Success Secrets And The Catch

Success secrets – where are they?

Most people think their problem is they don’t know the secret to success.  Whether that success may be about making money, losing weight, or something else, most people are in this thinking habit.  “Those successful people knew something I don’t know.”  Gee, it’s so unfair.

So you do one of the two things:  One, you look for that secret formula.  You look and look everywhere and spend the majority of your energy in looking.  If you are reading this article, or if you are a fan of any other personal development blog, you may be this type.

The second reaction is you just stay where you are sulking – maybe someday you will be lucky enough to bump into that secret.  This doesn’t sound like Yes to Me reader, but you probably know someone like this.

And to both types the answer is: No.  That is NOT your problem.  Your aim is off the target. The real problem is something else.

You already know success secrets

If you really don’t have the basic understanding about the things you want to achieve, there is a point in learning that.  For example, if you want to be in healthy weight, you need to know the basics of nutrition – what carbohydrate, protein, and fat are and what they do in your body.  This knowledge leads to healthy eating plan that you can implement in your life.

However, I highly doubt if this is the case with you – if you are reading this blog, you already know the basics of personal development.  You know what you are supposed to do to achieve your goal of success.  In fact, you probably know a lot of the secrets of success, far beyond the basics.

For example, I just guest posted at Pick The Brain about how you can reinvent yourself by cleaning and decluttering your immediate physical environment.  The article shows a practical 21 day program of how to reinvent yourself outside in.  I tried this action plan myself and had great results.  Now my secret of success (at least one of them) is open to the public – anyone in the world can read it at Pick The Brain anytime.

But have you tried them?

All the tasks in the program are easy to do if you are in normal health.  They include opening the windows (literally), lightening your baggage (again, literally), dumping junks and making rooms for the new  (literally, in your bathroom, bedroom, work area, entrance and living area).

Now do you want to bet how many people would actually complete the 21 day program?  Or even start the program?

Or how about adding healing quality to your everyday drinking water by saying gratitude?  It’s very easy to do, and the potential benefit is huge.  Have you done it?  I did.  And got at least one positive result, as I shared in that article.  But so far I have heard from only two people who are doing this water gratitude practice.  I’m assuming most other readers just read it and haven’t tried it yet.

If you think these success tips are a bit too spiritual, how about Get Clients Now! Program for marketing?  It’s a 28 day program and I think it works great for those of you who have service oriented business.  You need to get the book, but books are so cheap compared to hiring a marketing coach.  And this book, written by an experienced marketing coach, makes it really easy to come up with a customized action plan.  Have you done it?

Or any other success tips, like the Law of Attraction or time management principles, that you read in the book or blog – have you tried it in your life?

How your ego resists the change you want

Let me guess why you don’t implement the action that you think might bring positive changes to your life:

1.    You want reassurance before you do it. You want guarantee it works.  You don’t want to try something until it is 100% guaranteed to work — with theoretical scientific explanation, plenty of case studies, recommendations from authorities, etc.   You are afraid of making mistakes in choosing your options. This excuse work especially well with spiritual development advice.

2.    You have other important things to do. You are busy.  You can’t be bothered to do new things, like saying “thank you” to the water.  Even though that takes only two seconds.  This excuse may go back to excuse #1 that you are too busy to do something that is not proven.

3.    You are afraid of doing it badly and failing it. That would be so embarrassing.  It’s hard to apply this to simple action plan like my 21 day of cleaning up your life, but it’s still possible.  Plus, if you are going to fail after spending your time and energy, what is the point of trying it at all?

4.    You actually love the situation you are in. You don’t want to change really, you just say you want it because that makes you look smart.  Maybe once in awhile, you try something half-heartedly to prove you did something, but again, in all it’s honesty, you really don’t want to change. In short, you are afraid of success.

Now let’s examine each excuse:

1.    What in life is 100% guaranteed? The method that worked perfectly for someone may not work for you. You are different, and your situation is different, the timing is different. So no one ever can give you 100% guarantee for anything.  Therefore, this excuse works always.

I’d like to think you are sincere in your desire to achieve success, however.  You are not using this excuse just to get away from it. You are using this excuse because you are afraid and you want assurance.

What it is is that your ego, who is used to the status quo, is resisting the change. So it spits out this “rational” doubt that prevents you from taking action.

2.    So what is really important? To keep up with your busy life or to progress in achieving your goals?  Do you realize that, when you do achieve your success, your life will change significantly, and many of the things that are important to you now may not be as important?

This is just another excuse your ego use to fight against potential changes and try to stay in the status quo. You may hate your busy yet boring life, but . . . you know it so well, and familiarity may feel comfy.

3.    If you are going to worry too much about what others might think of you, you are going to have a really boring life. When you fail, there will always be people who point it out to your attention, as if you may not know it already, and they will also remember it for the rest of their life and remind you occasionally.  They are also not happy when you succeed by the way.  When you succeed, they will criticize you for any shortcomings they can possibly find.

These are their egos trying to keep you at your current status quo so that they don’t have to feel pressured to change their status quo.  You need to learn how to identify these manipulation techniques.  Don’t let your own ego resonate with theirs.

Regarding your own feeling about failure – this is often said, but really, there is no failure.  It is a learning experience.  If you fail, figure out how and why you failed, and try again.  Life is a process when we view it from the soul level.  And if you think you are too busy for trial and error learning experiences, well – go back to #2.

4.   This is exactly your ego talking. You are really smart and honest if you dug out this excuse from the depth of your awareness.  Usually, the ego utilizes cover-up tactics like #1, 2 or 3, but here, it’s talking straight. Yes, your ego is afraid of the changes, even the positive changes.

Because success comes with responsibilities.  Once you achieve your ideal weight, you need to maintain it.  Moreover, you no longer can use overweight as the excuse of not having a relationship.  Your status has changed, and that comes with new level of awareness and responsibilities.  Isn’t it easier to just whine how hard it is to lose weight?

I’d like to trust you have the courage to get over this ego’s resistance.  This may take hitting the bottom really hard to realize you really want to succeed.

What is the antidote?

Make it simple.  You can take action even when your ego is screaming its protest.  Get up and open the window.  Go to the fridge, pour some water to the glass, and say thank you.  Each takes less than a minute, and you have the strength to ignore your ego for a minute.

Try and see how you feel.  Once you get used to taking small actions despite the fact you feel your ego’s resistance, you can step up and try taking more ambitious actions.

I know this is harder than it sounds.  The ego is stubborn and sneaky.  It will come back to you again and again to claim its old position.  I’ve dealt with my own ego, and I continue to do so, so I know.  I can say, however, the dealing gets easier as I gain insight and experience about how the ego works.

So what is the catch with success secrets?

Finding success secrets is not that hard.  We live in the information age.  The catch is that, for most of us, the Self who desires success and the ego that likes the lukewarm status quo are split and at conflict against each other.

So you need to learn how to proceed for your highest purpose even when you feel the ego’s resistance.  And this can only be done by implementing what you think may be the success secret.  You don’t learn this by contemplating about the ego, the life purpose, etc.

Now go do something that you think may even remotely improve your life. Cheers ^_^  (Photo by Mike Pedroncelli)

Gratitude For Healing Water, Online Gratitude Journal #19

My homemade healing water report

Back in August, I wrote about the healing water.  Well, more accurately, how to give healing power to regular water by saying “Thank you for restoring me to youth.”  Sorry to keep you waiting, but here is my report.

I saw one physical rejuvenating / healing.  After my birthday in May this year, my monthly period stopped.  It was like my body was saying, “Oh, I’m older.”  I had it very regularly for years, so this was a bit sad.  (Okay, I guess you are wondering my age.  The photo you are looking at on the right is from a little while ago when I was 42.  Yeah, I look younger.  I know.)

Within a month I started saying gratitude to my drinking water, I had my period back, and it’s been coming regularly since.  No menopause.  Pretty good results for just saying gratitude, I guess ^_^

I’m not sure if my hair is going back dark.  I just have grey streaks on the sides, so it’s hard to tell if I have more or less of them.  And I’ve lost a few pounds.

Has anyone actually tried doing this or the other method of making healing water?  How was your experience?  Please let me know – I’m very interested.

And if you haven’t tried it yet – why not give it a shot today?  What do you have to lose?  You drink water every day anyway, can you say “Thank you” to it, please?

Best of spirituality in the blogosphere

I’m planning a resource post that showcases the best articles on spirituality from the blogosphere.  If you write about spirituality, please:

1. Let me know one or two of your best articles from this year.
2. Please help me spread the word.

I plan to publish this on Monday, December 22, so the cutoff will be Friday.  I want to make this a great resource for someone who is interested in spirituality but not sure how to proceed, so when you choose your article, please keep this target audience in your mind.  Thank you.

Developing intuition

I’ve been doing weekly check-in with my spirit guide team in addition to our conversation on as-needed basis.  I’ve got to tell you, they know what tough love means!  They work for my highest good, not to brown nose and please me.  This week, I was told to get a life – dress up and go out!  Leave the computer for a while!!  * sigh *

I’m signing because I know they are right.  They push me outside my comfort zone.  They do it step by step in a nice way, though. Again, they love me and work for my highest good.  I’m so — grateful ^_^

This is actually one of the pilot for my new program that will launch in January.  In this program, I will help you develop your intuition in a practical, experiential way by mediating you and your spirit guides.  It’s a 6 week program and while you learn how to distinguish intuition from imagination and how to trust and act on your intuition, you will also be bringing real changes into your life.

As I maintained in this post that I wrote for Pick The Brain recently, intuition is the new approach to make good decision fast.  I’m really excited about this new course because I think it is so helpful – once you learn how to listen to your intuition, you don’t need me.  You can make direct communication with your spirit guides for the rest of your life and keep improving your life.

I’ve been working with a volunteer, too, and everything seems to work really well.  So stay tuned.

Facebook

Finally, I’m on Facebook now.  I find it to be a very friendly place.  I can keep contact with my blogger friends while also communicating with my local and other non-blogger friends.  If you are on Facebook, too, please consider to friend me.

Thank you for reading Yes to Me.  Tons of blessings to you.  (Photo by Mr. Greenjeans)

Ideal Death And More On Life And Death

So many people are indeed afraid of death, I guess. I lost 20 subscribers when I published part 1 of this Life and Death series last week. Well. Sorry for those who are so scared even to read about death, but we cool people go ahead and think more about death.  Not that we like morbid topics. But because facing our mortality and freeing ourselves from the fear of death is the critical step to living a truly fulfilling life.

I get to see various death scenes in the Akashic Records. Are some ways of death more preferable than others? What would be the ideal way to die? Although we don’t get to choose how we die, this is an interesting topic to ponder.

Do we get to know when our time is up?

I guess that is possible. Wild animals seem to be able to do so. So if someone is at peace with the idea of their upcoming death, they might get to know. They may not tell their loved ones, however, because they don’t want to surprise them.

I still remember a story I read years ago. It was about the writer’s friend’s father-in-law. He was in his mid eighties and had been living with his son’s family since his wife passed away. The essay described him to be in good health – he could take care of himself in the day to day life. When he wanted to go to town, however, someone accompanied him just in case.

One day, he wanted to have haircut. So his daughter-in-law went out with him. After that, he suggested they’d get some coffee and sweets. They went to one of those nice bakeries where fresh house-made cakes and tarts are served. He thanked her saying, “You are not my birth family, yet you’ve been taking care of me the most.” She thought it was so nice of him to say that, but didn’t think much about it.

When they were checking out, she saw him buying more than a dozen cakes to take home. She asked, “There are only three of us at home. Who is going to eat all these cakes?” (With fresh cream, etc, they only last for a day or so.) He just smiled. She thought it was strange, but she let him do what pleased him. He went to bed early that evening.

Next morning, the family found he passed away during the night.

So they called the relatives, who came in immediately, and – they found themselves eating those cakes!

“This is so strange. It’s as if he knew and wanted to look nice to see his wife again.” “He was like that always – very considerate to everyone around him.” “It’s good he passed away at his home. These days, most people die at hospitals, and it’s kind of impersonal.” The conversation continued in his memory, who passed so peacefully.

Preparing for death

That’s one of the most beautiful story of death I know. I wish I could pass like that. I guess the ideal way to die is to die in old age when the physical body weakens and naturally lets the soul go. That would be least painful, and you get to have some time mentally and emotionally preparing for the upcoming death. It would be easier for the family to accept, too.

The second best would be to die due to some kind of disease – this would come with a bit of pain (hopefully not too much) but you still get some time to prepare for the death. I mean, if you can accept it is coming.

Really sad cases of death

I don’t want to say some deaths are “bad” — in the long, long run, we all end up in the same place (I think – that is my current understanding). However, certain death are indeed more traumatic and damaging. Like death by violence (murder, war, persecution, accidents). These involve so much physical and emotional pains, and usually don’t give enough time to be prepared. When I do reading for souls who went through these deaths, it’s really sad. Sometimes, the pain and the damage carry over many following lifetimes.

By the way, I’m not “afraid” of death, but I don’t particularly like seeing dead bodies. Please don’t send me gross pictures just because I challenged you in the beginning of this article. That is un-cool.

How about death to young children? The way I see it is it really depends. Just because someone is physically young doesn’t mean they are immature spiritually. They may actually know what is happening and in peace, more so than the adults around. I’m compassionate when it happens to the young (as well to the older), but I also think age is quite relative. Of course, there are children with young spirit and don’t really understand nor accept their death.

Suicide and the soul

I’m still studying how suicide may affect the life of a soul. Some says it is definitely no good, others like Michael Newton (authority in past life regression therapy and the author of Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives – I will be writing the book review of this soon) says it depends on the age and situation.

I personally haven’t seen souls who have caused major issues due to their suicide in past lives – I don’t know if this means souls who have committed suicide don’t come to spiritual healing like mine or if they have problem with reincarnation. So this is part 2 of my Life and Death series. I found the comments to part 1 very interesting and illuminating. What do you think about death, and life after death? Do you believe in reincarnation? Let me know by writing your comment! (Photo by aeioux)

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