I hope you are fit and thinking powerfully. If you are not, start acting as if you are. The following article will explain what appears to be a silly suggestion.
We all program or fail to program success into our minds. Even large animals like elephants and small creatures like fleas can be trained by mental programming.
Elephants are kept on a small rope leash when they are young. They find they cannot break the leash. When they are older and could easily break the leash, they remember their childhood experiences of failing to break the leash and don't even try to break a rope which they could snap like a thread of cotton.
Fleas are much the same!
You may already have heard the famous story about the fleas that were put in a jar with a glass lid.
The fleas jumped as fleas do but kept banging their heads on the glass lid. They could only jump about three inches because of the lid barrier.
Eventually the glass lid was removed but the fleas still kept jumping only three inches high.
They had become programmed to believe that they would never jump higher than three inches. None of them escaped from the jar and none of them reached the height of 30 or more inches that they could easily reach.
Humans are exactly the same. We have our own glass ceilings. We are programmed at an early age to believe that we will only be capable of making about £20,000 or $40,000 dollars a year by working hard from 9 till 5.
We may go throughout our entire lives holding this belief and never realizing that we have the ability to make at least a million dollars a year or more by working less but in a different way.
Such programming can be provided with the best of intentions by our parents, friends and even ourselves.
The programming does not only apply to money.
I programmed myself to believe that I was no good at maths until I actually started taking the subject seriously and realised that it was not as difficult as I thought. I had been struggling unnecessarily for a very long time.
For several years I had not used the radio/tape recorder in my car. I had lost the instructions for entering the code and believed I was not able to enter the code without these instructions.
One morning, I thought I would have a go anyway without the instructions. It took me about two minutes to enter the code successfully. I could now listen again to great self-improvement audio tapes as I drove along.
Negative self-programming had deprived me of the radio and the tape recorder combined with it for years. In other words negative programming can turn us into complete idiots!
Fortunately, negative programming can be overcome at least partly by positive programming. Some of the following methods are worth a try:
Reading the great positive literature of the world can turn things around. My thinking was transformed by reading Frank Bettger's "How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling."
Frank also raised himself from failure to success in professional baseball until he was unable to continue playing baseball and became a salesman instead.
If you don't have time to read an entire book read just one chapter a day or read some of the many great articles on success that are readily available all over the internet.
Repeating positive affirmations again and again with feeling can gradually change our beliefs about ourselves. Try repeating some of the following a couple of times a day:
"I can always find a way to achieve my goals even if they seem impossible."
"I will learn whatever I have to, to reach my goals."
"Whenever I start a new task, I imagine succeeding at it until I do."
If you think you are useless at some skill, pretend that you are becoming more skillful at it on a daily basis. For example you could think or say:
"My knowledge of and ability to use 'html' is becoming greater and greater."
If you lack energy and enthusiasm, pretend to be full of energy and enthusiasm. Follow the advice given to his mother by Hamlet:
"Assume a virtue if you have it not."
This method was the one used by Frank Bettger to achieve success both in baseball and selling. He started to pretend he was full of enthusiasm and energy when he played baseball. The paper's called him 'Pep Bettger'.
He soon moved from the minor leagues into the major leagues.
He did the same when he hit a slump in selling later in his life and had the same result - success.
Christopher Westra, like Shakespeare, has some thoughtful words to say on the power of pretending:
"Do you want to be more confident? Pretend you are confident. If you want to be more physically active, then act as if your body is full of energy and a joy to move."
Give some of the ideas above a try and you could soon become more positive and more active. Your glass ceiling could lift until it no longer exists and you could start achieving what you once were convinced was impossible.
John Watson is an award winning teacher and fifth degree black belt martial arts instructor. He has recently written several books about achieving your goals and dreams.
If you would like some free positive literature right now subscribe at www.johnwatsonpublishing.com or at www.motivationtoday.com
Post new comment
Please Register or Login to post new comment.