Author and speaker Jack Canfield discusses how to become a reverse paranoid, or an optimist. An optimist believes that the world is conspiring to help them. This brings more opportunities into their lives. They take lemons and make lemonade. In this video, Canfield suggests different ways that you can approach challenges to make them work for you.
by Linda-Ann Stewart
Carol’s budding romance fell apart when her boyfriend moved away. Soon after, he found someone else and 
married her. When Carol found out, she fell back into an old habit pattern of criticizing herself because things didn’t work out as she’d expected. But as soon as she realized she was beating herself up, she reminded herself that it was her choice how she felt about the situation.
She could either continue to make herself feel bad, by berating herself for not being important enough for him to stay. Or she could remind herself of some of the reasons why the relationship had problems, such as their different values and interests. By focusing on the relationship issues, she felt better about the breakup. She chose to focus on the real reason the relationship failed, and felt better about the situation.
You have the power to choose what to think about. And what you focus on determines how you feel. If you think about all your failures, then you’re going to feel dejected and disheartened. When you put yourself down, you feel incompetent. This will tell your subconscious to keep presenting you with situations that will make you feel this way.
Your feelings determine what actions you take. Negative and fear based feelings reduce your inner resources. And because you don’t have that extra energy, you pull back and don’t do what’s necessary to resolve the situation.
For instance, you could focus on the fact that you don’t have enough clients. Seeing only the lack will make you sink into fear and you’ll try to find a way to reduce your expenses. Or you could focus on attracting more clients by promoting your business. You then go out and contact more people, tell them about your business, and fulfill your expectation of success. Your focus creates your feelings which determines your actions.
You get more of whatever you focus on. Focus channels the Law of Attraction. If you’re thinking about lack of money, not achieving your goals, or how you’re ineffective, then you’ll get more of that to deal with. But if you focus on drawing abundance into your life, accomplishing your goals, and how you’re capable of success, then that instructs your subconscious to find more opportunities for you to experience these things. The Law of Attraction then draws these conditions to you.
Unless it’s to teach you a lesson, to cause you to deal with the reality of a situation, or to propel you into constructive action, there’s really no reason to dwell on negative thoughts. Once you’ve learned the lesson from a negative situation and become aware of what you need to do, set aside the disempowering thought. It’s no longer serving a purpose.
Your thoughts are like a wild horse. By corralling them and reining them in, you train them to follow your instructions and go where you want them to go. It takes persistent and gentle discipline to accomplish this. When you think something disempowering and negative, gently bring your attention back to something more empowering and constructive. Initially, the negative thought might surface several times a minute, because the old pattern is strong. But each time this happens, refocus your attention on what you choose and eventually these new desires will be the norm.
Whenever you notice yourself feeling sad, bad or upset, ask yourself what you’re thinking. Pay attention to what you’re saying to yourself. Then remind yourself that you have the choice of what to think. There are always different aspects of a situation you can address. Pick something that is empowering and causes you to move forward.
When you train your mind to focus on what you want, you’ll not only feel better, but you’ll be more successful. The Law of Attraction will be working for your best interests. You have the choice of what to think and focus on. Whether you exercise that power in a constructive or destructive way is up to you.
Affirmation:
What I focus on determines how I feel and whether I move forward or not. I have the power and choice about what I focus on in any situation. I choose to put my attention on constructive and empowering ideas. Gently and with persistence, I rein in my mind and direct my focus back onto what I want.
Copyright 2013 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved
Brendon Burchard describes how your mind creates its programming. By giving your attention to negative thoughts, it develops into a habit. To become more aware, you can take control and decide what to think. He explains how to become aware of what you’re thinking about. Then redirect your attention to focus on what’s positive.
Brendon Burchard is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, personal development trainer, thought leader in human motivation and business marketing. Visit http://brendonburchard.com/ for his free eBook and video series on the secrets to changing your life and reaching high performance in all you do.
~ Linda-Ann Stewart
by Linda-Ann Stewart
Success is your natural state. You have the innate ability to accomplish anything you choose to do. As a child, you learned how to tie your shoes, use the alphabet and ride a bike. You learned how to reach your goal by moving toward it in small, incremental stages. When you missed your mark, you corrected your direction and tried again until you achieved it.
You didn’t question whether you’d accomplish it or not. You just kept working at it until you did. Only if you were told and believed that you couldn’t achieve it, would you fall short of your goal.
Whether you want to quit smoking, maintain an exercise program, make a sale, get ahead in life or fulfill your New Year’s Resolutions, your mindset will determine whether you succeed or fail. You have to believe that your goal is possible and achievable for you to be able to accomplish it.
If you don’t believe your goal is possible, then no matter how much effort you put into it you’re likely to be disappointed. Smokers who don’t believe they can quit will fail in their attempts. A salesperson who goes into a conversation with the idea they won’t make the sale will have his belief confirmed.
If you don’t believe that you can accomplish your goal, then you’re fighting an uphill battle against yourself. You want it, but you’ll unconsciously sabotage yourself to confirm your belief. When you serve a customer, they’ll sense your negative self-assessment and will say “No.” You’ll hold yourself back from committing your full drive, passion and determination to your desire.
It’s human nature to seek to be consistent with your beliefs. Do you dwell on your mistakes or difficulties and think it’ll never be different? If so, you’re setting yourself up to validate your idea. Even if you were handed success on a silver platter, if you haven’t conditioned your mind for it, success will seep away like sand through a sieve.
However, if you don’t succeed fully or immediately, it doesn’t mean that you’ve failed. You only fail when you give up. People who succeed aren’t defeated by setbacks. In each attempt, you learn something that you use to climb further up the ladder of accomplishment.
Before you can have success in the outer world, you have to accept it in your inner self. It’s like water rising to its own level. You’ll only have as much success as you can believe you can have. Studies have shown that a positive attitude is more important for success than education or skills, when it comes to getting a job and moving ahead.
The Universe created you to be a success, and you are the Universe in action in your life. Any block to it is your fearful mind believing in a lie. You were convinced of the impossibility when you were a child or when you were discouraged as an adult. The Universe is always a success, therefore success is your true nature.
Three ways to begin conditioning your mind for success:
1. Change your self-image so you identify with accomplishing your goal. Your self-image affects how successful you’ll be. Do you feel like a success or failure? Until a smoker can relate to being an “ex-smoker,” they’ll nearly always fall back into the old habit. Someone who has lost a lot of weight will have a hard time keeping it off until their self-image agrees with their new reality. A clerk will never be able to rise through the ranks until they’re able to view themselves as someone who could handle more responsibility. Discover and develop the qualities you need to be a success at what you want.
2. Picture some success you’ve had, no matter how small. Remember how you felt. When beginning a new project, associate that feeling of success with the first step you could take. Imagine it so vividly that it’s easy to put the steps into practice. Evoke a feeling of satisfaction when you think of your goal. Then make sure you begin to take action.
3. Don’t try to conceive of your final result as being inevitable. That may be too much a stretch for you at the beginning. Just open your mind to the idea that it’s possible. Imagine what the best outcome could be. By not trying to force it, you allow your subconscious to consider how it can begin to bring your ideas into reality. Turning it over in your mind allows you to visualize success without the pressure of fighting against conflicting ideas about it.
When you have the feeling that you’ll achieve your goal, you’ll uncover the resources and creative ideas needed to overcome whatever obstacles arise. Your mind will be ready for success, and will find the way to do what’s necessary to make your goal an accomplished fact. Establishing a positive and success mindset will carry over into all of your desires.
Affirmation:
I was created to be successful at whatever goal I chose. The Universe sees me as a success and operates through me. Success is my natural state. I now condition my mind for success by accepting that my goal is possible and achievable for me. Although I may not know how to accomplish it, the Universe and my creative mind know what to do and how to do it. I take the actions that I know to take and the next step now appears.
There are so many myths about positive thinking and optimism. Pessimists attack it, saying it’s unrealistic, shallow, and even destructive. But they’re talking about an extreme that isn’t recommended. If you think positively, you still have to be aware of pitfalls. You just don’t fixate on them, as pessimists do.
A recent article, The 7 Biggest Myths About Positive Thinking, challenges seven of the most prevalent myths about positive thinking. He addresses myths such as “Positive thinking encourages unrealistic expectations,” ” Positive thinking is a bunch of sugary, have-a-nice-day nostrums,” and ” It’s absurd to believe that thoughts shape reality.”
He busts each one, even quoting from the very authors who encouraged optimism in the first place. Recent advances in cognitive psychology, clinical studies and even brain imaging are all supporting the fact that the way you think creates your experience.
The problem with people who deride positive thinking is that they refuse to let the facts affect their opinions. I guess they choose not to take responsibility for their thoughts and their lives. One author even said that positive thinking was too hard, and then went on to advise other exercises to change your thoughts. So even with his system, you had to work to feel better.
If you’re an optimist who gets attacked for your positive attitude, read the article. It’ll give you ammunition to respond to those who don’t understand because they’ve never explored it.
~ Linda-Ann Stewart
Linda-Ann Stewart empowers business women and entrepreneurs to break through their inner barriers and create the life they want with more success and abundance. Sign up for her FREE report “Imagine the Possibilities,” at www.Linda-AnnStewart.com.
Question: I want a better self-image, prosperity, and success, but what do I work on first to achieve these?
Answer: First, a good self-image is the basis of the other two. If you don’t feel like you deserve good, you won’t manifest more prosperity or success. So the first thing I’d focus on is the self-image. I usually tell people to focus on one issue at a time, but since these three items tend to run hand in hand, I think you can work on all three of them at one time.
Write down what makes you feel bad about yourself. Do you feel like you don’t deserve, aren’t enough, aren’t worthwhile? Turn it around and create a positive statement that affirms your worthiness. Work on self-acceptance. And to begin with, I’d state that you deserve prosperity and success in the amount that you want. That would be the first step.
When you start to feel comfortable that you do deserve prosperity and success, then I’d expand the suggestion. State how much prosperity and success that you want. And remember, you don’t have to know how it will happen. That’s what your subconscious mind is for, to work out the details. That’s not to say that you don’t have to take some action, or move in that direction. But you don’t have to worry about the how.
Copyright 2004, 2013 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved
In this rare video, Napoleon Hill, author of “Think and Grow Rich,” says that a positive mental attitude is the only way you overcome adversity and defeat. Sometimes adversity pushes you to fulfill a greater potential. Without the difficulty, you probably would never have been propelled to achieve more. As you look for the benefit within any challenge, you open up to the possibility of leading you to more success. Failure only occurs when you accept it as such.
~ Linda-Ann Stewart
In this rare video, Napoleon Hill, author of “Think and Grow Rich,” explains how enthusiasm is contagious. Enthusiasm is one of the most important traits for leadership. He gives a short course on salesmanship to help you make a favorable impression on your prospect. These are good tips for anyone meeting new people.
~ Linda-Ann Stewart
Question: Which is the best pronoun to use when saying an affirmation: I, you, or he/she?
Answer: You ask an excellent question. The answer, unfortunately, isn’t cut and dried. All three ways of phrasing affirmations have their uses. I most often use the first person (I), so that I identify with what I’m affirming. We tend to become what we identify with, and this is the way most affirmations are worded. This gives the subconscious guidance on what you want it to do.
However, when an affirmation is hard to accept, or our subconscious has some resistance to the affirmation, using a more objective pronoun is very helpful. Using “you” when stating the affirmation becomes a command to the subconscious. This pronoun is especially helpful when you want to directly order the subconscious on what to do. It forcefully breaks up any opposition to the affirmation. If you state and affirmation this way while looking at yourself in the mirror, it becomes very powerful.
When you’re too emotionally involved in the issue the affirmation is dealing with, the use of the third person pronoun “he/she/your name” is called for. Speaking of yourself in the third person helps when you need to deal with the issue a bit more objectively. It’s especially helpful when you need to improve your self-approval to accept the affirmation.
If you state an affirmation in each of these ways, you’ll notice a difference in the way you respond to it. Pick the way that seems to resonate with you the most at the time.
Copyright 2005, 2013 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved
I’ve been working on a business project for several months. For most of that time, it has been difficult to work with and on. It’s moved forward about as quickly and smoothly as pouring molasses in the winter.
Last week, I decided to change my attitude about it. Instead of dreading working on it and expecting it to be hard, I chose to think that it would be smooth and easy to work on. And as soon as I shifted my expectation, it became easier. I was able to complete a section of it in less than half the time than any of the other sections were done.
Struggling with a situation, dreading the difficulty of a project, or just generally banging your head against a brick wall, creates an expectation of trouble. This brings on more obstacles, and progress becomes like walking through wet cement. However, if you shift your attitude to expect it to be easy, you give the subconscious the instruction to be more resourceful.
This project reminded me to choose to think that the situations of my life can be easy. In the past, when I’ve carried this belief, things have flowed incredibly harmoniously. It isn’t easy to change your expectation when the evidence seems against it, but it’s well worth the effort.
~ Linda-Ann Stewart