Welcome back!

Where Do You Focus Your Attention?

Do you have a habit of looking at everything and thinking things such as, “Is this situation safe?”, “Is this relationship good for me?”, “Is it comfortable?”,  “Is this experience worthwhile?”, “Is it important?” “Is this object valuable?”… If so,

Have you ever thought of approaching every person, object or experience as if it were there just for you to appreciate?

And if you couldn’t find immediate appreciation for the value of this person, this object or this experience, what if you didn’t just stop there, but you go on to ask the ‘next question’,

“Why is it that I cannot find value in this person, object, situation or experience?”

Embark On Your Own Experience Quest

Going to the ‘next question’ commits you to a life where, as Caroline Myss says “You have to pause in your perception, observe, and consciously appreciate what you are seeing, doing, hearing, thinking, and speaking… Every moment of your life has value.”

To ‘be with’ an experience, feel the sensations of an experience, and allow the wisdom of an experience to come forth or to gain knowledge from an experience…. to really experience an experience, you need to embark each day on your own experience quest.

Be willing to ask the ‘next question’ and by doing so you’ll electrify all your moment to moment experiences and then that energy can’t help but power up your life!

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Believe It or Not?

According to one dictionary, the definition of Pollyanna is a person who is unreasonably or illogically optimistic.

We’ve all heard sayings like, look for the silver lining, turn lemons into lemonade, if at first you don’t succeed, and many many others, but how did these sayings get started? Was it unreasonable or illogical optimism, or did they arise out of universal truths.

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An Inspirational Video – 12 Things to Remember

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If it isn’t clear to you whether to put faith in such statements, one way to decide is to ask yourself, “which feels better?”

Would it feel better to focus your attention on hope and possibility, or not. Would you have more motivation to help yourself and those around you, or not.

Believe it or not, it’s up to you. What do you think?

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What’s new in the area motivation?

Daniel Pink on the Surprising Science of Motivation

www.ted.com Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don’t — Traditional rewards aren’t always as effective as we think. Listen for some illuminating examples.

Self Help Motivation Challenges

Self motivation can sometimes be challenging. Here are a few posts and a great picture we found surfing around the web.  We hope they’ll support you to stay motivated and create the life you truly want.

• The Willpower Paradox (scientificamerican.com)

• How are you doing it? (mytotalmoneymakeover.com)

• The Psychology of Motivation (helpingpsychology.com)

• Motivation on Tap (lifescript.com)

Motivational Self Improvement | Self Help to Calm Yourself and Be less Stressed

Being calm in life, and having mental and emotional calmness when you make important decisions, is a basic self help skill that we all need to master.

Spiritual Thinking & Tapping — Faster EFT

ETF to help you to live your dreams life.  Whether you’re looking for financial freedom, personal freedom,  self-esteem or • self-help motivation tapping can help.

Don’t Miss These 7 Self Help Motivation – Personal Success Factors

Feed Your Brain! Success Factors for Self-Help Motivation and Personal Growth Development.

A Little Push

“The only person that can really push you that little bit further in life is yourself.”

Author: stephaniedan

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Success is an Inside Job

Have you ever heard thoughts rattling around in your head such as these?

• “I’m not good enough to ____”
• “They don’t really care about me”
• “I just don’t have what it takes.”

This kind of thinking feeds on the belief that success in the world is measured by who’s doing what or getting what, and how we’re not measuring up. This thinking vibrates with an underlying sense of fear and unworthiness.

What if, every time you heard yourself thinking something like this, you asked yourself a question that radiated joy? Benjamin Zander describes these kinds of questions in his book, The Art of Possibility. They include questions like: “How can I contribute today?” and “What can I do in this situation to make a difference?”

Would You like to Make a Difference?

Try this on for a day. Instead of judging yourself by what you believe to be other people’s standards, start your day believing that you are a gift just the way you are.

Now you might be asking yourself, “How could I make a difference? What could I do to contribute?”

If you find yourself entertaining these doubts, this story–also from The Art of Possibility–may speak well to them.

Strolling along the edge of the sea, a man catches sight of a young woman who appears to be engaged in a ritual dance. Drawing closer, he sees that the beach around her is littered with starfish cast up by a storm from the previous night. She is throwing them one by one back into the sea.

He lightly mocks her: “There are stranded starfish as far as the eye can see. What difference can saving a few of them possibly make?”

Smiling, she bends down and once again picks up another starfish to toss back into the surf, saying serenely, “It certainly makes a difference to this one.”

Seeing the World through Contribution-Colored Glasses

In a world seen through the lens of lack, limitation and fear, thoughts might easily focus on, “too many starfish, not good enough, not enough time, what did they ever do for me?” etc.

But as the story reveals, it’s not a matter of the “success or failure” of the rescue mission, or what proportion of the starfish survived or perished. Absent also are the familiar concerns with fairness, progress, or ability.

Instead, life is revealed as a place where you have something to contribute. Where there is always some small good you have to offer.

Listed under the category of Contribution on our Core Values List we include: Assist. Facilitate, Serve, Provide, Strengthen, and Improve.

Impossible to I’m Possible

Your Mission Possible, if you choose to accept it, is to define your success in terms of contribution, and to use that same lens to witness the actions of others, looking also for the contribution they are attempting to make through their actions. By doing so you redefine the meaning of success, and with this change will come a renewed sense of personal power.

This week start each day with the following questions:

How will I contribute today?

What form will my contribution take?

How can I recognize the contribution other people in my life make to me?

And remember, the shortest path to a happy life is found through conscious choice.

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Which posts should I read first?

A lot of people have asked us which of our self help posts we would suggest they read first.  We usually answer that it all depends on what they’re looking for. Then we start asking them questions about their life, what they’re satisfied and dissatisfied with, what brought them to us in the first place, what they want most in relation to these things, and what they see as their mission in life. This helps us direct them to our resources that we believe would be most supportive.

The frequency of this question got us thinking, in general which of our posts do we believes would support a shift in consciousness from US versus THEM and a power-over mindset, to a more power-with / WE perspective? Which posts would we suggest people read first in order to start enjoying their lives more?

Here’s the short list of our picks:

Personal Values Education – Knowing What You Need and How to Get It

The Games People Play: Being Right vs. Being Happy – Part One

The Games People Play: Being Right vs. Being Happy – Part Two

Is It Really True? New Rules for the Game of Life Quiz ~ Motivate by Fear?

10 Steps that Lead to Better Relationships and a Happier Life Part One

10 Steps that Lead to Better Relationships and a Happier Life Part Two

Turn Your Limiting Beliefs into Powerful Self Help Motivation – Part 1

Turn Your Limiting Beliefs into Powerful Self Help Motivation – Part 2

Finding Self Help Motivation — Connecting with Your Higher Purpose – Part 3

Don’t Worry, Be Happy?

After reading a few of these we’d enjoy hearing from you (as a comment to this post) which of them were most supportive to you and why. We guess that other readers will enjoy your insights as well.

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Why Do You Do What You Do?

Do you ever stop to think about why you do the things you do? Are you making conscious choices, or are you just retracing the same patterns of behavior you learned a long time ago. Do you think you might make better choices, or be a happier person, if you knew the reasons behind your actions?

Most people learn how to “behave” at a very young age. In fact, there is a self help book by author Robert Fulghum called All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. The point of the book is that the things we learned in kindergarten–share, play fair, clean up your own mess, etc.–are still applicable in our adult lives. Seems pretty simple, right?

Not exactly…

The problem is that, although we learned these lessons, we were never taught the reasons why these things are important. For example, instead of being asked how we feel when someone shares with us, we’re told to share or else we’ll get in trouble. Because we learned to see the world through the perception of right and wrong or good and bad, we have problems as adults identifying the values that motivate our actions and behaviors. Not knowing what we value makes us vulnerable to the fear of judgment and to acting judgmentally toward others.

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

Consciously identifying the values we hold makes it easier for us to understand where we are coming from and allows us to behave in harmony with those values.

This week, identify one thing you can do in relation to this awareness and take action. If you need support figuring out what actions you can take, click the link below.

Remember, the shortest path to a happy life is found through conscious choice.

Until next time…

Beth and Neill

To discover more about consciously identifying your core values, begin by downloading our complimentary values exercise.

Would you like to receive the entire Weekly Action Tip series? If so, we’d love to have you as part of our community! Sign Up Today

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Have you ever wanted something, tried very hard to get it, only to be let down by how quickly your motivation faded? If so, you’re not alone. Many people lose their self help motivation quickly, but there is good news. Here are 3 steps you can take immediately that will help you stand up, dust yourself off and get back the motivation you’ve lost.

Step Number One: Expand Your View

Oftentimes when we want something, we focus on particular actions to get us there. When you focus all your energy on one specific plan, and then those actions don’t produce the results you want, you’re bound to feel disappointed. And disappointment is a motivation killer.

There is an Alternative

Step Number Two: Become an Explorer

The best way we know of to deal with this kind of disappointment is to become an explorer by discovering your underlying values. What are you hoping to experience that had you want this particular thing in the first place?

Understanding the essence of your goal will give you a new perspective. No matter what happens you’ll be able to feel good about your efforts and start noticing that you’re probably closer to what you really want than you were before.

Let’s say your goal is to make $1 million. Please raise your hand if you’d like $1 million. Is your hand raised? if it is then, We suggest that it’s not really the $1 million that you want, and we can prove it.

If you couldn’t spend it would you still want a million of those little green pieces of paper?

Now let’s explore the idea of having $1 million. Figure out what you want at a core level that had you pick this goal in the first place.

Maybe you want to experience freedom. Or perhaps you’d like to be able to contribute to your family or the world in a big way. It could be that you want to feel a deep sense of satisfaction from buying your mother a new house. What ever you discover for yourself, THIS is what you really want.

This is called inspiration–and Inspiration is the best source of true and lasting self help motivation that there is. As we all know motivation is essential in accomplishing any specific goal. So the question becomes: How do you keep what inspires you about your goal in the forefront of your mind. This leads nicely to…

Step Number Three: Create A Conscious, Strategy-Free Intention Statement.

Strategy-free means there are no specific actions added to your intention statement. No timelines, no concrete results. A conscious strategy free intention will help guide you toward what you really want any help you stay motivated in the process.

So if you want it to experience freedom to do what ever you want in your life. And you’d also like to contribute to the world in a big way, and heck maybe you do want to buy your mom a big house and feel that kind of satisfaction. Then what you do is create a statement that expresses this for you.

It could sound something like: I intend to create a life where I can contribute to the world in a big way and always experience freedom and great satisfaction.

When you create a clear strategy free intention, it opens the door to a wide variety of options that you might not have been aware of otherwise.

When you have a lot options available to you, you are much less likely to become disappointed if one particular strategy doesn’t work out.

So the next time you want something, take these three steps.  Number one: Expand Your View, Number two: Become an Explorer and Number three: always Create a Conscious, strategy-free Intention statement that will keep you inspired and gently draw you forward to what you want.

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True Self-Help Motivation is Found Within

When you’re wanting  a little self help motivation, it can be confusing about where to look for it or who to listen to. Here’s a collection of TED videos on the subject that we enjoy.  And guess what, they agree with us. The best source of motivation is found within.

Tony Robbins: Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better

Tony Robbins discusses the “invisible forces” that motivate everyone’s actions — and high-fives Al Gore in the front row.

A performance from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers are invited to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes — including speakers such as Jill Bolte Taylor, Sir Ken Robinson, Hans Rosling, Al Gore and Arthur Benjamin. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, politics and the arts. Watch the Top 10 TEDTalks on TED.com.

Behavioral Economics of Intrinsic Motivation

One of the most basic questions I hear from managers is: How can I do a better job of motivating my team? Should you use a bigger carrot or a sharper stick? In Dan Pink’s new book Drive and his latest TED talk he makes the distinction between extrinsic motivators like strict schedules and large bonuses and intrinsic motivators like autonomy, mastery, and purpose. He makes the case that employees performing jobs that require more than just basic cognition, are less productive when motivated with money.

Daniel Pink on the surprising science of motivation

www.ted.com Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don’t Traditional rewards aren’t always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories — and maybe, a way forward. TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.

Let us know what you think.

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Self Help Motivation Tip of the Day

Inspiration is the best source of true and lasting motivation and motivation is essential in accomplishing any specific goal. So what’s the difference between inspiration and motivation?

Let’s say your goal is to make $1 million. We suggest that it’s not really the $1 million that’s inspiring to you. If this is true, then it’s likely you’ll give up on the million dollar goal if you are only using that idea to motivate  you.

Now on the other hand, if you delve into the idea of having $1 million to figure out what you want at a core level that had you pick this goal in the first place–what truly inspired choosing this goal–then your motivation will stay high.

This is the best way to generate inspired Self Help Motivation. Much better than tricks, techniques or systems that all to soon become Shelf Help Motivation.

Why is this true? Because what  inspired to you want the million dollars is what it can help you experience–how you can use the million dollars to make you happy–what it can help you become.

So the next time you choose a goal, get to the root of why you want it before you start figuring out how you’re going to get it.

For more about this, see our series on how you can: Turn Your Limiting Beliefs Into Powerful Self Help Motivation

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Are Your Self-Help, Personal or Professional Goals Stuck in a Rut?

Have you ever done a self help program–experienced that surge of inspiration in the beginning–then lost motivation for your initial self help goal? If so, you may want rediscover the power of connecting with your higher purpose.

Many times we find ourselves so caught up in the circumstances of our life that it’s easy to focus solely on the problems at hand. We tend to approach life as a series of short-term goals designed take care of our most immediate needs. And while we may keep our long-range goals in mind in the process, the hustle and bustle of all of this activity can easily end up dragging us into an “in order to” rut.

In Order To. . .

• resolve a problem

• satisfy an immediate desire

• accomplish a short-term objective

• make progress toward a long-term objective

Is Too Much Activity Digging You into a Motivation Rut?

While these are all great strategies “in order to” provide a certain level of progress and accomplishment, at the same time focusing so closely on the immediate circumstances of our life and the pressing goals we’ve set for ourselves can lead to sort of myopia. A nearsightedness that disconnects us from the deeper and more profound sense of calling and purpose in our life.

We can just as easily get into an “in order to” rut with our personal development work or our various self help programs.

The surest sign this happening is a loss of enthusiasm about what you’re doing. It’s especially hard to keep-on keeping-on in any sort of self help regimen when you’ve started feeling a sense of apathy, boredom, and drudgery about doing the work.

What’s the Best Way to Get Out Of a “No Motivation” Rut?

If you find you’ve lost a sense of motivation in any area of your life, whether a self development course, or working toward one of your personal or professional goals, it’s time to take stock of how connected you are with your deeper sense of purpose in life.

For us, this usually involves getting reconnected with what we hold as most deeply valuable in life. This requires that we turn our attention again and again to the principles and aspirations that give us our deepest sense of inspiration.

A few years ago we turned our attention from doing live, in-person seminars to supporting a much larger community through the internet. As many of you may already know, creating success with any online business is no small feat.

Many times during our journey we’ve found ourselves needing to pay attention to our own personal growth process. This has been the best way to support maintaining the focus we’ve needed to generate momentum in online business. Whenever we found our motivation diminishing it was vital for us to reconnect with the profoundly inspiring vision we have of helping support the creation of a world that works for everyone.

What Are You Most Passionate about Seeing Happen in the World?

Helping people learn how to turn their attention from suffering and toward creating more vitality, success, and happiness in their lives is one way that we express our own sense of higher purpose. This vision is a deep well of inspiration we are able to draw from whenever we need to replenish our sense of motivation.

In any moment that you are not connected to your sense of higher purpose–your commitment to contributing to something larger than yourself–it’s not surprising that you might find yourself lacking the motivation you need to carry on, whether it’s to complete some self help program or attain any of your personal or professional goals.

So What’s the Short Version of This Message?

The best source of self help motivation available for supporting your ability to keep-on keeping-on is to reconnect with living life in support of something inspiring–your higher purpose.

Until next time…

With great love and a commitment to your success,
Beth & Neill

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Overcoming the Roadblocks on Your Way to Success!

In part one of this post, and we talked about how the following cycle saps your motivation:

Limiting Beliefs -> Thoughts -> Actions -> Results -> Limiting Beliefs

We’ll pick up where we left off, explaining how you can discover the gifts offered by a painful past.

As young children we crafted each of our limiting beliefs as an attempt to satisfy some need we had that was very important to us in that moment. Unfortunately, limiting beliefs are almost always geared toward the negative goals of protecting us from perceived danger or disappointment. And they are rather “poorly designed” in that they protect something that we value, but at the cost of other values of equal importance.

“Every small change at the root level of belief will produce amazing changes in behavior and performance.” ~ Harry Alder

Understanding Allows Conscious Interpretation and New Possibilities

The good news is that we can lean to use a limiting belief to discover all of the values we hold as deeply important to us. And knowing clearly what we value can provide us with our deepest sources of inspiration and motivation.

In this way, every limiting belief holds within it a new possibility of personal motivation waiting to be exposed. Here’s a simple process you can use to discover the limiting beliefs that my be sapping your energy. Using this process you can discover a wellspring of self help motivation that lives deep within you.

The process begins by asking yourself these five questions:

1. What do you value that is lacking in the current situation–what’s missing?
2. What do I believe that is causing the absence of what I value?
3. What is the belief protecting me from?
4. What else do I value that this belief costs me?
5. What would I need to believe in order to experience everything I value?
   (My new, Empowering Belief.)

Answering this last question identifies a belief that will replace the old one. It is the compelling image of your future that draws you like a magnet to the life you want to create. It is the source of inspiration and motivation that will move you into action

Engineering Your Own Motivation

Let’s apply these questions to the following example. Let’s say you notice you’re feeling nervous about asking for a raise, so you STOP and answer the questions. Your answers may be:

1. Since I’m feeling nervous I may be missing a sense of self confidence.
2. A belief that may cause my lack of self confidence may be something like “I’m not good enough.” (How could you feel self confident with this belief?)
3. This belief may be protecting me from being disappointed.
   (You may have created this belief as a child when your parents did not pay as much attention to you as you hoped. The belief was designed to protect you from experiencing disappointment about not receiving the appreciation or recognition you want.)
4. The belief may prevent me from experiencing the disappointment of being turned down for a raise. But it also ensures that I will not receive the appreciation or recognition I want.
5. “I am worthy of appreciation and recognition. My sense of confidence and self worth does not depend on other people’s opinions.”

Once you’ve identified the new belief that better serves all of your needs, it’s time to start taking the actions that will help you experience the truth of this new belief. Identify specific actions you can take right away that will reinforce a new and empowering cycle:

Empowering Beliefs -> Thoughts -> Actions -> Results -> Empowering Beliefs.

Success Breeds Success

As often as possible, reinforce the cycle by creating your future from a compelling image of what success and happiness means to you. Your successes with the process will provide you with the motivation you need to continue reprogramming your limiting beliefs

Each time you practice this process, it will help you program an empowering new belief into your mind. As you continue identifying these new beliefs and the actions needed to experience them, you will develop fresh skills for navigating around whatever roadblocks may stand between you and your success.

If you’re ready to learn more down-to-earth tactics for creating the kind of self help motivation you want, please don’t leave without signing up for our weekly action tips series.  Use the sign-up box in the upper right corner of the page.

Until next time…

With great love and a commitment to your success,

Beth & Neill

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Are You Hitting Roadblocks on the Way to Success?

How many roadblocks have you hit on your way to success and happiness? If you’re like most people, the number one obstacle is your own limiting beliefs. When you encounter these obstacles you have two choices, give up or find the self help assistance and motivation you need to overcome them.

If you choose to seek support, then the question becomes, “What kind of limiting beliefs do I have that are preventing my success and happiness?” The first step to answering this question is to begin paying attention to your thinking.

Do you ever hear yourself saying things–silently or out loud–such as: I’m not smart enough, good enough, or capable enough to achieve the results I want? If so, you’ll probably end up stuck in the following cycle:

Limiting Beliefs -> Thoughts -> Actions -> Results -> Limiting Beliefs

Thoughts such as these cause internal anxiety, anxiety creates stress, and stress causes fatigue. Stop and think about this. When you’re tired, do you have the energy to get out there and do what it takes to generate the results you want? For most of us the only thing this pattern creates is a sense of frustration and hopelessness. Hardly the kind of inspiration you need to break the cycle.

How Do You Create the Motivation Needed to Turn Limiting Beliefs Around?

To begin with, it’s useful to realize what creates this pattern. As children, it was likely we developed limiting beliefs each time we had an experience that we didn’t enjoy. The greater the degree of our displeasure, the greater the power of our limiting belief.

This happened because we took those experiences and made them mean something about ourselves and the world. Then we began repeatedly looking at our world through the filter of that meaning.

“To grow, you must be willing to let your present and future be totally unlike your past. Your history is not your destiny.” ~ Alan Cohen

Your Future Does Not Have to be Created from Your Past

Now that you have some idea how the process began, how do you create the self help motivation you need to turn this pattern around? You begin by creating an image of your future that is more compelling than the image of your past.

To do this effectively you need to get to the core of your desire to create a successful life. What do success and happiness mean to you? What are the most important things you’d like to experience as the result of being successful? What will change about your experience of being you when you become successful? Clearly understanding your answers to these questions is the surest way out of living in the past and moving toward the future you truly want.

Discover the Gifts Offered by a Painful Past

Looking toward your future can actually open you to the possibility of discovering the gifts offered by these painful beliefs from your past. It’s important to learn to recognize when they are influencing your thoughts and actions. Then you can begin to identify the nature of the belief and the needs it was designed to protect and serve when you created it.

From this moment on, every time something happens and you feel uncomfortable in any way, STOP–use these feelings as an alarm. Explore them to discover the limiting belief that is generating the feelings, and what the belief is attempting to offer you.

Being successful with this discovery process requires an ability to get to the root cause of your feelings. Bringing this information into the light of consciousness is necessary if you wish to connect with the important message your feelings are trying to communicate.

In our next post we’ll show you a step-by-step process for identifying your limiting beliefs, the gifts they offer you, and specific actions you can take to experience more of the success and happiness you want. Using this process will help you overcome whatever roadblocks may lie on your path and ensure that you never again lack the self help motivation you need.

Until next time…

With great love and a commitment to your success,
Beth & Neill

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Inspiration = Self Help Motivation

Can you recall a time when you really “set your mind” to something, decided you were definitely going to do it, and somehow never followed through and completed it? You probably experienced some frustration and disappointment in yourself.

Losing motivation is something that can interfere with a person’s ability to stick with something and see it through.

Understanding what you truly value–what inspires you–is critical if you want to stay motivated and take consistent actions to change your life for the better.

Personal values refer to what is most valuable to you, things or ideas that are deeply meaningful–central to your entire life. These personal values are really what inspire you and move you foreword.

“You can have anything you want if you want it deeply enough. You must want it with an exuberance that erupts through the skin and joins the energy that created the world.” ~Sheila Graham

Once you decide that you want something, make a commitment, move forward toward getting it and you find yourself losing motivationl, take time to re-linspire yourselfl. Think about what exactly it is that you value, that had you want this thing in the first place-then get back in action!

To quote Hayden Tompkins over at Through The Illusion
“The answers we seek, truly, start with the right questions.”

What do you want and what’s inspiring those desires?

with love,
Beth and Neill

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