Affirmations to Empower Yourself

If you want to change your life in a positive way, you have to start by repenting -- by literally changing your mind, changing the way you think. And one of the best tried and true methods for doing this is by using daily affirmations. Affirmations are amazingly powerful if they are done and used in the right way. Affirmations will help you to feel strong in mind, spirit, and even body. Affirmations can reprogram your subconscious mind to be positive and help you get the confidence you need to change your life.
How to make effective use of affirmations:
The best way to use affirmations is to write them down. Writing them down is stronger than just saying them aloud because writing is audio-visual and it has the physical component of pushing a pen across the paper. Also, if you write down your affirmations, you can go back and read them over later on, making the impression upon your subconscious mind even stronger.
This is not to say that there are not times to just say an affirmation aloud, such as when you have gone to bed for the night and you're lying there waiting to drift off to sleep. But throughout your waking day you must write down the affirmations to make them solid to your mind.
Take a piece of paper and use a straight-edge and your pen, or a fold, to divide the paper into two columns. In the left hand column write down your affirmation, while doing so if a negative thought comes into your mind, write that down in your right hand column.
This enables you to divide off your negative, self-defeating thoughts from your affirmations of positive things--separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. You should write down your affirmations at least 20 times a day. This sounds like a lot but you can write them down four times each at five different times per day, or something like that, if that would be easier for your schedule. Repetition is important, though, to get the affirmations flowing like a river through your subconscious mind.
There are other affirmation techniques like singing them, recording yourself speaking them and then playing back the recording, and looking in the mirror and finding great things to say about yourself, but I have found that the best way to make use of them is truly to write them down.
Here are some affirmations that you might want to use on a daily basis. Select one or more that seem to really grab you emotionally, and write it or them down 20 times a day, every day, for at least four weeks straight:
>I am worthy and deserving of all the good things that come my way
>I choose to feel confident
>I choose to feel that I am lovable just the way I am
>I deserve to have a joyful life and do, be, or have what is important to me
These are just some examples of affirmations. You can adapt them to your personal circumstances and you can research or think up more of them as you need. You will need perseverance and discipline in order for your affirmations work. They have to become your new reality and a whole new way of thinking. Give yourself the chance to improve your life and have joy.

Article by:Carla_Valencia

10 Secrets Self Motivation

Deal with decent people
I am in a privileged position in being self employed since I'm able to deal with customers and clients who I want to deal with. Now I'm not so arrogant to turn business away but when I encounter an unreasonable or rude or just plain disagreeable person...I can walk away. To be able to do this is so self fulfilling.

Work only with people I would invite to my home for dinner
In a similar fashion to the first point, I have a principle that I will only do business with someone who I would invite to dinner with my wife and three children at our home in Gloucestershire. Now that's not to say I would invite everyone to our house for dinner although that would be nice but not practical, it makes me think who I really want to do business with. Once you trust someone or simply enjoying doing business with them you don't have to have a gamut of contracts or small print surrounding everything you do.

Annual Goals
Taking my long term goals and carrying forward everything from previous years ensures that each December I form my annual goals on a mindmap. This is so important to me as it gives me guidance and stability throughout the year. So often many of us, especially me, procrastinate...so having goals to fall back on is incredibly motivational as it gives you purpose, direction and allows you to channel all your energy to a specific purpose.
I couldn't cope without my December goal setting (between Christmas and New Year). I don't do anything fancy apart from focussing on PACES.
Think about what I want to do in the Positive, in other words say what I'm going to do rather than what I don't want to do.
Achievement, knowing what success looks like to me so I can see that I've achieved it. I leave a lot of success checking to visualisation.
Control...am I in control of the outcome. Not to say that I'm a control freak although I do have tendencies. Being in control means that you're not relying on outside influences to achieve your goals.
Effect...what's the effect on other people or other things you enjoy by achieving the goal.
Does the goal affect things that you would rather not?

Step into the future.
My favourite part of goal setting. I love letting my head imagine me heading out of my body and running along my time line which stretches into the future. When I reach the moment when my goal has been achieved I drop down and savour the moment. Languishing in what the success looks like, feels like and sounds like. That way I know exactly what it's going to be like when I've achieved it.
Now I don't do this for every goal I set myself each year, just the really important ones. Although thinking about it now, to ensure I do achieve all my goals, maybe I should follow the process every time.
I've got to be honest some goals I don't achieve. Why? Things change, goals get adapted and altered and other things get in the way.

Chunk down
Simply breaking the goal down into bite sized chunks helps me see exactly what needs to be done using smaller bursts of energy.

Quarterly goals
Every quarter (January, February and March is Q1 and so on) I transfer goals from my annual mindmap to a quarterly goal or split an annual goal into parts that can be accommodated in a quarter. I then set about achieving these goals each quarter. When I fail to achieve a goal or part of, it's not a problem as I just transfer it back to the annual picture and reset them to another quarter.

Self development goals and diary
I gained this idea a few years ago from someone and I can see that it was in 1997. I can look up to my shelf now and see 9 or 10 mini pocket diaries stacked side by side with goals and learnings achieved written on the side of each one. Inside the diary, I can revisit every accomplishment, every single piece of learning and any good idea I've found. Every time I attend a workshop, an association meeting, read a book, listen to an MP3, I note down exactly what I learnt in the date when I learnt it. The best thing is to regularly re-visit the learning diary to remind myself what I learnt and to check that I've taken the steps to change something or so something differently as a result of learning.
Ever so motivating to be able to sit back with a glass of my favourite wine and thumb through my learning diary from the past and to visualise what difference learning has made.

Anchors
Anchoring was something I learnt about back in the 1990's during my initial NLP training. Anchoring is great and has many uses. What I like to do is to anchor special feelings, good moments, high achievement times with something from my audio channel. Some people like visual anchors but I prefer auditory anchors and I assign special music tracks to special memories of success. Right now in my car I have a CD that I burnt which contains about 20 tunes that I can play at a moments notice. Each tune will bring back an anchor of a special feeling that makes me feel good. I've anchored a particular feeling or emotion to a song so when I want dollops of that emotion, I play the song in my car as loud as I can. This really works for me.

Time management - red, blue, black time
Nothing special here really but I make sure that when I write something in my diary I do two things. Firstly I give it a colour and secondly I estimate the time it should take and put it in a part of the day. The colours indicate activities which either make profit, contribute to profit or back up profit making activities. Red for actions that make profit, blue for activities that lead towards profit and black which is pretty much everything else that supports the profit making activities. This simple colour coding system ensures I keep an eye on what is really important. Automate everything
I make note of the things I do and where I can I automate them. In other words I don't have to do it. You can use software and computers to do this or other people. Now my company is not littered with employees so this option is never there for me but I can outsource and do. For example I outsource my database management to a great guy based in Australia. Many process can be speeded up considerably using technology which is always changing. If it can't be automated now it might be able to be automated next year or the year after.

Get a 21st Century work - life balance
Now this phrase has served to depress many 21st century workers as we spend countless hours on work tasks and little time with our loved ones and family. There is some truth in this and all us guilty ones should stand up to be counted. Me included. But here are my opposite views.
Way back in the 17th century before people rushed to the cities for the Industrial Revolution, life was different.
The baker, for example, would bake his bread in the same place in which he brought up his family. He would sell his bread to passers by, whenever they appeared and not between the hours of 9am and 5pm. He would blend in time with his family whilst waiting for the latest batch of bread to bake and when it was ready he would take it out of the oven to cool. Work and home were mixed together in harmony.by:Paul Archer

Rationale Behind Motivation

How do you define motivation--or how does it work? If you try to search or find it in the dictionary or any thesaurus, it may give definitions that describe the 'stir to action', or the 'inner drive' in taking the first step to do something. For instance, "I need the needed motivation to start eating correctly," or "I am not motivated to start dieting." Nevertheless, there's another point of view about it that could be considered. Well, how about making a choice rather than waiting for that motivation to start eating healthily or start exercising in the gym or whatever the action is? "I choose to start eating correctly"-means I am merely making a choice.
It also means that I am not waiting and waiting for motivation to just hit me and make me start a diet plan. This is what will make me move from just waiting inactively to actively pursing and eventually reaching for a goal. Anybody that's just waiting for the motivation to do something is stuck in passiveness. Although waiting is synonymous to the phrases, 'to be ready' and 'be prepared for', it is also similar to the words 'delay' and 'postpone'. And the problem with being in a state of passive inactivity is that there is no change in position or moving forward.
And in this case, one could just be literally delaying or postponing something to happen. Life is there to be actively involved in and not just seeing it passes you by. Watching people live their own lives and only waiting for the fire to ignite would only postpone your dreams. However, this is precisely what some individuals are doing when waiting for motivation to stir things up. If on the other hand you make a choice in dieting and eating properly, there is forward and progressive motion. This does not mean that motivation is already uselessly dismissed. Actually, after making that choice and the decision is a final, it steps in and marches forward.
Once the choice is done to eat properly, now, do you realize what is it that keeps you sticking to your diet plan? Yes, exactly. It's motivation. Don't think of it as the propulsion that would transport you from a halt to motion. It doesn't grow on inactivity and passivism. Whenever there is movement, it would keep the momentum going. It is like a driving force mechanism. Think of it as the strength that impels your desired motion in a given direction. So think of an aspect in your life where you are just simply waiting for it. If you find that particular aspect, then it all depends on your attitude.
Just change your attitude and make a decision and stand by it. These are areas in your life where you need to finally arrive at a decision. Anything or something you've been desiring to achieve and you're not taking any action towards it, doesn't need motivation. Once you are in motion, motivation will perform and play its part well. Let this be the stirring force that not only gets you moving, but instead keeps you moving-ahead.by: Amy Twain

5 Ways to Stop Procrastination

Many of us like to put thing off till the last minute. There are many reasons why people procrastinate. Lack of desire, lack of motivation, fear of failure, lack of self-esteem or confidence, overwhelmed with too many unproductive activities or just simply plain lazy.
Procrastination can be a hard nut to crack once it has become a habit. So do not let it to grow larger and larger until it overwhelms your life. It can give you enormous stress and ruin your life. If you feel that you are a procrastinator, take step to stop it today!
Here are five simple ways to help you stop procrastination:
1. Get organized.

Start by tidying up your work desk, organize and put things you use everyday in their places. Do the same with your house or apartment as well. If you have children, teach them to put things in their places. And the best way to teach them is to set a good example. If you make it a habit to tidy up things around you, your children will pick up this good habit as well.
2. Focus on your goals.

In the hustle and bustle world we're living in, often times, we're overwhelmed with tasks that we don't know where to start. So, take time to list down all the tasks and sort out those that are important in accomplishing your goals. Focus and pay more attention to those tasks that will move you closer to your goals.
3. Be accountable and take responsibility for your own life.

Share the goals or projects you want to accomplish with your loved ones and closed friends. By sharing, you're essentially creating an accountability for yourself. Most of us want others to think highly of us, this is human's nature. So the more people know your goals, the more likely you will take action.
4. Set deadlines to your tasks or projects.

This is very important because nothing you get done if there is no deadline. Deadlines will give you a sense of urgency to take action and put a halt to procrastination.
5. Stay motivated.

There are many things you can do to stay motivated. First, of course you must have a goal or desire for success. Then, help yourself to stay motivated. You can read books that are inspirational, attend seminars and hang around with people who are positive. When you accomplish a goal (no matter how small it is), reward yourself for a job well done.
So here you have them, five simple steps to stop procrastination on its track. Make sure you start to apply them in your daily life.by:Leon Lioe

Stay Motivated on the Job

Any job can become a pain if you do not feel motivated enough to do it. When you are not motivated, it shows. You will soon find yourself passed over for raises and promotions. You will not be considered for important projects or special training programs.
In the end, you are the only one to suffer due to your low motivation - and your company may fire you if your performance does not show improvement.
Most companies send their employees for motivational training programs once a year or so. Throughout the year, however, you are on your own. It is your own job that should keep you motivated.
Define Your Goals
When you are new on the job, you have ideas to achieve your goals. You have dreams and hopes to arouse your enthusiasm and you are eager to do your best.
But as you settle down, those dreams may slowly vanish. Don't let that happen. Turn your dreams into clear goals and always remind yourself of them whenever you feel low.
Make a Game Plan
Don't let your goals be just a dream. Make solid efforts to achieve them. You will need to make a blueprint, or a game plan, to achieve your goals.
Analyze what it will take to get there and how you can do it. Then organize yourself and focus on achieving those goals coupled with your hard work.
Keep Learning
The best way to stave off boredom on the job is to keep learning more. When you have an open mind, you can easily absorb new information and learn new skills.
Volunteer for training sessions and seminars, as your willingness to learn will surely impress your superiors.
Be Proud of Your Successes
Nothing motivates you better than your own successes. When you achieve a goal or you are successful in the task at hand, you are bound to feel proud.
Ride this wave of success and you will be surprised to find how this type of motivation will carry you forward in other areas as well.
Take Criticism Positively
Everyone hates criticism - but a successful person views criticism as an opportunity to improve. Do some introspection and find out why you were criticized and how you can turn it to your advantage and convert the criticism to your favor. Nobody is perfect, and we all need to be reminded of our shortcomings once in a while.
Think Positive
The key to remain motivated throughout your career is positive thinking. You can only conquer your problems when you look at the bright side of harsh situations.
Read Motivational Books
Listen to motivational music and lectures regularly to stay self-motivated. When you are motivated, there is nothing that you cannot achieve.
The key is that motivation comes from within.

Get a Hero to Motivate You

As a motivational speaker, I believe in getting a hero. In order to get motivated to be successful, I find that it is extremely helpful to get a hero. Getting somebody to be a role model for you keeps you inspired to stay on track while you work towards your own success. Many celebrities such as athletes, movie stars and music artists, serves as our heroes.
When you think about celebrities that you like and respect, don't look at them just for the entertainment value. Look deeper into what they did to become successful. They were all just like us at one time but they did certain things to achieve their goals. Make one of them your hero. This person doesn't have to be a famous celebrity, just someone you admire and respect. I would emphasize the word 'respect' again. The usual tabloid celebrities who get their faces on every cover just because they happen to attract all the paparazzi should not qualify as one of your heroes. It must be somebody you truly want to be like.
My hero was the late, great Bruce Lee. For those of you who don't know who Bruce Lee was, he was the first significant Asian martial arts action hero that came out in the 70s. He opened the doors for people like Jackie Chan and Jet Li. His influence in martial arts today is still huge.
I suffered quite a lot of racism when I was growing up. It got so bad that as a child, I was actually ashamed of being Chinese. But when Bruce Lee came out, everything changed for me. I still remember the time when I sat in one theatre watching my first Bruce Lee movie. It was "Fists of Fury" (released as 'The Chinese Connection' when dubbed in English for the western world). I have never seen an Asian person portrayed as such a powerful character. His effect on the audience was totally mesmerizing.
Of course, as I got to do more research on him, I learned that he was certainly the real deal. Bruce Lee was so respected in the martial arts world, he was honored in the Black Belt Hall of Fame not just once, but twice. His first induction was before he ever became famous too. He was successful in martial arts long before he became a film star. When he did make it out on screen, I along with millions of other Asians (and non-Asians) worldwide, finally had a strong Asian role model to look up to. This was important for me in order to change my own perception of being Asian.
I got into martial arts because of Bruce Lee's influence and I am convinced that my training as a martial artist in my case, saved me from ending up on the dark road. Martial arts represented early success in a passion I love, which gave me the strength and confidence to take on other life challenges including the adversities I faced. I took on my own unique journey in a way that was sometimes similar to a phoenix rising from the ashes. I can attribute the start of my journey to the influence of my hero. Heroes have a way of reminding us of our own potentials because of their own unique journeys they had taken. I became a motivational speaker because of my hero.
Many other people in this world also inspire me. And many of them are not celebrities either. They are just people who have done something that I admire. Even though I am a motivational speaker, I need motivation on a regular basis too as we all do. So get your own hero or heroes to inspire you.by : Clint Cora