Prosperity: The Choice Is Yours
October 31, 2004
“There is a marvelous story of a man who once stood before
God, his heart breaking from the pain and injustice in the world.
‘Dear God,’ he cried out, ‘look at all the suffering, the anguish
and distress in the world. Why don’t you send help?’
God responded, ‘I did. I sent you.’
David J. Wolpe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Be Realistic: Create A Miracle!
By Harald Anderson
What is it that you really want in your life?
Money? Status? Success? A Beautiful Home? A Prosperous
Business? A Loving Relationship?
Now let me ask you a super blunt question: Why don’t you
have it yet?
A few months ago I attended a seminar. One of the speakers
began his presentation with what I initially considered a very
confrontational remark. He paused very dramatically and
bellowed…“What lies do you keep telling yourself?”
Although the room fell deafly silent, we all knew that his question
truly touched a nerve. That question has echoed in the hollows
of my mind ever since.
“What lies do you keep telling yourself?”
“You’re calling me a liar?” “All the lies?” “How much time do
you have?” “That’s not a lie, that’s the truth!” The responses
that were firing up to that question were racing through my
mind at the speed of light.
In Life We Can Have Results or Reasons. If you are not getting
the results you want, your reasons are the lies that you keep
telling yourself. You can try to argue with that statement but
its kind of like wrestling with the wind, it will keep you real
busy but you really won’t get anywhere. Lies create the idea
that we are powerless to make things any different than
the way they are.
I hate to admit it but we are all liars. We love our reasons and
will go to extreme lengths to hold onto them. After all, our
reasons are our stories, which define us. Those experiences
“made us who we are today!” It’s just the way things are……..
Results or reasons. Which do you have more of? If you
answered reasons, its time to analyze the lies. I speak from
experience. I spent the first thirty years of my life studying what
I should believe in. Studied all the great reasons. Read all the
great philosophers, not once did anybody ask me…..”What
is it that you want to experience with all these ideas?” So I
got a little top heavy on reasons and a little short on results.
The problem with having so many reasons is that eventually
these reasons create a logic of limitations. They are like a
virus that creates “a story” that runs in the background of your
minds hard drive. Whenever we see something that we want
to create, the first thing we bump into is these beliefs (reasons)
that have shaped our experience thus far. And so the battle
ensues. Possibilities vs. Limitations. The Grudge Match.
Its like a counterproductive stealth message has been implanted
in your mind, “You never seem to really win at anything, so
don’t expect much here!” This message brought to you by your
sponsor, “limiting lives is what we do!”
We all search for meaning in life. However sometimes life is
meaningless. It just “is.” The critical moments that shape our
lives are when we define our experience and declare….”what
this means is (fill in the blank).” If the statement that we
make at this crucial moment, in filling in the blank, even mildly
disempowers us, we empower the logic of limitations to control
our perspective from that moment forward.
Don’t believe me? Here are some famous examples for you
to try on for size:
Oprah Winfrey was fired from one of her first jobs as a television
reporter and told that “She wasn’t fit for TV.” How do you think
she defined that moment? After his first performance on the
Grand Ole Opry, Elvis Presley was banned from returning
and told, “You ain’t going nowhere son!” At that crucial moment
do you think the King of Rock created a message of possibility
or limitation?
Life just is. Sometimes when we look for meaning we might
want to remember that.
What’s your story?
Have you ever been fired, rejected, heartbroken, mistreated,
insulted? How did you define the moment? I only ask, because
that agreement has shaped your reality. Be Careful What
You Agree With! The Results Can Be Lethal.
Now what did you say you really wanted in your life?
Listen carefully and you’ll hear those reasons whispering
their logic of limitations! It’s no big deal if you hear the
“stories” from time to time. The question is what are you
going to do about it?
Mark Twain once commented that “life does not consist,
mainly or even largely of facts or happenings. It consists
mainly of the stream of thought forever flowing through ones
head.”
Our REASONS create our definitions and create the energy
of our life. Change our definitions and you change your experience.
Change your meanings you alter your destiny. Life does not
give us what we want. Life gives us whatever we expect.
Life just is. The meaning that we attach to the events of our
life defines our experience and creates the thoughts that allow
us to create abundance or limitation.
When I was a kid I absolutely loved to read the cartoons and
comics in the back of the newspaper. They made me laugh
with glee. Now those cartoons were essentially a picture being
defined by a clever or witty caption. One day I got the bright
idea that I was going to change the captions on those cartoons
and see if I could make them funnier. Isn’t life the same way?
Your pictures are your experiences. Your captions are your
beliefs. Do you have the courage to change your own captions?
It’s your life after all. The only limitation we possess is the idea
that there are limitations. Did you write your own captions
or did you allow someone else to write them for you?
We all have a huge investment in what we have come to know.
However, sometimes what we know has nothing to do with
what we need to know to be successful.
Sometimes what we know has nothing to do with what we
need to know to be happy! To change all of that you need to
locate your limiting beliefs and say goodbye to them.
Change the captions of your life. Reasons or Results.
Marilyn Voss Savant writes a weekly column for Parade magazine.
She is acclaimed as the person with the highest IQ on record.
When she was asked by one of her readers about life, she
responded with ““Feeling is what you get for thinking the
way you do!” True poetry. To that I would simply add, be
careful what you agree with it’ll mess up your focus.
Consider this for a second: How many beliefs were you born
with? How many beliefs do you have today? Along the way
you have acquired a lot of baggage that is weighing you down.
The problem most of us run into is that we believe in things
that are “just not so”, but we lead our lives in alignment with
those lousy definitions and experiences to make them “so.”
It might be BELIEF-ECTOMY time.
One of the central tenets of the personal development movement
is that we become whatever we focus upon most. Fifty years
ago Earl Nightingale published his bestseller “The Strangest Secret”
and made us realize that our focus creates our destiny.
Web poet, adventurer and philosopher Mike Dooley of
www.tut.com has eloquently modernized and improved upon
this statement when he states, “Thoughts Become Things.
Choose the Good Ones!”
Most people don’t get what they really want because their
focus is fuzzy at best. Do you really know what you are focused
on? Before you answer that question too quickly recognize
that your focus has been responsible for creating your life
up until this point. Your agreements shape your reality….
so be careful what you agree with.
So what is it that you really want?
My advice is simple. Be Careful What You Agree With and
Then Focus, Focus, Refocus and Refocus some more.
And when you think you are through focusing, focus again.
You wouldn’t drive to your destination fixated on the rear
view mirror.
Reasons or Results. Be Realistic: Create A Miracle!
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Harald Anderson is the co-founder of
http://www.artinspires.com a leading online gallery of
motivational and inspirational posters and art prints.
“When Art Inspires, Dreams Become Realities. His goal
in life is to become the kind of person that his dog
already thinks he is. http://www.artinspires.com/
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