourself low on the scale then this article has useful information.

Some people are gifted with the ability to make wise decisions.  Those people who were no so fortunate must learn the skill.

Decision making is a very important skill.  We are where we are because of the decisions we have made.

Instead of trying to go from bad to best in one leap start by striving for better. If we commit to consistently better results then we will achieve best.

The first step toward making better decisions is to stop proceeding with a poor decision. Stop doing what you are doing and find a better way. If you are going on a trip and suddenly realized that you were going in the wrong direction, what would you do? Stop. Figure out which direction to go then go in the right direction. Why then should we not apply that same approach to all facets of our life?

The ancient Chinese had a saying for this: "if you want a cup of hot tea you must first empty the cup."

Why do we keep doing what we know does not work? The comfort zone feeels like a safe place. Status quo is a painful, but familiar place. It is the path of least resistance.  Successful people do not live in the comfort zone.

Ask yourself two questions and base all your decisions on the answers to these questions.

Question one: Am I meeting the real need, informing myself of options, and Thinking it through?

Question two: Is this something I merely want or really need?


A want is a wish. A want implies immediate gratification (short term).

A need is a necessity. A need implies delayed gratification (long term).

Focus on the real need. Always take care of the need first. Then you can take care of your wants.

Focusing is seeing the needed results so clearly that you don't let anything else distract you-seeing the results so clearly that you can sense yourself already achieving them. You focus by saying no to whatever doesn't help you achieve the real need and yes only to what does.

Decisive people clearly know what the real need is, so they can quickly judge whether or not a specific decision will support or undermine what they need.


Are you taking care of the real need?  Pursue the real need until you achieve it! 

It may seem like a slow process, but it takes less time to make a better decision than it does to correct a poor decision.  In our fear-frozen minds we sometimes think we have no other choice. It is merely a sign that our fear has paralyzed us.

We must strive to be aware of our options AT ALL TIMES.
 
One way to be aware is by personal observation. If you want to know more notice more.

Fear can sometimes fog our vision. One piece of information leads to another: like links in a chain. Where do you think you are more apt to see your options: Isolated in your own thoughts or by gathering information? Information is more than facts. It is how people feel about the facts.

"I don't have any choice" really means that you are not doing enough to see your options. You should be busy gathering information. Be a gatherer of information-even if you don't want to.  Gathering information is a vital need.  Needs must be acted on.   This thinking must be part of system programming.  Learn to see the details of each option.  Look at the option from all sides.  Use 3-dimensional observation. Ask yourself "what if?"  And develop and answer for the question.  Repeat the question: what if?

Do you have the information you need?

Who has it?

Where is it?

What is the best way to get it?

Have you verified it?

Thinking It Through
Reflect on your past results.
Remember the saying: "those who forget the past are condemned to re-live it".
We re-live the past because we do not understand the true function of history -- that of teacher.
Our past experience is the best teacher of all. History -- past results -- show us the errors in judgments we have made.

We can analyze our previous decisions in the light of new enlightenment and see clearly where our mistakes were, then work to correct our mistakes.

Think ahead, anticipate, plan, and act.

HOW TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS: MAKE SUCCESS A HABIT

January is the month that symbolizes new beginnings. It is the start of a new year, and the New Year's Holiday is a time to re-valuate one’s life and make resolutions for the upcoming year. 

The idea of making resolutions is not a bad thing. They can be helpful. But too often the resolution of January becomes the failure of February.  Resolutions do not have the force of repetition behind them.  Habits, on the other hand, are much harder to break because they operate at the subconscious level of our brains. And once a habit is established it will operate far beyond January. 


Habits are formed by repetition.  Repeat the same behavior over a given period of time and you wind up with a habit. Initially this can be a painfully slow process, but once you put determination behind your purpose.  And as you work to develop the habit the change in behavior becomes automatic.  And that is our goal: to make our behavior subconscious (a habit).

1) Write your goals down.
This sounds cliché, but it's important.  Thoughts are fleeting things.  They come quickly and they go quickly.  In the midst of distractions the thoughts that we wanted to save have evaporated from our consciousness.  They were not in the mind long enough to become a memory.  Pen and paper preserves your thoughts, and allows us to return to them.


2) Review your goals everyday.Keep your goals in front of you.  Read your goals when you get up in the morning and when you go to bed at night.  The easiest way to fail to achieve something is to let it be forgotten.  Keep your goals in your mind all the time.  Put reminders everywhere.  Evaluate your progress.  If something is not working change it.   Make your goals your reason for living.  Make the achievement of your goals a matter of survival.


3) Do something every day to move you closer to your goals.  A goal is no good without a plan to achieve it.  That is what separates a resolution from a purpose.  A purpose must have a plan.   Every journey has a destination.  You must get in a habit of making plans

4) Build a success attitude.  No goal has ever been achieved with a “can’t do” attitude.  The way to achieve a goal is to believe that it can be done.  Work to develop the habit of being positive.  All achievement is based on faith.  Faith is the belief in something that has not yet happened.  You cannot have faith in your goals if you reject the role that faith plays in achieving those goals.  You can only have one thought in your mind at a time.  Positive and negative cannot live in the same house.  Make positive emotions a permanent houseguest and evict the other guy.  Use the positive emotions of love, faith, and gratitude to chase the negative feelings away.  This is not an option.  IT IS AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY!