Finding Clarity

When I can’t see the wood for the trees, I panic and attract chaos and negativity. On the contrary, clarity makes me feel confident and creates positive vibes in my life. So, I really appreciate it when I can see clearly. As recently I was struggling with seeing the big picture, I stopped and created an action plan to find clarity in my life.

picture: Pinterest

First, I watched Cassie’s “You Are Enough” book-launch party webinar and I learnt what important role clarity plays in your life. When you always keep yourself busy and just can’t stop, you can easily lose track of your initial goals. It’s easy to fall into the trap of sweating the small stuff and being lost in the details. It’s good to slow down from time to time and look back; just checking on what a long way you have come and appreciate your efforts, mistakes and results.

One of the reasons I love journaling is because I can always look at my old notes in the diary and realise how many things I have achieved since I set a certain intention or created a plan to achieve a goal. Even if I can only tick one or two things on the list, I feel so happy and content and empowered. There is nothing more fulfilling than seeing your dreams coming true step-by-step.

It is important to realise that it’s essential to create a plan and organise the steps that you can take working towards your big goal. Once that huge dream is broken down into small and realistic parts, it seems truly achievable. And this can be the most encouraging.

After writing down your goals, creating a plan and starting working on it, it’s good to simply let it go. I have often found myself focusing too hard on certain things that I wanted to invite into my life. I have learnt since then that once you set an intention and have started to make it become a reality, it’s okay to let your hair down and just do things that make you feel happy and involve lots of fun.

It could be cooking, reading, exercise, yoga or just spending time with friends and family or alone. Whatever works for you; anything that you enjoy and makes you forget about your work, problems or the chaos in your life.

Lastly, remember that You Are Doing Enough.

Why you do not Have to Fight Insecurity?

Insecurity is a natural human feeling and is there in everyone in order to protect us from REAL danger. Danger is real when your life is literally threatened by someone or something. For example, you are in the street in the middle of the night and have a feeling that someone is chasing you. Suddenly, you become worried and try to figure out what to do. Your heartbeat and breath starts quickening and you speed up your steps as much as you can, in order to save your own life. You can experience very similar bodily responses and worrying thoughts in case of a difficult exam, e.g.: you don’t feel very confident because you think that you have not prepared properly and are afraid of unexpected questions and not being able to pass the test. You also have some bad memories of other exams in the past that you failed. As a consequence, you are getting more and more anxious, nervous and feel very insecure. Simply, you do not believe in your ability to succeed. In this case, it is obvious that your life is safe, yet some nasty psychological barriers are blocking the free flow of your positive thoughts. You doubt your skills and strongly believe that you will fail. Thus, you will.

It is not surprising that with your negative thoughts you invite negative results, is it? Due to your false beliefs, you already see yourself not passing the exam. However, envisioning the positive outcome of some future events can result in your success! Instead of doubting your skills, why do not you support yourself? Good news is that with some preparation and practice you can easily handle any stressful situation without feeling insecure and your success is guaranteed.

You only need to do ONE thing: PLAN!

picture: Pinterest

Let’s continue the example of the difficult exam: you already know the date of the exam well in advance, so you know how much time you have got to study. Prioritize your chores and make a plan! Divide the course material into various segments and decide how much time you would need daily in order to acquire all the knowledge necessary for succeeding. You can also add some other activities to your daily routine, such as making and having some healthy and nutritious food and doing some workout and/or meditation as a reward for doing your job well. Celebrate a little bit after having fulfilled a certain part of your lessons. Also, make sure that you start studying when your motivation is high. Starting with small and easy steps can be really beneficial. Similarly, if your study-amounts are not overwhelming and can be easily learned during the time-periods that you set up for yourself, your success is sure. Just make a detailed plan including everything that is important in your life.

So, you already have a study-plan, a strategy. In your breaks you do some other activities (exercising, meditation) just to clear up your mind. What else would you need?

Think positively and believe in your success while planning already!

Believing in yourself is not as easy as it sounds and similarly to the exam, it requires preparation. As most of us have been practicing negative thinking, such as self-doubt for many-many years, it will take time to change your worrying thoughts to supporting ones. However, thanks to your plan and preparation, soon insecurity will simply fade away; so you don’t even have to fight against it! Accept your present insecurity but set up a strategy to change your way of thinking. Focus on your talents and strengths and remember that just because you failed an exam last time, you can pass another one this time, as now you are well-prepared.

With the help of positive thinking, preparation and practice you do not have to spend time and energy with fighting your fears or trying to beat insecurity. Setting up small, realistic goals, along with your individual strategy will surely result in success. All you need to do is changing your thinking habits. Prepare and believe in the positive outcomes of your actions. There is no real danger, no negative thoughts, thus, there is no insecurity! It is so easy with planning and gradual preparation. You do not have to fight. Just discover and accept your skills and make your unique, individual plan in order to realize what you are dreaming about.

What is the Reason Behind your Failures and Unsuccessful Efforts?

Referring to the previous post, I would like to encourage you to check out Maria Brilaki’s website and watch her video about the power of your thoughts, especially your inner dialogue’s effect on your achievements.

You might have experienced in your life either getting wrong or just few results or not getting results at all. I guess that you have. I honestly have never ever met anyone who has not made any mistakes or wrong decisions in their lives. Although it is really difficult to be objective with yourself when you are in the middle of a crisis, it could be extremely helpful if you tried to support yourself and change the way how you think about your (under)achievements. In the video, Maria suggests to analyze your inner dialogue preceding your decision to take certain actions that lead to failure afterwards.

“If you get bad results, it is because you did not believe in the first place that you can get good results”- says Maria.

If you are practicing self-doubt and are questioning your own success, you waste lots of energy and are not fully focused and committed to achieving your goals. If you change your way of thinking and truly believe that you can get what you want, you are more likely to develop and succeed in the end. This is because you are triggered by the so called “PositivePull”, namely you are not escaping from something negative that you want to avoid; it is exactly the opposite: you are motivated by your self-supporting, positive attitude towards yourself and others. Whenever you enter this circle of your own positive thoughts, you are in the flow and wonderful things will happen!

photo: Pinterest

Before you decide to change or do something, you need to be confident and committed; you need to believe that your actions will lead to success. If you want to live a healthier life, for example, you decide to exercise regularly and eat fresh, healthy and clean food. It sounds so simple, however so many of us have been yo-yoing and giving up diets and sports after a while. The reason why you have not been able to keep doing what you decided to do is that you did not believe that you would be able not to give up your dreams. If you are really focused before you start taking any actions, you are not second-guessing yourself. You are 100% committed to and positive about getting what you want. It can be a healthier and better-looking body or your dream job. If you are insecure and do not believe that you can get a certain job, you are more likely to fail in the interview; simply because you had negative thoughts about yourself and were convinced that you are not qualified or suitable for that position. Maria’s message in this video is the following: 

“You need to believe that you can achieve anything but you need to believe it BEFORE you get it.”

Soon, I am going to introduce you to Caroline Zwick’s really effective method and we will learn how to practice the Positive Pull. 

Why Motivation is not the Key to Success?

Today, I would like to show you an amazing video that I watched recently and it really affected me to the core. Have you ever felt that you just need more motivation or willpower to finally start something new in your life? Personally, I have been blaming myself a lot because I have not really lived the life that I wanted and I have been planning to change this for so long. However, even if I had taken few steps in order to achieve something, I only got limited results or no results at all. Until I watched the video, I thought that the main reason behind my recent failures and lack of success is that I am weak, lazy and not motivated and qualified enough.

As I am a jobseeker at the moment and have faced lots of stressful and unsuccessful job-interviews in the last month, I have had a feeling that I need to change something in order to get the job that I really want. In the video below, one of my favourite life-coaches, Caroline Zwick interviews her friend, Maria Brilaki, who is an engineer, entrepreneur, psychologist, head of the “Fitness Reloaded” project and author of a wonderful book called Surprisingly Unstuck.  Maria talks about habit-creation and the role of motivation and willpower in achieving your goals. You will be surprised to hear Maria saying that motivation actually has almost nothing to do with your success or failure. 

It was a relief to understand that motivation is basically only a tool for finding your inspiration. When you want to change something in your life or want to start something new, in the beginning you are always very enthusiastic and energetic. Due to the high level of motivation you truly believe in yourself and your success. However, as most of us might have experienced in case of New Year’s Resolutions, for example, motivation can easily drop or disappear completely. The reason for this is simple: your level of motivation decreases right after it made you kick-start your new habits.

picture: Fengshuidana

Habits are part of our everyday life, as well as making decisions that is actually a kind of thinking habit. In one of the up-coming posts, I will tell you more about thinking habits, such as the power of thoughts, positive thinking and self-fulfilling prophecies. But now, let’s see why do we create habits at all and what are they for? How can we establish a new habit and why do we struggle to keep on dieting or exercising regularly? If you are interested in these questions and also want to know what planning and organisation has to do with success, click here to watch the video.