The Flagrant Abuse Of Positive Thinking

>>  Click Here To Discover How You Can Create The Life You Want <<

Do you remember Admiral James Stockdale, the guy who was Ross Perot’s Vice Presidential candidate in ‘the ‘92 election?

If you don’t, don’t worry too much… he didn’t fare so well as a VP candidate or in politics for that matter, but he was quite an impressive military man. He was former president of the Naval War College and was the highest ranking officer in the “Hanoi Hilton” in Vietnam.

He happened to spend eight long years as a captive in Hanoi and was tortured numerous times.

Mr. Thomas Barnett relates:

"Stockdale tells the story of the optimists who never survived their time in Hanoi, simply because they clung far too much to their dreams of release and in doing so couldn’t handle the brutal realities of what it took to survive the day to day.

“So instead of dealing with the here and now realistically, they tended to cling to the hope that they’d be home by whatever the next holiday was, and when that day came and went, their spirit would be diminished by that measure.

“Over time, they died because their spirit was extinguished by reality.”

Stockdale’s explains his “paradox” this way:

“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end (which you can never afford to lose) with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

What Stockdale was really describing is the flagrant abuse of ‘positive thinking.’

And you know what? A lot of exercisers and fat loss candidates are really just too optimistic. Worse yet, the weight loss pitchmen exploit this and sell ridiculously unrealistic plans to starry-eyed people.

What a shame.

I seriously doubt anything you ever face in the exercise world will be as dreadful as the Hanoi Hilton. Still, nothing can be worse for you than to walk into battle with a plastic sword and helmet, and then get cut down with tanks and machine guns.

You wanna survive… then thrive…

Here are some wise precautions that will prepare you for adversity and ensure your success:

• Understand that everything isn’t going to happen all at once and sudden change isn’t necessarily a good thing.
• Assume that every ‘new’ product or supplement will not be on the market in a year because of faulty claims
• Assume that you will be able to find that ‘new’ ab thingy in a someone’s yard sale in 6 months
• Assume that some days aren’t going to allow you the time to exercise - so start working out in the morning

A positive attitude can take you places. However, don’t let it be a substitute for you taking an accurate picture of your current reality in the process.

You can change your reality through time and effort with the help of positive thinking. But… positive thinking alone won’t help you. In fact, as we’ve seen above, it can actually be detrimental to your success.

Brad Howard's Fat Loss Black Book delves into the "meat and potatoes" of all of the misinformation generated by the diet and fitness industry today.

An industry veteran for years, his fat loss guide completely shatters all of the myths and misguided, outdated advice being propagated today.

FatLossBlackBook.com

Related Articles:-

The Power of Positive Thinking in Business

Build Muscle Faster By Thinking Positive

The Art of Positive Thinking

The Power of Positive Thinking

Affirmation Charms

Positive Thinking - Success Is Not A Secret

>>  Click Here To Discover How You Can Create The Life You Want <<

Whether a person will become successful actually starts with his state of mind.

You are what you think.

Positive thinkingis a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Our mind believes in what we tell it. When we keep telling ourselves something repeatedly now and then, it somehow gets itself registered in our brain. Step by step, our mind learns to accept and slowly believes in it. Eventually, we will become what we have been telling ourselves.

When your thoughts and beliefs are positive, you will attract more positive circumstances or products into your life and success is just a step away. Success is not a secret that avails to only an elite few. It can be achieved by anyone at any time.

How can this happen? Goals and success are not and certainly cannot be achieved overnight.

It is actually the power of our own beliefs that is working. In other words, it is the power of our positive thinking.

Simply put, when we feed our brain with something, we begin to attract what we keep thinking about. Once our brain has accepted and digested the information, it will command our body to act. The actions are usually instigated by our belief. It is because we actually believe in it that our bodies are moving in momentum with our thoughts. The only variability is the strength of our belief. If our belief is durable and strong, our brains are most likely going to act on it.

Every action will be met with a balanced reaction. Any action we take will create some kind of consequence or circumstance. We must think positively so as to maintain our belief and desire to succeed. What we manifest will gradually be turned into our reality and eventually it will also create our destiny.

However, all worthwhile achievements take time. Once a vision has been set as a permanent fixture into our positive thoughts, we must cultivate the fortitude of consistence and persistence in our efforts. Everyday, our actions will shape or mould our reality according to what we want it to be. These steps will take us closer towards getting our crystalline goals.

Be prepared that lots of work and efforts have to be put in. It is not going to be an easy path. There will be obstacles and failures along the road to success. You must treat these hurdles as opportunities to learn. You have to overcome them and do not let them slow down your progress. Gradually with time, you will attract positive circumstances, encounters, ideas and even people who can and will assist you to soar towards your goals.

Eric Chay of http://www.ericchay.com providing some motivational writings on positive thinking and personal development.

Related Articles:-

Anamchara - Beyond Positive Thinking

The 3 Steps Of Positive Thinking

Affirmation Definition

Does Positive Thinking Work?

Positive Thinking And Affirmations

The Art of Positive Thinking

>>  Click Here To Discover How You Can Create The Life You Want <<

The Art Of Positive Thinking The art of positive thinking. It's supposed to literally be a cure for anything that ails you, both body and soul. I do believe this to be true in most cases. It's a matter of learning to put the right "spin" on the subject.

I even have some examples:

You have a really bad job. The pay is terrible, the work tedious, the hours inconvenient.

Think of the pluses! You have a place to go, people who more than likely commiserate with your situation (who doesn't enjoy a good b-t-h session now and then?) and some kind of monetary stipend which is hopefully keeping you close to eye level with the bills you've accumulated.

Truly better than the alternative!

Another scenario: You have been stricken with some terrible affliction. I know, many of you are reading that last sentence and wondering "WHAT????

However, it's a known medical phenomena that being positive that you will survive and even be better than ever when all is said and done, really, truly works. We all know someone who defied the odds of a "terminal" condition, simply by deciding that they had not finished what they needed to here on earth. One of my husband's cousin's had a husband who had esophageal cancer and was given only 3 months survival-he lived a full life for another 12 years after that and died of a heart attack-not cancer. It allowed him to be there for all of his children's marriages and see most of his grandchildren come into being!

All this being said-I really want to stress I do believe in having a positive frame of mind. I myself came back from being close to not being able to maintain a "regular" lifestyle with my rheumatoid arthritis. It was my positive attitude and trust in medical science that made it possible for me to sit here and write, get out and go power-walking and numerous other daily activities rather than sit in constant pain.

EXCEPT FOR ONE THING: head colds. I really see nothing positive about them. Okay, in the grand scheme of life, this sounds ridiculous, but have any of you ever had one and have been able to think "oh good, I needed a cold!" What fun! And now, I have a doozy!

Does anything make you feel or look worse? My eyes are tearing, I can't hear anything, my throat feels as if a match has been struck on it. I'm dizzy. My face and lips are chapped from all the sneezing, blowing and coughing. Oh, while I'm complaining-my body hurts and my back went out from having to cough and sneeze at the same time. Plus, who sleeps in this condition? This is after 9 days and enough "symptom relief" medication to choke the proverbial horse.

Childbirth was easier. Shorter recovery time too. Plus, you came out with something wonderful.

And now, I may not be ready to post, but I have to-I positively need another hot cup of lemon and honey and a new Kleenex.

Carine Nadel loves to write on what she observes around her. To read more of her work, log onto: http://www.Carine-whatscooking.blogspot.com or http://www.fabulously40.com

Related Articles:-

The Power of Positive: Create Success With Positiv...

Artist's Affirmation - How Affirmations Enhance Cr...

Affirmation Child's Craft - Building Self-Esteem W...

Spiritual Affirmation - Healing Your Inner Self Wi...

Practice Self Talk and Positive Affirmation Statem...

Does Positive Thinking Work?

>>  Click Here To Discover How You Can Create The Life You Want <<

Let's consider the antithesis to this question. Does negative thinking work?

Well, has there been a time when you have worried unduly about something? Maybe you were worried about an exam, a driving test, an interview. Chances are that your worst expectations came into fruition and even if you got the outcome you desired you recognised that you could have performed better had you not worried.

When we worry or have negative thoughts about something we are not allowing ourselves to think constructively about how to achieve what we want. We focus all our energy on the negative elements of a particular situation and what we put energy into grows.

Dr. Kathleen Hall writes in her book A Life in Balance,

"Affirmations are positive statements we tell ourselves. Our mind believes what we tell it. When you tell your brain positive information, you are feeding your brain extremely valuable food that heals your mind and body...When you tell yourself something over and over again, it gets recorded in your brain; then your mind and body believe it and you become what you have been telling yourself. A positive affirmation is a self-fulfilling prophecy."

This statement represents half of the picture because when we tell our brain, meaning our sub-conscious mind, negative information, when we repeatedly tell ourselves something which is negative it also gets recorded in the mind as if it were a true statement.

"A negative assertion is a self-fulfilling prophecy."

I was chatting to an acquaintance the other day. I could see she was tense and she was complaining of having headaches. I asked if she was worried about anything and she admitted that she was worried about a new job assignment. Now she wasn't worried about her ability to handle the assignment; she was worrying because she had this type of assignment before and didn't enjoy it. She was worrying herself sick and for no good reason.

"When you send your brain negative information, you are feeding your brain anti-nutrients that harm your mind and body."

Take getting a promotion at work. If we focus on why it's not possible to get the promotion and focus on our limitations then that's what we'll put our energy into. The presentation and or interview will roll around, we'll perform poorly, lose the opportunity and tell ourselves, "See, I knew I wasn't good enough!" "I knew I wouldn't get the promotion." We may even blame someone else – "The boss doesn't like me." "Bob is more experienced than I. He was bound to get the position."

When we have these thoughts we give up our power to influence change in our lives. When we accept that we create our reality then we can choose our reality. We can become more aware players in this game called life.

So if negative thinking works then, by the Law of Polarity, the opposite must also true. As Larry King said in his introduction to a special edition of Larry King Live aired recently called The Power of Positive Thinking where he interviewed Bob Proctor, John Assaraf, Michael Beckwith, John DeMartini and JZ Knight,

"Positive thoughts can transform, can attract the good things you know you want."

However, holding on to positive thoughts is challenging. When we are born we are encoded with the genetic material of our parents and, it has been proven, with the genetic material of our ancestors – that's a lot of hardwiring. We then grow up in an environment where the values of our parents and or guardians are also engrained into us whether it is 'information' that serves us in a negative or positive manner. Hence there is a lot of stuff to override. As Jack Canfield, puts it,

"We are a bundle of conditioned reflexes out of control."

We tend to put a lot of emotion into our negative thoughts compared to the emotion and energy we put into our positive thoughts. I can have a negative thought and if I don't invest too much emotion into it then I generally don't have to worry about it taking hold and manifesting itself. Unfortunately, we often invest a lot of energy and emotion into our negative thoughts and this simply serves to bring our worse fears into fruition even faster.

Conversely, when we say positive affirmations there can be an emotional detachment and a lack of consistency in saying them. Also, a lack of evidence in our visible world may cause our analytical conscious mind to filter and delete positive affirmations. Yet, if we are able to overcome this challenge and hold the thought in our mind of what we really want irrespective of our current circumstances then our outer world will eventually catch up with our inner world.

To demonstrate the power of positive thinking I'd like to go back to the 2006 Winter Olympics held in Turin, Italy. The men's Alpine skiing downhill race was won by 3 times French champion, Antoine Dénériaz. Dénériaz says,

"…since time that I said myself, "One day you will be World Champion, Olympic Champion…"

But Dénériaz was not expected to win. He had performed no better than sixth in a World Cup race this season. The commentators and many of the other competitors all talked about how tough the course was. The course also was getting progressively more demanding as the day wore on and more and more runs were completed.

Dénériaz was also the last of 30 seeded skiiers. None of this deterred Dénériaz. He knew he had a job to complete plus there was champagne waiting for him to drink.

You see Dénériaz had been applying the power of positive thinking to the extent he was so confident he was going to win and become Olympic Champion he bought champagne to celebrate beforehand!

Dénériaz skiied beautifully and won emphatically in a time of 1:48.80 stealing what had, until that point, looked like a sure gold medal, from Michael Walchhofer from Austria (1:49.52). Bruno Kernen of Switzerland was third with a time of 1:49.82.

The top US skier, Bode Miller, said in an interview afterwards,

"The way Dénériaz skied today, he was pretty much untouchable."

That positive thinking works can be proven scientifically. You, undoubtedly, will have heard of The Science of Getting Rich and The Science of Being Well. Positive thinking is "The Science of Getting What You Want".

Nickolove Lovemore is a Life & Success Coach and a Certified NLP Practitioner. Please visit http://www.SuccessAccessories.com for free ebook to fire up your positive thinking!

Related Articles:-

On Positive Thinking and Success: A Letter to My S...

The Power of Positive Thinking: Unlimited Possibil...

Develop Positive Thinking : Programming Our Though...

Pitfalls of Positive Thinking - How To Avoid Them

Attention - Why Positive Thinking Is Not Enough

Positive Thinking: Are You Truly Being Positive?

>>  Click Here To Discover How You Can Create The Life You Want <<

Positive thinking in this day and age is a tool people are trying to incorporate into their lives; from housewives to CEO’s. But the question is what is positive thinking and how do our thinking patterns truly affect how we feel and how successful we are?

The mind is a neutral party and can be positive or negative depending on what it is trained to think. Our training comes from our lives as a whole and many people are an active part of our training: parents, teachers, friends, those of a religious position etc. So at the point that we begin to choose what information we want, and what information serves the mind, it is here where we decide whether or not to absorb positive or negative information. To be positive is not to simply think, on a conscious level of happy things but to get to the roots of our thinking and make changes in the subconscious. It will then start to show in all aspects or our lives. Success breeds success; therefore successful thoughts breed successful thoughts which in turn breed successful actions, and so on. So if you begin to create successful thoughts and make it a habit to think this way you will become successful.

An example of our training is in our beliefs. Our beliefs are our filters in life. They decide the way in which we view the world, and whether or not we will absorb certain pieces of information. If I believe that all men are not worthy, then no matter what man I meet, regardless of how fantastic he is, I will still view him as not worthy, because I was trained to do so.

So the question now is how do we overcome the training that we were given, and eradicate those beliefs and patterns of thinking that do not support us?

If you feel that you hold a particular belief, e.g., the one about men, go out and act against this belief. Go and give a man a chance. This changes the mental connections of the old thinking and so you are forming a new belief. The more you challenge a belief the less your mind holds on to it.

1. Write down your thoughts and feelings. This is a great way to get to the subconscious mind.

2. Be more aware of the thoughts that color your judgment. The more aware you are the better chance you have at changing the ones you do not like.

3. What you think is a mirror image of your life, subconsciously and consciously. So whilst you are working on the subconscious, watch what your conscious thoughts are. If they are negative acknowledge them, but move on and act in spite of these thoughts.

Muneeza Khimji is a Coach and a Psychotherapist. She lives in Toronto, and currently has a practice that serves both clients interested in coaching and therapy. She works with emotional issues and traumas as well as coaches around career transitions, workplace issues, team coaching and life coaching to name a few areas.

For more information on bringing more positivity into your life please click here: http://www.muneeza.com/ or mail to coach@muneeza.com

Related Articles:-

Why Positive Thinking Is Crap

Positive Thinking Every Day

Positive Thinking Training

Beyond Positive Thinking

Savage Garden Affirmation

Spiritual Affirmation - Healing Your Inner Self With Spiritual Affirmations

>>  Click Here To Discover How You Can Create The Life You Want <<

From childhood to adulthood, the knowledge we gain or the experiences we have in our lives only helps us to discover our outer personality and brings us closer to material things of this world. At the same time we sometimes get depressed or fall into a low self-esteem Problem. Spiritual Affirmations help us get out of these problems. Spiritual Affirmations leads us towards a happy and satisfying life with a peaceful mind.

Affirmations are a judgment that we pass or any thought we have. An affirmation is directly linked to our sub consciousness. Affirmations can either be negative or positive which can either guide our subconscious actions to a successful life or towards failure.

Spiritual Affirmations are a form of meditation which when mediated often, have a desirable results. For example if a person has a lack of confidence or self-esteem problem sit in a peaceful, quiet place with some spiritual affirmations in your mind, let the emotions flow to you and start saying the spiritual affirmations aloud, ‘I believe in myself’ or ‘My inner self will always guide me towards right path with decisions that are beneficial to me and others’.

The key behind spiritual affirmations is to let go of all your negative thoughts and trust completely in yourself. Instead of thinking ‘This project is too difficult for me’ try thinking ‘I am capable of anything and obstacles do not effect me or my work’. Once you adopting this kind of spiritual affirmation you will notice a positive and healthy change in your life.

The best way to carry out spiritual affirmation technique is to release your mind of any negative thought, sit in a peaceful and quiet place, relax and visualize any positive spiritual affirmation such as ‘My mind is at peace now’. At the same time try to use simple words and sentences which can easily be interpreted by our mind and mind can easily accept it to be true.

Spiritual affirmations not only help to achieve a peaceful mind and happy life but also helps us draw closer to God. Remember God and His blessings as much as possible while utilizing the spiritual affirmation technique. For example “I let my renewed soul thank God for His blessings” or ‘I release my old self and reborn with a new pure soul’. The most acceptable and commonly used word in spiritual affirmation is ‘Amen’ meaning ‘so be it’. While some of us use it to conclude our prayer, it can be used for spiritual affirmation.

For a positive result spiritual affirmation needs to be repeated many times for effectiveness. Write down any positive thought you get maybe in a diary, on a piece of card or whichever way is convenient to you. Review them daily to get your mind to completely accept these thoughts. Preferably review them twice a day. Initially during spiritual affirmation technique we will also get negative thoughts. Note down these thoughts as well and at the end of the day review them and try replacing them with something more positive. Once you perform this spiritual affirmation technique on a regular basis you will find a positive change in yourself with a renewed spirit.

Robert Watson is a certified hypnotherapist with the ABH and the NGH, and has worked with affirmations and subliminal messages for over ten years. Visit his website for more information about using affirmations and subliminal messages to help you lose weight, quit smoking, have a more positive outlook and more.

Related Articles:-

How To Implement Positive Affirmation

Imagery & Affirmations - Write an Affirmation

Daily Inspiration Affirmation Magic

The Power of a Positive Affirmation

Happiness Affirmation - My Challenge to You