We are almost to the end of the week. There are probably goals that you are working hard to achieve. Maybe your efforts are focused on just making it through the week. Although we should focus on thriving instead of surviving, some weeks can be tougher than others. With the holidays, you have not only your regular responsibilities, but additional stress as well. This is why this one activity must be included in every day, no matter how busy you are!
What is this activity that is all so important? Taking time to do at least one thing that makes you happy. Before you start arguing that you’re too busy, or simply don’t have the time, let me explain why this is so important. Taking time to do something that simply brings us joy can go a long way to reduce stress. By doing so, we help bolster our immune system. Which in today’s world is very crucial. We also take care of our heart. By exposure to prolonged bouts of stress, there are numerous cardiac events that cloud occur, none of them good. We also increase dopamine levels, or the feel good chemical in our brain.
All of these allow us to be there for those we love, increase our productivity, and enjoy life more. This doesn’t have to be anything grandiose. It can be simply enjoying a peaceful cup of quality coffee or a nice hot bath and really savoring the moment. What activities are you going to do to bring yourself some joy?
Inspiration for my writing can come from anywhere at any time. Recently, it came from a story about a bottle of water. That’s right, a bottle of water. What can a simple bottle of water teach us about life and how to live it better? You would be surprised. Let us look at the story that inspired this post and then discuss how to apply it a little bit after.
A bottle of water in the supermarket is worth about $.50. That same bottle at a bar costs around $2. In a good restaurant or hotel it can be worth about $3. If you were at a concert, outdoor festival or airport you could pay up to $5! The bottle and brand is the same, the only thing that changes is the place. Each place gives a different value to the same product.
What does the fact that they charge you way to much for bottles of water at concerts and at the airport teach us about life? It teaches us that worth is not a fixed value. This is more important when it comes to ourselves than purified water in a plastic bottle. If you have a lot of moments of feeling worthless and have people around you who belittle you, it may very well be time to change places! Just like our bottle of water, do not stay where you are viewed at $.50, find that airport or outdoor concert. You are a $5.00 bottle of water. Find that place where you are valued. Seek out those smart and astute individuals who see the brilliant gifts you bring to the table.
I suggest keeping a bottle of water nearby to remind you of this principle. If you hear from someone who does not see your value, take a sip and remind yourself that you are a $5.00 bottle of water! Plus, staying hydrated is always a healthy thing to do! Share your world with those who find you refreshing.
Take a look at the picture above. These runners are about to begin their race. What do you think is going through their minds? Excitement? A good deal of nerves I am imagining. Perhaps even a little bit of fear mixed in.They have trained months, years, maybe even their whole lives for this moment. If they win, all of that will be worth it. If they lose? It may crush some, and others may strengthen their resolve to push harder, to practice longer. What is fueling their excitement is possibilities.
This type of emotion holds true for the start of a race, competitions of any sort, vacations, adventures and many other things. For the beginning of the work week, however, we fill ourselves with emotions such as dread, boredom, gloom and many other unpleasantries. Why do we view the workweek in such a manner? There are, of course, many things that we don’t enjoy and many challenges. Same can be said for vacation. Raise your hand if you like going through airport security. I am guessing there are few, if any, of you with your hand raised right now. Who likes going through customs in a foreign country or looking for your transportation at the airport? Again, probably not many of you. How come those do not cause dread?
The answer is in what we choose to focus on. As we take our shoes off and wait to pass through the metal detector, our thoughts remain focused on tropical shores and Pina coladas. The challenges we face are just obstacles to overcome so that we can enjoy the destination. At the starting line of a race we do not focus on how hard the hills will be, how our breathing will be labored or a host of other things we must go through. No, our thoughts are focused on the feeling we will have crossing the finish line. Can we be faster than we were last race? Did we train the right way? Did we hydrate enough? There are a million steps we have taken to give us the best chance to succeed and now they will pay off.
Imagine if we applied this same thinking to the workweek? Keep our thoughts on the fun plans we had that weekend. Focus on the feeling of punching out that Friday. This may very well keep us from punching out anything, or anyone else. The boss yelling at you with bad breath? That is just like airport security. Your coworker filling your ears with useless gossip? Like going through customs. These are just things we have to make it through to get to the weekend. Weekend to far away for you? focus on the feeling of leaving work for the day. That feeling of freedom as you turn off your computer, close your locker or the door of your workplace shuts behind you. When you experience these things, celebrate! You have earned it!
Let us change our perception of Monday. It is not the end of our weekend freedoms. It is the beginning of a race to overcome challenges to make to the next weekend. Can we do it while finding more joy than last weekend? Can we be happier than we were the week before? Can we make it through all the challenges? Keep our focus on the goal and I know we can!
The most common question I am asked anywhere I go from my day job, to book signings, to live events is this, “What is one thing that I can do to improve my life?” In a society where people are used to quick universal solutions, it can be hard to understand that the solutions can be as varied as the individual. That being said, there is one thing that I would recommend to everyone looking to improve their life. It is at once both universal and customizable. This may sound crazy, but let me assure you that it is 100% true. How can the same solution work for both neighbor Bob and me if I am trying to get in shape and he is trying to fix his relationship?
Let us take the example of getting in shape. Although this can work no matter what area of life you are working on, from parenting to going to a job that seems to suck your soul out of you. If you were to ask someone what the best thing to do to get in shape is, you would, no doubt, receive a million different answers. Some people, like my mother, say walking is the best exercise. I have read that a rowing machine uses roughly 87% of your muscles. Throw swimming, bicycling and other such things in the mix and before long your head starts to spin. If I seek the advice of my friends at peak physique, Jodi and Ricky, I may hear weight lifting, cardio or yoga. So who is right in all of this? They all are. What determines success in fitness, as well as self-improvement, is consistency. While it is true that certain activities use more muscles that others, they do not use any unless you do them. Therefore, the great secret to improving your life? Find something you enjoy. Why? Because you are more likely to keep doing it. Maybe you like battle ropes like the people in the picture above? Let me say, for the record, I have never seen anyone smiling while doing battle ropes, especially while being ‘encouraged’ by a trainer as seems to be the case here. While rowing or walking may use more muscle groups, if you do not like those activities, you are less likely to maintain doing them.
What does all of this have to do with the broad topic of self-improvement? Everything! What events are more likely to change your life? I think fostering an attitude of gratitude is number one on the list. How can you do that? The way that works for you. Do you like keeping a gratitude journal? Then do that because you are likely to stick with it long enough to make a difference. How about carrying a little talisman in your pocket to remind you of something you are grateful for? Then do that. The secret is maintaining a behavior long enough to see results. Relying on will power sets you up for limited success at best. The best chance at success in whatever area of life you are trying to improve is to find something you like and start with that. As things improve, which they will, you will find it easier to add things that may be more beneficial, but would have been harder to stick with in the beginning. You gain momentum by doing an activity that you enjoy. You can use that momentum to make sticking to the more difficult activities that might be needed to accomplish your goals. I would love to hear some of your favorite activities that you use to improve different areas of your life.
People use the phrase “They have their head in the sand.” to describe people who are willfully ignorant to problems around them. I think we all know people whose life could be going straight down the commode and they would be the last one to admit there was anything wrong. Something a little less severe would be those souls who act as if ignoring the problems in their lives will make them go away. Not so I am afraid. It was described wonderfully by Tony Robbins as someone who sits in their garden, closes their eyes and chants “There are no weeds. There are no weeds.” While they may believe that to some degree, and it even may help them feel a little better about their current situation, the problem is when they open their eyes, they will be looking straight at a garden full of weeds!
I find it amusing that people think that is what I do personally and even worse, that is what I teach others to do. In no uncertain terms do I tell people to ignore their problems or the sometimes ugly truth of life. If you have read either of my books, that is abundantly clear. How do people come to this conclusion and why I am telling you to bury your head in the sand in the title of this post? There is a big difference between ignoring challenges and things that are negative in our lives and not dwelling on them. In fact, noting what is not working in our lives or what we find unpleasant can be a great tool to help us discover what we would like. Spoiler alert – it is usually the opposite of what sucks.
When people tell me that I have my head in the sand I reply, “You are damn right I do. I also have my toes, my butt and everything else.” Other than the joy of seeing a confused look on the face of someone who has thrown some shade either directly or indirectly at you, there is a point I am making hear. I realize things are not all sunshine and rainbows in my life. Here is the secret, I focus on what is working and the solutions that I am working towards. Ask yourself, what is the purpose of focusing on negative things in your life? Focusing on a problem does not solve it. As Albert Einstein once said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.” Not only that, focusing on what sucks in your life…well…sucks. It makes you feel lousy.
You may be thinking, “That’s all well and great Neil, but what I am supposed to do, just ignore what is going on?” Not at all, then we are back to being the people in the first picture. We want to be more like the baby in the second picture. When you focus on what is not working in your life, you feel miserable. While you are walking around feeling miserable, what kind of people, events and circumstances do you seem to find yourself in? 9 times our of 10, it would be miserable people events and circumstances. Here is what we should do instead. Take a second and become crystal clear as to what the challenge or negative event you are facing is. Then decide if there is actions you can take to correct or deal with the situation. If there is, focus on those and the solution you are working towards. If there is nothing you can do about the situation, turn your focus on something that is working in your life.
Here is a personal example from my own life that may make everything a lot more clear. All of my regular readers know of my affection to warm weather and sunshine. Most of you also know of my aversion to the cold and dreary weather we experience this time of year where I live. Can I do anything to change the weather? Not at all. I am good, but not good enough to change mother nature. There are two aspects I can use that we talked about. Begin saving for a vacation to a sunny destination (already in the works) or choose not to focus on the fact it is so cold some days that animals choose to stay home. Am I burying my head in the sand to the fact that the temperature is below freezing out? No I am imagining burying my entire body in the sand of a nice tropical beach. I have said this a million times, but it is a very important truth – there is no law of physics or biology that states your mind and body must be in the same place at the same time. When you choose to focus on the positive in your life instead of dwelling on the negative, it puts you in a positive emotional state. Like our example above, when you are walking around in a positive happy state of mind, what situations will you find yourself in? What kind of people will you surround yourself with? Chances are they will be positive as well.
Next time life throws a lot at you, and don’t worry it happens to all of us, don’t bury just your head in the sand, bury your whole body! Take yourself on a mental vacation. Maybe even throw on some tropical music and dance around. Change that state while you work on solving your challenges in life. Ponder them if you must, but do not dwell on the problem, always focus on the solution!
In the grand scheme of things, ants are pretty cool creatures. They have super human strength. They don’t have lungs or ears. Some ants are both farmers and can swim. They have two stomachs and some species are asexual. If you are anything like me, you probably didn’t know many of these fun amazing facts. Do you know when ants suck? When they are in your house exploring your watermelon, ruining picnics and crawling between your toes as your are sleeping. Sorry for that horrible thought, but it is the month of scary things. Generally, even if we admire all of their cool traits, we would rather not have ants in our lives.
This post is about a different kind of ant. If you noticed in our title, A.N.T. is an acronym. It stands for automatic negative thoughts. These are the pesky little thoughts that can creep into our minds while we are enjoying our watermelon. It can ruin a seemingly fun time we are having at a picnic. For all I know they might even crawl between our toes as we are sleeping. They certainly crawl through our minds no matter what we are doing. Just like the pesky little insects, they can literally come out of nowhere and multiply by the thousands!
Much like the interesting, although annoying, insects, negative thoughts can be tricky to get rid of. If you find yourself having several negative thoughts ruining your picnics or crawling through your toes while you are sleeping, the question is how to rid ourselves of them. We are going to use several mental versions of the ant killer above. In this case, it would be A.N.T. killer. The first is to acknowledge they are there. If you do your best to ignore the ants in your pantry, not only will they stay there, they may very well grow in number. Same holds true of our negative thoughts. Closing your eyes and saying over and over, “There are no ants.” will not get them out of your pantry or your head. What will? We are going to look at a few steps to take thatare not only affective, but enjoyable as well.
First things first. Get a handle on the A.N.T.s you have. I recommend doing this for a the very minimum of 3 days. Carry a little pocket notebook with you and jot down any of the negative thoughts you have. We can’t begin to deal with something unless we have a concrete idea of what it is. At the end of each day take a look at your list. Are these thoughts true? Most of the time the answer is ‘no’. In this case the simple solution is every time you catch yourself thinking that thought, counter with a firm dismissal and replacement of a positive thought. An example would be if you are constantly saying to yourself, “I am so stupid!” or some version of that. As soon as the thought enters your mind, say to yourself, “I am not stupid! This is my mind’s weak attempt to hold me back from becoming all I might be!” This is not only true, but correcting yourself and reminding yourself that you are in control of your mind and not the other way around, will go a long way to turning things around. Follow this up with a more constructive thought. “I am intelligent in many ways and expanding my knowledge base daily.” In fact, spend some time thinking of what an empowering statement would be to you. Jot that down in your notebook you carry with you. This may seem awkward at first, but it will feel empowering soon enough.
Another tool is to surround yourself with things that are inspiring. As you can see, I am writing at Starbucks today and this is my screensaver. It is a picture of myself and my lovely lady, Margie. Not only does her cute face make me smile, but the knowledge that there is someone who loves me that I get to come home to is a very positive thought. I suggest using screensavers, as many of us look at them a million times a day, to inspire us. If that is a picture of the person you love, your dog, a special spot in nature or an inspiring quote. Do this on your phone, your computer and any other place you can think of. Print out pictures and place them on your desk, your mirror and here is a great idea, keep one on your dash in your car! We drive almost everywhere these days and having some inspiring picture to look at along with some ‘feel good’ music will make that journey an empowering one. Even if some A.N.T. tries to hitch a ride.
A few last thoughts about A.N.T. or automatic negative thoughts. Just like the insects, they are never going to be totally gone. One will always continue to pop up now and then and be dealt with, whether that means catching it and setting it free, or stomping on it and crushing it into submission. The next thing to remember is just like insects in your home, thoughts in your head are best dealt with quickly before they have a chance to establish themselves and start to grow. If you have an established colony of A.N.T.s in your head, know that it may take longer than if there were just a few strays. Also, remember after extermination, if you don’t keep on top of them they can come back and start another infestation. There are also many ways to get rid of ants, both the thoughts and the insects. Some work better than others and some work better in certain circumstances than others. We have looked at just a few in this brief article. I would love to hear your methods for getting rid of the automatic negative thoughts in your life. If you want to include something for the insects as well that wouldn’t hurt.
The weekend is right around the corner. A lot of us are breathing a sigh of relief and looking forward to not having to answer to the alarm clock…or push snooze a million times. Whatever your morning habit is, it usually is more relaxed on the weekend. We switch from focusing on our jobs to more fun and social activities. This can be time with the family, friends, going out for coffee or perhaps some cocktails. Our stress levels begin to decrease as well.
One thing this can do is give us a lot more time to think. In the mad rush of the workweek, we are often too busy to be bothered with petty things going on around us. It would seem one of the side effects of having time to ourselves is knowing how to make constructive use of it. We also tend to place additional importance on the actions of others and how they impact our lives. This can be a positive if we are feeling grateful for our spouse and all they do to keep the household going. Feeling grateful for time with friends that allows us to blow off some steam and stress built up during the work week is certainly a plus as well.
There are, however, those individuals who give us a little less to be grateful for. It can be the rude server or cashier when we are doing our best to have a relaxing night out. It can be the person who likes to speak gossip and start drama that ruins an otherwise good time for everyone else. How to we respond to these folks? In what sort of way to we spend our energy addressing their nonsense? If you read the picture above, I think you can guess the answer. We don’t. We don’t engage them. We do not waste our time or energy on them.
A good way to not be tempted to be sucked into energy-draining behavior is to think long-term. If you boat has a leak and keeps filling up with water, if all you do is bail the water out over and over again, you will not only continue to have the same problem, you will also be very tired. This is just like reacting to every foolish, drama-filled thing that passes through your life. If you respond to every fool and their actions, you will not only continue to have this problem, you will also be very tired. If, in our boat example, you fix the leak, then the problem will cease to exist. This is the same as not responding to a fool. Fixing the problem would be eliminating that person or their actions from affecting your life. Use your energy to improve your life and leave the gossip and drama with the people who created it…the fools.
Students of the law of attraction know that wherever your focus goes, energy flows. In short, whatever you are spending a good deal of your thoughts and emotions on tends to feel more important in your life. Are you focused on how inconvenient it is that your car is in the shop for the afternoon? Then you will begin to notice all of the places you would like to drive to right this minute. Places you would probably not have the urge to even think about if your car was sitting in your driveway. It is human nature. If you tell someone they can’t do something, they are going to want to do it.
Much of what we do on this site is turn what seems to be a flaw or a negative on its head and put it to use for us. What if we used our focus to expand the good in our lives. We are all living lives with incredible blessings we take for granted. I do NOT in any way advocate spending a great deal of time watching the news. It will just fill your daily life experience with lots of negativity. Whenever we are greeted with some not so pleasant news, there is a simple solution here. When you hear unfortune circumstances, after sending some love and light to the affected party, pause for a moment of gratitude that it was not your life that was affected.
We often focus on what needs ‘fixing’ or ‘improving’ in our lives. That is healthy and keeps us moving forward. That is why this whole industry is referred to as the ‘self-improvement’ industry. To do so, however, with a total lack of appreciation as to what is working and what we do have to be grateful for is detrimental. Here is your challenge for the remainder of the week – try to have one more grateful thought every day than you do negative thought. Sounds easy doesn’t it? When you start noticing how many negative thoughts you have in the running conversation with the person in the mirror, it may seem a bit more challenging. A simple way to do this, every time you catch yourself having a negative thought such as, “I hate having to wear glasses!” Catch yourself and follow that up with a positive thought such as “At least with them I can still see.” Then, pick a time to throw in a grateful thought for good measure, such as when you wake up for right before you go to sleep. Waking up to and falling asleep to thoughts and feelings of gratitude will be enough to positively impact your life. Matching every negative thought with a positive and grateful one will have you appreciating and enjoying your life more than ever before, regardless of your circumstances.
Last post we discussed addressing some issues we may not have known we had inherited from our family, neighborhood or other influences. It may make some people uncomfortable to think they are changing or God forbid, improving something about themselves. I get it. In today’s world it can be hard to admit we are anything less than perfect, even if it is through no fault of our own. Nobody likes to admit they have something to work on. Do you know what nearly everyone likes? Realizing they are getting better at something. It can be close to downright exciting to think you may be working on mastering something. Here is some great news, there are plenty of areas in which we can do this!
If we stop and think of the very important issues in life, how many were we taught or have we stopped to research? What do you think is important in your life? Where did you learn how to do it well? Did you ever stop to learn how to do it well? Relating to others is one of the most important skills a human can have. How well did you do in your ‘relating to others’ class in school? Do you recall when your parents sat you down and explained some of the many aspects that go into a healthy and sustainable relationship? Me neither. How about communication? The ability to both convey your thoughts, feelings and emotions to others as well as hear and understand theirs is skill that is as rare as it is valuable. How many years did you study that in school? If your education was anything like mine, that answer would be less than one.. What good is learning our alphabet and how to spell words if we are never taught how to effectively convey and use those very words.
It would seem a great deal of important subjects are left for us to learn by chance, or for far too many of us, by trail and error or not at all. The problem with this is that the stakes are far too high for most of us to learn that way. One mistake in how we relate to others can not only cost us a job, it can ruin relationships and cause emotional trauma to others, including those we truly care about. We occasionally get some instruction on interviewing to get the job we are seeking, although even that is limited. Did ever seem odd that nobody ever told us how to ask the right questions to discover if someone would be the right life partner for us? The same holds true with maintaining a healthy mental and emotional state. As far as I know, there exists very little, if any, instruction in public education on this subject. Is it any wonder, as the stresses in life continue to rise, we are seeing a host of people with mental health challenges. We were never even told how to deal with the stress that is all too prevalent in our lives.
We repeat here the axiom from the last post that fault does not equal responsibility. It is certainly not our fault we were never taught how to succeed in some of the most important areas in life. This is not a knock on our teachers and parents. They were never taught these things either. It is, however, our responsibility to educate ourselves on these very subjects. If a healthy relationship is important to us we need to learn what the components of one are and how to get them. If being able to communicate to others and have them understand you may be valuable, don’t you think it might be worth a few hours of research? How much effort is living a life with less stress and more joy worth to you? What other areas are important? Do you think being a great parent to your child is important? Do you think you may have received some bias or incomplete information on that subject growing up? Would you like to give your children the best possibility of success as they grow up?
When I share this information I hear a lot of groaning about having to dedicate additional time learning. “I spent enough time studying in school.” is a refrain I hear all too often. If that is your mindset you must then become comfortable at the thought you will not develop past the person you were when you left school. “I don’t have time.” is another answer I hear. To that I say this – it is not that you don’t have time, it is that it is not a priority for you. If I told you that you could have ten million dollars but I would need 2 days worth of your time starting tomorrow at 6am, where would you be at 5:59?
Dedicating time for study in these subjects is worth more than that ten million dollar price tag mentioned earlier, it is priceless. Being able to better understand, and even more importantly meet, the needs of your spouse? How much would you pay for that? Not feeling so stressed out at the end of every work week, or even every work day, how much would that be worth to you? You see, studying the main topics in life is like digging in a vain of solid gold. The knowledge you get can not only positively transform your life, it can do the same for lives of those you care about. Can you imagine sitting down to share topics like these with your children while at the same time listening to what concerns they may have? How valuable would that be? How about learning how to help people feel good about themselves? Would that be skill that might come in handy with the boss at the office or the one you love at home?
Here is the grand upside to all of this. The knowledge on all of these subjects is readily available and it is free. All it takes is some time and effort on our part. There are literally millions of books available in the public library system at no charge to us. There are forums, articles and experts available online with a click of a mouse. There are audiobooks we could listen to in the car, seminars we can attend, videos on YouTube we could watch while we are in line at the grocery store. There is so much information out there, in so many different forms that there is no excuse not to become an expert in any area of life that is important to us. Learning one new thing a month, which is painless to do, can give us 12 tips to a healthier lifestyle. Can you imagine incorporating 12 new things this year to improve your health? How much of an impact do you think that would have? What if we learned one new way to improve our intimate relationship a week? This is still insanely easy to do. Do you think adding 52 improvements to your relationship in a year would positively impact your love life?
There is no excuse not to begin to become an expert on the important areas of our life starting today! How important is the success of your children? How important is the happiness of the love of your life? How valuable would having extra energy and health be? Decide what is important to you and begin to study today! Your life is far too valuable not to.
One of the most interesting things about being a self-improvement writer is that your mind is always working on noticing ideas to write about. This happens subconsciously a great deal of the time. I will notice several people noticing the same issue in their lives and struggling to deal with it. Sometimes I will read something online or hear it on the news. The reason this works is scientific. It involves the use of a part of the brain called the reticular activating system or RAS. This is the part of your brain that decides what is important and what is not. I liken it to when you buy a new car or outfit and begin to see that very car or outfit everywhere. It would seem obvious that not everyone went out and bought the same thing you did, despite how charming and cool you are. It is just that our brain said “Hey we have one like that. It must be important.”
Why is it important to know that my brain is always on the lookout for great ideas and tools to share with all of you in this blog important? More to the point, how can knowing this benefit you? Glad you asked. Knowing about this phenomenon can allow you to put your subconscious mind to work for you! Once you realize the power of this, it becomes quite exciting. I go into further detail about how to do this in my latest book, Living the Dream, but will give you the abridged version here so you can begin to put it to use. If you would like to delve further into the subject, I highly suggest heading over to Amazon when you are done reading this blog and pick up a copy of that very book.
I have no idea what half of this means
Do not let this complex diagram intimidate you. I have no idea half of what they are showing us. It does show that the RAS is indeed a real part of the brain, but you do not need to know every nuance to understand how it works, or more importantly, how to put it to work for you. There are several ways to impress upon your mind what is important and what it should work on while you are busy doing more important things like binge-watching your favorite show on Netflix. The first is through repetition. An example I like to give is one that happened shortly after Margie and I started dating. I was at the grocery store and wanted to pick her up a little something to brighten her day. Here is the problem – I had no idea what the heck that would be. Although we had been shopping together several times at this point, I never paid attention to what made her smile. Every time we went shopping after that, I would tell myself “Remember to pay attention to what she likes.” It was through this I learned what kind of sugar she buys, what size of egg and things that just make her smile. I kept doing that so often that even now as my conscious brain is busy reminding her that the store does indeed close and we need to wrap up our shopping trip, my subconscious mind is still noting what brand of hot sauce she likes.
The second way to impress upon our subconscious mind what is important is by creating an emotional attachment to it. To me, being able to create a sense of happiness in the life of the woman I love creates such a sense of joy in my own life that my brain knows it is important. You can create an emotional attachment in your own mind by visualizing the end result you are pursuing. The more powerfully you do this, the more engaged the subconscious mind will become. One way to do this is by using as many senses as you can. Looking for ways to fund that next vacation? Picture the beach, but also smell the salt water, feel the ocean breeze, hear the seagulls and best of all, taste that daiquiri. Soon, you will find your mind catching ads for resorts out of the corner of your eye, or overhearing someone mention they are a travel agent.
Your subconscious mind is working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If we put it to work for us, it is like hiring a person to spend their entire day on the lookout for things that are important to us. I can tell you in the example I have used in my own life, it has paid off big time. Whether it is making up for the extremely rare times I do something upsetting in our relationship, or if it is just used to add more joy, I do so with the knowledge that my subconscious mind has gained for me. Hire your own brain today. It will be the best employee you ever have.