The Eleven Power P's of Enduring Success

Remember these powerful 'P' words whenever life has you feeling down.

Patience - Are you being patient?  Things come in perfect unison to God's time and design, not ours.  Do not let your impatience frustrate you or move you from your path.

Persistence - More important to success than skill, talent or education.  Those who persist are the ones who are ready to jump when opportunity presents itself.  The rest are not only not ready, they usually don't even recgonize opportunity for what it is.

Positivity - A optomistic attitude is a choice and a habit.  Those that can find the good, no matter how small, in every situation, are the ones who get ahead.   Every adversity, every setback, every heartache provides the seed for an equal or greater opportunity.  A seed not planted is wasted potential.  Always find the positive.  Everything in life is there to serve you.

Prayer -  Sometimes we must rely on God to give us strength, wisdom and grace greater than our own.  Let Go and Let God.  Don't wait for crisis to arise to turn to God, make it a habit, and grace will follow you everywhere.

Perspective - Often the only real problem, is how we are viewing the situation.  We get so caught up worrying about the old, great tree dying, we forget we're in the midst of a forest.  As the old tree passes, the smaller trees finally come out of it's shade and are able to grow.

Promise - Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt... ...you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. - Matthew 21:21.  Whatever righteous thing you ask for, is given to you - in God's time and by God's design.  Hold on to your Promise and never let it go.  The enemy will always cloud your vision and try to steal it.

Progress - Do not stop.  Keep on, keeping on.  Learn from each of life's lessons and put it into immediate practise.  There is no standing still in life.  You are either progressing or regressing.  If you stop, you'll only have further to go when you start again.

Passion - Your passion is like a fire, it must be given fuel to burn and fanned to become bright.  When passion is turned into a bonfire, it will keep you warm through the coldest nights.  Neglect it and it will burn out quickly.   Purpose is fuel, Promise fans.

Purpose - Why?  What is your driving motivation?  What pleasure will success bring?  What pain will failure result in?  If you do not know, specifically, why you want what you want, how can you hope to substane? There is no wrong answer.  Follow your bliss. 

Price - Anything worth having is worth paying for.  There's always a price to pay but often in difficult times we lose sight that the challenges we are experiencing, are the price for what we want.  The price of growth, the price of wisdom, the price of freedom. 

Plan - Do you have a plan?  If so, is it working?  If not, goto plan B.  Then C.  Then D.   Don't worry if it's the best plan, any plan is better than no plan, even if it takes you the wrong way.  Movement is always better than procrastination. Things rarely happen the way we plan them, but plans keep us focused and give us comfort in structure.  Keep your plans flexible but the Purpose resolute.

Preston Squire is an author providing free positive thinking, inspirational, motivational and success materials. You can find more articles by Preston Squire at http://www.thecuphalffull.com/

©Preston Squire 2010

The Tenth Power 'P' of Enduring Success

By Preston Squire


"To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction." ~ Sir Issac Newton

The Toaist belief in China is well known for it's belief in Yin Yang.

The concept that there is an inheritent duality to everything.  Life cannot exist without death.  East without West.  Hot without cold.  Masculine without feminine. Light without dark. Growth without decay.  Etc.   

Toaist do not believe one is good or bad, that is a common western misconception, they simply are, one cannot exist without the other, nor is either pure as there is always a little yin in the yang and vice versa.   As such, you need both to accomplish anything.
And that, my dear readers, is one of the biggest fundimental problems we have in accomplishing our goals.  The lack of the total acceptance of:

Price

Whatever you want in this world, there is a price to be paid for it, and if you have to ask, 'How much?' you cannot afford it.

The price, is the yin to your desired yang.   You cannot call yang (or yin) into being without creating it's polar opposite.  One simply can not exist without the other.  To make it even more interesting, you can expect, to experience the opposite of what you want (yin) - first.

If you want to become wealthy, without depending on extreme luck to win the lottery or misfortune to gain an inheritance, the only way to do so is to invest.    That is the irony.   Why do people want money?  Primarily for a sense of security.  A sense that they'll be able to obtain whatever they need to be happy or at least, comfortable.   Yet, in order to become financially secure somehow it's going to require an investment of money without an absolute guarantee of return.  An inheritant lack of security.  

That could take many shapes from investing in a business, your own or someone elses, stocks, funds, reality or even investing in an education.    When it comes to investing, the highest rate of return comes from the that which is most risky.   Nor do wealthy people idly sit on their fortunes, they are virtually always being invested into something, to create even greater returns.   But what happens when the market crashes?  A lot of wealth is lost.   Such is yin yang at work.   In order to enjoy financial security, you have to tolerate financial risk.   And you have to start from where you're at now.

Same goes for love.  You cannot have love without risk of heartache.  You cannot expect to be promoted without investing hard work, unsolicited, first. You cannot expect spiritual growth without having to endure life's hard lessons.   Anything you want, is going to have some consequence, some price that must be paid, in order to obtain it.

Okay, fine.  You realize this of course.   Yet, when the challenges come, we balk.  Worse, we become fixated on them.    Whatever you focus on in life, you'll attract more of.   So in trying to gain yang, we must first bare yin.  But yin is so distasteful to us, we push against it - which creates more of it.   Then we wonder why is life being so unfair to us.   But life is giving us exactly what we are concentrating on.

When my marriage was falling apart, I lost all sight of the greater sense of what I wanted, a happy relationship, and focused on fixing the broken one.    In hindsight, I can see that once I had started down the path I was on, I was elevating myself to a place my partner was not prepared to go.    As much as I like to romanticize it and remember the good parts, it was a trouble partnership from the get go.  We were every different people, with different values and wholy opposite ways to deal with life's situations.    We argued a lot.   As we grew, we continued down our own paths, growing further apart.   If I was to be in a truly happy relationship, that one had to end, if only because my wife(at the time) was not interested in self improvement and therefore could not grow with me.

Looking back, I can see that clearly.  At the time, I saw only the loss and I pushed against that with everything I had.   Which only denied me any potential happiness I could have found elsewhere and kept me in a state of loss.    I'm not into astrology, but I'll give it this.  I'm a Taurus and true to my sunsign, I'm stubborn and don't like to move from where I'm at.  I stubbornly pushed against loss and stayed where I was for years before I finally understood that I was creating my own misfortune in love.  Once I did, and accepted the loss,  focusing only on finding new love, accepting the risk gladly, then love came.

So are you ready to tolerate the risk or pain or sorrows that must come with the glory you seek?  Then you are doomed to failure.  It is not about tolerating.

Price is not the same as Pain

There's a reason this prinicipal is Price and not Pain.   If you are seeing it as a pain then you have an inheritent problem with your Perspective.  Yin and yang are not exclusive, you cannot have one without the other, there is no dichotomy here.   They are intertwined and inseperable.   You must love them as one and the same.

My friend Cathy Morenzie really got my head in the right place for working out.  I've learned to associate stressing my body and the aches and pains that come with it as good things.   I like to feel the burn in my muscles now, because it means they are growing.  If I go a few days without hitting the gym, and now longer have any aches, it now psychically pains me, because I know I'm lossing muscle mass that I've worked so hard to gain.   I want the burn, the aches, the stress.  I GLADLY pay that price because it is a part and parcel of staying in top shape.

Investors GLADLY make risky (not stupid) investments, because they know that's where the real money is at.  People who want to experience love at the deepest levels gladly (but intelligently) accept the risk that comes with it.

"The whole process of mental adjustment and attunement can be summed up in one word: GRATITUDE " ~ Wallace D. Wattles


"He who loves his job, never works a day in his life." ~ Confucious

Most people complain about all the little annoyances in life but those things exist because of all the blessings in your life.   Those annoyances are the yin to your yang.  Instead of complaining be grateful to have them in the first place.

Instead of complaining about being stuck in traffic, give thanks that you have a car which provides you with freedom of travel.

Instead of complaining about your partner's habits be grateful you have found someone that wants to spend their life with you.

Instead of complaining about your children's behaviour (correct it and) rejoice in the blessings God/life has bestowed on you.

Instead of feeling sorry for yourself that you have no one in your life, rejoice at the unlimited opportunities to meet someone that are now before you.

Always be grateful for what you have.   Always be grateful for the challenges life presents to you.  Live in an attitude of gratitude.  Because you are either experiencing a yin for a yang that you are already enjoying and want to continue to enjoy, or the yin is a harbinger of the yang to follow.  As such it should be embraced, accepted, learned from and used to prepare you for the yang you are about to recieve.

"...the cycles of life are endless -- and always serve you, because life is a process that serves Life Itself.
When things seeem to be shifting away from you, moving in the other direction, closing doors, shutting down opportunities, remember that all things are cyclical -- including Life Itself.

What you are experiencing is temporary -- whether it's "good" OR "bad." So stop calling it one thing or the  other, and simply embrace it as What's Happening Now.


You'll move through it all much more peacefully. And one day you'll call it ALL "good.""
~ Neale Donald Walsch


When you come from the right Perspective, you realize that everything in life serves you in one way or the other.   Because nothing can be purely 'bad' or wholy 'good' but we can find the 'good', that which currently serves us, in every situation.  When you are grateful for the blessings or the challenges that make you grow, to become the person you need to be to accept greater blessings, then you are staying focused on that which you want.   You are walking in faith.  Holding onto your Promise, assured that todays troubles are working for you, somehow (and we often can't see how in our linerary experience of this life until afterwards), to deliver tomorrows triumphs.  Accept the yin to your desired yang for without the yin your yang can not exist.

When you are in a place where both yin and yang are 'good' things, then you have no problems.   Life becomes easy because there is no pain to be borne.    You begin to love that which you once sought to avoid, knowing it is a part of that which brings you joy so it too, brings you joy.   You go from joy to joy to joy.  Following your bliss.

Once Price is your Pleasure, then nothing is beyond you.

The Eighth Power 'P' of Enduring Success

By Preston Squire

Passion

I've taken a break for a few days because I knew the next Power 'P' was Passion and I wanted to be feeling really passionate while I wrote it.   However, I'm writing from work, as that's when I have the most time and least distractions - sad I know - and it's really hard to be passionate in this office.  Lol.  Serious.

Government jobs suck your soul.  Good pay, mediocore benefits, but great job security and pension keep people sticking with them even as the dullness and drudgery take their toll.  LOL.   Yes, this is a great start to a chapter on Passion!

The very fundimental problem with government jobs is that they give you security but at the cost of your passion.   You see a lot of young folk come into government jobs with lots of ideas of how they'll change the system, bring in innovation, make it all work the way it should.  They have tremendous energy and enthusiasm and the upper levels of management always seem happy to indulge them.   They are a breathe of fresh air after all.    However, within five years, the enthusiasm is long gone, replaced by a realization that the system will not be changed.   The system, although it screams for change, hates change; unless it's externally motivated change and then it happens lightning fast, because it must.   

That is not so unlike many of our lives, or parts of our lives.   We acknowledge the need for change, we want the change, but no amount of enthusiastic outpour, no amount of great ideas, no inspiration ever really makes a lasting change.   We do not want the change, because we, like settled in government workers, want our security, even though it costs us our passions.    So we're conflicted.   We associate pain to remaining where we are, but we have some comfort level there, and associate pain to change and to the unknown.

Being in a Pain-Pain situation can bring about learned helplessness.   You just accept that you can't change.  Nonsense.   If someone put a gun to your head you'd change in an instant!   We just need to get that motivation generated from the inside instead of from the outside. 
Without Passion we become stagnant.

When we think about passion we think of fiery emotion.  Like a fire, passion must be given fuel to burn and be fanned to burn brightly.   If we don't add fuel and fan our passion, like a fire it will slowly burn out.

For our emotional passion, as far as maintaining our motivation to succeed, the fuel is our Purpose and our Promise.    I will talk more about Purpose in the next blog entry but suffice to say, it is our reason for wanting to achieve, our reason for being.    Like logs to a fire, the mental logs of Purpose must be occasionally added to our passion.   We need to keep reminding ourselves WHY we want what we want and WHY we're doing what we're doing.    What are the pleasures to be obtained by doing it?   And what are they pains of failure for not?

Hand in hand with our Purpose, we must remember our Promise.   That our success is already Promised to us.   That whatever we ask for in faith, and do not doubt, will be given.  In God's terms and time, not ours. 

Promise fans the flames of our Passion.   We know why we're burning, the logs of Purpose, and the knowledge that it's guaranteed, our Promise, helps us to burn brightly, even when the logs are damp or the wind threatens to extinquish our flame.

Passion helps immessurably to help keep you focused, Progressing and on track.   When you are passionate about something it's a lot easier to remain Patient and Persistent when things are not going your way.  You Pray a lot more fervertently.  The more emotion you put behind your prays/desires the quicker you tend to attract them to you.   You can't help but be Positive about something that you feel Passionate about.  

One thing about living in Toronto.  People here are passionate about hockey and the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Every year you hear those fans saying that this is the year that they'll take the Stanley Cup.   Hasn't happened since 1968 but you've got to love their passion and positivity.

The other great thing about Passion is it's a massive enabler.  When people are really passionate about something they are willing to do more and endure more to get what they want.   I remember as a kid when the second Star Wars movie was coming out or even more recently when the Nintendo Wii came out, people lined up outside the theatres or stores for hours, some people for DAYS prior to the launch.  Just so they could have it or see it first.    Really?  Would it kill them to wait a week or a month or even a year?  No.  But they were so passionate, that camping out on concrete, in the winter, was a Price they were gladly willing to pay to get what they wanted as soon as possible.

So take care to fuel and fan your passion for once it's burning brightly, it takes on a life of it's own and will help drive you through some of life's most difficult times.

The Sixth Power 'P' of Enduring Success

By Preston Squire

Promise

At this point I wouldn't blame you if you thought I was beginning to look through a dictionary and stick more 'P' words into the premise of 'Enduring Success' but I assure you nothing could be further from the truth.

When I got up this morning I was feeling inspired to write but before I did I went through my normal Sunday morning routine (for the sake of not overwhelming readers this is being released Monday).  I watched Joel Osteen who touched on and inspired the subject for today's blog.

Next I watched my video of the day (and yesterday) from the 100 Day Start Fast / Finish Strong Challenge by Gary Ryan Blair.  That inspired two more blogs in this series.    Finally while I was marveling at how God had drop these into my lap and how intricately they all fit into each other like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, I glanced over to my calendar, which as you might suspect, has those inspirational sayings and images.   It's the end of the month so I've seen this particular  saying for a full 28 days.   However today as my head was on fire with the revelations God had already shown me, it suddenly clicked in a whole new way.

So in one morning I was inspired to write not just the continuation of the Perspective blog (seen yesterday) but four other entries as well.   I'll endeavor to write as many as I can today but either way I'll be spreading these out over the next week.   Currently, I'm writing this as Canada plays for Olympic gold in men's hockey, so far successfully (Go Canada!), but it's rather distracting to say the least.

AND WE WON!!!!  But by now you already know that and have probably seen the clip a thousand times.   At least, if you're in Canada.   To my American fans, your team played a hell of a tournament and you should be very proud.  Congrats on being the overall medal winner in these games.    To everyone else: We own the gold medal podium!   Highest number of gold medals won by a country in the Winter Olympics - ever!

Canada went into this Olympics with a different attitude this year.   Normally we are just grateful to rank well, but this year there was a very deliberate focus on now only performing well but specifically on 'Owning the Podium'.    Those in charge of our athletes set a higher standard for themselves and for our men and women to aspire too.  Coming up to these Olympic games it became a rallying cry for the whole country.  But many wondered if it would make a difference.

Over the first week, Canada did well, we normally do, we are 'The True North' after all, but not enough to really say we were 'owning the podium'.     It became clear early on that there was no way we could win the overall medal count.  That was going to the USA and Germany was also too far ahead for us to reach.   We were amoungst a group of countries vying for third.  Then in the closing days of the games, Canada had a rush of gold medal wins, tying us with the U.S.S.R. and Norway for most ever won during a Winter Olympics.  I cannot express how momentous it is for Canadians for us to set a world record with 14 Golds won with an overtime win in Men's hockey at the very end of these games.   It's like the perfect storybook ending.

Clearly that idea of 'Owning the podium' translated into performance.   Part of the reason why is because our athletics held onto the

Promise

When we set a goal for ourselves, in faith, then it is already promised to us.

Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. - Matthew 21:21


God or Source Energy / Infinite Intelligence or however you chose to look at it, wants us to succeed. It is important to have the right morals for what we are doing. There is nothing inherently wrong with being rich, but there is something wrong with being obsessed with money for the sake of being rich. That is self-serving and ultimately that selfishness will come back to haunt you. However, becoming rich through service to others is not only fine, it's honourable. It glorifies God. So as soon as you make a committed decision, not some wishy washy dream or hope but an absolute commitment to achieving then the universe responds. Things are set into motion and that reality becomes real. It just hasn't arrived as yet.

"Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elemental truth - that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too." - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Our success is promised to us. However, it is not promised to us on a timeline of our choosing or in a way that we envision it. Often growth, our personal growth is required for us to achieve our goals and dreams. What good would it be to meet the man or woman of your dreams if you are not mature enough to satisfy them? What good would owning a huge company be if we have not developed the wisdom to run it successfully? What benefit is there to us being in some starving, war ravaged country to help if we are unable to cope with the reality around us? Everything happens in accordance to the Laws of the Universe in perfect accordance to God's time. We just can't see it or understand it. Nor do we need to. You probably don't understand exactly how a light bulb works, but you flick on a switch with absolute confidence that the room will immediately be filled with light. It doesn't matter to you how that electricity is being made, where it's traveling from or how a light bulb works, you have a rough idea but you trust it'll work, just like it has every other time you flicked on a switch. Now of course, there were days when you hit the switch and nothing happened. What went wrong? Do you despair that you'll live the rest of your life in the dark? No! Of course not. You try another bulb. If that doesn't work, try the fuse, or maybe call an electrician. You always remain confident an answer will soon be found. But when it comes to our hopes and dreams, one set back is often enough to derail us.

We need to constantly remind ourselves that our aspirations are already promised to us. That we need to just be patient, persistent, positive, walk in prayer and maintain the proper perspective.

If you haven't reached your goal yet, do not grieve that it is continuing to elude you, be grateful that you are one day closer to achieving it. Hold on to the Promise.

The Fifth Power 'P' of Enduring Success

By Preston Squire

Now my friend is going to complain. When he e-mailed me about his frustrations, I wrote him about three P's of enduring success - Patience, Persistence and Prayer. When I started taking that and turning it into a series for this site, another friend suggested adding Positivity which was a wonderful idea and addition.

When my friend saw there was now four P's, he started getting on my case about how I had short changed him. Well, buddy, now you're really going to feel slighted because here's P number five!!

Perspective

It doesn't matter who you are. No amount of money, fame, talent, skill, religion or plain dumb luck will keep you from hitting the occasional speed bump in life. Sometimes it will feel like Life has just sucker punched you in your most sensitive area. You are not immune and everyone has their own sob story. Welcome to the club. But it's through these challenges that we grow and become (hopefully) better human beings for it.

You could be using the Law of Attraction to visualize your partner being nicer to you, to stop disrespecting you when out of the blue, they leave you to be with someone else. You could be praying steadfastly for a promotion when you suddenly find yourself out of work. That new business you started while walking in faith could cause you to go bankrupt, lose your house, livelyhood and even destroy your relationship. Perhaps something terrible has happened to you, or to someone close to you.

All of these have happened to me personally or people I care about deeply.

At times like these we feel tremendous pain in our lives. Often we become discouraged, frustrated, angry and resentful at God for allowing it to happen. Little do we realize that we needed it to happen for our dreams to reach fruition. Often it's not the event itself that is ruining our lives, it's our lack of proper perspective.

When my marriage fell apart, I did everything to try to make it work. I went ninty percent of the way to fixing everything that was wrong with it, only to discover my wife wasn't even willing to do ten percent. I did get angry and blamed God. I walked away from my faith for a time because I couldn't understand why he had allowed my marriage to end when I had done everything 'right'.

Now looking back, I realize it had to happen. I had asked for it too. Even though I didn't realize it. I wanted a loving relationship but you cannot change someone through Law of Attraction nor will God change someone for you. So what happens? I was no longer a vibrational match for that reality. It naturally began to fall away so a vibrational match could replace it. Being with that woman would never bring me the satisfaction I was looking for, so she was removed from my life so that I could enjoy a loving relationship.

However, I totally lacked perspective. If I had seen it that way at the time, I would have maintained my faith in God and would have continued to envision the type of relationship I wanted. I would have attracted a better match into my life and been living my dream. Instead I stubbornly wasted years trying to move backwards while still moving forwards. When I finally gained the correct perspective, I quickly, and rather unexpectedly found a wonderful, passionate love again.

A friend of mine had been praying for increase in his job when he suddenly found himself out of work. Why? Probably because where he was working was a dying industry. There was no increase possible for him there. So God moved him out of there so he could instead bless him with opportunities that he never would have considered otherwise. He's now benefitting from multiple sources of income and gaining a feeling of control over his life he's never known before. Again, though, we struggled with finding a proper perspective. He was angry about losing the job he'd held for the last decade. Scared about what the future would bring. He lost sight of increase and just focused on finding anything at all, changing what he was attracting into his life and delaying the entire process God had intended.

I could give many stories like this. In all cases, looking back, we're all happy those things had happened to us. We see how they have benefitted us and if they hadn't happened how we would have been stuck. However, it's rare when we are going through those difficult times we are able to maintain a proper perspective. We see only want we're losing and take our eyes off of the very goals we are in the midst of achieving, causing us to delay our blessings. We end up hurting ourselves, through our lack of faith.

Ironically it's not only the valleys that cause us to lose perspective, it's the hills too. When we are at the top of our game we often lose perspective of what's really important.

It the last blog about Prayer I quoted Jesus talking about the parable of the seeds and explaining that the seeds that were sewn in the thorns were those that accepted the Word only to lose it to doubt or distraction. We just finished talking about how the valleys in our lives cause doubt, so let's talk about the distractions the hills can bring.

Ask any Pastor or Priest and they'll tell you that when the economy is great attendence drops and when the economy tanks people suddenly remember church. Why? Because while we are happy to seek God's help in the hard times, all too often when things are going great we want to take all credit for it. We become full of ourselves, egotistical, perhaps even feel invunerable. We start enjoying our new found wealth, power and fame and forget why we even wanted them in the first place. We start to seek them not as a necessity to better our lives and the lives of our loved ones but seek wealth, power and fame in and of themselves. 'Keeping up with the Joneses'. We glorify in our ability to create but without any firm foundation as to why we are creating our reality. We allow the excesses of life to distract our focus from what really matters.

Soon we find we have that which we sought but it's empty and meaningless. We become confused, feel lost and often crash and burn. Sometimes we see this dramatically played out in our celebraties. We watch them rise to soaring heights, come crashing down to dismal depths, and hopefully if they haven't lethally overdosed on drugs, eventually rise once more but with a firmer foundation on why success matters to them and what they want to accomplish with it.

In the end all that's changed is their perspective.

So how do we keep a proper perspective when everything seems to be going to hell in a handbasket? More on that - tomorrow.

The Fourth Power 'P' of Enduring Success

By Preston Squire

Prayer

This is part four of a eleven part series. Also see;
The Power P's of Enduring Success - Patience
The Second Power P of Enduring Success - Persistence
The Third P of Enduring Success - Positivitity


Jesus explains the parable of the seeds as such;

Matthew 4:13 - 20

Then Jesus said to them, “If you can’t understand the meaning of this parable, how will you understand all the other parables?

The farmer plants seed by taking God’s word to others.

The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message, only to have Satan come at once and take it away. The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. But since they don’t have deep roots, they don’t last long. They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God’s word. The seed that fell among the thorns represents others who hear God’s word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life, the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things, so no fruit is produced. And the seed that fell on good soil represents those who hear and accept God’s word and produce a harvest of thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as had been planted!”

As you can see from this parable even when people are taught how to better their lives, so precious few can actually hold onto it long enough to make their lives fruitful.

The first bunch (on the footpath) lack Patience. They like what they are hearing but immediately go back to looking at their unsatisfactory life. They live in the moment with no vision of a better tomorrow.

The second bunch (on rocky soil) lack Persistence. They take in the message of hope. Get all excited, run with it but when things don't go their way, they lose it again.

The third bunch (in thorns) lack Positivity and Perspective. They absorb the lessons and utilize them effectively but then allow circumstances to discourage them or otherwise lose focus on what's really important.

Only the last bunch (on good soil) absorb the lessons of life and utilize them effectively, for the right reasons, consistantly despite adversity, until they bear fruit. What allows this group to succeed when all the others have faded? Certainly patience, persistence, positivity and a proper perspective (hmmm... another P, maybe I should make it 5 Ps?) are all critical to lasting when things are tough. But in order to really endure, when everything seems to be set against you, when everyone around you is telling you otherwise, when there is no physical evidence that you will ever accomplish your goals and dreams, you need to be able to draw on a strength greater than yourself.

PRAYER

Now it is not my intent to preach Christianity, nor do I believe it is the only way. I have seen many miracles happen to people of many difference religions and beliefs. Jesus works for me. It is my understanding of God/Source energy and I draw strength from it but if you do not believe in Jesus then believe in something. Find a religion or definition that works for you.

Prayer is important for a number of reasons.

It helps you to focus your energy. Try to relax, and always ask for what you do want. Be specific as possible. Visualize it. Thank God for it as if it is already yours. Because it is. God loves you. He has set a full table before you with every concievable dish. He wants you to be happy and satisfied. But unless you boldly go forward and claim it, it will remain there.

Given such an array of dishes most people just go forth and take what they are familiar with. It's easy and safe. They look at the other dishes and wonder what they are like but are afraid to try it, in case they don't like it. Maybe it'll be too hot. Or not to their taste. So they stick to what they know.

Many look at some of the richest, most luxurious dishes and desire to sample from them, but ask themselves who are they to be entitled to such as that? That's for people better than they. Like the poem The Wage, these people are asking life for a penny and a penny they shall have. God does not impose such value judgement against us. We impose them against ourselves. Those dishes are there for you to sample. Go boldly forth and do so.

Through prayer we put ourselves in alignment to recieve our desires.

Prayer provides answers to our questions. No, you're not going to hear some booming voice from the heavens (and if you do, let me know your secret) but if you are still, clear of emotional and mental garbage, you may gain clarity. This comes in many forms. A gut feeling. A knowing. A sense of 'rightness'. Your conscience. Timely advice. Meeting someone at a critical time who can help move you in the direction you need.

Most importantly prayer allows us to draw on a source of strength greater than ourselves. When we feel totally tapped out, we can hold onto our faith, and let go and let God.

By being able to hold onto our faith we can envision a way even when no way is evident. All things are possible for God. This keeps us in alignment with our goal, instead of despairing which moves us out of alignment.

Law of Attraction states that whatever we continually focus on we attract. Especially when we focus on it with intense emotion. It doesn't matter if it's good or bad. By holding onto our faith we continue to believe that we will achieve, continue to live in a state of optomistic joy and remain a vibrational match for that which we desire. Without faith, we despair, we get caught up in the here and now, and start to push against it. Pushing against it only serves to attract it. If that's what you've focused on, that's what you're attracting.

But isn't that sort of contradicting myself bouncing from Christianty to Law of Attraction, you ask? If God can do anything and he loves you and you're praying to him shouldn't he provide for you despite the fact that you may be looking at that which you don't want? No. Because if you're focusing on that which you don't want, if that's consuming your mind and energy you are not walking in faith. You are praying on one hand but then disbelieving on the other. If you are truly walking in faith then you can only be focused on that which the Lord is providing and not what the world is showing. You can only be in a state of bliss, because you know, deep down, that God has you covered. You stop looking at the here and now and relax, content that somehow, God will show you a way. And that is Law of Attraction in action.

Once we turn to prayer, once we let go and let God, we are relax and stop feeling like we need to fight the world. And in doing so, we allow our blessings to flow.

The Third Power 'P' of Enduring Success

by Preston Squire

This is a continuation of The Power P's of Enduring Success - Patience
and
The Second Power P of Enduring Success - Persistence

Positivity

The difference between people who live their dreams and people who only wish they did, isn't that the former had it any easier, it's that they managed to hold on longer through the challenging times. 

One of the key ingredients necessary to hold on longer than the masses is the ability to consistantly maintain a positive mental attitude.  Inevitably, something will happen to piss you off or frustrate you.  We're not perfect.  It happens to me.  Bob Proctor has mentioned mutliple times it happens to him.  Anthony Robbins too.  But I do not dwell in negativity long.  I spot negative thinking early on and immediately set my mind back to focusing on the positives.

A lot of people like to be 'realists' but really that's just another word for 'pessimist'.  The only difference is realists are looking at what is and using that to determine what will be.   Actually, that's not a difference at all, except they like to think it's different because they are not painting it to be worse than what the current reality is.

But the Law of Attraction teaches us that whatever you focus on, you attract into your life.  If you are focused on what is, you are attracting more of the same.   If you are focused on what you want, you are attracting that.

In more concrete terms, if you look at the current results and use that as your guide then you automatically limit what you can accomplish.  You cannot envision achieving higher heights than what you're seeing.  Since you cannot envision it, you will not strive continuously to accomplish it and therefore will inevitable prove yourself right.   Effectively you are attracting more of the same into your life.

I mentioned my friend and web guru before and this was exactly where he was at when he e-mailed me.  He was feeling like he had plateaued.  That he just couldn't achieve more than what he had achieved before.  That was his current reality.  He was being realistic.  And if he stayed in that mindset, he'd prove himself right.

"Whether you believe you can, or you can't; you are right."  Henry Ford

Fortunately my friend is like me and does not allow those thoughts to linger very long.  After a few hours he was back to his old indomitable self.  He is one person who continually inspires me as he always shoots for more than he can chew, and often gets it.   I don't doubt he'll be surprising me by scoring some position I would never have thought he was capable of getting, again, sometime soon.

By focusing your mind on what is good about any situation and on the results you want, you start to see how the current reality is not taking you away from your goals but conversely, how they are bring you closer.  To begin with, you'll be grateful for the lessons learned, and any little good you gain from the situation.  Gratitude brings you into alignment with God/Source.  Being resentful about life, pulls you away from your connection to your higher power.    Being grateful and positive also allows you to see and be prepared for oppurtunities that you would miss if you are limiting your mindset to only the realistic results.

Once my friend regained his positive mental attitude, he immediately made some calls, and managed to salvage a contract opportunity he was written off as dead.  If he had allowed himself to have remained in his former state he'd have never made those calls, as he'd still be bitching about how unfair life was instead.

This poem sums it up beautifully.

MY WAGE

By Jessie B. Rittenhouse


I bargained with Life for a penny,
And Life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store;


For Life is a just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.

I worked for a menial's hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have paid.

People who look at the present results and allow that to shape their expectations of life are asking for a penny. Why else would you ask for a penny? Only because based on your previous experiences, you feel that's what you are worth and capable of. You ask for a penny because you think it's a just wage for your services, even while you rail at the injustice of how you're suffering through life while others seem to be better off.
If you develop and maintain a positive mental attitude you expect and demand more from life. Why can't you have more? You're as good as anyone else in life. God made us all equally, if differently. And the wage you ask for, consistantly, is the wage you'll earn.

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." Matthew 7:7

Being positive is a choice, an attitude and a habit.   If you are not a positive person by nature you need to habitualize the behavour until you are.  A positive mental attitude will allow you to continue carrying on long after a 'realistic' person would have thrown in the towel.

Okay, I know last time I said I was going to do a series based on those 5 Key Steps of Achieving Goals but you know what?   I hate doing these series.  I like to write what's on my heart each day and really, while it may be more haphazard, I know I'll produce a better piece if I'm writing about what's inspired instead of some pre-determined topic.

So without further ado:

Without Action Law of Attraction Has No Traction

By Preston Squire

This has always been one of my biggest pet peeves.   People who want to just sit on their couches, visualizing away and expect the universe (God) to hand them whatever they want.    And we are all guilty of it at some point, myself included.  We simply don't want to do the work involved.  We want the easy way out.  In the sensational hit movie 'The Secret' it appears that all you have to do is 'Ask' and 'Recieve' but that's oversimplifying.

5 Key Steps to Achieving Goals

By Preston Squire


Step #1: Be Clear on What You Want

Be clear on want you want and why.  If you're not sure, ask yourself what you don't want.   Whatever is the polar opposite of that is what you ought to be shooting for.

Be clear on why it's important to you.   Make a list of all the benefits that achieving that goal will deliver and a list of all the adversity not achieving it will bring.

Set definite goals.  Be specific.  If you want money, for example, you could state that you want to earn an additional $250,000.00 by the end of next year. 

Make the goal something you believe you can reach even though you can't see how it's possible.

Great Expectations

By Preston Squire

"Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he has great expectations." - From 'Great Expectations' by Charles Dickens

If you want to achieve greatness in this life, you must first develop your own great expectations.

Go to through life hoping for money, health, happiness but expecting none of it is totally self-defeating.   Let me restate that.  To hope for one thing, but expecting another is totally defeating ones own self.  You are causing your own defeat before you even begin.

"What the mind of man can conceive and believe, It can achieve." - Napoleon Hill

5 Steps to Creating Empowering Beliefs

By Preston Squire

To Be(lieve) or Not To Be(lieve); That is The Question

You don't need to believe in God, the Law of Attraction or any other such thing to accept one simple fact.  

If you hope to achieve anything in life, you had better first believe you can.

4 Ways to Create Burning Desire

by Preston Squire

Consider the story of the disciple who went to his guru one day and asked, “Master, how do I achieve enlightenment?” The wise old guru directed the disciple to the bank of the Ganges River and had him kneel with his head over the water. Then the guru put his hand on the young man’s neck and pushed his head below the surface of the water. After a minute and a half the young disciple was frantic. He pulled and heaved and flailed his arms, but the grip was like iron. He could not get his head back out of the water. After two minutes, when it seemed as though his lungs would burst, the grip was released.

The young man’s head jerked out of the water and he took great gulps of air into his tortured lungs.

The guru smiled. “Tell me,” he gently asked, “ what was your greatest desire just then?”

“To breathe,” the young disciple stated emphatically.

“Ah,” the guru said. “When you desire enlightenment to that degree, it shall be yours.”

To be able to persevere and succeed, despite whatever obstacles life puts in your way, requires burning desire.


This is most everyone falls short. While we all have desires, few us of ever cultivate a desire so strong that we will stop at nothing to achieve it.
 

The Law of Paradoxical Intent

by Preston Squire



The Problem



I was talking to a friend and she's big on The Secret
and The Law of Attraction. She uses visualization daily, has a vision board, does everything she should be doing, at least according to the movie, and yet, she lacks the results she wants.

This does not surprise me for as well and good as 'The Secret' is, and it IS well and good, it is not the full story. It's more like an introduction than a complete answer in itself. In fact, there's so much missing they could, should, and probably will one day make 'The Secret 2'.

Watching that movie (or reading the book) gives you the impression of mere wish fulfillment. Just visualize what you want and the universe will give it to you. Are they wrong? Not really, but there's more to it than that.
Giving it your 'All'

Freeing Yourself of Doubt

By Preston Squire

 I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.
- Thomas Edison

Creeping doubt is one of your worst enemies and I have been struggling with it myself as we all must do.

I was listening to an interview with Helene Hadsell an 80+ year old woman who has used the Law of Attraction to obtain outstanding results in contests winning a house, two cars, numerous trips and a ton of other things.

The interview was a sales pitch but they revealed a lot of nuggets of wisdom.

What Are You Thinking About?

It's pretty basic really.

Whatever you are focused on is what is getting the bulk of your energy and attention. And regardless on if you want to look at that in the metaphysical 'Law of Attraction' way of calling that into existence or just the purely phyiscal reality that while you are fixated on one thing you cannot be constructively doing anything else it all boils down to the same thing.

You are what you think about.

But what are you thinking about?

People, by and large, are not in the habit of monitoring their thoughts. They just let them flow wherever they want and after a time, like water running over loose soil, your thoughts start to flow into well worn tracks. You have a habituated pattern of thought whether you realize it or not.

Are those thought patterns serving you? Do they inspire you? Or merely frustrate?

For the vast majority of people, their thoughts are focused on the things they do not want. They see the world as it is, complain about it to themselves, tossing and turning it over in their minds, contemplating it's unfairness, before sharing their discontent with other likeminded people.

This is pointless and worse, distructive. It goes without saying that if the situation makes you unhappy then you should be seeking to change it but if all you are doing is looking at what you don't like, then no energy is being spend on creating or moving yourself towards what you do like. You're merely wasting your energy, time and life.

Take the 10 day challenge!

Over the next 10 days I want you to be conscious of what it is you're thinking about. If you find you're thinking in negative terms, immediately change it into the positive. So instead of complaining about how it's wrong, try to see how it could benefit you, or on what you could change to improve your situation. If nothing else, force your mind onto another, positive subject altogether.

Do not let your mind dwell in the negative for more than 1 minute. If you realize you've been dwelling negatively for more than that, restart your 10 day challenge.

Daunting isn't it? But why should it be? Really?

It takes no more energy or effort to think positive, enlifting, productive thoughts than it does negative, disempowering ones.

The purpose of this exercise isn't to make you into a polly-anna person who only sees the cup as half-full. It's to make you aware of your own habituated pattern of thoughts and how limiting they are.

Most everyone who takes this challenge seriously will be stunned by how much they dwell on what they don't want and equally surprised by how much they improve their lives, in many dozens of little ways, by focusing on solutions or what they can be grateful for instead.


I myself am taking this challenge and will report in my sister blog, Preston's Path to Prosperity, daily as to my results.

Guard Your Mind - Part 2

Aside from fears and doubts growing from within our mind we must also be vigilant about those trying to enter from outside.

When you are using the Law of Attraction, you are fixing your attention onto something that hasn't happened and for the most part, something that there's no 'rational' reason to expect to happen, at least not in traditional thinking.

Often family and friends will kindly offer 'advice' on your dreams. Be wary, while some advice my be insightful, too often they are just sharing their doubts and fears with you. Lock those out of your mind! Guard your mind from negative influences. "Practical", "reasonable" and especially "realistic" are all words that often hide what is really just doubt. I assure you, no one who has truly broken from the crowd and achieved outstanding success did it by doing what the crowd thought was practical, reasonable or realistic. No, those people set unrealistic goals, unreasonably believed they could achieved them and went ahead without knowing exactly how they would end up accomplishing that goal - something totally 'impractical'.

But when doubt is dressed as 'common sense' it is all too easy to shallow it and allow it to deter you from your goals. However think about this; by definition 'common sense' is the sense that is common to the masses. So if you want to continue to achieve the same results as the masses then please continue to use the same sense that is common for those results. If you want to achieve greater results then you need uncommon sense. Sense that is use by only an enlightened few.

Where do you find uncommon sense? It all around you but for an start try Six Minutes to Success or one of the books recommended on the right. Or just keep on coming back here.

Patience is a Virtue

"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful" Hebrews 10:23

The one item success coaches do not talk about enough, at least, not enough for my impatient self, in the need for patience. An entire chapter should be given to this subject for it is that critical to success.

If we accept Napoleon Hill's notion of "Whatever a man can conceive and believe, he can achieve." or from Matthew 7:7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” then we except the notion that whatever righteous thing we have fixed out minds on we can achieve.

But even given that, it requires two critical things - persistence and patience. I've spoken about a third; faith, already. It is obvious that if you want a thing, then you must put it into motion, not just once but continuously. This is one area where you have only to look around you to see that the overwhelming majority of people do not put it into practice. That talk a good talk but only timidly actually take rubber to the road and drive down the path to success. First road block they come to usually stumps them as this road has no GPS to tell them in advance what is the proper way to proceed but if they were to just take to the side street they would discover the detour is marked.

"Success it the ability to go from one failure to another without loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill

We must remain persistent with our actions even when the results are not indicative of success.

I have seen it commonly said that Thomas Edison had almost 10,000 failures before he successful invented the electric light bulb. That's not entirely true. The electric light had already been invented in Britain by Swan and Canada by Woodward before Edison even started. Edison bought Woodward's patent and eventually merged with Swan's company to sell electric lights in Europe. The reason Edison is credited is because he is the one that persisted in refining the idea until he had a design that would be practical and affordable to the average consumer.

Did it take 10,000 tries? Perhaps but in the end it was Edison's persistence and vision that enabled him to become rich off of it even though the initial idea and brilliance was from someone else. Edison expected success.

Had Woodward had the faith, persistence and patience to continue trying we might all be calling the electric light bulb a Canadian invention instead.

However the stumbling block for many of us, often myself included, is in the lack of patience. We persistently continue to try, continue to hold the vision - with faith but when we do not see the results we become frustrated. This is why patience is so critically important. We do not know when the breakthrough will come.

In the movie - The Secret - they talk about how the Law of Attraction has a delay factor. We must first create the seed of an idea and then plant that idea into our subconscious minds, from there it will germinate but like any seed growing into a plant or tree the process takes time. Depending on the seed it could be a day before we see a sprout, a week or even years later when certain conditions are met.

A plant seed has an advantage in that it never doubts itself. It doesn't sit on the surface of the ground and worry that it isn't planted under the earth to grow, nor does it fuss that perhaps it's been planted too deeply and won't reach the surface once it starts to grow. It simply waits for the right conditions and then it merely grows be it minutes after it's fallen or three years later. The universe provides the soil, the water, and the light it needs.

In the same way, once we have created an intense desire, we need to be able to live in a state of patient expectation that the desire will manifest itself into reality. Patient being the operative word for anxious or impatient expectations will only draw those things we don't want, those factors that could stunt our growth into our lives since that's what we've begun to focus on.

There will always be road blocks and detours on the way, that's natural, do not let them sway your expectations - remember, "He who promised is faithful". Cultivate a mindful state of relax and joyous expectation. Thank God every day for your success, envision what you will be doing once you have achieved it, mentally see yourself as being that person already. This will seem weird and like you're living a lie at first because your current reality is always a reflection of your past thinking patterns. Do not dwell on the current realities. Acknowledge them and act accordingly but do not dwell on them. Dwell only and always on the future you're in the process of creating.