Question number one: What are your excuses?
Question number two: Will they get you rich?
Money doesn’t care about your excuses. Money comes to those who earn it.
Everyone has great excuses. Few people have great earning power.
Why is it that when something involves hard work, we try to find a way around it and take the easy way out?
I believe that to reach a certain level of high performance in anything you need a healthy amount of self-esteem. This self-believe helps you push yourself harder and it allows you to mess up now and then, and bounce back.
I’m beginning to somewhat change my beliefs about the methods I’ve been reading in self-help books, much of it just seems like nonsense!
WARNING. Some of you reading this post may strongly disagree with me on these following topics. I appreciate your comments and welcome any discussion.
The following topics deal with a few popular methods that claim to raise your self-esteem, among other things. Let’s start!
Many self-help gurus claim that by repeating certain phrases or words over and over(like “I am rich”), you eventually penetrate the subconscious mind with these new beliefs, thus giving you more self-esteem and what ever else you want in life.
The problem with affirmations is that you’re just using words to try to create an emotion. Like saying, “I’m excited” 100 times over probably wont make you “feel” excited. And every time you say it, something in the back of your head says “no you’re not!”
Tony Robbins was right on track when he introduced how body language and breathing has an affect on your emotional state. The idea is to act yourself into feeling! Talking yourself into feeling good rarely works. The only issue is though, most people don’t want to act until they “feel” right.
Have you ever tried talking yourself into feeling and then ended up doing just the opposite? In my experience, that’s because the more you resist the problem, the more you end up focusing on it. The corny saying rings true, “what you resist, persists.”
You can’t always ignore your problems. Acknowledging the fact that they’re there and then taking responsibility to handle them is the first step to handling any problem.
I’ve found that you can instantly improve your confidence by changing your BODY LANGUAGE and your BREATHING. There’s nothing mystical about either of these. In fact, kids use these simple techniques when they’re playing grown up or when they’re pretending.
If you want to feel mad, change the muscles in your face, breathe like a mad man, clinch your fists. You find that instantly you begin to feel the same way you’re acting.
Remember, affirmations and chants are great but if you want some instant results, act yourself into feeling.
I don’t know what to think about hypnosis anymore. Like all therapies, is seems to work only part of the time, and only for some people.
Honestly, I think it’s just another excuse for people not to get their asses off the couch and DO SOMETHING!
There are hypnosis tapes, CDs, downloads and books on everything from laziness (go figure) to stopping an addiction or attracting a mate.
Do they work? Who am I to say they don’t?
Just that, I’ve haven’t heard a lot of super successful people say, “I became a millionaire, attracted a mate, got rid of all my blemishes and became instantly fearless when I used hypnosis.” Any of these people are far and few in between.
Even if there are any real results from hypnosis, we all have to admit it takes a long time. Even years!
Hell, do you think we could forget about hypnosis and just accomplish our dreams within that time? Maybe, but who am I to say?
Mental Blocks
I agree, many of us have mental blocks towards things like money, or performing well at a job or “attracting a mate”–which for some people seems SUPER challenging.
The question is, how do we overcome these mental blocks? Hypnosis? Acupuncture? Affirmations? Oh no wait! I Know! Finding a vortex!
I’m no psychologist but from my experience mental blocks come from the fear of failure! If you’re a lonely nerd who finds it hard to talk to girls, it’s because you fear failing(whatever that means to you). You might get laughed at (Boohoo!) or they might reject you. This is just called life! It just means you need to get your ass out of the office/basement more and get experience doing the thing that you’re afraid of. It means growing some balls!
Attracting Success
I think people take this the wrong way. Attracting success isn’t about “being a money magnet” without lifting a finger to exerting some effort. Anyone with money has to work hard to make and keep it. They’re a “money magnet” because they work hard at it. There’s really nothing especially metaphysical about wealth. Money’s so much more simpler than all that.
What attracting success means to me is doing the things that builds towards a goal. It means preparing yourself to face fear, to fail and to learn from your mistakes. Creating the capacity within yourself to take on the level of success you want. This comes through experience.
Quite simply, I don’t do anything that doesn’t work. I don’t care if it seems “New Ageish” or somewhat superstitious, if I see results I’m interested. The problem with a lot of New Age stuff, and a lot of the self-help programs, is that they seem like a big EXCUSE to avoid just getting to work and making it happen. It’s like we want magic to happen, but we don’t want the hard work that goes with it.
Sifting through all of the crap, the pointless time wasters, the methods that are claimed to make you rich but really keep you poor, there are a few gems:
When you take an inventory of all the key factors in success, it really comes down to these few things. Even if hypnosis and affirmations and the lot do work, I could still be doing more productive things like just getting it done.
I like to call fear of failure, the root of all evil. Fear of failure is where excuses come from, where the habit of hesitancy is bred and where weakness is built. True failure lies in the inability to overcome one’s fear.
Fear of failure, the only thing that stands between us and what we want. Hard work is easy when there’s no mental resistance. When there’s congruency there’s power.
The sad truth is, if we never tame our greatest fears, we will never live at the level of fulfillment we desire. Depression and regret will be our lifelong friends.
So what are you afraid of, that if you weren’t, would change everything? Fear of flying, social anxiety, fear of losing money, fear of being ridiculed?
How do we tame our fear of failure?
I’d like to say there’s an easy and quick way, but there isn’t. Fear begins to diminish when action is taken. It’s called exposure therapy: do the thing you’re afraid of, and soon, you will no longer fear it.
The ability to act in spite of fear is like a muscle, but rather a mental muscle. It’s like the ability to get yourself out of bed in the morning, or to keep your house clean.
Every time you face the fear of something you feel better. Every time you do the thing that scares you the most, the better you feel about yourself and the less anxiety there is next time around.
You’ll also find, that the more you face your fears, the more energy you’ll have. As fear diminishes, excitement will take its place.
When you do the thing you’re afraid of, you win!
An emotional based decision is made in the heat of the moment. It’s based on how you feel right now.
When you’re in the wrong state(fear, anger, etc), understand that making decisions in this state is as dangerous as tossing a coin.
Here’s what to do when you find yourself in the wrong state of mind. Don’t make any decisions, because 9 times out of 10 they’ll be the wrong ones.
When you find yourself in this state, just call it a day. This is called emotional intelligence. Being aware of what state you’re in and acting accordingly, 98% of people do just the opposite.
We share life experiences and discuss developing leadership skills, discovering better methods of growth in business, goal setting, personal growth and self-education. We also talk about lifestyle and making money.
