Your Dominant Thoughts - How to Take Advantage of Them

Q22YSEDVKEKM (technorati)

A powerful force that should never be disregarded or ignored, self belief is a way of focusing and channeling your own thoughts and energy. Take the time to consider this fully. - MJ

Self belief can be a wonderful thing.

Knowing from my own experience, whenever I have been filled with dread or doubt I could not perform at the level I should have. The other day I was using a hammer and bar to take apart a crate. At the time, I was making quite a noise hammering away when my neighbor came over to the workshop to see what I was doing.

Half-jokingly I said: "I haven't hit my fingers with the hammer yet!" Guess what happened within 5 minutes of saying that...Yee-ow! We've all had something similar to this happen to us at one time or another.

Looking back in retrospect, I was planting the seed in my mind that I was going to hit my fingers with the hammer. My mind set about fulfilling the thought.

Not only do you become what you think about, you do what you think about. Whether your thoughts are positive or negative your mind will act on them.

If you are directed by your dominant thoughts, why not implant your mind with things that will benefit you? For instance, if you really want to become a pilot then concentrate on being one. Become obsessed with it. Learn all you can about it.

Do you think that Michael Jordan became the greatest basketball player of all time by not thinking about and concentrating on the game of basketball? During his brief siesta into baseball he was not as successful. Basketball was his main focus. He couldn't get it out of his mind. So he returned to the sport to lead the Chicago Bulls for another three years before retiring, making yet another comeback, and retiring for good in 2003.

What are your dominant thoughts? Are you thinking about the things that will make you the person that you ultimately want to be? Do you have deep and powerful thoughts about these things?

The first step to becoming the person that you want to be starts in the mind. You then need to set that train in motion.

One thing that can really help you, is to sit down and write out your life goals taking as many pages as you need. After you have crafted your life story the way that you want it to unfold begin summarizing it. Try and get it down to a single page.

Once you have done this you should read it as often as possible. At the very minimum you should read it at least once a day. Preferably you should do this first thing in the morning, and make it the last thing you do before going to bed at night. And then as many times in between as you desire - it really all depends how strong your desire is.

The more times you read your plan, the more it will get implanted in your mind. Remember, your mind does not discriminate between reality and fiction. It will simply act on it - just like my mind did when I joked about not hitting my fingers with the hammer.

Think negative and you will receive negative. Think POSITIVE and you will receive POSITIVE.

Make your plan!

Reaping The Rewards Of Reading

Reading is a fabulous self improvement resource, that when used as a mental exercise, focuses and strengthens your mind without much effort. It doesn't take much time, and you will find that after getting into this habit, you will be looking forward to your daily read. You will sense the benefits, as your ability to visualize will be increased dramatically; and you will face situations with a logical thought pattern already in place and operating smoothly. - MJ

Take a group of people and you can tell who the avid readers are. People who read a lot think and speak well. They win the admiration and respect of others. Reading expands the mind. In fact, many people consider it as one of lifes little pleasures, because it involves physical as well as mental activities.

Reading is primarily a mental activity. After all, you read with your mind and use your imagination to paint the setting of whatever you are reading. You use you mind to imagine the emotions that a character experiences as the story unfolds. You bring into play the different ideas brought up to you in this blog you are reading.

Reading helps you develop a wide vocabulary through extensive reading. A skillful reader has a wide recognition vocabulary; meaning that you may not know exactly what every word means, but you have a good general idea of the meaning of the sentence.

Reading makes you alert and curious about new words, which may develop the dictionary habit. Every time they come across a strange word, they try to figure out what it can possibly mean by the context alone.You then refer to the dictionary to find out the accurate meaning..

Reading develops your intellectual curiosity by exposing you to a variety of experiences. You learn to read by reading books of increasing difficulty and variety. As in other forms of activity, you learn by actually doing.

Reading trains you to have an active and open mind. Merely grasping the writer’s idea is not enough. You must make a positive response to what you read. Be an active, not a passive, reader. Develop the habit of drawing your own conclusions, of agreeing or disagreeing with the author. Keep your mind open; understand and weigh the ideas you read. This is a practical part of active reading.

Four basic rules for effective reading and better comprehension:

1) Read more and more. Remember - practice makes perfect. Practicing in the correct way makes things perfect.

2) Develop the habit of reading for main ideas. Look for the subject. Do not waste time on details or little words.

3) Learn to read with focus and concentration. Think of what you are reading. Do not let your attention wander somewhere else. Good readers read with understanding.

4) Budget your time, and experiment with your reading time. Try purposely to read faster. Give yourself a time limit on specific material that you read.

You have a lot to gain by discovering the joys of reading. Grab a book right now.

Unlock Your Self Improvement Power

Positive change is a change for the better. Sometimes we fail to realize this. It takes effort at first, but once we step back, take a look and realize where our shortcomings are; we can easily see what we need to do. It gives a sense of accomplishment and appreciation to your effort amd makes the process much  easier. - MJ

When we look at a certain object, a painting for example – we can never be really appreciate iwhat is painted and goes with it if the painting is only an inch away from our face. But if we step back a little further, we have a clearer vision of the whole art work.

We reach a point in our life when we are ready for change, and  the information that will help us unlock our self improvement power. Until then, something can be right under our nose but we don’t see it.  The only time we think of utilizing our self improvement power is when everything goes for the worst. Take this frog for example –

Try placing Frog A in a pot of warm water. What happens? He ribits! He jumps out! Why? Because he cannot tolerate the sudden change in his environment – the water’s temperature. Then try Frog B: place him in cool water, then turn the gas stove on. Wait until the water reaches a certain  point. Frog B then thinks “Ooh… it’s a bit warm in here”.

People are like Frog B in general. Today, Josie thinks Chuck hates her. Tomorrow, Percy walks up to her and tells her that he also hates her. Josie stays the same and doesn’t care what her friends says. The next day, she learns that Kathy and Jim also dislike her. Josie doesn’t realize all at once, the importance or the need for self improvement until the entire community hates her.

We learn our lessons when we experience pain. We finally see the warning signs and signals when things get tough. When do we realize that we need to change diets? When none of our jeans and shirts fit us. When do we stop eating candies and chocolates? When our teeth are falling out. When do we realize that we need to stop smoking? When our lungs have gone bad.

The only time most of us ever learn about unlocking our self improvement power is when the whole world is crashing and falling apart. We think and feel this way because it is not easy to change. But change becomes more painful when we ignore it.

Change will happen, like it or not. At one time or another, we are all experience different turning points in our life – and we are all going to eventually unlock our self improvement power not because the world says so, or because our friends are nagging us, but because we realized its for our own good.

Happy people don’t just accept change, they embrace it. Now, you don’t have to feel a tremendous heat before you realize the need for self improvement. Unlocking your self improvement power, means unlocking the cage of thought that “it's just the way I am”. That is just a poor excuse for people who fear and resist change. Most of us program our minds like computers.

Marcie repeatedly tells everyone that she doesn’t have the guts to be around groups of people. She has heard her mom, her dad, her sister, and her teacher; all say the same things about her to other people. Over the years, this is what Marcie believes. She believes its her own story. And what happens? Every time a group  gathers over their house, or in school, and  the community – she tends to step back, shy away or lock herself up in a room. Marcie not only believes in her story, she lives it.

Marcie has to realize that she is not what she is. She has to have the spirit to show people “I am an important person and I should be treated accordingly!”

Self improvement may not be everybody’s favorite word, but if we look at things from a different point of view, we might have a better chance of enjoying the whole process, instead of counting the days until we are fully improved. Four sessions a week at the gym will result in a healthier life, reading books instead of looking at porn will help you gain knowledge, going out with friends will help you take a step back from the daily grind and unwind.

When you are enjoying the process of unlocking your self improvement power, you’ll realize that you’re beginning to take things in stride much easier, and are becoming a happier person.