Do You Believe Persistence Creates Success?

For centuries, people have chanted that the most persistent person wins the prize. In this article, I am going to challenge that belief. I assert that it is not persistence that makes the difference. It is the stripping away of beliefs that allows an individual to keep going. While I understand that people in the stands watching a sporting event have opinions about successful athletes. On the field, there is something happening that the fans cannot see. The same applies when people view what they call persistence.

To start, the human brain stores everything it hears, smells and sees in neuropaths. Those neuropaths possess your attitudes and belief systems. When you were born, you were told you could be anything you wanted. However, when you said you wanted to be CEO of a Fortune 500, you may have been told about being realistic. If you were black or Hispanic, you may have been warned that being CEO of a Fortune 500 is so rare for blacks and Hispanics that it's best to focus on being a doctor or lawyer. Many women may have been told the same. In addition, you were told that women and minorities have to work twice as hard as white males, especially if those males came from affluent families.

This kind of conversation creates cognitive dissonance. That refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. This produces a feeling of discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance. In other words, being told you can be anything you want, but CEO is unrealistic, creates internal conflict and tension. One path is to stay in the conflict and pursue your dreams. The other is to avoid the conflict and take your parents' advice.

While the cognitive dissonance may have initially started with your parent(s), you inherit the same conflicting thoughts your parents have. Since you trust your parents, you trust they know what they are talking about, even if you believe you can be the exception. (Depending on socioeconomic class, being a doctor or lawyer may appear to be unrealistic. Therefore, the child is told to focus on getting a lower paying job with benefits, for example. By the way, many children are discouraged when they want to be professional athletes.)

To go against your parents is to simultaneously go against conversations stored in your neuropaths. As you can see, this creates a quandary for the individual. As a result, a woman or minority could sabotage a great career because they spent time looking for evidence to prove they can't be CEO of a Fortune 500. They would seek evidence they have to work twice as hard. Even those two beliefs work against one another. Why?

While the job of CEO is extremely demanding, he or she must be able to delegate. If a woman or minority believes working twice as hard is what got them to the position of CEO, they may believe that is what they have to do to remain in that position. Eventually that person will become overwhelmed because they did not delegate effectively. An overwhelmed CEO could result in a poor performing company and eventually lose their job. There is a saying that the best CEOs work on their companies, not in them.

Furthermore, you may be so exhausted from working twice as hard that you may become disheartened to pursue a higher level of management. So working twice as hard can be a double-edged sword.

What does this have to do with persistence? If a woman or minority was told that being a CEO was unrealistic, they will have mental barriers that stop them from pursuing CEO. While those conversations may be stored in your brain, upon introspection, you will see those thoughts and beliefs are not your own. They are the beliefs of your parents, teachers, media, etc. Therefore, you are not obligated to adhere to them. As you strip away the inherited beliefs of others, you can make a clear path for new thoughts and beliefs. This time they will be the thoughts you choose for your life.

On the other hand, if you never inherited conflicting beliefs, you would have a clear mindset. That mindset would allow you to move through each phase of success in your life with power and alacrity. To the observer, you would look persistent. Contrary to the observer, you would have the advantages of seeing no barriers. The same possibility occurs for the person who strips away inherited barriers. With built in barriers, you spend time being in conflict with them or stripping them away. If you don't know how to strip them away, you are stuck. Without the barriers, you have freedom and open fields to do what ever you want.

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Shattered Assumptions - A Growth Period That Teaches Us to Be More Loving

At the very essence of our human existence is a belief system that serves as a catalyst for the actions which form our life. These beliefs and assumptions mold our interactions with friends, coworkers, lovers, family members, etc.

We assume certain facts will always remain true. Our dear friends will always "have our back"; we will always have the love and respect of family members; we will function in life without being a victim or a crime, contracting a serious illness or needing to depend on substances to get through the day.

We also assume the people close to us will never disappoint, embarrass or humiliate us and we will never give them cause to forsake the team - desert us.

Because life is full of abrupt twists and turns, these assumptions, which form our belief systems, are often shattered. This causes intense emotional pain that consumes every atom and molecule in our body leaving us writhing in despair, with nowhere to turn for comfort. We then start to question our very existence. Every action and decision in our past is suspect. The value of our accomplishments is diminished while our pain intensifies our failures. Finally, in agony, we cry out "If there is a God, why have You forsaken me?" It is at this point, the healing process can begin.

True, permanent healing is not easy, but it is necessary if we are to experience the wonders of the universe. Rest assured, after this crisis has been dealt with and you have healed, there will be other turning points and all of them will seem to rock the calm peace of your soul.

These growth periods are always meant to teach us to be more loving, to "love the harshest of enemies and the vilest of demons." They are there to teach us to free ourselves from earthly appearances, human conditions, and graven images and to focus solely on the pure essence of life - love.

Anyone who has spent their days in the flow of life knows to live your faith and convictions in the more difficult thing to do. One of my fellow truth students says we must keep the truths principles as goals, striving daily to embrace them totally, while remembering not to be harsh with ourselves when we have missed the mark. Our "willingness" to become more like the Father is the only real requirement.

A course in Miracle emphasizes that the ego's constant battle is to convince us we are separate from the power that created us. It is this belief in being separate that causes us to experience shattered assumptions. By focusing on our oneness with Spirit, using "righteous judgment," a deeper awareness of the Divine will begin to unfold. At this point, when Spirit holds our hands and whispers to us, we will be able to hear "ancient secrets" and witness "prophesies foretold," for Spirit is our foxhole buddy. Infinite Kindness will never fail us our forsake us. No night is too dark or any problem too big for Infinite Kindness to solve. The willingness to start depending on Spirit is paramount to our healing. The Course of Miracles teaches that this shift in consciousness is the clearest path to being whole.

In my own life, the Divine Creator has blessed me with foxhole buddies wrapped in flesh. I am convinced Spirit has reincarnated Itself through these people to ensure me that the paths I travel, in my feeble effort to reconnect with my Creator, are filled with love, support, and comfort. I do love them and will forever be grateful for them.

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How To Choose Happiness No Matter What

Have you ever dwelled on unresolved conflicts for months, if not years, where all you can think about are the negative side of things?

Are you the kind of person who always sees a glass half empty instead of a glass half full?

Do you have a tendency to be overprotective, over-cautious, overstressed by little minutiae because you somehow find a way to interpret them as bad dangerous things?

If you are naturally inclined to be pessimistic about life, the chances are that you aren't happy most of the time. As sarcastic as it sounds, you are very good at finding reasons (or excuses) to be upset about everything that happens to you and this is negatively affecting your entire well-being.

Luckily, things don't have to be this way. You have a choice. You have latent personal power to change that.

While some people are hardwired to find the negatives in almost everything, others are the exact opposite who are able to find the good in everything.

If you tend to dwell on the negative, here's the big thing you can do now in order to change your perspective for the better.

It's called choosing happiness.

It sounds pretty simple although it's a difficult transformational process for some fellows.

The first thing you need to do is to remember what happens to you is not always within your control, but how you react to it is.

Once you realize this, you are immediately more powerful because you are now choosing how circumstances can affect you. You now understand that no one can make you sad, angry or depressed because your happiness does not depend on anyone or anything.

Your happiness depends on you.

This attitude can be a challenge for some, especially those who have years of ingrained habits, thinking patterns, and belief systems that shaped their worldview into a negativity-biased reality.

However, the idea of reframing is to push out the negative thoughts and try to see things with a different perspective.

For example, if your significant other recently left you, the negative reaction for most is to dwell on what you did wrong and to feel sorry for yourself. To reframe this thought, you must consider the other people you have in your life who still love you.

It is okay to note the mistakes you may have made in the past relationships, but recognize that most of us made mistakes as well. And what's more important right now is to stop living in fear, stop arguing over unimportant issues, stop figuring who's right and who's wrong, but start loving opening and generously while you still can.

Also, you must define what optimism means to you personally. Even the same words can sometime mean different things to different people.

Generally, optimistic people tend to believe that everything happens for a reason, but no matter what happens, everything will work out how it is supposed to and we will be fine.

While bad things are inevitably going to happen, it is important to learn from them and move on rather than dwell on them, letting the past things sucking your energy, time and spirit away.

If you're willing to stop and take some time to reframe situations in a new, fresh and positive way, you will be a conscious human being who can design a happier, more successful, more fulfilling life.

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Mastering Manifestation

I definitely believe what we give out we get back. If we give out a positive, happy vibe, we will get more back to feel positive and happy about in our lives. If we give out a stressed out overwhelmed energy, we will get more back to feel stressed out and overwhelmed about. From a law of attraction / vibration perspective - we put out an energy (positive or negative), and then we therefore receive more opportunities that are either positive or negative (depending on what we put out). I have found that with the law of attraction, it's not so much that we attract more positive or negative circumstances / opportunities, etc., it's that we see more positive or negative circumstances / opportunities, etc. What we want is always there for us; we just don't always see it because we're operating at a lower more negative - as some say - vibration. I prefer heavier. Picture a denser, thicker energy, as opposed to a lighter energy. Negative thoughts carry a heavy energy.

So what does this mean for business - well say you have a financial goal you want to hit over the next 6-months. The way to make it happen is already there for you and your vibration needs to match each next step so that you can see it. Feelings of unworthiness or not good enough will block you from seeing it. It's literally like turning on a light switch where you can suddenly see a world full of opportunities that are fun and exciting! What's interesting is a lot of my clients end up seeing opportunities to take them to the next level that were literally right there the entire time, but they didn't feel good enough to notice them. It's such a great shift to witness.

I want to take this concept a step further though...

A lot of people get hung up on what they're creating and why. So for example, if something someone perceives as "bad" happening in their lives, they start to judge themselves and wonder why they're creating it. Why is that showing-up? This is for the people who recognize they are responsible for everything showing up in their lives - good or bad - and who are working on taking control of their emotions and what they are in fact creating so that they can create a life they love. The revelation though, is that they're not creating anything good or bad. It just is. It's us that assign a positive or negative value on things that happen. We're taught through family, cultural and societal belief systems on what is right and wrong. We have assigned the value and created the rules. Our belief systems then dictate our perception. Our perception creates our thoughts and therefore our feelings about people / circumstances / events.

So what we're really projecting and getting back is the thought about something, not the actual circumstance. Stuff is going to happen in life and business. It just will. So the whole "mastering of the law of attraction" thing, is not about creating the "perfectly positive" life. Whatever that is anyway. It's about changing how we think and therefore feel about these situations. If we're feeling negative, the most "positive" event could occur and we would find everything wrong with it. On the flip side, if we're feeling positive, we can see the blessings and have gratitude instead for the exact same event. The event didn't change, we did. So it's really not about what we're creating, it's about how we're seeing it.

We have a choice with everything that shows-up - we can react or respond, with sometimes the best response being no response at all (which involves being secure and confident with who we are). The more we "let go" of our attachment (rules and expectations), to these events / people / circumstances; the more we can neutralize our emotion. We therefore give out peace, and we see more and more peace around us regardless of what is happening in our environments. Even on the shittiest of days.

The truth being we can either respond with love and create feelings of expansion, or we can project fear and shrink into littleness. This in turn will dictate if we see more love or more fear in our lives.

If we truly believe we are bigger then our circumstances, that there's more to this world beyond what we can see, and that we truly are unlimited eternal beings, we can let go a heck of a lot easier and realize most of this stuff doesn't matter at the end of the day

Namaste xo

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Joy Is the Fuel of Life

Did you know that the feeling of joy produces hormones in your body that keep your body healthy? It's true. Your body is a factory and depending on how you feel hormones are released to flood your body making you feel good or bad. It works both ways. When we laugh for example, the brain releases endorphins that relieve physical pain. Laughter also reduces stress hormones such as cortisol and epinephrine. When we are angry for example the body releases stress hormones such as cortisol and noradrenaline and our blood pressure increases. Did you know that regular episodes of anger can eventually make you ill? It all depends on how you feel and your feelings depend on how you think. And here's where YOU come in to take charge! Be the Master of your thoughts, so you can be in control of your emotions, so that you can make the right decisions in your life without being blinded by whimsical emotions that make no sense that take you on a roller coaster of self destruction.

Problems are a part of our life, we can't do much about that so we have to accept that. What we can do, however, is to take charge of our lives in a way to minimise our problems, at least to be rid of the many problems that we ourselves mostly instigate due to our own mmisperceptions, misconceptions, outdated belief systems, our behaviour and our actions.

Decide right here and now to be the Master of your life and your own destiny. Claim back your power to be in charge of your health because there is nothing more important than your health. Without it you cannot live your life a happy life. Without good health you are doomed to an endless life of suffering. So it makes sense that your number one priority should be your health. Do whatever it takes to maintain yourself healthy and in good spirits, i.e. not only physically but emotionally and mentally as well. This way you can enjoy your own life and you can spread joy to all your loved ones around you within your family, your circle of friends and to all those who are connected with you personally and professionally.

Whatever age you are it's never too late to start to live a healthy life by developing good habits to replace your bad habits. Nutrition and exercise is a good place to start. Eat fresh foods, veggies and fruits as much as you can. Reduce consumption of heavy foods, alcohol and drug consumption that rob you of your intelligence and self control. Eliminate smoking. Your cells will thank you. Do the same for your emotional and mental wellness too by reading books or listening to self- development audios, CDs, webinars, or watch movies that give you food for thought and food for your soul. Do things that make you feel good. Surround yourself with people who make you feel good and avoid those who make you feel bad about yourself. There is so much that you can do to help yourself so you can maintain good health. Don't hesitate to find yourself a coach a mentor to help you if you need it. Like I said it is never too late, no matter what age you are, no matter where you're at right now, you can turn the page, turn your life around to choose the path to good health and to a happy life.

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