Is The Glass Half-full Or Half-empty?

Keep focusing on the fullness of your life: Keep remembering your dreams, your strengths, your unique talents and skills. Be absolutely, uniquely, fully yourself and you have everything you need to create the life of your dreams. -Marc Allen

The reason you're not living your dreams is because not all parts of you are in alignment with your promise.

Your dream will not actualize until you have all the skills you need. Since it takes time to cultivate the full glass, you will find your glass only half-full or half-empty.
As you work on developing all your skills, you will also be buffeted by stronger forces.
If you want to be a writer, you have to learn the craft. Assuming you know how to be clear and expressive, you may still find yourself unpublished. So you need the additional skill of learning how to market your writing.

Only when all your skills are complete will you be able to fully express your dream.
This gap between talent and opportunity can be bridged once you discover what you need to learn.

While you're in this state of trying to develop the entire experience, you will face opposition. Stronger ego states and life conditions will press hard against you.
Those ego-states concerned with approval, safety, and control will keep you away from cultivating your dream.
Similarly environmental conditions arising from past experiences will distract you.
These two conditions are sufficient to keep most people living inauthentic lives, where they do what works but not what gives them true self-expression and joy.
It is at these times of trial and hardship that you may be tempted to focus on looking at the glass as half-empty.

Yet the only way to raise your child-genius into full maturity is to persist.
You have to hold your vision despite low moods, alternate desires, and pressing circumstances.
Talent is seldom nurtured in ideal environments. Usually, you have to tend the small flame of your dreams in the face of strong winds. Only by persisting will you eventually have a fire greater than an opposing draft.
You keep your dreams alive by focusing on how far you've come.
You have to hold your vision and practice it.
When you persist in this way, you'll move closer to your goals.
When you persist long enough, you'll find yourself living your dream.

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Saleem Rana got his Masters degree in psychotherapy from California Lutheran University. His articles on the internet have inspired over ten thousand people from around the world. Discover how to create a remarkable life
Copyright 2004 Saleem Rana. Please feel free to pass thisarticle on to your friends, or use it in your ezine ornewsletter. It's a shareware article.

Why Do Some Affirmations *Work* - and Others Dont?

By definition,an affirmation is a statement repeated time and again either verbally or mentally-or written down. The words of the affirmation statement - in themselves -when spoken,thought of, or written *without* a pictorial (visualized) or emotional connection- make a very weak affirmation.

Affirmations, when worded correctly -- and when emotionally charged - are able to tap into the unlimited creative power ofyour subconscious mind, and manifest your desires.

Affirmations are not all created equal. Some are of course, better than others. When you examine the structure of these power affirmations, you too, can learn how to create your own powerful affirmations foryour specific purposes.

Positive Mental Attitude

Look at this glass on the table in front of you. Is it half-full or is it half-empty?
Now, do you realize that it is entirely for you to decide what the answer to this question is going to be.
The choice is yours.
So, the very same reality can be seen in totally opposite ways: in a positive way, and in a negative way.
And there is always a positive side to any thing, any situation, any event, any person.
Look at the world in a different way. Try to find out that positive side. At first, you might literally have to dig it out, but after some time, it automatically appears to you. In fact, you eventually only see the good side.
Everything is beautiful, "everybody's beautiful, in their own way", as the song goes.
So we invite you to try our 3-step positive mental attitude formula. In any situation, however apparently bad:
1. Keep cool and coolly examine the situation. Turn it upside down, inside out, downside up and outside in.
2. Suddenly you realize it could have been worse. Find out how and why it could have been worse.
3. Finally, the good side of it will just appear to you.This can happen gradually or in a flash. It all depends on parts 1 and 2.
Soon you'll see all things and all people in a positive way What you call "failure" is in fact simply a new opportunity to try again and do better than if you had "succeeded" in the first place.
Now, have you noticed that a rich person has more of a chance of getting a bank loan than a poor person? In otherwords: you must have money to be given MORE money!
In the same way, if you are a "happy person", you'll get MORE happiness.
As the great American poet Theodore Roethke said: "The right things happen to the happy man"
Don't worry, whatever type of person you are, you can easily turn yourself into a "happy person".
I can almost see your wry, "easier-said-than-done" smile.
But please, just try our 3-step formula and soon, very soon, in fact much sooner than you think, you'll take up a sturdy and radiant Positive Mental Attitude to life and THAT is the only key to wellness, happiness, and a longer life.

I Know I Can, I Know I Can

I'm sure most of you remember the children's book about The Little Train That Could. I have to admit that at my age, I don't remember the exact title or exactly how the story goes, but I don't recall the idea in the story.
Basically, if you think you can, you can, but if you KNOW you can, you WILL.
By setting a goal, having a burning (I said BURNING) desire to achieve that goal, and daily affirming that goal, there is no way you can fail. You must stay focused on your goal and remain commited to reaching it.
Write your goal(s) down on paper and place them where you can read them every day. Remember, we are staying focused here. Read them out loud to yourself. If you memorize them, read them anyway.
Visualize your goals. Find pictures to represent your goals and put them up where you can see them every day. Can't find a picture? Draw one!
The more you commit yourself to a goal, the easier it is to discover the steps you need to take to reach it. Look at steps that fail as successful learning tools, stepping stones along your chosen path.
Take charge of your life NOW! It's the only one you have.

Power of Positive Beliefs

I am an educator as well as a coach and am interested in what it is that brings out the best in the people with whom I work. Over the last few years I have read a great deal of research on the power of beliefs. I am convinced that it is essential that I hold, and communicate to my students or clients that I believe in their ability to learn, to heal, and to grow.
We have to hold and project these beliefs even when, or perhaps, especially when the person we are working with does not hold them. In a recent study it was found that teenagers from economically disadvantaged families were more likely to attend college if their parents, especially their mothers, were optimistic about the teens chances of enrolling in college.
I read once about a teacher who was given a list of student names with numbers ranging from 125 to180 after their names at the beginning of the school year. Believing that she had been given a class of gifted students, she worked hard all year to provide opportunities for these students to do well. At the end of the year she asked for another class of gifted students since they had all performed outstandingly. She was told that the numbers were their locker numbers, not their IQs.
In transpersonal therapy the belief held by the therapist or healer about their client is an important component of the therapy. There is solid research to back this up. Marilyn Schlitz at the Institute of Noetic Sciences is carrying out some interesting research on intentionality, which she defines as the "projection of awareness, with purpose and efficacy, toward some object or outcome." In his review of the research on human interconnectedness, Braud claims that the mental and emotional processes of one person can directly influence the mental or physical processes of another person. Hibbard claims that she experiences "the use of intentionality in psychotherapy as an extremely potent form of spiritual healing." Benor, who began as a skeptic of spiritual healing says "Just holding an intent brings healing energies and spiritual awareness into the therapy."
Elizabeth Targ refers to medical research that demonstrates the powerful positive effects of the belief of the physician in the treatment offered. She also cites Braud and Schlitz' work on distant intentionality which dramatically demonstrates the ability of one person's thoughts to influence the physical state of another person.
She urges medical practitioners to "consciously activate their own images of wellness for each patient with whom they work." In order to help our students or our clients to let go of self-defeating beliefs and to hold life-affirming beliefs, we have to hold those for ourselves as well as about our clients. I use Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), which is a powerful process for reducing or eliminating old, unhealthy, negative beliefs and allowing life-affirming beliefs to surface.

Quotes on SUCCESS

Try not to be a person of success.  But rather a person of value.     - Unknown
Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.     - Norman R. Augustine
Unless a man undertakes morethan he possibly can do, he will never do all that he can.     - Henry Drummond
They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you make them feel.     - Carol Buchner
Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.     - Norman R. Augustine
Footprints on the sands of time are not made by sitting down.     - Unknown
Do what you can,with what you have,where you are.     - Theodore Roosevelt
One never noticeswhat has been done;one can only seewhat remains to be done.     - Marie Currie
Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has the pluck to fight when he's sure of losing.     - George Eliot
 
Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.     - Thomas Edison
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.                    - Henry Ford
A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.     - John C. Maxwell
The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.     - William James