Manipulating Your Subconscious into Developing Good Habits

Many of the actions and decisions we make in life happen at a subconscious level. Our subconscious is the feeling, thinking part of us that drives our perceptions, and often our decision-making processes. Often thought of as “instinct” or “gut feeling” we often rely on our subconscious and when we are feeling positive and happy about our lives, we are usually confident we are making the right decisions. On other occasions, however, our perceptions can be clouded by stress and other such factors and dwelling on these things can lead to inappropriate reactions as we focus on the perceptions and not the facts of the situation.

 

Is it possible to train and manipulate your subconscious to develop good habits of focusing on the facts and not being influenced by perceptions and feelings. It is important to remember when facing negative self-talk that you may not be able to change the situation you are facing but you can change how you feel about it. The situation is not a choice, but the way you react and respond to the consequences of that situation is a choice. 

 

Experts tell us that 90% of the things we worry about will never happen to us. This 90% worry rate is usually created in our subconscious. To reduce the worry, we need to refocus our thinking from our perceptions about the causes of our worry and focus instead on the facts or the cause of the worry. 

 

Confronting the self-talk by asking yourself reality-based questions is essential to reversing the process of self-talk. It often helps if you can write down the answers to these questions. 

 

·    Firstly, ask yourself about the facts of the situation and as you write them down try not to reflect on any emotions, but only facts. 

 

·    Secondly, ask yourself if there are alternative causes for a situation or event, rather than just the one your subconscious is suggesting. Challenge your perception with evidence from other sources that may prove your perception as incorrect. 

 

·    Put perspective back into the situation by reflecting on the facts and alternative causes.

 

·    Challenge the perception you have had and create an alternative perception.

 

As you learn to challenge the way your subconscious relates to situations, you can manipulate it to start thinking positively. The goal is to challenge your subconscious reasoning before it thinks and responds negatively to situations.

 

Are You Addicted to Porn?

How do you know if you are addicted to porn? This is a question that many people ask themselves but are sometimes too embarrassed to ask a professional. Is there a difference between being interested in pornography and being addicted to it? 

 

Porn addiction, like all other kinds of addictions, develops over time. It often starts as a curious interest in pornographic material on the Internet or on movies and gradually becomes an obsession; often without the person involved realizing that it has become a serious problem. 

 

There are some indications that you maybe addicted to porn. Checking your own thoughts and attitudes as suggested by counselors, would help you or your loved ones to identify if there is a problem, and to seek solutions to it.

 

There are some key questions to ask yourself and to be extremely honest in answering. Think about how watching porn makes you act and feel. Do you find yourself unable to resist the urge to watch a film or navigate to a website? Does watching porn give you a sense of intimacy and pleasure? If you answered yes to these questions you may like to consider these questions.

 

·    Is watching the porn something you keep secret from others?

 

·    How has watching the pornographic material affected the way you approach your own sexuality? Have you found your sexual preferences changing since you started to watch the material? Is there abuse involved? 

 

·    What else is going on in your life? Is there pain in your life and do you use the material to help deaden your pain? 

 

·    Do you indulge in watching pornographic material in preference to developing a strong sexual relationship with a partner? 

 

Experts agree that all of these are good indicators that all of these are good indicators of an addiction or other compulsive attraction to pornography.

 

If you are concerned that you are addicted to porn, as with all addictions, there is help available. For some people, pornography addiction is just a passing phase and there can be embarrassment when they realize that it has become more than just something that they are curious about. 

 

Making excuses is a normal reaction to explain this type of temporary phase, however with time and continued excuses, addiction becomes more of a probability and if this concerns you, seek the help of a counselor, before it affects your world. 

How Much Can You Rely on Your Subconscious

We all have conversations with ourselves. Often these conversations happen on a daily basis and they have the potential to create an internal struggle between the different “voices” we often hear when these conversations occur. These conversations are known as self-talk, and they are as the name suggests. Our subconscious “talking” to us and often answering itself at the same time. How much can we rely on our subconscious and our self-talk? The voices we hear and the decisions that arise from our self-talk can potentially help us make important decisions, so the answer to the question of it is reliability is an important one for most of us.

 

Self-talk is usually activated by an event that happens to us. It may be something we see, hear or experience and as we think about the situation at a conscious level; our subconscious also begins to respond. As it processes the event it tries to make sense of it. Many external and internal influences can affect what happens next. We may for example, remind ourselves we have an important exam the next day and our subconscious reminds us that we need to study for it. This may be considered positive self-talk and for many decisions, this type of subconscious activity can be life-saving. 

 

However, on many occasions, situations and events that may have been considered positive may produce negative reactions in our subconscious discussions with ourselves. Thoughts of that exam, instead of driving us to action and preparation may leave us feeling a sense of despair, thinking we will never pass this exam. We may make a decision based on our “instincts” which are subconscious decisions that cause us to “trust” our instincts and act on them. 

 

Perception can be altered by how we are feeling, or what stresses we are under at the time and therefore the more stressed we are the less reliable our self-talk is. On these occasions, self-talk can create negative thoughts in our mind as we dwell not on the facts, but on our perception of those facts and these can be influenced by many factors acting as filters and giving us false perceptions. 

 

Identifying which self-talk is based on facts and which on our perception of facts will help us know whether to trust our subconscious “gut feelings” on things that can happen to us. 

 

Quitting Smoking—Is It Possible?

Are you sitting in that very difficult place of wanting to stop smoking but no matter how strong your resolve is when you start the day with, by the end of it you have given up trying to be strong and given in to the cravings that seem futile to resist?

 

We all know the statistics for cigarette related deaths and we all know that giving up the habit has immediate benefits for the body that just keeps getting better with time. Yet, more people are learning this, and people are still starting to smoke and others just do not want to give it up enough to follow their resolve to quit. 

 

So what is the solution? Is there a solution? Is quitting smoking possible? The good news is that hundreds are successfully giving up the habit and not returning to it. Others have tried a variety of ways to give it up and have not been as successful. Some of these ways include 

 

·    Just giving up: This technique involves making the decision not to smoke and simply stopping. It has proven highly effective for some people.

 

·    Gradually stopping: Many people try this technique, but with only limited success. The usual response of the body is to crave more nicotine than it is getting and many people who have tried to give up smoking, cite this reason as the main reason they didn’t succeed.

 

·    Nicotine Alternatives: Many people have used nicotine patches and gum as an alternative to smoking it in a cigarette. These alternatives provide a low dose of nicotine that helps the body stave off the cravings that inevitably reduce the resolve to quit. This method is considered a very successful treatment to help a smoker to quit the habit.

 

·    Stop Smoking Clinics: Clinics operated by anti-cancer councils and community groups provide a peer support approach that assists people to stop smoking and are a successful alternative natural treatment option.

 

Most people who give up smoking usually try one or more of these techniques or countless others that are successful. The journey for each person is very individual. If one technique is not successful, try another. Approach your resolve one cigarette at a time. Each time you say no, it will become easier to say no the next time. 

 

What Being Healthy Really Means

Health to most people means, “not being sick.” People who are ill are considered to be in “poor health.” For these people, health is simply the absence of sickness. There is another more comprehensive view however, held by groups like the World Health Organization and the International Scouting Movement that suggest that true health is not only physical wellbeing, but also includes, mental, social, spiritual and intellectual wellbeing. 

 

In today’s society, there is a lot of emphasis on maintaining physical health, but most people spend little or no time looking after these other areas of wellbeing. If we are going to measure how healthy we are, we must consider how we are looking after the “whole of us” and not just our bodies. 

 

Being healthy means taking time to consider those areas of our lives that we do sometimes neglect and finding ways to care for them. Research has shown that if we do not do this, then it will affect our physical health. Many of the reasons we say we are in “poor health” are caused by carrying too much stress, and eventually they will produce physical symptoms if we do not learn how to de-stress. 

 

We usually care for the needs of others in preference to caring for ourselves. Self-care however, is not selfish but is a way of ensuring that our bodies are healthy in a holistic sense. We choose to go to the gym after work, which may seem to be caring for our physical body, but if it is something we want to do and we like to do, it will produce health benefits to our mental and social well-being. If we would like to study in a course that interests us as personal development, but consider ourselves too busy to enroll in a course without attempting to reschedule our time, we are not caring for our intellectual health.

 

Giving ourselves permission to self-care as a whole person is the first step to enjoying true health. It is not only important for us personally, it influences our roles as partners, as parents and as colleagues at work. It affects our productivity and our ability to enjoy life and to take advantage of the opportunities that life offers us.

 

When we adopt this holistic attitude for our lives, and in making lifestyle choices, we have begun to understand what true health really means. 

 

Is There a Closet Pessimist Living within You?

Many people are not successful in many things they try to do because they have a closet pessimist mentality. A closet pessimist is a private worrywart, someone who worries without letting others know. These people put a brave face when they are in public but when they are alone, they worry themselves to death about the things they have assumed responsibility for. This stops them from achieving their goals. 

 

The consequences of being a closet pessimist are manifested in various ways, such as past failures, fears of facing the future, inability to own up to new responsibilities and so on. For one to attain their goal, it is important to remove this closet pessimist attitude. It should be replaced with a positive attitude towards whatever you want to achieve. You should always be an optimist. Most of the people who are successful in business and in their personal lives are those who have buried the closet pessimist in them.

 

We all have these closest pessimists living within us and most of us do not know how to get rid of them. If you have positive thoughts about something then you will achieve that thing without any pressure. All your success comes from within you. Your mind controls everything and so your mind will come up with a solution to your problem but then you have to act upon it. You should also not have a mentality of giving up. 

 

Regardless of the magnitude of the problem that you are facing, you should not let it control your life. That problem should not stop you from getting your success. Failure is just a single step from your success. For one to be successful, you have to go through some frustrations of failure. You are supposed to believe that you are going to make it always and then work on it putting in your effort. Our brains stop working the minute we develop a negative attitude towards something. The minute you start to think that you have a solution to a problem then your brain will start to work effectively.

 

Many businesses fail due to closet pessimism; students also fail because of that. If you believe somewhere deep inside those things are not going to work, then they are probably not. If you fail once, that does not mean that you are going to fail the next time. The only thing that we need to do is to put more effort in wanting to achieve something and also looking for ways that will help us to be successful in that area.

Creating an Atmosphere that Generates Positive Energy within You

Beauty is basically a blend of factors, looks, styles, attitude and posture. To look beautiful, you must also feel that way. That is the only thing behind beauty. The question that most of us ask ourselves is how we can feel beautiful? There are several things that can make a person to look beautiful. One can feel beautiful if they are appreciated or by just receiving love from those who are close to us. You could also feel beautiful by being complimented by a stranger. Beauty is something that comes from down somebody and it enlightens your soul lifting your spirit and then results in making you feel great about yourself. How does one however feel beautiful? There are several tips that are going to help you create an atmosphere that generates positive energy within oneself. 

 

The first step of feeling beautiful is by familiarizing yourself with beauty. One can familiarize oneself through achieving a goal, through a compliment or gesticulation. You should also generate positive energy and help those who are close to you to make you feel beauty in your life. The vital thing about life is experiencing love and appreciation. The other very important thing is dressing beautifully. You should take time in dressing and admiring all that you have by appreciating that you have them. You should a trendy person so that you can receive lots of attention and feel beautiful. This works with make-ups and designer clothes. 

 

You should also be in a position of pampering yourself frequently. Utilize all the chances that you have so long as you have money. You could treat yourself to a spar, buying new things and spend extra on yourself. Smiling is also very important; this will make those around you to also smile. Always smile from deep down you. When you smile you are able to reach out to others. You could also improve your surrounding through beautiful colors. This will help you to cheer up your surroundings, which greatly reflect on your mood and in your appearance. Appreciating Mother Nature also helps a lot in calming one, and refreshing your mind. Have a time of yourself by watching a movie, listening to nice music or even taking your time in the bubble bath. 

 

Spend your time doing your most favorite activity. Feeling beautiful uplifts one confidence and also you feel healthy. When you are relaxed the blood circulates well. 

Meditation for Positive Thinking—the Power of Yoga

Meditation and Yoga were once considered strange things, delving into the occult and people did not readily believe in them. There were misconceptions that yoga and meditation were part of the activities done by members of some mysterious Asian sect. Others claimed that they did not merit all the hype; they could never deliver the results they promised. But, many of them have come to notice today that yoga and meditation are actually very helpful to the body. They have learnt that together with these two very vital activities comes power of the mind as long as other added advantages. Even the medical fraternity has proven that meditation together with yoga is quite helpful to the body. Research has shown that the two lead to a healthier body. They increase the rate of oxygen intake and help in the flow of blood.

 

Yoga gives you power of the brain. How does it do this? Meditation causes your brain to relax and drift away in a world of its own. It takes away all the troubled thoughts that might be stressing you. In this case, it reduces the burden carried by your brain. On the other hand, yoga revitalizes the brain. It causes the brain to think in a completely new perspective. It helps you see everything in a wider view and this helps you deal with your day-to-day issues more appropriately. 

 

Once one fully grows into yoga, meditation and visualization, the change will be quite visible. To start with, your mode of thinking will change. One gets more creative and proactive. Creativity will no longer be a major issue. You will have a greater pool to tap into. As a result, you will start approaching things in whole new and better way. A fresh flow of ideas will fill your mind making you more and more creative. In addition, you capacity to improve will highly increase. You will be full of inspiration that will give you strength and grace to go through whatever situation it is you are going through. Generally, you will come up with stronger and longer lasting solutions to issues. 

 

Yoga and meditation not only help the mind, but also the physical body. As I stated earlier, they increase blood flow and circulation. In addition to this, they detoxify your body and get rid of all the filth that is bothering it. In some cases, they can even heal some diseases. If you still do not believe this, try it! 

 

How Breathing Exercises Can Help in Positive Thinking

Many people who go to work complain about long working hours and the lots of stress at work, but the thing that bothers them a lot is finding it hard to pay attention on anything. This however has greatly affected people especially those who are twenty and above. Most of them complain of low concentration span. We cannot put the blame on anybody for our low concentration. The low attention span that we have is as a result of our development. Research says that human beings could have developed the trend as a way of surviving. In the early years, human beings could be able to feel whatever was in the environment by detecting. 

 

They could either detect predators or mates and so they would be distracted from whatever they were doing and do something with what was at hand first. This was basically a way of surviving. However, this response has changed greatly especially in the today’s world which is so urbanized and moves very first. The most things that draw our attention are things like gossips, billboards and also messages. Nowadays our stimulation is so high to appoint of becoming insensitive. This works in a way that instead of our stimuli helping us to pay attention it distracts us from vital works and things of chief concerns. The best thing is that we have a solution to the problem and it does not cost us much or rather anything. The solution is the way we breathe. 

 

There is a relation between our breathing and concentration. A brain which has got enough oxygen and normal when it comes to breathing is fit and functions well. Different styles of breathing techniques help the brain cells not to die quickly. The brain cells cannot be stimulated and so once they die that is it. Therefore, wear and tear of the brain is usually eternal. Breathing exercises have got strict rules and regulations to be followed and so one can use the discipline in your daily life. 

 

These exercises are usually boring but once you get used to them you find that they are interesting and very complex. They are also very convenient because they can be done anywhere. Breathing deep, slowly and regularly helps us to make our body strong. Your muscles become flexible and do not wear out or get fatigued easily. When you are relaxed, it is so much easier to concentrate.

The Law of Attraction and Your Life

The law of attraction in our lives has become the in thing. Everyone wants to apply this law in their everyday activity. Talking about law of attraction draws a lot of attention. This is because all of us have dreams and we would want these dreams to come true someday. Most of us want a very successful life with lots of achievements and happiness. We all want to have our desires true. Therefore, we can say that the law of attraction in our lives helps us to tune our minds and feelings to draw the lifestyle that we want and not vice versa. The way we are living now was or rather is dictated by our conscious and subconscious minds which are very vital parts. There are several steps that one can use to get the law of attraction.

 

The first thing that you should do is to describe the type of life that you want and be able to see it in your mind’s eye. When you want something, you should ask from the cosmos and you should also have an unambiguous picture in your mentality of what it is. Recognition of your dreams and requirements first begins with forming a mental image of whatever you want. You should be able to discover ways of visualizing and also train yourself on how to feel the passion and the approach that follows. To visualize is very important because you are able to involve both your conscious and your subconscious mind. This enables the manifestation of your desire. You should therefore start feeling your image as if it were already with you.

 

The other vital point in implementing law of attraction in your life is thinking positively. You should always be an optimist. Most of the times you will find that majority of failures have got that negative attitude within them thus stopping them from applying this law of attraction. Many are the times we do not have confidence in ourselves because we are insecure. We usually give up very easily. If you want to achieve the success that you want, then you must be positive. Always think that there are different ways to achieve something. Having a positive verification is the most important thing. 

 

You should also be thankful always and be willing to share whatever you have. This way you will be able to attract more. Always look at what you have and not what you do not have. Another thing that you need is focus. You need not only to focus your mind but also your brain and energy not forgetting your time. The last thing that you need to do is take action.

Personal Accountability—Do You Know Your Own Influence?

All of us influence someone. We may not be leaders, but we are in leadership. We may not be powerful but we have power. We may not have responsibility but we are responsible. An old adage states, “No man is an Island.” Even those people living the most isolated of lifestyles have influenced someone, are influencing someone or will influence someone. You cannot be human and not influence someone or something in your world. Do you know the power of your personal accountability and the influence you have on the world around you? 

 

As parents, we influence our children. Early child hood experts tell us that a child’s personality is fixed by the age of 5 years old, and in those early preschool years, children lay the foundations for everything they will need to learn for the rest of their lives. As they watch their parents or the significant adults in their lives, they learn as we teach them values, morals and behaviors they see portrayed in us. We influence our children in more ways than we sometimes understand.

 

As members of a work team, we influence the people we work with every day, even if we do not have a leadership responsibility over them. As we interact and work with our colleagues, we challenge work ethics and habits. We help colleagues learn new ways of doing their jobs and to approach time management in a new way. Our influence can help create a harmonious and happy working environment but a lack of team focus by any member or members of a workplace can create an environment of hostility and jealousy that reduces productivity and increases job satisfaction 

 

When we realize the influence we consciously or subconsciously have over other people, we are more willing to accept personal responsibility for our actions and reactions to particular circumstances and situations. It challenges us to consider others needs and the consequence of our actions and words. 

 

There are however those who live with a very self-focused view. This attitude is characterized in advertisements on television that suggest we have every right to focus on our personal rights and to indulge our dreams and desires. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this attitude unless in the process we forget we are not an island and what we do will always influence others. We lead others by example.

 

Maintaining a Journal to Discover Yourself

Do you keep a journal to record your life journey? Maintaining a journal is an exceptionally good way of making sense of the things you go through in your life. You can tell your journal what you cannot tell other people and as you look back on past entries, your journal is a record of how every experience you go through in life, becomes a mirror that reflects how you have grown through those experiences. 

 

Many people feel they could not keep a journal. If you feel this way, and the reason is that you do not like writing or feel you can’t write properly, do not let this stop you exploring this excellent method of keeping track of the many thoughts and ideas that travel through your mind daily. Journaling is not about needing to write in any style or with grammar. You are the only one who will read the journal. It is your thoughts on paper 

 

Other people have found creative ways to use their journals. Drawings, photographs and poetry or quotes can sometimes depict the stories that you cannot write on paper. It is not the method you use that is important, but it is the concept of keeping a journal; it is the benefit it will be to you and your journey of self-discovery. 

 

Most of us hold our feelings inside, these can have both a stunting effect on our personal growth, and they can lead to health problems if the stress that usually accompanies them remains internal. Expressing thoughts on paper is the simplest way of learning how to express our feelings. Once expressed we can either look at them from a different perspective and deal with them ourselves or we can feel more willing to talk about them with others. 

 

Journaling for self-discovery need not be only for expressing our inner feelings and thoughts. As we travel through life, we inevitably have some great ideas. As we write these ideas down, we can return to them when we are in a position to either follow them up with action or to revisit them in the future. Without writing our ideas down, we often forget them and many of the gems that life offers us are forgotten when we try to commit them to memory. 

 

Once you create the habit of maintaining and writing in a journal often becomes a lifelong habit.

 

10 Questions to Understand Yourself

Do you understand yourself? Understanding yourself helps you to make decisions that help you to choose the best paths for you to take. Often the choices we make without understanding ourselves can be wrong decisions that create problems. Understanding our strengths, weaknesses, what gives us satisfaction and what causes us stress help guide our paths to those experiences that will provide us with the best possible outcomes for our choices. 

 

If you keep a journal these 10 questions may help you to know yourself and to get in touch with inner thoughts and feelings. They can help you make choices in your private life, your working life and in your relationships. 

 

1.  Describe what you believe is truly important in life. Describe anything you would fight for in life to keep and not lose.

2.  Describe what values in life best reflect what you believe are essential values that you treasure about yourself. Describe what gives you happiness and a sense of achievement and what upsets you and causes you stress and anger or frustration.

3.  Describe a dream you have about what you would like to achieve for yourself personally in life. Describe what affect this dream is having on your life currently and what you would hope it to have in the future.

4.  Who is a mentor or major influence in your life and how do they help you make decisions? Why are they an important influence?

5.  What would you like to achieve within the next 10 years in your personal life? 

6.  What do you consider are your special talents and gifts?

7.  What skills would you like to develop in either your personal or working life in the next 12 months?

8.  What would you regret not doing if you look back on your life in 20 years’ time? 

9.  What do you consider your greatest achievement in life until now? 

10. What do you consider is your greatest failure, sadness or disappointment?

 

Remember there are no right or wrong answers for any of these questions. As you answer them honestly and thoughtfully, the answers will provide you with a picture of you and a summary of your hopes and aspirations and the things you can learn from your past choices. Turn your answers into life goals and use them to help make decisions that will shape your future. 

How to Fall in Love with Yourself

Do you love yourself? Most people probably take a deep breath when they hear that question, but it is a valid and important question and one if we could all answer yes to, would change the way we feel about ourselves and give us self-confidence to achieve the dreams and desires we have for our lives. 

 

Someone once asked the question “how can we expect others to love us if we don’t love ourselves” and this demonstrates the importance of learning to love the unique person we are. It is accepting that we have own special place in this world. Feeling unloved and unworthy is a very lonely feeling. If you cannot find anything to love about yourself, you are probably struggling on the inside with a whole range of feelings. 

 

Learning to love yourself is possible. To love yourself, you must challenge the negative feelings inside that center our thoughts and self-wealth feelings on external things like how successful we are in our roles as mothers or husbands or how well we can sing even how good looking we are. While acknowledging their role in our life, our self-worth and self-acceptance is about the person we are, the person we are comfortable being around when everyone else has left and we are alone. If we are not comfortable with that person, we do not love our self. 

 

Take time to sit and write all the things there is to love about yourself. Be honest with yourself. Do not let negative self-talk stop the process. Try to do these five simple things every day and you will find yourself thinking differently about the private you few others see or know.

• Challenge your negative thoughts about yourself by having positive ones written down and read them aloud to yourself often. 

• Learn to self-care and do something every day that you enjoy doing. You deserve it!

• Look in the mirror and learn to love the person looking back at you and tell him or her often she is lovable and why.

• Fill your life with people who love you and tell you often what a special person you are. Accept their words and their love without questioning it.

• Add to your list about the person you are, the good thoughts you have about yourself and read them regularly. 

 

When you have positive feelings about yourself, you automatically begin to love yourself and hence you do a better job at whatever you do.