This was a term coined by Nobel Prize winning economist Daniel kahneman. His original definition was as follows “the sense that you understand somebody and can predict how they will behave” but it has sense been expanded to “A tendency for people to view their own beliefs as reality” Now I am not going to get into the debate on how this can be applied for political and religious purposes, that is not my field of expertise. What we can use if for is self-empowerment. Quite often we use this in a negative way. I know I am not good at speaking in front of groups so I will avoid anything that might cause me to do so. I confess to using it in regards to my dancing ability. I do not think I dance well at all so I seldom if ever do so. Yet imagine what this could do for us if we used it to empower us? What do I mean? Well it is kind of the old “fake it until you make it” principle. What if you just knew you were going to become a success with that new book you are writing. Ok, so that may be one I am currently doing. I had a more mystical friend of mine have the most uncanny luck. I asked her how she always managed to be so lucky. “In a past life a was a princess” she told me “So great things just naturally flow to me” now to be honest I am not sure what to make of past lives, but this young lady firmly believed she was destined to succeed. Therefore her subconscious mind caused her thoughts and actions to be focused on abundance. It can be used for more than financial gain. What if you operated on the theory “It is all going to work out in the end” that was your belief? Would a current challenge seem so overwhelming? How about “Every challenge is only making me stronger and preparing me for greater things ahead” whoa, that is a powerful one. What we believe goes a long way in determining what we experience. If you believe people are genuinely bad, every anger person will stick out more and effect you more than if you believed people were genuinely good. That is not to say that both people will experience some of both kinds of people it is just what we choose to focus on that becomes our reality. If that sounds rather esoteric it really isn’t. If you are running your car on fumes looking for a gas station you are a lot less likely to notice a coffee shop on the side of the road. So choose what you wish to focus on. pick things to be grateful for, things that show beauty. You will be surprised at all you missed. Who knows you may even see me dancing.
Tag: Social Sciences
ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING…
“People often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning”
-Mahatma Gandhi
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t you are right”
-Henry Ford
When it comes to anything the most important aspect in regards to whether you will succeed or fail is your attitude about the subject. These two quotes above from two great leaders demonstrate that. It is amazing to me to hear lots of people speak to defeat their own dreams. I wish I would’ve painted for a living, but now it’s too late. Some people when they hear I am writing a book tell me they were always going to write a book but never did. My answer is always the same “The get out there and do it NOW!” Yes, I do say the last word rather loudly, but that is because these people have been talking themselves out of their own dreams for years. Listen, I am not telling you to abandon your job and family and head off to the beach to surf your life away, but if you have a dream start on it. If your dream is to be an artist explore that talent. Start drawing, painting, sculpting or writing before work, after work whenever you can find time. Trust me in the beginning it is hard, but once that part of you comes alive again energy comes out of nowhere, passion explodes. You are eager to take an hour less sleep because you are doing something for your soul, that could very well end up helping your pocketbook. here is some bad news, your first attempts, they just might suck. Don’t believe me? Go back and read the first couple posts of mine here. I am not saying that to put myself down, just to show you that you have been denying part of yourself for years and it takes a while to develop a passion. Even if your first attempts leave you saying you should be satisfied with just doing that current job you despise, keep on swinging. The world is always grateful to someone living their passion. It could be an engineer designing safer roads or cars, a composer bringing beautiful music for all of us to share. I personally am overwhelmed and it is the best part of my day when I can hear how much this blog has helped even one person in the smallest of ways. Why? Because that is my dream, that is my passion. To help others live a life of passion and to discover the true beauty inside them. Now when you are beginning and you are putting out a less than polished product, you run into people I have mentioned before, Dream killers. Why on earth people will rain on other people’s parades and put down their dreams I do not understand. If I could count how many people have cautioned me and discouraged me about writing my book I would reach a pretty high number indeed. They may tell you they are just trying to not let you get your ‘hopes up’ I tell you get your hopes up! When you fall down, keep them up! In fact, when you are down quite often hope and faith are the only friends you may have. So make your hopes and dreams and faith strong. Feed them daily. Chase your dreams this weekend! Just begin to start chasing that passion! I’ll see you all in the winners circle!
WE ALL NEED HELP DREAMING
A lot of the amazing ideas that show up on these pages come from the beautiful people in my life. Every now and again I am fortunate enough to meet a person who seems to be a fountain of inspiration and great ideas. This is one of those ideas, from one of those people. My new and amazing friend Cheryl. Now thanks to her we are all going to have a little homework this weekend. Before you begin cursing her out or feeling dread let me assure you this is a super fun ‘assignment’ you will enjoy doing and will add a lot of joy to your life. Have you ever noticed how excited young children seem to be about life? They continuously rattle off all the dreams and things they will accomplish when they grow up. Astronaut, world traveler, lion tamer and the list goes on. All the up to our teenage years we continue to dream. Then something seems to happen in our mid to late twenties, we begin to give up on our dreams one by one. They suffer from neglect and perish. Shortly there after so does our life, at least from a passionate standpoint. So here is your goal for this weekend, or if you are reading this after it has been published, for the next couple days. Take a momentary pause, make yourself a nice cup of coffee, or if you are Cheryl tea. Now sit down and begin a list of everything you would really like to do in your life. Maybe you would like to sail somewhere? Maybe you would learn how to sail? Learn to play an instrument? Travel to Fiji? By the way, if yours is the last one let me know maybe we can get a group discount. The point is here not to censor yourself. Write down whatever comes to mind no matter how far-fetched it may seem. leave at least one line between each item. When you have gotten a pretty decent list started go back at think about why you would like to do each item. Would you like to learn to sail because you love the feeling of the open water? Maybe you just like the feeling of controlling your own direction? The why here is really important, it gives the goal meaning. Now once you have completed your list keep it somewhere you will see it often. Bathroom mirror, liquor cabinet, wherever you go often. Read it often eventually you may find yourself faced with opportunities to do some of these things. It will reignite the fire and passion you had for life as a young child. Life will become an adventure again instead of just a job. I would love to describe other amazing things that will transpire, but writing this has fired me up enough to get started on my own list right now!
YOU ARE ALREADY A CHAMPION
If you are reading this blog when it is first published, chances are it is Monday. The day most of us start the weekly struggle. Sometimes by the end of the day we feel defeated. I know there are days when working with the public, or even just our bosses can make us feel like we took a real beating. You can feel worthless, insignificant, and lonely. At times like these it is important to remember you have already won! What on earth am I talking about? Have I lost my mind so early in the week? We will answer the first question as the second one is still open for debate. Have you ever stopped and thought about all that had to happen just for you to be here? Out of all the millions of sperm cells fighting to give you those chromosomes, and finding that one egg to pair with. Then all the medical challenges faced for you to develop healthy and whole. Were you born with a physical or other medical challenge? Pat yourself on the back even more. You see all of us have survived to see this day. You have made it to read this. We have made it through childhood, through sicknesses, through various dangers on the street. Some of us have made it through wars, or are police making it through dangers every day. Each day we come home to fall asleep and wake to start again we have conquered another day. Sure we may not have had our bosses reports done on time, we may have been late to work, not been the perfect parent or spouse, but we made it. We are undefeated! Each and every day things challenge us. From sickness, financial strain and even loved ones passing away. Each day we make it through we should tell ourselves how proud we are. For countless others who didn’t, we did. We made it through. So when you feel like you may have failed in some capacity, remember even before we tried we were already champions!
What language do you speak?
The voice in my head asked me a very interesting question the other day. Which is amazing because usually it is mentioning something about rum or pizza. Terrible vices aside, the question was “How many different languages are there in the world?”. To skip you from having to leave this site and head to Google, the answer, though debated is in the neighborhood of 6500. Why on earth is this relevant, and what does it have to do with living an amazing life? That is another great question and one that leads us to my next point. In the past how many things have we tried learning that just never ‘clicked’? I know I have quite a few. English language for one, which is ironic considering my book is almost complete. Maybe playing a certain musical instrument? Cooking a certain dish? Math? Science? History? Some of us just find a way to get through the subject and hope we never have a call to use it later in life. Imagine if we had applied this same logic when we were learning to walk, or to talk? There are some people I may speculate did give up, but that is a topic for another day. Truth is we just kept at it, often approaching the subject from every different angle. I began to ponder how this related to learning how to transform your life. Now before you think I am going to tell you to read a book on motivation written in Zulu when you live in Peru let us slow down for a minute. Think of how many books you have seen or heard of on how to improve your life? How many different life coaches are out there? We both know there are a lot in both categories. Why? If there is a magical secret do we need both “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” as well as “Think and Grow Rich”? If one person could teach us how to succeed in life to we need both the late Zig Ziglar as well as Tony Robbins? The answer in short is ‘yes’. To explain why, let me ask you another question. Do they all agree? To they all have the same plan and state it the same way? You know the answer is no. So who is right? They all are. Then again, they all are wrong too. Before you think I started listening to the rum voice in my head let me explain. We all are unique creatures. We all have had unique experiences. That is why it is important to expose ourselves to as many different voices as we can. I can think of no better field where this is so evident than self-improvement. Haven’t you ever been having a conversation with a group of people and had to ask someone “What are they trying to say?” When your friend explains it, suddenly you discover that person was speaking a language you know and they are not crazy. Ok, at least it should work that way most of the time. The difference here is just the words being used. So remember to do yourself the service of exploring as many paths to motivation as you can and go with the one, or ones, that work for you. I hope I will be one of them, but if not that is ok too. Just search and discover the voice that speaks to you!
DRIVE
“If you take responsibility for yourself you will develop a hunger to accomplish your dreams”
-Les Brown
This may be one quick way to motivate yourself into action. If we admit our current situation is of our doing we often leave ourselves with two questions. If we are dissatisfied the question is “what are we going to do about it”. If we are satisfied the question becomes “Now what?”. Either way you can see accountability is a great beginning to a better life.
VISION BOARDS
One of the main complaints I hear when discussing how to make the lives of those around us, not to mention our own, more positive and rewarding is the effort it takes. After all, in this age of job uncertainty and just trying to ‘make ends meet’ who has the extra time to worry about happiness. My first response is usually to point out that focusing on surviving will keep you in a constant state of just barely getting by. After all it has been proven what we focus on is what we attract, so why not focus on your dreams? I do not wish to discount this concern though. During the holidays especially it can seem we have 25 hours worth of things scheduled in a day. So I am always on the lookout for ways to make achieving a positive life easier and almost automatic. Here is something even better, this one can actually be fun! It’s something you can do with your spouse or even with the kids! Continue reading “VISION BOARDS”
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 