Posts Tagged ‘affirmations’
Friday, June 17th, 2011
We have talked in previous articles about the importance of having a clearly defined vision—identifying what you truly want and sincerely desire. We have also discussed that in addition to a clearly defined vision, you also need to define your core values, which help you choose and commit to what you believe in and how you want to be known.
The next critical step is to develop the success attitudes needed to help you realize your vision. Your attitudes play a critical role in your success. Your belief in yourself and your ability to achieve the results you desire will influence the way you deal with others. A negative attitude about yourself and your worth or about the worth of others will be like an anchor holding you back from success. A positive attitude becomes an internal motor that will drive you to accomplishment. Positive attitudes are synonymous with high self-esteem, and both are developed as a result of values and beliefs that recognize the worth of self and others. People who feel good about themselves produce better results.
Behavioral scientists have long realized that our behavior is linked closely with our attitudes and that if we want to improve behavior and outcomes, we have to improve the way we think. If you are to implement new ideas, new plans, and visions for excellence, you have to change attitudes and improve thinking. New thinking won’t work with old attitudes, and new results won’t work with old thinking.
The way you think, your attitudes, are a result of the events you have experienced thus far in your life and how you feel about those events and their outcomes. Your perceptions of yourself, of others, of your worth, and the worth of others are also a result of your past experiences.
The key to developing stronger success attitudes is twofold. First, recognize that your attitudes have been developed over time, and they can be changed or developed to be more conducive to your success and desired outcomes. You are 100% in control of developing your attitudes of success. Second, realize that any meaningful and lasting change must occur over a period of time and evolve from conscious, daily input of positive and growth-oriented ideas. Success attitudes result from repetitive and positive input over a period of time. Develop constant reminders, which will help you keep your vision and your strengths in clear focus. These reminders have the capability of exciting you when obstacles seem insurmountable, as well as helping you feel good about yourself when moments of self-doubt creep into your thinking.
One of the most common forms of successful attitude reinforcement is the regular use of affirmations. An affirmation is telling yourself in times of doubt that which you know to be true other times. More specifically, an affirmation is a positive statement, which describes the person that you want to become. The power of affirmations can best be understood when we realize that our mind doesn’t know the difference between real and imagined. Affirmations help you utilize this phenomenon to your advantage. By continuously imaging yourself succeeding or winning, your positive belief system is reinforced and you can become anything you choose!
Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in helping businesses and individuals achieve high levels of excellence and success. Learn how at www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.
Tags: affirmations, Attitudes, new thinking, old thinking, positive attitudes, Success, success attitudes, Values, Vision
Posted in Attitudes, Vision | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
There continues to be a great deal of focus on organizational culture and environment. Whether you are focusing on that issue for the first time or whether you are looking at changing or improving an existing culture, it may be wise to remember that, like the long journey which begins with one step, an organizational culture is the cumulative effect of individual attitudes, values, and standards. Changing or improving the culture begins with a focus on the individual.
 How you genuinely feel about yourself, your worth, and the worth of others greatly influences everything you do and the results you achieve. How the people in your organization feel about themselves, their worth, and the worth of others will affect their achievements and the culture of the organization. Goal setting is a process that creates an environment in which people want to succeed and are recognized and rewarded for achievement. Another tool that can positively influence growth is affirmations. An affirmation is a statement that reinforces what you believe to be true. You use affirmations every day, both in thought and conversation. These are often ideas you have taken from some other source—quotations, scripture, and family sayings—which reinforce your values.
Such borrowed expressions only become effective affirmations when they correspond with your value system and internal beliefs. Once accepted and internalized, they lose their borrowed qualities and become part of you. The power of affirmations can be best recognized when we realize that the mind doesn’t know the difference between real and imagined. For example, suppose late at night, you imagine there is a prowler in your home. Are you less frightened than if you knew there was a prowler in your home? Certainly not. You are afraid because you imagine a fearful situation.
The use of affirmations to reinforce growth and improve conditions is an application of the same principle. Through the use of affirmations, you begin to imagine that you possess those qualities and skills that you want to develop more. You begin to visualize yourself acting and behaving in a manner consistent with your goals. As your new image becomes clearer, the behavior is easier. The use of affirmations is also an effective management tool. By affirming certain characteristics and behaviors and helping others to develop affirmations, you can enhance growth and development throughout the organization.
Affirmations should have the following qualities: they should be positive, stated in the first person singular, should be within the realm of capacity to believe, and should be directly related to your goals. Affirmations should also employ the power of spaced repetition. By repeating affirmations over and over, day after day, these positive thoughts begin to affect the subconscious mind and influence behavior. If, at first, affirmations seem difficult to compose and use daily, remember that you are developing a new habit. Once you see and feel the results that follow the repeated use of affirmations, you will want to use the tool with others. Affirmations help use to see others and ourselves not as we are but as we can become.
Create a culture in your organization in which failure is viewed as an opportunity to learn and critical to innovation and discovery. Recognize and reward new ideas, attempts to improve something, and even failure when it results in trying something new or an attempt to improve a process. Encourage innovation and utilize the goal setting process to get people to set stretch goals and brainstorm innovative solutions. It stimulates creativity, broadens options, and produces better decisions by looking at many alternatives and selecting the best.
Goethe said, “Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and help them to become what they’re capable of being.”
Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in business and management consulting, strategic planning, leadership development, executive coaching, and youth leadership. For more information visit http://www.resourceassociatescorp.com/ or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.
Tags: affirmations, culture, goal setting, Goethe, Leadership, RAC, Resource Associates Corporation, Success
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Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
The phrase you ‘create your own reality’ is something that many new age folks talk about, but what does it really mean, and how does it apply to you?
‘Creating your own reality’ is your perception of how you view your world, how you interact with your world, and how you interact with yourself and others. Perception is not limited to visually seeing something, it is not limited to your thought processes, and it is not limited to your emotions. Perception is all encompassing. What you communicate and the energy you give off based on your beliefs, your emotions, and your behaviors determines what kind of life experiences you have. Your perception of your reality is literally a mirror. At any given moment, your external world and behaviors perfectly mirror your inner consciousness.
When you get right down to it, there is no one more strong or more in control of you than you. As a society we have been practicing, preaching, and implementing these philosophies for an incredibly long time. The challenge is we often forget and then fail to implement. It is impossible to feel badly about yourself without thinking badly about yourself. The only thing that can keep you from enjoying everything you were meant to be and do is thought. Simple but powerful thought. Thinking is an awesome capability, and it can be used either as a tool or a weapon against ourselves.
A lot of people might say their lives or businesses aren’t functioning very well but they can’t identify what is wrong. The root cause of the problem is usually our own thought process. If you fall into this category, here is a suggestion. Buy a notebook that can fit into your briefcase, jacket, purse, whatever is convenient but easily and frequently accessible. For thirty days jot down every single thought you have had about yourself—expressed or unexpressed. At the end of the month, read what you have jotted down and I guarantee you will be inspired to change. By completing this exercise, you will see your negative thoughts fall into specific categories and these identified categories will become the focused areas in which you can commit to improve. After those categories have been identified, there is a proven process that can help you define and select the best solutions and action steps.
Do you know what the number 1440 represents? 1440 represents the number of minutes in a given day. This is the number of opportunities we have to create a positive, productive, and goal-oriented reality or a negative reality. Affirmations are a positive tool to help reinforce a positive reality and many people committed to affirmations typically read or say them 2/3 times a day for about 5 minutes. That equates to about 15 minutes of purposeful and positive input into your brain. How are you managing the remaining 1425 minutes in your day? How are you guaranteeing you are reflecting the positive? Your own mental space can be a castle or a cage, and you have the power to decide which it will be.
As you build your mental castle watch out for cages imposed by allowing other people’s agendas and issues in to your life. We attract this “stuff” into our lives every day. While we certainly learn from other people’s “stuff,” when we get deeply involved with another person’s agenda or issue watch out. It can become very easy for us to adopt and claim another individuals “stuff” for our own. Your mind is the place where you store your success oriented attitudes and corresponding behaviors. Your meaning of life, your purpose, and your success are based on those thoughts. When you have to move or expand your mind to input more good “stuff” that is a good thing. Protect your good “stuff” and don’t let anyone tell you you are off purpose or that your stuff is not the right stuff! Your mind is a place to store all your stuff, but the question really is do you have the right stuff stored? The point being is that your stuff, your attitude, and behaviors, need to always be yours. We achieve more results when we are paying attention to our own stuff! If we let others’ stuff get in the way we hinder our results personally and professionally.
Create within your mind your reality and the reflection you want to see. Believe in yourself. Believe in your ability and business acumen. You have value. You have a set of experiences that no one else has. Have confidence in yourself and commit to be the best you can be!
Tags: 1440, affirmations, best you can be, create, interact, perception, Personal Development, Power within, reality, thought process
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