Failure, whether of the personal, professional or even spiritual kind, is essential to personal expansion. It brings inner growth and a whole host of psychic rewards. Never regret your past. Rather, embrace it as the teacher that it is.
Success on the outside means nothing unless you also have success within. How can you care for others if you cannot even care for yourself? How can you do good if you don’t even feel good? I can’t love you if I cannot love myself.
If you care for your mind, if you nurture it and if you cultivate it just like a fertile, rich garden, it will blossom far beyond your expectations. But if you let the weeds take root, lasting peace of mind and deep inner harmony will always elude you.
Look at the toxic waste that most people put into the fertile garden of their minds every single day: the worries and anxieties, the fretting about the past, the brooding over the future and those self-created fears that wreak havoc within your inner world. Worry drains the mind of much of its power and, sooner or later, it injures the soul.
To live life to the fullest, you must stand guard at the gate of your garden and let only the very best information enter. You truly cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought – not even one. The most joyful, dynamic and contented people of this world are no different from you or me in terms of their makeup. We are all flesh and bones. We all come from the same universal source. However, the ones who do more than just exist, the ones who fan the flames of their human potential and truly savor the magical dance of life do different things than those whose lives are ordinary.
Those people who think the same thoughts every day, most of them negative, have fallen into bad mental habits. Rather than focusing on all the good in their lives and thinking of ways to make things even better, they are captives of their pasts. Some of them worry about failed relationships or financial problems. Others fret over their less-than-perfect childhoods. Still others brood over more trifling matters: the way a store clerk might have treated them or the comment of a co-worker that smacked of ill-will. Those who run their minds in this fashion are allowing worry to rob them of their life force. They are blocking the enormous potential of their minds to work magic and deliver into their lives all that they want, emotionally, physically and, yes, even spiritually. These people never realize that mind management is the essence of life management. Most people just don’t realize the enormous power of their minds.
We most certainly can control our attitude towards any event. We all have the power to determine what we will think about in any given moment.
Your I can is more important than your I.Q.
All success in life, whether material or spiritual, starts with that twelve-pound mass sitting between your shoulders. Or more specifically, with the thoughts that you put into your mind every second of every minute of every day. Your outer world reflects the state of your inner world. By controlling the thoughts that you think and the way you respond to the events of your life, you being to control your destiny.
There are no mistakes in life, only lessons.
Stop judging events as either positive or negative. Rather, simply experience them, celebrate them and learn from them. Every event offers you lessons. These little lessons fuel your inner and outer growth. Without them, you would be stuck on a plateau.
From struggle comes strength. Even pain can be a wonderful teacher.
Once you consistently apply this principle to your daily life and start to condition you mind to translate every event into a positive, empowering one, you will banish worry forever. You will stop being a prisoner of your past. Instead, you will become the architect of your future.
From now on, forget about the past. Dare to dream that you are more than the sum of your current circumstances. Expect the best. You will be astonished at the results.
The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.
Winston Churchill said that “the price of greatness is responsibility over each of your thoughts.”
Ironically, the less you focus on the end result, the quicker it will come.
The secret of happiness is simple: find out what you truly love to do and then direct all of your energy towards doing it. If you study the happiest, healthiest, most satisfied people of our world, you will see that each and every one of them has found their passion in life, and then spent their days pursuing it. This calling is almost always one that, in some way, serves others. Once you are concentrating your mental power and energy on a pursuit that you love, abundance flows into your life, and all your desires are fulfilled with ease and grace. Your passion must, in some way, improve or serve the lives of others.
Once you find out what your life’s work is, your world will come alive. You will wake up every morning with a limitless reservoir of energy and enthusiasm. All your thoughts will be focused on your definite objective. You won’t have time to waste time. You will automatically erase the worry habit and become far more effective and productive. Interestingly, you will also have a deep sense of inner harmony, as if you are somehow being guided to realize your mission.
They all have a purpose that fans the flames of their inner potential. They are driven by their priorities, but not in an unhealthy, obsessive way. It is more effortless and gentle than that. And given their enthusiasm and love for what they are doing in their lives, such people live in the moment. Their attention is fully and completely on the task at hand. Therefore, there are no energy leaks. These people are the most vibrant and vital individuals you will ever have the good fortune to meet.
Too many of us are consumed by needless and endless worry. This drains us of our natural vitality and energy. Shake up your life a bit. Get rid of the cobwebs. Take the road less traveled. Most people live within the confines of their comfort zone. The best thing you can do for yourself is regularly move beyond it. This is the way to lasting personal mastery and to realize the true potential of your human endowments.
Daily incremental improvements produce lasting results, which, in turn, lead to positive change. Saying that you don’t have time to improve your thoughts and your life is like saying you don’t have time to stop for gas because you are too busy driving. Eventually it will catch up with you.
One must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind him to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle – and a mystery. Remember, either you control your mind or it controls you.
Never forget there is power in silence and stillness.
Understand once and for all that your mind has magnetic power to attract all that you desire into your life. If there is a lack in your life it is because there is a lack in your thoughts. Hold wonderful pictures in your mind’s eye. Even one negative image is poisonous to your mindset.
There is nothing noble about being superior to some other person. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self. If you want to improve your life and live with all that you deserve you must run your own race. It doesn’t matter what other people say about you. What is important is what you say to yourself. Do not be concerned with the judgement of others as long as you know what you are doing is right. And never get into the petty habit of measuring your self-worth against other people’s new worth. Every second you spend thinking about someone else’s dreams you take time away from your own.
Weak minds lead to weak actions.
You must know your life’s aim and then manifest this vision into reality by consistent action. It is called Dharma, which is the Sanskrit word for life’s purpose.
Once you make your goal known to the world, there will instantly be pressure on you to work towards its fulfillment since no one likes to look like a failure.
Once you have formed a clear mental picture of your outcome, created a little pressure behind it, set a deadline and committed it to paper, the next step is to apply the Magic Rule of 21. The learned men and women of the world believed that, for new behavior to crystallize into a habit, one had to perform the new activity for twenty-one days in a row.
The human mind is the world’s largest filtering device.
The only limits on your life are those that you set yourself. When you dare to get out of your circle of comfort and explore the unknown, you start to liberate your true human potential. This is the first step towards self-mastery and mastery over every other circumstance in your life. When you push beyond your limits, just as you did in this little demonstration, you unlock mental and physical reserves that you never thought you had.
You practice the art of kaizen (Japanese word for constant and never-ending improvement) by pushing yourself daily. Work hard to improve your mind and body. Nourish your spirit. Do the things you fear. Start to live with unbridled energy and limitless enthusiasm. Watch the sun rise. Dance in a rain shower. Be the person you dream of being. Do the things you have always wanted to do but didn’t because you tricked yourself into believing that you were too young, too old, too rich or too poor. Prepare to live a soaring, fully alive life. In the East they say that luck favors the prepared mind. I believe that life favors the prepared mind.
Take the time to reflect on what it is that might be keeping you from the life you really want and know deep down you can have. Once you have identified what your weaknesses are, the next step is to face them head on and attack your fears. If you fear public speaking, sign up to give twenty speeches. If you fear starting a new business or getting out of a dissatisfying relationship, muster every ounce of your inner resolve and do it. This might be the first taste of real freedom that you have experienced in years. Fear is nothing more than a mental monster you have created, a negative stream of consciousness.
The best way to do that is to do the thing you fear. Understand the anatomy of fear. It is your own creation. Like any other creation, it is just as easy to tear it down as it is to erect it. Methodically search for and then destroy every fear that has secretly slid into the fortress of your mind. This alone will give your enormous confidence, happiness and peace of mind.
Some books are meant to be tasted, some books are meant to be chewed and, finally, some books are meant to be swallowed whole.
The ten-minute period before you sleep and the ten-minute period after you wake up are profoundly influential on your subconscious mind. Only the most inspiring and serene thoughts should be programmed into your mind at those times. Mental mastery starts with being able to control every thought that you think.
You must be ruthless with your time. Learn to say no. Having the courage to say no to the little things in life will give you the power to say yes to the big things.
When you work to improve the lives of others, you indirectly elevate tour own life in the process. When you take care to practice random acts of kindness daily, your own life becomes far richer and more meaningful. To cultivate the sacredness and sanctity of each day, serve others in some way.