Empowering Your Mind – Page 58 – Mindset, Motivation and Empowerment

How To Make And Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions

January 3, 2018 Linda-Ann Stewart

by Linda-Ann Stewart

I used to make a list of New Year’s resolutions, such as: lose weight, exercise, organize my desk, eat better, etc., etc., and so forth. However, within a day I’d broken at least half of them. The rest were blown by the end of the week. Since I felt like a failure, I just stopped making them. I figured why should I put myself through the frustration?

It’s too bad, because resolutions are a positive way to improve your life and change old habit patterns. Starting a new year with the intention of establishing a healthier life helps us to wipe the slate clean, to write a better script. We begin with great hopes, only to get sucked back into the familiar rut. Why is it that so many times we fail to attain our list of resolutions?

Think about this. What if your partner brought you a long list of things they wanted you to do immediately? For example, they wanted you to move all the furniture in the house, change the landscaping, paint the house, completely redecorate within a week? You’d groan, crumble and look for the closest hole to hide in. The same is true of your subconscious mind.

Your subconscious mind processes and stores everything you’ve ever seen, done, heard, thought, or experienced. All of this information mixes together to give you the life you now have.

If you resolve to completely recondition yourself within a month, your inner mind falters. “Too much!” it screams, and then proceeds to get you so involved in life that you forget all that silly stuff. An excessive amount of change at any one time overwhelms your subconscious. However, there are some things you can do to maximize your success with New Year’s resolutions.

First, as you might do every year, write down all the things that you want to change in your life. But this time, prioritize them. Decide which are the most important, then select one of these to concentrate on. By focusing on one area at a time, you will be able to improve your chances of success.

Once you’ve chosen which area you want to concentrate on, write down all the steps you need to take to fulfill that goal. For instance, suppose Sam decides he wants to get healthy. To do so, he chooses to quit smoking, eliminate caffeine, sugar, and alcohol, to stop partying, get enough sleep every night, lose weight, start exercising, and eat right. He can’t do all of these at the same time, or his subconscious will rebel. Therefore, he decides which facet he wants to tackle first.

Break your goal down into reasonable steps. Don’t try to change the world in one week. As you accomplish one component, move onto the next one. It may actually take a couple of years to achieve your whole list, but in a couple of years you’ll be so much healthier than you are now.

Once you have your first element chosen, you can now decide on what physical actions to take every day. Taking physical action helps to convince the subconscious that you mean business, and shows commitment to the process.

Visualize yourself acting out your objective. As you imagine yourself living your goal, this gives your subconscious mind the direction it needs. It must follow your envisioning. Mentally rehearse each day, identifying with your new ideal, feeling how good it is to have accomplished your aim.

Write a short positive statement in the present tense that embodies your resolution. Use this affirmation in your visualization to reinforce it. Say the declaration aloud one hundred times a day. Print it on index cards and place them where you see them often. This keeps you focused on your goal and begins to impregnate your subconscious with what it is that you want. Trust that your subconscious is making deep level changes, and knows the best way to help you to transform.

By following these directions, you will be able to successfully make and keep your New Year’s resolutions. You have all the power within you to create a wonderful new life for yourself. Don’t be afraid to use it.

Affirmation:
This year, I set reasonable goals of change for myself. After I write down what areas of my life I wish to change, I narrow them down to focus on one. I decide what steps I need to take to make the goal a reality in my life, and begin with a single small, attainable action. As I’m successful, I add another step. I visualize myself accomplishing my goal, knowing that doing so fully involves my subconscious in helping me to transform. I commit myself to making the changes necessary to improve my life, knowing that I’m worth it.

Sparks of Insight

December 22, 2017 Linda-Ann Stewart

“A weed is only a flower whose use has not been found.” ~ Emerson

You have talents and abilities that make you unique, but that you may not be using. Maybe you believe that, “Everyone can do that” or “No one would want that.” But you were endowed with those gifts to be able to express them, and just need to discover how to do so in a way that fulfills you and blesses the world. Just because you haven’t found a way to put them to use doesn’t mean that they’re worthless. It’s just that you haven’t uncovered their particular benefit.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart

Give Yourself Permission to Dream

December 19, 2017 Linda-Ann Stewart

Do you not allow yourself to conceive of a dream you want to accomplish? Many people will deny their dreams and won’t try to strive to fulfill their potential. When you give yourself permission to contemplate your dream, amazing things happen.

Transcript:

Do you know what your dream is? Do you think it’s out of your grasp so you deny a dream exists for you? This could mean that you don’t even allow yourself to know what you want. Maybe you don’t want to be disappointed again, or you believe you can’t achieve it. So you decide not to want anything. It’s safer that way. If you don’t expect anything, you can’t be disappointed.

Whenever a dream begins to rise to the surface, you turn away from it. But your dream is there, ready to be discovered. It’s a longing that you haven’t given voice to. Today, I’d like to talk a little bit about how you can give yourself permission to contemplate your dream. And what can amazing thing that can happen when you do.

I’m Linda-Ann Stewart, a vision strategist. For almost 30 years, I’ve been a hypnotherapist. Clients came to see me to create change in their lives. Over time, I discovered that they had to also have a vision of where they wanted to end up with that change to be truly successful with their change. Now, as a vision strategist, I help women entrepreneurs get clear, focused and get back in control so they’re able to accelerate to the next level of their business. I’ve helped scores of people uncover their dream and achieve the goals to get them there.

If you could have anything you wanted, if everything fell into place for you, if success was assured, what would that dream be? I’m not talking about winning the lottery. I’m talking about your being able to accomplish something for you. Make more money, lose weight, write a book, create a nonprofit. It could be something others consider small, but that would be huge for you. Just consider for a minute what that might be for you. Will you give yourself permission to contemplate what that might be?

It may be hard to envision it. You’ve spent so much time denying it Maybe others told you you couldn’t or shouldn’t have it. If that’s the case, is that true? Probably not. Or you’re afraid of what others will think. But they’re not living your life, are they? You aren’t here to fulfill anyone else’s expectations of you. You’re here to fulfill your potential.

Acknowledge and accept that your dream is yours and you have a right to have it. How does that feel when you accept that idea? You know that the only way you’re going to reach more of your potential is to reach higher. You know the old saying, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’re always going to get what you’ve always got.” So your first step to having something more is to allow yourself to conceive of it.

So give yourself permission to dream. Permission to conceive of something greater. Even if it’s something massive that it seems out of your reach. When you start considering it, and wondering how you could achieve it, your subconscious starts looking for ways to help you. It begins to seek out information and opportunities in your world to support your quest.

One time, I was wondering how I could better promote a workshop I was giving. At the grocery store, I bumped into someone I knew who had an interview show on a local radio station. When I told her what I was doing, not thinking about her show, she offered to interview me. It was my very first radio interview. Has something like this ever happened to you? Syncronicities happen when you give yourself permission to step out of your box and dream bigger.

As Napoleon Hill said, “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.” But first you have to give yourself permission to conceive of it. Everything else hinges on that. How can you give yourself permission to dream?

If you’d like more tips on how to make your day flow more smoothly, download my free guide, Take Control of Your Day.

Thank you for watching. I hope this has encouraged you to open up to your dreams. And I would love to know your progress with them. I believe you can achieve them.

Read the accompanying article, 7 Ways You Unconsciously Limit Your Vision.

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Sparks of Insight

December 15, 2017 Linda-Ann Stewart

Whatever you truly believe, or feel, at the depths of your being, is what you’re going to attract. If you use affirmations for something beneficial, but still feel the opposite, then what you feel is going to what you experience. The subconscious manifests your feelings. For instance, if you’re affirming prosperity or that you’re worthy, but you’re afraid you can’t pay the bills or that you’re still undeserving, your subconscious will follow your feelings. You use affirmations to change those underlying feelings, by repeating the affirmation over and over, with feeling.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart

7 Ways You Unconsciously Limit Your Vision

December 15, 2017 Linda-Ann Stewart

“Aim at heaven and you get Earth thrown in. Aim at Earth and you get neither.” C.S. Lewis

Are you aiming high enough to achieve your dream or are you keeping your vision little and manageable? A dream is what you’re working towards. Your vision of it should be out of your immediate reach so it inspires and motivates you and pulls you farther than you thought you could go. You may not get as far as your dream, but you’ll soar higher if you have it as your target. The Universe always wants something greater for you.

But too many people keep their vision small and insignificant, so they can stay invisible and play it safe. If you do that, you’ll never be able to reach much further than where you presently are. You’ll just be playing in the same sand box and never climb out of it to explore what else is possible. And you thwart what the Universe wants for you.

By aiming too low, not only do you limit your potential, you also sabotage yourself by holding yourself back. You don’t take the actions that would lead to success, choosing instead to do what is familiar and comfortable. For instance, you don’t follow through on leads, prospects or customers. In so doing, you’re instructing your subconscious / the Law of Attraction to keep you stuck.

There are all sorts of reasons and ways you undermine your dream. Most have to do with the past or fear of the results. Once you recognize how you’re keeping yourself small, you can turn it around and aspire to something greater. Here are 7 ways in which you may be keeping yourself grounded and how you can cut the restraints.

1. Habit. You’ve created a habit of creating easy goals to achieve, so you have a feeling of accomplishment. But they’re haphazard, don’t take you in any particular direction, and you don’t make any progress.

Choose goals that lead in a specific direction, each one building on the one before. This takes you out of your comfort zone and creates a new habit of success.

2. Past disappointments. You figure it’s easier to keep your dream reachable, especially when you’ve been disappointed in the past. So you focus on manageable goals, but don’t get very far towards your dream.

Create a vision that’s just out of reach, and set manageable goals that can take you there. As you accomplish them, it will encourage you and build your confidence to aim higher.

3. Doesn’t fit your self-image. You want to be a leader in your field and make your mark, but you can’t imagine yourself as that person. The person you want to be has qualities you don’t have and are alien to the way you perceive yourself.

Decide what characteristics you need to cultivate so you can become the person you want to be. Take one at a time, and practice incorporating it into your life.

4. Fear your dream will take over your life. You’re concerned about what achieving your vision would change. For instance, you may have to work longer hours and not be able to spend time on other activities you value.

Reaching your vision will change your life. But you always have control over how much time and effort you put forth.

5. Fear you won’t be able to handle success. Reaching towards your vision stretches you and takes you out of what you’re familiar with. So you try to stay in your comfort zone and safe.

You can always develop the new skills, abilities, and characteristics you need. When you do, you will grow and expand to fill your new role and responsibilities.

6. Fear of being criticized. You’re afraid of people disapproving of the changes you’ll be making. To avoid this, you make sure you stay invisible, under their radar, so you don’t get hit with their condemnation or rejection.

The person you most need acceptance and approval from is yourself. When you’re pursuing your dream, you’re on purpose and fulfilling your highest potential.

7. Guilt about how it will affect others. If you commit to your vision, you may not have as much time for friends or family. Or you’re concerned that you’ll be taking advantage of others if you get ahead.

Ask yourself, “How much more can I offer if I reach my vision?” Playing small doesn’t help you and doesn’t give you the greater opportunity to help others.

These issues need not concern you any longer. You have gained wisdom, maturity and understanding and can now handle the challenges your vision brings. The Universe will always support you on your path. Use your vision as your destination, and establish goals like rungs on a ladder to climb to new heights. You’ll be able to accomplish your goals, while staying on track to your vision.

Affirmation:
The Universe wants something more for me. I now have the wisdom, maturity and understanding to aspire to something greater. Any old issues are now dissolved in the light of peace. With the support of the Universe, I can handle any situation that arises. I am always Divinely guided and directed to make the best decisions.

Watch the accompanying video, Give Yourself Permission to Dream.

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Sparks of Insight

December 8, 2017 Linda-Ann Stewart

“The Universe wants only the best for me. I trust the process of Life to bring only good to me. Only right action takes place in my life. ”

You are an individualized expression of the Infinite. How could the Universe want anything but the best for Itself? When you recognize that and trust that It is at work in every area of your life, you open the channels for incredible miracles to take place. The actions that then take place may not be the ones that you’d choose, but the Universe has a much broader view of your life. It can only give Itself the best outcomes that you can accept.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart

Sparks of Insight

December 1, 2017 Linda-Ann Stewart

The way you perceive an event actually creates the emotion associated with it. There’s a story of two elderly women flying to visit Paris, a place they both had dreamed of seeing all of their lives. Neither had ever been on a plane or overseas. One of the women, feeling her rapid heartbeat and breathing, perceived it as anxiety due to fear of new experiences. She was afraid of being on a plane and flying to a foreign country. The other one viewed those same reactions as excitement, because she was finally getting to see Paris. They had the same physical responses, but viewed them differently. You can do the same by finding a different way to look at a challenging situation. Instead of dreading it, find a way to change that to anticipation.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart