Are You Headed In The Wrong Direction? How You Can Tell!
“How can you tell if you are moving in the right direction? Why is being focused on what you want such an issue? How come you can’t focus on what you don’t want or nothing at all? What about luck? Isn’t it possible to make it without all this positive mind thinking stuff?
Some people think this way. They have reasons for not thinking positive. They want to do it their way. If they are getting the results they want to get and are happy with their lives more power to them. I have no argument with that.
The Issue Is What You Focus On
The problem for most of us is this. If you think, ‘I hate it here’ that thought doesn’t tell you where else would be better. It only keeps you locked into what is uncomfortable. It focuses you on what you do not like now.
It doesn’t help you to see what might be better now or in the future. It gets you no closer to your goals nor does it provide any direction for you to get them. If you are focused on what you don’t want you are not headed in the right direction.
When you catch yourself doing this, ask yourself, ‘where else would I rather be?’ Then focus on the answer you get. Discover your destination. Choose it! Then you can ask ‘why do I want to be there? ‘or ‘why do I want this?’ and that will help get you the reasons and the motivations. (more on the power of why in a future blog post).
If you ask, ‘how can I get there’ you may get the answer or you may not know it yet. That is okay. Ultimately, you will develop a plan. Knowing where you want to be and why are actually a very good start. It gives you direction and reasons for moving ahead.
Brains Target Results – Learn To Use This
Brains move in a direction. Your mind moves in a direction. It targets and goes after what you want if you train it to go after what you want. Otherwise, it will go after whatever has the highest emotional signal value. Whatever you think about most during your day.
If what you don’t want looms up in front of you and you intensely react with fear or loathing your brain will get it for you. It doesn’t know not to. It understands powerful images and feelings. It targets them and works to get more of them.
If on the other hand what you want is powerful and you feel intensely good feelings it will go after that. It doesn’t know not to because it targets based on what you hold in your mind and what you intensely feel.
The cool part is being positive and feeling positive feels better for you. SO you get what you want while enjoying the feelings. This is reason enough to think positive, don’t you think?
However, if you go back and forth you get mixed results. If you want it but doubt it your brain starts and stops. You focus on what you want and then don’t want, then want, your brain tries to give you each and you end up stuck with poor results. You have to choose!
If You Do Nothing Nothing Will Change
You can hope you get there. You can wish. You can wait for something to change. You can rely on luck to help out. You could do nothing at all and remain where you are ‘hating it’, OR you can decide what you want is to not be stuck and do whatever it takes to travel to where you want. You must decide!
You know what you didn’t want. You knew what you hated. This provided the impetus for you to change. The bad thoughts and feelings alerted you that you were in a place you did not want to be.
If you use these feelings correctly they help you to clarify what you DO want so you can move away from what you hate and begin getting what you want. It helps you moved from stuck to action.
Clarify And Visualize What You Want
Now stay focused on what it is you want. Imagine what you want clearly in your mind’s eye, in your mental movie theater. See it as if you already have what you want. Imagine how good this feels. Stay with the feelings. Emphasize them. Allow them to grow. Really feel them!
See it as vividly as you can. Imagine looking out through your own eyes and seeing this world from your point of view. You are living your dreams. You have what you want. What are you seeing? What are you hearing? What are you feeling? What are you experiencing?
How To Target And Visualize
As an example, if you imagined yourself in a new home. What does it feel like to live there? What’s it like to walk from room to room? What do you see? How are the rooms decorated and furnished? This is your home see it in detail. Inside and outside? What kind of car is in the driveway? What’s the landscaping like? Who lives there with you?
Imagine what you say to yourself when you have what you want, what do you hear? Enjoy all these incredible feelings? Perhaps, there are smells associated with this home, enjoy them. Make it as real as possible as if you can reach out and touch it.
Use Affirmations Keep It Positive
Affirm this! Keep your self-talk positive? See this in your mind again and again. What we are consumed with we create. What we think about we bring about. What we hold in our head first we can some day hold in our hand. Ask Directed Questions™.
Visualize it day and night. There are two ways to imagine it. You can see yourself over there in the house and watch yourself walk through it. You can see how you behave in your home. This is great. Let it inspire you! Also, you can imagine it from your point of view as I previously described. BOTH are fantastic and powerful.
You can keep a vision board and get pictures of your home. You can tour homes with real estate agents and take your a picture of the home you want. AND take pictures with YOU IN the type of home you want. DO whatever you can to make the images real to you.
It Is Okay If You Don’t Have A Plan Yet
You may not yet know how you are going to make this happen and that is okay. Keep focused on what you want. Keep savoring the wonderful feelings. The more intensely you feel these as you imagine having it the more your subconscious works on it. You will develop a plan. You may want to set a realistic deadline date, or not.
In the meantime, enjoy it. Be grateful for everything. Feel passionate about the home. Know it is coming. Expect it. Think ‘I am creating this or something better!’ Allow for something even better than what you have created to be yours. Be willing to be surprised!
Be Committed And You Will Get Results
You don’t really get anywhere because YOU aren’t COMMITTED to any one direction. To get what you want you must be focused on what you want to the exclusion of all else. Keep your eye on the prize no matter what it takes or how long. Dedicate yourself!
Don’t compare, now to then. Don’t let not having it presently keep you from not having it in the future. Don’t be wishy washy, don’t go back and forth. Focus on what you want. Intend it! Create it! Make it happen! Have backbone more than wishbone. Persist in your pursuit.
Do not focus on what you don’t want. Learn the art of self control. Stay with your goal. Know what you want and imagine getting it and having it. Learn to manage your thoughts and feelings and make them work for you. Either YOU are in charge of your thoughts or your thoughts are in charge of you. Decide which it is going to be!
The key is to turn completely away from the negative and toward the positive. DO not let present circumstances dissuade you from your goal. Do not let obstacles distract you. Keep focused on creating what you want. What you think about you bring about!
You always get results! You always get results, intended or otherwise. You want to get intended results, don’t you? Then you must know what you want. You must know where you want to go. This is the necessary first step in the journey. Then you must commit to making it happen.
If you don’t know what you want or where you want to get how do you expect to ever have it or get there? Clarify your goals and dreams today!” Rex Sikes
This is YOUR day!
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Dream Big: Don’t Let The Details Stop You!
“What do successful people have in common? What is their mind set and behaviors? Why do they succeed while others don’t? Is there a difference between them and the other people?
Can you do what they do to get the results they have? Yes absolutely!
It is important to know what you want and to dream big.
Know your definite chief purpose and develop a burning desire or passion for it’s fulfillment.
Dream big and keep the dream before you in your minds’s eye. Think about it day and night. What consumes you controls you.
Don’t fret about the details.
Do not get caught up in the how. Do not let not knowing how you might accomplish it stop you from going after it. Go after it.
Go as far as you can go and when you get there you will see farther. Enjoy your dream. Make it fun and delightful to make it happen.
What you think about you become.
What you focus on you get. What you think about you bring about. So imagine your big dream as already completed.
Imagine what it is like to be there already. How does it feel to have made it happen? Enjoy these feelings! Let these feelings move you forward.
If life were perfect how would it feel?
How would it feel to be, do and have everything you want? Don’t just answer, ‘it’d feel great!’ FEEL IT!
Accentuate and savor the feelings. Live these feelings again and again each day. Let them drive you. This is what you want after all. You want to feel more of this. THIS, these feeling is what it is about.
Never get hung up in the details when you can feel this way.
The details will resolve themselves and you will find a way. You will develop a plan for making your dream come true.
The the more you keep it alive in your mind the more it will become clear to you. Follow your plan as it unfolds. You don’t need plans to be perfect or in their entirety the entire plan prior to beginning because plans change.
All people who succeed big pursue their dreams
People who succeed pursue their dreams and work their plans. The are dedicated and on target but flexible to change their plans along the way. The persist and adapt.
They never give up they just adjust as needed. They never let a detail stop them from getting what they want. It never occurs to them that they won’t succeed.
Read biographies of top achievers
Read the biographies of those who succeed and you will begin to see the elements they share in common. I share these here in these blog pages for you to read and re-read.
Successful people keep the big picture in mind and never let the specifics deter them. The goal is getting to the destination not how they are going to get there. Keep this in mind!
As for the journey delight in it.
Keep this in mind too! Delight in not knowing. It gives you opportunity to trust yourself and know that you are moving forward anyway.
Celebrate that good things are coming and happening to you even if you don’t know when or how. Have fun on the journey and delight in all things. When you get there you will see farther.” Rex Sikes
Have a wonderful day!
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How To Become A Real Winner
“What do you think and believe before going into your day? When you get up in the morning do you expect it to be a good or not so good day? Do expect to find smiles mostly or frowns?
Do you plan to be delighted or disappointed? When you play a game do you expect to win or to lose? What do you anticipate? What do you think and believe before going into it?
Do you expect traffic to be a bear or do you expect to enjoy the drive regardless? Do you expect to encounter friendly people and co-workers or ones who aggravate? Do you think of the world as a friendly wonderful place or a hard, cold, cruel one?
Will you profit during a bad economy or lose money? Are you going to book the role in that play or movie or will someone else? Are you going to do your best or not?
Your Expectations Set The Frame
According to researchers much of what happens is due to what we expect to happen. What we believe, think or expect shapes how we react or respond to that ‘reality’ out there. They also suggest that much of that outer reality is actually a reflection of what we do inside our minds. Our perceptions create our reality.
In other words, what we expect to find we may find. What we don’t expect to find we most likely won’t encounter. Yes, there may always be some surprises.
When you feel positive and expect that you are going to win you are much more likely to. When you feel positive and expect to have a great day it makes all the difference in how you experience the day.
When you are positive that you will accomplish your goal; you know in your heart and mind it is possible to do so and you anticipate making it happen, you are much more likely to.
Expect To Win
Our mindset is comprised of our beliefs of what we think is possible or not. It is made up of our attitude whether positive or negative. It is determined by our thoughts whether we think something will be easy or hard.
Positive thinking IS about finding a mindset that serves you well and helps you to feel better. The higher quality your thoughts the better you feel. The better you feel the more you can accomplish.
When you expect or anticipate the outcome you are seeing it in your mind happening as you want it to happen. You imagine it as already already done. You have it ! You see yourself winning. You see yourself as having won.
Your brain knows the outcome you desire and what to do about it when you repeatedly give it the same strong message and images over and over. That is why positively charged emotional repetition is important. Your brain accepts your feelings and images as real.
It knows how to align your inner resources for you to do your best. Your thoughts, feelings and behaviors all work together for that outcome. You are congruent. There is no worry, no doubt or fear, no split in your attention. You are of one mind – the winning mind.
It is easier to win if you expect to win. WHEN you EXPECT to win you already KNOW you are going to win. Your focus is not on winning, because that is a ‘given’, but on doing what is necessary to insure the win.
Your expectations set the frame for you to behave appropriately, to carry out the activities, in alignment with what you expect.
You can expect to win and still lose but at least you will have tried your best. Focusing on ‘I am going to lose, we are going to lose’ insures the inevitable. Focusing on what you need to do to win, knowing you are able to, makes it much more likely that you will.
If you know you can win; if you never quit but keep on going you will.
How You Begin Winning
Use Directed Questions™ to fill your mind with positive power and energy. Direct your mind repeatedly to what it is you want. Fill your mind with questions that lead you to where you want to go. Questions are powerful because your mind continues to work on them after you ask them and it IS the natural way our minds work.
Use affirmations Affirm it to yourself. Repeat over and over that you are a winner (or whatever it is you want). Develop 5 or 10 that you repeatedly chant while feeling the best you can. Say them out load enthusiastically and powerfully. Feel wonderful while you do. Think about them when you can’t say them out loud.
Make Positive Mental Movies Make positive movies and pictures in your head and review these again. See yourself looking, feeling and doing what you want to be doing. Imagine the outcome you want as though you already have it. See, hear, feel everything you doing and how are you feeling when you ‘got it’. See, it, feel it, hear it.
Read and Listen to inspirational and motivational material each day. Read whatever you are able to read. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. It is better to read less material more frequently than too much too little of the time. Read at least a page a day.
Practice Gratitude! Be grateful for where you are at. Be grateful for the progress you make. Be grateful for the challenges (muscles grow because of opposition, use the challenges as learning experiences). Celebrate and be grateful for everything. It improves your attitude and opens you up to more opportunity.
Isn’t It Difficult
Won’t it be hard? Well, if you don’t golf and you give it a try it will seem unfamiliar, difficult and you may not be very good at first. BUT if you desire to get good at golf you will do whatever it takes and you won’t stop doing those things that make you better. You will practice and play as much as you can. You will read about it watch it, get a coach and you will get better and better in time.
This is true about anything we want to do; sing, play piano, knit, ride a bike, drive, swim, play tennis, type, do mathematics, act, edit, write. It is the same process when we take control of our mind to develop a winning mindset!
Two Great Quotes
When you expect things to happen – strangely enough – they do happen. J.P. Morgan
Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you’ll be able to see farther. J.P. Morgan
You will make your dreams and your goals come about much more swiftly when all of you co-operates to bring them about. When you are congruent in your quest and all your thoughts, feelings, talents, and abilities, your resources, are aligned.
When you are of one powerful mindset, one determined attitude, you are unstoppable. You will keep going until you have what you want. The more you do, the further you go, the more you are able to do and the more you can keep on going,
Do whatever you can, even a little bit each day, to develop your attitude and turn yourself into a Can Do person and you will be surprised at how quickly it all takes hold.
Consistent, positive, correct repetition will develop the skills and habits you need to become a full time winner. Begin today and get a jump on making your dreams come true!” Rex Sikes
Have a fantastic day!
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Do This If The Results You Get Suck: Do This To Win!
“Why do I repeat themes in blogs? Why should you re-read inspirational material? Why look at posters and keep motivational sayings in your eyesight? Why repeat affirmations and positive question and make mental movies again and again? Why? Why? Why?
Skill Is Developed By Rehearsal And Practice
Because muscles grows through repetitive exercise. Skill IS developed by rehearsal and practice. Memory and learning is enhanced by repeated exposure. Habits are formed over time by repeating the same behaviors.
Some of us miss the obvious each and every time! Again and again we just don’t notice it in front of us. It is difficult in this busy age to get and keep one’s attention. Messages are repeated over and over and over again to create awareness. Once is not enough.
Imagine if the piston in your car pumped only one time and stopped. In order to move your auto’s engine has to repeat the same behavior over and over again. In order to grow and develop positive, powerful, automated habits that serve you productively you have to repeat the skill set over and over again without quitting.
So I repeat messages in a variety of ways. I repeat important themes and points and practices. This way your mind is continually bombarded, so long as you read my posts, with an important theme. You become what you think about. You get what you focus on. What you think about you bring about.
What You Rehearse And Practice Is Critical
If you are not getting what you want in life then you aren’t doing the right things to get them. If your results are not what you want, or they are poor you aren’t doing what is necessary to make them better. If you are worried, fearful, anxious or blaming, if you see lack, debt and unhappiness then you are focused on what you do not want.
What is predominant in your mind is not what you do want but what you do not like about your present circumstances. What occupies your attention isn’t all the good things, but how things aren’t right. You never become rich thinking poor thoughts. You never get happy blaming others. In order to get what you want you have to be focused mostly on what you want. That is the way it works!!!
If you are thinking about what you don’t want most of the time, out of habit, or for whatever reason, THAT IS WHAT YOU are rehearsing and practicing. The lackluster or poor or negative results are a result of what you are doing over and over again.
You are practicing. You are mentally rehearsing. You are creating and YOU are getting exactly what you don’t want because that is what you are inadvertently focused on. You may think you are focused on what you want but you aren’t.
YOU MUST REALIZE You Are Always Creating
You cannot NOT create. You may be creating what you want or what you don’t want THAT is up to what you are doing. If you don’t like what you are getting STOP doing it! Stop creating it! Stop it!
START creating what you do want! In order to do that YOU must change what you are thinking about and how you are thinking about it. If you want your life to change then you must change things in your life.
YOU must think predominantly, most all of the time, positively, about what you DO WANT in order to get what you want! You must fill your mind with what you want to be, do and have. This must become your obsession, what you think about most of the time.
Your results show you what you are focused on. If you feel less than glorious your feelings are informing you what you are focused on. If your self talk is critical of self or others, if it is blaming and negative, your self talk is telling you what you are focused on.
Only YOU Have’t Gotten The Message Yet
To change and make life better you can’t be focused on how things aren’t working well. You have to choose to think better thoughts, make better mental images, manage your self-talk and powerfully affirm positive messages and stay focused on these. You must stay focused on what you DO want NOT what you don’t want.
I want you to realize that anything you think you need to make changes you already possess within you. Yes, you may have to tap deep to find and utilize under utilized skills and resources but you already have what you need. That is great news! You have the abilities!
You may have to learn how to control your attention, take responsibility, make a decision and stick with it but those abilities are already yours. You may need to grow those muscles strong. They only grow strong through repeated use, repetition and opposition.
I remind you with these articles.
You Bring About What You Think About
I invite you to visit frequently throughout the day and read and re-read posts and blogs. Through repeated exposure you will begin to ‘get it’ if you haven’t already. Through repeated application of the principles you grow the muscles necessary to transform your life.
Transformation CAN happen in an instant! It need not take much time at all. Transformation can occur slowly over weeks, months and years. Whatever happens, however it happens, whenever it happens is completely up to you. It will happen just stick with it!
For some it will occur more quickly, for others not as fast. It doesn’t matter. Don’t compare yourself to others. That is silly. Just keep at it and have fun. Even if you change bit by bit you are changing. Have fun and delight in the process, be thrilled with your journey. Celebrate everything!
The goal is to feel good, enjoy life, live in high vibrations. Have fun, and delight. Imagine being filled with joy. Your thoughts, your beliefs, your attitudes determine whether you find blessings or not. These determine whether you feel good or not and what you will or will not do.
Transformation Can Happen In An Instant
Take control! Take responsibility. Ensure that you think and believe the very best. Make your attitude serve you and not the other way around. Take charge! Live as a champion! Live as victor. Live as a winner! Live as a person who creates what you want!
Fill your mind with powerful, inspirational, motivational thoughts and you feel better and are more productive. It works but you have to keep at it until it becomes a habit. After that you keep at it because it is habit and because you enjoy it.
Remember, the goal is to feel the best you are able to at any time. Sometimes that means out of the universe joyful bliss while at other times that means okay. Seek to feel as good as possible and you will learn to feel better and better more and more of the time.
Do not wait for it to happen. It won’t! Do not think others can do it for you. They can’t. Only you can do it and it is now or never. Some day never arrives. Magic can happen but realize you are the magician. Allow yourself to feel blessed. Allow yourself to receive good things. Get out of your own way and enjoy!
Fill Your Mind With Gratitude And Celebration
That is why I repeat over again important messages. If you haven’t taken complete charge yet, the hope is that, some day you might. You may just have to hear the message enough times to make the important decision. Then, on that day, you will.
You may have to read it many times until you finally say, ‘enough already, I am changing the way I live! I accept 100% responsibility and I am going to make the difference in my life. I am going to stop creating what I do not want and begin creating what I do want!’
In that moment, with that decision, and what happens right after that moment, your life can instantly change for the better. A decision is not an actual decision until you follow through. The second you decide and you actually act on it is when the decision is made.
THEN let nothing ever deter you from that decision. Keep at it. You can not fail you can only quit. If you never quit and you do the right things consistently long enough, soon you will have what you want.
From the very moment you act on your decision your life will begin to transform. It is absolutely so wonderful, you will be amazed and find it incredible. Celebrate!” Rex Sikes
How will you make the most of this wonderful new day?
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How To Stop Self Sabotage And BeFriend Your Mind
“The unconscious mind doesn’t make a distinction between wanted or unwanted, good or bad it just goes where your energy consistently flows. It goes wherever you place your attention. Soil doesn’t care whether it is growing food or poison.
Whatever is planted and nurtured will grow. What have you planted AND what are you nurturing? The results you are getting tells you the answer.
If your you don’t like the results you are getting that tells you you are focused on the wrong things. You are focused on what you don’t want too much of the time. By focusing on what you don’t want, or spending time complaining about the results you stay stuck.
If results are haphazard and not consistent; if you keep trying but still keep failing or something is holding you back and you feel in a holding pattern then you are mixed positive and negative. Sometimes you are more one than the other but you go back and forth.
When you are mixed positive and negative there is no predominant thought so results are mixed and inconsistent. It means you drift or are wishy washy in this regard. To get the results you want requires commitment. It requires persistent consistent action.
You Get What You Focus On
You become what you think about most during the day and night. What you think about you bring about. If you spend most of your time outdoors, in the sun, in a bathing suit you can expect to tan. If you spend most of your time indoors, bundled up, out of the sun you can expect not to tan.
The results you get are due to the predominant time you spend thinking either positive or negative thoughts. Unfortunately, most people, because of habit, because of doing it for so long, aren’t even aware of how negative they are. They don’t realize how much of their power they give away through worry, blaming others, the world, events and even themselves.
If you are mostly filled with fear, or doubt, or complaints and blame this is what you will have in life. One thought produces another and another. Our brains work this way. We make associations, we have triggers, there are neural pathways.
Birds Of A Feather Flock Together
If you are mostly filled with joy, confidence and optimism you will get more of this in your life. Positive thinking isn’t magic it is developing a strong winner’s mindset. It doesn’t make the world better it makes YOU better. When you are better you make your way in the world better.
This is why it is worth it to take charge of your thinking.
If you aren’t getting the results you want then you need to do something in order to get them.
The first step is to assume total responsibility for what you think. Your thoughts determine your feelings. Learn to become aware of what you are thinking when you are thinking it. Catch yourself when you think negatively and change it.
It Is Great To Know What You Do Not Want BUT There Is More
Once you know what you don’t want you must turn your attention from what you don’t want and to what you do want. Then focus completely on what you do want to make happen. Keep your attention and energy there. Remember, YOU GET what YOU FOCUS ON!
It is okay to have negative feelings because they inform you when you are off track and focusing on what you don’t want. Utilize them. Use you fear or anger or sadness to move away from those very same feelings. Get to that ‘enough is enough’ place inside you! Make it a point to get sick and tired of being ‘sick and tired’. Think ‘never again’ and then turn your attention to focus on what you do want.
The Knack, The Trick, The Key …
The knack, the trick, the key is to keep turning your attention to what you want, what you want to create, what you want to attract, what you want to feel and away from what you do not want, what you feel bad about and negative thinking.
You have to KEEP turing your attention to what you DO want to think and feel; what you can do productively and how resourceful you already are and how wonderful life is UNTIL it becomes an automatic positive habit. THEN your subconscious mind takes over and helps you begin to get the results you desire.
In order to do this you become must become aware. You must notice when you aren’t so that you can focus your attention positively. You take charge. You make yourself responsible for everything! THIS IS AN IMPORTANT MINDSET TO ADOPT!
You stop whining and complaining. You direct and manage your self-talk, you ask Directed Questions™, you direct your internal movies and imagine what you want as if you already had it. You repeat your questions and affirmations and mental movies throughout the day.
Whatever You Planted And Nurture Grows
You fill your mind with positive thoughts. The goal is to have fun and feel the best you can most of the time. The goal is to enjoy the process and have a wonderful life not only as an end result but during the journey. In order to do this you need to feed and nurture your mind and being.
Read inspirational material. Listen to inspirational audio programs. Hang with positive inspirational people. Attend inspirational events. Think of the 80/20 rule. At least 80 percent of your time should be focused on being positive, powerful, confident, happy, healthy and having fun. The scale should tip in your favor.
If this sounds like a lot, it may seem like it to start. When it comes down to it it isn’t. There is no substitute for having a marvelous experience. Either you do or you don’t. If you want life to be more juicy fun and delightful it will be up to you to make it that way.
The Easiest Way To Begin
The easiest way for some people to begin is to think or and write out a handful of positive statements or affirmations that are meaningful to you. Think about them and say out loud. Chant them with enthusiasm while driving or alone. Saying them out loud with lots of powerful emotions is great! It speeds things up!
Even easier is to put the affirmation statement into the form of Directed Questions™. For example, you can say ‘I am lucky’. AND you can ask a lot of questions around this.
You might ask, ‘How soon will I discover how incredibly lucky I am?’ ‘In how many ways am I lucky that I haven’t even yet begun to imagine? Isn’t it amazing to discover things really work out the best for me? In how many ways can I begin to appreciate how lucky I am?What must I do to convince myself that I and I alone create my own good fortune?
How easily can I always remember that I am a lucky person? Isn’t it marvelous things always work out for me? How soon will I fully and completely recognize that I always land on my feet? What are the many different ways I feel luckiest?’
You can replace luck with confidence, courage, loving, positive, peaceful, strong, smart any positive attribute you desire. Ask these questions again and again and again. You don’t have to know the answer the answer is not the point. The quality of your life is determined by the quality of the questions you ask.
It Won’t Grow If You Don’t Plant It – To Get Results You Must Act
Pick a topic and ask questions, add new positive ones in. Ask in clusters. Wonder, really wonder. Affirm what you want with positive feeling and strong conviction. Fill yourself with positivity and productive options. It gets so much easier, fun and exciting as you go along.
The difficult part to understand is that you will not see new results unless you fully engage in the process. I say ‘try it’ to whet your appetite but dabbling won’t bring you the results you want ONLY commitment will.
Once you commit you can discover the world as your oyster. New possibilities will open up to you. You will make good things start happening. You will feel, think and act better!
It most likely won’t happen over night. It could, but it may not. Everyone has different experiences. Let it go. Just make it a point to get on the ride and enjoy the ride. It is the only way to make an incredible difference for yourself.
Grab hold of all life has to offer you today. Take control of yourself, your thoughts and feelings and the soon you will realize that the benefits outweigh any of the necessary activity to get them!” Rex Sikes
In how many different ways are you excited about this day?
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Do This When You Need To Overcome Difficulties: It Works!
“Would you like to make things better now and in the future? Would you like to learn how to more easily overcome difficult times and challenges? Wouldn’t it be cool to know in advance which obstacles might arise and how to handle them when they do? Now you can!
This is an old article of mine. I have updated aspects of it and will share those in a future post, but this article is earlier groundwork. It provides the basic method for going after what you want and for trouble shooting challenges and resolving problems that can arise.
Through my recent posts you will learn how to appropriately and powerfully visualize, and manage your positive self talk so that you can readily recognize the powerful creator you already are. Use this process to create success. Use this process BEFORE you need it.
This is a road map you use for success, complete with alternative routes. This process builds in the contingencies you need when the going get rough. It constitutes rehearsal and practice. It is the same mental strategy a successful sports team would utilize.
So you understand. Mind Design™ is my process of learning new abilities. It is my approach to personal and professional change. I conduct workshops and training around the world and have audio products available. It is also the umbrella process or meta method through which I taught other personal development programs.
Enjoy this early article.
‘Why Traditional Visualization Doesn’t Work And How You Can Modify It To Get The Results You Want
by Rex Sikes
Now that you can ask yourself new questions, you also want to get your visualizations in order. I am sure you have heard of visualization. This is where people tell you to visualize your goals, dreams, plans, or how you want things to be. Usually people make still-frame pictures in their head of the goal being accomplished, e.g. depositing money in the bank, or their kids all grown up and successful.
What makes Mind Design™ different from visualization is that we have created three steps in creating visualizations. Without these three steps, visualizations just don’t work well at all and you’ll just be wasting your time.
Three Important Steps For Effective Visualizations
- Visualize the accomplished goal or outcome. Example: Salesperson depositing large commission check in the bank.
- Make a movie of how you achieved the goal. What steps did you take to achieve your success? Visualize the steps in detail. Visualize yourself doing all the right things to get your outcome, and visualize everything going perfectly. Example: Salesperson making more calls and customers responding by being pleasant and purchasing items.
- Build a contingency plan. Visualize yourself taking all the steps toward your goal and visualize everything going wrong and how you overcame the difficulty. Example: Salesperson making more calls and customers do not respond. Visualize what the salesperson did to get customer to respond more favorably.
Besides only making pictures of the goal being attained (Step 1), you make a movie of how you get the goal (Step 2). For example a salesperson wants to make more sales and money. Instead of just visualizing depositing more money in the bank, a Mind Design™ salesperson visualizes the actual steps they took to make more sales.
(2) The salesperson visualizes them doing all the right things and people responding in all the right ways to increase their sales and their money. But the Mind Design™ salesperson also does something which is the most crucial; THE THIRD STEP… This person visualizes a movie of all the possible obstacles and how they got over all of them.
Ordinarily, this third step is what people do to program their mind for failure because they imagine everything going wrong, but not what they did to overcome it. Using this method, you program your mind for how to overcome adversity along the way if you encounter it.
Stop Programming Failure Start Programming Success
When you learn how to run your brain then a world of endless possibility and opportunity becomes available. Unfortunately, for most people, it is left to chance and that is why success is usually a matter of luck.
I want to teach you the science and the art of making your dreams come true. The science because it is actually steps that you can implement, recipes, formulas proven through time to work for you and the art because your creativity with the science will enable you to realize your dreams and design for yourself the kind of life you truly want and deserve.
Your brain can give you everything you want when you give it a clear bright focused image of what you want and how you are planning to go about getting it. If you don’t know what you want your brain can’t give it to you. But when you know what you want, and you send precise, direct and intense signals, your mind has the power to give you what you want.
You can’t reach your goals if you don’t know what they are. Results are inevitable. If your don’t provide your brain with the programming to get your results, your goals you desire someone else will provide the programming. If you don’t have a program for your life someone else is going to make you fit into their plan.’
Well, there you have it! That is the original article. AS I stated, this was early development and I have added and adjusted through the years. It was and is still powerfully effective when you apply it. You begin to get results because it requires that you program your mind for success and to overcome difficulties.
Rehearse And Practice The Correct Elements To Succeed
A sports team practices to maximize their chances of winning. A successful actor rehearses so on opening night it goes according to plan. Never under estimate the value of mental rehearsal and actual rehearsal. Through this visualization process you practice and rehearse success!
That is what practice of ‘act as if’ is all about. You repeatedly engage your mind in making the correct, positive images and self-talk thoughts until you firmly ‘wire it in’. You imagine and act (in your mind) as though you have already accomplished your goal. This is an incredibly powerful practice and skill to develop.
When you ‘act as if’ you discover what you need to do to manifest it. You begin to understand the steps you need to take to get the results you want. By repeating this process over and over you create a habit.
Create The Habits That Get You Success
Once you make your skills a reliable positive habit you put yourself on autopilot for success. You begin to automatically think and act like a winner. You make success happen. You persist and you accomplish! You become unstoppable because you don’t let anything throw you off course.
Determine what you want, specify your goal or dream or target. See your self succeeding, imagine yourself getting there and having what you want. Be sure to see, imagine and rehearse succeeding, overcoming obstacles and objections when and if things do not go as you hope and want. Build, rehearse and practice your contingency plans prior to actually needing them. Visualize these over and over.
When you use your mind deliberately in positive ways you can conceive, believe and achieve your goals. You can create and accomplish your dreams. If you want a more wonderful future, if you want to get the kind of results you deserve to get, begin today to run your mind. Take charge of what you do on the inside and you will get the kind of things you want on the outside. That IS how it works!” Rex Sikes
What will you do today to put more smiles on your face?
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This Ability Separates The Successful From The Unsuccessful
“How do successful business people and entrepreneurs handle stress and disappointment? Do they do things differently than the rest of the people? It turns out they do. What they do makes a critical difference in how they live and work and why they succeed.
Attitude Makes The Difference
Everyone faces challenges so it isn’t the challenges that sets these successful people apart from the rest. It was their ability to take disappointment or setbacks as only temporary. They were not defeated by defeats. They kept going.
Often in business setbacks come one after the other but successful people did not let that dampen their motivation or persistence. They continued onward. They maintained their attitude and expected things to work out for the best.
They were not born this way. These are skills they learned and cultivated. You can learn to be more adaptable and flexible in your approach too. You can be more resourceful in your work and in pursuing your goals and dreams.
You can move forward and not give up when challenges come your way or pile up. How?
Keep Everything In Perspective
It is your attitude that makes the difference. The CEO’s and successful entrepreneurs understood that you have to care but not that much! When dead none of this matters. Work is just another game you play. It is what you do to make money. Keep this in mind.
No one benefits if you work yourself to death or injure your health so that you are unable to enjoy your family and friends. Live first. Enjoy Life! Work hard BUT don’t kill yourself to get ahead.
It isn’t worth it to win the race and lose one’s life. Work or career is is not worth damaging your mental, emotional or physical health.
Enjoy Life Apart From Work
Have fun. Enjoy your family and friends. Enjoy hobbies and activities that have nothing to do with the work you do. Cultivate other interests that you look forward to doing. Find things to be passionate about.
Make time to do things you want to do with the people who are important to you. Walk, exercise, go to the gym. Get out and have a good time. Take it easy and relax. Prioritize a healthy life over stressful work. You will work better and smarter the healthier and better adjusted you are.
Follow Your Purpose In Life
Hopefully, you are following your purpose in life through your choice of work. If not, look for ways that your work contributes to or helps you fulfill your life mission in other ways. Maybe, it is a means to save enough money to start your own company.
Perhaps, it is a stepping stone to the future whereby you gain valuable experience in needed areas. Find those reasons you are doing what you are doing and that keep you moving forward. Acknowledge and validate your efforts. Understand that whatever you are doing matters. You contribute to yourself and to others.
Keep going. Don’t quit when times get hard. See them through. You attitude and the reasons you are doing what you are doing will assist you in staying the course. You will remain committed for the right reasons. Persevere!
Smile, Giggle, Laugh And Breath
Smiling and laughter keeps us loose and relaxed. We stay healthier and happier and more relaxed when we laugh frequently. A good sense of humor is essential in dealing with life stressors. If you can find a silver lining in dark clouds or humor in adversity you will be on top of your game.
Norman Cousins wrote a book on the healing that laughter can bring. Watch funny movies and video. The internet is a good source for finding short clips to enjoy. Read humorous books and listen to funny audios. Obviously, you can watch comedians doing stand up.
The goal is to smile and laugh more each day. You can begin each day purposefully laughing out loud for at least five minutes while you get ready for work. It can be a form of meditation for you.
The laughing meditation. Just laugh. Even if you have to force yourself and it feels fake at first – do it. It will come more naturally the more you laugh. Laughing helps you to breath differently and breath deeper. It massages your diaphragm and is healthy for you.
Smiling more helps others feel better too. When you work with people and you look friendly and energetic and smiley it helps everyone. If everyone in the workplace did this imagine how enjoyable it could be,
Take deep breathes. Learn to breath correctly from the belly. Taking deep breaths is a stress reliever. Throughout the day, lean back and deep breath for a minute or two. It is great for the immune system and over all health and well being.
Be Inspired And Stay Inspired
Read inspirational material daily. Entrepreneurs and successful business people surround themselves with posters and mottos. They read inspirational materials daily. They listen to audios that keep them motivated. They understand the importance of of a good, strong, healthy mindset.
Attitude is everything. When you fill your mind consistently with high quality inspiring thoughts you feel better. When you feel better you look better. You naturally smile and laugh more. You are more relaxed. You are better equipped to handle any setback or disappointments that comes your way.
Positive Thinking Is Solution Focused Thinking
Positive thinking is not fantasy thinking. It is realistic thinking. It is the ability to find your resourcefulness and apply it to any situation while expecting the best outcome. You work to find the best solution. You maintain a powerful frame of mind.
Since you are solution oriented you naturally you expect the best outcome whatever that may be. It is not wishful thinking. Positive Thinking is the application of strong thoughts about what you can and will accomplish and how. When you keep your mind inspired and positive you can achieve more.
Meditate, Visualize and Be Grateful
Meditate. The are many different ways to meditate. Close your eyes and listen, simply listen. Do nothing else. Pay attention to or feel your breath. Visualize relaxing in a wonderful place outdoors. Pick your favorite natural spot. Enlist all five senses and enjoy the peace and tranquility this brings.
You can repeat a mantra, a power word or a meaningful phrase to yourself. State an affirmation again and again. Manage your self talk – only say positive things to you. Alternatively, watch your thoughts come and go as an unbiased observer would, without judgement. Watch them drift off like leaves floating downstream.
Discover which form of mediating you prefer most by trying many. Take a minute or five whenever you are able. A good practice is to aside a specific time to mediate each day. You can do so for a few moments or an hour. It is up to you.
Visualize your goals as if you have already accomplished them. Since you made them happen see what you did to bring them about. Notice how you overcame any challenge or disappointment. Especially notice the wonderful feelings of having what you wanted, of making it your own and bask in these feelings. Enjoy these.
Feel grateful. Keep a journal. Visualize what you feel grateful for. Express your appreciation for yourself, others, events, situations and circumstances in your life. Be grateful for what you have done and what you have. Acknowledge others and be appreciative. Express your thanks. Live in celebration and abundance.
Enjoy The Good Feelings
The most important part of feeling gratitude is the feeling. The most important part of visualizing your future and what you want it to be are the feelings that accompany your wants. Emphasize and feel the feelings. Enjoy them. Savor them. Accentuate them and linger with them. The more you feel good and the longer you feel good the better overall.
Develop Successful Habits That Support You
Because the entrepreneurs made these practices habits they were more successful than those who do not. They were better able to keep going, not give up and handle challenges and disappointments when others weren’t. Because they kept a daily regimen for being positive, happy, healthy they work better and enjoy life more.
As you develop and sustain successful habits your life takes on a wonderful new sense of meaning. Everything becomes much easier and more enjoyable. The tough times don’t necessarily go away but you handle them better and get through them quicker because you are much more resourceful.” Rex Sikes
It is your day today! How are you going to spend it?
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Need More Energy? Want More Life? How To Have It Now!
“Would you like more energy to get through your day? Can you imagine feeling more wonderful more frequently? What if you were to live with more passion and enjoyment wouldn’t that be marvelous?
Well, you can! You can grab hold of life and give it a good squeeze. You can go for the gusto and smile, laugh, delight and live more energetically. You can take hold of your thoughts, feelings and your experience and make it more of what you want it to be.
In the decades I have been leading workshops and seminars I have had hundreds and thousands of people demonstrate this to themselves time and time again.
Energy Comes From How We Use Our Mind
How we use our mind is critical to how we feel and what we do. When we think sluggish we will feel sluggish. Our thoughts control our reality. Little things we think repeatedly (not just the big negative things) can drain us of happiness and energy so we want to think our very best to feel our very best.
We become and get what we focus on. If we repeatedly think negative, defeatist, thoughts we don’t feel up and filled with energy. In order to feel better now you need to take charge of your thoughts!
These blog pages are filled with how to help yourself think and feel better.
Energy Comes From How We Use Our Body
There is a lot of documented research proving how we feel affects think. How we move and and use our body affects how we think. In my workshops I provide many demonstrations and exercises proving these points to individuals just like you.
One study published in the ‘Journal of Behavioral Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry’ found that subjects felt worse and remembered more negative things and fewer positive things when they walked slouched over, shoulders hunched and didn’t move their arms much. This is how people typically walk when sad or depressed.
Stand And Walk Tall And You Feel Better
People felt better with spring in their step, pep, shoulders back, chin up. They felt better, they thought better and thought more positive. When we straighten our spine, pull our shoulders back and put our chin up we use our muscles differently AND breath differently. There are many reasons why we feel better when we stand and walk taller.
When you want to feel better move and walk with more energy and you will begin to feel that way. THEN keep at it. Don’t return to slouching continue to walk feeling great! Think how soldiers march and the determination and confidence they exude. They wouldn’t if they hunched and slouched over.
How To Have 2 Times More Energy Right Now
You can imagine how you would feel if you had 2x more energy. Literally, you ARE able to do this. So do it. Try it on. How would you look, what would your expression be like? Do it now. Imagine how you would be sitting and reading this if you had 2x more energy. What would your posture be like? Adopt that posture and that expression. Notice how you feel when you really do it.
Stand up and walk about with 2x more energy. Pay attention to how you walk and move. Notice how your gait is different. Notice your chin and shoulder position. Examine how you are breathing? What are your steps like? How do you move your arms? Do a complete check over and keep walking as if you have 2x more energy.
Linger in it. Bask in the energy, enjoy it. Spend time sitting, walking and standing with more energy. Practice it daily. Rehearse it. Make it a habit. You can you know. Anytime you want to feel better you can, because you know how. So make it a habit and use it.Great now double it again!
Walk and move as if you had 4x more energy. You can do it! Adjust your body and movement. Go walk about. Notice that you have control when you actually take control and do what is required. It affects you positively. Great now imagine 5x more energy. How about 10x more energy?
Make It A Habit And You Will Always Have It Available
Any time you want to you can imagine and have more energy and delight, more confidence and passion, more determination and enjoyment. You can use your body and mind to serve you anytime.
Stand in one spot and shake your entire body quickly for 30 seconds or a minute. That will charge you up. Put your arms over your head and wave them rapidly. Dance, skip, sing, and laugh to get more energy whenever you want it or require it. All you have to do is start it.
You can sit behind the steering wheel of a car and go nowhere, doing nothing, or you can start the engine and be on your way. If you want something to happen it will always be up to you. Think better thoughts and you will feel better. Feel better and you will think better. Do both and you will live with more passion and enjoyment and life will be more grand. Delight in in!” Rex Sikes
Have a fun filled day!
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A Great Reason To Dream Big!
“I am providing two quotes I think you will appreciate. The first is from Ralph Waldo Emerson. He states one should, ‘Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.’
If you want your inner reality, your dreams, to be your outer reality, the results you get, then go ahead and make them come true. It is completely up to you. Create the future you want to live. Don’t let anything stop you. I couldn’t agree more, how about you?
The second quote is from Walt Disney. I think this is one you should keep in mind. Disney created an empire that is still ongoing today. Here is what he says about this:
‘If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember that this whole thing was started with a dream and a mouse.’
‘If You Can Dream It You Can Do It’ Are Pretty Powerful Words
The Disney Empire was started with a dream and a mouse. He knew what he wanted to accomplish. Then he went about accomplishing it. He drew, animated and was the voice of Mickey Mouse and from that dream everything else became possible.
He made his passion his purpose and accomplished his dreams. The outer results of his dream are that he created are a motion picture and television studio, countless movies and merchandise and theme parks all generating then and worth billions and billions of dollars now. I
If you can dream it you can do it! Dare to live the life you have dreamed!
I agree, what about you?
With these in mind we should never dream small. We should dream big and then make it all come true. Make your passion your purpose and fulfill it. Don’t let anything stop you from creating and living the life you want.” Rex Sikes
Make the day magical!
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Rex Sikes' Daily Inspiration and Gratitude 