By having a positive set of beliefs that you allow to become your foundation, you may start to enjoy the positive impact that your behaviour will have on others. These beliefs will also have a deep affect on your state of mind and your personal well being. Author of the publication Positive Thinking Your Key to Success; Remez Sasson writes that positive thinking brings inner peace, success, improved relationships, improved health, peace and fulfillment. It also helps the daily affairs of life go more smoothly, and creates energy that looks brighter and more promising.

Positive thinking is infectious. People around you select your mental frame of mind and are affected as a result. Imagine happiness, excellent health and achievement and you will cause people to like you and want to assist you, because they like the feelings that a positive mind releases.

So to have positive thoughts create your outcomes, you want to develop a positive attitude toward life, anticipate a successful conclusion of anything you do, also consider any needed actions to guarantee your success.

Effective positive thinking can create outcomes needs to be more than saying some positive expressions, or telling yourself that everything is going to be okay. It has to be your foremost mental attitude. It is not enough to think positively for a few moments, and then allowing uncertainties and disbelief and negative thoughts to cross your mind. Are you willing to modify the way you think? Are you willing to build a mental picture that can positively affect you, your surroundings and the people around you?

Positive thinking is a mental attitude that allows us to image thoughts, words and images that are conducive to growth, expansion and accomplishment. It is a mental attitude that anticipates optimistic results. A positive mind expects happiness, bliss, well being and a winning outcome of every circumstance and deed. Whatever the mind expects, it finds.

Not every person agrees with or believes in positive thinking. Some feel the subject as just gibberish, and others make fun of anyone who believe and practice it. Those people who have a less easy time with the concept may not have the capacity to know how to get the best results from thinking positively.

We often hear people say: “Just think positive!” to someone who feeling concerned or worried. Most people do not take these words seriously, because they are sure of their intent or meaning. Some do not deem them as practical or useful. How often have you stopped to think what the power of positive thinking actually means to you?

While being sceptical can be a healthy way to avoid getting taken advantage of, being cynical and distrustful assuming the worst, can have serious negative consequences on your life. By looking only at the less tangible aspects of any state may cause you to fail to detect opportunities, disregard problems that need to be resolved, and fail to take action that would otherwise enhance your relationships and quality of life.

Optimists search for the light at the end the tunnel. If you have always had a cynical and gloomy worldview, it can be less easy to change your focus, but it is possible to begin seeing the glass as half full, not half empty. Feelings of appreciation for what you have will make the process flow easier because you are giving thanks for the things that you have. This will allow you to put yourself in a position to accept new ideas and thoughts in your life. By being thankful in what we have the positive feeling will create a center of attention more positive for you.

The secret to positive thinking is the feelings connected with being appreciative. It is not the language you use but the feelings behind the thoughts. You could be thankful for almost ‘anything’. Focus on something that brings you contentment and permit yourself a good emotion of absolute gratitude. The next time you are eating a delectable meal, take pleasure in it and flow in that positive feeling of thankfulness.

When you think you cannot think positively, these tips may get the power of positive thinking for you:

• At all times use only positive words while thinking and speaking. Use words such as, ‘I can do it’, ‘I am able’, ‘it is doable, ‘I know it can be done’, etc.
• Allow into your consciousness only feelings of joy, strength and success.
• Try not to notice and learn to ignore negative thoughts. Stop thinking these thoughts, and replace them with productive cheerful thoughts.
• Always try to visualize clearly in your mind successful outcomes to your projects and goals. If you imagine with concentration and conviction, you will be amazed at the outcomes.
• Read at least one page of inspirational book every day.
• Spend less time listening to the news and reading the newspapers instead watch movies that make you laugh.
• Hang around people who think positively.
• Walk and sit tall, with a straight back. This will build up your self-confidence and inner strength.
• Walk, swim or engage in some other physical activity. This helps to develop a more positive attitude.
• Think positive thoughts. Think of what you want as opposed to what you do not want. The same energy goes into both. The results are very different. If we think more of what we want we get that. If on the other hand you think about what you do not want you get that too.

You decide.

A number of years ago when my husband Kurt and I were in Thailand on an elephant safari we had the exceptional privilege of meeting a baby elephant who was only 10 days old. She was happily running lose beside her mother who was watching carefully over her curious baby. She would come up to us put her trunk in our pockets then run back to her mother. Only to repeat her adventure again within a few minutes. We were able to touch her and play with her under her mother’s watchful eye. What I found amazing was that the mother elephant only had a short small rope tied to her front ankle.

I was amazed how only a small rope tied to her front ankle with no chains or fences or cages was holding such a huge creature. It was evident that the elephant could, at any time, break away from her tie but for some reason didn’t. I saw her keeper close by and asked him why this beautiful, superb animal just stood there and was not attempted to break away from her bond.

He explained, that when elephants are very young and much smaller they use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it is adequate to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot get away. They believe the rope can still keep them, so they do not try to break free. I was astounded. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed, they could not, they made no attempts and remained right where they were.

Thinking of this story, I started to reflect on how like the elephants many of us go through life hanging onto an attitude or belief that we cannot do something, merely because we failed doing it at a former time.

How many of us are holding back because of a previous outdated belief that no longer serves us? Have you passed up trying something new because of a limiting belief? On the other hand, how many times do you feel you were being held back by someone else’s limiting beliefs? I would like to encourage you to challenge your own limiting beliefs by questioning them. If you start to question a belief, you routinely weaken it. The more you query your limiting beliefs, the more they are weakened. The more you begin to belief that you are not able to accomplish your dream or challenge the less likely you are to achieve it. It is like falling off the bike and not getting back on it immediately.

Once you have watered down your old belief, begin to replace it with a fresh, empowering one. Search for situations to sustain your ‘new and improved’ beliefs, which you want to develop and nurture. Seek out friends and colleagues who may have accomplished what you want to achieve, find out what they did, and copy their behaviour. Keep in mind there were times when in your past you were successful and use that experience to push yourself forward. Envision and create in your mind your successes. See yourself clearly in your mind’s eye achieving your goals successfully. Repeat to yourself that you are succeeding. Write down your affirmations and review them daily. In addition, take the appropriate action to move forward with your new goal. Remember to take your foot off the break while you are driving.

You have heard that your unconscious mind does not know the difference between real and make-believe. Try this and see what happens. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Michael Losier in the book The Law of Attraction writes that whatever you believe, with conviction, you can achieve. He adds that we attract into our life whatever we give our attention, energy and focus to whether it is positive or negative.

Dr. Raymond Holliwell, Working with the Law, say, “Never expect anything you do not want, and never desire a thing you do not expect. When you expect something you do not want, you attract the undesirable, and when you desire a thing that is not expected, you simply dissipate valuable mental force. On the other hand, when you constantly expect that which you persistently desire, your ability to attract becomes irresistible. The mind is a magnet and attracts whatever corresponds to its ruling state.”

So, do not be like the poor elephant and go through your days trapped in place or situation because of a limiting belief or negative attitude you developed some years ago. Jim Donovan author of Handbook to a Happier Life and This is Your Life, Not a Dress Rehearsal says, “Take charge of your life now and live it to the fullest because you deserve the best.”

“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.” Mark Twain.

It is now acceptable in many circles to have a success coach or personal trainer who will assist you in breaking through whatever the issues are, regardless of the context (therapy, business, personal growth or education).

There has been scientific proof that the thought is stored in the body. ANY thought. (“Quantum Healing” by Dr. Deepak Chopra) A strong thought with an unresolved negative emotion such as anger, sadness, guilt, fear or anxiety will repress the memory with the intensity of the emotion. These repressed negative emotions being trapped in the body, in many cases can block the flow of communication through the body’s neurological network pathways.

It is already a common knowledge that we got inside of us, hardwired, as a failsafe device, the “flight or fight” response, which protects us from danger and keeps us safe. What you may not be aware of is that fear is an outcome, a secondary emotion that has little to do with our safety. So let me ask you a question: almost everybody knows that a positive thinking is preferred to dwelling in negativity. Nevertheless, do you know why?

You have experienced in your past a full range of emotions including fear, sadness, anger, anxiety. Now, if 10years later you are still angry because of something that happened in the past, that is a waste of time, don’t you think

There is not much you can do about something that happened 10 years ago, and still people keep hanging onto their negative emotions from the past, carrying them into the future. And it does not help … neither the past, nor the future… You may have felt depressed, angry, or in hopelessness, once, when there was nothing apparently happening in your life that should make you feel like that. These emotions come from the past set off by something that passed unnoticed. No wonder, so many of us do not have the happy, positive, peaceful, abundant future that we desire.

Unresolved negative emotions produce physical and psychological damage, affecting our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. They become distorted in the form of self-dislike, self-hatred, not feeling appropriate or good enough. Our self-worth becomes insecure. As a result, we begin looking outside ourselves for confirmation that we are OK.

The reason most people cannot perform at their maximum ability comes from being concerned about what others think of them. They are looking “outside” to confirm that what they are saying and doing is right and they fear those people will reject what they say. Put the same people in an empty room or among their trusted family and friends and they would perform beautifully.

How many of us are in the position to say, “It doesn’t matter what people think of me and what they say. They have a right to think what they like.” Of course, it is reasonable to listen to all views and information, meanwhile accepting that they have every right to disagree. But, when free of fear and other negative emotions and limiting beliefs, you know that what really matters is what you think of you, then life starts really being good.

Thoughts and emotions are in fact patterns of energy that flow from us “outside” in the world. Like anything else, emotions such as fear, guilt, and resentment, are energy, too. These deep-seated and often long-held emotions act like black bags of energy, which, if not dealt with and released, cause dis-eases in our bodies such as cancer and heart problems.

They block or diminish the natural, powerful, flow of intuitive energies, as they pass through our bodies. You might see these black bags of energy symbolically like dams or big rocks in a fast flowing river, slowing down the flow and causing discord as whirlpools are created.

When we lack positive emotions and hold instead on fear, anger, sadness and/or guilt, it keeps us back from reconnecting with our true, whole, selves. Yet, when we look from a different perspective at what makes us feel fearful or guilty, it all seems so ridiculous. Fear, guilt, and resentment are not emotions we have to feel. We can let go of them and feel instead love, joy and happiness.

To be without fear is, however, not to be without awareness. Some people say that fear is essential for survival because it is what prevents us from walking across the street in front of a car or jumping into a dangerous situation. However, fear and awareness are not the same. You do not have to be fearful to know the consequences of something and avoid them. In fact, fear is often the cause of creating painful events, not the protection from them.

The situation is similar with all the other negative emotions above mentioned. While it is all right to feel sad when appropriate, it is harmful to feel the same sadness, concerning the same event, ten years later. In fact, it is terribly destructive. Again, when you examine what makes us act that way, it is programmed ‘values’, mostly from generations long passed or in some cases social judgment on the morals. When you look at what makes people feel emotional pain, many times it is largely the result of programming. It has little to do with what is right or wrong and everything to do with what that society has been programmed to perceive as right or wrong over the years.

There is so much that society demands we should feel guilty about. We look back at the way we treated our parents. We feel guilty and sad if we did not fulfill in our lives what our parents wanted us to achieve. We think we have let them down. We feel sometimes depressed at the way, perhaps, we treated our own children or other loved ones. You name it and someone, somewhere, will feel some form of negative emotion about it. We really would be zombies if we were incapable of feeling emotions. In fact, negative emotions can be good. They show us something is not in order. Holding onto them is pointless! When we let go, we really begin thinking positively and break the patterns of the past.

When you understand that you are unique and special, and you do not need any approval from somebody else to be yourself, when you let go of all the emotional demand you are carrying with you from your past, then and only then you will be able to create the future that you so much desire.

You are the sum total of all your experiences and conscious and unconscious decisions, with different things to offer and different things to learn. If you allow negative emotions and other limiting beliefs from the past to make you conform to other’s life patterns and value systems, you give away the ability forever to achieving your dreams. So, make a special effort to take care of yourself and those unproductive thoughts today.

If we are what we eat, as the old saying goes, we may also be what we think. Or how we think, as well as how much we think. Recently in my studies I have come across the statements, “What you focus on grows, what you think about expands and what you dwell on determines your destiny.” That would mean that we are 100% responsible for our thinking.

You are not responsible for everything that happens to you, but you are responsible for how you react to what does happen to you. The principle that, “Life acts. You react.” means that your reactions are under your control. In any life situation, you are always responsible for at least one thing – your attitude towards the situation in which you find yourself. Your attitude is your response to what life hands you. You can have either a more positive or a more negative attitude. It is under your power and can be changed. With the right attitude, you can be an adaptable and flexible person.

If you change your thinking then your life will improve. But, what thoughts do you change? Your bothersome thoughts about a position can simply be found in your self-talk. Self-talk is that inner running conversation you have with yourself. It is what you tell yourself about life’s situations.

If a person focuses on their strong points, achievements, and accomplishments, the world opens up to many astonishing opportunities. This positive outlook reveals it self in the form of more energy, increased creativeness and a stronger sense of competence. We start to say, “Bring it on, I can handle it, I am able!” On the other hand, when you focus on your weak points and disappointments, the world becomes terrible place of “whoa” and anguish. You may start to believe that you cannot succeed so you stop trying, which may cause mental distress. These anxious thoughts fill one’s day with trepidation and drudgery, and may weigh a person down with a sense of bleakness.

To modify your self-talk or attitude you must change that inner conversation or dialogue you are having. To stop it you must catch it in action. So, pay attention to yourself. You must connect to and listen for that inner voice whenever possible.

All of us have a voice that talks to us. You may recognize it as that voice that starts as soon as you wake up. Every now and then, it may wait until you look in the mirror before it actually talks to you. It may say, “You sure are good looking.” or “What a wonderful person you are.” Alternatively, “You are going to have a great day.” It might even say,“You are in great shape and a perfect size and your hair looks fantastic.” If you are not familiar with this voice then yours may be speaking to you in a different way. You might be hearing, “You look like crap today” or “You sure have put on the pounds.” “Having a bad hair day?” “It’s is a terrible day! Just go back to bed.” This voice, the critical one, is one of the major reasons we have so many problems. It can destroy resiliency by opening the floodgates and draining your energy.

You have probably heard or read about this before and are wondering at this point so what is new about this…how do I change or stop this dialogue. Let’s explore….

The next time that you find yourself feeling “bad” do not start asking, “Who did this to me?” Do not start looking around for the outer cause of your problems. What you should do is to ask yourself, “What have I been thinking?”“What have I been telling my self?” You may find that your inner self-talk has put you deep into emotional distress.

Whenever life acts, we respond. If you win the lottery, you might be happy. If you lose your job, you may be angry. Whatever your reaction it will depend upon your attitude. Fortunately, we can control our attitudes.

In determining how we face life, it is our attitude that is the key.

Paying attention to what you think is a practice called self-observation. It means that you embrace that inner voice in your head as it begins to speak to you. Paying attention to what is it saying. Is it helpful or not? Learning to recognize that judgmental voice.

When you try this process of self-observation, you may likely hear that voice claiming, “Well, you did it again!” You will catch yourself after the fact. You will catch that inner voice after it has spoken and you are already in the midst of that damaging reaction. You may have been severely condemning yourself for a blunder. You may have been listening to how excessively “unpleasant” an annoying but innocent situation was.

Whenever you hear that voice saying, “Well, you did it again!” You should applaud yourself. You have made a lot of progress because always in the past you would have listened to that negative inner dialogue and never even know that you did it. You would think that it was normal. You need to learn to catch yourself after the act.

By observing the inner voice soon may say, “Here you are doing it again.” So, go ahead and do it. Improvement has been made because you now find yourself in the act but are not yet able to stop it. Hence, when you hear the voice saying, “Well, you are about to do it again.” Once again, you continue with the thinking and censure yourself for the mistake. You are becoming more mindful and catching yourself in the act earlier each time.

Ultimately, you will hear, “Pay attention. You are about to do it again.” At this point, you choose not to proceed. You do not begin the negative dialogue but deliberately begin a positive one. You hear yourself saying, “Mistakes are good. You can learn from this slip-up. Try again and see what happens.” You are now getting out of the negative pattern and consciously influential your response to life events.

When you listen to your inner dialogue and choose the more positive and realistic attitude you become a stronger person.

Remember: Attitude is the key to resiliency.

It is easier to change the way you think than your emotions.

To me rapport is about connection. It is an energetic level. OK, what is energy! I know that most people have the experience of thinking about someone and picking up the phone to dial only to have them already on the phone because they were already there but your phone never rang. People make connections on all levels other than those that we are aware. These connections can be just as strong whether someone is standing next to you whether they are on the other side of the world.

It takes very little time for people to form an impression of someone they have just met, and that impression tends to same with you. A study by Harvard University psychologists found that the opinion students formed toward new teachers in just two seconds was essentially the same as the one they held after sitting through the whole course. Of course, you cannot expect to become everyone’s best friend in a few seconds, but if you make the right first impression, demonstrating that you are honest, reliable and trustworthy, you can initiate the building of a lasting rapport within 90 seconds.

Your attitude sets the quality and mood of your thoughts, which in turn influence the tone of your voice, the words you use, your facial expressions and your body language. Your attitude establishes the quality of your relationships. When you cast a “really useful attitude,” one that is optimistic, interested and cooperative, other people will want to be around you. You choose your attitude. When you project the opposite attitude, you will have the opposite reaction. Make sure your words, tone of voice and gestures are all consistent. When faced with contradiction among these three ways of delivering a message, people pay most attention to body language, and then to tone of voice-and surprisingly little to the actual words.

We like people who are like us, so the key to establishing rapport with strangers is to learn how to be like them. This requires you to deliberately control your behaviour to become sufficiently like the other person to form a connection-at least for a short time. Look around a restaurant especially on Valentine’s Day or any other public place where people meet and socialize and compare those couples who are in rapport with those who are not.

The ones who are in rapport lean toward one another… adopt similar arm and leg positions… talk in similar tones of voice. In short, they seem to be synchronized.

The quickest way to establish rapport with people you meet is to synchronize with them. Synchronizing does not mean you are being phony or insincere. Its purpose is to help you put the other person at ease and speed up the rapport that would otherwise take longer to develop. You are not expected to make your movements, tone and voice mimic the other person’s, but just to act with them the same way you would if you were already friends.

Try to start synchronizing within seconds of making a new acquaintance.

Five stages of a successful first impression…

• Use open body language. Open hand gestures and facing the other person.
• Be first with eye contact. Look the other person straight in the eye.
• Beam a smile.
• Be the first to identify yourself with a pleasant, “Hi! I’m Monika!”
• Lean subtly toward the other person to show your interest and openness, and begin to match.

Pick up on the other person’s feelings and identify with them by synchronizing your movements, breathing patterns and expressions. Use your voice to reflect back the mood conveyed by their voice. Do not copy them clumsily, but notice their posture, gestures, head and body movements and facial expressions and mirror them.

Particularly important: Mirror their voice tone, volume, speed and pitch. And the angle of their spine.

Get the other person to start talking openly so you can find out what matters to them and synchronize yourself accordingly. Begin by asking open questions-those that cannot be answered with a simple “yes” or “no” but encourage the other person to open up and reveal themselves.

Key words: Who? When? What? Why? Where? How?
Keep the conversation going by answering a question with another question.

If you really want to communicate with other people on their own wavelengths, learn to rapidly figure out their sensory preferences.

People view the world in one of three basic ways…

• Visuals are motivated primarily by what they see.
• Auditories by what they hear.
• Kinesthetics by physical sensations.

You can quickly recognize which group people belong to by listening to the vocabulary they use.

Examples…

Visuals tend to talk fast, wave their hands, look up with their eyes, dress well and say things like, “I’d like to see proof of that.”
Auditories tend to talk at a medium speed, have melodic and expressive voices, gesture and move their eyes from side to side and will say, “I hear that.”
Kinesthetics tend to speak very slowly and with great detail, look down as they speak, wear textured clothing, and talk about how they feel.

Detecting sensory preferences requires you to pay close attention to others, which in itself makes you a more people-oriented, likeable person. And when you learn how to synchronize with people using the vocabulary they feel comfortable with, your ability to develop rapport with almost anyone will grow.

Rapport is the condition of being in sync, in tune, on the same wavelength. I’ve heard it said that with enough rapport, anything is possible; without rapport, practically nothing is possible. In business, rapport is needed to coordinate action and exchange information. Rapport is at the foundation of all our relationships. Ironically, most business decisions are based on rapport, not on technical merit or the best idea. Rapport makes or breaks most aspects of getting what you want.

To maintain an open channel of communication with another person is to align with them, match them, and meet them where they are. This does not mean you agree with them, but rather that you are open and willing to accept their point of view and you let them know you are there with them.

The purpose of building rapport (matching and aligning with the other person) is to get fully in step with them, so that the next step you take, they are more likely to follow. When you start by matching and meeting them (not expecting them to come to you), you can take immediate control of the situation and move with greater confidence that they will stay with you. Worst case, matching gives you something to do when you get bored during staff meetings.

Special thanks to Nicholas Boothman: How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less

Today organizations are working with smaller budgets and fewer people. At the same time, customer expectations are increasing. In this environment, making the best use of all employees’ skills, knowledge, and abilities is more critical than ever before.

To meet this challenge, many organizations are redefining and expanding the role coaching plays in helping to meet organizational goals. Coaching is no longer a ritual that only managers carry out during scheduled performance reviews and appraisals. Instead, it’s seen as a way for everyone in the workplace to work with, motivate, and support one another, both within and across functional lines.

The goal of coaching is not to provide direction, but for employees to work together to help one another find direction. To accomplish this goal, employees must take on greater personal responsibility in the workplace not only for their own performance, but also for the performance of others. Instead of saying, “That’s not my job,” employees must find opportunities to help others:

• Gain confidence in their own abilities
• Analyze problems and find solutions
• Set goals
• Think of a better approach to their work
• Find new ways to apply their skills
• Sort through their fears and concerns
• Find ways to overcome obstacles

After all, the security of your job may ride on how well others do their jobs. Each employee’s success depends on the organization’s success and for the organization to thrive; everybody has to be a coach.

The value of coaching within and across functional lines is easy to see. The tough issues are learning to coach and finding the personal resolve to be an active coach. To become business partners working together toward the organization’s success, all employees need to learn to:

• Recognize diverse coaching opportunities
• Routinely coach other people for the good of the whole organization
• Understand the difference between coaching and giving orders
• Coach with confidence when they aren’t entirely sure of the “right way” to do something
• Master a step-by-step approach to coaching
• Coach people in other groups or functions
• Know what to say when coaching someone
• See how their own coaching connects to the success of the larger organization

In this challenging New World, success depends on continuous improvement, which in turn depends on continuous learning. Nowadays, most people understand that fact of survival. Coaching, a practical skill anyone can learn is the foundation for continuous learning. Skillful coaching enables everyone to share information and experience with others. As a result, the organization becomes more competitive through the internal sharing of knowledge and skills.

Coaching: Why Bother?

Think of the following questions….

Do you at times feel as if you are drowning in a sea of stuff? Are you frequently stressed out because you cannot seem to get organized, no matter how hard you try? Frustrated because you find yourself always running behind in getting things done? De junking is not the same for every person. One person’s organization may be another person’s chaos. Some people like a very structured lifestyle, with every detail written down so they have a sense of control over each day, while others are more comfortable in a less controlled environment. So the best way is your own way!

Junk is defined as one thing that clutters up your life and interferes with your success, productivity and effectiveness. My definition of success is feeling positive about yourself and being productive both professionally and personally.

In this article we will review the aspects of your personal life since it’s just past the time you made your New Years resolution! Next edition will examine your professional life.

The benefits of getting either your personal or professional life organized is to focus on the things that are truly important to you. By doing this you may observe the following benefits:

• You will have a sense of control over your life
• You will find it easier to get things done
• You will have less stress in your life
• You will have time for the things you want to do, and
• You will be more productive

When I started to do the research for this article I found some interesting studies relating to how we organize ourselves depends partially on how we process information.

Take the following test. There are no right or wrong answers; the tool will help you understand your natural tendencies. Read both of the questions and decide which one is more like you.

Stress is part of life. Antibiotics can’t touch it. The microscope can’t spot it. It is rapidly spreading and almost everybody’s feeling the effect. A death in the family, the birth of a baby, moving, taking a vacation, getting a job promotion, arguing … all of these common occurrences are stressful. Since stress cannot be excised from the life experience, it is very important to learn how to deal with it.

Although we all talk about stress, it often is not clear what stress is really about. It seems that stress is the “hot” word these days. Most people seem to agree that these are high-pressure times. Employees complain of being burned out, used up or overloaded. Many of us are just plain tired, tired of ever going change, sick of ambiguity and uncertainty. We just wish that change would go way, or at least slow down. When it does not, we look round for someone to blame or for someone we feel should be responsible for causing of stress.

Research shows that everyone sees situations differently and each person has different coping skills. It is not necessarily the nature of the stressor that drives people to dizzying heights of fist-clenching, jaw-grinding, cold-sweating states of stress and panic. The key factor is one’s response to a stressful situation. Different people respond differently to stressors. One person may calmly face moving day, while another person (in the exact same situation) might be totally wiped out by the stress that moving induces. So the ability to manage the stressors that bombard us daily is of the utmost importance

Also not all situations that are labelled “stressful” are negative. Being promoted, changing careers or moving to a new office or home may not be perceived as threatening.

However, we may feel that situations are stressful because we are not fully prepared to deal with them

Some situations in life are stress provoking but it is our thoughts about situations that determine whether they are a problem or not to us.

However, there is one area experts feel will usually cause negative stress and that lack of control over one’s job or workplace. This is the leading cause of stress more than hours of work or ones responsibility on the job.

Stress manifests itself physically. When facing a stressor, your body responds by switching into ‘fight or flight’ mode. Physiologically, your body is ready to deal with the perceived danger (the stressor). Your blood pressure goes up; heart and respiration rate increases, and hormones such as adrenaline are released. The muscles become tensed (some people clench their jaw); headaches, back pain, stomach aches (ulcers become exacerbated), bad skin and the inability to concentrate may plague your day. Your extremities become cold as blood is kept in the central part of the body. The immune system is weakened (since your body is concentrating on dealing with the stressor) and you become very susceptible to colds, flues, cold sores, cankers, etc. Stress erodes away sexual function also. Evidently stress is a very real, and potentially uncomfortable component of life.

In recent surveys, Statistics Canada reported that from 1992 to 1998, the proportion of Canadian women who felt severe time stress rose from 16% to 21%, while for men; it climbed from 12% to 16%. In the year 2000 it was estimated that 10% of working Canadians, about 1.4 million people, suffer from depression, which is often caused by stress. Harvard University predicted that by 2020, depression would become the biggest source of workdays lost in the developed world.

What is Your Stress Index?

Stress can be difficult to understand. The emotional chaos it causes can make our daily lives miserable. It can also decrease our physical health, sometimes drastically. Strangely, we are not always aware that we are under stress. The habits, attitudes and signs that can alert us to problems may be hard to recognize because they have become so familiar. How high is your Stress Index? Find out by scoring your answers to the questions below.

Do you Frequently:	Yes	No
Neglect your diet?
Try to do everything yourself?
Blow up easily?
Seek unrealistic goals?
Fail to see the humour in situations others find funny?
Act rude?
Make a “big deal” of everything?
Look to other people to make things happen?
Have difficult making decisions?
Complain you are disorganized?
Avoid people whose ideas are different from yours?
Keep everything inside?
Neglect exercise?
Have few supportive relationships
Use sleeping pills & tranquiller without a doctor’s approval?
Get too little rest?
Get angry when you are kept waiting?
Ignore stress systems?
Put things off until later?
Think there is only one right way?
Fail to build relaxation time into your day?
Gossip?
Race through the day?
Spend a lot of time complaining about the past?
Fail to get a break from noise & crowds?
Score 1 for each “YES” answer, 0 for each “NO”
Total your score

WHAT YOUR SCORE MEANS…

Creating a written affirmation for your goals is important. An example is setting the amount of money you want to make in your life. It is important that you set a specific amount in a time line. I would suggest you make this statement as to the value that you are willing to create in the world in return for the money you will receive. Money is simply payment rendered for other people. Money is simply energy, which needs to flow. Money is the form of currency rendered to you by the universe for the amount of value and goodness that you offer to others. The more value you create for others, the more money will be available to you. Experience has shown that to be fully effective self-suggestions or affirmations should be; brief and positive. If they are too long, they will not be effective and they need to be positive, which is essential. The saying “say as you mean it” is vital.

Another way to imprint powerful change within yourself is to repeat single words frequently. Words that work for me are enthusiastic, knowledge, curious, positive, imaginative, confident, persistent, energetic, dependable, and astute. I have done this before by using strong and powerful words repeatedly in my journal just to imprint them within my consciousness. If you pick a word that describes the characteristics, you want to strengthen in yourself, repeat the word throughout the day. Alternatively, affirm, “I am ___________”. This has been a very effective technique. Make a list of the qualities you would like to develop more fully using or adding to the above list of words. I choose the qualities I need to work on the most. Working on one at a time starting with the weakest is a plan that has worked for me.

Our thoughts do materialize. Our lives becoming the dominant reflection of our inner image and of our regular thoughts. This is why it is so important we pay attention to the quality of our thinking. Only human beings can think about their thinking. We can write about the quality, the thinking processes, and then reflect on the caliber of our thoughts. In doing so, we can then commit to make changes and creating new ways of thinking. If you focus on what is not working in your life, you are literally blocking all things you want entering your life. If you are focusing on all the negatives in your life, you are literally living in the past.

By doing so, you are failing to remain open to the present. When you are worrying about what is not working in your life, brooding over your past mistakes you really are not living in the present. The present is where the possibilities live. Therefore, if you are not open to the present you are missing the opportunities to live your best life. However, we need to learn from our mistakes. Spend a little bit of time in the past time trying to figure out what needs to be improved but then moving on.

We need to remember that we cannot move that car forward with one eye stuck in the rear view mirror. Every moment is a new opportunity to recreate your life and to achieve your highest possibilities.

I believe that what we focus on in our lives grows and what we think about all day long expands. The more you pay attention to what is not working the more your life somehow does not work and on the other hand the more you pay attention to the gifts and blessings that are within your days the more those kinds of things seem to appear with greater frequency. That is really, what appreciation is all about. If you look at a painting, for example, you can appreciate it, which means that it goes up in value for us and the more we can appreciate all the good things that are in our lives; like other people, where we are, our victories, our struggles and what those have made of us, the more they will grow in value in our life as a whole. It is so easy to let the insufficiencies going on and struggles we face in our lives to allow those to dominate our days and interfere with our positive state of mind.

If you are going through a tough time, I am not suggesting you just need to think positively. “Think positively and everything will go away”, because that is more denial and denial is not just a river in Egypt (humour). Denial is something that is very unhealthy and those wounds that we often stuff deep down within ourselves and swallow in the form of denial by not really acknowledging what is true, is a very harmful thing to do and it only leads to greater dissatisfaction. I think that anyone who suggests all we need to do is wish that things were better and go into a positive way of thinking is really giving coaching that is ineffective.

If you are going through a tough time whether it is an illness, dealing with an accident, moving through a divorce or dealing with financial issues it is healthy to feel the feelings that surround those experiences because that is reality. There is nothing more detrimental than bottling up all those emotions that want to come out; that want to surface and putting on a happy face to the world instead.

Life is a balance. It is a balance between moving through feelings in a very realistic way if you are facing a struggle and at the same time remembering that you cannot move that car forward with one eye stuck in the rear view mirror. It is a balance process in the sense that once you have completed the feelings and have moved through them, a time will come where you must exercise personal responsibility and obviously move ahead with your life.

There is a difference between feeling through your feelings, which is very genuine, and wallowing in your feelings, which is staying stuck in the past. Making it a daily practice to stay focused on what you want in life and what is working in your life is important.

Every moment that you focus on what you do not want in your life you need to remember you are actually blocking what you do want from being present.

Wise men and philosophers throughout the ages have disagreed about many things, but they are unanimously in agreement on one point: “We become what we think about”.

Emerson said, “A man is what he thinks about all day long”. The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius put it this way, “A man’s life is what his thoughts make of it”. William James said, “The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind”. In the Bible, we find, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

In his book, Success! The Glenn Bland Method, Charlie Jones writes,

“Since ‘we become what we think about,’ then it is most important that we carefully regard our thought patterns. This is one of the most powerful natural laws in the universe. You will find this law to be a two edged sword, a natural law that can lead a man to a life of inner peace, wealth, enlightenment and physical well-being and a law that can lead him into the gutter, into a life of misery. How the law works for you depends on how you use it, for good or for evil, the choice is yours. Never forget that you live in a world of cause and effect, for every action there is a reaction.”

There is a need to have a blueprint present of our lives, which is an incredibly important strategy; a plan of action for the extraordinary life you are committed to creating. Having a plan allows us to direct our energies, stay focused and channel the best within ourselves to make wiser choices and speed us along to our goals much more quickly.

A very important aspect of reaching your potential and creating the success in your life is not to allow your failures to defeat you. Many successful people have had failures, sometime many. Most people never reach success because they give up after one or two setbacks. Napoleon Hill’s classic Think and Grow Rich recounts a story of a miner who gave up after months of prospecting, three feet from the gold. Nevertheless, he applied this lesson to everything in his life thereafter and eventually became very successful.

In conclusion, a quote from Thomas Watson, founder of IBM, “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not: unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”