by Denis Waitley

You can change your life by changing you habits. Here are some guidepost rules regarding change:

Rule 1: No one can change you and you can’t really change anyone else. You must admit your need, stop denying your problem, and accept responsibility for changing yourself

Rule 2: Habits aren’t broken, but replaced — by layering new behavior patterns on top of the old ones. This usually takes a least a year or two. Forget the 30-day wonder ones. I don’t know where motivational speakers got the idea that it takes twenty-one days to gain a new habit. It may take that long to remember the motions of a new skill, but after many years of being you, it takes far longer to settle into a new habit pattern and stay there. Habits are like submarines. They run silent and deep. They also are like comfortable beds, in that they’re easy to get into, but difficult to get out of. So don’t expect immediate, amazing results. Give your skills’ training a year and stick with it, knowing that your new ways can last a lifetime.

Rule 3: A daily routine adhered to over time will become second nature, riding a bicycle. Negative behavior leads to a losing lifestyle, positive behavior to a wining lifestyle. Practice make permanent in both cases.

Excerpted from “The Seeds of Greatness Treasury.”

by Lisa Jimenez, M.Ed.

Your beliefs are the driving force behind your behaviors. Beliefs send powerful messages to your brain that affect your actions (and their outcome) in either a positive or negative way. Your beliefs will cause you to do one of two things:

Be fearful and RETREAT, or
Be empowered and ACT!

That’s how powerful your beliefs are. Your beliefs about failure, risk-taking, and success will either cause you to repel success, or act and attract it to you. Success takes two ingredients: belief and time. The more belief you have, the less time it takes. How can you ensure your belief system is empowering and is actually attracting success to you? Three things:

First, it is imperative that you are making daily efforts to get the negative messages out of your life. You need to create an obsession with filtering what you allow in. Television, newspapers, some movies and songs, negative thoughts and people, all need to be limited – even banned from your day.

Second, you need to expose and replace the negative beliefs you presently have. Think about what you say on a daily basis. Observe your habitual behaviors in different situations. Tell the truth. Expose these negative beliefs. Only then will you be truly free. Then, replace these negative beliefs and bad habits with empowering ones. Think on these new thoughts and beliefs about success and over time you will retrain your mind and change your heart.

Lastly, create a compelling vision of your success. Craft a picture of you – as the person you want to be – in your mind and THINK ON THIS throughout your day. Not only with this vision put a smile on your face, this habit will actually create success.

Change Your Beliefs and You Change Your BehaviorRemember middle school science class? You learned the difference between potential energy and kinetic energy. Potential energy is energy waiting to happen. Not until it’s moving and active will you see it in its kinetic energy state. When it’s in the kinetic state it is a reality. Wow! That means you can create reality (the kinetic energy) with your thoughts and beliefs (potential energy). Never underestimate the power of your beliefs!

Change Your Behavior and You Change Your Life!

by Harvey Mackay

A man was walking in the park one day when he came upon a cocoon with a small opening. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through the little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It looked like it had gotten as far as it could, so the man decided to help the butterfly. He used his pocketknife and snipped the remaining bit of the cocoon.

The butterfly then emerged easily, but something was strange. The butterfly had a swollen body and shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected at any moment the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and deformed wings. It was never able to fly.

What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to emerge was natural. It was nature’s way of forcing fluid from its body into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom. Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives.

If we were allowed to go through life without any obstacles, we would be crippled. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. And we could never fly.

History has shown us that the most celebrated winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.

Thomas Edison tried over 2,000 experiments before he was able to get his light bulb to work. Upon being asked how he felt about failing so many times, he replied, “I never failed once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2,000-step process.”

Persistence paid off for General Douglas MacArthur. After applying for admission to West Point twice, he applied a third time and was accepted. The rest is history.

Helen Keller, the famous blind author and speaker, said: “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved. Silver is purified in fire and so are we. It is in the most trying times that our real character is shaped and revealed.”

by Jim Rohn

Is thankfulness a survival skill? Perhaps most of you would respond with, “No, Jim, thankfulness is not key to survival,” and I would tend to agree with you. Most of us have probably already solved the necessary problems of survival, gone beyond that and are now working to achieve our desires. But let me give you this key phrase, “Learn to be thankful for what you already have, while you pursue all that you want.” I believe one of the greatest and perhaps one of the simplest lessons in life we can learn is to be thankful for what we have already received and accomplished.

Both the years and the experiences have brought me here to where I stand today, but it is the thankfulness that opened the windows of opportunities, of blessings, of unique experiences to flow my way.

My gratitude starts with my parents who raised me, gave me an incredible foundation that has lasted me all of these years and continues with the mentors that I’ve met along the way who absolutely changed and revolutionized my life, my income, my bank account, my future. I am also very thankful for the people, the associations, for the ideas, for the chance to work and labor, and to produce results, all of that has brought me to this place, to this weekend. I’m grateful for it all.

What a unique opportunity each one of you here has, so many of us; representing different countries, nations and cultures, to appreciate the uniqueness of our own experiences that has brought us all here, together, for these three days to learn new skills and sharpen old ones. For the countries we represent; we have freedom and liberty. These are extraordinary times, about eleven years ago the walls came tumbling down, in Germany, and it started a wave of democracy and freedom like the world has never seen before. We as a country and as a world have so much to be thankful for. Always start with thanksgiving; be thankful for what you already have and see the miracles that come from this one simple act.

Now thankfulness is just the beginning; next, you’ve got to challenge yourself to produce. Produce more ideas than you need for yourself so you can share and give your ideas away. That is called fruitfulness and abundance. Here’s what I think fruitfulness and abundance mean – to go to work on producing more than you need for yourself so you can begin blessing others, blessing your nation and blessing your enterprise. Once abundance starts to come, once someone becomes incredibly productive, it’s amazing what the numbers turn out to be. But to begin this incredible process of blessing, it often starts with the act of thanksgiving and gratitude, being thankful for what you already have and for what you’ve already done. Begin the act of thanksgiving today and watch the miracles flow your way.