How to Become Successful

So many of my followers approach me and ask me how to become successful.

What exactly must you do to become successful?

The very first thing to do is to recognize that you CAN and WILL become successful.  Until you do this you will find there will always be a nagging voice inside you, no matter what you are trying to achieve, saying "you won't make it!".  The voice is wrong.  You WILL make it.  But only if you completely silence that reactionary voice.

Somewhere I read that when Karl Benz was building the Benz Patent-Motorwagen a neighbour kept saying "It won't go!".  He ignored the neighbour and kept building it.  When he finished and started driving it he heard the neighbour shouting "It won't stop!".  I have no idea whether this story is true or not, but it doesn't really matter whether or not it is true.  All that matters is the great truth within it.  Karl Benz ignored that voice completely and achieved his success.  You must do likewise.

How do you ignore or even silence that voice?  By having a strong belief that you are right and that it WILL work.  Spend time building up that confidence.  Sit quietly and meditate.  Feel yourself merging with the power of the Universe, which you can imagine as a ball of light way above you.  Bring it down inside you and feel the warmth and love of it filling you.  Know that with this infinite power within you can achieve anything you desire.

This is a practice you should repeat often.  Make it a routine part of your day.  The more you practice it the easier you will find it and the more you will be able to ignore and defeat that dissenting voice, the voice that wants you to fail at everything.

You will now have removed the main obstacle to success.  The next step is to determine what it is you want to achieve.

It is important to have a very clear idea of what it is you want to achieve, and why this is important to you.

Spend some time thinking carefully about this.  Write down any ideas that come to you.  Treat this in the same way as you would a group brainstorming session - at this point write down everything, without critically rejecting it.  When you have a good list of ideas read through each and see which ones really resonate with you.  cross out all the others.  You now have a list of things you want to achieve which are close to your heart.

Against each of these ideas write down all the reasons they are important to you.  As you do this you will find some are not really goals you want to achieve, and you can delete these.  You should find you end up with a minmum of three and a maximum of six that feel right and that have a good list of reasons why they are so important.

For each of these goals sit and meditate again.  Begin your meditation by recalling a time in your past when you felt really happy and really relaxed.  Perhaps it was lying on a beach during a special vacation.  Maybe it was wandering in a meadow in cool, fresh air.  Whatever it was, bring back that image.  Place yourself there and let it stimulate all your senses.  See the beauty around you.  Hear the sounds you heard, perhaps the sound of birds.  Smell the salty air of the sea, the fresh smell of flowers around you etc.  Feel the soft, fine sand pouring through your fingers, the feel of the waving grass as you walk through it etc.  Recall your feelings at that time, a feeling of happiness, contentment, love.  When you are fully into this meditation bring in your goal.  Does it still feel right?  If not, discard that goal and replace it with the next goal on your list.  You will find one really fits and feels just right.  This is the goal you should work on next.

Now that you have the right goal, create an affirmation around it.  Follow the rules of making good affirmations.  Read this article by Natalie Ledwell to get some good ideas on the correct way to create an affirmation: http://iwanttoimprovemyself.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/5-simple-steps-for-creating-powerful.html.  Repeat this affirmation as often as you can.  The more you repeat it the faster you will achieve your goal.

Write the goal in a notebook you reserve purely for this purpose.  Include pictures of how your life will be when you have achieved it - either pictures you find in a magazine etc and cut out and stick in the notebook, or simply draw them yourself.  It doesn't matter if you are not artistic - just ensure the picture encapsulates your dream as much as possible.  Even better, create yourself a "mind movie" of the goal.  If you don't already have the software to create a Mind Movie you can get it here: http://www.mindmovies.com/mm4/changeyourlife.php?25923.

Follow the above and you WILL achieve goals fully aligned with your inner desires.  But the key to success has one more essential ingredient.  That ingredient is simply recognizing that success is not actually achieving specific goals at all.  Success is an ongoing journey, and the knowledge that you are on the right road.  You never reach the end of that road but are successful simply because you are travelling it and achieving goals along the way.

Love

Love is the most important force in the universe.  When you project love you attract whatever and whoever it is that you love.  The greater the love the stronger the attraction.

Whatever it is you want to achieve in life, therefore, it is so important to develop love.  A genuine and deep love.

"Love what?" you may ask.  A good question.  My answer is you should love everything.

Some may disagree with this statement and say you should only love the positives in life and not the negatives.  How can you love evil for example?  I don't disagree with that, but in my view the negatives do not really exist.  They are simply the absence of the positives.  Not everyone will agree with my take on this and I don't intend to push it here - so simply accept that, yes, I am saying love everything positive.

You should start by loving yourself.  This is something many people find very difficult.  The more difficult you find it, though, the more important it is to love yourself.  Lack of love for yourself results in a lack of self-esteem, a lack of belief in yourself, an inability to move forwards and achieve what you want to achieve.  It will also make it far more difficult, if not impossible, to love anyone and anything else.

Love your whole self.

Love your body, with all its imperfections.  If you see something in your body that you do not like, and if it is something you can and should change, then change it.  But if it cannot be changed then love it how it is.  A number of religious denominations refer to the body as the temple of God.  Whether you refer to "God", "the Self", "the Universe" or something similar, this is very true.  Your body is where this Spirit is living at the moment, so love it and treat it well.

Love your mind.  Don't worry if you don't have an IQ of 140 or more.  That doesn't matter.  This is your mind, unique to you, and it deserves to be loved.

Love your spirit.  That spark within you that leads you along a certain path.  A path that eventually you can see was exactly the right path for you.  Love this spirit and thank it for all it has contributed to your life.

Really get into the habit of loving yourself until it becomes a natural, seamless habit.

Extend that love to everyone around you.  Starting with your family, but extending outwards.  Everyone deserves your love, so give it to them.  Even those you may feel do NOT deserve it.  You cannot judge them.  Just love them.

You will start to see some amazing results quite quickly.  Not necessarily from everyone, but certainly from some.  People can sense when you really love them and they will begin to respond in kind.  Your love will get reflected back - sometimes from directions you least expect.  Sometimes from someone you thought was a miserable unloving person.

Go further than this.  Love the things you want to attract into your life.  Don't focus on the absence of those things, simply love them.

At this point I am going to be quite controversial.  Love money.  I can already hear the growls of those who believe it is wrong to love money.  After all, 1 Timothy 6:10 says "For the love of money is the root of all evil".  Ecclesiastes 5:10 says "If you love money and wealth you will never be satisfied with what you have".  But neither author really meant you should not love money in the way I intend.  You are simply extending a natural love and including money within it.  I am not talking about developing avarice and greed, but rather pure love.  Don't be like so many people who don't have money and then start developing a hatred of money because they do not have it.  You should love money and attract it to you, but then make sure you use it in a positive way.  Money itself is neutral, not evil.  Love it so you can use it to help others.  There is a story about Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Heshel which I think brings a little clarity to this rather difficult subject.  This Rabbi said that he looked on money kindly before gifting it to the poor - in this way he valued the gift he was making as a way of expressing the love of God.

I hope I have opened your eyes and made you think about love differently.  Develop love and cherish it above all things.

Forgiveness

Has anyone ever said or done anything unforgiveable to you?  Something so awful you know you can never forgive them?

Probably this strikes a bell with most of my readers.  It would certainly be rare to find someone who has never been mistreated, never misunderstood, never abused in one way or another.  In some cases the abuse may have been particularly nasty.  Something you would much rather forget, but find you cannot.

Does this person deserve your forgiveness?  Probably not.  Should you forgive them?  Absolutely!

Why do I say this?  If they don't deserve your forgiveness, why should you forgive them?  Am I trying to turn you into a saint or something?

No.  I am not saying this to make you a "goody goody".  And I am certainly not suggesting you should allow anyone to take advantage of you.  So why I am saying it?

The reason is that I believe you deserve to be free.  You deserve to be happy.  You deserve to be able to do whatever you wish in life and not be weighed down carrying a load dumped on you by someone else.

If there is anyone you have not forgiven for what they have done or said to you this means you are allowing that person to control your life.  You are giving them the ultimate victory over you.  Is that what you want?  If not, you simply have to find a way to forgive them.

Some of you may now be saying "it's all very well for you to say that, but you don't know how I have suffered!  You cannot understand just how bad this was!"

I agree I cannot know what it is like to suffer in the way you may have suffered.  To use a common Christian saying, we each have our own cross to bear.  The one you are bearing may be far heavier than mine.  But even though I cannot understand just how bad it was for you, what I do understand is that you are now carrying an unnecessary burden.  Just like "Christian" in John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress".  Christian was carrying a burden so heavy he could hardly move.  So are you if there is someone you have not forgiven.  Your happiness is marred because every so often you think of this unforgiveable thing that was done to you and it spoils what would otherwise be a lovely moment in a lovely day.  Why not simply throw that burden away?  It is not stuck to you with superglue.  You have chosen to carry it.  Now you should choose to throw it away.

There may be others who will say "but there is nobody I haven't forgiven!  Nobody has done anything particularly bad to me!"  If so, you are very fortunate!  But I would suggest there are probably some slights, some grievances, some humiliations that your conscious mind has forgotten but are still bubbling away somewhere under the surface.  You do not feel desparately unhappy, but because there are some unforgiven words and actions loitering in your unconsious mind what could be a really happy moment is, instead, just mildly pleasant.  These unforgiven things are stopping you reaching your full potential.  They are controlling you.

Would you like to free yourself of this burden?  Great!

The first thing you must do is find all the actions and words you have not yet forgiven.  Some may be easy to find.  Others will be hiding under the surface.  Sit quietly and let them come to you.

Now, for each unforgiven act or word find the person.  Picture that person in your mind.  Say to them "I forgive you".  At first you will probably feel silly. But don't worry about that.  Nobody is watching you.  Nobody is laughing at you.  This is something you are doing for yourself so you can be happier.

As you do this you will find a part of your mind will tell you that this person does not deserve your forgiveness.  You can immediately dispel that thought by saying "they may not deserve it, but I am forgiving them for me, not for them!"  This other part of your mind may say it was totally wrong of them to do this to you.  Respond by saying "I am not the one who will judge them for it, and I am not asking them or anyone else to do this again to me, I am just letting go so this act no longer controls me.  I forgive!"

If you are a Christian you should remember the phrase in the Lord's Prayer "Forgive me my wrongdoings as I forgive those who have done wrong to me"?  Whether or not you are a Christian this is a phrase I would like you to remember and use.  When you forgive others you will find that forgiveness of yourself comes quite naturally too.  But give it a helping hand anyway.  Add your own wrongdoings now.  See them clearly and then forgive yourself.  As long as you have forgiven others you should find you are now able to forgive yourself.  When you do you really should find you feel light and bouyant.  You have let go of your burden.

Try to perform this act of forgiveness every day.  I suggest you do it last thing at night before you go to sleep, as you should find your sleep will then be that much more refreshing.  Try it, let go, don't allow anyone to control you any more and see just how much difference this makes in your life!

Astrology and Horoscopes

What is astrology?  

To the majority of people it is a bit of harmless fun.  It is a daily horoscope.  A short parapgraph in the newspaper telling you what is going to happen to you today, but written in such general terms it will cover almost anything that does eventually happen.  Or a love horoscope in a magazine telling you who you should date or even marry, based on astrological signs and horoscope compatability.

These things, however, have very little to do with astrology and everything to do with pure entertainment.  If you consult and really believe in the daily horoscopes in the newspaper then you must believe that there are only 12 types of people in the world, and that all the people in each of the horoscope signs (one twelfth of the entire world population in each) will all face very similar challenges today.  Hardly likely is it?  But as there are only 12 star signs in Western Astrology that is the inevitable conculsion.

True astrology is very, very different from this.

If you are going to do it properly you must construct a proper natal chart.  In order to do this you will need to know the exact time and place of birth of your subject.  The more accurate you can be, to the minute rather than to the hour for birth time for example, and to the minute rather than to the degree for longitude for example, the more accurately you will be able to constuct the birth chart.  In most cases you will not have enough information to be this accurate.  You may not even have the exact hour.  Even if you do not have very accurate information, the chart you create will help you produce astrological advice that is far more accurate than anything you will ever have seen in a newspaper or magazine.

You will also need some basic tools - at the very least an accurate Ephemeris for the year of birth , a Table of Houses, a Gazetteer to determine the exact latitude and longitude of the birthplace (unless your subject already knows this, which is very unlikely), a table for converting Degrees and Minutes of Longitude into Longitude Equivalent in Time.  And you will need plenty of blank birth chart forms (although you can make do with blank paper once you really know what you are doing).  You can obtain a worldwide Ephemeris for all birth years from 1900 to 2000 here (or here if you wish to pay in pounds sterling)

In order to calculate the natal chart you will first specify the time of birth in Greenwich Mean Time.  From this you will determine the local sidereal time of birth.  From there you will calculate the positions of the planets and the planetary aspects (the angles between the planets) at the time of birth.

Once you have created the natal chart in this way you need to be able to interpret it.  At first you will find you need to keep referring to books in order to do this.  For as long as that is the case you will not really be an astrologer and you will not be able to predict anything very substantial or meaningful.  You will simply be learning your skills.  Eventually, though, you will find things start to stand out for you and have meaning without the need to refer elsewhere.  As that skill develops, so you will find the art of divination also begins to develop.  This is not a scientific interpretation of the chart, but a way for your inner self to find patterns that "strike a chord" for you in this particular instance.  This is true astrological divination, a skill that is completely unrelated to anything you read in the newspapers or magazines, and one which is unique to you. Another astrologer reading the same chart will arrive at a very different conclusion.  If you and the other astrologer have studied and practised long and hard, both interpretations will be meaningful, but will have different emphases.

If this brief introduction to astrology has interested you, the next step should be to obtain some good study material which will help you develop that interest.  One good astrological primer is "Llewellyn's Complete Book of Astrology".  The link for this is suitable if you wish to pay in US dollars.  If you wish to pay in UK Pounds Sterling you can find it here.

The Declaration of Independence

On 4th July 1776 the Continental Congress approved the final draft of the Declaration of Independence.

To achieve independance from Great Britain, the United States had to go through a lot of hard struggle and pain.  At times it must have seemed an impossible challenge.  But no matter how impossible it looked, they didn't give up.  They had a clear goal they were determined to reach, and reach it they did.  And the starting point was the Declaration of Independence.  Putting down on paper very clearly and precisely what it was they wanted to achieve, and particularly why they wanted to achieve it.

Putting down in writing exactly what you want to achieve and why you want to achieve it is a key step in achieving any goal.

Firstly, there is the "what".  Sometimes we think we want to achieve one thing, but when we commit pen to paper and our goal takes shape we realize that goal is something a little different from what we had imagined.  Fleshing out our goal this way is a very important step.  Otherwise we may find we are struggling to achieve something that later we decide is not so important - in which case we will probably give up the struggle.  Think very carefully about your "what".

Secondly there is the "why".  This is very important in providing the right motivation when things seem to be going wrong and the goal seems further away than we had originally imagined.  If this really is a key goal for you then I can pretty much guarantee you will face such crises.  Without strong motivation it would be so easy to give up at that point.  Read the Declaration of Independence and see just how much of it is about the "why" rather than the "what".  A lot of thought went into that "why".  Think really hard about your own "why".  Think about how much better life will be for you and your family when you have achieved your goal, and put that down on paper.

Imagine the founding fathers had decided not to bother writing the Declaration of Independence.  Without the power of that document providing inspiration and motivation, would Washington have managed to keep the militias fighting when supplies dried up and the challenge seemed impossible?  Perhaps, but it would have been a lot more difficult and perhaps he would not have succeeded.  

Make sure you have your own Declaration of Independence which shows clearly what you want to achieve and why, and you should find it much easier to achieve that goal.

With thanks to Thad Zajdowicz for the image of Thomas Jefferson signing the Declaration of Independence.