Ambivalence is a dream slayer.
Ambivalence tears us apart because who we are is heading in three different directions. Our head wants one thing, our heart wants another, and our will is either unwilling or only too willing, and tramples our head and heart as it stampedes off on its own.
We feel like we are coming apart. We don't feel like a whole person because we aren't a whole person. We can't be whole until all parts of us head in the same direction.
Each time we face important decisions, we must ask ourselves three questions.
1. Do I want it with my head?
2. Do I want it with my heart?
3. Am I willing to do whatever it takes?
If we answer no to any of those questions, we may as well stop where we are and resolve our ambivalence before we try to move ahead. We will never achieve excellence and make our dreams come true while ambivalence rules our lives.
The only way to make our dreams come true is to get our heart, our head, and our will, all heading in the same direction.
I have a choice. I can either count my blessings or my problems.
Counting my blessings causes my problems to shrink, and soon I forget they exist.
Counting my problems makes my blessings shrink, and soon I forget that I have any.
When I don’t count my blessings, they disappear from my mind. Although they are still there, if I don’t think about them, I forget about them. Each day I need to remind myself of my blessings to keep them active in my mind.
When I wake up in the morning, I decide whether I am going to count my blessings or my problems. That decision sets the tone for my entire day. The best way to fill my cup with joy is to turn on my Good Finder and rediscover my blessings.
The things that are positive in my life far outnumber the negative. When I focus on what is good, my mind replays my blessings all day long.
I must count my blessings or my blessings will not count.
C = Choose The Meaning Of My Life
My beliefs create my personal world and give my life its meaning. They create the world as I believe it to be. It’s my unique reality and is the only world I will ever know. I created it and must live in it.
If I create a world full of limitations, dominated by my frailties, I suffer.
If I create a world full of possibilities and love, I prosper.
For my entire life, I am a prisoner of the world created by my thoughts.
In my personal world I choose the meaning of my life.
Each event is devoid of meaning until I decide what it means to me. The choice I make determines whether I regard problems as catastrophes or opportunities.
There is never a good reason to interpret events in a negative manner. No matter how negative a situation is, thinking negatively only makes it worse.
When I think positive, bad things become better things, and my life starts to improve.
I choose the meaning of the events in my life. I choose to think positive and to live in a positive world.
If you choose to do the loving thing, you will navigate effortlessly through the moral universe.
Doing the loving thing is the way God means for us to live. Love is the power of God at work in the world, and ultimately it's the world's only hope.
Choosing to do the loving thing is usually straightforward. You don't need lawyers to parse the truth for you and tell you about love. If you can't figure out what is the loving thing, you can ask a five year child, and he or she will explain it to you.
If you always do the loving thing, your spirit will grow strong in the power of God's love, and your mistakes will be few and far between.
If you do the legal thing, few people will criticize you.
If you do the right thing, most people will applaud.
If you do the loving thing, God will say well done, and the world will be a better place because you were here.
E = Eliminate Negative Thinking
When a negative thought enters your mind, you immediately must do four things.
First, learn the lesson it has to teach.
Second, take a positive action based on what the negative thought has taught you.
Third, think of two positive thoughts to displace the negativity from your mind.
Fourth, use your Power Graphics to push your mind in a positive direction.
There is only one way to deal with resentment. You must forgive. Your forgiveness must be complete and permanent.
There is no room for compromise on this point. Resentment is always bad and always hurts you. You must treat resentment as if it was cancer. It’s an inner malignancy that kills your spirit when left untreated. Fortunately, God’s cure for resentment never fails.
When resentment pops into your mind, you simply forgive the person you resent and send them your love.
If you have trouble forgiving and sending love, you need to have a talk with God.
God has forgiven and forgotten all the things you have done wrong, and you are supposed to do the same with other people.
You must continue to forgive, forget, and send love until you no longer have a problem with resentment.
Don’t worry. If you practice forgiving, forgetting, and sending love, soon you will become good at it, and resentment will no longer be a problem.
If you do a daily forgiveness check, the cancer of resentment will never destroy your life.
Life is not meant to be a solo adventure. You are to go with God.
You don’t have to sail on a single-handed voyage to your dreams, because God wants to make the trip with you. Not only will He be your constant companion, He will also be your navigator and give you the strength to make the trip.
This is the first time you have sailed on the ocean of your dreams, but God has already made the trip innumerable times. For God the entire voyage is in familiar territory. He knows the exact location of all the rocks and shoals that can destroy your dreams.
If you listen to what He has to say, you will escape unnecessary hardships that you would have brought upon yourself if you had tried to go it alone. When you go with him, you know that you are heading in the right direction and that you will arrive safely at your destination.
The Bible says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”
Your heart is your home. It’s where you live in a world of swirling emotions.
Although your thoughts control your emotions, it’s your emotions that rule your world. If you want to take charge of your life, you must control the storm of thoughts blowing through your heart and mind.
To a great extent, your emotions rule your heart.
The Cardinal Law of The Heart is that feeling is believing.
You can tell when you really believe something because you feel it in your heart. Whether that feeling and belief are correct or not is a completely different issue. If you feel it, you believe it, and it controls your life. Until you feel something in your heart, you don't really believe it, and it doesn't direct your life.
Your heart is your home, and you should feel comfortable there. It should feel good to be at home with yourself. If you don't feel good inside, you need to make some changes in the way you think so that you can change the way you feel.
Your heart is like a calculator that sums up everything in your life. After it adds everything up, it tells you how to feel.
When you feel bad, you need to change what you put into your mind so that things add up differently.
When you count your blessings, and fill your mind with good things, your heart adds everything up, and you feel great. You must put good things into your mind if you want to feel good on the inside. There is no other way.
I = I Will Live As If I Am A Great Person
I will live the rest of my life as if I am a great person. I will live as if my dreams are possible and work each day to make them happen.
It doesn’t matter if I am ten years old or ninety years old, I can still live as if I am great. Any age is the right age to work on my dreams, and any place is the right place to make them come true.
I don’t know how much time I have left, but in whatever times remains, I will live as if I am great. I will be all that I can be and do all that I can do. I will find an area of excellence that I can develop and give to the world. Planet earth will be a better place because I became great in one area. I can never fail as long as I develop the excellence that I have within.
I will live the rest of my life as if I am a great person
J = Jesus Came To Change Your Expectations
Jesus created a world ruled by positive expectations. You don't get what you want. You get what you expect. It doesn't matter if your expectations are positive or negative, You will get what you expect.
Jesus came to change your expectations about who you are and what you can do with God's help.
You aren't going to have to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps as you live God's dream for your life. God will be with you every step of the way.
God is on your side and has your back. His plan for your life is good for you and is perfect for the type of person that you are. That is why you have positive expectations.
Jesus said," Set your mind on God's Kingdom and his justice before everything else, and all the rest will come to you as well." Jesus knew that the focus of your mind will make or break you.
The right mental focus transforms your life into an awesome adventure.
The wrong focus puts you on a treadmill that wears you down and out. You end up in Nowhere Land, and you miss out on God's dream for your life.
Since your mental focus expands, you need to check the focus of your mind.
If the only thing you focus on is stuff, dollars, houses, yachts, and youth, you will get stuff and nothing more. You will grow old carrying a backpack of stuff through life, and eventually it will become an unbearable burden. You will get everything you want except peace and happiness.
When you focus on God's Kingdom of Love and his way of doing things, you get it all. You get peace, joy, happiness, and enough stuff to last a lifetime. God does more than give you wealth. He also gives you the ability to enjoy it.
When you focus on God's Kingdom and get in agreement with him, you experience his purpose and plan, and He gives you everything you need. God opens the windows of heaven, and his blessings fall all around. God loves giving good things to his children.
Don't be like Esau and trade your birthright for a bowl of porridge. Don't let your mental focus steal God's dream for your life. Don't accept second or third best.
Go with God who is the source of all good things. If you want to have it all, focus on God's Kingdom of Love.
L = God's Love Is The Most Powerful And Positive Force In The Universe
The most powerful force in the universe is God’s love.
The most positive force in the universe is God's love.
The most important fact in the universe is that God loves and accepts you the way you are, but He loves you too much to let you stay that way.
God loves you from the top of your head to the tip of your toes, and it doesn’t get any better than that. There is no limit to how good your life can become when your heart and mind are full of God’s love. You must experience the real power of maxing out on his love.
Memorization uses the power of repetition to put good things into my mind. It’s a gift that never stops giving and asks nothing in return.
Memorization went out of style after I learned my multiplication tables. Although it’s nice to know that six times six is thirty-six, what’s really important is I will still know it when I am ninety-six. I will remember it for the rest of my life. It’s an automatic thought that comes effortlessly into my mind.
If I repeat a thought enough times, my mind starts repeating it back to me. It becomes an automatic thought that pops into my mind whenever I need it.
I need to advertise my dreams to myself many times each day. I need to repeat positive thoughts until my mind repeats them back to me.
Positive thinking isn’t enough.
Positive thinking is a world better than negative thinking, and positive programs run exceptionally well in my mind. Thinking positive is great when I can do it, but I can’t always do it.
It doesn’t matter how positive I am, how many positive affirmations I have made, or how much positive programming I have done, when I trigger a negative neuroassociation, my mind instantly moves in a negative direction. All my positive thinking is wiped out.
Negative neuroassociations are weapons of mass destruction that instantly destroy a positive mind.
Positive neuroassociations are just the opposite. They are a form of instant positive thinking. When I trigger one of them, I immediately create a positive state of mind.
O = Open Your Heart And Mind To God's Love
God designed your mind to function best when it’s under the influence of his love.
When your mind is full of thoughts consistent with his love, your thoughts are healthy and your mind is exactly the way God means for it to be.
God designed your heart so it would experience healthy emotions when it’s dominated by his love.
When your heart is full of emotions consistent with his love, your emotions are healthy and your heart is exactly the way God means for it to be.
P = Prayer Is Your Ultimate Reality Check
Prayer is the ultimate reality check.
You can fool some of the people some of the time. You can fool yourself some of the time. You can never fool God.
Prayer is a place you go to find out how you are doing. If you are getting into trouble, you can probably get straightened out during prayer.
God gave us a lifetime to TEST OUR LIMITATIONS and to LIVE HIS DREAM FOR OUR LIFE.
God created a beautiful world and populated it with life, and then He gave it to us for our enjoyment. He also put an eternal spirit inside us, and we have the privilege of living as one of his children. That's why some of us call him Father. God is on our side and has our best interests at heart. He has a powerful and positive dream for our life, and if we get in agreement with him, that dream can actually come true.
But there's a catch. The only way for that dream to come true is for us to test our limitations.
God doesn't have any limitations - all of them belong to us. To the extent that we cling to our limitations, to that degree we limit the ability of God to work a miracle in our life.
It's incumbent on us to step up to the front and test every limitation found in our mind.
We must relentlessly look past our limitations and act as if we cannot fail. That's the only way we can break through to the awesome future that God has in store for us.
We have a choice.
If we cling to our limitations, we miss out on God's best.
If we test our limitations and break through them, God works a miracle in our life.
The mind is the door through which the power of God’s love enters your life. That’s why the Bible says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” In order to have a new life, you need a new way of thinking.
No matter what path you walk to personal transformation, all paths eventually converge on the mind.
That doesn’t mean all paths lead to God.
It does mean that God designed your mind to be the door through which you enter the world of change.
You can change your life by changing what you put into your mind.
Maximum Strength Positive Thinking tells you what to say when your mind talks to you, and what to say when you talk to your mind. You have a lot of things to discuss with your mind, and Maximum Strength Positive Thinking tells you what you should be talking about.
You don't need to spend years searching for empowering ideas that make it possible to live your dreams. It's already right here in a self-talk format.
The Law of Positive Self-Talk states: "You can change who you are by changing what you say when you talk to your mind."
The Bible says, “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, whatever is excellent, or worthy of praise, think on these things.” This scripture is the formula for a positive mind.
What I put into my mind transforms my life for better or worse.
What I listen to in the media changes who I am.
What I watch on television goes into my mind and stays there forever; it makes me into a different person.
I will not walk the path of self-destruction by loading my mind with toxic waste. Each time I dwell on negative thoughts, I plant the seeds of my own destruction, because those thoughts will haunt me for the rest of my life.
God gave me a mind, and He expects me to fill it with good things.
I focus my mind on everything that is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and worthy of praise, because I want to have those kinds of things in my life. I want to experience those types of thoughts while I work during the day and when I lay down to sleep at night. I want those kinds of thoughts to bubble up in my mind when I face the major challenges of life.
Limiting thoughts are a disguised form of negation. They are a way that I say no to life while pretending life is saying no to me. Limitations are plausible self-deceptions. They are prefabricated excuses for every failure to be what I want to be and to do what I want to do.
No one blames me for being held back by all of the limitations that I have adopted. Limitations are a subtle form of negativity that is socially acceptable. They don’t have a bad sound or smell. It even has the appearance of maturity to not struggle with reality and to accept the limitations that appear to be present in the world.
When I face a challenge, I write a script of limitations and possibilities based upon my beliefs about myself. Inside my mind is a personalized collection of limiting beliefs that tell me everything I cannot do. My limiting beliefs create confusion, and it’s easy to attribute my limitations to my world rather than to myself.
There is no reason to place limits on any worthwhile objective before I try to make it happen.
Limiting beliefs are a choice, and I choose to not have any.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, visualization is worth nine hundred ninety nine.
When no photograph is available, then a well-crafted visualization can have nearly the same impact.
The power of visualization is immense.
If I do a good job of visualizing the path to my dreams, when I walk down the path, it will be a trip through familiar territory. I will not stumble or be confused. I will always know where I am since I have walked that path so many times before in my mind. It’s like the pathway home.
Positive change isn’t a matter of the will. Rather, it’s a matter of being willing to do whatever it takes.
When I am not willing, no matter how much I say I want to change, it will not happen. I am only playing a word game, and everyone understands what I am saying.
The difference between the will and being willing is great.
Making my dreams come true doesn’t require an iron will. I don’t need an indomitable spirit before I start the journey. I don’t need to spend years pumping myself up in preparation for the moment that will takes over, sweeps me off my feet, and carries me to total victory. That is a fairy tale of the will. No one has a mountain of will that sweeps away all opposition.
I don’t need a massive will to succeed. I do need a willingness to do whatever is required to make my dreams happen.
Although I don’t have an iron will, I do have a willingness to work around, go through, over, or under whatever obstacles get in the way. This is a quiet willingness. Eloquent speeches of dramatic resolve aren’t part of the script. I simply get on with the business of living my dreams.
Every day I focus on my purpose and act on my plan, because I am willing to do whatever it takes to make my dreams come true.
Resourceful beliefs and excellence go hand-in-hand.
Resourceful beliefs remind me that I have the ability to achieve excellence in at least one area of my life. When I look inside, I find all the resources I need to live an excellent life.
Resourceful beliefs remind me of who I am.
The Bible says that I am a child of God, and when God made me, He pronounced his creation good. That doesn’t mean I am perfect. It does mean that God designed me so that excellence would be the hallmark of my life, and God doesn’t make mistakes.
God didn’t make me like everyone else. When He created me, He threw away the mold and wants me to become an expert at being me. He wants me to develop the excellence that He placed within. I am one of a kind, and God created me to do a job no one else can do.
My life is a gift from God, and what I do with it is the gift I give back to him. I will make it an excellent gift.
Saying yes to life opens the door of opportunity, and saying no closes it.
Saying no annihilates my future in a unique way. When I say no, I shut the door to opportunity. I also shut and lock hundreds of other doors that lie behind the door not opened. Negation and loss of opportunity expand into my life at an exponential rate. Life is too short and opportunities too few to shut any door to the future.
When I say yes to life, I open the door to opportunity. Each door has others behind it, and those doors also open for as long as I continue to say yes.
The first time I say yes, a small positive change happens. The next time, the positive change is slightly larger. Saying yes has a positive effect that is more than cumulative. Each yes pushes me further up the exponential curve of positive change. Each yes has a greater impact than the last.
Z = Zero Tolerance To Negative Thinking
I have zero tolerance to negative thinking in any form or to any degree.
When I hear naysayers and negative thinkers reciting their litany of limitations, I ignore their message. I don't listen to people shackled by disbelief who want to drag me down to their level. Nothing good comes from listening to negative thinking, limitations, and fear.
It really does matter what I look at, what I talk about, and what I think about, because all of these things change who I am and make me into a different person.
I must look at positive things, talk about positive things, and think about positive things if I want to have a positive mind.
If I really want to be positive, nobody can stop me.
CREATE YOUR OWN PREFLIGHT CHECKLIST - YOUR INSURANCE POLICY FOR A GOOD DAY
This Positive Mental Checklist has only twenty six items, but there's no need to limit yourself or to stop there.
Create your own checklist that you run through at the beginning of each day.
Some items will be more important to you on certain days, and after a while some items may drop off your list, and you will add others that are relevant to your personal situation.
Your Positive Mental Checklist will make your life better if you use it every day.
You will start thinking new thoughts, feeling new emotions, and taking new actions. Before long you will have a new life, and there will be no limit to how good your life can become.
Fifteen minutes spent running through your checklist insures you have a great day.
