Let Freedom Ring - With Freedom Comes the Power to Choose Love or Hate

I am fixated with freedom, but with freedom comes the power to choose. The freedom to choose love or hate; move forward or stay stagnant; to be victorious or be a victim; to laugh or cry; to see good in every situation or not. You choose. Without the power to choose, we are not free; the power to choose requires responsibility. Choice is like breathing; you cannot avoid it.

When everything is working in our lives, we proudly take the credit. But when the events in our lives are forcing us out of our comfort zone into a growth zone, we blame everyone and everything surrounding us. We are quick to blame that "big bad Goliath" for causing our problems. Often in the midst of trouble, we see our inner David as being small and unprepared for such a great challenge. We tell ourselves that after all 1 Samuel 17 really does not have anything to do with us. So exercising our power to choose, we choose fear. When we do this we have actually underestimated the strength of our inner David.

When life forces us out of our comfort zone, we are forced to come face to face with all that needs to be healed in our own lives. The murkiness that we have covered up for such a long time begins to ooze into our world requiring us to finally conquer it before we can move toward our goals.

Coming face to face with what we fear is hard work but it is necessary if we are going to fulfill our destiny. Where to start is what causes the most angst. So I advise starting where you are. Using the power of your inner David is a great beginning.

First, make the decision to do whatever it takes to conquer your fear. Without out a decision to move forward, no matter what, you will never meet your success.

Then create a plan for your new life. How many hours, days will you work? How will you spend your evenings and weekdays? What are your new friends like? Where will you vacation? If these images are difficult for you to maintain, then create a Vision Board, but remember Vision Boards are no substitution for taking action. Vision Boards are useful for helping to organize your thoughts and ideas.

Next, identify all the things you have for which to be grateful. When you are in the midst of a challenge, we complain about what is wrong with our life. It is doing this time of crisis that we must remember just how many good things nestled in our life.

Forgiveness is one of the most precious gifts we can give ourselves. Before we can move forward negative emotions must be resolved. Come to terms with any anger you feel about any event, circumstance or person. This is a radical step, but choosing to find the good which is the lesson buried in the midst of your anger will reveal what story to which you are tied. Once identified, you can take the steps to unbind yourself from the worn-out story.

Now move your vision into action. Make a list of actions that must be taken. You must take 3 to 5 actions a day to achieve your goals.

Now untie yourself from anything holding you back. Go forth and create.

Remember, life is too short to drink cheap champagne. Live the life you have imagined. Dream Big!

http://ezinearticles.com/?Let-Freedom-Ring---With-Freedom-Comes-the-Power-to-Choose-Love-or-Hate&id=9744552

Why Hope Will Get You Through Anything

Life is full of twists and turns, it's easy to become despondent.

Obstacles and adversities show up unexpectedly and we find ourselves out of our comfort zone.

People say life is unfair?

I presume they're referring to life being unfavourable when things don't go as planned.

Surely, we're intelligent enough to know, we don't always get what we want. Sorry to rain on your parade.

Regardless, one thing that's helped me remain optimistic, is that not everything will go as planned and that's okay. In fact, not getting what I want is often a good thing, since there's often something greater on the horizon to fill its place.

We must accept life will be full of: obstacles, road blocks, negative emotions and circumstances that will derail our best laid plans. Knowing this should remove the burden, life is not pure sailing, but an adventure full of valleys and victories.

If you fear, "what could go wrong next," you place an unnecessary burden on your shoulders while dreading the worst.

If you adopt a hopeful and optimistic heart, you can breathe easier and expect a more pleasant future.

Hope Has What It Takes

Hope is more valuable than we give it credit for. It's a soft burning flame, unable to be extinguished and capable of enduring any conditions.

Hope has what it takes to get you through anything.

"People usually consider hope among the most wondrous of gifts: it keeps us going when we want to quit and makes possible victories that seem unattainable," affirms author Dr. Alex Lickerman in The Undefeated Mind: On the Science of Constructing an Indestructible Self.

Hope is the belief things will work, especially when it seems otherwise. It helps you stay calm and peaceful when something less than desirable emerges.

Hope believes you will get through it.

Hope remembers the times you made it through.

Hope teams with faith and believes in the impossible.

Emotional Upheaval

When times are tough, our emotions are intensified and not symbolic of who we are.

When the boss tells you the company is downsizing and your position is terminated, when your son gets expelled from school, your partner decides they don't know if they want to spend the rest of their life with you, the doctor gives you an adverse health report or your dog's gone missing, then your emotions are in for a roller-coaster ride.

But with hope, your thoughts gravitate toward optimism.

We cannot expect life to be smooth sailing. Unexpected conditions arise, not to overwhelm us but to test our inner resolve and awaken us to our true power.

Our emotional response in such times, is not indicative of our true self. That's because we respond to our external environment instead of staying composed.

Lessons To Be Learned

Sometimes when a situation is bleak, you're invited to master a lesson greater than you expect. This is when hope will get you through. If you lose your job, there might be a series of experiences during your transition of looking for another job.

You may realise you loathed your previous job and are now more determined to find a career path that makes you happy. Maybe you realise, you want to start your own business instead of working for someone. Consider this something to learn from instead of dwelling on the unfortunate setbacks.

Assuredly, there's a lesson and inner growth contained within your circumstances, even if you can't see it yet.

I appreciate the advice from author Jan Frazier in The Freedom of Being: At Ease with What Is, "The reality is that in the interval between the start of hope and when the outcome occurs, you don't know what's going to happen. The ego-mind dislikes not knowing. Feeling hope is a way of avoiding the discomfort of uncertainty."

Visualise A Positive Future

During hard times, do your best to envision a positive future. In fact, what you dwell upon is what you likely will get. Call it positive thinking, though what you hold in your mind is what you will receive.

We're the product of our emotions, given that we feel our way through life. If your emotions are fixed on negative aspects, you're likely to attract those situations because of your predominant reactions.

The universe reflects what you put out into the ether.

As an example, if I entertain negative thoughts related to not having enough money to pay my bills, I'll see evidence of this echoed in reality. I might notice a TV commercial discussing debt prevention or perhaps someone mentions their financial difficulties. If I'm aware, I recognise the warning signs that my thoughts are out of alignment. If I persist with these thoughts, it's likely to materialise because I've willed it into existence, whether I like it or not.

"Scientists have repeatedly demonstrated that changing our perspective and focusing on aspects of the situation that are in our control can have a hugely beneficial impact on our hope, motivation, and self-esteem," states author Guy Winch in Emotional First Aid: Practical Strategies for Treating Failure, Rejection, Guilt, and Other Everyday Psychological Injuries.

How do you see your future developing?

Close your eyes for a moment and visualise an optimistic path.

It requires work and discipline to create an intentional future and it can't be achieved overnight. This is because you're likely to slip into your old ways if you're not mindful of your thoughts.

Unattached To Outcomes

The world is full of people who have overcome incredible hurdles and failures to become successful and happy. They're unattached to outcomes because they appreciate that not everything goes as planned. When one door closes, another opens at the right time, as long as their thoughts are in alignment.

Allow life to weave her mysterious ways by being detaching from outcomes. What appears detrimental at first may simply be laying the groundwork for something greater late on.

Commit to a life of optimism, irrespective of the circumstances and raise the beacon of hope when times are tough. You can become confident through your willingness to see life from a different viewpoint.

The next time something doesn't go as planned, draw on hope and declare, "It'll be alright, I trust for the best in this situation" and chances are it will turn out as you intend.

Hope will get you through anything, but first you must create the circumstances for it to flourish, before it sets your world alight.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Why-Hope-Will-Get-You-Through-Anything&id=9521718

Why You Should Learn to Fail Successfully

How to Fail Successfully

There are 7 Reasons Failure Can Boost You to Success. The key phrase is reason. There isn't anyone who understands failure like me. We can look at the famous failures in the world and use their models for success through failure to guide our management style, our home life, our business life, friendships and our personal and professional lives.

Forrest for the Trees

One doesn't have to look far to find successful failures. Not everyone we recognize as successful arrived there at the end of a well-planned journey. More often than not, the most famous examples of success faced huge obstacles and roadblocks that was the catalyst for their recognized successes. As is demonstrated in every form of academia, the smartest people are not often the most successful people. A degree does not guarantee success. For example, I made a fortune long before I ever had a degree.

Some of the most well-known people in the world were also some of the least-well known for their failures;

Henry Ford: The road to success for the automobile guru failed into bankruptcy five times in other businesses before he founded the successful Ford Motor Company.

Walt Disney: Today, Walt Disney is the icon for family and fun in movies, theme parks and merchandising. However, he was a complete failure as a newspaper editor and fired because he, "lacked imagination"! Go figure...

Abe Lincoln: Abe failed miserably at politics and his military career. He went to war a captain and returned a private only to become president. He also failed in business seven times to include bankruptcy and social embarrassment. Yet he is known as one of this country's greatest leaders.

Bill Gates: A college drop-out, Gates failed at data businesses again and again until he founded Microsoft... and the rest is history. One of the world's richest men, Bill Gates embodies all that we consider as success... but born from failure.

Albert Einstein: The term genius is synonymous with the name Einstein. Yet Albert Einstein didn't speak until he was four and could not read until he was eleven! He was expelled from school, shunned and ignored as well as considered an abject academic and social failure, handicapped and anti-social among his peers and educators. Yet he was later awarded the Nobel prize for physics and recognized as the father of modern physics. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

... and more.

The Key to Failure

The key to our retort to failure is the key to our success. Failure has benefits if we consider them an ally instead of an adversary;

1. Failure gives opportunity to learn.

The opportunity to learn is a valuable teacher when we seek to blame others for our failures. Originality is frequently born from a lack of experience.

2. Failure demands accountability.

The failure to change can be a fatal flaw in our perception of the need to learn from and move forward. Making mistakes means you are doing something. Not making mistakes translates to a reluctance to change based on what we learned from our failures.

3. Failure is a reason to explore.

The highest prize for failure is taking a grasp on the reason we fail and seeking another avenue to enhance our success. To investigate the motive is to explore the weakness and seek to overcome it.

4. Great Success is born from great fear.

Success comes just beyond your comfort zone. Fear usually propels one to success just after you have experienced what seems to be insurmountable fear. Rejection, disappointment, setback, defeat, and soul-crushing denial are the murderers of success.

5. Mindset sets the stage for success.

There is no greater tool in the arsenal of success-building than mindset. After all, who can control one's success better than you? A healthy mind can deliver the crushing blow to defeat again and again. The roots of the greatest success develop from the seeds of overcoming adversity and defeat.

6. Failure demands change.

Once was said that, "our failure to learn from our defeat will demand that we repeat our future poor performance." Change is essential to demonstrate that we have learned from our mistakes so as to not repeat them. The slightest delay in change will cement our feet to collapse and guarantee our failure.

7. Failure is reason for improvement.

Improvement is always the intuitive result of innovation when directed by the experience of failure. No greater examples of innovation are aerospace travel and aviation where the experience of failure has written the rule book of future success.

The sweetest victory are the spoils of the tough battles. With this, I say that we need to embrace failure with the same enthusiasm as we embrace success... and then model our efforts thus so.

By Dr. Mark Zupo


http://ezinearticles.com/?Why-You-Should-Learn-to-Fail-Successfully&id=9755340

The World Can Be Changed With a Little Inspiration

Humans are naturally flawed; it is what separates us from God. We face numerous difficulties in our daily lives and find it tough to rise from our dire situations to achieve greatness. After a point we become complacent in our lives and work hard to just maintain it. We would only need a small push to do better than we think we can because we have the potential but we only need to step out of our comfort zone for it. So how do we step out?

When someone achieves something seemingly impossible it makes us believe, even if only for a brief moment that we can do something similar. After all, they are as human as us. It is true that their situation and background must be very different from yours but that in no way means that you can't do your best too.

Let me share a story with you, one that always inspires me to keep pushing further.

An 18-year-old boy was diagnosed with a cancer of the bone in his right leg. After many months of treatment and operations, his leg had to be amputated to save his life. He could have chosen to lie in bed or sit on a wheelchair all his life. He could have learned some small trade and lived an insignificant life because it was justified by his cancer. He could have let the cancer beat him even after the doctors extracted it all from his body. But he didn't. He didn't just sit down and complain about life or cry to God or tried doing little things in life to just exist. He trained 14 months on a new leg. He got up every day and went for walks so his body could be trained into believing that nothing had changed too much. And this was only possible because he made a decision and had the determination to stick with it. His next step was to run from east to west, across the country of Canada to make people aware about cancer and do something about it. He wanted to save lives. And it is important that we notice how his wish wasn't dependent on anyone else fulfilling it for him, he didn't ask anyone to run in his name but he got up and did it himself. On April 12, 1980 he started his 'marathon of hope' as people called it, from the easternmost point of Canada. He woke up at 4am and ran 26 miles every day, which is the length of an average marathon. It didn't matter if it rained or snowed, if the sun was shining on his head, he kept running. On his journey across the country he inspired millions. And he does so even today. His name is Terry Fox.

So if an 18-year-old boy can achieve something so difficult for him under the situation he was put; if he can stay as hopeful and determined as he did, so can we. Terry Fox has been and will continue to be an inspiration for everyone across the globe because we can all achieve the impossible, we only need to inspire and be inspired every now and then.

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-World-Can-Be-Changed-With-a-Little-Inspiration&id=9455364

I Mean What I Do - Understanding Mixed Signals

We can get so confused in relationships that we can't really identify what is happening when we are involved with someone whose words are completely opposed to their actions. When we don't understand what is true we leave the door open to voluntarily wearing a leash that our partner can tug at will and drag us right back into their confusion. We have effectively been moved out of our comfort zone and tethered to their whims while we try to determine what they really mean.

When people don't have the courage to speak the truth they frequently conjure up stories that will allow them to continue forward with their plans while telling their partner, 'This is not what I want.' A little more disturbing are those who are clearly leaving but don't want to untie the knot lest they need you for something they know you can or will do... they plan to use you at some point in the future. Comforting isn't it?

There is a system to falling for and committing to another person. It begins with the gut feeling (that we may have ignored, hence the confusion) where the most accurate direction is found. This is followed by transmitting the instinct to our brain to analyze and find the facts. Once a determination is made it is transmitted to our heart, our emotional brain, where we finally make the emotional commitment. When you are looking for truth you have to reverse the process. You disconnect the emotional center and allow the analytical brain to examine facts; the facts will transmit to our instinct, what we feel at 'gut' level, and there before us is the glaring truth.

If you are still uncertain, there are some things you can count on.

1. When your partner tells you they are moving out to 'get some space to think' but this isn't what they want... they are leaving. Agreeing to wait for them to figure things out means you just allowed them to collar and leash you for future use. Understand that each time it appears you may be going on with your life you will feel a familiar tug on the leash and a reminder of how much they still care and don't want this. If your name is not Rover or some such typical pet name, refuse to respond to the tug.

2. When someone tells you they love you but can't be with you, understand that means they don't plan to be with you; you have been notified.

3. When someone betrays you and then tells you they were confused and didn't really mean to, accept that they made several crystal clear decisions on the way. They are not confused; they don't have the courage to speak the truth. There are many opportunities to reverse betrayal before it actually occurs. When it does, every stop sign has been ignored, intentionally. A choice was made that did not include you or your feelings. If you like the results apply more of the same; if not, execute a change.

4. When your partner engages in the silent treatment, withholds intimacy, screams in rage or gives you an ultimatum to keep them from leaving (assuming your behavior is not out of control or harmful) the message is clear; 'My wants, desires or feelings are more important than yours.' They always will be. You decide how much you are willing to give up appeasing someone who is already heading to the door.

5. People who have other plans have a tendency to create fights that give them an excuse to walk out for the night, leaving them free to do what they already planned. They may take a break from their engagement to call you and apologize just to placate you so you will be there tomorrow. This typically leaves you searching for what elevated a disagreement to the level where it exploded and ready to accept them when they come back. They had plans.

When anyone stands before you with arms crossed, they have made a decision and are not entertaining any of your ideas. Likewise, a partner who approaches you with closed fists is not open to any idea or suggestion. When confusion sets in, turn off the auditory signals and tune into the visual signs. It is a human trait to act on what you really want while it takes far more courage to say what you really mean. People mean what they do.

http://ezinearticles.com/?I-Mean-What-I-Do---Understanding-Mixed-Signals&id=9372561