Inspiration


Messages from the Masters
Who's the Brains Behind Your Operation? by Brad Yates

So you read the books and articles...you listen to the tapes...you attend the seminars...and you know all kinds of great information on how to move your life into high gear and attain fabulous success.

Here's the question: Are you doing it? Are you doing what it takes to get everything you want on a daily basis? It's a simple matter of choosing one set of actions over another, right? So, if you still find yourself stuck, it's time to start asking yourself who's running the show.

This may be a new idea to you, but around eighty to ninety percent of your actions are unconscious, or habitual. The thoughts that control these actions - that choose for us what we will do - are unconscious - programmed over the years and often deeply ingrained. The famous quotes about "as within, so without" and "as a man thinketh, so is he" have a lot of truth to them. These proverbs and more suggest the power of one's thoughts on how one's life is shaped. If you can change your thoughts, you can change your life. But most of these thoughts are so deep that they are rarely changed simply by consciously deciding to do so.

Here's a little experiment: Fold your arms in front of you. Now, look to see if your left arm is over your right, or vice versa. Did you consciously decide to put them that way, or did it happen automatically? In all the workshops I've done, I've yet to meet anyone who did this consciously. Now - try to fold them the other way. For most, this feels rather awkward. I've even seen folks who just couldn't do it. Why is that? Because over the years your body/mind has learned which way is more comfortable, and has stuck with that. So, without you having to waste any precious time thinking about it, it acts out of habit. This is a necessary function - if we didn't learn to do most of our behaviors habitually, we'd never get anywhere. Imagine having to think through the process of putting one foot in front of the other each time you wanted to walk across the room...!

Just for fun, let's say that you fold your arms right over left. And let's say you decided, come January First, to start folding your left arm over your right...because it is a well-known fact (one that is mentioned in several self-help books and seminars) that left-over-right people make more money, have more friends, shoot in the low sixties on the golf course and have the body of an athletic eighteen year old. So - you consciously decide that, from now on, you are a left-over-right person - and state this in affirmations. If over the course of a day you fold your arms ten to twenty times, how many of those times do you think you will remember to do left over right? Truth is, not many...maybe a couple at best. So, after awhile (say, by January Second) you say, "Well, I'm a right-over-left kind of person - that's just the way I am." And, that's okay. But is it what you want...?

You can become a left-over-right success - but you need to go to the source. Rather than giving up on whatever advice you have learned and looking for a "better" technique for becoming successful, find out what's stopping you. If switching to left-over-right has worked for others, it might well work for you, but the subconscious mind is defending the parameters of your comfort zone - of what it believes is safe. There are learned reasons for putting right over left - beliefs that this is what you should do. But most of these beliefs which control our actions are based on questionable information, and can be changed. Hypnosis, energy therapies and many other techniques taught on mind development exist to modify what goes on in the part of your mind that is, for better or for worse, controlling your life. Change your thoughts...and you change your life. Here's to you thinking successful thoughts - at a much deeper level!

Brad Yates, C.Ht. specializes in cutting-edge mind/body techniques for the enhancement of motivation and the removal of internal roadblocks to success - thus making the journey easier, quicker and more enjoyable. Learn more at www.bradyates.net.

Provided courtesy of  Jim Rohn International