You get what you focus on. Focus = attention paid.

Now that is a good news/bad news situation, if there has ever been one.

Because you create your reality, and you create it with your words (what you focus on) you can seriously mis-create.

Let’s take weight, for example.

I used to be skinny. I mean skinny!

I ate what I ate, and had no thoughts about my weight or the lack of it.

Then I heard about healthy eating, and started to concentrate on “healthy” food. Guess what happened? I started to pack the weight on, and went from 96 lbs to 165 lbs in a few weeks, no kidding.

It is like a fine tuned, well oiled machine. You can play with it. The Universe is exceptionally responsive. It’s easier to see on issues that are not pressing. Why?

Because all thoughts matter, not just your conscious thoughts. And you are only aware of 1%¹ of your thoughts, the others happen while you are busy with other things. Bummer, right? Serious bummer.

So when you experiment, do it with areas of not much consequence. Areas that you don’t fret about. I mostly think of people, and then they call. Or think of changing my attitude on the phone to be cheerful (I don’t unconsciusly think about that) and then the phone rings and I can practice my new cheerful attitude then and there.

The gratitude/appreciation exercise is designed to direct your focus.

If you focus on what you appreciate, you’ll get more of it.

Here’s how to take it further

create a growing list of 1000 things you’re grateful for. I have. It’s amazing how easy it becomes after a while. Once you train your focus, all it can see is things to be grateful for. Just like anything else… remember the reticular activator article a while back? Most of the things on that list: I’d completely ignored and taken them for granted before the exercise. But don’t stop… this is an exercise for life. The pull for negativity is tremendous! Don’t kid yourself.

Change Limiting Metaphors

Listen to the metaphors people use. It’s usually a window into the images in their mind. If someone says “I’m at the end of my rope,” they are creating an image in their mind and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even if the image is there just for a split second, it’s there.

Avoid limiting images in your mind. Wake up and have a part of you, the witness part of you monitor everything that comes out of your mouth.

I used to have a teacher who lived that way (at least some of the time

Every time she thoughtlessly uttered something that created an image in her mind, she stopped and she canceled it. She said: “all speaking is committing” and what you do with commitments that you didn’t mean? You cancel them.

“I’m never at the end of my rope. I have a long rope. I never “burn the candle from both ends”. Instead, I “try to touch the sky’s ceiling…”. I’m not “drop dead exhausted”. I just need to “recharge my batteries”.”

Casual and thoughtless use of metaphors is dangerous to your future. Identify and catch the ones you use.  think of the state of mind and  future they bring about. If those futures and feelings aren’t useful, stop using them.

Find the Opportunity where it is least evident

There is a saying that you should do what you love to do. But that doesn’t mean that you should love what you do every moment of every day.  The truth is that some things you always hate to do, and some things you only hat to do some of the time, even if what you do (for a living, for example) is something you love.

So what should be your attitude with the stuff that you don’t like to do? Well, the exercise in finding the silver lining comes handy here: everything you do, every person you meet, ever obstacle you meet is the starting point for a new opportunity… if you are willing for them to show up like that.

Book-keeping is something a lot of people hate. But if you look at it as a way to know what’s going on with your money, you can see that it is an opportunity to greater clarity, growth, noticing your spending habits and changing them, and ultimately it can open up the opportunity to building wealth.

Lots of people hate learning new things. They think they shouldn’t have to. What they can’t see that knowing new things will be able to take them to places they would have never been able to get to with less knowledge…

Love challenges. Challenges give you the opportunity to grow, and to become more.

What is the practice I recommend? Before you start any task, even the ones that you love for their own sake, look and find (or invent) a juicy opportunity that will open up just because you are looking for it.

Create Congruency between your self image and your actions

A lot of people want to get rich. And almost that many have conflicting views about wealth. This is like driving a car with one foot on the gas and the other on the brake.

Some issues need to be settled when it comes to wealth. Will you be wealthy or will you be greedy? Will you love people and use money, or the opposite? What is the human cost you are willing to pay to become wealthy?

You will need to create a consistent world view before you can get wealthy. And make sure that you love the person with that world view, feel good about them, or you will lose it as fast as you got it…

When there is an internal conflict, you don’t feel well, so you won’t do well.

Is your mental image of yourself congruent with the actions you take?

Sit down and write down the actions that are congruent with the person you want to become, and make those actions your own.

If not, you’re going to be conflicted and you won’t do well. We wouldn’t want that now, would we?

Footnotes:

1. Muscle testing has shown that only 1% of your thoughts are conscious and the 99% is totally unconscious. That is the area of what you don’t know you don’t know. Being able to influence your unconscious thoughts is the purpose of many self-improvement programs, meditation, hypnosis, different audio programs with hidden messages

First was the word… remember?

I know, I know, talk is cheap. But is it?

I am not talking about boasting, false promising, buttering up, etc. I am talking about all the times when you “just” talk. When you think you are describing how it is. When you think you are telling the truth. When you do your darndest best to describe reality… I am talking about that talking.

The words you use, the pictures you paint do not describe anything. They, instead, create. For you and for others.

When you say “I want to lose weight” the picture of you running fast enough that the “weight” stays behind, but the moment you slow down so you can live, the weight catches up with you… have you noticed? If not in your life, in others?

When you say “I have to go to work” you are painting the picture of a prison with no joy, no freedom, no self-expression, no creativity… is this what you want half of your awake time to become? Oh, it already has? No wonder…

If you want to do well, you need to feel well. If you want to feel well, you need to use words that manifest that reality… remember parallel realities? Every word creates — or not — a parallel reality.

Most of us are stuck in a gloom and doom reality. There is a book title, Why you are sick, broke and dumb… or something like that. Can you see that a simple shift in the use of your words could take you to well, prosperous and gloriously bright?

You decide, and you are even motivated for a day, maybe even a week, then it goes away.

What’s the trick for staying motivated? In this and some coming blog posts I’ll give you a few practices you can use.

Practice #1: Schedule In Gratitude and Appreciation

Gratitude  for what? you say, and you shouldn’t be surprised, most of us have a real hard time finding anything to be grateful for. The weather is good, so what. The weather is bad, that’s bad. Consider that your creativity is half dead, and you are a walking dead yourself, like a zombie.

Start small. First start with something that you now take for granted, but you COULD be grateful for. Like someone smiling, even if it is not at you. The traffic light turning to green, even if it is supposed to. That the alarm functioned… even if it seems like that is the order of things. For the toilet flushing when you pull that lever… when you flip the switch and the light comes on. It is not that difficult, you’ll see that your world is full of things to be grateful for, full or miracles.

Your second stage will require more creativity,  but by that time you will have so much feel good energy in you, that it won’t be a big challenge.

The second stage is finding the silver lining in everything. It’s raining? It is great for the plants. It will clean the air. It will force you to wash your car. It allows you to get to that book that you have been putting off reading. Or even: goodie. I can look for the silver lining… yaay.

In addition of going through my day, I spend a few minutes in bed going through my day looking for accomplishments. I am always grateful and appreciative of myself and the opportunities. I sleep better, and I wake up with a lot more energy to keep on being grateful and appreciative.

The third stage is to put your gratitude on loudspeaker. We mostly talk about what’s wrong. That’s what sells newspapers, right? Well, it has also caused where you are today, or on a larger scale, where the world is today.

Break the habit, and talk only about what you are grateful for, what you appreciate, what you like, and the like.

It will be odd at first. People will look at you funny… but don’t let that discourage you.

Some 14 years ago I had an assignment to ask people in my life “What do you love about your life?”

Trust me, at that time, when I looked at people, I could not fathom that they had anything to love about their lives.

There was a sourpuss clerk at the mailbox that I tried to avoid every day lest his attitude would rub off on me. But homework needs to get done, so I asked him “What do you love about your life?”

He started to talk, and talk, and smile, and smile, and there was no end to what he had to say. He still smiles when he sees me. I remind him of what he loves about his life. Go figure…

I have run out of article… Go to the next practice

Many of us don’t bother to ask for more, or to challenge our status quo, or to dream bigger because we don’t feel like we deserve it. We feel, at the core, that we are “wrong.”

When we feel “wrong” in speaking up or fulfilling a deep need, it’s because we are getting in touch with something that wasn’t accepted in us when we were younger, or in a past life. For example, when people who weren’t allowed to feel joy start feeling joy, it confuses them, and even makes them uncomfortable. That’s why we sabotage ourselves.

Today, get in touch with what feels wrong to you. Give yourself permission to feel right.

Another aspect of this “being wrong” or “being the wrong one” is that we put everyone’s need before ours.

I developed that characteristic over time.

Just a week ago I had two cats that I spent more money on their food than my own, spent more time worrying about their well-being than mine.

One cat, an abandoned male cat was especially at the receiving end of my “selfless giving kindness.”

He showed his gratitude by using my apartment as a big litter box. I now have 5 litter boxes, but he still preferred the area behind my computers. I guess he wanted me to think of him when I work.

This past Sunday I had this thought that maybe I, and my well being is more important than keeping this cat in.

I threw him out. I cried all day. I was sure everyone will say that I was a heartless person. But all my friends celebrated my courage to disrupt this “martyr-like” behavior.

It’s been four days. I am at peace. I am enjoying my house. I enjoy time with my other cat. I eat undisturbed, I can keep the door closed, and I can sleep till 7 am without a cat waking me to take him out to pee.

Am I heartless? Maybe. But I definitely crossed some barrier with regards to my self-worth. Let’s see where it takes me.

Please add your two cents worth… (or a dollar?)