Your Daily Quote – Who You Become

Your goals need to stretch you, to require you to become a bigger person. Because what matters most  when achieving them, is who you become along the journey.
Elena Alexandrova-Long

Your Daily Quote - Easter

I choose to celebrate Easter because:

-          It is a family tradition and brings me closer to home

-          Reminds us to express care and love for each other – did you know that chocolate is a close substitute for love and compassion?

-          Gives me the faith that unconditional love is possible, as the ultimate goal, as a highest expression of spiritual growth

Elena Alexandrova-Long

The Power of Personal Development

by Jeffrey Gitomer

When I say Think and Grow Rich, what comes to your mind?

Almost everyone in sales and those interested in personal development have read this classic by Napoleon Hill at least once. And almost everyone who's read it has a positive comment. Many (like me) will say, "Turning point in my life."

Everyone has a turning point in their quest for lifelong learning. Everyone has their Aha! In your personal development, it's what you choose to listen to, watch or read that enhances your understanding of your life and teaches you what you need to do to succeed.

Napoleon Hill's 1937 quote sets the standard. "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."

And once you have the information, it's all about what you are willing to do to take advantage of it.

Most people know Napoleon Hill was the author of Think and Grow Rich. The person Hill emulated and studied was. Not many know that.

Marden was the leading positive-attitude genius of the 20th century. Well-known before 1930-almost unknown today. He was a founding father of personal development and positive thought. Aha!

Author of more than 40 books, Marden also was the founder of SUCCESS magazine. Here are a few of his words of wisdom from the book he wrote in 1908, He Who Thinks He Can.

"Every child should be taught to expect success."

"The man who has learned the art of seeing things looks with his brain."

"The best educated people are those who are always learning, always absorbing knowledge from every possible source and at every opportunity."

"People do not realize the immense value of utilizing spare minutes."

"No substitute has ever yet been discovered for honesty."

"Poverty is of no value except as a vantage ground for a starting point."

These are quotes worth learning and passing on to others. One hundred years old!

1. Expose yourself to knowledge. Based on my personal experience and personal Ahas!, I'd like to challenge you with the rules of personal development and give you some examples of what I have learned so you might make your own plan to succeed or enhance the one you have.

At the end of a seminar I gave on positive attitude, I received an evaluation from a woman named Mary with a comment that read, "I wish I would have heard this 30 years ago." I got goose bumps of sadness and thought of a Jim Rohn quote: "All the information you need to succeed already exists; the only problem is you're not exposing yourself to it." This information existed 30 years ago. Mary just hadn't exposed herself to it.

Jim Rohn is known as America's leading business philosopher. His CD, The Art of Exceptional Living, is among the modern classics of personal development. Jim Rohn is the current master of inspiration and Aha! He imparts wisdom in every sentence.

Between Marden and Rohn, there is a long list of valuable books. I owe my career success to these books and to personal development information to which I have exposed myself.

Most of the books are more than 50 years old. Many with religious connotations-but still preaching the right words and thoughts. One of the most notable is The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. Biblical and brilliant.

2. Simple is powerful.
If you read it and it seems too easy or too hokey, reread it. It's probably part of your personal development foundation.

One of my early Aha! moments of personal development was the simplicity of the message. Sometimes it's so simple, you go right past it without understanding the impact it can make.

A classic example is the eternal How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. In 1936 he wrote, "You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you." How many salespeople could benefit from that single Aha!? I think all of them.

Interesting to note that Dale Carnegie's lessons still are being taught in the classroom 70 years later!

3. Think and apply to improve.
In As a Man Thinketh, published in 1902, James Allen says, "A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts." Thinking what can be done is at the core of your personal development. About 54 years later, in the million-seller, The Strangest Secret, Earl Nightingale writes, "We become what we think about all day long." Get it?

In 1969, I listened to Glenn W. Turner on a cassette tape: "Act as though you have already begun to achieve. Not fake it - live it."

4. Take a daily dose.
Think about the time-worn expression, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." Apply that to personal development, and it means learn and apply one new thing every day. At the end of a year you will have 365 new pieces of information.

5. The older the better.
If you want a new idea, read a book that's 100 years old. "The best educated people are those who are always learning, always absorbing knowledge from every possible source and at every opportunity." -Marden, 1908. Or, "History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats." -B.C. Forbes, 1919.

6. Personal development and positive attitude are joined at the hip-and at the brain. And there is another component-being of service.
"There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative." -Clement Stone, 1946. Add that to the 5000-year-old Chinese proverb, "To Serve is to Rule."

7. Do it even as your butt falls off.
In 1898, Elbert Hubbard wrote an essay titled, Message to Garcia. Deliver the message, get the job done, complete the task-no matter what. Many have read that essay. Few have emulated it.

Personal development challenges you to think forward. "Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come." -Victor Hugo, 1874.

Personal development challenges you to be your best. "You cannot mandate productivity; you must provide the tools to let people become their best." -Steve Jobs, 1988.

"I am the greatest of all time." -Muhammad Ali, 1963.

Personal development challenges you to make decisions based on the person you seek to become. "The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it." -John Ruskin, 1869.

Wondering where you can "find more time" to devote to your own success? "It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste." -Henry Ford, 1901. Just a thought.

The key word is not development; the key word is personal. Do it for yourself, in your own way, and make your own time for it-or not.

The biggest Aha! of personal development is from Russell Conwell's Acres of Diamonds. Considered to be one of the finest speeches ever written, Acres of Diamonds offers a multitude of lessons about the rewards of work, education and finding the riches of life in your own back yard-or your own library. Aha!

- See more at: http://www.success.com/article/the-power-of-personal-development#sthash.sbMtQ00x.dpuf

Your Daily Quote - Stick to Your Goal

You’ve been working so hard. The wheels are in motion. Have faith – the change is about to happen…

Elena Alexandrova-Long

Your Daily Quote - Vision

If you have a dream, a vision for your life - work hard on it. If you don't have one, work harder.
Elena Alexandrova-Long

Reframing, or Using Positive Language - Part 2 of 2

As discussed in part 1, the Reticular Activating System (RAS) of your brain acts as a filter, as a gate-keeper to your subconscious mind. It allows “in” not any random bits of information, but only the ones that the mind is interested, and more importantly – the ones that your subconscious mind recognises.

Here is a classic example. You are at a party, with lots of noise, music, and people talking around you. In that sea of unintelligible sounds, someone mentions your name. You become alert, as your RAS filtered through something familiar. Similarly, in the sea of information, your subconscious mind processes and assimilates only information that it can relate to, that is familiar.

Hence, my question to you is: what kind of information would YOU like to let into your mind, and let your subconscious to process as reality?

This is exactly how the power of manifesting works, the Law of attraction. What your RAS works with, is sounds, words and images. What you focus on and what is familiar, is what you will get.

So what would you prefer to be familiar to your mind: words like “bad”, or “fantastic”? DO you see how the two answers from part 1: “Not too bad”, or “I’m fantastic!”, are so drastically different? In the first instance, you feed your RAS with the familiarity of the word, and state, of “bad”, and this is what the subconscious mind works with. For the rest of the day. For the rest of your… reality.

Watch yourself for a day or two. Notice what noises you wake up to, watch the words you use, and the thoughts you go to bed with. Is there something that can be reframed in a more positive way?

Be positive, so that you attract positive things

Here is the formula to a more productive day, to a healthier state, and opening multiple opportunities in front of you:

1.    Start the day with your affirmations:

“I am a great person.”

“I look fantastic.”

And reframe into the positive where necessary: don’t tell yourself: “I’m not a failure.”, but instead say “I’m a successful young person getting closer to my dream.”

2.    Watch and reframe the language you use relating to how you feel, and what you will achieve:

Not too bad àGood, great, fantastic!

I feel terribleà I don’t feel my best.

This plan will fail à This plan might not work (all that well).

You can reframe in the positive virtually anything!

3.    Finish the day with gratitude, or acknowledging the good things that happened to you. The more grateful you are, the more the universe will give you.

Because, as Napoleon Hill said, you can achieve any realistic goal if you keep thinking of that goal, and stop thinking any negative thoughts about it.

Elena Alexandrova-Long

Your Coach to Success

ENVISION Life Design

Reframing, or Using Positive Language - Part 1 of 2

by Elena Alexandrova-Long

What is your top, or regular, answer when people say: ”Hi, how are you?”

Are you in the: ”I’m good!” group, or the “Not too bad!” group? Or, alternatively, in the “I’m great, I’m fantastic!" group? Some might say that these answers are pretty much the same. But your unconscious/subconsious mind would disagree.

Why is that? Because of what happens in the transfer between conscious and subconscious mind, and how the latter processes information. There is a part in the brain, the so called Reticular Activating System (or RAS) which is responsible for the sleep/wake transitions of your mind. It acts like a filter between your conscious and subconscious mind, bringing to your attention only information that is relevant to you, to your needs, and what is familiar to you.

What is more RAS, as an automatic mechanism takes instructions from your conscious mind and passes them on to your subconscious.  If someone asks you: “What ice-cream do you prefer – vanilla or chocolate?”, your RAS immediately brings up the images of two beautiful ice-cream cones (or similar), and only then your conscious mind produces the answer.

This step of processing of information occurs because RAS is also the tool we use for visualising. If I say: “Think of a purple camel”, your mind will obediently bring up the image of a purple camel. If you say: “Mmm, I would love a blueberry muffin”, guess what – RAS will produce for you the most appetising muffin, and will even add the smell of freshly melting blueberries, butter and caramelised sugar.

Interestingly enough, when you tell yourself: “I shouldn’t eat a blueberry muffins!”, all your RAS can offer you as images is beautiful muffins! Subsequently, all you can think about is…what you are supposed not to be thinking about. The reason for this contradiction is that the subconscious mind does not recognise negation – any words like: not, don’t, never. That’s why, if we use Oprah Winfrey’s example, if you say to yourself: “I don’t want to be fat!”, all you RAS imagines and sends as messages to your unconscious mind is: fat…

So, what thoughts do you choose to feed to your subconscious mind?

RAS is very powerful with telling the subconscious mind what is reality. This is why, in PART 2, I will give you some ideas on how you can use these powers to your benefit.

Elena Alexandrova-Long

Your Coach to Success

ENVISION Life Design

Your Daily Quote - Align Your Tasks with Your Values

"If you don't like the tasks that you need to do, you have two options: either delegate, or align them with your highest values."
Elena Alexandrova-Long

Your Daily Quote - Healthy Drinking

Good morning guys. Today I wanted to find a quote for you on healthy drinking. And this is what I came across, instead:

Some people drink from the fountain of knowledge, others just gargle.

Robert Anthony

Elena

Your Coach to Success

Your Daily Quote - Confusion

Hi guys. As confusion is usually a sign that you are pushed outside of your comfort zone, and hence growing, I wanted to find some good quotes on confusion for you today. And the winners are:

“Don't be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.” 
― George Saunders, The Braindead Megaphone

“What is important is to spread confusion, not eliminate it.” 
― Salvador Dalí

“I try to stay in a constant state of confusion just because of the expression it leaves on my face.” 
― Johnny Depp

Stay confused!

Elena Alexandrova-Long
Your Coach to Success

Your Daily Quote - Control

If you feel like everything is under control, you are moving too slow.

Your Daily Quote - Know Yourself

You can see in others only the traits you recognise within yourself. Therefore,

The more you know yourself, the more patience you have for what you see in others.

Erik Erikson

Elena

Observe yourself

Your Six Core Needs - Contribution, part 7 of 7

As discussed in the previous post, the last two human needs – growth and contribution, are needs of the spirit. And meeting them is what ultimately accomplishes our mission, our feeling of a fulfilled life, as human beings.

The need for contribution is one that I believe takes most time to mature in terms of how we meet it. Its scale grows with the person, and takes different proportions depending on the person’s achievements in life, and their social engagement.

What contribution means for a little toddler is helping mum put the toys away, or wash the dishes. Or make a cake – it is a most tangible achievement, and very rewarding, indeed! Then the child moves into the community of its class and school. You know those active children that take part in every committee at school, give their voice at every meeting and want to change the world? They certainly are meeting their need for significance, but also there is the need for contribution met in an ecological, sustainable, resourceful way. When you start doing things for the greater good and not only for your personal satisfaction, this is when you are moving in the right direction of self-fulfillment. Because sooner or later this need will start working on your conscience, and will expect that you give it due attention and effort.

Adults contribute to society in many ways – the head of the family looks after his children, protects his wife and name; we all give our best as employees, business owners, housewives. Family, workplace, immediate community are, most often, grateful beneficiaries of our commitment, dedication, ability and desire to give and not only grow ourselves, but help grow. And the more we meet the need to contribute, the bigger the contribution becomes with every step.

Alternatively, if there is a disharmony between our need and what we actually accomplish, we revert to unresourceful behavioural patterns. We anaesthetise ourselves by watching TV, playing games, watching mindless movies, and having a drink… or five.

It is equally important to find the resourceful ways to contribute to your relationship. If you cannot figure out what to bring into that special environment/community of two, you may fall into a sabotaging withdrawal. Or even into an aggressive attitude, that tries to cover up for the emptiness and lack of clarity on how you can make yourself useful, how you can act and grow so that you feel like you have created, and keep building up, a noteworthy entity.

A relationship based on trust and desire to learn more about the other partner, and contribute to their world, is one that vows for longevity. Contribution starts with a little gesture of generosity, and moves onto selfless acts of responding to the needs of your partner. The next step is to be proactive, to anticipate what will work and make this partnership bigger, of higher grandeur, more mature.

So start listening and noticing – what are your partner’s needs, what works and what needs improvement. Where do you see this relationship in a month? In five years? In 50? How can the two of you turn into two wise, knowledgeable people who cannot only sense each other’s needs and step in when needed, but take this wisdom to a state of living in harmony, and teaching others how to achieve it? Because once you start doing it and applying it every step of the way, the next stage will be to teach it, to spread it. So that you can contribute even further and help create more happy and fulfilled couples.

Elena Alexandrova-Long

Your Coach to Success

www.envisionlifedesign.com.au

John Assaraf on Setting and Achieving Goals

In his "hangout" video below, John Assaraf shares his tested strategies on how to set and achieve goals.
First, you need to be specific with WHAT your goals are.
Right after, you need to identify the reason you want to achieve them, the WHY.
The HOW will follow, will find a way, if you have a big enough WHY.
If your reasons are not big enough, you don't have the drive to take you there. You will easily let go of your goals without that drive, because the brain takes the path to least resistance - that's how it's conditioned...

Elena

Your Daily Quote - Life Plan

“Not accomplishing your Life Plan is a tragic act of free will. It is akin to charting an elaborate vacation itinerary before arriving at your holiday destination, with all kinds of plans for outdoor adventures and intentions to go sightseeing and shopping, but then ending up spending the whole trip in your hotel room ordering from room service and watching television. In a similar fashion the unconscious soul spends a lifetime in the semi-conscious state of Divine Disconnection and then returns home mostly ‘empty-handed’.” 
― Anthon St. Maarten, Divine Living: The Essential Guide To Your True Destiny

Happy New Lunar Year

Happy New Lunar Year!

Whether you call it the year of the sheep, the ram (a male sheep), or the goat (sometimes they do look similar, especially in Chinese writing, apparently), my wish to you is to see it as a new period of opportunities to set goals and enhance your life in all main areas of life that are forecast and analysed for each sign of the Chinese zodiac:
 Career - be focused and acquire new skills
Relationships - stay true and respectful of your partner, or if you are single, take the chance to find your soul mate
Health - be consistent, do low-impact exercises, and attend quickly to any injuries
Wealth - if you stick with smart and low-risk investments, most signs will have a successful financial growth.

Now take pen and paper and write down your specific goals!

Elena
Your Coach to Success
www.envisionlifedesign.com.au

Your Daily Quote - Challenges

As you grow and succeed - in your life, in your business, problems and challenges do not disappear, but they are of a higher quality.
Elena Alexandrova-Long

From one type of choices and problems

... to higher-quality ones

Your Daily Quote - Success

The reason you don't succeed is because you are too comfortable.
Elena Alexandrova-Long

Your Six Core Needs - Significance and Importance, Part 5 of 7

Significance and Importance

Every person places different weight on the first four needs – some need more connection, others – more variety. But the special thing about significance is that all other needs naturally lead to, and contribute to its fulfillment. If, for example, you get a pretty, fragrant bunch of flowers for your lady, you give her the surprise of variety, which in turn is a reminder and proof of how much you love her. But the thought, the intent, the gesture ultimately tell her that she is special, and it is a confirmation of her significance and importance – in your eyes, and in the eyes of the universe. Same – when you pay her a compliment – for her cooking, her dress, the impeccable way she organises her wardrobe…

And vice versa: if you acknowledge your man for his achievements – whether it’s his career, the way he played tennis the other day, or that he always looks after and protects his family, you are not only showing him love and affection. You are re-iterating to him that he has value, that he is worthy of being “the head” of the family, to consider himself a man of status and standing. Because when you are worthy and significant, you know you belong, and you know you are good enough. Good enough for the role you have in life, for the people you choose to surround yourself with.

Even more amazingly, a person’s significance feeds not only on the love and acknowledgement received. Your significance cup gets full also when you GIVE significance to others! When you listen to others, appreciate their contribution and start noticing the positive things in them, every little achievement, you give them attention and a feeling of completion that reflects back on you. And then you, in your turn, feel fulfilled.

So, be open to these little discoveries. Be observant and present. Be both a giver and receiver. Tell your partner how great they look, laugh at their joke, look them with admiration. Show them, time and time again, that he is your king, that she is your queen. And, just like a champagne tower, this attitude of attention, acknowledgement and gratitude will gradually fill the glasses of all your other needs.

Elena Alexandrova-Long

Your Coach to Success

www.envisionlifedesign.com.au

Your Daily Quote - Relationships

Relationships are like jenga building blocks - a strong foundation, perfect fit and great balance produce a lasting, robust, growing structure. Digging ruins it.
Elena Alexandrova-Long