To set a goal and reach it take yourself to the end.  In NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) this is called a pre-supposition.  In other words pre-suppose that the end has already been achieved.  Personally I prefer the French way of saying the same thing.   The French use the phrase a ‘Fait Accompli’ when they are describing an outcome which is deemed to be a certainty while we English may call it a ‘Done Deed.’

To build a house you have to first see the completed building.  You never went to Spain without imagining yourself there first or to the supermarket either.
Yet many of us have desires while forgetting that we haven’t set any outcome or without giving precise instructions.

Here’s an amusing example:

How many people do you know who are on a diet?  How many times have you been on a diet?  Lots of us go on diets and we say, “Right that’s it, I’m on a diet.”  Then we tell our friends, “No, no cake for me thanks, I’m on a diet.”  Then we tell ourselves, “No can’t have that I’m on a diet,” and we count calories and cut portion sizes and generally become a bit miserable for a week or two but nothing much seems to be happening.  Ever been there?  I know I have.

The problem here is that the subconscious mind knows what a diet means.  Dieting means eating less, cutting calories and semi starvation so that’s what is happening.  Unfortunately our dieter has omitted finishing off the story.  All they’ve got is all they asked for, a diet.  They didn’t say why, they were going on a diet.

The successful dieter may have said, “Right that’s it, I’m going on a diet because I’m determined to be slim for my daughter’s wedding.”  Now she’s created an end result and the subconscious mind has to work out a way to take her there.  As long as she stays firm and focused on looking good at the wedding she’ll achieve it.

Going on a diet without a clear picture of the end result is like setting of on a journey without a destination.  Imagine setting off in your car and when someone asks where you’re going you reply, “I’m going on a journey.” Then imagine just driving around on this journey without going anywhere but just journeying.  Would that be utter madness?  It would take up all of your time and cost you a pile of money but it would be rather pointless wouldn’t it.  This is how the majority of us journey through life.

The successful person is the one who either by accident or by design forms a clear mental picture of their ‘Fait Accompli.’  So, if you want to be successful at anything first imagine what that success looks like and imagine how you feel as you enjoy this success.  Don’t worry about the journey needed to get there; the subconscious part of your mind will work that part out.

Note:  Of course you still have to prepare.  You have to learn your speech, prepare your troops, dress the part, learn the routine, buy the tickets etc.  Leave the finer details to the subconscious part of you though.  Just tell it that you will say all the right things, that you will remember your lines or that you will perform magnificently.  Then take yourself to the end, the relief, the happiness, the joy of the job well done, the pride and the success.

It’s easy enough to do.  Close your eyes imagine yourself at the end of the speech, the meeting, the interview or the dance.  Now imagine the applause as you stand at the podium, the warm accepting handshakes that indicate a successful interview, the amazing feeling of knowing you’ve done your best or standing on the podium being presented with the medal.

Then imagine what you’re saying to you as you look around, leave the room, walk away, drive home, arrive at your destination or hang your certificate on the wall.  That’s it, that’s your ‘Fait Accompli.’  You’ve just given your subconscious, the ‘Master Builder’ a blueprint to work from.  You’ve told it to arrange things so that at the end of your journey, speech, tournament, wedding, holiday or mini marathon this is how you look, how you feel and perhaps how others are reacting to you.
The whole process takes minutes.

To your success and everlasting happiness

Contact me at:  christine@makingpositivechanges.co.uk
I work with people all over the world by phone.

Self Praise raises confidence

The benefits of self praise ar ethat praise raises.  All too often you might wait for praise to be given by another and if praise is not given you may feel unappreciated and unloved.  While being appreciated by others is a welcome acknowledgment, you need to turn your attention inward and affirm the quality of your abilities to yourself.

Have you ever noticed the common human trait of self-criticism?  If you are like the majority of others you will be a fantastic self-critic.  And like most of us you probably hold back from self-praise.  Oh, OK, I know that when you complete a monumental task you may give yourself praise but on a daily basis how many things do you do that you praise yourself for?

Take a look at your life and check out those things you are good at.  Your list could include, driving, knitting, typing, gardening or skiing among many other things.  Have you ever wondered why you are good at those things and not others?  The simple answer is that those things you are good at are those you praised yourself for or things you can do because you were praised by others.

What you focus on grows

It is a well known psychological fact that whatever we focus on grows and gets bigger.  That’s why criticism never works, unless of course if the aim of the criticism was to make the situation worse, in which case it works perfectly.  Self criticism can only make whatever it is you are critiquing get worse.  If instead, you look for the things you can appreciate yourself for they will grow too.

Larry was suffering from memory loss.  At age 77 his thinking was that the condition was inevitable.  After some coaching he agreed that he was always focussing on the things he forgot and completely ignored the many things he remembered.  He was reminded that he remembered many more thing than he forgot and yet he omitted to focus on them at all.

As children we are often left to our own devices when we are being good and chastised when we misbehave.  This sets up a pattern or habit for life and we carry on doing exactly the same to ourselves when we are grown and have fled the nest.  He was told that to improve his memory he must start to focus on the things he remembered and celebrate them.  In this way his mind would hear his new focus of attention and his memory would improve.

Gill was dieting and she was hard on herself for every digression but she gave no thought to her improvements.  All she was doing was instructing her mind to make more mistakes and to eat more unhelpful food.  When she started a journal to record the improvements she’d made and wrote in it every night she found it easier to stick to her eating plan.

If you’d like to start an appreciation journal you could head the page:

“Well done you remembered these things today.”

•    “How to surf the internet.”
•    “How to make a meal.”
•    “To pay the car insurance.”
•    “To phone my daughter.”
•    “To take my suit to the cleaners.”

Or try……”I very much appreciate you today Gill because you:

•    “Walked past the biscuits and left them alone.”
•    “Left two peas on the plate at dinner.”
•    “Scraped the leftovers in the bin.”
•    “Took the time to make a healthy packed lunch to take to work.”

This new focus will send your subconscious mind in a new direction, one that benefits you instead of hindering you.

Life is a mirror

When you appreciate yourself you will be appreciated by others too.  Others are reflecting back to you what you believe about yourself.  So praise has to start at home with you.  You may not have noticed but the majority of things others praised you for were things you had already decided you were finding easy and feeling good at already.

When you begin to praise yourself others will pick up on that subliminally through your body language and your energy patterns and praise will be more forthcoming from outside influences.  Also, self-praise builds your self-confidence and ability to manage any task.  Praising yourself for a job well done and focussing on the slightest improvements can take you from where you are now to where you want to go.

Giving yourself positive feedback about your accomplishments will help you feel more confident and empowered and instructs the subconscious to give you more things to praise.  You might turn to others to validate your achievements and seldom recognize your abilities for yourself. Lack of self praise is a loud and clear message to oneself that other’s opinions are more important than your own.

Notice every tiny improvement

Once you have changed your focus from criticism to praise, notice every tiny improvement.  Don’t wait for the big bang to happen.  Instead notice the small things.  When you have a cold or the flu you aren’t terribly ill one day and then completely healthy the next.  The recovery happens in increments.  One day you start to feel a little relief and you comment on it by saying, “I feel a bit better today.”  The following day brings further improvements, also commented on and each day your health improves.

Think of this process in the same way.  As you comment on your improvements, no matter how small, and carry on commenting daily you recover from whatever it is that has been bugging you.

Jane’s house was a mess with boxes piled up everywhere from her previous move.  Although she’d lived in her new house for over two years nothing had changed.  She told me, “Nothing I do makes any difference, as fast as I empty a couple of the boxes more stuff just appears.”   This was because when she sorted out a box or two she still focussed on what she hadn’t done.

Instead of congratulating herself on the improvements she looked at the rest and said things like, “I’ll never finish,” or, “There’s still a mountain to tackle.”   When she began to praise herself for her achievements the boxes started to get less and the last time I saw her, although progress was still slow, she had at least cleared her hall and stairs.

Conclusion

Celebrate your successes and forget your failures.  Focus on failure creates more failure.   Nothing you are critiquing yourself for will improve so what’s the point of it?  Ask yourself next time you criticise yourself, “Do I really want to make this worse?”  If the answer is NO then find something you can appreciate about yourself and make that grow instead.

To Your Success

Contact me at:  christine@makingpositivechanges.co.uk

I work with people all over the world by phone.

‘The Power of the Spoken Word,’ was written by Florence Scovel Shinn many years ago.  In the book Florence explains how your words create your world, claiming, ‘Affirmations Work.’  She claimed that those who didn’t know the power of their words were living behind the times.  The book was written in the 1950’s.

Let’s imagine a fairy story.  In this story there’s little boy who is very poor.  He works hard and nobody is kind to him.  One night, as he lies in his hard and uncomfortable bed, an Angel appears and the Angel tells him that his word has power.  She tells him that when he speaks his words create whatever he is talking about.

Whatever you wish for says the Angel is yours.  All you have to do is ask for what you want and all of my fellow Angels in the heavens will listen to all your words and give you anything your heart desires.

What do you imagine the poor little boy would ask for?  Maybe he would get confused and change his mind so much that even the Angels would become confused.  Maybe he would find it difficult to decide what he wanted and could only formulate what he didn’t want.

After a while of to-ing and fro-ing and focussing on what he didn’t want the little boy may decide what the Angel told him wasn’t true as his life hadn’t changed from how it was before.  His faith is lost and he carries on being a poor little boy who people are unkind to.

Is this how many of us are going through life?  Is your life spent more thinking about what you don’t want than what you do?  They say the most important question anyone can ask themselves, if they want to be successful, happy, healthy and wealthy and the question is, “What do I want?”  Until you sit down and think about what you want you cannot go there.  You don’t go anywhere unless you make a decision to go there first.  Of course you may get dragged along with someone else’s plans which may or may not be fun but it may not be where you want to go.

First of all, according to Florence who had a good a grasp of Universal Principles, you decide where you are going, what you are being or what you are having and then you declare you already are it, already have it or already are doing it.  Why!  Because the Universe doesn’t give us what we want it gives us what we already declare we have.  It’s no good wanting to be more confident we have to declare, “I am confident,” or, “I am becoming more confident every day.”

The trouble with wanting is that wanting something implies we don’t have it.  The thing we want is out there somewhere and there is a gap between us and it.  To close that gap we declare either that it is ours already or that we are becoming it.  While it may not seem right to say, “I’m healthy,” when it’s obvious to everyone including you that you are sick you can say, “I’m getting better every day.”

Instead of saying, “I’m rich,” which in the beginning may be an obvious lie, try “Money is beginning to flow into my life.”  When you focus on what you want you feel good.  Positive words and affirmations are constructive, they build things up.  Negative words and thoughts are destructive, they destroy.  They destroy lives, homes, marriages, health, happiness, finances, looks and anything else you can name.  The negative person lives at a lower level of consciousness than the positive person.

To change your level of consciousness from negative to positive and to tap into the positive energy of the Universe you can say affirmations.  The more you repeat an affirmation the more firmly it becomes embedded in your consciousness.  It’s actually how all your beliefs were formed; by constant repetition.  Have a look at the affirmations below then, find one or two that resonate with you, memorise them and say them over and over again.

Note:  I find that the affirmations that resonate with me and are the most effective are those that give me a vivid picture of the actual event happening.
Write your chosen affirmations out on a card and say them several times a day for maximum effect.

Affirmations for Success:

•    “Me and mine are successful in all our endeavours.”
•    “If God is with us who can be against us.”
•    “The doors to my success are now wide open and nailed back.”
•    “I let go of worn out conditions and worn out things and make all things new.”
•    “Endless good now comes in endless ways.”
•    “I am amazed at the ingenious ways door open and I see huge vistas of success.”
•    “I am wide awake to good and gathering in the harvest of endless opportunities.”
•    “My barns are full, my cup of happiness is overflowing, I am at peace.”
•    “My word is my wand and with it I create success in all things.”
•    “My greatest expectations now come to fruition.”
•    “The door to eternal happiness and success has been flung open and nailed back.”
•    “I see me and mine as God sees us, perfect in every way.”
•    “If God is health, I am health, if God is success, I am success.”
•    “I cast every burden on the Christ within and I go free.”

Affirmations for Wealth:

•    “My word is my wand and I declare abundant in all good things.”
•    “Money comes into our family from all sources expected and unexpected.”
•    “Everything I touch turns to gold, under grace in a perfect way.”
•    “Unexpected doors fly open, unexpected channels are freed and endless avalanches of abundance are poured out and over me, under grace in a perfect way.”
•    “I give thanks for my financial success.”
•    “The door to abundance is wide open and nailed back.”
•    “My good now overtakes me in an unexpected and surprising way.”
•    “I consistently thank the Universe for my abundance.”
•    “All things I seek are now seeking me.”
•    “My good comes to me now, under grace and in a perfect way.”

Affirmations for happiness:

•    “I am now deluged with happiness.  My cup of happiness overflows.”
•    “Happy surprises come to me every day.  I look to each day with wonder.”
•    “I am harmonious, happy, radiant and full of joy.”
•    “My happiness is built on a rock.  It is mine now and for all eternity.”
•    “I am at peace as my endless good comes to me.”
•     “My good now comes to me in an unbroken stream.”
•    “The door to happiness is bolted open.  Happiness and joy stream through it and over me.”
•    “My joy knows no bounds.”
•    “I am happy and my family is happy.”
•    “Happiness is my birthright and I open my arms wide to accept it now.”
•    “Goodness and mercy follow me all the days of my life.”

Affirmations for Love:

•    “As I am one with the Universe and everyone in it, I am one with my love.”
•    “Love is all there is, I release the love that is in every one of my atoms and I glow.”
•    “I love everyone and everyone loves me.”
•    “I am at peace and in harmony with everyone and everything.”
•    “I am at peace with my past and now see it through the eyes of love.”
•    “I love me as God loves me.”
•    “The perfect love is in my life.”
•    “He/she loves me as I love him/her.”

Affirmations for Health:

•    “I thank God for me and mines continuing health.”
•    “I expect health and receive it.”
•    “Every day in every way I become healthier and healthier.”
•    “I put my trust in God and keep it there.”
•    “No thing can come between me and my faith.”
•    “I stand strong in the defence of me and mine.”
•    “I hold up my hand like a traffic cop against the forces of evil.”
•    “I wave on the forces of goodness, inviting them in to my mind.”
•    “I am a force to be reckoned with in my defence of my children.”
•    “God sees all of us as perfect.”
•    “Behold I see a miracle and others see it too.”

“Take one or several of the above affirmations and memorise it.  Then take any opportunity to repeat it.

You can find time to repeat your affirmations:

•    “On the loo.”
•    “In bed either before you sleep, when you awaken or during the night if you find yourself awake.”
•    “On the way to work.”
•    “During lunch or tea breaks.”
•    “On the way home from work.”
•    “In the bath.”
•    “In the shower.”
•    “While cooking supper.”
•    “While walking the dog.”
•    “While doing the ironing.”
•    “While cleaning.”
•    “While washing the car.”
•    “While washing up.”

The list is endless.  There are so many times in each and every day that you could repeat your affirmations.  Remember, your word is your wand.  Every single affirmative session raises your vibration and sends out an attractive force into the Universe.

We often block our good by having fixed ideas where it can come from.  Let go of any fixed ideas, leave it to the force within, the subconscious mind that does the work.  All you have to do is do the declaring and enjoy the happy feeling they create; the rest is taken care of.

However if you are still feeling blocked and would like some one on one personal help please contact me and I will be happy to help.

Contact me at:  christine@makingpositivechanges.co.uk

I work with people all over the world by phone.

To your success and happiness Christine