Learn From Your Mistakes And Make Your Life A Masterpiece

Setbacks are part and parcel of life. We cannot taste the sweetness of success unless we've tasted the bitterness of our failures and setbacks. The essential thing to remember is not how many times you fall down but the fact that you always managed to pick yourself up again. You have to become the type of person who always bounces back instead of the type of person who gripes and moans or worse, give up trying.

If you find that you are not happy with your new job or if it does not live up to your expectations, or if you are not happy as you should be with the new house that you just bought, then you have to find the fortitude to admit that you have made a wrong decision. Remember the old saying "nothing ventured, nothing gained". Maybe your next venture won't be as successful as you thought it would be. Don't let it bother you. What can you learn from it? There are many possibilities and you're sure to find something right or make a successful transition.

If you want to live your ideal life, you need to take your life into your own hands. This means you need to take the responsibility for your own decisions and actions, including the wrong ones. For this reason, you need to invest a lot of energy and anything worthwhile will not work without a strong sense of self-discipline. People who live by the principle of "always put off to tomorrow what you could do today", will remain in the same circumstances and never be content with their lives. They will wait for the push factor of their environment or external forces to act on them, and depend on the opinions of others instead of taking up the independence of doing what is right.

Perhaps you're a student with less-than-ideal grades or an adult swamped by information at work. As a student you have to take the responsibility of improving your study skills. As an adult you need to learn new techniques to accelerate your learning or improve your memory to cope with the currents of change. You need the self-discipline to learn new methods to cope with the ever-increasing volume of information flow, instead of moping around and giving up.

Discipline, coupled with a healthy feeling of self-worth are the foundation of success in life. Different people will have different ideas or opinions of what makes them self-confident. You have to ask yourself critical questions, "Do I like myself the way I am?" or "Do I respect myself?" You may not like the answers you give yourself honestly. But you must have the courage to make the necessary changes if your answers to the above questions is "No.". it is time for you to take steps to become more self-assured and self-confident. The most important principle to remember in building self-confidence is that you cannot learn to respect yourself if you are constantly criticising yourself. Only when you are basically happy with yourself as you are will you be able to learn new things and adjust to the flow of life. But if you are not satisfied with yourself, you will always make sure that your situation reflects your negative self-image. But conversely, if your answers to the above questions is 'Yes", then you will go through life full of self-confidence.

All of us make mistakes now and then but not everyone can handle criticism in a positive way. To move forward in life, you need to be self-confident enough to admit when you have made a mistake. Admit your mistake openly without any excuses and as the saying goes "the truth will set you free". You won't find it difficult if you have a healthy self-esteem. You will notice that having a life worth living is a cycle of healthy checks, making positive changes, self-discipline, and honest evaluations of one-self. It also helps to have a healthy dose of humour. Learning to laugh at yourself is just as important as making those serious changes to make your life a masterpiece.

Positive Affirmations, A Simple Guide

Affirmations have been around since man found the use of language and there is no secret ritual to use them. There is nothing mystic about affirmations. This tool, if used correctly, can radically change your life.

Here are the very basics elements of positive affirmations, positive thinking, and a simple guide on how to use them. There are thousands of books and ebooks on the subject of the power of affirmations and some of them are very good. Which one is best for you, I’ll let you decide. If you check the Internet under Positive Affirmations you’ll find a multitude of books and sites to help you.

How do they work? What changes can I expect?
Do you know anything about positive thinking, positive affirmations, or the Law of Attraction? Do you know AND believe that our thoughts and our actions create the living experiences we call life?

The benefits of positive affirmations are medically recognized and it really works. It will help you advance, grow, and heal yourself. Positive Affirmations support your positive thinking and together they form a very powerful and effective tool. They function as ˜key words” of positive messages ˜dictated” directly into the inner self. You are consciously connecting and directing your positive thinking to areas of your life that you want to change or heal. It works as a reminder to the self to keep positive messages at the forefront of consciousness. Affirmations can and will transform your life patterns and perception. When your interpretation of your own experiences change, so does your reality. On the other hand negative thoughts are just as powerful. So be aware of your negative thoughts. They are in essence, self-destructive ˜key words”, a psychological mechanisms that make your life rotten.

First, let's check how aware you are of your thoughts. Do you regularly have more positive or more negative thoughts running through you mind? Meditate on that for a few minutes. Only you can honestly answer it. So get ready and real.

Your mind incessantly interprets your experiences as an internal dialogue. These thoughts are generated on a deep level by your beliefs, which were formed and accumulated from the time you were born. We always interpret our experiences either positively or negatively. That is how we create our own reality! We can’t control most exterior events of our lives but we do control how we interpret and react to them. When we change our interpretation a change takes place in our reality. So, become very aware of your thoughts! If you change your thinking, big changes will happen in your life.

Take a minute to think about why you are reacting to something or someone in your life. Get in touch with your inner self and ask why do you feel this way about the subject in question.. Is it a positive experience? If not, accept the fact that these thoughts may have helped you in the past but they are out of place now that you have chosen to accept only positive thoughts and positive living. You are now changing your perception of that situation or person. While doing the new affirmations your mind will let go of these negative messages even if you are not aware if it. 
Watch out also for a resistance within yourself. With certain affirmations, for example, “I am a good person and I am happy”, you may get a quick answer: “No, I’m not.” or “Are you kidding?”  This is your negative perception of that experience. It is ok, it is an old habit that is about to be changed. You grew up with these thoughts for almost all of your life. Now it is time to form a new habit and you need lots of practice. Just remember, you didn’t become this way overnight.


Let's get started! As you wake up, say your affirmations out loud or in your head five times. Relax your body, let go of any emotional or mental tension while doing your affirmations. The greatest the concentration and feelings you put into the act, the stronger and faster you’ll get the results. Repeat the same process several times during the day and the last time just before going to bed. I suggest you end the affirmations session with a thank you note. Gratitude will reinforce and validate the affirmations. Thanks God, Jesus, Spirit, the Force, the Universe or whatever you believe and feel comfortable with. Visualize your affirmations with feelings and emotion. See yourself exactly as the affirmation you are stating. It will reinforce the affirmation you are making and add an extra psychological dimension with a much deeper impact on your mind. Using this method of visualization early in the morning and at night will make your affirmations much more successful.
For beginners the easiest way is to choose and write down one or two things you want changed. For example, if you feel unloved and financially strapped, one of your affirmations could be: “ I am now ready to receive more love and wealth” and you may add “from the vast supply of the universe”. If you also wrote down “low self-esteem” the affirmation could be: “I am an awesome man/woman and I feel good about myself”.
 Be creative, upfront, and fearless. You are making a statement to yourself of your intentions.
You can use affirmations to help build self-confidence, self-esteem, self-improvement and personal growth. It will also help conquer your fears and anger management. Affirmations have been successfully used to relieve anxiety and depression and are an excellent tool for weight control.

Use these simple guidelines below to create your own affirmation:

1-  Present tense.Start all your affirmations in the present tense and have them already accomplished. You are telling your conscious mind that the action is taking place NOW and it is final. You are affirming, now, today “I AM HAPPY, I CHOOSE JOY, I HAVE CONFIDENCE instead of “I will be happy,” or “I am becoming happy,” and so on. “I ACCEPT, I CHOOSE, I DESERVE, I AM,” in the present tense, is much stronger and much more powerful.


2-  How to phrase your affirmations.You can copy from an extensive list you’ll find on the Internet, use the examples below, or simply write it down in your own words. Do it as plainly or as poetically as you speak. “ I am energetic and full of enthusiasm.” Or “I am safe, I am a prosperous man/woman.” Make copies of it and leave it around the house, your car and your office desk. The more you are reminded of the positive affirmations the more your mind will accept the new concept you are bringing forth. You will create a new positive reality and the universal energy, the Law of Attraction, will connect this good energy to other positive energies.


3-  Positive means Positive. Don’t use affirmations that have a negative attachment.Your subconscious usually focuses on the verb and assimilates it to past experiences. If you have fears, phobias or whatever, be careful with your choice of words! If you are afraid and say “I am not SCARED”, it will register “I AM SCARED”. The NOT was absorbed and ignored by your mind. Say instead “I AM COURAGEOUS” or “I AM FEARLESS”. 

Here are a few examples of affirmations by topics:


Love.

”I am ready to love and to be loved”"I am surrounded by love""I love and accept myself exactly as I am" 
"The love I give out returns to me multiplied"
"I am a loving, beautiful creative person and this is reflected in my relationships with others"
” I am now ready to receive more love, support and wealth from the vast supply of the universe””I see the beauty in my surroundings and I radiate joy and love”

Wealth.

"I deserve all that is good and prosperous in my life"
"Money flows to me from expected and unexpected sources"
”I deserve to collect all the wealth and the rich rewards of my success”"My income is constantly increasing"
”I am well, I prosper, I am successful and I am free”"Abundance, like a river flows in my life"”I allow all the immense wealth and goodness of the universe to easily flow into myself”

Self-esteem ”” personal.

”I now have the power to bring about all the positive changes in my life I desire””I am protected, guided, and connected with the highest good at all times””My personality is radiant with success, beauty and happiness””I am an awesome man/woman and I feel good about myself””I am at peace with my choices and what life throws in my path””I recognize and honor my talents, abilities, and skills””I choose to live my life the way that makes me happy””I am positively changing my life now, for the better in every possible way. Have a great journey

Choosing Positive Self-Talk to Conquer Any Ambition

Do you feel as if you may be constantly talking yourself out of achieving success? The instant you begin to set in place aims for yourself, do you suddenly have nagging feelings about how you aren't capable of the task or how you just aren't qualified to carry it on?

If you have ever before gone through either scenario, you have got to shift how you answer to your internal dialogue. Rather than obeying your destructive commands, you can use positive self-talk to resist the negativity and beat virtually all stressed thoughts.

Preparing Goals and Sticking with Them using Positive Self-Talk

Are you, at first, full of enthusiasm when you first set goals for yourself? Are all of these thoughts then followed by uncertainty and self-defeating thoughts that stop you in your tracks well before you even make a start?

It can be very difficult to get the most from yourself when you are always talking yourself out of becoming successful. It is disheartening and discouraging, to have all these feelings always plaguing you. A lot of us, believe it or not, don't even realise we have them! All we know is that we don't have the self-assurance to follow our plans and arrive at our ambitions.

However there's another way!

Positive self-talk is a highly effective way to set aims and make sure you adhere to them, even when you've never been able to do this in the past. The way this works is that you figure out what goal is very important to you, and you plan the logistics of how you're likely to attain this goal. When self-doubt starts kicking in, you will react with statements and affirmations that establish your achievement while not giving up to the destructive stress. Seeing that you're reading through this page, it's very clear that you're no quitter and you're most certainly not a failure, so begin believing in your self!

Re-Programming Your Mind

Affirmations are, in essence, positive statements that re-program your mind for the positive. The instant you have a self-defeating thought you'd be ready to counter the negative with an encouraging affirmation. An example of a positive affirmation is: "I'm deserving of great achievement," or "I see myself in the champion's circle." What this does is replace negativity with thought processes which will assist you to move toward your goals instead of further removed from them.

Positive self-talk is much easier to implement than you might believe. You might not be aware of the extent of the negative talk presently in your mind. Yet, as soon as you start off with positive self-talk, you are going to all of a sudden realize that you're self-sabotaging the goals you set for yourself right from the moment that you make them. This practice can open up your eyes to just how much this inner dialogue has been interfering with your life. You'll really feel confident that you can now set targets and exceed them.

Through positive self-talk you'll be able to very easily set long and short-term goals for your self. And as soon as you use affirmations, you'll possess accessible tools to help you to propel yourself further than ever before. Learning to hush negative thoughts with positive thoughts is a superb move towards setting up and attaining long term goals in no time.

Conquer Negative Thoughts And Build Confidence

No matter how rich, healthy, or happy any one person may be there will always be a blue day where you don't seem sure of anything. Applying motivational practices at these times would bring your self confidence levels up and make everything a little brighter.

Of course, there are hundreds of ways of how you can pick yourself up during troubling times, such as joining a support group or seeing a counselor. But why wait for other people to help you when you can easily do it yourself? Just by thinking positively, you can learn to be more confident than you ever thought you could be!

Erase Negativity and Watch Your Confidence Grow

Negative thoughts hold us back from accomplishing our goals and without a positive outlet you can never overcome these challenges and better your life.

For example, if you are feeling nervous about delivering a speech or performing on stage, no good will come out of anticipating every bad thing that could possibly happen. Instead, you have to take some time to gather your wits, take a few deep calming breaths and maybe recite some affirmations that will help you get rid of your negativity. Once you do this, you will be able to accomplish your task with more ease.

Acknowledge Your Successes

Praising yourself for what you have achieved so far is another great way to motivate yourself and increase your self-confidence.

- Did you just finish a project? Do you have happy and healthy kids? Did you recently get promoted? Any and all of these are reasons to praise yourself.

Take Pride in All Your Skills and Successes

- Whatever you are good at is what makes you special. Whether it be playing tennis, painting, playing the guitar, or singing, it's all unique to you.

Obstacles are not easy to overcome but overcoming these obstacles is what makes you grow as a person.

Positive Self-Talk

Some people have the notion that motivational talk will make them seem crazy, especially if people see them constantly talking to themselves out loud in public. This does not have the case though. Simply thinking of motivational thoughts should be enough to create major changes in how you perceive yourself.

Take a moment everyday and find a quiet place. Take out a pen and paper. Then write down all of what you accomplished the day before. Then write down everything you are good at.

Looking at this list everyday helps you realize that you have many things to be proud of.

Take this list with you where ever you go. Then every time you are feeling blue take out your list and read it to yourself. This will surely raise your confidence.

Feel free to alter your list as you add to your accomplishments. The longer your list is, the more effective it will be in raising your spirits.

The Benefits of Reciting Affirmations

Reciting affirmations to yourself, even in the privacy of your bedroom, may feel awkward and funny in the beginning, but as you get used to it, you will see the vast improvement it can make in your personality and in your life in general.

Negative situations are bound to arise but it's how you react to the situation that makes the difference.

Each person will experience unpleasant emotions and situations at some point. The important thing is learning how to get over these situations in a healthy and positive manner.

Other people may be able to help you somehow in boosting your self-confidence but ultimately, you will be the one responsible for motivating yourself and giving yourself a better life.

Happiness: Can You Say Yes? 11 Practical Steps To Make It Really Happen

Think about it ... every single thing we do is intended to make us happier. And yet sometimes we get diverted and do things that actually move us away from this goal.

We all have the potential for genuine happiness. There is no gene or DNA marker that determines who will be happy and who will not. We make choices throughout our lives, and the result of all these choices combined, determines our level of happiness. Make the right choices and happiness can be yours.

Here are just a sampling of some of the tactics we can employ in an 11-point road map to help guide us toward genuine happiness:

1. Look For The Positive In Everything: There is an old saying that nothing is inherently good or bad--what makes it one or the other, is merely our reaction to it. Find the positive and you will be happier. Those who soar against all odds, do so because they look at the positive that could come out of their situation, how ever bad it may seem to others.

2. Accentuate The Positive: We all grow up with a "positivity imbalance"--the result of society's norms and rules being based on restriction and punishment more than approval and reward. From a young age we are taught what we must not do instead of what we may do. Even in day-to-day life, there is more negative influence that positive. Luckily you can work to improve the balance. Celebrate the positive and work to get more of it. When you achieve something, congratulate yourself! Look for things you find uplifting, that make you happy. Get more of that! At the same time, reduce your exposure to negative input, whether it is the daily news, or people you don't feel good around. You know your buttons...make sure the positive ones are pushed more than the negative.

3. Practice Good Selfishness: When we were young we were taught that putting our interests before those of others is wrong. This is particularly true for women, many of whom sacrifice their dreams and ambitions to help others achieve theirs. It is also common in the corporate world where the good of the company is considered more important than the good of the individual. It is good to help others, yet we should have boundaries to protect ourselves from being manipulated or abused by others. You are important, and if you don't look after yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually, you cannot expect anyone else to do so.

4. Listen To Your Feelings: All feelings are good. Every feeling occurs for a reason: it is delivering a message. Sometimes that message is pleasant, other times not. Our tendency is to distract ourselves from unpleasant feelings, often through smoking, drinking or drugs of one kind or another. When you feel bad, avoid distracting yourself, and identify the reason--there is some need which is not being met.

5. Give Of Yourself: The more you give, the more you receive. There is probably no scientific study proving this to be so, but unconditional giving is hugely rewarding. It seems that the more of yourself you give, the greater the thrill and uplifting effect on your psyche. Help the needy. Give time if you can. Give anonymously!

6. Make It Happen: You have the ability to make things happen using your mind. Top sports stars, and business people use it; so can you. There are many ways of doing this; one of the common methods is to use visualization--getting a picture in your mind of whatever it is that you want to happen. It does not have to be a visual picture; it could be a feeling, a smell, a sound, or any combination of the senses. Imagine finding the perfect parking near the entrance as you arrive at the supermarket or mall ... the sky is the limit, but persevere! We are not used to utilizing this tool, so it takes practice.

7. Accept The Things You Cannot Change: We resist things we don't like, and often expend a tremendous amount of energy on this resistance. Whilst this can be good, and has resulted in tremendous advances through history, we should work to understand those things we cannot change, and then move on. Rather use the saved energy on something more worthwhile and productive. This is not to say that you should complacently accept anything. If you truly desire change, you should work towards that change; but spending time worrying about something without actively working to change it is unproductive and damaging to your well-being.

8. Take Responsibility For Your Choices: Everything that you do, or don't do, is because of choices you make (or don't make). It is easier and convenient to blame outside causes for things that go wrong in life, but your life is the sum of all the choices you make along the way--sadly, sometimes that choice it to let somebody else make a choice on your behalf. If you tend to blame other people or things, it may be scary to take responsibility for what happens in your life, but it is really quite liberating because instead of seeing yourself as an effect of outside forces, you realize you are the cause of everything good you achieve. Don't abdicate responsibility for your life.

9. Schedule Regular "Self Time": Spend some time analyzing where you are in life, your strengths and weaknesses. How can you turn the latter into the former? Think about your views on everything from your job to global warming and the existence of aliens--then work out why you feel the way you do. Is your reasoning sound? The better you understand yourself, the better you understand the world.

10. Make Time To Meditate: We spend almost all our time thinking of the past or planning for the future. We seldom spend time in the present. It has reached a point where, for most of us, it seems impossible to keep our focus on what is happening right now. Your meditation could be formal meditation or prayer, but it could be as simple as merely focusing on each breath as it goes in and out for five or ten minutes, dismissing past and future thoughts as they arise--and they will!

11. Remove Your Limitations: When we fail, usually the reason is simply because we don't believe we are able or worthy of whatever it is that we fail to achieve. Most often, this belief is actually false; the result of negative programming received since childhood. The truth is that most of us are able to do most of what we really want to do ... you just have to believe. The best way to start is with small things, working your way up as you notice the limits dissolving.

The more successful you are at assimilating the concepts and processes described in these eleven points into your life, the more genuinely happy you will be, and the happiness will last!

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Life Is Wonderful

It is so simple and so easy to get what we want that we have a hard time to believe it. We are programmed to do things the hard and difficult way, in order to get what we want. We can not believe that we can get anything without hard labour, sweat and tears, obstacles
and misery.

This is nothing else but a tough old programmation, a conditioning from our childhood. If you are like me, you were bombarded as a child with expressions from adults about how hard life is and how we have to struggle to get something. We were submitted to a hazardous universe or a God of revenge who could pick us out without any reason to take revenge on us for something we did wrong. We needed to avoid being bad or wrong, but disease could strike us anyway. Sometimes they even said : "It's again a good one who's punished, and the bad one take off easily like usual without paying anything!". We learned that life wasn't fair. We lived in fear and thought life was a valley of tears, fear, struggle, pain, disease
and death?

How would it have been if they've told us the truth? The truth, nothing but the truth? That life is easy, wonderful. That miracles happen all the time and that we have the power to make them happen in our own life! That the universe loves us. That there is wealth and health for everyone. That we don't live in a universe of scarcity but of abundance. That we only have to put the right thoughts in our heads to make these dreams real for us.

What would your life have looked like if your parents and teachers would have taught you the truth?

You would have suffered much less! You would not have believed you were less than nothing. You would not have been filled with fear over your ears of getting sick or failing, of being stupid or being not good enough.

If you would have known from the beginning that you were a creation of the Creator, that you will always remain, that you will always be around, that you were created for a reason, and when you find this reason you will be happy, what would your life look like now? If you were told that you had talents, unique qualities, that make you a special person, and that you are on earth with the mission to offer these talents to others, where would you be right now and what would you be doing now?

Isn't it nice? The Genius who created this whole thing did really well : we are sent to earth with a mission and to be able to assume our mission we are already fully equipped from the beginning : we are gifted with natural talents and all we have to do is develop our talents and offer them to the world! Simply said, we have to do what we can do easily already and what we are talented for, and than happiness, satisfaction, love, money and everything we want comes flowing our way!

It is so beautiful, this concept! All we have to do is to do what we love! And of course we need to stop once for all to think we don't deserve happiness or wealth or health. All these thoughts are wrong because they go against the principles of creation of the Universe.

We are already wonderful! We are already loved! We are already rich! We are already free! We are already intelligent! We are already healthy!
Why? Because we were all this before we started our life. It is the way we really are. It is the way we were created, we were born. This is the truth about ourselves. Everything else is "learned" afterwards.

The good news is whatever is learned can be un-learned. Every programmation can be changed and replaced by a new program.

And again, life is wonderful, because a positive thought is 10,000 times more powerful than a negative thought. So you don't have to take another 40 years to undo the negative conditioning in your head. One positive thought can counterbalance 10,000 negative ones.

Can you imagine? Aren't we lucky?

If you choose to do so, you can rapidly turn around your negative program in your head. Go to the bookstore, buy some books with positive thoughts, put them at every toilet in the house, in the bathroom, in your bedroom, in your living room, and read them whenever you think of it or see them. It doesn't matter if you read one page after another or if you just open the book as it falls in your hands. The message you will receive will be the right one for you at that very moment.

Every morning you start your day by saying thank you to the Universe for your bed, your house, the roof over your head, the people living with your, the water coming out of your tap, the light switching on by a simple gesture of your hand, the food available, the choices you can make that day, the love you received in your life and the love you will receive, the miracles which will happen today and the air you can breath.

In your car, listen to CD's or cassettes with positive programmation. Listen to them while you make dinner, clean the house or iron your clothes.

Surround yourself with positive people and stop nourishing negative social talk. Don't watch television unless there is some really positive program.

There is a lot you can do to take a positive turn in your life. Don't think you can do nothing. You are responsible for your life now. Make your choice! Know that every thought you think is either one which will weaken you, or one which will make you feel stronger. 

The choice is yours!