Consider this, regardless of how bad it may have been, how difficult you have had it, you have made it through those times. You have! You have come this far in spite of everything attempting to hold you back. Whatever mistakes you may have made, poor decisions, ‘failures’ and disappointments you have had, any tragedies you encountered you still have made it to this moment, to right now. That is incredible because no matter what the odds have been you are here right now, and that is a testament to your ability to persist. Through everything you have stayed in there and made it through.

You may never have thought to do this, but you should pat yourself on the back, congratulate yourself and give yourself a big hug. It is time to celebrate all of this as an accomplishment. It is time to begin to see it differently in your mind’s eye and recognize the seeds of success all along the way. The journey may have been arduous but you have continued on AND you are still taking steps forward.

There is only one thing you need to understand. First, you are strong and you are tenacious. Though you may not have yet realized it, you are stubborn enough to succeed at anything you put your mind to. Tough times build character. You have proven yourself tough too. Congratulations!

Second, do not let the past define you. Do not give power to the mistakes of the past. That is behind you. Since you have overcome significant challenges in the past build on that. Recognize this about yourself and BUILD on it.

Don’t let the present moment disappointments define you either. Do not let whatever is going on right now concern you. Think about the life you want to have instead. If you could make your greatest dream come true what would that be? What is it that would excite you and make you ecstatic? Picture this in your mind and focus on it.

No matter what is happening now that may be less than glorious, shift your focus to the time ahead. Be open to the possibility that things can get better for you. Be willing to explore a new way of being, and doing, and having.

It takes a mind that is willing to explore possibilities and expand options. Ask yourself what you might think and do differently. If you want things in your life to change you have to change things in your life. What can you begin to think and do differently that can move you in a positive direction? Build on this and realize you can accomplish so much more when you concentrate on the positive resources inside of you.

Our problems are not the problem! It is our thinking about our problems that is the problem. It is what we entertain and what we keep in our mind and how we are focused. Whatever we focus on expands, whatever we focus on is what we get. What we think about is what we become. Do not focus on past or present day limitations instead focus on what you want and how you can and will attain it. Have faith, keep believing and expecting it to get better. It will. Believe it!

Create wonderful thoughts and feelings about the future and imagine having all of it right now. Focus on these thoughts and these feelings. Find things to be grateful about and find the most wonderful good feelings you are able to. Nurture these, promote these. Keep doing this again and again.

Even a small change in the right direction is better than no change at all. If you are really sad it does not mean you have to feel overwhelming joy right now. Right now that may be too big a step. Find out what you can feel that would make you feel a bit better. Maybe that would be feeling anger or frustration or bored. Whatever is a baby step or two away from really sad IS a baby step toward finding that joy. inch yourself there if you must, but you must begin to inch away from the less than glorious feelings. Move yourself ever so slightly in the positive direction.

People talk about the Law of Attraction but the LOA is second to the Law of Vibration. How you are vibrating is what you are attracting. If you are filled with doubt, anxiety, fear and depression you tend to attract more or create more of these in your life. It is a downward spiral. When instead, you are filled with positive, powerful, joyful energy you are more in the right place to go after and get what you want to have.

It isn’t important to me whether it is about ‘vibrations’ at all. Some people find that concept too cosmic. I could care less. It is just words used to describe processes, so why get hung up over the choice of words.

I just understand that when I am feeling optimal I bring my best game to life and when I am not optimal things seem less than glorious. It is a simple concept to understand. Feel good and you get more good feelings, feel bad and you get more bad feelings. You are better off and more productive when feeling good and worse off and less productive when feeling bad. Get it.

Feeling good works better for us than feeling bad. SO find the ways and means to feel better. It is up to you, no one else can do it for you. It is not out of your hands, no cosmic zapper is going to fill you with great things magically. If you want to feel better you have to chose to take control. You have to decide to begin to act in your own best interests even if it is difficult. Start small, the pay off is huge. BUT YOU HAVE TO START. If you don’t you will keep on getting what you have been getting. It is that simple. It is that straightforward.

You want your life to change? You have to change some things in your life!

Exercise, play, sing, dance, think better, walk, garden, meditate, repeat affirmations (the correct way would be useful) whatever you have to do to begin to feel better and think better more of the time – begin now to do it.

Thoughts and feelings go hand in hand. Your thoughts affect your feelings, you CAN think yourself happier it is true! AND your feelings affect your thoughts – you CAN change your body and activities and discover that you think more positively by how you stand, sit, walk or move. It is true! Let’s forget the chicken egg exploration about thoughts and feelings and just make it a point to do those healthy beneficial things that put us at optimum more of the time. You do want to feel better more of the time, don’t you?

When we feel optimum more of the time we do better more of the time.

Don’t try to bite off more than you can chew. Just make it a point to feel better a little bit more each day. When you do you will discover amazing things await you. You will think and feel and do better. If you fall off the positivity wagon don’t get all dramatic about it just get back on and proceed from there. Keep it simple, easy, manageable and keep doing it. Take baby steps in the direction of your dreams and keep taking them on a daily basis. Repetition is the mother of skill. Give birth to new habits by doing things that are good for you over and over and over again.

The change will take place inside you before you notice it on the outside. For most of us the changes are gradual. Be patient, allow it, accept everything in a spirit of gratitude, and keep at it. Have fun, relax about it. It is much more FUN and easy when you let it be that way. So approach it in a light and gentle way.

Look at how you are thinking and feeling and behaving differently and more positively and nurture and encourage and celebrate this. Recognize and validate your positive baby steps!

Think Law of Attraction now. When you do these positive things you ARE vibrating more positively, more powerfully and energetically and so you attract, create or get back more of the same. It increases. Notice it and own your observations. Play with it and stay with it!

Allow yourself to move forward without judging or criticizing. Accept wherever you are along the way and have faith that as you continue to move forward in a positive way you will become more positive and more able. Your abilities will grow. Don’t be impatient. Stick with it and trust. Move forward with your eyes on what you are creating and attracting, not on whatever isn’t working right now. Celebrate all. Celebrate everything and you will get through the now and move into your dreams and make them come true.

Decree your destiny and make it happen. Build the image of what you want. See who you are, the positive, powerful you. See what you are doing, behaving, how you are living and feeling wonderful. See what things you have included in your new life. Run these movies in your head. Infuse these images with positive wonderful feelings. It is the combination of the positive movies and positive feelings that work to make your future image come true.

A major point here: We already do this all the time. We think things good or bad and feel good or bad about them. For example, we fear something happening, we feel anxious about it or dread that something bad is going to happen. It does and we feel worse. We try to think positive and we do. As a result we feel a little bit better but then we think about something bad or how something is less than glorious and then we feel bad again. By doing this we create what we don’t want and we perpetuate it because we vacillate back and forth. We get hopeful and then doubt that things will change then feel bad and when things don’t change we think, ‘yup I knew it’. It is a form of self fulfilling prophecy. Our expectations were that it wouldn’t work out anyway. This limited thinking and lack of commitment keeps us where we don’t want to be.

This cycle keeps us in limbo: We think about what we want and feel good for a short while. Then at some point we begin to doubt that we can get it and we start feeling bad about how we are not getting what we want. We then again think about what we want and feel worse because we feel far away. On another day we feel hopeful and positive and work towards what we want again, but then something happens and we feel bad and hopeless.  This goes on and on. We are like a ship tossed about on the sea, or a cork bobbing in the water. Instead of being in control and moving toward our destination we get closer and then move further away constantly. We never make any real motion towards accomplishing our goals.

We need to commit to what we want and concentrate on it to the exclusion of all else.

We need to stay focused on it no matter what else may currently be going on. We need to think again and again what we want and not let other thoughts intrude. To be able to do this means we have to take charge of our own thinking and feeling processes. For many people THIS CONCEPT will seem most foreign because most of us do not grow up being told we are in charge. Instead we think ‘things happen’ and we have to feel certain ways because of these things happening. We don’t, we just think we do. That is why our problems are not the problem, but how we THINK about our problems IS the problem.

What we think about most often during the day is what we become and what we get. What we think about most of the time is what we become and what we get. Are we mostly positive or mostly negative, 51/49, 60/40, 80/20, 90/10? What we are mostly determines what we get. So decide to tip the balance in your favor. 50/50 keeps us exactly where we are. Move to 80/20 positivity.

You create your life by what you think and feel most of the time. It is a growth process. Just like growing a plant it takes time for it to get strong so be patient with yourself. It is most likely not going to happen over night, but then, who knows? Just remember, this is not a contest, you are simply out to improve your life and your conditions in a positive way so have fun and be positive about it.

Just keep advancing constantly in the direction of your dreams. Thoreau stated, ‘If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours’.

You can make your life anything you want it to be. Go ahead dream big. That is fine. Just move forward toward your big dreams steadily. If you chose a big dream and you can’t yet believe you can make it happen, pick something smaller and more likely and go for that first. Better to trick yourself into it than out of it. If you pick something you don’t believe fully and you 50/50 vacillate on it you end up staying stuck. So pick something you can work on and get! Once you have that move on to something else. Create a track record of successes for yourself until you are ready to believe you can make the big one happen. Once you can conceive it AND BELIVE IT you can achieve it!

You can choose to do this. It is your life. You are the co-creator in your life. Ask yourself, “Where do I want to go from here?”

What do you want to be? What do you want to become? What do you want to do? What do you want to have? What is truly important to you?  If you could have the perfect life, where you had everything you want and all those around you had what they wanted, (no one is harmed or deprived by you getting your goals) what would it be like? Imagine it, live it in your mind’s eye, improve on the images, tailor the movie, and feel how good it feels to have all this?

THE FEELINGS ARE CRITICAL they drive the entire mechanisms. If you don’t feel like you deserve it, or that you can have it yet, or believe that will get it, you have other work to do first. If when you think about it you feel a huge YES inside and eagerly anticipate it coming to be, and you believe it and know that it will definitely happen, THEN that is for you. As long as everyone else experiences well being too you are on the right track.

Feelings are a signal for us. Our feelings let us know where we  need work or what we need to change. Less than glorious feelings are only an indication that something needs to change. It is a way to get our attention so we can get back on track, to feel better and feel more harmonious inside. We want to feel inner harmony with ourselves AND it is important to feel harmony with others as well. So don’t create waves for yourself or others. Use your feelings to guide you back to the positive. Take baby steps back towards feeling good.

Again, this is where you must, and ONLY YOU can, make changes to change things for the better. Take a walk, read inspirational material, talk it out and let it go, work in a garden, dance, if you hurt someone or are feeling guilty do whatever you can to repair the situation or make restitution, own up, sing, celebrate, shift into gratitude and focus on what can be done that is positive. Whatever baby step is necessary to free oneself from the less than glorious feelings and move incrementally toward more positive feelings you must take. You may only inch forward BUT that is valuable, inching forward IS what you want to be able to do.

Better to inch forward than remain stuck. So don’t worry about whether it is enough, just move forward.

So when you feel down, do something to feel better. If you feel angry or frustrated or guilty or confused there is something you can do to feel better. Remember, take feelings as an SIGNAL that you can shift something you are thinking about, or focusing on, or doing.

At any moment you can decide to revolutionize your life.

You can ask yourself, ‘What can I do, what could I do, what should I do or what must I do, or what will I do that will move me closer to my dream?’ ‘What is the first step I can take to move me in a powerful positive direction?’ Ask yourself. Consider what small steps you can consistently take that move you closer to achieving your goal.

If it is going to happen it will be up to you and no one else. So you must engage these processes and do the work. I remind you to be gentle, have fun, notice what you notice, play and keep at it.

You have come this far. Perhaps, you went through some hell to get to today. No matter what you have gone through you have succeeded in getting this far. The journey continues and you can decide now where you want to go. Set a positive destination and go towards it. That is what explorers do. Sailors, pilots, vacationers, all decide where they want to go and then they go to it.

You will get there as long as you do not stop short. As long as you continue all along the way you will arrive at your destination. Whether the way there is delightful or not is also up to you. It is your decision. So decide now where you want to go and how you want to get there. Then do it and keep on doing it. Enjoy the adventure and make all your dreams come true.” Rex Sikes

Have an incredible day! Enjoy and make it wonderful for you and others.

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