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Proverbs, 29:18






 

I remember reading about the astounding number of people in this country who die within three years of retiring, which proves to me that if you lose the sense that you are producing or contributing in some way, you literally lose the will to live, and that if you do have a reason to hang on, you will. In fact, studies have found that elderly or ill people who are close to death often hang on until just after the holidays. As long as they had something like Christmas and the family visit to look forward to, they had a reason to live, but after it passed, they had no compelling future. This phenomenon isn't true only of our own country; it's been noted in cultures around the world. For example, in China the death rate drops off right before and during major festivals, and picks up again as soon as the festivals are over.

It doesn't matter if you're eighteen or eighty—you'll still need something to drive you forward. The inspiration you seek is found within, waiting to be called upon by an unforeseen challenge or inspired request.

Colonel Harlan Sanders found it at age sixty-five, when his meager Social Security check arrived. His anger drove him to action. We don't have to wait for an event in order to have the inspiration. We can design it.

Venerable funnyman George Bums understands the importance and power of a compelling future. When asked to sum up his philosophy of life, he once replied, " You have to have something to get you out of bed. I can't do anything in bed, anyway. The most important thing is to have a point, a direction you're headed." * Now in his nineties, he's still sharpening his wit, still taking on movie and TV projects, and I recently heard that he booked himself at the London Palladium in the year 2000, when he'll be 104 years old—how's that for creating a compelling future?!

Use your power. You now know what to do to inspire yourself. It's time to do it. If you've read this chapter passively up until now, go back and do the exercises. They're fun, and they're easy. First, get your list of your top four one-year goals. Second, get clear on the " why." Third, develop the ritual of reviewing your goals and rehearsing the joy of their achievement daily for ten days. Fourth, surround yourself with role models and those who can help you develop a plan that will guide you in making it all real. Each of these steps will help you to program your RAS and sensitize you to all the possible resources you can incorporate to bring your goals to fruition. This consistent review will also provide for you the sense of certainty that you need to get yourself to take action. So let's turn to the next chapter, and let me share with you a way to break up any obstacles that would stop you by taking on...

 


 

THE TEN-DAY MENTAL CHALLENGE

 

 

" Habit is either the best of servants or the worst of masters."

NATHANIEL EMMONS

 

 

Consistency... Isn't this what we're all after? We don't want to create results once in a while. We don't want to feel joyous just/or the moment. We don't want to be at our best sporadically. The mark of a champion is consistency—and true consistency is established by our habits. I'm sure you realize by now that I didn't write this book just to help you make a few distinctions. Nor is it designed to inspire you with a few stories or share with you a bit of interesting information that you might use every now and then to create a little " personal development." This book—and my entire life—is dedicated to producing a measurable increase in the quality of our lives.

This can be accomplished only through a new pattern of taking massive action. The true value to an individual of any new strategy or skill is in direct proportion to the frequency of its use. As I've said so many times, knowing what to do is not enough: you must do what you know. This chapter is designed to assist you in establishing habits of excellence—the patterns of focus that will help you maximize the impact you have on yourself and others.

In order to take our lives to the next level, however, we must realize that the same pattern of thinking that has gotten us to where we are will not get us to where we want to go. One of the biggest challenges I see in both individuals and corporations is that they resist change (their greatest ally), justifying their actions by pointing out that their current behavior is what got them to the level of success that they now enjoy. This is absolutely true and, in reality, a new level of thinking is now required in order to experience a new level of personal and professional success.

To do this, we must once and for all break through the barriers of our fear and take control of the focus of our minds. Our old patterns of allowing our minds to be enslaved by the problems of the moment must be broken once and for all. In their place, we must establish the lifelong commitment to focus on the solutions and to enjoy the process. Throughout this book you've learned a wealth of powerful tools and strategies to make your life richer, fuller, more joyous and exciting. But if you just read this book and fail to use it, it's like buying a powerful new computer and never taking it out of the box, or buying a Ferrari and then letting it sit out in your driveway, collecting dust and grime.

So let me offer you a simple plan for interrupting your old patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving, a way that can help you condition these new, empowering alternatives and make them absolutely consistent.

Years ago, I found myself caught up in a pattern of frustration and anger. I seemed to have problems everywhere I turned. At that point, thinking positively was not high on my list of solutions. After all, I was being " intelligent, " and intelligent people don't make things look positive when they aren't! I had plenty of people around me who supported this idea (and they were equally frustrated with their lives, as well!). In reality, at the time I was being incredibly negative and seeing things worse than they were. I was using my pessimism as a shield. It was my feeble attempt at protecting myself from the pain of failed expectations: I'd do anything to keep from being disappointed once again. But in adopting this pattern, this same barrier that kept me out of pain also kept me out of pleasure. It barred me from solutions and sealed me in a tomb of emotional death where one never experiences too much pain or too much pleasure, and where one continuously justifies one's limited actions by stating they're " just being realistic."

In truth, life is a balance. If we allow ourselves to become the kind of people who refuse to see the weeds that are taking root in our gardens, our delusions will destroy us. Equally destructive, however, is what happens to those people who, out of fear, constantly imagine the garden overgrown and choked with intractable weeds. The leader's path is one of balance. He notes the weeds with a smile upon his face, knowing that the weeds' visit to the garden is all but over—because he's spotted them, he can and will immediately act to remove them.

We don't have to feel negative about weeds. They're part of life. Weneed to see them, acknowledge them, focus on the solution, and immediately do whatever it takes to eliminate their influence from our lives. Pretending they're not there won't make things better; neither will becoming inflamed with anger by their presence nor devastated by fear. Their continual attempt to be part of your garden is a fact of life. Simply remove them. And do it in an emotional state of playfulness or joy while you're getting the job done; otherwise you'll spend the rest of your life being upset, because I can promise you one thing: there will be more " weeds" that continue to come up. And unless you want to live in

reaction to the world every time problems occur, you need to remember that they're actually an important part of life. They keep you vigorous, they keep you strong, they keep you vigilant in noticing what needs to be done to keep the garden of your life healthy and rich.

We need to practice this same approach in weeding the gardens of our minds. We have to be able to notice when we start to have a negative pattern—not beat ourselves up about it, and not dwell on it—but simply break the patterns as quickly as we discover them, and replace them with the new seeds of mental, emotional, physical, financial, spiritual, and professional success. How do we break these patterns when they show up? Simply remember the steps of NAC you learned in Chapter 6.

1) You need to decide what you do want. If you really want to feel a sense of passion, joy, and control over your life—which obviously you must, or you wouldn't be reading this now—then you know what you want.

2) You've got to get leverage on yourself. If you read this whole book and don't establish any new patterns, wouldn't that be an unbelievable waste of time? In contrast, how will you feel as you truly use what you've learned to take immediate control of your mind, body, emotions, finances, and relationships? Let your desire to avoid pain and induce massive pleasure drive you to make the changes necessary to take your life to the next level now. In order to accomplish this, you must...

3) Interrupt the limiting pattern. The best way I know to do this is to simply go on a " Mental Diet" —that is, take a set period of time and take conscious control of all your thoughts. A Mental Diet is an opportunity to eliminate the negative and destructive patterns of thinking and feeling that inevitably come from living life in an emotionally reactionary and mentally undisciplined fashion. I committed myself to such a mental cleansing almost eight years ago, and found it to be a very profound and

invaluable process.

I came across the idea in a small pamphlet by Emmet Fox[96]. In it, he expounded upon the value of spending seven days without ever holding a negative thought. The idea seemed so Pollyanna, so ridiculously simple, that at first I thought the whole concept was a total waste of time. But as he began to lay out the rules of this diet he was prescribing to cleanse the mental system, I began to realize it might be more difficult than I thought. The challenge intrigued me, and the final results astounded me. I'd like to broaden the challenge Mr. Fox created in 1935 and expand it as a tool that can help you integrate the master tools of change that you've been learning thus far in this book, beginning today.

Here's your opportunity now to really apply all the new disciplines you've learned in the previous chapters. My challenge to you is simply this:

For the next ten days, beginning immediately, commit to taking full control of all your mental and emotional faculties by deciding right now that you will not indulge in or dwell on any unresourceful thoughts or emotions for ten consecutive days.

It sounds easy, doesn't it? And I'm sure it could be. But those who begin it are frequently surprised to discover how often their brains are engaged in nonproductive, fearful, worrisome, or destructive thinking.

Why would we continually indulge in mental and emotional patterns that create unnecessary stress in our lives? The answer is simple: we actually think it helps! Many people live in a state of worry. In order to accomplish this state, they continually focus and dwell on the worst possible scenario. Why would they do this? Because they believe it will get them to do something—to take action. But the truth of the matter is that worry usually puts a person in an extremely unresourceful emotional state. It doesn't usually empower us to take action, but rather, it tends to cause us to become overwhelmed with frustration or fear.

Yet, using some of the simplest tools in this book, you could change your worried state immediately by focusing on a solution. You could ask yourself a better question like, " What do I need to do right now to make this better? " Or you could change your state by changing the vocabulary you use to describe the sensations you're feeling: from " worried" to " a little bit concerned."

In essence, if you decide to accept my Ten-Day Challenge, it means that you've committed to putting yourself and keeping yourself in a passionately positive state, no matter what happens. It means that if you find yourself in any unresourceful emotional states, you'll instantaneously change your physiology or focus into a resourceful state regardless of your desires of the moment. For example, if someone does something that you believe is destructive or even hateful toward you, and you begin

to find yourself becoming angry, you must immediately change your emotional state, regardless of the situation, during these ten consecutive days.

Again, remember that you have a multitude of strategies for changing your state. You could ask yourself a more empowering question like, " What could I learn from this? " or " What's great about this situation, and what's not yet perfect? " These questions will lead you into resourceful states where you'll find solutions instead of dwelling on and habitually running the cycle of increased anger and frustration. How many other ways could you change your state if you were really committed?

Remember, our goal is not to ignore the problems of life, but to put ourselves in better mental and emotional states where we can not only come up with solutions, but act upon them. Those people who focus on what they can't control are continually disempowered. Yes, it's true, we can't control the wind or the rain or the other vagaries of weather, but we can tack our sails in a way that allows us to shape the direction of our lives.

When I first considered going on Fox's mental diet, I believed that staying positive would get me hurt. After all, I had been positive in the past, and my expectations weren't met. I had felt devastated. Eventually, though, I found that by changing my focus I was able to take more control of my life by avoiding the problem state and immediately focusing on solutions. My requests for inner answers were quickly met when I was in a resourceful state.

Every great, successful person I know shares the capacity to remain centered, clear and powerful in the midst of emotional " storms." How do they accomplish this? Most of them have a fundamental rule: In life, never spend more than 10 percent of your time on the problem, and spend at least 90 percent of your time on the solution. Most important, don't sweat the small stuff... and remember, it's all small stuff!

If you decide that you're going to take on my Ten-Day Challenge—and I sense you will, since you've made it this far in the book—then realize that for the next ten days, you're going to spend 100 percent of your time on solutions, and no time on problems!

But won't this make the problems worse? " If I don't worry about my problems, won't they get out of control? " I seriously doubt it. Ten days of focusing entirely upon solutions, on what's great in your life, on what works and how lucky you are will not make your problems worse. But these new patterns may make you so strong that what you once thought was a problem may disappear as you assume a new identity of an unstoppable and joyous human being.

There are four simple yet important rules to this Ten-Day Challenge.

So if you're going to take it on, remember the following:

 

 


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