“Most people look around, see what is happening and feel something about it. They react to what they notice in ‘the world.’ They react to the outer world. They let the present circumstances, people and events determine how they feel. They use their senses as evidence of the results they are getting. They are dictated or governed by what’s outside of them, events or people.

Others and significantly fewer others are governed instead by what is within them. They follow their heart, their passion or their purpose and do not let the world tell them how to be or what to do. I don’t mean as resistors to anyone else. I mean they are the master of their fate and the captain of their soul. They dictate how they will respond by choice instead of reacting by habit.

Some think, ‘I will believe it when I see it’. For some unknown reason, they seem to think seeing is not subject to deception. BUT it is. All our senses leave information out. We delete by necessity much of what’s going on. We can’t attend to all of it. We’d be overwhelmed by data. The brain deletes it from conscious awareness so we can pay attention to other more important things.

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We can distort what’s there. We do this by habit and it can cause suffering just as deleted information can. We can do it purposefully as when we create art or music. We distort reality when we paint or draw or make maps. This is true of a map on paper or GPS or the mental maps we live by. We leave things out and we distort things. Obviously, a map is a representation.

The map IS NOT the actual territory but a 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional re-presentation of what is there in actuality. We don’t see or hear or feel everything there is. For example, we can’t hear a dog whistle. We can’t keep track of much more than 5 +/- 2 bits of data. We generalize. It’s what we do whenever we say something is ‘always or never’ the case. We make rules about life.

We apply the rules to all times, people and places. ‘You should always tell the truth,’ or ‘you should never lie.’ There’re always exceptions for any number of reasons, but it isn’t much different than saying ‘you always blame me. You never listen.’ Obviously, there ARE exceptions. It can’t ALWAYS or NEVER be the case, BUT the speaker deletes or distorts them. It CAN’T be always!

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We trust our perceptions too much. Our assessment of the world based on our senses can be wrong. It’s nighttime. You see a snake on the ground in front of you ONLY to discover it’s only a branch. You see a friend’s face in the crowd and rush over only to discover it’s someone else. Our senses can be very wrong. They often deceive us. We are often misled. The are many examples.

Looking at events or circumstances when you want to create something is a mistake. You’re looking in the wrong place. You must look at what you want to create. You must put your attention on that, not the events. You need to put your focus on the inside. Practiced meditators know this. They journey within. They focus and let the distractions and the outer world go.

For most others, life happens as it does, and they react to it. They react from habit. They’re pretty predictable, too. Get this! If you know someone, you know how they are likely to react. You could be wrong, or they could surprise you sometime, but as creatures of habit, we’re all reliable. That’s why you can predict how someone is likely to react. We learned this growing up.

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Life situations presented themselves and were often repeated. Our brains hardwired in our reactions to them. It streamlined them. We don’t have much choice. We may be afraid of things we’ve nothing to fear. Some people are afraid of spiders for no good reason. They just are. Some are afraid of hair-ties. The number of things someone one can react to are beyond calculation.

We react similarly in fight or flight. Growing up we’re conditioned to fear, worry, doubt, and hate. We’re conditioned to a poverty mindset. We react similarly to positive stimuli as well. You’re on automatic, if, when a good thing happens you feel good AND when a bad thing happens you feel bad. It’s wired in so you don’t have to decide about it again. It’s streamlined and generalized.

You decided previously and now act consistently. You’re a creature of habit. It’s good because there are those habits that serve to make you good and better. Bad habits are not a good deal. Limitations may protect you in some fashion, but they still limit you. If you understand the universe, you know everything that happens is good even if it doesn’t appear to be.

Everything that happens CAN be useful! IF you understand this. PLUS, you can break the negative habit cycle. Instead of being a victim on autopilot and letting the accompanying feelings dictate what you think, feel, and do, YOU can choose to become aware and discover you really do have choice. Instead of reacting from habit, you CAN now build a new habit. A brand new positive one.

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The new habit is to notice when you’re reacting from a negative habit. You’ll feel it. Then, from this awareness you can stop doing the old habit and shift to do the new one. By monitoring your feelings, thoughts, words, and behaviors you put a spotlight on them. Then you can decide whether to keep them, let them go or change them. Awareness provides you the key to change!

Instead of blindly reacting, you can NOW decide how you want to be or feel based on awareness. You notice whether you’re affirming limitations or affirming positive practices and qualities you want to further engage in. You take charge in directing your powerful subconscious. You can’t control it but you can retrain it. If you don’t retrain it, it will always be as it has been.

You don’t have to let the circumstances dictate anymore. You can choose to become aware first. You can choose your thoughts, feelings, what you say to yourself and how you behave so you can get better results. You can dictate how you respond to the circumstances instead of reacting to them as sheep. It’s good news. You can get free from the habits that governed you for so long.

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THIS is how to create something positive and productive. Claim your power. The reason you don’t see the evidence of your wealth before you physically have all the dollars you want to have is because you don’t believe it is yours already. You live from a place of not having it and not being able to imagine it. You don’t even see it as coming to you. You’re focused on lack and not having.

You see only lack, debt or bills and wonder how you’ll ever get out of it. If you’re like most you worry and hope for the best but keep thinking and saying ‘it’s difficult.’ You think, ‘nobody knows the trouble I see. Nobody knows my sorrow.’ Alas, woe is me! Get this? Doing it that way, which most people do, is letting the results or the circumstances or absence of them dictate you.

They dictate how you think and feel. Keep in mind that like thoughts attract like thoughts. Birds of a feather flock together. You become what you think about. If your focus is lack you get lack back! You don’t get out of debt and become wealthy thinking thoughts about being poor. Negative isn’t positive. You can’t think negatively and create a positive experience or a positive life. Get it?

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To see improvement or get wealthy you need to be thinking thoughts of wealth, positive creation, having plenty and feeling grateful! Then, you can attract those. This is true about anything you want to attract. You aren’t healthy, focused on sickness. You don’t get happy, focused on distress. You don’t relax thinking thoughts of worry. You can’t go uphill thinking downhill thoughts

For you to get what you want you must repeatedly focus on WHAT it is that you want AS IF you already have it. You must FEEL it. You must BE it. You first BE IT to become it, do it and then have it. It isn’t seeing that makes believing. It’s believing it that causes you to see it. That is what is! It’s the reverse that works. People have it backwards. Change it around! Believe it to see it!

This is difficult for most people to understand and accept but it really is the key. Believe it and you’ll see the evidence. First, you must ACTUALLY believe it to ACTUALLY see it. Lip service doesn’t count. It works completely opposite to how we were educated and brought up. To have it you believe it first. Then you will see it. THEN you WILL see it! It’s be it. Do it. Have it! Get it?

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Everything first exists as a thought. Thought precedes all human action. Nothing that was created by a human came into being prior to thinking it into being. It is not, see it and then believe it. Believing precedes seeing! We were not encouraged or taught to think this way growing up.  Believe it first and you will see it. Belief is faith in things unseen. Otherwise, it’s not faith at all.

Faith and positive expectations make it happen! You’re better off expecting the best and falling short and not getting it than expecting the worst and making that happen. Your beliefs, thoughts, and expectations all matter. Your attitude matters. Attitude is the number one predictor for success because it determines what you see and what you don’t AND what you can and will do.

It determines how far you will go. The Wright Brothers decided they were going to fly and didn’t let circumstances, gravity or the people around them prevent them from making it happen. They knew those were there but didn’t focus on the detractors. They focused on making the thing fly.  Energy flows where attention goes. ‘Damn the torpedoes. Full steam ahead.’ Get this? I hope so.

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WHO you are in your mind and heart determines what you say, do and what results you get. Who you are determines what you do to get what you will have. Society wants you to want things, so you work hard to become something else. If you want the house, work really, REALLY hard. Sacrifice, scrap, suffer and then you’ll eventually get it and be happy. You will feel better when.

‘Put it off for later.’ Religious leaders say, “sacrifice now for heaven.’ Many current so-called thought leaders perpetuate these myths. They’re wrong! It’s not helpful. They’re popular because they say things to be popular but the ingredients in their message are as unhealthy as those in our packaged processed foods. It’s who you are! It’s not what you do or have. Sacrifice isn’t it!

Your brain works differently than you think. What you think about matters. Just as what you don’t think about matters. What do you believe? What do ‘they’ want you to believe? Get these last few sentences. They’re important. Do you understand? Thoughts become things. You get what you focus on. You become what you predominantly think about. Understand this! Many miss it.

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Thinking you’re 9 feet tall, may not make you 9 feet tall. Thinking doesn’t go against the laws of nature or the universe. What you think about, you bring about means you end up with a positive or negative mindset that affects your health and well-being. It determines what you think is possible AND whether you’ll pursue it or not. If you think it is impossible you probably won’t try.

It IS why Henry Ford said, ‘if you think you can or you think you can’t, you are correct.’ Thinking about flying didn’t manifest the airplane with the wave of a magic wand but it made the Wright Brothers commit and persist until they made the adjustments necessary to get their man-made heavier-than-air aircraft off the ground. They kept experimenting UNTIL they got it right. Get it?

The Wrights got it right once they flew. ONLY then did they know how to fly. Prior to flying they were experimenting BUT they believed it was possible and they’d succeed. They succeeded despite opposition by the experts, their family and the numerous ‘failures’ to get off the ground. They knew the opposition was there, but they didn’t let it bother them. It didn’t dissuade them.

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It didn’t keep them from trying. They tried and tried until they ‘flied’. As Henry Ford also said, ‘I never let what I cannot do prevent me from doing what I can.’ They kept at it despite the odds and the opposition until they prevailed. WHY? Because they believed they could and would! Ask, believing you have received, and you will receive.’ Get this? Attitude is everything! It does make a difference. Your mindset matters. Celebrate everything!” Rex Sikes