Can the Level of Our Achievement So Often Depend on Our Self-Image?

Start by doing something far better than you expect, then watch how your sub-conscious goes to work to sabotage your early efforts! The result? You finish up with the overall level of achievement you would have anticipated! And how do we anticipate that level - by referring to our self- image! Ask a golfer!

Take a mediocre golfer who plays rarely and yet has all the attributes to play well. Fix a friendly round for him with a good golfing friend who agrees to keep score in this non-competitive encounter. The mediocre player can play the first few holes like a dream, while nothing is said! But watch what happens when the golfing friend checks the score to-date and then announces, " I don't know whether you realise it, but if you go on like this you will have a round of only 10 over par!" (Which for those who don't play is pretty good for an occasional player!)

Stunned by the implication, our mediocre player does not so much feel an inner elation and pride, as a discomfort that actually he could be that good. The discomfort quickly spreads to his sub-conscious, which is ever-ready to maintain the status quo, and his quality of play immediately begins to nose-dive! By the end of the round his overall score is as he would have expected!

Perhaps stranger, the reverse can apply. The initial holes can be an absolute disaster, to a point where even his sub-conscious self-image is so offended that it calls for a different approach. And Hey! Standard of play improves and the overall score at the end rights itself!

Self-image, self-esteem, self-worth are very powerful cognitive drivers in terms of achievement and performance. Cognitive research has demonstrated that where we have unjustifiably low opinions of ourselves - unjustified because we are not as bad at something as we think - the low self-image triumphs over our greater ability almost every time.

However what should interest us and inspire us is the news that the converse is also true. If we have a higher self image than our actual ability would justify, most often it is that higher self-image we perform to.

So working on our self-image, feeding it with positive and upbeat messages does pay! We then perform better. We readjust our self-image and again perform better still.

But remember we do not have an overall self-image of ourselves. We have hundreds. Our self-image for singing could be low, golf - high, public-speaking - very low, cooking - very high, etc etc. We can work on each in turn to achieve more, by employing psychology simplified to its basics..

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gerry_Neale

How Personal Success Rituals Will Dramatically Change Your Results

I want to share with you my personal experience with success rituals and why you should create them. The importance of success rituals is far beyond your imagination, because when you will start to follow your rituals you will see that your actions will be more effective and you will get better results.

First of all what is personal success ritual and how to create one? It is when you do some action over and over again every day with intention of creating habit. It is when you use the strength of your will power and you create a habit in order to do particular action automatically. And why you should want to do this? Because it will help you prepare for the day and you will be more focus on your income producing activities.

Every successful person has personal success rituals and you should definitely create yours TODAY. The best time to do success rituals is in the morning. I will tell you what are my success rituals and this way you will get also some tips so you can create yours today.

Every day I wake up and I drink half a liter of water, because body is dehydrated from the night, so it will help me to activate my body. After that I do my body exercise, it takes me about 30 minutes. I also heard one time that great recipe for better feelings is to increase heartbeat and exercise is the best method. Then I go to shower and do bathroom stuff. Then I visualize for about 10 minutes, I read my affirmations, and for about 5 minutes I am repeating magic mantra "Every day in every way I am getting better and better". After that I read some personal development book.

Every time when I miss my success rituals my day is much worse, because when I do my rituals my mind is calm and I am more focus on my daily actions. Just like in every activity there is a lot of inspiration in first days, but after 6, 7 days it is much harder to do these actions. Why? Because we need to get from our comfort zone and it is not always pleasure for our mind to do that.

It is a trick of our mind, but in this point we have to use our will power and just do it. But if you break through, it will be easier to do your rituals and it takes about 30 days to create a habit. And what is habit? Habit is when you do things automatically and this is exactly what we want, do our success rituals automatically every day, without hesitating if I should do my rituals today or I will do them tomorrow, because today I am just lazy.

In one of the ancient book I read that your mind can be your worst enemy or your best friend. It all depends if you are master of your mind or mind is a master of you. If you are master of your mind, then mind is your best friend. If mind is your master, your mind is your worst enemy. Success is based upon that you are controller of your thoughts, feelings and actions. It is just like yoga. In yoga system the main goal is to control your mind, because if your mind controls you, you will never achieve anything.

You maybe think that these are hard words and let me tell you that they are. How many times you heard about the power of your mind and your thoughts. Napoleon Hill talks about that, Wallace D. Wattles talks about that, Emmerson talks about that, Bob Proctor talks about that, The Secret talks about that. But what is the point? That you control your mind and your thoughts, because it is not easy to think about wealth if you are in debt, it is not easy to think about health if you have some disease and it is not easy to think about thin body if you are fat. So you have to use your will power and control your mind and thoughts.

Do not be discouraged if you fail some day, you have to know that it is a journey and it will not happen overnight. You have to be persistent, get up and do it again and again. Your goal is to create a habit and you should know that it take some time, so keep going my friend and never give up.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jiri_Majkus

More Reflection on Our Have To's and Want To's in Relation to Achievement

Oh! To be able to lead a life of "Want To's." Just imagine actually having no "Have To's!" What I hope sincerely would be a bonus for you would be the realisation that you can convert many activities from being "Have To's" into unqualified "Want To's" for yourself.

I hope you won't take me too literally. Perhaps you would like paint, to write, to cook or dance, take up a sport - the choice of what we can do is endless. It matters not what you take up as an interest. What is key, is your "wanting to" do it, for your own satisfaction. Making it solely for your pleasure and your sense of achievement is key. There need be no "Have to" about it, at all!

Life today for so many of us is a long succession of "Have To's" or at least "Ought To's". If that is not the actual reality of our lives, it can still be our perception and it can still put us under more pressure.

However doing something that is our own; doing it at our own pace; doing it because we want to get better at it, does not make it self-indulgent and selfish. This is a very important way to sustain a sense of Life Balance.

Of course, it goes without saying that to take up something manically, with total and utter missionary zeal at the expense of all other commitments would not be good idea. But finding the times in the week when you can learn a new skill is a great way to relax and restore belief in your own creative powers. That is a great feeling. And it provides an object lesson to those around us that having a more balanced lifestyle is important and is achievable.

And there is one hidden secret lesson in all this. A tutorial in simplified psychology, if you will!

Show yourself how easily and quickly you learn the tricks of the new activity of entirely your choosing, and it will show you, first, how powerfully the mind can respond to your deep desire to do something.

That's all still very different to learning a "Have To"!

But with your new chosen skill learned (or at a stage where it is well on the way to towards being acquired), then you will have the stark proof of the high worth of the important recommendation that follows..

Faced with any new "Have To" or "Ought To", forget who is imposing it on you and look for the value to you in it. Look for the value in it to those you love and to those you care about and respect. If, while you gain little and they would gain great satisfaction out of it, then look to share in their pleasure and want to do it.

The more of that value you find and can cherish, the more you will find powerful parallels with the things you have chosen to achieve. The more you do that, the quicker you will dilute that "have to" feeling. Doing that will, in turn, open the way to achieving the once "have to" goal and being able to draw great satisfaction from it as an adopted choice rather than a imposition.

Have some fun! And be canny too in finding advantages to things apparently foisted on you! And notice just how much more you achieve!

We can blot out harmful self-talk and by using the natural thinking processes resident within us, we can teach ourselves new Want to's. Try it! you will be amazed!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gerry_Neale

5 Amazing Tips For Taking More Action

In order to reach any dream or goal in life, one has to take action - things usually don't happen if you just sit home waiting for miracles. The annoying thing is that taking action is pretty hard for most people, and it is much easier to procrastinate on things and wait for a better moment time after time. Unfortunately the time is never just right, so what we should do instead is to find ways of starting g the things we have to do, and start right now.

I have collected here five great tips that will help you to take more action:

1. Use a to-do list with only three tasks

If you have too many things in your to-do list, you will get overwhelmed and it is likely that you won't get anything done. Instead, choose only three very crucial things every day that you want to get done. It will be much more than what most people achieve daily anyway.

2. Tell other people what you are going to do

When you are accountable to other people, it will be much easier for you to keep your word. You don't want to disappoint your friends, so tell them what your plan of action is and then just keep your word.

3. Set rules for yourself and don't cheat

Respect yourself and remember that cheating yourself is not an option. Set your own standards and principles for how you want to behave - when you follow these principles over time, you will create a habit of being effective every day, which on the other hand will make you feel good.

4. Leave "shoulds" away

Instead of thinking that you should do something, always choose to do things. When you take the control back to yourself and decide what you choose to do instead of giving your personal power away, it will be much easier to take action.

5. Find enthusiasm

Sometimes the lack of motivation is the biggest obstacle in taking action. Think about the bigger goals in life that you will achieve when you start taking those small steps daily. One good way of finding the right mood is by listening to music that pumps you up and gets you full of energy. Then it is much easier to take action.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Petteri_Ollila

Moving Along With Change

• "No plan survives contact with the enemy." - popular military saying
• "Prior planning prevents piss-poor performance." - yet another popular military saying
• "Don't forget to bring your towel." - Douglas Adams's fans*

Of these three sayings, the one about the towel captures the gist of this article perfectly. It's when the plan hits the real world that you need to keep a clear head --and your towel close. Whatever life throws at you, when you know where your towel is, you're good to go.

Goals are not plans.

Goals are the end point, plans are what you refer to to guide you there. If the terrain sudden changes on the way to your goal, you need to adjust. Forcing reality to adjust to your plans is a waste of energy. Accept the situation for what it is, without judgment, and get going. What can you realistically do to deal with the situation and turn it to your advantage? Where's the silver lining?

Plans cannot translate to real life without action.

All the paper and diagrams in the world don't mean squat if you do nothing to bring them to life. Your monthly goals, your yearly tracker? You still have to fill those up, they won't write themselves.

Plans cannot translate to real life without action. Action can't happen without you.

How sure are you that the goals you have now are what you really need or want? How invested are you to making it to your goals? What will you consider as acceptable losses? What will you willingly give up to get there? Your answers will determine how you'll deal with the trade-off you'll encounter on the way and how you can make the hardship worth it.

Plans do not equal preparation.

Plans are possible courses of action captured on paper, preparation is you carrying out the concrete action. It's like money, in a way. By itself in your wallet, a 10-dollar bill can't do anything. In your hands, however, it can be exchanged for the things you need. But you still have to make the trade.

Build some slack into your plans.

Perfect plans are only perfect on paper. That's because they stay plans, and plans are perfect in theory. When you apply plans to real life, real life trumps theory, and you must adjust accordingly. And adjusting is easier when you build some lee-way into your plans, whether in terms of money, time or labor.

Slack doesn't mean sloppy. Or lazy.

Building buffers means you've acknowledged your strengths and weaknesses and you're using them to build acceptable limits into your day and your life. You find out what suits you, whether what suits you refers to a schedule, a workload, certain kinds of people, a work environment etc. and you do your best to find them and make them work for you.

Failure makes us think.

Don't be afraid to make small mistakes, they can help prevent big ones. Those, you have to look out for.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ariadne_Roxas