Empowering Your Mind – Page 107 – Mindset, Motivation and Empowerment

The Universe Supports You, Part 2

July 5, 2012 Linda-Ann Stewart

by Linda-Ann Stewart

I had a friend who’d been feeling sorry for himself because he hadn’t been receiving invitations to social gatherings. One night, he got angry, and stomped around his apartment stating that he was tired of this, and that from now on he wanted to be invited to go with friends to parties, movies, etc. The next day, he had more invitations than he could accept. He’d focused his energy on what he wanted and accomplished his desire.

Fear usually prevents us from charging confidently forward. Fear that what we want won’t manifest, so we protect ourselves by not putting forth all the energy necessary. Or fear that it will happen, and we don’t feel like we can deal with the responsibility. Remember, though, the Universe won’t force us to handle more than we’re willing to. You won’t be forced to accept change.

One thing had changed before I gave this successful mini-class. An office-mate had moved out and had taken much of the furniture in the office with her. This made the reception area, where I hold my meetings, much larger. Before she moved, I couldn’t fit more than fifteen people into the space. With the extra room, I was able to put out twenty-eight chairs and the Universe made sure they were filled. Not only had I expanded my consciousness, but the available space had expanded to accommodate more people as well.

The Universe Supports You, Part 1

July 3, 2012 Linda-Ann Stewart

by Linda-Ann Stewart

A few years ago, I was going to present a free mini-class on hypnosis. I did this several times a year. Generally, I had between two and eight people attend. The most I’d ever had sign up had been fourteen. A few weeks prior to the mini-class I had started using an affirmation that “Spirit completely supports me in my endeavors.”

Although I hadn’t done anything differently to promote the mini-class this time, I had thirty people sign up for it, and twenty-two people actually attend. I hadn’t been focusing specifically on the mini-class when I’d said the affirmation, but the Universe still supported me.

The Universe completely fulfills whatever you are envisioning for yourself. If you want a new job, but you’re afraid to leave your present one, you won’t see any change because the strongest emotional idea will be what the Universe supports.

The Universe wants the best for you, whatever that is, but It can’t force you to accept it. You have to give the Infinite Good some idea of what you want. You don’t have to know how it can happen. All you have to do is take the steps you are guided to take. If that means submitting your resume, applying for jobs, and going for interviews, then that’s what you do.

In taking all the action you know to do, you convince your subconscious mind that you want your goal. The action you take is energy. As you focus that energy through the vision of what you want, and fill it with the knowledge that the Universe is delivering it, then you’ll receive that or better. This helps to change your consciousness toward your desire.

But you must take ALL the action you know to take, even if some part of it makes you uncomfortable. Holding back any energy will signal the subconscious that you’re not really ready for your goal. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve put energy forth for something I wanted, but didn’t completely follow through and never achieved my goal.

Book Review-You Can Have It All

July 2, 2012 Linda-Ann Stewart

You Can Have It All:
A Simple Guide to a Joyful and Abundant Life
by Arnold M. Patent

This book explains Universal principles in a very basic and understandable way. Although I’d deeply been immersed in metaphysics for years, it wasn’t until I read the chapter on “Details,” that I finally grasped how it’s not up to me to figure out how things need to happen. It’s the Universe’s job to determine that. This concept was explained in just the right way for me to finally get it. When I did, it seemed that all I’d learned about this idea fell into place.

This is just one of the fundamental principles of metaphysics that the author explains. There are some exercises to help define your purpose, discovering what you love, acceptance of feelings, and more. While it’s written to explain the principles very simply, at the same time it goes very deeply into mental laws. This is a book to take your time to read, absorbing each chapter before going onto the next.

Do you need a plan or let the subconscious work out the best way?

June 19, 2012 Linda-Ann Stewart

Question: I was wondering whether you need to have a plan to achieve a goal or whether you should let the subconscious mind work out the best way?

Answer: It is important to have a goal, and then steps to take on the way to the goal. But it’s also important to not “outline” how the goal is going to manifest. It’s a tightrope to walk. For instance, suppose you want a new job. You know the steps to take. You look at the job listings, you send out resumes, you go for interviews. The more action you take in the physical world helps the subconscious to know what it is that you want, and how committed you are to the goal.

If you focus on the new job coming from one of those that you investigated, that’s “outlining.” You’ve decided “how” it has to happen, instead of letting the subconscious mind figure out how. Or suppose you see a job that you really want, and set your heart on “that job.” Your new job may come when you feel led to go into a market and bump into a friend or former coworker who gives you a lead. You follow any inspiration you might have because that’s the inner mind directing you.

If you try to control the result or outcome, that’s when you run afoul of life. Having a plan lets the inner mind know what you want, but if you try to force the goal to manifest in the way you want to, you’ll not get very far. The inner mind knows so much more than you do about the situation. As you follow your plan, you stay aware of any nudges from the inner mind.

Your job is to remain focused on your goal, move in that direction, but let your inner mind power it. Just like driving a car. You keep your vision down the road, you steer the vehicle, but the motor is what moves the car. You don’t have to do a Fred Flintstone, and run or push the car.

Think Intentionally To Improve Your Life

June 18, 2012 Linda-Ann Stewart

Many people drift through life, hoping and assuming things will get better. With that level of belief they tend to experience the average of their mindset. To get better results, they need to think more intentionally. Learn how intentional thinking can keep improving your life.

Do You Passively Assume or Actively Believe? Part 2

June 14, 2012 Linda-Ann Stewart

by Linda-Ann Stewart

A belief is like a garden. If you throw some seeds into fertile soil, some will take root, sprout and grow. But they need tending or they’ll wither away. You have to water them with new energy, and pluck out the weeds of negative thoughts and inertia. When you attend to your belief and cultivate it, your subconscious will respond with insight, ideas, and inspired action.

Where are you stuck in a past mindset that’s no longer serving you? What assumptions have you made that aren’t valid anymore? Are you coasting in some areas and not putting energy into your life? Start becoming aware of your passive beliefs. How can you shift them into a positive statement of intention and action?

Instead of continuing to smoke, you could say, “I choose to do what I need to that furthers my health,” and find a way to quit smoking. If you’re in debt, you might decide to cut down on expenses, formulate a budget, and work your plan, committed to get out of debt by a certain date. For increased business, believe that you can be successful by investigating new ways to be visible, market and sell.

Don’t allow the garden of your mind to wilt. Be dynamic and fertilize it with new purpose and action. Treat your belief like a living thing. Plant the seeds and make sure the environment is as favorable as possible to encourage them to grow. Nurture them, give them what they need to thrive. They’ll bloom in your life with all the beauty and success you could want.

Affirmation

The Universe wants the good for me that I want for myself: harmony, abundance, health, and joy. I let go of old assumptions that no longer serve me. Now, I cultivate my belief that all good is mine. Insight, ideas, and inspiration flood into my life. I am guided to take action in the direction of my desire. Whatever I need to have a more satisfying life is now provided.

Do You Passively Assume or Actively Believe? Part 1

June 12, 2012 Linda-Ann Stewart

by Linda-Ann Stewart

Casey never balanced her checkbook. She just assumed she’d have enough for her rent and monthly expenses each month. Although she never knew how much money she had, that didn’t stop her from going out to lunch every day, buying jewelry and going to the movies with her friends. She went through the month with blinders on, avoiding thinking about how she was going to pay for everything.

At the end of the month, she usually could pay her rent only if she didn’t buy groceries for the week. Her assumption that she had enough money wasn’t a strong enough belief to get her over her financial hump.

There’s a difference between an assumption that the best is coming to you and a conviction that it is. An assumption is passive, and doesn’t have much energy behind it. It’s mainly a hope that what you want will come to pass, without much resolution behind it.

On the other end of the spectrum, a conviction is active, a certain knowledge that what you desire will occur. It’s conscious, intentional, focused and supercharges the thought and will. A belief backed with power inspires. It stirs the subconscious to creatively solve problems and find new ways of getting things done.

Too many people float through life, assuming that everything will be the same. But the one constant in the Universe is change. As our environment and we change, we need to keep our beliefs in line with the present.

At the beginning of this century, many people comfortably believed that they would work for one company for their entire career. Shortly thereafter, many jobs were out-sourced and there was a recession. Suddenly, they faced a completely new set of circumstances, and spiraled into fear.

People who make statements like, “Smoking won’t affect my health,” “I’ll eventually be able to pay down my credit cards,” or “I don’t have to upgrade my supplies or my marketing. Customers will come back into stores soon,” aren’t being positive or optimistic. They’re living in denial, avoiding reality. They choose to stay in their comfort zone, even if it’s destroying them. If they recognized the facts, they’d have to be pro-active and change, which they don’t want to make the effort to do.

Many businesses and associations make a similar mistake. They coast on their past success until they run out of juice. Because they haven’t changed with the times, they don’t alter their strategies to find more business or new members. They’re tied to their old mindset, assuming that what used to work is going to continue to work in the same way. But times change, and they need to update the way they do business.

A Pleasant Presentation Surprise

June 6, 2012 Linda-Ann Stewart

Recently, I gave my presentation, “Stop Hypnotizing Yourself To Fail,” to the Sedona Rotary Club. As the members began arriving, I noticed someone I knew and hadn’t seen in about fifteen years. We’d been members of a local community theater group, and had acted in a play together twenty-four years ago. Before the program began, we spent a short time reminiscing about the play we’d been in.

His role had been the thread that wove the play together. Every time he came onstage, the audience erupted in laughter. I played a supporting role, dancing but without any lines to speak of.

Just before I concluded my talk, during the “Question and Answer” period, he asked a couple of great questions, after telling everyone how we knew each other. That gave me a bit of notoriety with them. They were a great group and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting them. I will always have a special spot in my heart for them because of bumping into a blast from my past.

The One Big Illusion

June 5, 2012 Linda-Ann Stewart

by Robert Middleton

I talk a lot about “Marketing Mindset” in the More Clients eZine.

It’s because what I notice that stops people from effectively marketing their services is rarely the technical components of marketing, such as networking, speaking and writing.

No, it’s all the thoughts, emotions and attitudes that prevent us from implementing these things.

The greatest illusion is that virtually nobody, including you, dear reader thinks this is the case. Everyone thinks it’s one of the following reasons why they are not good at marketing:

1. I don’t know what to do or how to do it.

2. I am just not the marketing type.

3. Marketing doesn’t work for my kind of business.

4. I don’t have the time to do marketing.

5. Most marketing leads to rejection, anyway.

6. Marketing is an interruption that irritates people.

7. If people need what I have, they’ll call me.

OK, so I’m willing to bet that if you are not having much marketing success, that you believe at least four out of seven of the above statements.

What nobody realizes is that these are not statements of “fact.” Far from it. Every single one of them is a mindset. What I mean by a mindset is an “established and fixed attitude held by someone about something.”

And mindsets literally construct your reality. They shape your thoughts, feelings and behavior. And they appear to be true, so true in fact that they are almost never questioned.

A mindset acts much like a hypnotic auto-suggestion.

You say it, think, it believe it, feel it, and act consistently with it and then have evidence to back it up that it’s true. You are so identified with your mindsets that to you they are not mindsets at all, they are the unvarnished truth.

And if that’s all true, you are in a real pickle, because how can you escape from a mindset that you don’t even think it a mindset? How can you wake up from a dream that you are totally convinced is reality?

Well, first of all, you need to accept that maybe, just maybe, what I’m saying might be true. You just might be stuck in mindsets that are holding you back from marketing yourself successfully and that nothing external whatsoever is holding you back.

Tough to accept, I know.

The next thing to notice is that when you identify with a particular mindset, how does it make you feel? Does it make you feel alive and excited, full of opportunity and promise?

Or not?

I don’t think so. These, what I call “constrictive mindsets” feel stressful in some way. They feel like excuses, they feel like cop-outs, they feel that they are opposing your goals to get the word out and make a difference in the lives and businesses of your clients.

Let’s just take the somewhat benign mindset: “I don’t have time to market my services.”

Not too inspiring, right? You may be able to justify it, but it’s not fulfilling, is it? No, it feels frustrating. It’s a statement of defeat. It certainly isn’t motivating you to get out there; it’s stopping you in your tracks, often before you even start.

So if expressing a mindset feels that way, you know something you didn’t know before: That mindset is a lie. It’s not true. It never was and never will be.

It’s a lie that you don’t have time to market yourself.

And look at what happens when you believe that lie. You make excuses, you avoid doing things, you don’t organize your schedule to fit in marketing. In fact you do everything in your power to justify that mindset, despite the fact that it’s not helping you one iota.

Can you see that?

Well, what if you could no longer identify with that mindset anymore? I mean, what if you couldn’t even think that it was true? Even if you have a lot of other priorities and were very busy, you couldn’t believe it was true anymore.

Then who would you be? How would you react? How would you behave?

Wouldn’t it be completely different from how you’re reacting now? Wouldn’t you find a way to fit some marketing activities into your schedule? Wouldn’t you stop making lame excuses? Wouldn’t you stop looking for “the perfect marketing opportunity” and just do what you could, such as follow up with that prospect you’ve been avoiding?

The first step in all this is to identify those mindsets that are holding you back. What are you always telling yourself about marketing? And how are you feeling about those thoughts? If you’re not feeling great, then they’re probably lies.

So take a little time to look at the consequences of those lies. Are they undermining you, holding you back, making you small, preventing you from getting what you want?

If that’s the case, the good news is that there’s such a thing as expansive mindsets. And in the realm of marketing you may not be so familiar with them.

Expansive mindsets get your creativity flowing, enable you to see opportunities, open up new possibilities and make you take risks that feel fun and exciting.

Let’s turn around that mindset list:

1. I can learn what to do and how to do it.

2. I’m the type who can share the value of my services.

3. I can find a way to market my services appropriately.

4. I can find the time to do marketing.

5. Marketing can lead to people who need my assistance.

6. Marketing can we a welcomed conversation.

7. If people need what I have, I can follow-up with them.

Aren’t these possibly just as true, maybe truer than the original list? One thing is for sure, they feel better, don’t they? Well, then try them out and see where they take you.

By Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing. Please visit Robert’s web site at www.actionplan.com for additional marketing articles and resources on marketing for professional service businesses.

The Mirror Principle, Part 2

June 4, 2012 Linda-Ann Stewart

by Linda-Ann Stewart

Whenever you don’t like a trait in someone else, it’s usually reflecting something within you that you’ve concealed from yourself. It also may be that you recognize the potential for that trait within yourself, and don’t like it. I don’t like people to belittle others, or are cruel. When I hurt someone’s feelings, even unintentionally, it hurts me.

In the past, I would even avoid confronting someone who’d been mean to me because I didn’t want to hurt them. What I finally realized is that the potential to be cruel is within me, as it is within us all, but it’s well hidden. Since I acknowledged that, I can now respond appropriately to someone who is nasty.

You don’t have to act on those attributes you don’t like. But when you find out how the qualities you dislike are expressing in you, and accept them, the energy around them melts away. You no longer have to attract people who are reflecting the parts of you that you’ve masked.

The Universe simply sent them into your life to teach you to accept yourself. All of yourself. Once I began to be true to myself, and convey that to the world, I attracted friends and a partner who were more open with me. The Universe accepts you unconditionally as you are. Wouldn’t you want to accept yourself as much as the Universe does?