Renewing the Power of Positive Thinking
November 22, 2020 by MarkHaroldsen
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Some time ago, I picked up an old book from1987 called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers. In it she talks about a physical demonstration that she does at some of her seminars that I found very impressive. It shows just how powerful our thoughts can be.
What she did was get a volunteer out of her audience and have them hold their arms straight out to the side. She would tell the volunteer to resist with all their strength as she attempted to push down on their arms. In the book she notes that she has not once been able to push down a volunteer’s arms on the initial try.
Then she would then tell the volunteer to say, ten times, “I am a weak and unworthy person,†instructing them to really feel the statement as they say it. After they did that, she would try to push down their arms again and, this time, she would be able to push both arms down.
To further drive home her point, she would ask the person to repeat, ten times, the positive statement, “I am a strong and worthy person.†This time she would not be able to budge their arms, maybe even less so than during the initial effort she made when they first stood up.
I took this to heart and, just before heading out to play in a round robin tennis tourney, I repeated to myself, many times over (even though I felt kind of childish doing it), â€I am a very strong tennis player and I am very worthy of winning.†I also repeated, “I am younger and more fit now than I was a year ago.†Wow, did that ever work! I played 4 rounds of tennis winning each round by a very wide margin!
Even though most of what Jeffers had to say was stuff I already knew, I was just not doing it anymore. It was like a rebirth doing it again and, wow, did it feel good. And here I am, many years later, needing the reminder again.
We can all use a little helpful nudge to get us back on track now and again. So, this week, I’ve been thinking about that and about the statements I could say to help increase my performance in everything I’m doing.
The power of positive thinking is pretty amazing. Especially when you remember to use it! What kind of positive statements could you use in your life? Come up with a few, use them, and see if it doesn’t make a world of difference.
Better Through Thought
May 17, 2020 by MarkHaroldsen
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For many years I’ve complained about my lack of flexibility. It’s very hard for me to reach down and pick something off the floor. I’ve said to myself and my wife “I really don’t have good flexibility.â€
I’m reading a book now called The Secret. It has been very interesting and potentially very helpful. The author, Rhonda Byrne, states, “Think thoughts of perfection. Illness cannot exist in the body that has harmonious thoughts.” Then she goes on to say, “I think perfect thoughts. I see only perfection. I am perfection. I banished every bit of stiffness and lack of agility right out of my body. I focused on seeing my body as flexible and as perfect as a child’s and every stiff and aching joint vanished. I literally did that overnight.”
She quotes Dr. John Hagelin, a quantum physicist and public policy expert as saying, “Our body is really the product of our thoughts. We’re beginning to understand in medical science the degree to which the nature of thoughts and emotions actually determines the physical substance and structure and function of our bodies.”
So, we can really see that our brains and our self-talk are very powerful and can help us heal ourselves and can help our lives in so many ways. Dr. John Demartini, a human behavior specialist, speaker, and author adds that, “We’ve known in the healing arts of a placebo effect. A placebo is something that supposedly has no impact and no effect on the body, like a sugar pill. You tell the patient that this is just as effective, and what happens is the placebo sometimes has the same effect, if not greater effect, than the medication that is supposed to be designed for that effect. The have found out that the human mind is the biggest factor in the healing arts, sometimes more so than the medication.†He goes on to say, “that love and gratitude will dissolve all negativity in our lives, no matter what form it has taken.â€
Reading all this has helped me change my self-talk about my flexibility and I’ve started making a gratitude list. In my thoughts I’m saying, “I am so thankful for my slow heart rate, thankful for my great health, thankful for my great energy, both physical and mental, that has really improved my life. I am grateful that I am becoming more flexible.â€Â
I think back over my life and I’ve said for years that I am really quite good with numbers and with words. I realize now that the more I said that the better I became with numbers and words and those two attributes ended up being the key for me to make a fortune. So, I would encourage you to take a close look at yourself and get your brain busy strengthening your mindset about those things in your life that will enhance your life and everything you do.Â
Affirming Your Success
November 29, 2019 by MarkHaroldsen
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In my post last week, I quoted Richard Paul Evans’ book, The 5 Lessons a Millionaire Taught Me, and, of course, the very first lesson is simply “Decide to Be Wealthy”. In other words, make a commitment, set goals, and then, of course, act on those goals. To do this, you need the right mindset, one that is consistently and firmly placed in your head.
If you are smart, and have done even a little bit of homework, you know that things like fancy, expensive cars are not important and, in fact, will slow you down as surely as the value of that fancy car will drop in value. Your money needs to be put into assets that go up in value. Working hard on creating a great, big image of wealth is not the road you want, or should, take. Remember your goal is to BE wealthy not just to look wealthy.
Even if you are in terrible financial shape right now, it’s never too late to set big, financial goals and go to work on them. Once you make the decision to become wealthy, those little things called affirmations or self-talk can be a huge help. I know from experience that making a list of affirmations that I then repeat to myself on a regular basis gave a big boost to my mental attitude and lead me to actions that made me millions of dollars.
Chellie Campbell, a great writer of books and articles, has some great affirmations. I will share with you 14 out of a list of 50 super affirmations that help her and her many readers. I encourage you to take a look at this list and repeat them over and over in your mind and out loud too. It’s amazing how just saying stuff like this to yourself, even though they may not yet have happened, can bring about changes that do end up happening.
- People love to give me money!
- I am rich and wonderful.
- I am now earning a great big income doing what satisfies me.
- Something wonderful is happening to me today–I can feel it.
- All my bills are paid up in full and I still have all this money.
- My affirmations work for me, whether I believe they will or not. (This is for the skeptics among you.)
- A lot more money is coming into my life. I deserve it and will use it for my good and others.
- All my clients praise me and pay me!
- I am a money magnet!
- Money comes to me easily and effortlessly, waking and sleeping.
- I am now highly pleasing to myself in other people’s presence.
- I walk, talk, look, act, think, and am rich!
- I am a winner–I win often and I win big!
- I now receive large sums of money just for being me!
Wow. That is quite an amazing list of affirmations. Obviously, they are not all happening right now, but studies have shown that repeating affirmations to oneself can bring about many changes that eventually make things happen just like the affirmations that were repeated.
So, when you really decide to be wealthy, and mean it to your core, then repeating affirmations like these will not sound or seem out of the question or ridiculous. I had and have my favorite affirmations over the years and my first couple were:
- I will save at least 10 to 15% of my gross income for later investments
- I will be a millionaire by age 30 (Oops I missed that one. I became a millionaire at age 31.)
Go ahead and make your own list of affirmations and try and keep repeating that list over and over and I think you might be surprised, like I was, how greatly they help us to reach our goals.
Positivity and Compassion
June 14, 2019 by MarkHaroldsen
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A very critical part of happiness and contentment is training the mind and, yes, that does take time, but is it ever worth the time you take! The authors of the book, The Art of Happiness, which I talked about last week, have this advice: “Everyday, as soon as you get up, you can develop sincere positive motivation, thinking, ‘I will utilize this day in a more positive way. I should not waste this very day.’ And then, at night before bed, check what you’ve done, asking yourself, ‘Did I utilize this day as I planned?’ If it went wrong, then regret what you did and critique the day and decide what you are going to do to correct the negative stuff of the day. So, through methods such as this, you can gradually strengthen the positive aspects of the mind.”
I think this is why the self-talk that the great Paul J. Meyer of Waco, Texas introduced me to is so very helpful. I have about 10 different mantras that I run through my mind almost every day and many times I say them out loud. Here are a few of those
- I am strong and worthy.
- I am upbeat and positive.
- I am happy and healthy.
- I live in the present moment.
- I love people and I am becoming more and more social.
- I try to live big and give big. I make “to do” lists and carry them out.
It’s amazing how I can feel down and out and how running that self-talk through my mind many times can lift my mood and make me feel so much better. The mind has a lot of plasticity in it according to scientists. The book goes on to say something that I know is true and will work for me and you: “Neuroscientist have documented the fact that the brain can design new patterns, net combinations of nerve cells and neurotransmitters (chemicals that transmit messages between nerve cells) in response to new input. In fact, our brains are malleable, ever changing, re-configuring their wiring according to new thoughts and experiences. And as a result of learning, the function of individual neurons themselves change, allowing electrical signals to travel along them more readily.” Scientist call the brains inherent capacity to change “plasticity”.
The Dalai Lama and Mr. Cutler have so many great and powerful things to say about how to achieve happiness and they are so very effective. So here is one more quote from Mr. Cutler talking about the Dalai Lama: “He can see that if someone treats him with compassion and affection, then it makes him feel happy. So, on the basis of that experience, it would help him to realize that other people also feel good when they are shown warmth and compassion Therefore, recognizing this fact might make him more inclined to give them compassion and warmth. At the same time, he would discover that the more you give warmth, the more warmth you receive”.
And that, my friends, will almost for sure raise both the giver’s and the receiver’s level of happiness!
Little Notes for Big Changes
April 26, 2019 by MarkHaroldsen
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I was looking through old books I’ve read that have made a big difference in my life and I came across Susan Jeffers‘ book, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. I have quoted Susan before, since she has so many great ideas, helpful hints, and “techniques for turning fear, indecision, and anger into power, action, and love.” And, yes, that is a direct quote from the cover of her great little book.
As I glanced through the pages and re-read my little notes I took back then, the of advice from the book really struck me again and lifted my thoughts and view of life to a higher level. Below are some of my notes from the margins in the book. When I quickly went over the list, I found it very inspiring and I thought that I really should look at this list often. I also thought that sharing the list here might lift your life too, even if it’s just a little lift.
–Do self-talk and make notes at night to program my mind for the next day.
–In the morning, I’m going to wake up happy, upbeat, positive, and energetic.
–Call friends and others and set up lunch meetings. Start with my circle of close friends.
–Whatever the challenge is, say to myself, “I can do it.”
–Surround myself with strong and positive people.
–Use this great tool: act as if you really count.
–Challenge myself to stay on the path of the higher self.
–What’s the rush? Don’t rush – it’s all happening perfectly.
–Don’t punish myself. Be patient with others and especially myself.
–Turn some of my big challenges over to my subconscious.
–Never forget that it takes a lot of practice and vigilance to direct and control my negative chatterbox.
–Instruct my higher self to work to solve problems and challenges as I sleep.
–Never forget the real key to success is ACTION.
–Keep working on being more proactive. Call friends for lunch, dinner, to play cards, play tennis, play pool, travel, and to interview for one of my future blogs.
–Keep pounding into my brain Susan’s great message: Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway!
And here are 6 more of my notes from the margins of Henriette Anne Klauser’s book Write it Down and Make It Happen.
–Write down a list of my intentions, every day.
–Life is a decision; when you believe in a dream you need to take the risk and just do it.
–Writing things down can make feelings become just speed bumps, not roadblocks.
–Write down you biggest fears and then take action to counteract the fear.
–In addition to writing down your intentions and affirmations, speak them out loud to yourself.
–And lastly, never forget that writing things down activates that reticular activating system in your brain, then your brain works overtime for you.
My Words Out Loud
January 11, 2019 by MarkHaroldsen
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I have something very special for you today. Please take a listen to this pod cast I was on recently. There are a few things I share on it that I think can be very helpful to most people. I hope you like it and, if so, please share with others. Thank you so much for taking time to listen. This kind of thing is part of what I am doing to really try to be of help to others. Maybe it’s my age but I am all about sharing and helping these days!
The interviewer is Michelle Brown, a fellow Salt Lake City resident who teaches Life Story writing workshops. Get a nice warm beverage and sit back for a really interesting conversation. I hope you find it helpful and motivating!
Reviewing and Improving on the Past Year
January 5, 2019 by MarkHaroldsen
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Wow, where did the 2018 year go? It seemed to go faster than any other year of my life. How about you?
But what really got to me was what I wrote in my journal back on February 27, 2018: “Now in Lihue, Kauai house … Kimbo [my nickname for my wife Kimberly] is working so hard to get the house in perfect condition as to justify the $4.5 million price we have it listed for… Now at 46 days away from age 74, I hope I’ve learned a little more about life and living. I still need to focus on living in the great now moments of life and need to practice more of what I preach and write about … living in the present, self-talk and self-affirmations … and write them down.â€
In that journal entry I made this list:
1. I am living in the now
2. I love my life now
3. I love my wife now
4. I love being semi-retired
5. I gain much of life from my writing and helping other people
In that same entry I finally came to this conclusion:
“In 6 days, we head back to Utah – in my head I keep thinking about that future event and have been counting down the days. I need to stop doing that and enjoy the great right now! I mean heavens, it’s pretty darn nice, right here and right now. Beautiful, warm, wonderful view of the great blue ocean and green mountains of Kauai … so I will now take all of that in and live in the ‘now moment’. Ok I am doing that right now and it feels great!”
It was great to have realized what I needed then, but the realization didn’t quite turn into action. Recently, on Dec. 31, 2018, I made another, related journal entry: “I re-read some of my comments from last year and it hit me kind of hard how I said I must, and want, to live more in the present moment or the great wonderful ‘right now†and I realized I just didn’t do that very much. So, that’s now back on my new year’s resolution list for 2019. I’m going to do much better in 2019!”
I know that I’ve written and preached about keeping a journal of your life and reading my own past comments really shows me how important it is to do just that. You can coach yourself and remind yourself over and over again about what you need to work on and that, at least to me, is very important to improve and expand and make your life better and better. Yes, I know that we all have to think of the future and make plans and set goals and review our past, but after we’ve done that, we need to spend more time in the “great right now moment”.
I hope you agree and maybe what I’ve learned here will help you. I’m pretty darn sure it’s already helped me and will make me more aware of living in the now moments and how to love and enjoy 2019 more than last year, even though I fell short of my stated resolution. So, let’s all double down and make 2019 the best year EVER!
The Power of Repeated Thoughts
September 28, 2018 by MarkHaroldsen
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People commonly remark to themselves, or to other people, things like “I’m a real good people person,” or “You know, I’m not good with people. I guess I’m kind of anti-social.” Others say, “Hey, I’m really good at fixing things,” or “I sure am a poor public speaker, but I’m a very good writer.” How about you? What do you tell yourself and others that you are good at and things that you are not so good at?
This self-talk is a very powerful thing and it tends to make you much better at some things, but it also can reinforce negative ideas about your life and habits which can hurt you.
I’ve said for many years that I’m very good with numbers and that I am a good wordsmith but, when it comes to repairing or fixing things, ugh… I’m terrible. And for many years now I’ve said to myself and to others, “I’m really, really not physically flexible.” In fact, I can’t even touch the floor without bending my knees big time. But, a few weeks ago, I started thinking about the huge connection between the brain and the body and how my comments about my lack of flexibility was totally reinforcing that weakness. You see, by telling myself over and over again that I was not at all flexible, my body believed it, which wasn’t hard because I wasn’t doing anything to change it either. So, my body was just following the brain’s instructions.
It does surprise me that I didn’t have this wakeup call years ago. I just accepted having a stiff body as an unchangeable fact and by always saying that I was not flexible, I reinforced what my brain was telling my body.
So, having had my little epiphany, I decided to do something about it. I started a simple daily stretching routine and within just a few days I was delighted to see a slow but consistent improvement in my flexibility. Before my stretching program, if I had dropped something on the floor, I would ask my wonderful wife, Kimberly, it she’d pick it up and she always would. But now she doesn’t have to. Even though I’ve got a long way to go to be super flexible, I can see that it is going to happen, just a little bit at a time.
I’m not saying that we don’t each have some very natural talents and abilities but there is also a very strong connection between the brain and the body that can also affect our abilities. We need to remember that we can direct our thoughts to make changes and improvements in our body and in our life, changes that we may have thought were not possible. The bottom line is that our thoughts can reinforce good stuff in our lives as well as some bad stuff so we should pay attention to which kind of thoughts we keep repeating to ourselves and others.
Think about this and maybe experiment with ways to direct you and your body to change or improve. You might surprise yourself.
Life Changing Mornings
August 24, 2018 by MarkHaroldsen
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I just finished reading a great little book that my wife gave me titled, The Miracle Morning: The Not-so-Obvious Secret to Transform Your Life Before 8 A.M. In this very uplifting and motivating book, the author, Hal Elrod tells of how his life was dramatically lifted by setting an early morning schedule and routine. This was very difficult for him at first since he was defiantly not an early morning person, but as he says, “committing to my personal development in the morning … would give me a positive motivation to kick start my day.”
On that first morning he pulled out a list of what he considered life changing development activities that he had learned over the years but had not put into practice. “One by one, I implemented each one,” he writes. He had decided to use one hour each morning and spend 10 minutes for each item on his list.
Here are the 6 items that Hal thought were the most impactful for his life:
- Silence – as in meditation where he would concentrate on his breathing for 10 minutes.
- Reading – he grabbed the book Think and Grow Rich. (He had started reading it many times but never finished the book.)
- Affirmations – he wrote down his list of self-affirmations including the things he wanted to become and what he was going to do to change his life.
- Visualization – he created this after watching the movie The Secret (I have to watch that movie myself.)
- Journaling – he had a journal but had not written in it for a long time, yet he found after writing a few things he was grateful for the way exercises her that motion creates emotion so drop down and did push-ups and insist for those 2 minutes of stopping by getting up one hour earlier as you normally do than you normally do and going through a routine it lifted his spirits.
- Exercise – he had heard that “motion creates emotion” so he dropped down and did push-ups then sit-ups for those 10 minutes without stopping.
By getting up one hour earlier than you normally do and going through a routine, spending just 10 minutes on each item you set for yourself, you can change and enhance your life the way Hal Elrod has done. And Hal had some pretty huge setbacks when he was a young man. At age 20 he was hit head on by a drunk driver and was dead for 6 minutes. He suffered brain damage, 11 broken bones and was told that he would never walk again. He didn’t believe what he was being told and went on to defy the doctors, eventually running ultra-marathons, becoming a Hall of Fame Business achiever, and even recording as a hip-hop artist.
If someone like that created and is using the “Miracle Morning” technique, you know that the method is certain to create success. It did work for him and I think it can work for anyone who is willing to set up the schedule and go after what is important to them.
Ok, here’s a good way to start that will give you a little more direction and additional motivation to get out there and improve your life – go by Hal’s book! You won’t be sorry. https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Morning-Not-So-Obvious-Guaranteed-Transform/dp/0979019710
Forgiving Ourselves
June 8, 2018 by MarkHaroldsen
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How do you and I feel when we set our sights and goals very high only to fall short of those objectives? If you are like me, it’s very easy to get down on yourself and beat yourself up and that can set you back a few miles mentally, making you feel terrible or pretty much worthless. This can happen to anyone, even the very rich and very famous, as we have sadly seen with a number of super-rich and famous people that have taken their own lives.
I grew up in a culture that pounded into my head the bible scripture of Matthew 5:48 which says “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Quite frankly, I think that did me more harm than good, because as a young boy, I tried and tried but couldn’t seem to be “perfect” in anything at all. I would look around at other people and saw many that seemed to have a perfect life. Little did I know then that pretty much no one on the planet has had a perfect life. If a person spends too much time and effort trying to become perfect, it can absolutely ruin them. Quite frankly, I think that scripture passage has been the cause of more than a few suicides.
We certainly don’t want to stop trying to reach our lofty goals and become better and better at whatever we choose to do, but we also must learn and practice forgiving ourselves. It’s kind of strange to me that sometimes it seems easier to forgive someone else when they screw up but much harder to forgive ourselves. I totally agree with John M. Grohol Psy.D. when he wrote his “5 Ways of Letting Go of the Past”
- Make a decision to let it go.
- Express your pain and your responsibility.
- Stop being a victim and blaming others.
- Focus on the present, the here and now, and joy.
- Forgive them and forgive yourself.
Then there is some super wise advice from a great writer by the name of a Noah St. John. It’s from his book called The Book of AFFORMATIONS®, regarding a program he calls “Permission to Succeedâ€:
- Admit your past mistakes.
- Realize you did the best you could do at the time.
- Take actions to make sure you don’t repeat those mistakes.
Our brains also play a big a part in our success and failure, as Noah notes in another book of his, Get Rid of Your Head Trash: How to Avoid 3 Big Money Mistakes Even Smart People Make. Â I love this title because it really says it all.
In Noah’s book The Secret Code of Success, he maintains that we all need to let up on ourselves and give ourselves breaks and take time to enjoy and celebrate the self. You need to let go of the past when it’s hurting you and accept the present. He states that the key to letting go of the past – and I’d say even if it’s the past of 5 minutes – is to forgive yourself and others that may have mistreated you. That’s great advice that works to make our lives so much better, more successful, and more productive. Perhaps we don’t have not perfect lives, but they can be pretty darn good ones with so much less stress!