I’ve pointed out a few times in other posts that it’s not sufficient to simply think, or visualise yourself to success. You can’t simply sit around thinking about the dream car you want all day and expect it to arrive on your drive after a couple of weeks.

It is really important to focus your mind and your thoughts on what you are wanting, but you really need to focus on listening to yourself too. Your mind will give you clues that will prompt you in certain directions. For example, if you are focused on winning a new contract for your company, then visualise yourself: receiving it in the post; performing your service; standing and watching your trucks leaving the yard filled with your products; etc.

In itself, this isn’t enough. You’ve now got to begin to listen to your own tune and begin to notice the clues and cues you give yourself. Your emotional responses are a good place to start - you might be looking through the phone book and see a company that stands out for you. It might be that you’ve seen their logo out there a few times and for some reason it sticks in your mind. This could be your clue to pick up the phone and give them a call - it’s not that it’s “meant to be”, it’s your intuition telling you to follow a lead.

As you become good at noticing these cues, you’ll find that you are working less, but with much more purpose and it feels like you are in flow with life, rather than being swept along in it’s wake.

Now, I’m not saying that it’s possible to only make 1 phone call and speak to the right person, on the right day and be wealthy for ever more. That doesn’t feel like action at all! However, taking the steps to contact the people with whom you feel a connection or an inspiration to call is the beginnings of taking action. As with anything in life, the more action you take, the more you position yourself for success.

There are people in life who have a midas touch - in a world of 6 billion people, there are bound to be a few. It’s really about understanding how these people think and operate that helps you to have your own midas touch for your own life.

Listen to your intuition and learn to take action on your ideas and thoughts.

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Technorati Tags: Clue, Cues, Dream Car, Emotional Responses, focus, inspiration, Intuition, Midas Touch, New Contract, Phone Book, Phone Call, Reason, Service Trucks

I was waiting in the doctor’s surgery a few days ago (for my wife’s anti-natal appointment with the midwife) and I randomly picked up a magazine. On closer inspection this turned out to be Hello magazine which I’m sure most people will have heard of (myself included). I have no interest in this kind of publication normally and I rarely read a newspaper or pay much attention to celebrity in the media.

The first thing I saw was a picture of Brad and Angelina (who I’ve heard of, I’m not completely living in a bubble) and the first words out of my mouth were, “Blimey! She looks rough!”. Now as a Life Coach, I’m supposed to be programmed not to make judgments about people. Obviously, in reality I do so as instinctively and sub-consciously as the next person, however I’m probably better at spotting these judgments than most people.

In this particular case, the next remarks I made were, “Blimey! I can’t believe I just said that!”. It led me into a very interesting conversation with my wife about whether or not there’s a psychological trick that the media play on us to draw us into making judgements about the things we see or read in their publications.

What do you think? Is there something going on here that draws us into judging the people we see in the media? Or is it more subtle, in that we experience people who read such publications and they tend to voice their judgments and sensationalise the stars and celebrities who they read about to us?

So my public apologies to Angelina (I’m sure she reads my blog!!!) and I look forward to your thoughts about my momentary judgmental slip!

Technorati Tags: Appointment, Blog, Brad And Angelina, Celebrity, Few Days, Hello Magazine, Judgements, Judgments, Life Coach, Living In A Bubble, Media Play, Midwife, Natal, People, Public Apologies, Stars Celebrities

A quick personal development tip today, inspired by a comment on my post about Minding Your Language. Something that really helps me in my on-going personal development and self-improvement is to spend some time every now and again challenging my beliefs about things. It’s something that I’ve picked up along the way and it is to ask myself the simple question, “Is the opposite also true?”

Actually, this question has uses well beyond simply challenging your beliefs, it can help you to get the measure of ideas, thoughts and goals that you may have. When do I use it? Well quite simply, I use this particular gem as often as I remember to. Sometimes I’m great at it, other times, I forget! Most often, I use this when I have an important decision to make, or when I find I am making a judgment about someone or something.

In NLP there is a presupposition that everyone has their own unique view of the world. This is so easy to forget when we are communicating or working with other people. To have something handy in your mental arsenal to throw in when you need it is so useful and helps keep you one step ahead of your automatic judgments.

Sometimes I’ll catch myself defending one of my opinions or beliefs about something so energetically and enthusiastically. It’s such a strong defense that I really try hard to question and challenge myself to ensure that I really feel that way about it. In doing this, sometimes you’ll make really huge breakthroughs that will un-stick your thinking and help you move past obstacles that you never knew existed. Other times, it will really help you to understand another persons point of view, without actually changing or shaping your own.

Try it, have fun with it and remember to challenge yourself as often as you remember to do so!

Technorati Tags: Arsenal, Ask Question, Judgment, Judgments, Minding Your Language, Nlp, Obstacles, Personal Development, Point Of View, Presupposition, self-improvement

There’s huge value in taking responsibility for yourself and your life. In fact, it’s the corner stone of personal development and growth. Once you accept responsibility for yourself, your circumstances, actions, thoughts and words, you are instantly empowered to make new, different choices and actually create a life rather than get a life.

The big challenge for most people who reach this point is that they confuse responsibility with blame. The second you begin to take blame or blame yourself for everything in your life, you are placing yourself in such a weak position and it’s almost impossible to turn things around.

Imagine John: His life isn’t working the way he wants it to. He’s recently divorced, for the second time and he suddenly realises that he’s been acting in a way that has created his marriage break-ups. John has a choice, he can use this realisation to blame himself and maybe even go grovelling to his ex-partner to say sorry. He feels really bad about the way that he’s been, but you know he’s always been like that and it’s always going to be a problem. Alternatively he can take responsibility for this realisation and his past thoughts, actions and deeds and draw a line in the sand and make different choices from now on. He doesn’t feel bad or negative about his realisation, in fact he feels relieved and released of the shackles of his old self.

When you experience your own self-realisations, ensure that you are clear on the choice you are making. Understand that if you choose to blame yourself or other people, this is not taking responsibility and there is likely to be no change for you.

Don’t you owe it to yourself to take responsibility for your life? You are living the life you live because of the sum of your thoughts, words and actions to date. You’ll know that you have taken responsibility when you feel good about your life and make choices consciously rather than through habit.

Technorati Tags: Break Ups, circumstances, Habit, Life Choices, Line In The Sand, Marriage, New Choices, Personal Development, Personal Growth, Second Time, Shackles, Taking Responsibility, Thoughts And Words, Ups

Is it me, or are we obsessed with giving things a catchy name - The Credit Crunch is a prime example. I’m pretty sure that the media came up with this fancy title because all their doom and gloom articles about the recession hadn’t resulted in a recession yet. Now, with the power of suggestion, it’s out with the old (recession) and in with the new, the all singing and all dancing “Credit Crunch”.

This one has me quite baffled - really it all seems to be about the media who are obsessed with moving us into a recession. My theory is that more people buy newspapers when there’s a general feeling of unhappiness and financial hardship in the country. I understand that people are finding things harder at the moment - of course they are, prices have gone up and companies are not increasing pay accordingly. However it all seems to be more of a pyschological game than a reality. From the people I’ve been in contact with and doing business with, the people who are accepting the credit crunch as a reality are experiencing hard times. In contrast, the one’s who have in some way immunised themselves from the credit crunch are hardly being hit.

I think what is really interesting is the number of courses, ebooks and other things that have appeared to help people fight the Credit Crunch. All this will do of course is to give the whole thing energy and make it happen.

So what can we do? Well the first step is to read something different on the way to work - perhaps get a really good book like Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Next, do something else other than watching TV - get a hobby you can sink your teeth into. Really - the best way to thrive right now is to think and act like you are thriving. If you believe that the credit crunch is real and is going to destroy your life, business, job etc. then you are likely to be right. If you believe that you can thrive and live a great life of your dreams, then you are likely to be right.

Technorati Tags: Business Job, Catchy Name, Credit Crunch, Doing Business, Doom And Gloom, dreams, Ebooks, Fancy Title, Financial Hardship, Life Business, Napoleon, Napoleon Hill, Newspapers, Power Of Suggestion, Prime Example, Recession, Self Fulfilling Prophecy, Teeth, Unhappiness, Watching Tv