Never let the things you want make you forget things you have

Start With Just One Day of Gratitude

Has adopting an attitude of gratitude been a challenge for you? Do you start each day with the best of intentions and then find yourself losing focus as you encounter more and more negativity?

The problem stems from trying to change the habits of a lifetime in one fell swoop!

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But can you do it for one day? Can you commit to adopting a grateful focus no matter what happens during the course of one single day? You'd be surprised how easy it is to do something for one day.If you've spent a large portion of your life not focusing on gratitude, you can't expect yourself to change your whole mind-set immediately. (Most of us always try though, don't we?)

Here's how to start:

First, select a trigger object to keep with you on the day of your gratitude experiment. It can be a special piece of jewelry, a rubber band around your wrist, a special baseball cap, your lucky shirt, or anything else you feel would help you remember.

On the morning of your "one day of gratitude", spend a few moments holding your reminder object. Bring up a feeling of gratitude in your heart while you do. When you are fully immersed in the emotion of gratitude, recite an intention something like this:

"Today I choose to feel grateful for every experience I have. I will find a positive focus for every challenge I face, every moment of frustration, and every person I meet. I will make a conscious effort to stay rooted in the present moment so I am aware of the temptation to slip from this grateful focus and I can bring my thoughts and emotions back on track immediately. This (object) will serve as a powerful reminder that I can choose to be grateful about anything and everything today, and I will exercise this freedom of choice during my one day of gratitude."

Put on your trigger object, and then go about your day.

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Don't fool yourself into believing that your day will be smooth sailing just because you performed your little gratitude ceremony! (You didn't really think it was going to be THAT easy, did you?) Anything is possible of course, but it's more likely that you'll find your patience and focus being tested repeatedly throughout the day.

Believe it or not, that's a good thing! The more opportunities you are given to choose and strengthen your focus, the better you'll get at developing a true attitude of gratitude. Go with it. If you find yourself getting mired in anger or frustration, simply return your focus back to gratitude again. Make it your mission to find something positive about every situation and keep working on turning your thoughts around as often as necessary.

By the end of the day you should be feeling very proud of yourself! Even if you didn't manage to keep a steady focus on gratitude, you were probably able to focus on it more than you have in the past.

Now, lather, rinse and repeat! Keep doing this exercise one day at a time, over and over again. Before long you will find that you don't have to work so hard at staying focused on gratitude, and it starts becoming more natural.

As author Annie Dillard once said, 

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."

Start with one day, and everything can change. 

SOURCE

Jim Rohn - Personal Development - Living An Exceptional Life

How thought play a great role in achievement- James Allen

Until thought is linked with purpose there is no intelligent accomplishment. 

With the majority the barque of thought is allowed to drift upon the ocean of life.

Aimlessness is a vice, and such drifting must not continue for him who would steer clear of catastrophe and destruction.

They who have no central purpose in their life fall an easy prey to petty worries, fears, troubles, and self-pitying, all of which lead, just as surely as deliberately planned sins (though by a different route), to failure, unhappiness, and loss, for weakness cannot persist in a power-evolving universe.

A man should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart, and set out to accomplish it. He should make this purpose the centralizing point of his thoughts. It may take the form of a spiritual ideal, or it may be a worldly object, according to his nature at the time being; but whichever it is, he should steadily focus his thought forces upon the object which he has set before him.

He should make this purpose his supreme duty, and should devote himself to its attainment, not allowing his thoughts to wander away into ephemeral fancies, longings, and imaginings. This is the royal road to self-control and true concentration of thought.

Even if he fails again and again to accomplish his purpose (as he necessarily must until weakness is overcome), the strength of character gained will be the measure of his true success, and this will form a new starting point for future power and triumph. Those who are not prepared for the apprehension of a great purpose, should fix their thoughts upon the faultless performance of their duty, no matter how insignificant their task may appear.

Only in this way can the thoughts be gathered and focused, and resolution and energy be developed, which being done, there is nothing which may not be accomplished. The weakest soul, knowing its own weakness, and believing this truth - that strength can only be developed by effort and practice, will at once begin to exert itself, and adding effort to effort, patience to patience, and strength to strength, will never cease to develop, and will at last grow divinely strong.

As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient training, so the man of weak thoughts can make them strong by exercising himself in right thinking. To put away aimlessness and weakness, and to begin to think with purpose, is to enter the ranks of those strong ones who only recognize failure as one of the pathways to attainment; who make all conditions serve them, and who think strongly, attempt fearlessly, and accomplish masterfully.

Having conceived of his purpose, a man should mentally mark out a straight pathway to its achievement, looking neither to the right nor to the left. Doubts and fears should be rigorously excluded; they are disintegrating elements which break up the straight line of effort, rendering it crooked, ineffectual, useless.

Thoughts of doubt and fear never accomplish anything, and never can. They always lead to failure. Purpose, energy, power to do, and all strong thoughts cease when doubt and fear creep in. The will to do springs from the knowledge that we can do. Doubt and fear are the great enemies of knowledge, and he who encourages them, who does not slay them, thwarts himself at every step. He who has conquered doubt and fear has conquered failure.

His every thought is allied with power, and all difficulties are bravely met and wisely overcome. His purposes are seasonably planted, and they bloom and bring forth fruit which does not fall prematurely to the ground. Thought allied fearlessly to purpose becomes creative force; he who knows this is ready to become something higher and stronger than a mere bundle of wavering thoughts and fluctuating sensations;

he who does this has become the conscious and intelligent wielder of his mental powers.


"As a man thinketh"Book - by James Allen

How to Set and Achieve any Goal you Have in Your Life - with John Assara...

YOU ONLY HAVE TO WANT MORE AND BE POSITIVE > ALL THE HELP IS OUT THERE> START WITH JOHN ASSARAF.

10 rules of being Human.

Here are 10 Rule for Being Human (Cherie Carter-Scott) from chapter 2 of Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Original!:

1 – You will receive a body.

2 – You will learn lessons.

3 – There are no mistakes, only lessons.

4 – A lesson is repeated until learned.

5 – Learning lessons does not end.

6 – “There” is no better than “here.”

7 – Others are merely mirrors of you.

8 – What you make of your life is up to you.

9 – Your answers lie inside you.

10 – You will forget all this.

“The twentieth anniversary edition of the original Chicken Soup for the Soul is brimming with even more hope and inspiration – the stories you’ve always loved, plus bonus stories, plus 20 bonus stories from today’s thought leaders.

Twenty years later, Chicken Soup for the Soul continues to open the heart and rekindle the spirit. Celebrate the twentieth anniversary with the classic book that inspired millions — reinvigorated with bonus stories of inspiration! You will find hope and inspiration in these 101 heartwarming stories about counting your blessings, thinking positive, and overcoming challenges.”

Look at AMAZON for the lovely books of chicken soup for the soul. or Click on the link on the left.

Enjoy

How to sustain inner motivation?

I HEARD Zig Ziglar say something once that has stuck with me: The reason motivation fades is that the world is full of demotivators. 
The naysaying of friends, the problems that come up, the constant distractions, the temptations to go off track, etc. And of course, the worst demotivators of all are what we do in our own heads.

Alan Bean, one of the twelve astronauts who walked on the moon, said he listened to motivational tapes in his car on the way to his NASA training while he was preparing for his space flight.
The Apollo astronauts were the most confident, competent, healthy people on the planet. They had passed severe physical and psychological tests to even qualify for the program, and then were trained intensely. It might seem surprising that Bean would listen to tapes to increase his motivation, but one of the reasons he made it into the space program is that he knew how to keep himself motivated and focused. Listening to motivational material in the car is one very effective way to do that.
Most of us are aware that working toward a big goal is where the fun is, but motivation doesn’t seem to last. People go to seminars and hear motivational speakers and get excited about their goals and their life, but the motivation and excitement fades. What we need is a way to stay motivated — not faking it, not forcing ourselves, but really feeling motivated. Listening to motivational material does the trick.
Motivational books and tapes (and CDs and MP3s) all basically say the same thing: Set goals, concentrate your effort and attention, persist, and make good use of your time. The most important thing they do is make you think about what you want. They put your attention on your goal.

Motivational material often contains stories of people overcoming obstacles to achieve their goals — obstacles much worse than the obstacles you face, and goals much bigger than yours. The result is that you feel you can do it if you apply yourself.

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Mary Kay Ash of the Mary Kay cosmetics empire told Zig Ziglar she would never get into her car without a cassette she could listen to while she was driving.
H.L. Hunt, who was worth three billion dollars by the end of his life, was a big fan of motivational tapes.
What I’m saying is as simple as it sounds. If you’ve ever thought, “I’m just not very motivated,” this message is especially for you. You can be as motivated as you want to be. You have not yet explored all the ways you can motivate yourself.


Just for a little extra motivation to listen to audiobooks while you drive, a study by the University of Southern California found that if you live in a city and drive 12,000 miles a year, you can get the equivalent of a two-year college education every three years by listening to audiobooks while you drive.

One thing they didn’t study is that the listeners are likely to experience less stress or frustration than nonlisteners. 
Why? Because the listeners are doing something they want to do rather than feeling helpless and frustrated about being stuck in traffic and unable to do what they want to be doing.

This article is excerpted from the book, 

Cultivating Fire: How to Keep Your Motivation White Hot.