Inspiraelevation

The time is always now

July 26th, 2015

Now is important

for all we know, now may be all that we have.

It is so easy to push things off, to say I will but later.

It is so easy to hesitate, to deviate, to procrastinate.

One of the greatest enemies to success is procrastination.

It is the fruit of laziness, desire not yet full.

Though many will not admit it procrastination is just sloth in a fancy shroud.

Desire pushes.

Sloth pulls.

When desire is full one acts with immediacy out of necessity so that he or she may not lose an opportunity.

A soul full must be emptied to make room for more.

Procrastination has a steep penalty.

If anything I have learned, I have learned thus much, you pay the price today for the achievement you desire tomorrow.

Later never comes.

The flower that blooms too late

it often meets a dire fate

instead of blossoms that burst in spring

It has to weather what fall may bring

cold, snow, frost and dew

push against that flower in bloom

for when the time for flowering has past

success is relegated to chance

It will take everything that little flower has

to do all it can do to last

The time is always now

Procrastination is an ugly habit

That undermines all talent, skill, and gift that lies within.

If you find yourself putting things off until later you must question your desire.

Ask yourself, how much do I want this?

How important is this to me?

Do I want this at all?

If your intention is to continuously put a thing off until later it could be that it’s not very important to you or completely unnecessary.

If you have no intention of acting in the present

It stands to reason you may never do it at all.

All tomorrows will turn into today’s.
Belief

July 24th, 2015

Everyone has a belief system, a set of principles that govern their lives.

“Belief as defined by the great spiritual teachers, is not belief in any particular school, philosophy, or religion but the attitude of mind that forms the basis of one’s life.” (Allen 117).

It is the life you live and the actions that you carry out that determine your system of belief.

There are many that subscribe to varied schools of thought, disciplines, or faith. However, their practice is misaligned, and yet they wonder why life is wrought which such difficulty.

One cannot hold two opposing beliefs at one time.

One cannot espouse to believe in justice but be unjust in their dealings.

One cannot espouse love and yet hate even a few.

One cannot espouse optimism but yet demonstrate a pessimistic view of the world.

These are opposing factors that just do not align.

“The nature of the law that governs the mind is such that it’s absolutely impossible for anyone to believe in two opposing conditions at the same time.Everyone fundamentally believes in one or the other of these opposites-never-in both and their daily conduct indicates which side of the fence they’re on” (Allen 112)

If you find your life wrought with conflict, chaos, and misalignment perhaps there is a need to look deep into oneself to seek greater understanding of what one believes.

“Those who declare a belief in higher consciousness and still choose to live in lust and indulgence, or in the spirit of hostility and condemnation are self-deceived. They don’t really believe in higher consciousness; they believe only in their own small, egoic selves. What we cling to, we believe; what we practice, we believe.” (Allen 115)

Many are confused in this principle.

With the profession of mouth and a staunch mindset, many foreswear to believe that they are steadfast in their beliefs.

Such believe with their minds but not with their hearts.

This is the essential difference.

” …There are two entirely distinct kinds of beliefs, namely head-belief and heart belief. Those who believe with their hearts in all things good will love and live in them, and those who believe in things that are toxic and selfish will love and cling to them.” (Allen 119)

“From the heart flow the issues of life .”

Mind belief may guide heart belief. Heart belief will always be the source of action.

Do a self-check up today.

Check to see if the actions that you committed to today align with what you say you believe.

If you say you believe in peace, how did you contribute to making the world more peaceful today.

Did you participate in actions that would bring about peace or strife?

If you say you believe in justice how did you go about bringing justice today.

How have you espoused and attitude toward building a more just world today?

Did you find yourself spending more time dwelling on injustice, promoting injustice, or doing those things antithetical to being just.

If you say, you believe in benevolence, how benevolent were you today.

Were you generous with you time, your giving, with your patience, with your love or did you fall short?

If you say you are loving, how did you express your love today.

If you say you live by positivity, how much positivity did you share today.

If you are about growing others and building up others, how much building did you do today.

Are your actions congruent with your beliefs, if not maybe its time for a change, a time to be real with yourself and recommit to doing those things, which you say you represent?

There is a parable concerning a man stranded on a road.

There happened to be many passersby’s on this path. Of those passerby’s were a few men known to be good and pious (men of faith) However, in their goodness and piety they passed by this man in dire need.

It was one who stopped to assist.

This one was deemed to be the lesser in spirit and piety at least by others. However, the heart of this man was filled with love. His heart would not let him pass a man in need.

What we had here was a matter of head belief versus heart belief. The other men good by name were poor in spirit.

“They no doubt held very strongly to the theological doctrines of their fathers- that was their intellectual belief- but in their hearts they did not believe in mercy and so lived and acted accordingly.” The Good Samaritan, on the other hand, may or may not have had any theological beliefs, but in his heart he believed in mercy and acted accordingly” (Allen)

You will undoubtedly behave according to what you feel in your heart.

“A tree is known by the fruit it bears.” – Luke 6: 43-45

If you want to change the fruit, you must address the root.

Allen, James. As We Think So We Are. Oregon, Hillsboro; Atria Books. Print.
formula: Action

July 20th, 2015
True failure is impossible.

Everyone will experience something that looks like a failure at some time in their life.

If not watched those failures can gradually become associated with feelings of fear.

Having an emotional experience following failure is inevitable.

” Everything that happens in your life affects you emotionally in some way. Everything that affects you makes you happy or sad, motivated or unmotivated, loving or angry, fearful or confident. Nothing is neutral” (Tracy)

However, It becomes essential that the emotional response is temporary and does not develop into full-fledged fear.

Fear of failure impedes desire and thus, slows progress

One of the primary ways to ensure that fear grows is to constantly dwell on that failure. Constant processing or replaying of these events send cues to the brain reminding one of the pain and hurt. Those connected memories trigger one to shield against the reoccurrence of the same injury. Essentially, the mind works to protect the person from possibly failing again. In actuality, the mind is producing a state of stasis.

This is antithetical to what one needs to succeed

Don’t be discouraged about feeling some type of way about a failure. It is not abnormal for one to desire to protect oneself from pain, as it is a natural inclination.

However, this is an inclination one must try to fight when dealing with trying something new and challenging, especially when the feelings of fear are attached to past failures. In one’s caution, paranoia can set in and thus increase the likelihood of repeating past mistakes.

That is the power of the mind

The truth is that there is no way outcome, in lieu of past events, be predicted with 100% accuracy. For this to happen, that would require an environmental reference point that is exact in all factors both externally and internally. But, the world is always evolving as are you. No two situations are ever the same, and there will never be an outcome that can be precisely replicated.

There will always be changes that can be made to effect a different outcome

Even the smallest change can change the outcome.

How to take Action?
1. Avoid Negative thoughts
Negative thoughts that feed feelings of failure further work to impede one’s progress

One must be in a position to separate him or herself from the thoughts of past mistakes to gain a more objective outlook.

2. Develop possibility-thinking.

Adopt an I can attitude to look beyond the pain that connects with past failure.

View the pain as a necessary part of growth.

3. It takes work

We are programmed to believe that an individual should avoid pain at all cost.

We are taught to think that pain is negative.

However, the athlete knows that he or she must tear down muscles before it can be strengthened.

The athlete learns this through practice, as practice and repetitive results bring about learned behavior.

No pain no gain.

Once one can disconnect the experience from pain, one can look at the past failure to learn from mistakes.

A victory energizes and stimulates action. Victories awaken warm and positive feelings that bring about euphoria through the release of endorphins, and this moves people to want to feel more of the same.

Positivism is a catalyst.

Formula Action:

Recreate the energy cycle that fed past success or that is sure is to fuel new successes.

Invest in positivity, motivational videos, webinars on success, books on succeeding.

Positivity increases energy stores empowers one to work toward committed changed

Get motivated and work!

It is the motivated person who gets back up goes back out there and becomes successful.
The most fertile soil

July 18th, 2015

The mind is the most fertile soil.

One seed yields an abundant crop of some ten, twenty, thirty percent, or more.

You must take extra care of your garden.

Every day, every hour, every minute, and every second we are planting and watering.

Roots take hold quickly.

Before you know it you have a field

Errant thoughts give yield to a field of weeds; stifling, strong, and wild.

Rich, directed thoughts yield to fields of flowers; aromatic, pleasant, vibrant, and pleasing.

“An action is the perfection and publication of thought.”(Emerson P. 34)

Repeated action becomes habit until soldered in iron, difficult to break.

“Habits are formed by the repetition of particular acts. They are strengthened by an increase in the number of repeated acts. Habits are also weakened or broken, and contrary habits are formed by the repetition of contrary acts.”

― Mortimer J. Adler

Ingrained habits signify the presence of roots that dig deep with little release.

“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”
― Samuel Johnson

Many of the things we learned, were developed without our permission.

“Learning means that you take inputs from your environment and encode them into your long-term memory.” (University of Michigan)

Behavioral patterns are the result of mere observances; materials taken in through our five senses.

“Because your brain uses information about sights, sounds, textures, smells, tastes, and movement in an organized way, you assign meaning to your sensory experiences, and you know how to respond and behave accordingly. For most of us, sensory integration occurs without conscious thought or effort.” – Family Education

Every time you sit down to watch a movie, listen to a song, partake in a conversation, or read a book you are planting seeds.

What goes in will come out.

You cannot unsee what you have seen.

You cannot un-hear what you have heard

Once thought is planted expect a harvest of some kind

The thing is,

We never quite know when it will come time to reap the harvest.

Vigilance is crucial.

“An over-indulgence of anything, even something as pure as water, can intoxicate.”
― Criss Jami

Your input has to have an outlet

“Reality is a projection of your thoughts or the things you habitually think about. Your entire life and everything in it is a result of your belief system coupled with your thoughts. The feelings and emotions you have, cement this in your mind, and the illusion of all of this combined is what you see as your reality on a moment-to-moment and day-to-day basis.”
― Stephen Richards, Your Wishes Fulfilled: Volume 1: Theory

You can replace negative thoughts or projections with positive ones.

“A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit.”
― Desiderius Erasmus

For the one who has not learned to master self completely, or has become overrun by an errant thought, the tongue will always be his or her downfall.

An individual will never be able to control output in the event of system overload when human tolerance has reached its boiling point.

Before one ever reaches the point of no return one can work diligently to prevent such responses.

He or she must commit to weeding the garden on a daily basis.

Work diligently to pull the seed up by the root.

Weeding the garden is no easy task.

It takes a lot of time.

One thing is sure, soil cannot prune itself

You must handle the upkeep

Emerson, Ralph. Nature. Boston: Archive Classics,1986. Print.

Adler, Mortimer. Habits are formed by repetition of particular acts. (n.d). Retrieved from

http://izquotes.com/quote/323106

Desiderius Erasmus quote. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.iwise.com/ykS3t

What is Sensory Integration. Family education.com (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://school.familyeducation.com/sensory-integration/parenting/56288.html

Quotes about manifesting our deepest desires. (n.d). Retrieved from

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/manifesting-our-deepest-desires.

University of Michigan. (2014). How do you Learn? Web. https://www.lsa.umich.edu/advising/academicsupport/strategiesforsuccess/howdoyoulearn
Uncovering the secrets of luck

July 16th, 2015

Four leaf clovers, horseshoes, rabbit’s foot, and charms are objects that people attach significance to as dispensers of good.

Good that happens by happenstance with no contributing force other than the possession of said item.

They are what most define as lucky or determinants of luck.

Here’s the real deal

98% of achievement is due to dedicated focus and 2% to a contribution of other factors such as place, position, promotion, and connects.

Place, position, promotion, and connects give rise to opportunities.

Dedicated focus and hard work prepare you.

The difference

Chance is merely an opportunity.

Chance is usually the result of favor or effort.

One either finds him or herself in an opportunistic position or a non-opportunistic position.

You must recognize an opportunity when you see it.

One can either create his or her opportunities (chances) or deal with whatever befalls his or her lot.

You hold the cards it is up to you how you play them or if you choose to keep them.

Luck is the cloak of preparation.

It may appear random, but it is the result of prior efforts.
Thus, luck is, being given the chance (opportunity), because of place, position, promotion, and connects to use your hard work.

Achievement ultimately results when preparation, driven by perspiration, meets opportunity

.

Chance is not the same as luck.

It may seem as if certain people have all the opportunities.

The fact that only certain people have all the possibilities is only partially correct.

They have found favor because they are in the right place at the right time, they know someone, or they know how to promote themselves positively.

Thus, they are given chance after chance or have created a string of chances to prove themselves.

It may seem as if certain people have all the success

There are underlying factors which many never see.

That is the result of preparation.

The opportunity may arise for you to become great.

It will be your groundwork that will propel success after success.

None of this results from the possession of a rabbit’s foot, four-leaf clover, horseshoe, or charm.

If you have not managed to find favor or seem unlucky in your pursuits, it may be due to lack of opportunity.

Perhaps, you have not been given a chance, you are not in the right place, you don’t know the right people, or you don’t know how to promote yourself.

You can change that.

Maybe, you lack preparation.

Maybe, you are not prepared to take the chance when it comes knocking at your door.

Thus, you are unlucky or rather time is unfavorable to you.

You can change also change this.

You can increase your favor (luck)

Increase your preparation.

increase your opportunities, (go to the right places, learn to promote yourself, meet new people)

If you are not in a place where you shine or have others to help you shine, you must create opportunities for you to shine.

It may not come immediately.

Given enough time it will.

Once given the opportunity to shine; shine.

If you fail to shine, and you are sure you have adequately prepared, now that you got your foot in the door don’t give up.

Create more and more opportunities and take the one’s you are given.

If you are prepared, increase your favor, and increase your opportunities ultimately you will be successful or as many may coin it (lucky)