Creating a Better Life

The Ultimate Cure for Procrastination

The death of success comes from the delusion of “I’ll Do It Later.”

This one is even more insidious than the secret to failure that I wrote about a while back… because when we say that “I’ll do it later”, we are usually lying to ourselves on some level.

We may not intend to be lying… but we usually are.

In Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude, W. Clement Stone and Napoleon Hill have a solution for this -

Do It Now

That’s it.

Just Do It Now.

Whenever you find yourself saying “I’ll do it later”, answer yourself with the self-motivator Do It Now.

When You Can’t Do It Now

Sometimes you honestly can’t Do It Now. If you’re in the middle of something else, and the thought “Wow, the garbage needs to go out” comes up, you’ve got a couple of choices.

1.) Stop what you are doing and take the garbage out.

2.) Continue what you are doing and take the garbage out later.

The problem with “later” is that if we don’t get “take out the garbage” out of our heads, it’s going to keep popping up until it’s taken care of.

In these situations, I like to use what David Allen, author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity, calls the “Two Minute Rule.”

If it can be accomplished in two minutes or less… Do It Now.

If it can’t, capture the thought in whatever way you prefer - write it down, record it… whatever works best for you.

The “two minutes” is an arbitrary time frame. The idea behind it is to decide which of the following would take more time with the least disturbance - recording it for later action, or Doing It Now.

It may actually take 5 minutes, but if that garbage has been piling up for awhile… it may be best to just go ahead and Do It Now.

What Just Came Up For You?

While reading this, what came up for you that needs to get done, but you haven’t for whatever reason?

Why not Do It Now?

[ image credit: Piotr Lewandowski on stock.xchng ]

Pointers To Resources For Your Better Life #6

Reborn magazines, podcasts from a motivational master, and planning to succeed in 2008… welcome to the 6th edition of Pointers To Resources For Your Better Life.

Success Magazine Lives!

Karen Lynch of Live The Power let us know that the famous Success Magazine will be making a comeback in 2008. I’m pretty jazzed about this - as a fan of Napoleon Hill, W. Clement Stone, and Og Mandino, it’s really neat to see the magazine making a comeback.

Zig Ziglar Podcast

Classic Zig audio and video from Inspiring Words of Encouragement. If you haven’t ever heard Zig Ziglar before, I think you’re in for a treat. Here’s a link to one of my favorites - The Story of the Biscuits - which includes an inspiring story about encouraging others.

See Your 2008 Now

One of the top suggestions from people who have enjoyed success is that we see it, act it, live it, and be it before we achieve it. Here are a couple of exercises that might help you to do that.

Vickie of Contemplate This suggests that we write up something from the perspective of the end of 2008. I joined in, and it really was powerful. My wife even said that it was her favorite piece of my writing - I guess doubling a guy’s income really does make him sexier .

To add in some visuals that your subconscious can really soak up, you can set up what’s known as a “Treasure Map” or “Vision Board”. Lorraine Cohen of Powerfull Living has published an in depth article explaining the process of creating a treasure map (and shares her finished product). After you’ve finished with yours (or before you’ve started if you want more tips), check out Edward Mills’ Vision Board 2008 Invitational and display your future for the world to see! I’m committed to getting mine done well before Edward’s deadline (January 14th) - I hope you’ll join me!

Make it a great week!

[ image credit: marcin krawczyk on stock.xchng ]

Using Sickness To Get What You Want

One of the greatest principles that I learned from “Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude” was that of turning what is an apparent failure into a success.

The book mentions that one of the authors (W. Clement Stone) had the habit of saying “That’s Great!” whenever someone presented him with a problem.

Well… I’ve had a problem for about 5 days now…

I’ve been sick… it feels like the flu. I’ve been getting to the day job, but today I finally called off.

That’s Great!

Huh?

One of the things that I’m realizing about myself is that I’m really good at using illness as an excuse to get out of responsibility. I learned early on that if I can create a cold sore, or a stomach ache, or a migraine, or even an addiction, I can relieve myself of responsibility to create my world the way I want it.

But when I relieve myself of that responsibility, someone else will take it over.

And quite frankly, I’m tired of that!

I think it’s pretty interesting that I got this ill just after starting my 17 Success Principles project, and actually sticking with it for the last 10 days.

It’s like my body said “Holy Crap, this guy might actually accomplish something! Shut down the immune system, it’s not safe, it’s not safe! He’s not falling for our regular distractions… shut it down NOW!”

That’s fine. I rested up today, but it’s time to get back to work. It’s good that I got this ill… it gave me time to reflect on just how often I’ve done this in my life, whether consciously or unconsciously (from days off in school to never having to take any responsibility in jobs I’ve had.)

I take responsibility now.

—

Have you ever experienced this? I know many have… as a matter of fact, this post has been rolling around in my head since this episode of the Law of Attraction Live radio show, in which one of the callers brought it up.

Maybe next time I won’t have to make myself physically ill in order to write about the stuff in my noggin.

Seven Things I Learned from Jack Canfield

Quite a while back, I listened in on a conference call with Jack Canfield (best known as the co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series and one of the teachers featured in the movie The Secret) that was sponsored by Feed333. The notes I took on the call have been sitting on my hard drive, and I decided to review them and share the points that stuck with me the most.

1.) Canfield was a student of W. Clement Stone, who believed that the world was “plotting to do him good.” I’m a big admirer of Stone, and am currently working my way through the 17 Success Principles he and Napoleon Hill outlined in Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude. My esteem for Canfield just about doubled when he talked about this.

2.) He explained that some people are what is called “Psychologically Reversed“. This means that, in those who suffer from this condition, their subconscious minds can assume that “good is bad” and “bad is good”, which leads to all sorts of self destructive behavior… and the more the behavior is pushed against, the worse it becomes. He never directly references EFT, but explains that tapping on what EFT refers to as the karate chop point can remove the reversal.

3.) Debt is not a terrible thing. It’s sometimes an investment in the future.

4.) When it comes to the Law of Attraction, it’s not the thought - it’s the feeling that is produced by the thought that does the vibrating. This seems to be a bit different from the Abraham-Hicks viewpoint, which says that the thought vibrates, and the feeling tells us if our current dominant thought will bring us closer to what we want. I personally don’t care what’s vibrating, as long as it’s vibrating where I want it to.

5.) You can begin affirmations with the following if it feels like you are lying to yourself: “I’m now in the process of attracting all that I need to x”.

6.) The Hawthorne Effect - that which you measure and report on will improve exponentially.

7.) Be open to feedback… you’re going to get it anyway!

So feel free to leave some feedback in the comments, or via my contact page.

Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude Principle Four - Accurate Thinking

The 4th success principle proposed by W. Clement Stone and Napoleon Hill in “Success Though a Positive Mental Attitude” is Accurate Thinking.

This one seemed pretty obvious to me. Of course we have to think accurately! Being the analytical, straight line guy that I am, I have a real problem with fuzzy thinking. I always prefer the straight line approach.

Or do I?

How many times have I read yet another self-help/personal development book, thinking “Now this one is SURE to work!”, after a half-hearted failed attempt at practicing the principles of the last one I read?

How many times have I checked, and rechecked, and rechecked the stats on this blog, and wondered why my readership hasn’t gone up? Could it be because I’m spending all of my time and energy checking my stats, and none creating something of value?

How many times have I told myself that I’m “logical, analytical, and intelligent”, while lighting a tube full of tobacco that increases my chances of contracting cancer and heart disease? Is my logic and intelligence driving me at those moments?

Those are only three of the ways that I delude myself regularly; if I spent any real time on it, I could probably come up with 25 more.

And there are probably another 25 that I’m not even aware of.

One of the biggest suggestions that authors make is that we realize that we are driven by emotion. I remember reading a Hazelden pamphlet a while back (that I’ve long since forgotten the name of) that said something along the lines of “Our thoughts direct our sails, our emotions are the winds the drive the boat.”

Anyone who thinks that they are guided by reason alone is not practicing accurate thinking.

So what do we do about this? How do we, as the authors put it, “clear the cobwebs from our mind?”

We learn to direct our thoughts.

We decide to, as Wallace Wattles says in “The Science of Getting Rich”, engage in that work from which most men shirk: the work of controlling our thinking.

None of this is easy… it takes a lot of practice. Some may “get it” faster than others, but I truly believe that anyone with at least a partially functioning nervous system can do it with practice.

Practice thinking what you want to think.

If you want to be successful, you must practice thinking like those who are successful.

If you want to be unsuccessful, practice thinking like the unsuccessful.

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