Being Your Best

By Debra Berndt

Everyone has unlimited potential, but they seem to hold themselves back from their greatness. They get distracted, talk themselves out of their dreams as if they were unattainable anyway and ultimately feel unsatisfied. It is a tragic cycle of dreaming, getting disappointed and giving up. Most of the time, people stay stuck in the giving up and resort to complaining about their life, their body or their romantic situation instead of doing anything to change it. So, what stops you from being your best?

The subconscious likes to keep consistent patterns and resists change because it is afraid of the unknown. That is why people avoid starting new things because they are scary. Ancient survival instincts kick in, and the mind chatter finds a way to talk you out of anything different than the status quo. Certain people may have also been conditioned against change if they needed to keep a sense of order and predictability to survive in an abusive household. Some have had devastating failures that keep them from trying again. Everyone has something that holds them back whether it is fear of change or failure. They key is to find out what stops you, so you can overcome the barriers and create the life you truly desire.

First, think of a time when you had a big dream and gave up. Journal about the conditions of that place in your life, and describe how you felt about it. What story were you telling yourself about why you should stop pursuing the dream? Was it because you did not feel qualified (not good enough), or because you felt that there was a lack of support either financially or emotionally from those around you? Now looking back, review the idea and ask yourself if you absolutely believed that was true or was it just a story you told yourself.

People make up stories and rationalize about why they can’t lose weight, find a man or be successful because they have an unconscious desire to stay in their comfort zone. Let’s face it, a little work is required to accomplish anything extraordinary. The reason most people do not succeed is because they are too lazy to be pushed out, stretched and tested to gain something more in life. In order to put ourselves in a position of being “uncomfortable,” we need a good reason, or to become so uncomfortable in our current environment to push ourselves to make a change.

Now think of your big dream. Does it make you feel excited or scared? Could you live your life knowing that you never reached that dream? What stops you from taking action? Write down a list of all the justifications and reasons why you have not taken the steps required to pursue your goal. Then, write down all the reasons you should pursue the dream. To get motivated, your reasons to move forward must be stronger than the rationale to stay put. Self-hypnosis is also a great way to reprogram the subconscious mind to support the positive reasons for change.

Wallace Wattles, the author of “The Science of Getting Rich” (the book that Rhonda Byrne read to inspire her to do the movie, The Secret), says you are either thinking with your limited mind or the creative mind. Each time you give up and say it can’t be done, you are operating with your limited mind. When you open your mind up to all possibilities, you start using the creative mind. The creative mind is where miracles happen.

Here’s how to start that process. Look at your list of reasons that you cannot reach your goal again. Analyze it very carefully and come up with creative ideas that can override those excuses. For example, if one of your justifications is that you do not have the money, think of all the creative ways that you can attract the money you need (even if you think they are impossible). Just writing down how you can overcome those obstacles can attract new opportunities to you according to the law of attraction. This process helps you state intentions to what you want to draw into your life and you will be amazed at how easily things manifest for you.

Do not look at your life only through your current circumstances. Be open to the unseen forces that are working to bring you new resources. The reason most people give up is because they only notice what is, instead of what could be. If everyone thought that way, we would never have learned how to walk, discover a new world or get to the moon. The only thing that is stopping you from being your greatest self is you.

Abandon Control

by Mark Rogers, Ph.D. - Relationship Rich Facilitator

Do you use "Big Words" on your mate?

"Big Words" doesn’t refer to fancy vocabulary. It refers to describing feelings using labels that cover too much territory.

When you communicate with "Big Words" to your mate, you may think it sounds like you are talking about emotions, but you’re really trying to coerce your mate into changing.

For example, the following messages attempt to communicate a message using "Big Words":

“I just wish you would show me some AFFECTION.”

“You don’t ever act like you LOVE me, when we are in public.”

“You are always trying to CONTROL me.”

“I don’t think you TRUST me.”

“I’m so tired of you being so DISTANT with me.”

“Why can’t you just let me BE MYSELF?

“Back off and let me have some SPACE.”


All of these messages are more about control than about communicating.
When you use "Big Words" like these, you are not just saying something about the feelings in your relationship. You are wanting your mate to do something, or to quit doing something, or to do something differently.

"Big Words" are packed with so much emotional weight that they might as well be clubs. (Or hammers. Or hand grenades.)

We use them when we are wanting our mates to Change, Now! We use them when we want to get our mate’s attention and get some rapid action. They are intense and important, and we mean for our mate to recognize that we are using a "Big Word" and meaning "Big Things" by it.

In other words, we want control.

Using a "Big Words" message is much like saying, “If you loved me, you would behave as I want you to.” Of course, you can’t just say it out loud, that clearly, that boldly, that… callously. It sounds too domineering. And we would naturally expect our mates to resist being dominated.

No one wants to be controlled.

We never want to admit that we desire control. Instead we say we want love, or affection, or trust, or space. But what we mean is, we want our mates to behave in certain specified (by us) ways, in certain (or most) situations. And we want them to do it because they want to, not
because we are asking them to.

And if they don’t want to, we want them to change so that they will.

“If you loved me, you’d do what I want” is obviously a control message. At the very least, you are asking your mate to accept without any qualification that your definition of love is the only valid one. The truth is, if you are insisting that your definition is the only one of value, then you
are asking for control. Period.

It would be more fair to say, “Here’s how I am defining love now – I am asking you to (do some specific behavior that I can describe in terms of action).”

Most fair would be to say, “It makes me feel loved when you (do some specific behavior that I can describe in terms of action), so I am asking you to do exactly that.”

Asking for specific behaviors and actions, and asking your partner to find a way to be enthusiastic about them, is far more fair than demanding compliance or requiring obedience to obscure or vague demands. It’s also likely to work better. Far more likely.

Hints:
Define your "Big Words" in terms of actions that can be observed by a reality TV crew following you around. If it can be seen through the camera and captioned correctly, your description is adequately behavioral.

If you can’t describe your "Big Words" in terms of actions, you may be asking to feel some result, but you don’t know what actions will bring about that result. If you can’t tell your partner what might work as an action to get you that feeling, see #3.

You might be wanting a feeling that comes from the accumulation of many different actions that all contribute to that feeling. Fair enough, but you still have to eventually come up with a list of actions for your partner to start with. It’s a lot of small stones that build up to a cathedral, so it’s appropriate to expect only slow progress.

If you still can’t come up with specific behaviors, then your "Big Words" have more to do with your insides than your mate’s actions. You may have tapes, history, baggage, heritage, conditioning or psychological scripting that is getting in the way. These are your issues to work on, not your mate’s.