Affirmations: Positive Actions Begin With Positive Thoughts

By Kale Mcclelland

Success is important to everyone. Many people have specific goals for success that they are working towards or have already accomplished. Success can look different to different people. Some people's definition of success requires a lot of hard work and commitment. No matter how you view success, affirmations can be a useful tool to attain what you want.

Affirmations are our own personal statements that will guide us in our everyday lives. They serve as our goal to success. You can see your improvements and failures by assessing your affirmations. It is important that you list down your affirmations. Post it in an area where you can always see it.

Experts advise you to meditate on and repeat your affirmations daily for at least forty days. This process implants the affirmations in your mind, makes them a habit and will have a positive effect on your daily thinking. Repeating affirmations is retraining your mind to think differently much the same as you did in school. It takes time and repetition before affecting your life.

If you want to be successful, you need to think positive. Positive thinking will help you obtain your goals. When you are positive, it is easier to go through the rough patches in life. If you start thinking negatively, you will probably give up on reaching your goals. That is not the way to be successful. You will not reach your goals.

If you want to achieve success, you won't get there unless you are good at goal setting. You can set short term goals, medium term goals, and long term goals. Short term goals are those that you can expect to attain in a few week. Long term goals are goals that you can attain over the course of a few years or even a lifetime. Medium term goals fall in between those two. Set goals and measure your progress.

It does not matter what kinds of statements you use as affirmations. There are lists of them online if you have trouble thinking of some on your own. The important thing to remember is that you need statements that mean something to you. You should also have a few moments each day where you can meditate on the statement that you are repeating. If you follow these steps, success will not be far away.

Nobody sets out to be a failure, everyone desires to be successful. Everyone has their own idea of success and how to achieve it. Affirmations for success can be used to guide you towards a positive experience. The most important key to success is positive thinking. People that think positively, act positively and achieve positive results. Goal setting is another important skill to learn when you want to be successful. You should set both long and short term goals in order to measure your progress. The process of affirming your self worth, thinking positively, and setting goals should lead you to success very shortly.

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Positive Thought For Success

By Martin Forshaw

I have decided to write this article as I believe that many people could benefit if they familiarise themselves with the power of positive thinking. I strongly believe that by creating the right mindset (a positive mindset) you will see better results for whatever it is you want to achieve.

I would firstly like to give you some working examples whereby positive thinking has significantly helped me achieve results in my personal and professional life. Firstly, whilst at university, I was very often required to give presentations and I was delivering a minimum of 5 per week (only for one semester). I suffered from a lack of confidence and I was so convinced I would mess the presentations up, I inevitably did. This went on for the whole semester, until I read a book on positive thought. It taught me to block out the negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones, which I did by pretending that I knew more about the particular subject than anyone in the world. Then by thinking positively, for example I will deliver this presentation with minimal stutter and hesitation in a clear pronounced voice. I would also go over the perfect delivery in my mind to install into my mind exactly what I wanted to happen and I noticed significant results. This is because my mind was focused 100% on things that I wanted to do and not bogged down with the useless negativity.

I also play a lot of sport and I have implemented the positive thinking strategies here. When I play golf I used to stand at the tee on the first hole with lots and lots of negativity going through my head. What if I miss the ball completely? What if I slice it? What if I hook it? I now stand at the tee thinking I am going to hit the perfect shot, straight and far. Does it always happen? Nope! But it happens twice as much as it used to. It helps by picturing in your mind exactly what you want to do, I believe this way you are letting your brain know and it can go about trying to help you accomplish it. Start thinking negatively and your brain may take this as instruction as to what you want to do. I think when you say it like that, it makes the most sense.

I believe strongly in the power of positive thinking, although I really only consider myself a novice as I have only scratched the surface in terms of what else I might be able to achieve from it. Give it a try next time you are in a negative situation, you have absolutely nothing to lose.

For more information regarding the powers of positivity and free quotes to encourage positive behaviour visit http://yourhealthfiles.com/positive_thinking_phrases.html

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Happiness And Your Thoughts

By Kate Loving Shenk

Happiness: the elusive life ingredient we all seek and only find when letting go of the need to have it.

The need to be happy versus the act of being happy in the moment is the great balancing act of a life time.

Giving thanks for the beauty of all things and merging your limitless, infinite self with that beauty; seeking God/ess as energy that flows through everything brings the moment, the here and now, into focus.

A true sage believes in nothing other than the sacredness and beauty of all, rooted in the moment, in the special potential of each new day.

The true sage lives in the spontaneity of energy that encompasses the physical and spiritual worlds.

She does not defend or judge.

She accepts the way of people including restriction and strife.

If she truly believes she is part of the Power Source (which is God/ess), and if she can view her life and the lives of others impartially, and if she can allow everyone their reality without judgment, then she notices that her energy becomes more infinite.

As the true sage steps into this other dimension of power, beyond her circle of influence (friends and family) she learns to bend reality to suit her needs.

She learns that unseen forces in the form of angels, guides and ancestral wisdom is hers if she remembers to call on this power in times of need.

The spiritual challenge is to practice controlling the energy she has and to gradually discard the ones that pull her into negative states.

Now imagine you are the sage expressed here in this story!!

All good things exist and are waiting for you to wake up and declare your union with this power. Wake up in this sphere of infinite blessing! You do not need permission to be One with All!!

All you need is the simple courage to say "Include Me!!" and work on drawing more and more from this pool of infinite energy to fuel your boundless spirit!!

As you work on energizing your being with this energy, doors will open for you.

People will feel your heightened energy and will seek you out.

The ones repelled by your energy will suddenly and abruptly disappear without any need to control this on your part in the least.

Call forth the courage to own your power, the same power that flows through all things.

By facing your fear with courage, fear is automatically transcended.

Write down 10 things you want more than anything else. Imagine that you have them now. Create a battle plan that delineates your path to each goal.

Avoid all irrelevant sidetracks.

No one will ever give you permission and no one will ever thank you. You are doing what you must do, driven by the energy of inner guidance.

You must live your life like a warrior and breathe in every single ambition. If you are half hearted, the Universe will respond in fits and starts.

If you lack courage, the energy around you lacks vitality. If you falter, the Universal Law falter around you.

Perseverance allows you to hold on while Universal Spirit delivers. The way to develop dedication to your life Destiny (the why of what you are here to do), is to become fiercely dedicated to your self.

This means concentrating on your needs, concentrating on those projects that give you pleasure and taking the time to acknowledge that you are here on the earth plane to develop your own evolution and nothing else.

As you begin to see your life as a manifestation of energy, you will find that your best work is in consciousness.

This means that as you think and feel and indicate what it is you want in thought, reality is transformed around you.

Eventually you will perceive only the dimensions of your own creations which are beautiful and infuse your cells with happiness.

Link the positive energy to the Eternity you feel in your soul. Celebrate each success from day to day, however small. Each small success leads to personal triumph.

Every task is part of your heroic quest for transformation.

As you take time to honor each success, you experience power in a world where most do not.

Breathe in the fresh air near an old growth tree. Experience the diminishing physical world while the infinite world within you expands.

The choice is yours: whether to look at the world from a finite egocentric view and see mayhem and disaster and say: " This is terrible," or choose to look at it from the infinite view and see the beauty that exists in the learning process.

Negativity provides the opportunity to be more God/ess-like and heroic provided we do not resist the lessons waiting to be imparted to us.

Take a benign view of the world and detach from mankind's violent history. This allows the negativity laid down over the years to lesson, allowing you to transcend history.

The Light Force will permeate your thoughts.

Develop your own philosophy. Do not look to others for approval.

When you express your own individuality, you free yourself.

True happiness is the result!!

Kate Loving Shenk is a writer, healer, musician and the creator of the e-book called "Transform Your Nursing Career and Discover Your Calling and Destiny." Click here to find out how to order the e-book: http://www.nursingcareertransformation.com/ Check Out Kate's Blog: http://www.nursehealers.typepad.com/

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The Value of Positive Emotions and Thoughts

By Mary Ann Copson

Thinking and emotion go hand in hand. A negative mood activates negative thinking and a positive mood activates positive thinking. Does it matter if you are in a negative mood thinking negative thoughts or in a positive mood thinking positive thoughts? Is one better than the other? Is there value in thinking and feeling positive?

Emotions Have Evolutionary Value

Negative emotions have evolutionary value. Negative emotions like fear, loss, and aggression activate the flight or fight response. When we experience negative emotions, we have a feeling of aversion, which sets us on course to identify what is wrong and eliminate it. Negative emotions and thinking are associated with a survival alert that activates a reaction to fight, flight or conserve - each reaction with obvious evolutionary value.

Positive emotions also have evolutionary advantage. They "broaden and build." Experiencing positive emotions increases our survival chances because positive emotions broaden our intellectual, physical, and social resources and build reserves for us to draw upon.

Experiencing positive emotions increases our drive for exploration and discovery and provides the basis for positive social interactions. When we experience positive emotions, we become more tolerant, expansive, and creative. The more positive emotion we experience the more open to new ideas and new experiences we become.

Negative emotions narrow our perspective to focus only on the immediate threat. When negative emotions are experienced, we withdraw, freeze, or protect. As we experience positive emotions, we feel safe and engage in active, playful exploration, and discovery. Negative emotions contract and positive emotions expand.

Positive emotions form the experiential foundation for mentally healthy people. Positive emotions provide a foundation for growth and exploration and build the intellectual, social, and physical capital for further growth and development.

When we experience negative emotions, they tell us to deal with what is wrong and eliminate it. When we experience positive emotions, we start looking for the virtues of what is happening. We become constructive, generous, un-defensive, and open to seeing possibilities.

Experiencing positive emotions gives us an entirely different way of thinking from a negative mood. A negative mood makes us attentive to threats in our environment and focuses our thoughts on protection. A positive mood moves us into thoughts about growth and development, exploration and discovery.

Positive Emotions Build Resources and Capital for the Future

Positive emotions build the resources and capital that will become the basis for growth and development in years to come. When we feel and think positive, we reach outward and broaden our resources through exploration and discovery. We are more creative, think quicker, and do not succumb to premature closure or other forms of superficial intellectual processing.

Depressed people experience what is called a "downward spiral" of negative emotions. Depressed emotions call forth negative memories that feed more negative thoughts, that feed more negative memories, that feed more depressed emotions. Breaking this downward spiral is crucial to stopping the depression.

Psychologists have found what they call an upward spiral of positive emotion. Positive emotions produce a different way of thinking and acting. The thinking becomes creative and broad-minded, and the actions become adventurous and exploratory. This increased creativity and exploration results in greater expansion.

Often negative emotions and thinking are taken more seriously because traditionally they have been believed to be the evolutionary backbone of human motivation. It was believed that people are motivated primarily to avoid experiencing negative emotions and that positive motivation was merely superficial.

But positive emotions are just as real, authentic and important as negative emotions and are equally important for development, growth, and success.
Positive Emotions Lead to More Successful Interactions in the World
Experiencing more positive emotion results in more friendships, stronger love, better physical health, and more successful interactions in the world accompanied by a sense of mastery. Growth, positive development, and creative and successful interactions in the world (i.e. mental health) may have their foundations in the experience of positive emotions and thinking.

Happy people tend to view themselves subjectively as more successful in the world. Happy people remember more good events than actually happened and forget more of the bad events that happened Happy people see success as lasting, personal and pervasive and failure as impersonal, temporary and specific. Happy people may lose a bit of realism but this does not lock them into ineffective functioning. Happy people are more likely to switch tactics when involved in a task that appears to be failing. In the normal course of events, happy people rely on their tried and true positive past experiences while less happy people are more skeptical. However, when events are threatening, happy people, more readily than less happy people, switch tactics and adopt a skeptical and analytical frame of mind. Happy people seem to deal better with adversity.

Happier people are markedly more satisfied with their jobs than less happy people. Happiness increases productivity and results in higher income. Happiness also makes gainful employment and higher income more likely. Adults and children who are in a good mood select higher goals, perform better, and persist longer on a variety of tasks.

Happy People Are Healthier

Positive emotions result in better physical health. Positive emotions predict health and longevity and protect people from the wear and tear of aging. Positive emotions strongly predict who lives longer, who dies earlier, and who will become disabled. Happy people seek out and make use of more health risk information. Happy people have better health habits, lower blood pressure, and stronger immune systems than less happy people. They endure pain better and take more health and safety precautions when threatened. Positive emotions and thinking prolong life and improve health. Happy People Are More Connected With Others

Very happy people differ markedly from average people and from unhappy people in one principle way - a rich and fulfilling social life and more secure relationships. Happy people have more close and casual friends, are more likely to be married, and are more involved in group activities than unhappy people. Happy people are also more altruistic. When we are in a good mood we are less focused on ourselves, we like others more and we want to be kinder and share our good fortune with others. However, when we are experiencing negative emotions and thinking we become distrustful, turn inward and become defensive about our own needs.

Focusing on Positive Emotions

Positive emotions undo negative emotions and reduce the negative physical and psychological stresses of negative experiences. Negative emotions tell you that you are facing a win-loss encounter and need to take steps to engage with the obstacles. Positive emotions and thinking allow you to see a potential win-win situation.

Positive emotions and thinking guide you to be more expansive, tolerant, and creative and maximize the social, intellectual, and physical benefits of the situation. Positive emotions and thoughts provide both the fuel and the raw material for experiencing more growth and development, more exploration and discovery, more mastery and successful interactions in the world. So, yes, there is a great deal of value in feeling good and positive thinking. Go for it!

Copyright (c) 2007 Mary Ann Copson

Mary Ann Copson is the founder of the Evenstar Mood & Energy Wellness Center. With Master's Degrees in Human Development and Psychology and Counseling, Mary Ann is a Certified Licensed Nutritionist; Certified Holistic Health Practitioner; Brain Chemistry Profile Clinician; and a Health, Wellness and Lifestyle Coach. Reconnect to your physical, emotional, mental, psychological and spiritual natural rhythms at http://evenstaronline.com

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