Your Power Of REAL Concentration

By Dale Odeyemi

Did you ever stop to think what an important part your thoughts, I mean real concentrated thoughts, play in your life?

The ability to concentrate all your attention is so important, no matter what task or job you have to get done as nothing great or significant can be accomplished without proper effort and concentration.

And almost all of us have some sort of difficulty in the concentration of our attention.

Workers in business and industry, students in high school and college, and even professors in universities, complain of the same difficulty.

It is said that the power to concentrate all your attention is vital as it stands at the very centre of most (if not all) mental activity. No matter from what angle we view the mind, its excellence always seems to depend upon the power to concentrate all our attention.

Concentration may be defined as being that state of mind in which the entire energies of the individual, physical as well as mental, are focused upon the thing they are doing or thinking. All actions and all thoughts NOT connected with what they are doing or thinking are kept out of the mind

If we examine a growing child, one of the first things we will see is the power they have in them to "pay attention or to notice things".

When we examine the ability of normal adults we do so by means of tests that require close concentration of attention, and we regard anyone who is able to maintain close focused and concentrated attention for long periods of time as a person of strong mind or will.

So real concentration may be broken down into just 2 parts:

1. The voluntary focusing of all our power and attention in the selecting of certain objects to be attended to.

2. And the ignoring of other objects which act as distractions.

But even in spite of our most careful provisions, there will still be distractions which cannot be eliminated. For example, you cannot stop the noise of planes flying over or cars driving past while you are trying to work, plan or study.

And you cannot build a fence around the thoughts and focus of your mind so as to keep out unwanted and irrelevant ideas the best thing you can do is to accept the inevitable that the presence of some distractions will always exist, and to realise that in order to concentrate and pay attention properly, it is necessary to form the habit of ignoring these distractions.

You can simply start out by making a strong determined effort to ignore all distractions practise ignoring them, and try your best not to let a slip occur.

Also at the same time, try to develop interest in the object you are concentrating all your attention on, because we tend to pay more attention to those things in which we are most interested.

It's easy for any one to say, concentrate" but you need to know exactly how to concentrate. Remember that to concentrate is merely the act of applying your entire body and mind, to the task or action in hand.

Every effort of the mind, whether it's to:

- Perceive something
- Recollect something
- Associate something
- Imagine something
- Even to judge something

Must all involve some concentration of the faculties of the mind upon that particular action, task or act, whatever it may be!

As you start to develop a firm interest in your field of work or study, and as you develop the habit of ignoring distractions - you will be able to concentrate your powers of attention with less and less effort.

Another important fact to note is that as you develop the power to select objects for the concentration of all your attention, you also develop (at the same time) other mind power processes − you will improve the ability to memorize and recall much more, to fine tune and manage better your time and effort.

And also the power to control your future thoughts and actions...

In short developing your power to concentrate and focus all your attention means developing power in all the mental processes. With that being said, we want to finish by giving you,

The 2 TOP Keys Of Concentration

For every one of us, concentration will always mean,

1. Selecting and focusing on what is most important to us, and disregarding what is not… and also knowing which tasks and jobs have top priority.

2. You must identify for yourself what is most important and essential to you - and try to filter out everything else.

These are the two main steps towards developing strong concentration recognising the essential and leaving out the non-essential.

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Dale Odeyemi, is the creator of a great new resource on personal power and development. So if you would like to get your hands on 10 Mind-Power Lessons at absolutely no cost to you whatsoever? Simply visit his website!

http://www.YourMindPowers.com

Create the life you desire - Starting Right Now...

Why Mind Power Works for Some but Not Others

By Tim Ong

Ever since I started writing about my experience with mind power and spirituality, I've had people asking me how it has changed my life. These are the very people who have also tried their hands on mind power and it hasn't seem to work for them.

So why does mind power work for some and not for others?

Here are some reasons:

1. The Power of Belief

"Whether you believe you can or can't, you're right." - Henry Ford

What Henry Ford meant was that if you believe you can succeed, then you will. On the other hand, if you believe that you cannot succeed, then you can't. And that's really the crux of the issue.

Most people tried mind power tactics and tools half-heartedly. This really set them up for failure even before they begin. I can tell whether a person will succeed or not simply by the degree of faith and commitment he or she has. Most people just want to "try it", so they don't do it diligently and they give up after a short while. That just won't do.

2. The Power of Commitment and Persistence

Results from mind power are not instantaneous. They take time to manifest from the formless realm of mind and thoughts into physical reality. In order to taste its fruits, you'll have to work at it and give it time to manifest. It's very much like planting a tree. You start with a seed - whatever seed you choose to grow - and then you must water it, give it the nutrients and sunshine it needs, pull out all the weeds around it, and pretty soon it grows into a shoot and then into a tree. That takes time and commitment. Most people give up too easily.

3. The Power of Knowledge

It's important to know what you're doing, and whether you're doing it right. So understanding the universal laws and how they work is of primary importance. In fact, if you fully understood the laws, you'll have the faith to go with its applications.

For me, the understanding and the faith came after reading and researching for quite a while. It's not enough reading just one or two books on mind power and assume you already know everything.

Every author has something new to share, a unique twist or an insight that is just right for you. So keep reading. I often get my best insights from little known authors, so don't discount authors you haven't heard of before. For example, two years ago I have not even heard of Wallace D. Wattles, the author of "The Science of Getting Rich", yet his books have already made quite an impact in society. There are really quite a number of very good but obscure authors out there, and with the Internet, it's much easier to find them than before.

In the past, all these books would have been considered as occult knowledge, but in the age of the Internet, not anymore.

Finally, I continue to encourage you to pursue your dreams via cultivation of your mind. Once you've tasted its fruits, you'll regard life as a play - a creative game where you DO have absolute control over. The degree of control you have over your own life is proportionate to the degree of control you have over your mind.

Dr. Tim Ong is a medical doctor who runs his own thriving medical practice. In his free time, he enjoys giving public talks, teaching meditation and offering his service to hospice work in the community. He also has keen interest in self improvement, mind science and spirituality. He recently launched his latest ebook entitled "From Fear to Love: A Spiritual Journey" at FromFeartoLove.com.

Thought Control

By Steven Gillman

Thought control? How would you like to be able to turn on your television just by thinking? Or have the door to your house open by mind power when your hands were full? This isn't something that will remain science fiction for long. The technology necessary to make this happen is here now.

First of all, you have basic thought control now, meaning you can control and direct your thoughts. You can imagine a friend talking in your mind, for example. Then you can choose to hear music in your imagination. If you are hooked up to an electroencephalograph when you do these things, it will also be clear that these two thoughts are handled in different parts of your brain.

This electroencephalogram, or EEG, is important, because what we can measure, we can use to do things. Think about this for a moment. Modern electronics has made it possible to easily operate things as a response to measurement. A thermostat measures the temperature, for example, and turns the heater on or off according to that measurement. Security lights turn themselves on when light levels get low.

Thought Control Devices

We can already measure and track what is going on in the brain. Is it inconceivable then, to have that measurement automatically trigger some action? For example, even before the electrical patterns of the brain were made "visible", we measured pulse rate with many different machines. Now, what if instead of sending a signal to a monitor telling a red light to go on when the heart raced, the signal told the TV to turn on? Think of anything that gets your heart racing and the TV would turn on, right?

Call it mind power, thought control or whatever. You can see that such a device has been possible for at least a generation now. With new technology, and more detailed measurements of the actual electric patterns of the brain, how much more is possible?

Someday, an electroencephalograph type of device will be able to more directly read your mind. The technology will eventually get to the point where it can print out the actual words you are thinking. We are a long way from that, but we are right at the brink of building machines that give us thought control of the things around us.

You see, even with the crude measurements being done now, as long as we can choose what to think about, and any resulting change in the brain can be measured, the possibilities are endless. For example, we can already see the changes in the brain when a person thinks about music, versus a conversation. An existing electroencephalograph machine, using electrodes attached to your head, could be set to turn on the lights instead of producing a changing chart when you sing in your mind.

For paraplegics without speech, there's real hope in this idea. A patterned alternating of thoughts could be used as a sort of Morse code, spelling out words on a screen. They could actually use thought control to make a message appear! At the current level of technology, this would be a tedious process, but the amazing thing is that all the necessary things to build a machine like this are here right now. It's time for thought control!

Steve Gillman has been exploring new ideas for decades. Visit his site for invention ideas, business ideas, story ideas, political and economic theories, deep thoughts, and more. Get a free gift too: http://www.999ideas.com

True Health - Following Your Inner Knowing

Dr. Jamie Fettig

Your Non-Conscious Mind is 98% of your full power. Over the last couple lessons we taught you how to use your conscious mind to actively create the directions for your non-conscious mind to follow.

Your Inner Knowing is about 986,743 times more powerful than your non-conscious mind. The reason being is because this inner knowing has direct access to harness the infinite powers of the universe to produce results. Some people call this your higher self, your God presence within, your inner CEO, your innate wisdom and a host of other things. The main idea here is there is a power in the universe that created you and everything else. And when you get this power on your side in creating what you want, it becomes easy and almost effortless.

The inner knowing is your connection to this power and is like the non-conscious mind in how it just takes orders and does as it is told. Your inner knowing takes all your orders, just like the non-conscious mind, unless you tell it otherwise. What this means is every time you have a thought, see a picture, say something to yourself, etc., etc., your inner knowing is listening and following directions.

Now stop and think for a moment, how many times a day do you have a thought, say something to yourself or out loud or picture something you don't want? You inner knowing is overwhelmed by all the contradicting messages it is getting. That is why it is so difficult for it to produce results for you. When you are only having thoughts for the same goal or purpose your inner knowing very clearly knows what to act on and in what direction.

This is why when you work at it, train your mind, focus and be conscious you start producing results. Your inner knowing after hours and days of getting told the same thing, with other stuff mixed in, finally gets it. Your inner knowing goes, oh, I guess this is what you really want. Then begins harnessing the powers of the universe to help you fulfill that request.

Now I am about to share with you an amazing tip that will exponentially speed up the results of everything I have shared with you in the previous lessons. You ready?

You can tell your inner knowing what to listen to and what not to listen to. For example: I told my inner knowing that when ever I pause and say "I AM" or "Inner Knowing" – whatever is immediately followed by those words are what I want you to pay attention to. All my other thoughts, ideas, pictures, words, etc you can ignore. In this way I do not have to spend months and years training my thoughts to only be solely focused on what I want before I start seeing results.

Action Step : Create your signal to Your Inner knowing (which can be the same as mine) and tell your inner knowing you only want that which immediately follows that signal to be acted upon. Then use this signal to let your inner knowing know what you want help with.

When You do this, you will skyrocket your results in any area of your life you ask your inner knowing for help with.

Eating healthy fresh and pure food is INCREDIBLY simple. This article is Part of a Free e-Course on Dieting and Eating Healthy. Go to http://www.bazuji.com/ecourse to sign up. Do you want to be Healthy for Life. Dr. Jamie is giving you dozens of valuable free gifts to "ethically bribe" you into helping him make his new book, "The Ultimate Non-Diet" a #1 best seller. For details go to: http://www.TheUltimateNonDiet.com/free

The Power Of Your Intuition

By Joe Love

We all have enormous reserves of mental capacity that we habitually fail to use. There is no problem that we cannot solve, no obstacle we cannot overcome, and no goal we cannot achieve when we learn to use the incredible power of our mind to its full capacity. When we us the power of our mind to it's fullest our creative capacity is unlimited.

All of the truly successful men and women in history started down the path the success by learning to listen to their intuition. Your intuition is your direct connection with infinite intelligence. It is often called the small voice within. You may experience your intuition as a gut-feeling or as an inner sense of what is right or wrong for you. Sometimes your intuition manifests itself as an inspiration, a hunch, or a flash of insight.

Intuition is a natural ability. It is a skill that you already have. But this skill must be developed. It's a mistake to begin making any important future decisions based on your intuition if you have only had a few random experiences with it. The more practice you have with your intuition, the more effectively you'll be able to use it. You intuition is like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it grows and the faster it acts.

Every change in our life begins with a new piece of information. People who are the most successful are those who deliberately expose themselves to the greatest number of new and different ideas. They do this by reading books, listening to audio programs, attending seminars in their chosen field. They know that it only takes one good idea to change the entire direction of their life. So it stands to reason that the more ideas you come up with the greater the probability there is that you'll come up with the right idea.

All highly successful men and women are those who completely trust their intuition to guide them in every situation. They never speak or act until they feel an inner urging to do so. They know that their intuition will always bring them exactly the right answer at exactly the right time. Highly successful men and women rely continuously on their intuition and as a result they seldom make mistakes.

Your intuition is the direct pipeline to a form of intelligence that is completely beyond your physical brain. It's accessed by your subconscious mind. You subconscious mind is controlled by the thoughts you think and the beliefs you hold in your conscious mind. The more you affirm and visualize your desired goals in your conscious mind, the faster they are picked up by your subconscious mind, and this then triggers your intuition.

We've all made many decision in our life. Some right and some wrong. When our intuition tells us to do something or not to do something, it is always right. How often have you made a decision that went against your intuition, only to regret it later? How often have you pushed aside that hunch or nagging inner feeling, only for your decision to come back to haunt you? This is because you r intuition is always correct. It gives you exactly the right answer you need at exactly the right time for any given situation.

When you have a clearly defined goal that you very much want to achieve it automatically stimulates your intuition. The more you think about, affirm, and write out your goal, the more your mind will be committed to finding ways to achieve it. When you repeatedly send the message of your goal to your subconscious mind, you activate your intuition to bring you the ideas, insights, and opportunities to help you achieve it. That is why intensely goal oriented people accomplish far more than people who are general or vague as to what they want to be and have.

Problem solving is another excellent way to activate you intuition. Whenever you have a pressing problem that you have clearly defined and intensely desire to solve, it automatically activates your intuition to find a solution. But, in order to activate your intuition, the problem must be clearly defined. It cannot be fuzzy or vague in any way.

Asking hard and focused questions is yet another way to stimulate your intuition. The more you train yourself to ask hard, focused, and provocative questions, you activate your intuition to give you the insights and ideas you need to move forward in your life.

Practicing solitude on a regular basis is the best way to stimulate your intuition. Solitude is an essential tool in developing the creative insight and intuition that will give you the ideas and answers to important questions, that will in turn, bring about powerful changes in your life. Most people have never practiced solitude. They are so busy, they feel that they don't have the time to set aside 30 minutes each day to practice solitude.

What most people fail to understand is that one good idea through the practice of solitude can save you a year of hard work. All of the greatest leaders and highest achieving men and woman in history have all practiced solitude. If you want to be successful, you simply cannot afford not to practice solitude on a regular basis.

Here are eight simple steps to help you practice solitude and develop your intuition:

1. Go to a quite place where you will not be disturbed. Relax, sit comfortably, and close your eyes.

2. Begin to breath deeply. When you inhale focus on breathing with greater calmness and peace. Visualize and feel relaxation flowing into you each time you breath in. When you exhale feel yourself blowing out the pressures and stresses of the day and know that the tension is draining from your body.

3. Picture a funnel, its wide end extending up and out from the center of the top or your head.

4. Gently guide your awareness upward and focus your attention out through the funnel. Be open to whatever you experience.

5. Remember, do not try too hard; do not force your concentration.

6. Feel how a multitude of impressions seem to pour into your mind through the funnel. Notice the sensation of heightened awareness that opens to you there.

7. Practice alternating this exercise. One day practice this exercise with your eyes closed and then the next day practice it with them open.

8. Practice this exercise daily for a minimum of 30 minutes each day.

Each and every one us has at our disposal the same intuitive powers used by some of the smartest men and women who have ever lived. You have the ability to tap into and use a higher form of intelligence than you have ever used before. Your intuition can help you solve any problem and achieve any goal. Once you begin to develop and use your intuition you will become more alert, effective, and smarter in everything you do. Your potential will unfold at speed that you cannot now imagine. Your future will become unlimited.

Copyright © 2005 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.
Joe Love draws on his 25 years of experience helping both individuals and companies build their businesses, increase profits, and achieve total success. A former ad agency executive and marketing consultant, Joe's work in personal development focuses on helping his clients identify hidden marketable assets that create windfall opportunities and profits, as well as sound personal happiness and peace.
Reach Joe at: joe@jlmandassociates.com
Read more articles and newsletters at: http://www.jlmandassociates.com

How To Achieve Your Full Potential

By Deanna Spencer

If you want to make more of your talents - live up to your full potential - you have to learn to use them. You have the power to change your habits - to acquire new skills and fully use the skills you now have. You can improve your performance, your productivity, and the quality of your whole life.

What makes a high achiever? Is it luck, intelligence, talent, dedication? All of these things figure in - they all make a difference. But we all know intelligent, talented, hard-working people who do not consider themselves very successful or even happy. And we know people who are not exceptionally bright but seem happy and successful.

So there must be something else, some secret to success. Actually there are several secrets to achieving your peak performance - living up to your full potential.

Your success at business is largely determined by your own self-image. Your unhappiness is something you choose. So, you're thinking no one chooses to be unhappy. Well, maybe not - but you have to consciously choose to be happy, self-confident, and successful.

Happiness is elusive when we go after it directly. So is self-confidence. Both seem to be more "side-products" than something you can achieve in and for itself. So how, then, can consciously choosing to be these things be of any value? Well, the secret is to focus on other things.

First, focus on your potential. Begin by making a complete and accurate assessment of your potential. To do this you must take an inventory of yourself - you will make a few lists. Sit down and make a list of all the things you can do well. Be honest with yourself. When that list is done, make a list of all the things you like to do, even if you think you can't do them well. Then, make a list of all the things you would like to do, if you could. Now list your hobbies.

Then, go back to the list of things you can do well. You are probably being much too hard on yourself. Most of us are. We have this little voice in our heads telling us things like: "You're so dumb," or "You can't learn to do that," or "You never do anything right," or similar nasty things. And even worse, we listen to that voice as if it's telling us the gospel truth. So now, shut off that voice - you can do it - and add a few more things to the list of things you can do well. Pretend you are your best friend - it's amazing how much more forgiving and charitable we are with our friends than we are with ourselves. Now that you are your best friend, you should be able to add a few more items to your "do well" list. But do be honest - don't list things you feel you really can't do well.

Next, go to your list of things you like to do but you feel you don't do well. Speaking as your own best friend, do you think there are some things on this list that could be moved to your "do well" list? There probably are. If you like to do it, chances are you do pretty well at it. Treat your hobby list in the same manner.

Next, go to your list of things you would like to do if you could. Ask yourself, "Why can't I do this, if I'd like to?" Put your reasons on another list. OK. So you have a lot of lists going - what good is that going to do? Well, you have just made an assessment of yourself. If you have been truly honest in making these lists, it may even be a fairly accurate assessment. Probably it isn't, but that's OK. This assessment isn't carved in stone. It's subject to change. But for now we will work with what's on the lists. At least you have a place to start.

Look over your lists again. You are focusing on all the things you feel you can't do and the reasons why you can't do them, right? Well, don't. FOCUS ON WHAT YOU CAN DO - FOCUS ON YOUR POTENTIAL. Make it a habit to focus on your strengths. Don't forget to include your undeveloped potential, as well. Train yourself to focus on your potential instead of your limitations.

Now that's not to say that you should ignore your list of reasons for not doing some of the things you would like to do. Not at all! But look at them from the viewpoint of your strengths. For instance, you'd like to play basketball but you think you are too short, so you don't even try. In this case, you are looking at it from the viewpoint of your limitations. Now, when you look at it from the viewpoint of your strengths, you would say, "Well, I may be pretty short to play, BUT I am fast. I can handle the ball well. I have a lot of stamina. I can't change being short, but I can refuse to let my limitations overcome my strengths."

You see the difference? Focusing on your limitations lets those limitations make your decisions for you. Focusing on your strengths lets YOU make the decision. To go back to our example: when you've decided to overcome your height limitations to play basketball - something you really want to do - you will be more determined to develop your strengths to compensate. You will do well, because you will be doing what you really want to do and you will be determined to develop the full potential of your strengths. Very few people concentrate on fully developing any of their strengths. That's where you will have the edge. You know your true disadvantages but your determination, your singleness of purpose, will inspire you to fully develop the talents and skills you do have.

OK. You probably have no interest in playing basketball. Then go to your assessment of yourself. What do you have a major interest in? What do you have a natural aptitude for? Go for it. Devote yourself to something you really like to do. Don't choose something just because you think you could make more money at it than you could by doing something else that you would really rather work at. You won't work to develop your full potential. You may start out with enthusiasm, but you will soon flag. It will be a chore to go to work. You'll probably find yourself hating to go. It'll be difficult to work on improving your skills because you don't like what you are doing. You probably won't be working up to your potential. Your success will probably be limited by your growing lack of interest and your happiness will surely be affected.

If, however, you devote yourself to something you really like to do, you'll enjoy your work, you'll be enthusiastic, and you'll probably find yourself working on improving your skills just for the sheer joy of it. You will be working to reach your full potential. You'll probably soon find you are making more money at this truly interesting occupation than you ever dreamed possible. And because you like what you are doing, you will be happier.

When you know you are working to your full potential and you enjoy your work and begin to feel successful, you will find that self-confidence and happiness soon follow.

But, you must be realistic and honest with yourself. If you set goals that you can't possibly reach, you are setting yourself up for failure. You will make yourself frustrated and unhappy. The key here is a realistic and honest assessment of your potential.

Although most people will be unnecessarily harsh in their assessments, it is easy to become too hopeful when you start breaking down barriers. If, for instance, you're extremely interested in and fond of music and would love to be a singer, it would be unreasonable to set a singing career as your goal if you can't sing a note (some talents are inborn). But if you are knowledgeable about the music business and would be happy being involved in some other capacity, then it would be reasonable to pursue a career in the business.

Be wary of making otherwise perfectly reasonable goals unattainable because of stringent time frames. When you set a goal, you will most likely set times for achieving certain steps along your way to achieving your final goal. Even if you don't set the time frames formally, you will probably have a pretty good idea of how long you are giving yourself. It's wise to sit down and formally set these goals. Think about it and give yourself reasonable time to achieve them. Make a deal with yourself to view these time limits as flexible.

Don't get discouraged if things don't work out as planned. Sometimes finding our place takes both time and error. All of us experience failures of one magnitude or another. The key is to view the failures as a learning experience - if nothing else, failures teach us what not to do. Remain flexible. As long as you keep focusing on your strengths and potential, the right thing will come along - and probably sooner rather than later. But don't quit at the first sign of boredom. Even if you have truly found your niche, you will not feel enthusiastic 100 percent of the time.

Don't worry about others - don't compare your progress with that of others. No matter how successful you are, there will be someone else who, to you, looks like she's got it made - who looks like she's getting where you want to go faster and easier than you are. Maybe she is. Maybe she isn't. Who cares? Focus on your own achievements. Work to develop your skills and talents to their full potential. Compete with yourself - your short term goals should be based on today's accomplishments. If you have reached Point A today, make Point B your next objective - improve yourself and don't worry about the other guy.

OK. You have decided what your ultimate goal is. Make sure it is a definitely defined goal. "Someday I want to be famous" just won't cut it. Define exactly what you want to do. Define a reasonable time frame. Know what you have to do to get there. You don't need to know every little detail, but you do have to have the big picture and many of the details. If you have a goal in mind but don't know what it takes to reach it, then you need to find out. Do some reading, talk to people who know, ask questions and LISTEN to the answers. Think that sounds like a lot of work? Well, remember what you are preparing for - your success and happiness. Surely you want to put a little effort into that! Anyway, a little research into what it will take for you to reach your goals isn't too difficult.

Train yourself into making this "research" the next focus of your life. You will be focusing on your strengths, on your purpose, and on learning and doing. If you have chosen a goal that is right for you, focusing on these things and devoting the necessary time should not be too difficult. It may take a bit of self-discipline at first, but your determination and interest will carry you through until the focusing process becomes a habit. When you have a real desire to accomplish something, initiative should only require an occasional shove - but you may need to give it a nudge now and again.

Get into the habit of visualizing your success. Now sitting around and daydreaming in generalizations about it is not what we mean. You need to visualize specifics. To return to the basketball example, daydreaming about being carried off the court on your teammates' shoulders is just daydreaming. Picturing in your mind how you will work a play if your opponent makes a particular move, picturing your exact response to it, is visualizing specifics. If you run through specific moves in your mind, you will be prepared when the need for those moves arises.

Don't be afraid to use your imagination to visualize new and better ways to accomplish things, as well. Here in your mind, you can try doing things in ways that are different from the usual. This is a creative process - you may have heard of creative thinking. Training yourself to think creatively is largely learning to let your imagination work on methods that are different from the "way things have always been done." It's breaking away from the idea that a thing can be done effectively in only one way. It's looking at a problem from all angles. Just play a game of "what if." Ask yourself, "What if I did this thing this way?" It's OK to get a little crazy sometimes. But, you must also spend some of your thinking time at specific visualizations of the moves you need to make to accomplish your goals.

Visualizations are important but actual physical practice of your skills is important, too. Practice the boring little skills that are necessary as well as the skills that you enjoy. Don't let yourself rely on just the things that come naturally and easy to you. Develop your limited potentials as well as those that you feel are your assets.

Work on developing the more general attributes that are important to almost any goal:

Success comes more easily to those who have a pleasing personality. This is not to say that you should bend to everyone's wishes or scrape and bow. Rather, develop an attitude that is respectful of other's opinions but true to your own beliefs. Be flexible - don't be so rigid that you can't accept another's opinion when it is superior to your own. Be willing, even eager, to learn from others. Changing your opinion in light of more facts is a sign of strength of character, not weakness. Be willing to extend a helpful hand, be a team player. Develop a sense of humor. Be polite and caring - but be your own person.

Learn to guard against emotional responses. You are susceptible to errors of judgement when you let your emotions get in the way. Of course, everything we do is done based somewhat on our emotions, but strong emotions have little place in decision making. Hold your emotions in check. Try to delay decisions if you are in an emotional state. Learn to ignore your emotions and use reasoning to arrive at your decisions.

Develop the habit of enthusiasm. Enthusiasm works like a magnet - it draws people and success. It's a pleasing personality trait that people like to be a part of. It seems to be contagious - the people around you become enthusiastic, too, and become more cooperative. Enthusiasm sparks initiative and singleness of purpose.

We've talked of working to develop habits - the habit of focusing on your goals, the habit of focusing on your strengths, the habit of learning and "researching," the habit of visualizing, the habit of enthusiasm. Now we will talk of habits in a little different light - breaking them. First, assess your habits looking for the ones that may be displeasing to others. Offensive habits can hold you back from success - they are often a part of an unpleasing personality. Look for things like grumbling or grunting at people instead of answering, gazing at anything but the speaker when conversing, smirking or sneering when you don't agree - anything that is an automatic, displeasing mannerism. It will be very difficult to assess your habits accurately. After all, a habit is something that we do without thinking much about it. You will have to spend some time at this and be very conscious of yourself. Ask someone you trust to help you with this assessment. It may take a lot of work to break yourself of displeasing habits. Try substituting a different, more pleasing behavior for the habit you wish to break.

OK. You have set definite goals, you have a definiteness of purpose, you have researched and know the specific steps to take to achieve the goals, you have resolved to be flexible and to develop a more pleasing personality. Now what?

Well, just because you have a clear purpose, know what you want, are willing to work on developing your potential, and willing to be a nice person, success will not drop into your lap overnight.

Be prepared to face people who are not calm and reasonable. Don't let them get to you. Remain calm and reasonable and even be a little sympathetic. Suppose you have an irate customer even though you have done nothing wrong. Just remain calm and offer a solution that will benefit your customer. Never let an irate customer make you forget to be professional.

Play "Let's Make A Deal." Be prepared to deal. Don't expect to get everything you want. If you are willing to gracefully make some concessions, you will be more likely to arrive at a satisfactory deal. After all, a negotiation has at least two opposing sides. This means someone else has something they want, too - even if that something is simply to leave things as they are. Arrive at a compromise that everyone can live with. Remember, you are working at long-range goals, and you may be negotiating with them again.

Developing your potential more fully is a key to happiness and fulfillment. All of us have untapped potential - perhaps even areas of genius - that we have neglected to develop. Whether your concept of success has to do with business, love, friendship, sports, a combination of these or something else, more fully developing your potential will help you achieve your goals. When you acheive your goals you will be a happier person.

Copyright 2005 by DeAnna Spencer

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