BANISH THE DOUBT - PART 1

BANISH THE DOUBT!!
Banish the doubt that’s stopping you from succeeding!

· Are Negative Thoughts preventing you from achieving business success... and you’re not even aware of it?
· Here are practical and realistic ways to overcome negative thinking, doubts and worries that can prevent you from experiencing the business success you deserve.
· Liberate your thinking and achieve only success for your business!

LIFE’S CERTAINTIES
I’d like to start by debunking two myths concerning life’s certainties. You may have heard that the only two certainties in life are death and taxes. That’s a bit depressing isn’t it? No wonder people get a bit negative about life! I’m pleased to inform you that they are untrue. DEATH is not a certainty about life. Death is by definition not life, so it’s not a certainty about life itself, so it doesn’t count. TAXES are definitely not certain because it’s quite possible to avoid them if you were really that determined.

Life’s certainties are in fact:
CONSCIOUSNESS and I WANT TO FEEL GOOD
Is there anybody here who doesn’t want to feel good?

MEANING OF LIFE
Feeling good is actually also the meaning of life. It really is that simple. Who wants to spend a lifetime feeling bad? Who would want to go on living if there was no chance of feeling good? Life is not a puzzle to be solved, it’s not a test that you pass or fail, life is a song, life is a rollercoaster ride, it’s a cruise, and the point is not the end.

JAMES BROWN
I have studied many great philosophers my friends, and it turns out that the one who really put his finger on the meaning of life was this man James Brown, who said I feel good. That’s it! An old sixties soul number had the truth all along.

ON TRACK
If you want to know if your life is on track, ask yourself: Are you feeling good about where you’re going? Simple as that! Some people lose sight of this. They grab hold of fame, success, power or sensuality as if that’s the goal. No that’s not the goal, that’s the vehicle, and if the vehicle’s not getting you there, you need a new vehicle. If you’re really successful and pissed off, it’s because that sort of success is no longer doing it for you, so get on a different bus! I would like to suggest btw that feeling good usually involves making others feel good too, so you may want to take that into consideration.

BANISH THE DOUBT
So then, if you wish to banish self-doubt and negative thought from your life, you need to be doing things that promote feeling good in some way, because as we will discover, if you try and leave feelings and emotions out of your strategy for positive thinking, you will quite simply underperform.
If you want a top-notch business, you need to feel good and you have to make your employees and your customers all feel good too. So first job, play a little James Brown occasionally, just to remind yourself what the purpose of it all is, to FEEL GOOD! That’s why we all do what we do.

The Law of Attraction is not the only law!

Most business people and professional sportspeople believe in the Law of Attraction. This "law", made popular by "The Secret" book and DVD franchise, states that whatever you are focused on, you will attract into your life. For example, if you spend every day thinking about living in a house in the country, that's where you'll inevitably end up.

Actually I really do believe in the Law of Attraction. I think whatever you focus on will inevitably grow in your life. The idea is not new. Christian scripture for example is full of promises about the power of faith. However, there are also other principles at work in the Universe. Clearly this must be the case as it's not difficult to find people who have been disappointed by The Secret, or generally found their dreams in tatters. Every year I treat several clients whose confidence has been destroyed by the collapse of their business. Believe me, they were all completely devoted to the success of their business, so the Law of Attraction was clearly overridden by something else.

I would suggest that the Universe isn't there to simply serve any individual perspective. Each individual life serves an important purpose, but other laws also apply. The following names are my own, but the principles they are attached to are genuine and universal:

THE LAW OF BALANCE

No energy, force or power is allowed complete mastery. Even love, which many believe underpins the Universe, is clearly on the back foot in many lives and places. On the other hand, no dark power can ever extinguish virtues like faith, hope and love.

THE LAW OF HARMONY

Everything settles into a balance  to accomodate everything else. Whatever impact you are having, everything else doesn't stop but reaches an equilibrium around it. For example, persecuting a belief will never eradicate it, simply limit its activity, driving it "underground"

THE LAW OF KARMA

What goes around comes around! Whatever actions you take has consequences that return to you.

THE LAW OF INNER TRUTH

Your life will reflect not what you think you want, but your deepest feelings and desires.

...This is not an exhaustive list. There are others, some of which may be undiscovered. The point is that the Law of Attraction in isolation is a somewhat blunt instrument for living life by. Before evoking it, it's a good idea to ask yourself some more fundamental questions first:

HOW DO I MAKE AN IMPACT?

Reflect on your life to date and see where you make the biggest difference. What activity causes most change for the better? It was clear from my early adult life that it was my considered words of insight that impressed people. I always seemed to be able to summarize a situation succintly. Others impress by their creative, manual, artistic or performing skills.

WHAT DO I REALLY LOVE DOING?

This is a different, more focused question. Having noted where you impress or make a difference, you need to boil this field down to activities that give you the greatest satisfaction. You need the focus to screen out preconceptions of what's "sensible", "lucrative", "safe" or has "prospects" - ignore these and narrow in on fulfilment as the central criterion.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF MY LIFE?

Your life is a limited finite experience. Note emphasis on experience. It is most emphatically NOT a competition. There are no prizes you can keep. Any "gains" are temporary! Only one question really matters at life's end: was your potential fulfilled? In other words, did you maximise your experience? Your purpose therefore that which will make the most difference, give you the greatest sense of accomplishment and thereby fulfil your potential, giving your life worth and meaning.

....Only when you have really worked through these questions are you ready to fully focus on a single aim and evoke the Law of Attraction, because only then will all the other "Laws" avoid conflict with it. For example focusing on a big house in the country is only worthwhile if having it serves to fulfil your life-purpose, rather than just your ego!

My name's Gary and I'm a Rageaholic

Being a rageaholic has noticable similarities to being an alcoholic. You are the victim of an overwhelming urge to do something highly self-destructive, and you will always be one, even if you haven't indulged for many years. In one sense you genuinely can't help it - I didn't choose to be a rageaholic and don't enjoy being one.

 It is an inbuilt mechanism within me that gets set off by what feels like everything - people who speak to me harshly, doddery old giffers in supermarkets holding everyone else up, stupid rules, people who enforce them, people who don't apologise, not being considered, people who don't say please or thank you, the inconsiderate, chavs, muggers, teenagers, muslim women who wear veils, evangelists, parents who don't control their children, British Telecom, British Airways, Manchester United, lies and liars, rudeness, arrogance, supremacism, machines and systems not working, lateness, wasps, flies, mosquitoes, soap operas, Jeremy Kyle, gardening shows, surreal car adverts, the education system, my mum, dad and sister, body odour, bad breath, itching, clumsiness, incompetence, cruelty, neglect, people who play their music loudly in public places, people talking bollocks and having to explain things to people who should already know.

...and that's just things I can think of right now! Though there is some form of valid point to be made about all of these things, anger towards them is unnecessary, unhelpful, inappropriate or completely illogical.

Combine this condition with a teenage daughter and you have a recipe for disaster. No one at any point came along, recognised my problem and intervened. However I was fortunately powerfully motivated to do something about it on my own. My rage was passed down from my parents, and I didn't want to pass it on to another generation. I didn't want to hurt people and spend my life twisted with hate. And I wanted to help others with the same problem.

And so a long quest began to liberate myself from this bondage. At this point in the quest, I have reached certain conclusions. Firstly, rage is an intrinsic mechanism within me. It cannot be removed. However it can and absolutely must be managed. I cannot stop things making me angry, but instead of taking days to calm down I can now calm myself within 30 seconds in most cases and within minutes in the worst cases.

I have had to overhaul my belief system and learn new disciplines such as mindfulness and meditation. Most importantly I have had to develop the abilty to instantly recognise thoughts and feelings as helpful or unhelpful. Usually, I can head off reacting badly "at the pass", but certain issues and contexts cause an instant outburst. I have learned to forgive myself for such occasions. It is genuinely beyond my control and not my intention. Having "lost it" however, I have learned to find my awareness within the madness, and given a couple of minutes space can come right back down to base level rapidly.

A side-benefit from the techniques I have learned is that they work with all forms of negative thought, such as worry, fear and self-pity, and I am a much more positive optimistic person these days. In my next article, How To Stop Being Negative, I will reveal the techniques I have learned.