Saturday, May 31, 2008

The World and the Animals - By Cara Leanne Hughes

We are all living on this World. All the plants, trees, animals, water, and humans are all part of it.

We, alone, create our World. When we are experiencing negative emotions such as Anger, Sadness or even Fear, the World around us also appears negative. Yet when we are happy and peaceful, the World appears to be a wonderful place. If you love the World then you should love everything in it.

If you do, why is it in the Summer everyone gets the Ant Killer out and put it on the path? Ants are Animals, right? They live in the Garden. You wouldn't get a powder out and start feeding your children with it.

I was just meditating on the path in our beautiful garden, listening to the birds singing, the warmth of the sun, the smell of freshly cut grass and experiencing deep relaxation when an Ant crawled up my arm.

What's your the instinct response? Flick it off? Stamp on it? Have you ever actually sat and watched them? I let him crawl over my hands and arms.

I just felt pure bliss watching him. I had this sudden emotion of compassion and love.

Why can't we all do that? Accept everyone and everything as they truly are? When I see creatures such as Spiders or Ants I see them as a Spiritual Guide. I imagine them to be my own Mother or Father. I develop love and compassion towards them. They are an opportunity to help us develop our Spiritual faith and Inner Peace.

If we love the Insects, we love the plants, and the trees, and others around us. We create a positive environment. Our World. Our Universe.

It is all in the Mind. Ripple Out Love and Compassion, my dear friends.


- By Cara Leanne Hughes

LOOK AT THINGS AS THEY CAN BE

LOOK AT THINGS AS THEY CAN BE

Your range of available choices right now has no limits.
The only limits you have are in your mind.
You've got it in you to succeed.
Just make up your mind and stick with it.

You werent born with any limits on your powers
or any set limits to your capacity.
At any moment, you have more possibilities than you can act upon.

Imagine your possibilities and your vision expands.
Capture your dreams in your mind and your life becomes full.
Reach out and touch the limits of your being in your mind.

You can, because you think you can.

Copyright 2008 www.yourdailymotivation.com
Reproduce freely but maintain Copyright notice.

Friday, May 30, 2008

FLIPPING - By Charles Price

I have always been a fish, when it comes to swimming. I've been swimming since I was two and a half years old. I was fortunate to have a pool in my backyard growing up. My older sister, Veronica, was also a fish. She would get up on the diving board and do double front flips and double back flips with relative ease.

Needless to say I was quite amazed by her acrobatic feet. I really wanted to do a flip badly. Except for some reason I was afraid of our diving board. It took me a few summers to get over that one.

Six years later my sister had stopped doing her amazing double flips, but my dream to do a flip still stuck in my mind. I had a constant reminder in my backyard, even during the winter months.

I started becoming very adventurous on the diving board, turning my body in various ways before I hit the water. The sting of the water when you are spinning uncontrollably almost knocked me out on multiple occasions.

I really put my effort into doing flips when I was thirteen years old. I would begin my flip, only to get scared in the middle of it, and have a long fall to land on my back. This was my regular routine for three years. I'd have it and then get scared and hit my back, but I never stopped trying.

I got really good at absorbing the pain of landing on my back or my side. My best friend, Kevin, had gotten the flip down the previous summer. Needless to say I did trust myself. I didn't truly believe I could do it. Yet no matter the countless tries attempting to fulfill this dream my focus to accomplish it never waned.

One day while watching Kevin flip, it suddenly clicked for me. I lowered my left shoulder and did a very awkward looking flip. I was so ecstatic that I did this odd looking flips over and over again. It was all worth it.

After that I perfected my flip and started doing one and a half flips. I have flipped off of ten-foot roofs (Don't try this at home kids); thirty-foot cliffs and a forty-five foot cliff.

I tend to forget the accomplishments I've done in my childhood because I've thought it's all about growing up. But the dream that kid had still lives inside me. So next time you have a project to do or a dream to accomplish think of all the amazing things you have accomplished before that. Celebrate your victories and go after your dreams. If you have never done your flip in life, all it takes is the dream to do it again one more time.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Charles Price is a MDI subscriber who has appreciated the inspiration he has received over the years from MDI. He created wristbands that say "REDEFINE WHAT"S POSSIBLE" as a reminder for us all that dreams do come true. Charles can be contacted at yabish@yahoo.com

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

A Sense Of Giving - By Tony Grant

Over the past two weeks, I have seen (and indeed created) a situation that has provoked much reaction. It is not my intention to expand any further on the actual details of that situation but would instead like to consider some resultant thoughts.

Throughout my life, I have had a tendency to be generous in my actions. This generosity has not necessarily always been mine to offer and I have perhaps sacrificed some future stabilities for those moments of giving. However, as one man is willing to give, another is willing to accept and soon a life can become biased towards giving or accepting rather than attaining a more reciprocal balance.

As I seek meaning in my life, I have reviewed many and varied written and audible offerings on abundance or personal growth. Throughout these readings, one message appears to be clear, that an open heart and a giving mind is the key to receiving your just rewards. This teaching also appears to extend to a nature of generosity and selflessness.

However, could it be that a giving nature in fact serves to attract taking by others, is generosity juxtapose to receiving. The readings did seem to suggest that one should progress through life with the sense that money would be attracted to an abundant spirit and that this spirit should not be stifled by thoughts of financial shortage, as this would merely attract more of the same. However, as a wallet opens, the opportunities to dispense of its contents increase, yet there does not appear to be any direct correlation to increased income to replenish those diminishing resources.

Of course, the books could be talking about richness of mind and spirit rather than in purely financial terms but unfortunately, the scene appears to be the same. You open up your emotional bank and commence the dispensing of good will. Very soon, you can find that those emotional reserves have depleted in the same manner as with your financial well being! At this time, you might turn to those who have made withdrawals and request some advance from their very own reserves, only to find that their bank is closed for your business.

This might be painting a bleak perception of human nature and not entirely how I would wish it to be portrayed. Whilst it is inevitable that some people will drift (or be pushed) from your life when your demands or actions become extreme, others will unselfishly raise their levels of support and show examples of true friendship. I know that survival through my recent journey has placed pressures upon those close to me and in most cases, I have received a level of support that is beyond any I could have expected. Having said that, I do believe that those most willing to give are often those least willing to take. In some way this then puts me on the other side of my very own analogy, being an inadvertent depleter rather than the giver as was my nature.

Perhaps the ultimate destiny is therefore to attempt to be more balanced in generosity, become grateful to receive yet equally open to giving. Accept that it is generally not the intention of any person to merely take as self-satisfaction is more commonly derived from acts of selflessness. Maybe I cannot turn the tables on my past actions but hopefully I will continue to learn from my life and seek to attain a balance that is fairer to those closest to me or indeed any that might have chance to know me.

For this occasion only, might I suggest that as with yours...

My future deserves!

Tony Grant
www.apassionforsuccess.com

Author's Bio

Tony Grant is a UK based Consultant focussing primarily upon employment and self employment with a motivational and personal empowerment bias. Tony seeks to deliver an understanding of success in a clear and concise manner, without the mysticism and frills of so many current offerings.

Positive Attitude - Choice Or Chance? - By Karen Wheeler Hall

Play along with me for a moment…

What would your reaction be if you just won $25,000 on a game show?

You’d probably say you felt thrilled, elated, or excited.

You would, huh? What if I told you more about the circumstances involved…

You were doing great and had progressed to the last round. You had already won $500,000, but you chose to risk that amount to go for the million dollar question. Unfortunately, you got it wrong and ended up with “only” $25,000.

Now how would you feel? Disappointed, mad at yourself, and just plain awful, right?

So why do you feel so bad if you are walking away with $25,000 more than you had before?

You feel awful because of how you interpret that event. If you focus on what might have been, you will feel very unhappy. But with conscious effort, you can choose to focus on the $25,000 you won rather than the $475,000 you lost.

Here is a great truth of life – what determines our happiness is not so much what happens to us as how we feel about it. Our reaction determines whether we interpret events as positive or negative.

I read an interesting article about a study showing that Americans tend to be happier than people in countries such as Japan and Korea, but are also more likely to be unhappy when negative events happen. Apparently many Americans have gotten so used to being well-off and happy that they get upset at even everyday hassles and troubles.

This is where positive thinking can be so powerful. You can train your mind to stay positive in every situation, provided you are willing to look at situations differently.

With practice and determination you can change your old, negative way of thinking. So if you want to be happier choose to start thinking more positively today!

© Karen Wheeler Hall – All Rights Reserved

Author's Bio

Karen Wheeler Hall is the author of The Mental Diet Pyramid(SM) – A Simplified System to Beat Stress and Live in Joy, Illumination – Inspiring Stories about Finding the Silver Lining, and co-author of 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, vol. 3, all available from http://www.FindMoreJoy.com/. Find More Joy! is dedicated to helping you overcome stress & anxiety so you can be incredibly happy. Download your copy of Karen's FREE eBook Positively Incredible! by visiting http://www.FindMoreJoy.com/.

IT'S NEVER OVER UNTIL YOU SAY IT'S OVER

The power to hold on in spite of everything, to endure, this is the quality of a winner. Your greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time you fail.

It's your constant and determined effort that will eventually break down all resistance and sweep all the barriers before you. Persistence means taking pains to overcome every obstacle, to do all that's necessary to reach your goal.

All great achievements require time. Endurance is the crowning quality of success.

Copyright 2008 yourdailymotivation.com

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

When Nagging Gets in the Way - By Gina Gardiner

Whether you are working with your partner, your teenage children, or a work colleague, the principle is the same. What you say and the way in which it is said, the tone of voice, the words you use, and the timing of when things are said all have the capacity to widen the gap between you and the other person, to let them off the hook as they can rationalize your nagging as unreasonable, or to make them think.

If you want things to be different, you have to change old patterns of behavior. Listening to yourself and understanding what that triggers in the other person is a vital step to creating a different future. This article uses the relationship between workaholics and their partners as the focus, but you can use the principles when dealing with any relationship.

Most partners of workaholics feel neglected; they see themselves taking second place to their partners work. Clients often describe how their partner will take the time and trouble to listen to a member of their staff far more readily than they do them or their children. "If they loved me enough they would want to spend time with me." They make the assumption that it is lack of love which causes their partner to spend long hours away from them. Their frustrations and sense of loneliness take over, and as soon as their partner gets home, the frustrations spill over and they share how they are feeling and the recriminations begin.

Like so many of the strategies we use when we are feeling un-resourced, it is incredibly unproductive. Despite the fact that the strategy rarely works, many partners (and parents) find they go into nag mode knowing it is destined to fail and make them feel bad into the bargain. Einstein's definition of madness is to carry on doing the same thing even though we know it doesn't work. Yet millions of us continue to behave in a set way long after we know it is failing. This is not about blaming. We do the best we can given the personal resources at our disposal. What we want to do is to help you feel you have a wider range of resources at your disposal and the choice when to use them.

To understand why it fails so often, you need to take a step back and take a long hard look at what is really going on. Understanding what is actually happening can also give you the opportunity to behave differently.

Most workaholics are workaholics because of some deep seated need within themselves. Many are driven to succeed on terms which only they can define as they push themselves long after most people would feel highly successful. For some, it is the dread of failure rather than the pull of success which drives them. A poor sense of self-worth developed in childhood, the need to feel significant by doing things for others, or having external verification of worth are all common reasons for people feeling more secure in their working life than in their personal life.

You know your partner well. Consider what is driving them. Think about the relationship they had with their parents, siblings, or at school.

Partners will often respond disproportionately to a particular tone of voice or to being told that they have failed. It often hits a deep seated raw nerve which has been created during their formative years. The nagging becomes synonymous with a parent telling them how useless they are or a teacher or class bully belittling them.

Over the next few days, just listen to yourself. Put yourself into the shoes of the other person and consider how you would respond.

Be honest with yourself, but be constructive. This is not about blaming. It is about seeing more clearly why things have gone wrong and doing your best to find a productive way forward for you and your partner. Finding a win-win solution is always best. Making it a competition between you and their work is a risky business.

Over the next few days, think about how you handle yourself when dealing with your partner. You are the only person you can truly control. Think about what you truly want. If you want to change the relationship you have with your partner for the better, then simply waiting for them to change is unlikely to give you the result you want. To change things for the better, you have to make the decision to change the one person in your power. That is YOU.

Think about the way in which you speak, when you choose to bring things up, and how you couch things. Pouncing on your partner as soon as they come in tired and irritable from work is probably not the most productive time to talk about how unreasonable you think they are, at least not if you want them to truly listen to you. Run the conversation in your head and plan to do it differently. As a general rule of thumb, make a distinction between how you feel about them and their behavior. "I love you very much, but I find ------ really difficult." Keep calm and try not to see it as a point scoring exercise.

Making a change to your approach can make a difference over time. Be realistic; if your partnership has been rocky for an extended period of time, it can take time for a new strategy to work.

About the Author:

Gina Gardiner is one of the UK's leading Leadership Coaches. Gina supports people at individual or organizational levels to develop confidence, leadership, and people skills. Gina is the author of two books, "Kick Start Your Career" and "How YOU Can Manage Your Staff More Effectively," and is also a Neuro Linguistic Master Practitioner and a qualified coach. To download her free management ecourse, go to http://www.graduatesolutions.co.uk

Having a High "Havingness Quotient" - By Lynn Scheurell

"You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration." - James Allen

Imagine that you've gotten everything you ever wanted -- the life partner, the house, the car, the clothes, the physique, the friends, the money, the lifestyle...

Now what?

If you're like most humans, it's likely that you'll sabotage yourself in "having it all." We here in the Western world are actually socialized to be in continuous striving; that is, we don't know how to have and enjoy everything we've worked for and received because if we have it, our culture says we're not working hard enough, or infers that we don't know what to do if we don't have tangible goals.

Imagine a train chugging up a steep incline, with its engine working hard... when it gets to the top, what does it do? It goes down -- logic says that there's no other way to go. But what if there WAS another way? What if when the train got to the top, it got to cruise along a plateau rather than drop down? If you can now put yourself in that picture as the train, you'll see that you naturally keep working hard (going up) or know how to cope with not having the top (going down); however, you likely don't know how to cruise the topmost plateau you've attained. I call this the "Havingness Quotient." It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but it is descriptive.

The higher your "Havingness Quotient," the easier it will be for you to hold on to and enjoy your achievements -- and vice-versa. You might even think of this as "abundance self-esteem." If you have a low "Havingness Quotient," you will proportionately experience the "downside" of what you want and work toward. In that case, you will find yourself comfortably in discomfort as you "re-tread" what you've always done. So how do you increase your "Havingness Quotient"?

Three Things You Can Do Today:

1. Ask for more than enough. Often people don't think big enough in terms of their own abundance (including fees for their services!). Our limited thinking and expectations will keep us in the work hard mode, chugging up our personal hills. Ask for the most you think you can have -- and then double it! The first time you do that, it can be mind-blowing... one of my clients asked for $4,000 in income monthly, which when doubled, became $8,000. This was inconceivable to her, until she reconciled her books the next month -- she discovered she actually generated $9,000 that month for the first time in her life!

2. Watch where you are giving. We cannot enjoy our own "Havingness Quotient" if we give away all the good stuff. Part of the reason that we are here is to ENJOY what we are creating. Now, that's not to say you shouldn't share -- I'm all about that! However, if you are a chronic over-giver (and I know that one personally!), you need to consider where you are leaking what you have because it could be draining your "Havingness," which keeps you in overwork and less joyful for your own benefit.

3. Look at your self-sabotage patterns. The good news about being human is that we can be our own observers. We can actually see where we are tripping ourselves up if we look closely enough because it's a familiar pattern. I see clients who go into "drama" or focus on external "noise" because they don't know how to handle abundance. Others will go 90 percent of the way and then quit on a nearly successful project, and I've seen others yet who stay in the preparation for the preparation of the preparation... you get the idea. They're not moving forward. It could be that people don't know how to be if they're not striving anymore -- they just don't know what to expect if they have it all. Look at where you are potentially sabotaging your own "Havingness."

My intention is that you receive and enjoy all that you want and more... because if you increase your "Havingness Quotient," you are living on purpose and you're setting a positive example, which will ultimately benefit everyone around you.

About the Author:

Lynn Scheurell, Creative Catalyst, works with soul-driven entrepreneurs to create a livelihood from their true purpose. This type of business development requires extreme personal clarity in combination with innovation and active implementation of proven business practices. Download a free report to learn "The Seven Deadly Mistakes That Keep Soul-Driven Business Owners from Making Money" at http://www.mycreativecatalyst.com

YOUR ASPIRATIONS ARE YOUR POSSIBILITIES

The first ingredient of your success is to dream a great dream. You must dream big and think big to be big. High expectation always precedes high achievement.

You're as small as your controlling desires, or as great as your dominant aspirations. Once your mind stretches to a new idea it will never go back to its original dimensions.

If you dream of little goals you can expect little achievement. Dream of big goals and you'll win big success.

Copyright 2008 www.yourdailymotivation.com