Good Excuses

Is there something you really, really want to achieve?  Something that would make a real difference to you?  And perhaps something that would make a real difference to the world around you?

Think about that for a while.  Be certain this really is your desire.  Be certain it is fully aligned with your inner desires.

Ok, now let me ask you a question.  Why haven't you achieved it yet?

This is the point all the negatives come gushing out.  Let them all come.  Don't bother to write them down.  Just allow them all to come to the surface of your mind.

I will be very surprised if your reaction at this point is "I don't really know why I haven't achieved it.  There is no good reason.  I will get on and do it now!".  I will be delighted if that is your reaction, but will be very surprised!

But the reality is that perhaps SHOULD be your reaction.

Most, if not all, the reasons that came flowing out were probably about external obstacles.  Something "out there" that means you cannot achieve what you want to achieve.

Let me tell you right now, none of those reasons have any real meaning.  That is why I said don't bother to write them down.  You had to think of a good reason, an excuse why you have not done this, and you wanted to make sure that was not something under your control.  If it was under your control, that would mean you were to blame, and unconsciously you wanted to find reasons that were NOT under your control so you could NOT be to blame.

Finding excuses is something we are all very good at doing.  We are masterful at it!  Those excuses are rock solid, so it is absolutely obvious that it cannot be our fault.  The reason they are so rock solid is not because they are real but because your "inner computer" knew you needed them to appear to be real.  And your "inner computer" is extremely good at what it does.  It can really do anything you like - all you have to do is to tell it properly what you want it to do.

For all your life you have been programming your "inner computer" to provide you with good excuses.  Excuses why something has gone wrong before it has even gone wrong.  Excuses why you can never be the person you want to be.  Excuses why you can never achieve what you want to achieve.  And that is the only reason you are NOT the person you want to be.  The only reason you have NOT achieved what you want to achieve.

The secret to achievement is to turn off your inner excuse machine.  You don't need those excuses any more, as now you are going to achieve.

You have all the power you need within you to achieve what you want to achieve.  So turn off the excuse machine and start accessing that inner power.

You have a lifetime of bad programming to undo, so don't worry if you don't get instant results.  But know that the power to achieve is within you, that you just need to switch off the excuse machine which is now redundant and allow that inner power to take you where you really want to be.  Do it today!  Do it right now!

What are Your Limiting Beliefs?

Notice I didn't ask whether or not you have any limiting beliefs, just what they are.  If you believe you do not have any, you are deceiving yourself.  We all have limiting beliefs.  Every one of us.

Limiting beliefs are not "limited" to the poor and those of us who are not well known.  The French King Charles VI, for example, had a belief that limited him from being touched by others - his belief was that he was made of glass and that if anyone touched him, he would shatter!  Most of us will not have limiting beliefs quite that strange, and most of us will not act quite as erratically as King Charles - who even gave his country away to the King of England!  But we do all have limiting beliefs, and some of those beliefs will be highly debilitating.

A limiting belief is any belief which stops you achieving something you would like to achieve.  This is often, but not always, because you do not believe it is possible for you to achieve it right now.  Sometimes it is a belief that what you want is in some way sinful.  It may be a belief that even though you really want to achieve it, you will be unhappy if you do.  Perhaps because deep inside you are not sure it is right for you.

As you will see, there can be many different kinds of limiting belief.  The best way to deal with some of those beliefs is to take some time to review very carefully what you really do want to achieve.  As I have said many times before, look deep inside and make sure your desire is fully aligned with your inner values.  If it is not, then you will always be struggling against yourself when you try to reach that goal.  Something has to change before you can move forward.  Either your inner values must change or your goal must change.  For more help on aligning your goals with your inner values read my article on Alignment here.

Probably one of the most common limiting beliefs is that your goal is impossible to achieve.  Impossible for you.  Impossible at this time.  Perhaps even impossible for anyone, ever.

Nothing is impossible.  What seems to make it impossible is your limiting belief, or even a whole series of limiting beliefs which are all conspiring against you.  Absolutely anything is possible if you truly believe you can achieve it.  In fact, I would go even further.  My belief is that as long as you are determined to deal with your limiting beliefs you have ALREADY achieved your goal.  Read that again!  You have ALREADY achieved it.  That achievement is in the future, but the future is real, so you have really achieved your goal.  All you have to do now is to allow that future achievement to unfold in the present.

One way to unearth your limiting beliefs is to look out for a person inside you called Mr, Miss, or Mrs Yabut.  Yes, you have multiple personalities, and one of those personalities has the name "Yabut".  This is the person who, when you think about one of your goals, says "yah, but ..."!  What comes after "yah, but ..." is the key.  It is the objection you need to answer.

If you have ever had any sales training you have probably been taught to unearth and then answer objections.  If you don't have this skill it is very difficult to sell anything.  In fact many sales trainers will tell you that an objection is a buying signal.  Your prospective buyer is telling you that he or she wants to buy from you but first you need to help them remove this obstacle.  Give them the help they need to remove that obstacle and you have the sale.  In other words, find the "Yabut", answer it, and then you can assume the sale is made.

It is exactly the same when you are "selling" to yourself.  Find the "Yabut", answer it, and then move on with the certainty that you will now achieve your goal.

Just to give you some encouragement, here are some "Yabuts" that others have answered and moved on to achieve their goals.

Shania Twain was born into poverty.  In her childhood, she and her brother and sisters often went hungry.  From the age of 8 she had to work to help earn enough money for her family to survive.  Shania is now one of the most successful country singers of all time, with a net worth estimated at the time of writing as around $350 million.

Howard Schultz was also born into poverty, and nobody in his family had ever been to college.  Perhaps you have never heard of Howard Schultz.  But I am sure you have heard of Starbucks.  It was Howard Schultz who catapulted Starbucks from a single coffee shop into a worldwide chain that, when I last checked, had nearly 24,000 branches.

Another great man born into poverty was Andrew Carnegie, the steel magnate and philanthropist who gave away around $350 Million to charity in the last 18 years of his life.  In today's terms that is over $78 Billion.

Have you heard of Steve Jobs?  I am sure you have - the co-founder of Apple Computers.  Steve had a lot of problems at school.  His parents were not well-off, and when he realized how much college was costing them and how little they could afford it, he dropped out of college to save them the money.  So here you have it - a family background of financial difficulty, and an educational dropout.  Despite this background, and despite many other challenges after he co-founded Apple Computers, Steve Jobs realized his dream and completely revolutionised the computer industry.  In 2010 he was worth over $8 Billion!

J K Rowling struggled as a single mother after a failed marriage, living on state benefits. Her first draft of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was rejected by publishers 12 times, before the 8 year old daughter of the chairman of the Bloomsbury publishing house read the first chapter and demanded to see the next chapter!  Bloomsbury took her on, but also told her she should get a "proper" job, as she had little chance of making any money as an author of children's books.  As I am sure you know, J K Rowling has made a fortune from the Harry Potter series and is now a billionaire.  She has also set up a charitable trust with an annual budget of over £5 Million to combat poverty and social inequality, which are two of her major passions.

There are plenty of other examples of individuals who are now very famous for what they have achieved but who overcame enormous obstacles to get there.  How about Michael Jordan, the basketball star?  He didn't even manage to get into his high school basketball team, and today he reminds us that the only reason he is successful is because he has failed so many times, having lost over 300 games!

Or how about overcoming obstacles that occur while you are already living your dream and that threaten to take that dream away from you.  Perhaps one of the best examples of someone who overcame in those circumstances is Ludwig Van Beethoven.  In his late 20's he started to develop hearing problems, compounded by severe tinnitus (a condition in which you continuously hear sounds that are not actually there).  This is a difficulty in many careers, but would seem an insurmountable problem for a professional musician!  Imagine having your concentration on creating a symphony interrupted by continuous noise!  And then being unable to play and hear the passages you want to include in your masterpiece!  These are the obstacles Beethoven faced.  They were pretty solid and apparently insurmountable obstacles, but they did not create for Beethoven the limiting beliefs they would have created in almost any other musician.  He was very frustrated by them, but that did not stop him - he simply carried on regardless!  When he wrote his magnificent 9th Symphony, which contains the "Ode to Joy" that is now the official anthem of the European Union, Beethoven was completely deaf.

Find your limiting beliefs.  Recognize that nothing can limit you unless you allow it to do so.  Then go on to achieve your goals, whatever they may be!  But don't stop there - also recognize that no matter how many limiting beliefs you have unearthed and destroyed, there will always be more under the surface.  Keep on rooting them out and keep on achieving goal after goal!

Alignment

Are you fully aligned with your inner values?

What exactly do I mean by this, and why is it so important?

When two things are aligned they are going in the same direction.  This can create a very powerful force.  An alignment of two countries, for example, is usually far more powerful than each country acting on its own.  The alignment of the movement of electrons in a piece of iron creates a powerful magnetic force.

When they are misaligned, the power is greatly reduced or even disappears altogether.  For example, if a piece of material has "paired" electrons which counter each other by moving in opposite directions it is simply impossible to create any magnetic force at all.

Many people, perhaps even the vast majority of people, are not properly aligned with their inner values. When they are not properly aligned, everything will be a real struggle.  Not because the universe is opposing them (even though it may seem that way to them) but because they are opposing themselves!

This very often applies when someone tries to use the Law of Attraction.  They begin affirming and visualising.  Nothing happens.  They become disillusioned and complain that the Law of Attraction doesn't work.  The reality is that it does work, but the Universe is getting conflicting messages from them about what they want to achieve.  Outwardly they are saying "I want this!" but inwardly they are saying "No I don't!".

There are many keys to using the Law of Attraction properly, and if you are a regular reader of my blog you will already have read a number of them, but this is probably the most important key.  If you do not align yourself properly with your inner values you are most unlikely to succeed.

The first step is to find out what those inner values are.  Unless you know what they are, how can you possibly expect your day to day life and your affirmations and visualisations to be in alignment with them?

Don't make the mistake of assuming you already know what those values are!  Many of us have superficial values that are not in alignment with our inner values.  These superficial values may be the values you have "inherited" from your parents, values drummed into you at school, or values you have picked up from your church, mosque, yeshiva, temple etc.  Don't get me wrong when I say "superficial" here.  I am not denigrating the teachings of any religion or institution or your parents.  By "superficial" I mean "on the surface" rather than "deep inside".  It may well be the case that what you believe superficially is the same as what you believe in the depths of your soul, but start with an open mind ready to accept that may not be the case.

There are many ways of determining your inner values.

One way is to start with something you have decided you want to achieve and then sit quietly thinking about it and see how both your body and emotional state react.  Do you feel a tightening around your chest for example?  A kind of heaviness in your body?  If so, this suggests what you are thinking about is not aligned with your inner values.  You may be surprised by this and feel it cannot be true, but this kind of bodily reaction is rarely wrong.  If you feel a lightness and a sense of freedom, this suggests what you are thinking about is aligned with your inner values.  If you feel a sense of foreboding or unhappiness, you are probably not aligned.  If there is a sense of happiness, or even joy, and completeness, you probably are aligned.

This method doesn't specifically identify your inner values as such, but it does at least determine whether what you think you want is aligned with them.

Another way is to go into a meditative state with the specific purpose of determining your inner values.  Each of us is likely to have a slightly different way of doing this, but the key is to begin your meditation with that as your clear purpose.  One method I find quite helpful is to imagine you are walking down a path into a beautiful garden.  See what is planted there and how it is growing.  You may find some plants are withering; these are probably desires you have which are not properly aligned.  Others are flourishing, and these will be desires that are properly aligned.  Ask each plant what it represents.  Don't struggle to get an answer.  Simply ask the question and then let it rest and move on to the next one.  All will eventually be revealed, but probably not all at once and not necessarily in this initial session.  Make repeated visits to your "Inner Values Garden" and gradually you will begin to get the answers, either during the meditation itself or through a sudden realization afterwards.

What should you do if you begin to find your inner values are in conflict with your stated beliefs?  This is a tricky one.  I cannot dictate what you should do but only point you in a direction.  I hesitate to say this, but you may need to consider whether the beliefs you thought you had really are the beliefs you should have.  If you don't wish to pursue that, then I suggest you speak to your spiritual adviser, your priest, vicar, immam, rabbi or whoever and ask them for their help.  It may simply be that you have misunderstood the signals.  But whatever you do, if there is misalignment something must change.  Either a spiritual awakening that changes your inner values, or a change in the superficial values you hold.  Without this you will be unable to have a settled life and will certainly find applying the Law of Attraction very difficult if not impossible.

As you build up a better picture of your true inner values, make absolutely sure that not only your future dreams but also your daily life is in alignment with them.  This will impact on everything you say and do.  It could mean you need to change your job and what you do in your spare time - so treat this process with great respect and make sure you do it well.