The Top 10 Ways People Give Away Their Power
When I read this today, I thought I am printing this and sharing it with everyone, because on a daily basis, I find myself doing at least one, if not more of these. I love reminders, because they shift and shake up my mind, my mental attitude, and strip these foggy illusions back out of my brain. Once you are aware, you can clear the fog out and make a different choice.
How many of these do you see that happened to you in the past week? And what are you going to do about it?
“Here are the top 10 ways people give away their power:
1. Asking others what they should do.
2. Thinking God decides who gets what.
3. Worrying about how their dream will come true.
4. Thinking they have dues to pay.
5. Attaching to unimportant details and outcomes.
6. Believing in soul mates.
7. Thinking karma or spiritual contracts are absolute.
8. Fear of anything, especially falling in love.
9. Waiting for their ducks to line up before acting.
10. Choosing to be unhappy.
Understand the truth, little bird, and you will soar.
Caw-caw, The Universe”
Butterfly Effect
The butterfly effect says that a butterfly flapping his wings in the jungle can affect something the other side of the world. It you were to look at this as a matter of perspective, it would mean that an act viewed by yourself as inconsequential in fact has consequence.
They have made a number of science fiction TV show episodes and movies that play off how a seemingly random act, in fact has purpose and results in an action of consequence. So if you were to look at the actions that you take in a day and place them in order of importance, what you would learn is that in fact all actions have importance. When you really know and understand this simple fact, then everything in your life will change. You will begin living a life of “permanent purpose” according to Andy Andrews.
When you live a life of permanent purpose, you realize that everything you do is important, and that you do in fact effect everything that you come in contact with. Like a butterfly flapping his wings, each action affects the next one. Have you seen the television commercial for Liberty Mutual insurance were a person sees an act of random kindness, and then that person does an act of kindness, which is repeated by another person and so on? This is what happens when you live a life of permanent purpose. The commercial calls it living responsibly.
It means that you realize that no one that you come into contact with during your day, no matter how random, is unaffected by the fact that you became part of their day. Therefore there is no act that doesn’t matter. The commercial started with a woman leaving a coffee shop and moving the cup at the edge of the table in, so it would drop off. A simple act that through being repeated in the commercial ended with a woman saving a man from injury when a stack of heavy boxes almost topples on top of him.
If you begin today living your life of “permanent purpose”, it will make you a better friend, a better spouse, and a better parent. It will make you more successful in any endeavor in your life, because all decisions that you make will come not from the place of what’s in it for me, but from what’s in it for we?
A Prosperity Blessing
A Prosperity Blessing
By Veronica M. Hay
“May you be blessed with an amazingly abundant day today!
May the clouds break and the heavens pour down upon you more joy, more love, more laughter and more money than you could have ever dreamed of.
May the sun shine its golden light of prosperity through every cell of your extraordinary body.
May you be cleansed today of any resistance or feelings of unworthiness that you may still be holding onto.
May your false illusions of doubt, fear and scarcity gently fall away like soft white feathers on a gentle breeze.
May you be willing, simply willing, to allow the Universe to shower you with miracles today.
May the Angels wrap you in their shining wings of opulence.
May the fairies deliver you to their pot of gold at the end of a majestic rainbow.
May your eyes shine with the glorious truth of who you really are and may that truth uplift others in your presence to their own inner knowing.
May your ears hear the sound of perfection ringing in your soul.
May you taste the deliciousness of every precious bite of life as your day unfolds moment by moment with amazing grace, heartfelt love and a bounty of magnificent money.
As this day ends, may you slumber wrapped in an exquisite blanket of enduring peace and profound gratitude.
And may the last words you speak today be Thank You!”
Wishes
“Your wish” is the star hanging high in the night sky. Whether it comes true or not depends on one thing and one thing only: how faithfully you keep it in sight. In order to achieve your wishes you will need to learn to think outside of the box. Here are some ideas on how to do so:
• To think outside of the box it is necessary to turn off your internal filter that says this idea is a bad idea. When you are thinking outside that box all ideas are good ideas.
• Create now, criticize later.
• Go off in tangents. I have found the best websites when surfing on the internet and I could not even begin to tell you how I got there. This is what you have to when thinking outside the box. Just follow the wave and don’t worry if you don’t think that it is going where you thought you had to go. Go along for the ride and see where it takes you.
• Create time and space for creating. Innovative companies such as google allow their developers 20% of their work hours to create ideas that could become products. You need to schedule time as part of your daily or weekly work load time to sit and generate creative ideas for your business, as well as things you want to accomplish at home.
• It is best to collaborate with others and create the group genius effect. Then you can separate out aspects of the ideas for each person to work on and meet back weekly to check in with each other to see how the ideas are evolving. As you develop the ideas you will see areas that should be developed further and what areas are in fact dead ends.
• Expect it to take time to bring the ideas off the paper and into the working world. The Wright Brothers – if they hadn’t experimented hundreds of times with the wings, they never would have realized how the concepts of pitch, yaw and roll could be controlled with a moveable rear rudder and not crash the plane. It took several years to actually take a flight going from a few seconds and feet with their gliders to adding power and being able to fly for an hour with 40 miles an hour as speed.
Set Your Priorities
By Dave Zerfoss
“Stress is a choice. A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a very large and empty pickle jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls
He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was. So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “yes.”
The professor then produced two glasses of chocolate milk from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.
“Now,” said the professor, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things…your family, your children, your health, your friends, your favorite passions. Things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.”
“The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your home, your car.”
“The sand is everything else…The small stuff. If you put the sand into the jar first, there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are critical to your happiness.”
“Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house or fix the disposal.”
“Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities, the rest is just sand.”
Destiny
According to Guy Finley, our character is our destiny. This is a different teaching than I have heard about before. Usually most teachers tell us that we are born with a destiny that we are supposed to fulfill. So we spend time searching for this magical thing that we that were born to do.
If this is true, then it means that we can make our destiny be anything, because we can change our character in whatever way is needed to live out that destiny.
When we have children we try to instill certain qualities so that they have a good character. This past weekend my niece with her two children came to visit, and we had an excellent example of this as my two granddaughters were so excited to play with their cousin that they shut out the neighbor girl that they play with every day. I don’t believe they meant to be cruel, but the results were the same. We had some tears as we explained that we should never treat anyone like they were not wanted as that is very cruel, and how would they feel if they were her?
In today’s world we often see that some of the qualities that resonant with good character are in short supply. Many in the efforts to provide for their family might feel pressured at work to cut corners and so damage their integrity. It always starts with a small thing, but those small things seem to grow into larger and larger things until we realize one day that we have ruined our good character.
Taking this back to destiny – we can take any dream that we have and it can become our destiny – the key to living a fulfilling life
1) We can transform our character to have the qualities needed to fulfill that destiny;
2) We can use these good character traits to help us go beyond any perceived limitations to fulfill that chosen destiny;
3) We can take all of life’s lessons experienced so far and use them to bring us forward in our development of ourselves to fulfill this dream/destiny.
Live With Intention
According to Mary Anne’s Radmacher everyone postpones one grand thing or a collection of mighty hopes and dreams. I can attest to the trueness of this. I even used the same excuses and they may sound familiar to you too – “when the kids are grown”, “when things slow down”, “when i get that job, raise or promotion”, and now “when I retire”. Any of those sound familiar to you?
Why do we postpone our lives? What life have we been accidentially living? Why not embrace your dreams and instead begin living with intention? Below is an excerpt from her poem about living with intention:
Walk to the edge.
Listen hard. Laugh. Play with abandon.
Practice wellness.
Continue to learn.
Choose with no regret.
Appreciate your friends.
Lead or follow a leader.
Do what you love.
Live as if this is all there is.
If you would dream it – BEGIN it.
If you have an idea – OPEN it.
If there is a longing – ACKNOWLEDGE it
If there is a mission – COMMIT it.
If there is a daring – DO it.
If there is a love – SPEAK it.
If there is a resource – USE it.
If there is abundance – SHARE it.
Never Give Up
Had to share this one – what dream/vision pops into your head to visit you almost daily? What are you doing to bring it into reality? Even small baby steps will get you across the room!
Self Correction
Guy Finley had a great article on the difference between self improvement and self correction.
None of us want to be wrong. When we find ourselves having any kind of personal problem the natural inclination is to hide from the issue. But when we hide from the problem, we are also hiding from the solution. Real change can only take place outside of the shadow of pride. Since all personal difficulty is born out of a lack of understanding, what we must do is gain knowledge of the situation.
This is where the article was interesting. Remember how none of us ever want to be wrong? Yet at the same time we wish to grow and develop into a better person by solving our personal problem(s). This is where self improvement seems to fall short, because we have incongruent minds. Since we didn’t want to be wrong, we simply “add” in new knowledge, behaviors and beliefs, while retaining the old ones. Sort of like trying to get a pail of muddy water clean by adding clean water. We are just diluting the original problem, because what we really needed to do was remove the muddy water and then fill it up with clean water.
With self correction we add a step in which we remove what we had been taught incorrectly, letting go of the incorrect thinking or behavior and then we have real growth happens.
I really appreciated the distinction, because as I look back I can see where I have just added new knowledge and I am still carrying around old patterns because of it. A great clarification for me personally!
Habit
I am your constant companion.
I am your greatest asset or heaviest burden.
I will push you up to success or down to disappointment.
I am at your command.
Half the things you do might just as well be turned over to me.
For I can do them quickly, correctly, and profitably.
I am easily managed: just be firm with me.
Those who are great, I have made great.
Those who are failures, I have made failures.
I am not a machine, though I work with the precision of a machine and the intelligence of a person.
You can run me for profit, or you can run me for ruin.
Show me how you want it done. Educate me. Train me.
Lead me. Reward me.
And I will then…do it automatically.
I am your servant.
Who am I?
I am a habit.
from the book, The Essence of Leadership
Become
This is so true. The only thing that can define me is what I choose to let define me. It is not my job to make everyone love me, my job is to be true to who I am. There will be critics and judges and that is ok. Some things they say will be true and that is ok too. I am not a blank canvas but a masterpiece in progress.
Perspective
There is a story that is told about 3 men who were working on a project. Each was asked what they were doing. One said that he was hauling rocks; another that he was building a wall and the last man said that he was building a cathedral.
Each man was working on the same thing, building a cathedral, yet each had a totally different perspective and attitude about his job or employment. The first man who was hauling rocks had a job that paid the bills, that was his whole interest and attitude about it. The 2nd man had a job putting up with things, and the last man was the only one who had a real objective to which he was working – he was building a cathedral. He may have hauled rocks and built walls, but he knew his real objective.
What is your perspective about your career, your family – what is your real objective? Are you a slave working to cover the bills or are you improving someone else’s life and making the world a better place?