Category: Personal growth


BEING AT CAUSE

Filed Under: Personal growth by admin — Comments Off
June 1, 2011

There are two ways we can live our life:

  • being at CAUSE in our life
  • being at the EFFECT of our circumstances.

Being at CAUSE means that you are actively creating the life you want, seeing opportunities and making choices about how you react to people and events.

When you are at EFFECT you feel powerless and see yourself as a victim, with no choices whatsoever.

The approach we take can have a big effect on our results and our satisfaction level.

For example.  Mary was crossing at a pedestrian crossing when a drug-affected driver knocked her down.  Her leg is broken.  The event has happened and can’t be changed.  All Mary has control over is her response to this event.

Mary could take on the role of the helpless victim, filling her mind with negative thoughts about the event that has taken place and the undesirable consequences for her:  pain, the need for rehabilitation and time off work, missing out on sports and recreational activities, anger towards the driver of the car, constantly remembering and retelling the story of the wrong that was done to her and feeling resentment, frustration and the unfairness of it all.   Mary is at EFFECT.  Her thoughts will probably delay her recovery as her thought processes flood her body with negativity and she battles through the necessary rehabilitation work.

OR

Mary could choose to be at CAUSE, accepting that the event has taken place and it is up to her now as to how she progresses from here.  She can spend time in meditation, listen to uplifting music and inspiring speakers, see the funny side of life by watching comedy shows, read the autobiographies of individuals who have triumphed over great personal adversity, put her focus outside herself by looking for ways to help and encourage others, undertake research to discover the latest techniques for assisting recovery following a broken leg, ensure that she helps her body as much as possible by getting adequate nutrition, fresh water and rest, commit to completing all the required physiotherapy sessions for strengthening her leg as it heals, choose to forgive the driver of the car, be forward looking – setting post-recovery goals for herself, and be open to the idea that this experience may have lessons for her to learn and thereby some hidden benefits.

The circumstance is the same, but the outcome is a very different experience for Mary.  What makes the difference is the choice that Mary makes about her attitude and focus.  Her actions and therefore her results flow out from that.

In the scenario above, Mary has choices to make in terms of her

  • thoughts
  • focus
  • self talk
  • beliefs
  • images
  • feelings.

Each of these is a conscious choice – we all have total control over these six things.

So if you are not happy with your life right now, ask yourself:  am I at cause, or am I at effect?  When you are at the effect of something, it upsets you. It gives you problems.  How to change into being at cause?  I’ll give you some tips in my next blog.

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FREE parenting book

Filed Under: Education success, Personal growth by admin — Leave a comment
March 13, 2011

Request this FREE book and discover dozens of practical pointers and easy-to-implement guidelines about how to set rules and boundaries and build your child’s knowledge, inner strength and self esteem.  Australian Scholarships Group is giving away this 28 page parenting book by early childhood expert Pam Linke. Its perfect for parents of babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers. Simply complete a form online to receive your FREE book.

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A tip to accelerate your pathway to SUCCESS

Filed Under: Personal growth, Success by admin — 4 Comments
October 19, 2010

An except from “Zen And The Martial Arts” by Joe Hyams:

...I was practicing Kumite (sparring) with a more skilful

opponent. To make up for my lack of knowledge and

experience, I tried deceptive, tricky moves that were

readily countered. I was outclassed, and Parker watched

me get roundly trounced. When the match was over I was

dejected. Parker invited me into his small office.

“Why are you so upset? ” he asked.

“Because I couldn’t score.”

Parker got up from behind the desk and with a piece of

chalk drew a line on the floor about five feet long. “How

can you make this line shorter?” he asked.

I studied the line and gave him several answers, including

cutting the line in many pieces. He shook his head and

drew a second line, longer than the first. “Now how does

the first line look ? “Shorter,” I said.

Parker nodded. “It is always better to improve and

strengthen your own line or knowledge than to try and cut

your opponent’s line.” He accompanied me to the door

and added, “Think about what I have just said.”

Powerful stuff, hey?  My encouragement to you:  lengthen your line.  Don’t try to shorten someone else’s line by cutting them down.  Learn from successful people and model what they do, thereby increasing your own capacity. As your success increases, be prepared for the fact that others will try to shorten your line.  But don’t let that be you. You’re bigger than that.

Lengthen your line ____________________________________________

It will accelerate your pathway to SUCCESS.

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What about personal development – is it working for you?

Filed Under: Personal growth by admin — 1 Comment
September 18, 2010
  • Have you spent a lot of money on books, CDs and DVDs, which now sit on a shelf gathering dust?
  • Was the high from that last seminar or workshop short lived?
  • Are you at the point of information overload – so many books, courses, webinars, forums and emails about fantastic sounding personal development products that you can’t choose between them?

Some thoughts by the late Jim Rohn on the importance of personal development:
“If you want to have more… you have to BECOME more.  Success is not a doing process, it is a becoming process. What you do, what you pursue, will elude you—it can be like chasing butterflies. Success is something you attract by the person you BECOME.”

We know personal development is important.  There is so much great personal development material out there, but the highest quality product will not bring us any results (even if we read/watch it) without us taking ACTION to implement what we have learnt.  Once you know it you have to apply it in your life.

And that seems to be the hardest part.  ACTION.

Why is it so hard to take action?  You may experience a lot of internal resistance.  Change is uncomfortable.  We don’t like to face hard truths about ourselves.  We take the easy path rather than deal with our own internal monsters.

So what is going to make the difference for you? How can you achieve the real and lasting changes that personal development could bring about in your life?  How can you BECOME the kind of person that attracts success?

This is what has made a difference for me.  My Beyond Freedom Evolution personal development course has:

  • High quality material that addresses the core issues.
  • Proven methods and techniques that assist me to move forward.
  • A community of like minded people who are walking the talk and sharing their experiences in an open and transparent way.  People who encourage me to press on and who rejoice with me in my successes.
  • Inspirational leaders who demonstrate what is possible for me.
  • A foundation based on me accepting that I am “at cause” in my life, and responsible for my results.

I think this is what sets Beyond Freedom Evolution apart from other personal development products.  Being immersed in a community of like minded people who are travelling the same path keeps you inspired and accountable.  As you progress through the modules you achieve real transformation that brings success in your business, your health, your relationships – in fact in any area of life with any goal you might set for yourself.

Realising that you can chart your own course in life, being guided by your own north star, is both exciting and empowering.

Check it out.  (Take some ACTION to move yourself forward.)  Read my blog about Beyond Freedom Evolution

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PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT can really pay off!!

Filed Under: Financial Freedom, Personal growth by admin — 2 Comments
August 7, 2010

Wolfgang von Goethe once wrote, “To have more, you must first be more.”

To achieve more in your outer world, you must go to work on your inner world, on developing yourself. There are no shortcuts. There is no other way. Personal development is THE most important thing you can do to improve your results in every area of life.

YOU are your most valuable asset.
Invest in improving yourself.
Continually feed your mind and develop your potential.
The ROI (return on investment) will amaze you.

Brian Tracy says that many of his students have told him about investing in a single book or audio program that has paid for itself 1,000 times, 2,000 times, and even 5,000 times over in as little as a year.

A thirty-five-year-old father of two with an eighth-grade education, working out of his home, purchased a $60 audio program to help his business. In the next ten months, he increased his income from $30,000 to $304,000.

Personal development can really pay off!

I was listening to an audio recording by Darren Hardy, editor of Success magazine, the other day. He recommended tithing 10% of your money to help yourself by investing it in your own personal development, because it will be the fuel for your continued success. Darren says he started to do this as a teenager, and it contributed to him making a 6 figure income while he was still a teenager. If you can’t afford 10% yet, invest 5% or even 3%.

For every $1you invest in your personal development it will ultimately add $30 to your bottom line. There is not another investment out there than can deliver that kind of ROI. This is why the top performers pay for the best coaches, trainers and mentors there are.

Tithing 10% of your money to help other people is a principle that many of the world’s wealthiest people employ. Money is simply energy and as such, it must be kept in circulation. Money that is hoarded is useless. John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and Aristotle Onassis, all understood the importance of keeping money in motion.

When you become a generous giver you’re affirming your abundance. You’re teaching your brain–instilling the belief–that you have more than enough, that you’re beyond scarcity.

So just stop and think for a moment.

What does it say about you when you are reluctant to invest in your own personal development? Are you not worth investing in? How could it be more worthwhile to invest in a house, or a boat, or a car? Do these things lift your earning potential, improve your relationships, increase your personal satisfaction or enable you to realise your potential?

Think about what will give the greatest ROI, and invest your money there.

Personal development can really pay off.

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How to make Promotion easy

Filed Under: Business building, Personal growth by admin — 5 Comments
June 29, 2010

I’m in the personal development industry. My product is a personal development product (dah!).

When you market a personal development product, promotion is really supremely simple. You don’t have to tell friends and family about it, give them CDs, send them brochures or find ways to get them to visit your web site.

The best way you can promote your personal development product is by being who you are. Because if your product actually works, you will change and grow in ways that people notice. When they are impressed by who you are becoming and what they see you starting to achieve they will ask you what brought about the change, and there is your easy promotional opportunity. They asked, so now you can tell them all about it. This is the time to rave about your particular brand of personal development product. Until then, the best thing you can do is continue to work on yourself.

This principle applies to a whole range of products and services, not just personal development. You see, the way to make promotion easy is to actually have others promote your product for you. Get them to rave about your product, and you won’t have to. What you need is something that is so good others will promote it to their friends.

To quote Anthony Licari “take all the time you’re spending on promotion and reinvest it into becoming a better musician, a better writer, a better artist, designer, developer, whatever. That is the best promotion investment you can ever make.” Great advice, I think.

Quote taken from Anthony’s article entitled The Shameless Art of Self Promotion.

Here is a link to another blog with information on my personal development product (just in case you are curious!).

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Did you TRY hard?

Filed Under: Business building, Personal growth by admin — 2 Comments
June 22, 2010

What does TRY mean?

When asked to raise his sunken starfighter from the Dagobah swamps with the power of his mind alone, Luke Skywalker responded he would TRY. “No,” scolded Yoda. “Do, or do not. There is no TRY.” Wise words from the funny looking little man with the pointy ears (Yoda, the ancient and revered Jedi Master).

If you ask someone to do something for you, and they respond “I’ll TRY”, how much confidence do you have that they are actually going to do it? Not much, hey. TRY is not a word that carries a lot of commitment or conviction. It also carries with it an inbuilt excuse for failure: well I TRIED hard.

Sometimes we use the word TRY instead of saying no. TRY is a “soft” option. If we say a definite no then perhaps we will be called upon to justify our decision, whereas TRY leaves it open. We might, and then again we might not. While we have not said no, we haven’t actually said yes, either.

TRY is a curious word. We can TRY to pick up a pen, but the truth of the matter is that we are either going to pick it up or we are not. So where does TRY come into play?

Too many people join a home based business opportunity with “Sure I’ll give it a TRY. Why not?”

How successful do you think they will be?

I believe that success is a choice. So it is a decision. It requires vision, belief, action and persistence. If we want success to come our way, we can’t just have a half-hearted stab at it. We must be firm in our resolve, determined to achieve and inspired enough by our vision that we do not easily give up. So do you think giving it a TRY is the path to achieving success?

Do you use the word TRY in connection with your business? I’ll TRY for 5 sign ups this week. I suggest you tune in to what you are saying and thinking. If you find yourself using the word TRY, notice the context and reason. It may be that subconsciously you are giving yourself an out. If that is not your intention, I suggest you choose another word. Make a decision. As Yoda says, “Do, or do not”. You either have a firm intention and resolve (you have decided) to make 5 sign ups, or you have not. If you have decided, and you hold this intention with strong desire and take action to bring it about – guess what? You will be successful.

This is my suggestion – give TRY the shove, and see what difference it makes to your results.

To your success!

SUZI

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Want the results? Do the work!

Filed Under: Personal growth by admin — 2 Comments
June 19, 2010

I was reading a blog by Kim Benson the other day (author of “Finally Thin”), and she was sharing her experience with her husband Mark who was in hospital recovering from emergency surgery for a perforated appendix (ouch!).  To top it all off, the poor guy had a bad cough, and if you have ever undergone surgery yourself you know exactly how painful it is to cough when you have had a recent incision.  Coughing is something you try to avoid at all costs!

Part of the therapy involved the use of a volumetric exerciser, which caused Mark even more pain.  As Kim sat there watching the therapist work with Mark, she reflected on the fact that healing is painful and hard work, and encouragement is required to push through the pain to achieve healing.  The therapist knew that although the work was difficult it was necessary, and avoiding the short term pain would have long term negative consequences, so she didn’t let Mark get away with avoiding the exercises.

Our natural tendency with everything in life is to avoid the pain and hard work and try instead for some easy, quick fix.  This is also true with personal development.  It is much easier to gloss over the issues in our lives and focus on happy things like positive affirmations and goal visualisation.  But not addressing the underlying issues means that we experience long term negative consequences.

The work is hard.  It hurts.  The results aren’t immediate.  We feel frustrated with ourselves because the same issues have a way of popping up, long after we thought we had “dealt” with them.  We want to feel good and achieve results in our lives, and we want it NOW.   But there are no short cuts.  We need to spend the time, do the work, feel the pain and push through to the release that only comes with deep and complete healing.

I had a friend ask me the other day how much time I spend on each exercise in my personal development program (we are both working through Beyond Freedom).  My answer was that it depends.  Sometimes I can spend three days on one exercise.  When I sit down to do my personal development work I review what I did yesterday, and if I feel that there is more work to do on that particular exercise then I keep going with it, until such time as I feel it has been thoroughly dealt with.  This means that my progress through the program has been slow, but I have had powerful results, experiencing a real transformation in my thinking which is outworking in my life.

Yes, it is hard work.  Yes, it can be very painful.  But the results are so worth it.  Let me encourage you in your personal growth journey.  Here is a link to more information on the Beyond Freedom program.  Contact me direct for more information.

If you are interested, you can go and read Kim’s full blog at http://kimbensen.com/blogs/kim/10/06/hard-work-weight-loss

To your success,
SUZI

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Personal Development – the pathway to wealth

Filed Under: Financial Freedom, Personal growth, Success by admin — 6 Comments
June 15, 2010

I heard an interesting interview by Jean Chatzky the other day, regarding her book “The Difference:  How anyone can prosper in even the toughest times”. The book unfolded as the result of attempting to answer the question:  Why do some people seem to move relatively easily from a pay cheque to pay cheque existence into wealth, while others get stuck or (even worse) fall back into deeper debt?

When the data from her research was tabulated and evaluated to discover the factors that were most important in determining which people made it to wealth and which people didn’t, the results were something of a surprise. It turned out that the factors that mattered most in moving from poverty to wealth had little to do with financial strategies.  Instead of being a financial guidebook, “The Difference” reads more like a PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT book.  She found that most of those in the wealthy category were:
* Optimistic
* Resilient
* Connected
* Intuitive
* Grateful and
* Giving.

Jean says that these attributes/personality traits/qualities are not something that you are either born with, or not.  They can be developed.  The really encouraging news is that 90% of those in the wealthy category were not there 10 years ago.  No one handed them their wealth, they created their wealth themselves.  If you want to move from poverty to wealth you have to decide – make a choice about how you want your life to be, and then become the person who is able to create that level of wealth.

So PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT is the pathway to wealth.  Interesting, isn’t it?  This business opportunity is built on personal development – the perfect mix for success.  Check it out.

You can also read Jean’s list of the Seven Traits of the Wealthy Personality.

To your success!

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8 keys to persistence

Filed Under: Business building, Personal growth by admin — 3 Comments
June 7, 2010

Without persistence it is impossible to achieve success, for there will be obstacles and roadblocks along the way and you must persist to find away around them and press on towards your goal. Persistence is not something you are either born with, or not. It is a state of mind which can be cultivated.

It is based upon:

1.  DEFINITENESS OF PURPOSE – knowing what you want and why you want it. Being clear about your goal.

2.  DESIRE – you must intently desire your goal. A low level of desire means you will be easily distracted from your goal. Defining your why strengthens desire. Your why must be very powerful to help you persevere through adversity.

3.  SELF RELIANCE – believe in your ability to achieve your goal. Understand that you are “at cause” in your own life. Take responsibility for your results. Know that you have everything within you that you need to achieve success.

4.  DEFINITENESS OF PLANS – how exactly are you going to achieve your goal? If you don’t take action you will never get there. Wishing does not make it so.

5.  ACCURATE KNOWLEDGE – make sure your plans have a solid foundation. Basing your actions on guesswork will not encourage you to persist. Knowing that you plans are solidly based on researched information will give you confidence.

6.  COOPERATION – harmonious relationships with others will help you persist. Do you have a supportive, encouraging mastermind group? Do you operate on the creative rather than the competitive plane?

7.  WILL POWER – concentration, focus, determination are all wrapped up in the term will power. You must be self disciplined if you are to achieve success.

8.  HABIT – your mind absorbs and becomes part of the daily experiences you have. Do your daily habits encourage persistence? Do you have a “Daily Method of Operation” that supports your goals and plans?

My thanks to Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich for these 8 keys (see Chapter 9).

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