The Ability To Make Decisions

As described in "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill, the ability to make decisions is one of the foundational principles of success. The following excerpt is taken from the chapter on decision.

Accurate analysis of over 25,000 men and women who had experienced failure, disclosed the fact that lack of decision was near the head of the list of the 30 major causes of failure. This is no mere statement of a theory - it is a fact.
Procrastination, the opposite of decision, is a common enemy which practically every man must conquer.

You will have an opportunity to test your capacity to reach quick and definite decisions when you finish reading this lesson, and are ready to begin putting into action the principles which it describes.

Analysis of several hundred people who had accumulated fortunes well beyond the million dollar mark, disclosed the fact that every one of them had the habit of reaching decisions promptly, and of changing these decisions slowly, if, and when they were changed. People who fail to accumulate money, without exception, have the habit of reaching decisions, if at all, very slowly, and of changing these decisions quickly and often.

The majority of people who fail to accumulate money sufficient for their needs, are, generally, easily influenced by the "opinions" of others. They permit the newspapers and the "gossiping" neighbors to do their "thinking" for them. "Opinions" are the cheapest commodities on earth. Everyone has a flock of opinions ready to be wished upon anyone who will accept them. If you are influenced by "opinions" when you reach decisions, you will not succeed in any undertaking, much less in that of transmuting your own desire into money.

If you are influenced by the opinions of others, you will have no desire of your own.


To learn more about all of the principles shared in "Think and Grow Rich", you can join a free 10-week mastermind study program based on Napoleon Hill's phenomenal book. Please click here for all the details.

The Most Valuable Question You May Ever Ask

As you begin to take action toward the fulfillment of your goals and dreams, you must realize that not every action will be perfect.

Not every action will produce the desired result. Not every action will work.

Making mistakes, getting it almost right, and experimenting to see what happens are all part of the process of eventually getting it right.

Thomas Edison is reported to have tried over 2,000 different experiments that failed before he finally got the light bulb to work. He once told a reporter that, from his perspective, he had never failed at all. Inventing the light bulb was just a 2,000-step process. If you can adopt that attitude, then you can be free to take an action, notice what result you get, and then adjust your next actions based on the feedback you have received.

Ready, Fire, Aim!
Don’t be afraid to just jump in and get started moving toward your goals. As long as you pay attention to the feedback you receive, you will make progress. Just getting into the game and firing allows you to correct and refine your aim.

The Most Valuable Question You May Ever Learn
In the 1980s, a multimillionaire businessman taught me a question that radically changed the quality of my life. So what is this magical question that can improve the quality of every relationship you are in, every product you produce, every service you deliver, every meeting you conduct, every class you teach and every transaction you enter into?

Here it is:

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the quality
of our relationship during the last week?”

Here are a number of variations on the same question that have served me well over the years...

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate…

• our service? • my teaching?
• our product? • this class/seminar/workshop?
• this meeting? • our date/vacation?
• our performance? • this meal?
• my coaching/managing? • this book/recording/show?
• my parenting/babysitting?

Any answer less than a 10 always gets this follow-up question:

“What would it take to make it a 10?”

This is where the *really* valuable information comes from. Knowing that a person is dissatisfied is not enough. Knowing in detail what will satisfy them gives you the information you need to do whatever it takes to create a winning product, service or relationship.

There Are Two Kinds of Feedback
There are two kinds of feedback you might encounter – negative and positive. We tend to prefer the positive – that is, results, money, praise, promotion, raise, awards, happiness, inner-peace, etc. It feels betters. It tells us we are on course and doing the right thing.

We tend not to like negative feedback – lack of results, little or no money, criticism, poor evaluations, complaints, unhappiness, inner conflict, pain, etc.

However, there is as much useful data in negative feedback as there is in positive feedback. It tells us that we are off course, headed in the wrong direction, doing the wrong thing. This is priceless information!

In fact, it’s so valuable that one of the most useful projects you could undertake is to change how you respond to negative feedback. I like to refer to negative feedback as information for “improvement opportunities.” Here is a place where I can get better.

Ask Yourself for Feedback
In addition to asking others for feedback, you need to ask yourself for feedback, too. More than any other source of feedback, your body will tell you whether or not you are on course or not. When you are relaxed and happy, your body is telling you that you are on track. When you are constantly exhausted, tense, in pain, unhappy and angry, then you are off track.

Take time to listen to what your body is saying to you. Take time to listen to your physical sensations and your feelings. They are sending you important messages. Are you listening?

Remember, Feedback Is Simply Information
You don’t have to take it personally. Just welcome it and use it.


Jack Canfield, America’s Success Coach, is the founder and co-creator of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul and a leading authority on Peak Performance. If you're ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com

How to Accelerate Your Success with a Mastermind Group

The following article was written by Jack Canfield in the Success Strategies e-zine.

We all know that two heads are better than one when it comes to solving a problem or creating a result. So imagine having a permanent group of five or six people who meet every week for the purpose of problem solving, brainstorming, networking, and encouraging and motivating each other!

This process is called masterminding and is one of the most effective success tools you can adopt! It is a powerful way to support your dreams and bring unlimited resources to your business and personal life.

Participating in a mastermind group has been critical to me. I can't imagine achieving all I have without one, and it certaily made my goals happen much faster.

A Process for Accelerating Your Growth

The basic philosophy of a mastermind group is that more can be achieved in less time when people work together. Sometimes called a "dream team", your mastermind group is made up of two or more individuals who voluntarily come together on a regular basis - weekly, biweekly, or monthly - to share ideas, thoughts, information, feedback and resources.

Your group can be composed of people from your own industry or profession or people from all walks of life. You can focus on business, increasing each other's income, building a business, raising better kids, or solving a social problem.

Within your mastermind group, you benefit from the other members who empower you and draw out your full talents, resources and abilities. They trigger, stimulate, and motivate you to become all you are capable of being.

Creating Your Dream Team

The key is to choose people who are already where you'd like to be in your life - or who are at least a level above you. In forming your mastermind group, start by carefully enrolling another friendly, on-purpose, like-minded individual. Start by meeting together and then adding other selected, unanimously agreed-upon individuals who will work in total harmony for the good of each other and for the good of the group.

1. Your Dream Team should consist of 4-8 people. Most people find that 6 is the ideal number.

2. Meet weekly, if possible, for an hour to an hour and a half. This meeting must be held sacred as a life-enhancing priority. The meetings should be upbeat, enriching, encouraging and beneficial to each individual and the group's purposes. I always start our meetings with a prayer or an invocation. You could also start with an inspiring story.

3. Each member must agree to play all out -- to openly share ideas, support, contacts, information, feedback, and anything else that will help advance the individual and group goals.

4. Start by having each member share something positive and good that happened since the last meeting.

5. Next, have each member share an opportunity or problem they have experienced since the last meeting and ask for whatever support they would like on it. Appoint a time-keeper to make sure that everyone gets the same amount of time. This is important if you want your group to last. Everyone must get value at each meeting.

6. End by sharing appreciations and acknowledgements.

You'll find one of the real values of a mastermind group is the accountability factor - other members checking up on you to make sure you meet your stated commitments. It's one way to ensure you'll accomplish a lot more!

To register into a FREE, mastermind program, and have the opportunity to study Napoloen Hill's book, "Think and Grow Rich", please "click here".

The First Step in Your Journey

Imagine that you are about to drive your family on a cross-country trip from Los Angeles to New York City.

Your first step would be to determine exactly where you were and where you wanted to go. Then you would get an appropriate map(a map of Europe would not do) and you would plan your route.

Once you were en route, if you encountered road blocks, you would make detours and take alternate routes but your final destination, NYC, would not change.

Life is very similar to taking a family road trip.

You decide where you want to go, you determine exactly where you are, and you make a plan. Your plan is flexible because it must take into account unforseen circumstances, but your destination is fixed.

Another way of saying it is "you write your plans in sand but you write your dreams and goals in concrete."

An airplane pilot flying from LA to NYC does the same thing. Ninety-nine percent of the time he is off course (the wind keeps blowing him off course) but he does not get discouraged. He simply keeps making course corrections in order to reach his destination.

Even on final approach, the pilot is making hundreds of tiny course corrections in order t o land the plane safely on the runway's center stripe.

You must be brutally honest about where you are when you get started. Otherwise, the best plans will not help you. You must do a skills inventory in order to know your strengths and weaknesses. It's important to know your weaknesses in order to know where you might need help.

Ask yourself:

How did I get to my current situation?

What did I do right?

What could I have done differently?

You can always learn from the past. You want to extract all the lessons you can from the past in order to be better prepared for the future.

Now that you know where you are and where you want to go, the next question you need to ask yourself is:

What do I need to do to get from where I am to where I want to go?

And....

What should I stop doing?

Who should I be spending more time with?

What activities or people are holding me back?

By taking the time to analyze where you are, where you want to go, and how you will do it, you will save months or even years on your journey.

The following article was written by three-time Olympian, Ruben Gonzalez. You can visit Ruben's Success Blog at www.OlympicMotivationBlog.com

Creating A Postive Attitude To Achieve Positive Results

The following artcile was written by Mark Victor Hansen and published in Jom Rohn's Weekly E-zine.

Your attitude determines the state of world you live in. It is the foundation for every success and every failure you have had and will have. Your attitude will make you or break you.

Attitude creates the way you feel about people and situations. Your actions are a result of your attitude, which, in turn, creates a reaction from others. So, basically, what you think ... you get. It is your attitude toward others and the Universe that determines the resultant attitude toward you. Incorporate a positive, joyful attitude and you'll have positive, joyful results. Put out a bad, negative attitude and you've failed before you begin.

I know it sounds simple, but the truth is….it IS simple!

WHERE DO NEGATIVE ATTITUDES COME FROM IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Negative attitudes come from thinking negative thoughts over and over until they have become a part of your subconscious – they've become habitual, a part of your personality. You may not even realize you have a negative attitude because it's been with you for so long. Once you have a bad attitude, you expect failure and disaster. This expectation turns you into a strong magnet for failure and disaster. Then it becomes a vicious circle. You expect the worst - you get the worst - your negative beliefs are reinforced – you expect the worst – you get …

. . . Got the picture?

SO, HOW DO WE SHIFT OUR THOUGHTS AND CREATE A POSITIVE ATTITUDE?

It takes work, but creating anything of value takes work. In order to have a new attitude we have to change our subconscious thinking. How do we do this? By analyzing every thought we have until positive thinking becomes habit. You're merely replacing an old habit with a healthy habit, much like replacing exercise for smoking.

You can't just stop being negative – you have to replace those negative thoughts with positive ones.

Some people would say, "But negative situations are a reality. They just show up in every day life."

This is absolutely not true. Situations are a reality, yes. They do show up. It is your ATTITUDE that makes a situation positive or negative. It's time for you to realize that YOU are in control of how you think and feel – no one else on earth has this power unless you give it away. Take control of your attitude, and you take control of your results.

"Your state of mind creates the state of your results."


Marketing, Creating Wealth, Writing and Speaking Mark Victor Hansen is offering 6 of his best-selling programs at 40-60% less than he even sells them on his site (but only for a very limited time), also free shipping for the first 50 to order (see details online). For complete descriptions of these programs go to http://mvh.yoursuccessstore.com or call 877-929-0439.

The Three Requisites

Sometime today or tomorrow or next month, in practically every commercial office and manufacturing plant in the world, an important executive will sit back in his or her chair and study a list of names on a sheet of white paper.
Your name may be on it.

A position of responsibility is open and they are face to face with the old, old problem - "Where can I find the person?"

The faces, the words, the work, the impressions of various people will pass through their mind in quick review. What is the first question they will ask concerning each?

"Which person is strongest on initiative, which one can best assume responsibility?"

Other things being equal, that is the person who will get the job. For the first requisite in business as in social life is confidence in yourself - knowledge of your power. Given that, the second is easy - initiative or the courage to start things. Lots of people have ideas, but few have the confidence in themselves or the courage to start anything.

With belief and initiative, the third requisite follows almost as a matter of course - the faith to go ahead and do things in the face of all obstacles.

"Oh, God," said Leonardo da Vinci, "you sell us everything for the price of an effort."

Certainly no one had a better chance to know than he. An illegitimate son, brought up in the family of his father, the misfortune of his birth made him the source of constant derision. He had to do something to lift himself far above the crowd. And he did. "For the price of an effort" he became the greatest artist in Italy - probably the greatest in the world - in a day when Italy was famous for her artists. Kings and princes felt honored at being associated with this illegitimate boy. He made the name he had no right to, famous for his work alone.

"Work out your own salvation," said Paul. And the first requisite in working it out is a knowledge of your power. All the ages behind you have bequeathed you stores of abilities which you are allowing to lie latent. Those abilities are stored up in your sub-conscious mind. Call upon them. Use them. As Whittier put it - "All the good the past has had remains to make our own time glad."

The following excerpt has been taken from Robert Collier's "The Book of Life".

What You SAY is What You Get

In a previous issue, I talked about how in order to be successful, we must first define what success means to us, and that means getting CLEAR about what you want, writing it down, and thinking BIG!

If you are going to be successful in creating the life of your dreams, you have to believe that you are capable of making it happen. You have to believe you have the right stuff, that you are able to pull it off. You have to believe in yourself. Whether you call it self-esteem, self-confidence, or self-assurance, it is a deep-seated belief that you have what it takes – the abilities, inner resources, talents, and skills to create your desired results.

Ultimately, you must learn to control your self-talk, eliminate any negative and limiting beliefs, and maintain a constant state of positive expectations.

Control Your Self-Talk
Researchers have found that the average person thinks as many as 50,000 thoughts a day. Sadly, many of those thoughts are negative — I’m not management material... I’ll never lose weight... It doesn’t matter what I do, nothing ever works out for me. This is what psychologists call victim language. Victim language actually keeps you in a victim state of mind. It is a form of self-hypnosis that lulls you into a belief that you are unlovable and incompetent.

In order to get what you want from life, you need to give up this victim language and start talking to yourself like a winner — I can do it... I know there is a solution... I am smart enough and strong enough to figure this out... Everything I eat helps me maintain my perfect body weight.

You Are Always Programming Your Subconscious Mind
Your subconscious mind is like the crew of a ship. You are it's captain. It is your job to give the crew orders. And when you do this, the crew takes everything you say literally. The crew (your subconscious) has no sense of humor. It just blindly follows orders. When you say, “Everything I eat goes straight to my hips,” the crew hears that as an order: Take everything she eats, turn it into fat and put it on her hips. On the other hand, if you say, “Everything I eat helps me maintain my perfect body weight,” the crew will begin to make that into reality by helping you make better food choices, exercise, and maintain the right metabolism rate for you body.

This power of your subconscious mind is the reason you must become very vigilant and pay careful attention to your spoken and internal statements. Unfortunately, most people don’t realize they are committing negative self-talk, which is why it is best to enlist another person — your success partner — in monitoring each other’s speaking. You can have a signal for interrupting each other when you use victim language.

Use Affirmations to Build Self-Confidence
One of the most powerful tools for building worthiness and self-confidence is the repetition of positive statements until they become a natural part of the way you think. These “affirmations” act to crowd out and replace the negative orders you have been sending your crew (your subconscious mind) all these years. I suggest that you create a list of 10 to 20 statements that affirm your belief in your worthiness and your ability to create the life of your dreams.

Of course, what to believe is up to you, but here are some examples of affirmations that have worked for others in the past:

I am worthy of love, joy and success.
I am smart and make wise choices.
I am loveable and capable.
I create anything I want.
I am able to solve any problem that comes my way.
I can handle anything that life hands me.
I have all the energy I need to do everything I want to do.
I am attracting all the right people into my life.

Believing in Yourself is an Attitude
Believing in yourself is a choice. It’s an attitude you develop over time. It’s now your responsibility to take charge of your own self-concept and your beliefs. It might help to know that the latest brain research now indicates that with enough positive self-talk and positive visualization combined with the proper training, coaching, and practice, anyone can learn to do almost anything.

You must choose to believe that you can do anything you set your mind to – anything at all – because, in fact, you can!

Jack Canfield, America’s Success Coach, is the founder and co-creator of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul and a leading authority on Peak Performance. If you're ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com. He is also one of the three teachers from The Secret that's featured in The Science of Getting Rich Program. To find out more, please click here.

The "Open, Sesame!" of Life

There is a Napoleonic feeling of power that insures success in the knowledge that this invincible "Life Principle" is behind your every act. Knowing that you have working with you a force which never yet has failed in anything it has undertaken, you can go ahead in the confident knowledge that it will not fail in your case, either. The ingenuity which overcame every obstacle in making you what you are, is not likely to fall short when you have immediate need for it. It is the reserve strength of the athlete, the "second wind" of the runner, the power that, in moments of great stress or excitement, you unconsciously call upon to do the deeds which you ever after look upon as superhuman.

But they are in no wise superhuman. They are merely beyond the capacity of your conscious self. Ally your conscious self with that sleeping giant within you, rouse him daily to the task, and those "superhuman" deeds will become your ordinary, everyday accomplishments.

It matters not whether you are Banker or Lawyer, Business Person or Clerk. Whether you are the custodian of millions, or have to struggle for your daily bread. This "Life Principle" makes no distinction between rich and poor, high and low. The greater your need, the more readily it will respond to your call. Wherever there is an unusual task, wherever there is poverty or hardship or sickness or despair, there is this Servant of your Mind, ready and willing to help, asking only that you call upon him.

And not only is it ready and willing, but it is always able to help. Its ingenuity and resource are without limit. It is Mind. It is Thought. It is the Telepathy that carries messages without the spoken or written word. It is the Sixth Sense that warns you of unseen dangers. No matter how stupendous and complicated, nor how simple your problem may be - the solution of it is somewhere in Mind, in Thought. And since this solution does exist, this Mental Giant can find it for you. It can Know, and it can Do, every right thing. Whatever it is necessary for you to know, whatever it is necessary for you to do, you can know and you can do if you will but seek the help of this Genie-of-your-Mind and work with it in the right way.

This excerpt is from "The Book of Life" by Robert Collier.

Never Give Up! The Power Of Determination

In a previous issue of success strategies, I talked about the importance of taking action toward your goals, dreams and desires. But one of the most important qualities you will need to develop in order to continue taking action is persistence.

You must be persistent in your disciplines and habits; perseverant in the face of adversity, hardship and challenge; and determined to achieve your dreams, no matter what.

There will be many times when you will want to quit, give up, and go back to doing something else, but the one quality that will guarantee your success is the willingness to stick with it, to see it through to the end -- to refuse to settle for anything less than your dream.

The longer you hang in there, the greater the chance that something will happen in your favor. No matter how hard it seems, the longer you persist, the more likely your success will be.

Adversity and Discouragement Is Inevitable
No matter how well you plan and how well you execute your plan, you are bound to meet with disappointments, adversity and failure along the way to your ultimate triumph. Sometimes, you'll encounter what seem like overwhelming odds. And sometimes, the Universe will test your commitment to the goal you're pursuing.

The going may be hard, and may require you to refuse to give up while you learn new lessons, develop new parts of yourself, and make difficult decisions.

And, adversity is what gives you the opportunity to develop your inner resources of character and courage. Adversity is a great teacher. It will test you and make you stronger. But you have to hang in there and not give up!

More than 4000 years ago in China, Confucius wrote: "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

How to Deal with Obstacles
Whenever you confront an obstacle or run into a roadblock, you need to stop and brainstorm three ways to get around it, over it, or through it. For every obstacle, come up with three different strategies for handling the potential obstacle. There are any number of ways that till work, but you will only find them if you spend time looking for them.

Always be solution-oriented in your thinking. Persevere until you find a way that works.

Jack Canfield, America’s Success Coach, is the founder and co-creator of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul and a leading authority on Peak Performance. If you're ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com. He is also one of the three teachers from The Secret that's featured in The Science of Getting Rich Program. To find out more, please click here.

Visualize And Affirm Your Desired Outcomes

You have within you an awesome power that most of us have never been taught to use. Elite athletes use it. The super rich use it. And peak performers in all fields are now starting to use it. That power is called visualization. The daily practice of visualizing your dreams as already complete can rapidly accelerate your achievement of those dreams. Visualization of your goals and desires accomplishes four very important things.

1. It activates your creative subconscious which will start generating creative ideas to achieve your goal.

2. It programs your brain to more readily perceive and recognize the resources you will need to achieve your dreams.

3. It activates the law of attraction, thereby drawing into your life the people, resources, and circumstances you will need to achieve your goals.

4. It builds your internal motivation to take the necessary actions to achieve your dreams.

Visualization is really quite simple. You sit in a comfortable position, close your eyes and imagine — in as vivid detail as you can — what you would be looking at if the dream you have were already realized. Imagine being inside of yourself, looking out through your eyes at the ideal result.

Mental Rehearsal

Athletes call this visualization process “mental rehearsal,” and they have been using it since the 1960s when we learned about it from the Russians. All you have to do is set aside a few minutes a day. The best times are when you first wake up, after meditation or prayer, and right before you go to bed. These are the times you are most relaxed. Go through the following three steps:

1. Imagine sitting in a movie theater, the lights dim, and then the movie starts. It is a movie of you doing perfectly whatever it is that you want to do better. See as much detail as you can create, including your clothing, the expression on your face, small body movements, the environment and any other people that might be around. Add in any sounds you would be hearing — traffic, music, other people talking, cheering. And finally, recreate in your body any feelings you think you would be experiencing as you engage in this activity.

2. Get out of your chair, walk up to the screen, open a door in the screen and enter into the movie. Now experience the whole thing again from inside of yourself, looking out through your eyes. This is called an “embodied image” rather than a “distant image.” It will deepen the impact of the experience. Again, see everything in vivid detail, hear the sounds you would hear, and feel the feelings you would feel.

3. Finally, walk back out of the screen that is still showing the picture of you performing perfectly, return to your seat in the theater, reach out and grab the screen and shrink it down to the size of a cracker. Then, bring this miniature screen up to your mouth, chew it up and swallow it. Imagine that each tiny piece — just like a hologram — contains the full picture of you performing well. Imagine all these little screens traveling down into your stomach and out through the bloodstream into every cell of your body. Then imagine that every cell of your body is lit up with a movie of you performing perfectly. It’s like one of those appliance store windows where 50 televisions are all tuned to the same channel.

When you have finished this process — it should take less than five minutes — you can open your eyes and go about your business. If you make this part of your daily routine, you will be amazed at how much improvement you will see in your life.

Create Goal Pictures

Another powerful technique is to create a photograph or picture of yourself with your goal, as if it were already completed. If one of your goals is to own a new car, take your camera down to your local auto dealer and have a picture taken of yourself sitting behind the wheel of your dream car. If your goal is to visit Paris, find a picture or poster of the Eiffel Tower and cut out a picture of yourself and place it into the picture. With today’s technology, you could probably make an even more convincing image using your computer.

Create a Visual Picture and an Affirmation for Each Goal

We recommend that you find or create a picture of every aspect of your dream life. Create a picture or a visual representation for every goal you have — financial, career, recreation, new skills and abilities, things you want to purchase, and so on.

When we were writing the very first Chicken Soup for the Soul® book, we took a copy of the New York Times best seller list, scanned it into our computer, and using the same font as the newspaper, typed Chicken Soup for the Soul into the number one position in the “Paperback Advice, How-To and Miscellaneous” category. We printed several copies and hung them up around the office. Less than two years later, our book was the number one book in that category and stayed there for over a year!

Index Cards

We practice a similar discipline every day. We each have a list of about 30-40 goals we are currently working on. We write each goal on a 3x5 index card and keep those cards near our bed and take them with us when we travel. Each morning and each night we go through the stack of cards, one at a time, read the card, close our eyes, see the completion of that goal in its perfect desired state for about 15 seconds, open our eyes and repeat the process with the next card.

Use Affirmations to Support Your Visualization

An affirmation is a statement that evokes not only a picture, but the experience of already having what you want. Here’s an example of an affirmation:

I am happily vacationing 2 months out of the year in a tropical paradise,
and working just four days a week owning my own business.

Repeating an affirmation several times a day keeps you focused on your goal, strengthens your motivation, and programs your subconscious by sending an order to your crew to do whatever it takes to make that goal happen.

Expect Results

Through writing down your goals, using the power of visualization and repeating your affirmations, you can achieve amazing results. Visualization and affirmations allow you to change your beliefs, assumptions, and opinions about the most important person in your life — YOU! They allow you to harness the 18 billion brain cells in your brain and get them all working in a singular and purposeful direction.

Your subconscious will become engaged in a process that transforms you forever. The process is invisible and doesn’t take a long time. It just happens over time, as long as you put in the time to visualize and affirm, surround yourself with positive people, read uplifting books and listen to audio programs that flood your mind with positive, life-affirming messages.

Repeat your affirmations every morning and night for a month and they will become an automatic part of your thinking — they will become woven into the very fabric of your being.


Jack Canfield, America’s Success Coach, is the founder and co-creator of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul and a leading authority on Peak Performance. If you're ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com. He is also one of the three teachers from The Secret that's featured in The Science of Getting Rich Program. To find out more, please click here.

Conceptualize Your Purpose

The following articles was written by Mark Victor Hansen and published in the "Your Achievement Ezine."

What were you put on earth to do? That's a mind-blowing question, because most people don't know the answer. Lots of folks get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, sit in front of the television and go to sleep. That´s their day. That is not anyone's purpose in life. That's not a life at all.

Don't get me wrong – I'm not throwing blame or fault. In most cases, they probably don't know any better. This was how their parents lived each day; this was how they grew up. Maybe they think this is it – this is all life has to offer.

Well, I'm here to sound the wake-up call.

There's a great scene in the movie "The Matrix" between Morpheus, a mentor, and Neo, his student. Neo has just woken up and discovered that what he thought was reality was just a world 'that had been pulled over his eyes to shield him from the truth.' Morpheus wants Neo to let go of what he used to think of as "reality," his mundane, day-to-day existence, where his true purpose was neither recognized nor realized. I want you to create a new world, a new reality, where you recognize that you have a purpose for being on this planet, and realize that your purpose is waiting for you to figure it out.

If you don't know your purpose, then your first purpose is to get a purpose.

When you look at the lives of the most successful people who ever lived, you can see that they had a definite purpose and they knew it. Some examples are: Christ – His purpose was spiritual, and stated in John 10:10, which reads: "...I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly."

Walt Disney's purpose: "To make people happy."

Dr. R. Buckminster Fuller's purpose: "Humanity's comprehensive welfare on spaceship earth."

Henry Ford's purpose: "To mass produce, mass distribute and have cars mass consumed."

Andrew Carnegie's purpose: "To manufacture and market steel."

Mother Teresa's purpose: "To care for and comfort the poor, sick and needy all over the world."

I don't want you to confuse a purpose with a goal. Goals are great! I teach goal setting, and believe it is crucial to achieving any kind of success. But goals alone, left by themselves, can be indiscriminate and undirected. We can have hundreds of goals (and I hope you do), but we may only have one purpose that we work for our entire life. That purpose should be the underlying core that gives our goals direction and meaning.

Discovering your purpose will put your life into crystal-clear perspective. You won't see the world you once knew. You will see another world, one in which you are a necessary and intricate spoke in the wheel.

The saddest places on earth are graveyards. Not because people are buried there, but because dreams, talents and purposes that never came to fruition are buried there. Graveyards are filled with books that were never written, songs that were never sung, words that were never spoken, things that were never done.

You have talents and gifts that no one else can offer. There are things you can do that no one else is capable of doing quite the way YOU can do them. Don't rob this earth of your purpose by taking it to the grave with you. You see, we all have a purpose, a reason for living, breathing and existing. We all have unique talents and gifts that were created and given to us to be shared. Our task is to understand this and figure out what our purpose is. We owe it to the Universe AND to ourselves!

"You will become as small as your controlling desire, or as great as your dominant aspiration."

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How To Speak Your Way To Success

The following article is by Jack Canfield, who has written The Success Principles.

In order to be successful, we must first define what success means to us, and that means getting clear about what you want, writing it down, and thinking big!

If you are going to be successful in creating the life of your dreams, you have to believe that you are capable of making it happen. You have to believe you have the right stuff, that you are able to pull it off.

You have to believe in yourself. Whether you call it self- esteem, self-confidence, or self-assurance, it is a deep- seated belief that you have what it takes - the abilities, inner resources, talents, and skills to create your desired results.

Ultimately, you must learn to control your self-talk, eliminate any negative and limiting beliefs, and maintain a constant state of positive expectations.

Control Your Self-Talk...
Researchers have found that the average person thinks as many as 50,000 thoughts a day. Sadly, many of those thoughts are negative - I'm not management material... I'll never lose weight... It doesn't matter what I do, nothing ever works out for me.

This is what psychologists call victim language. Victim language actually keeps you in a victim state of mind. It is a form of self-hypnosis that lulls you into a belief that you are unlovable and incompetent.

In order to get what you want from life, you need to give up this victim language and start talking to yourself like a winner - I can do it... I know there is a solution... I am smart enough and strong enough to figure this out...
Everything I eat helps me maintain my perfect body weight.

You Are Always Programming Your Subconscious Mind...
Your subconscious mind is like the crew of a ship. You are it's captain. It is your job to give the crew orders. And when you do this, the crew takes everything you say literally.

The crew (your subconscious) has no sense of humor. It just blindly follows orders. When you say, "Everything I eat goes straight to my hips," the crew hears that as an order: Take everything she eats, turn it into fat and put it on her hips.

On the other hand, if you say, "Everything I eat helps me maintain my perfect body weight," the crew will begin to make that into reality by helping you make better food choices, exercise, and maintain the right metabolism rate for you body.

This power of your subconscious mind is the reason you must become very vigilant and pay careful attention to your spoken and internal statements.

Unfortunately, most people don't realize they are committing negative self-talk, which is why it is best to enlist another person - your success partner - in monitoring each other's speaking. You can have a signal for interrupting each other when you use victim language.

Use Affirmations to Build Self-Confidence...
One of the most powerful tools for building worthiness and self-confidence is the repetition of positive statements until they become a natural part of the way you think.

These "affirmations" act to crowd out and replace the negative orders you have been sending your crew (your subconscious mind) all these years. I suggest that you create a list of 10 to 20 statements that affirm your belief in your worthiness and your ability to create the life of your dreams.

Of course, what to believe is up to you, but here are some examples of affirmations that have worked for others in the
past:

* I am worthy of love, joy and success.
* I am smart and make wise choices.
* I am loveable and capable.
* I create anything I want.
* I am able to solve any problem that comes my way.
* I can handle anything that life hands me.
* I have all the energy I need to do everything I want to do.
* I am attracting all the right people into my life.

Believing in Yourself is an Attitude...
Believing in yourself is a choice. It's an attitude you develop over time. It's now your responsibility to take charge of your own self-concept and your beliefs.

It might help to know that the latest brain research now indicates that with enough positive self-talk and positive visualization combined with the proper training, coaching, and practice, anyone can learn to do almost anything.

You must choose to believe that you can do anything you set your mind to - anything at all - because, in fact, you can!


Jack Canfield, America’s Success Coach, is the founder and co-creator of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul and a leading authority on Peak Performance. If you're ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com. He is also one of the three teachers from The Secret that's featured in The Science of Getting Rich Program. To find out more, please click here.

When Success Is Slow, What Can You Do?

The following article has been taken from Jack Canfield's "Success Strategies' E-zine.

Pop Quiz: Can success be sped up? Is there an antidote to slow outcomes despite arduous planning and actions taken? What is the secret for seeing huge results right now?!

I get versions of these questions frequently from people who feel frustrated at sluggish progress in their success journey - despite all the know-how and principles they rigorously employ.

First, let's get one thing straight...

When we admire someone's success, or even our own, we often focus on the end result and not so much on the effort (and time) that it took to get there. This can cultivate unrealistic expectations, especially the idea that overnight success can happen through careful strategy and an execution of sound advice.

The truth be told, success typically follows a series of little events and achievements that can seem to take an eternity, that include a few disappointments along the way, and that challenge everything about you to the core - your stamina, courage, integrity, and even your willingness to keep going.

If you focus on what's not working, guess what: You're likely coming from a place of aggravation as your mind wraps around all that is wrong. You may even have negative thoughts like "I'm not good enough," "It will never work," or "Something must be wrong with me." What this mentally does is engender more of these counter-productive feelings. And given what we know about the Law of Attraction, you attract what you are feeling. So negative experiences, people, and results will beget more negative experience, people, and results. There's not much success in that.

The key, then, is to focus on what IS working. To do so, I recommend two simple practices: journaling and meditation.

Maintaining a journal (I call it an Evidence Log, Results Journal, or Gratitude Journal) is a great way to steer your attention to the positive and continually renew your vision for yourself.

Start each day with reflections on what you are grateful for in your life (list them out!) and end each day with notes on what went right (again, write them down), however small.

Meditation can be powerful tool for arriving at solutions to problems and shifting your attitude so you can attract success sooner rather than later. The magic of meditation is its ability to essentially shut down the outer layer of your judgmental, highly-critical brain and allow your unconscious mind to take over. This is where you enter a deeper state of inner peace and joy, tapping into a higher level of creativity that will help usher in the results you want.

Don't know how to meditate? Lots of books and materials are available to guide you this practice. It's easier than you think.

Okay, let's say you're doing ALL these things, but you still aren't happy with your results. I'll ask you, are you taking real ACTION?

You may be taking the actions you are used to taking. But therein lies the problem: if you keep doing what you've already done then you'll keep getting what you've always gotten. It's a matter of practicing some new behaviors. Shake things up a bit and see if you can take new actions or modify existing ones.

Remember the Rule of 5. Every day do five specific things that take you toward your goal. Change up the five actions regularly and be open to feedback so you know when you're off course.

Lastly, I want to remind you about patience. It's natural to underestimate how long a certain goal can take, especially a profound one. When I set a goal to become a millionaire the year was 1983. How long did it take? Eleven years. It took time for Chicken Soup for the Soul to hit the bestseller lists. You could say our tenure on the New York Times list was more than a decade in the making. That's a lot of patience for someone who initially wanted overnight success.

So, yes, patience is a virtue. But keep at it, and in no time, you'll be only one week, or one day away from your ultimate success.

Remember... be grateful, reflect on what IS working and continue to take ACTION!


Jack Canfield, America’s Success Coach, is the founder and co-creator of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul and a leading authority on Peak Performance. If you're ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com. He is also one of the three teachers from The Secret that's featured in The Science of Getting Rich Program. To find out more, please click here.