Don't Let Your Feelings Dictate Your Life

How are you feeling today?

Far too often we let our feelings drive our lives. We let how we feel dictate what we do and how we act. We feel good one day, and it becomes a good day. We feel bad the next, or not up to the task, and sure enough, it comes true.

Unfortunately, being beholden to your feelings, leaves you beholden to your past . . . and to your subconscious mind . . . not to your vision and your goals.

So instead of letting your feelings drive your actions, let your goals drive your actions. Rather than responding to how you feel, respond and drive yourself based on what you want.

What You Want Needs To Be The Driving Factor?

Ever start a diet because you "want" to loose weight, get trim, and feel better about yourself. - only to do good for three days, and quit, because you weren't feeling better about yourself.

Did you stop wanting to loose weight?

Did you stop wanting to get trim?

Did you stop wanting to feel better about yourself?

Usually not. Your goal didn't change. You just gave-in to the feelings of not wanting to do the work any more. Not wanting to work out. And certainly not wanting to feel hungry any more.

You Can't Count On Feelings

Feelings need to follow your actions, not lead them. But they take time - and are rarely predictable 100% of the time. Our feelings are rooted all too often in mixed messages and crossed wires in the memories of our past.

Our goals are rooted in the future.

Don't follow your feelings.
They will lead you in circles, often right back to where you started.

Feelings are confusing.

Often anger is confused with fear. Often hope and infatuation is confused with trust and love.

In the case of the diet above, you should not set a goal to feel better about yourself . . . because how you feel is often too easily impacted by many outside factors - things outside of our control.

And besides, feelings are not measurable and often very related more to how I felt 10 minutes or 10 hours ago, than any set standard. So it is often tough to tell how much better you feel from one week to the next - or from one year to the next.

Sure, you can set a goal of losing 10lbs or 2 inches from your waist, and you can say that you should feel better because of that, but there is no guarantee that you will.

In fact, you may feel that given all the work you did, you should feel better than you actually do, only to cause you to give up on any further efforts.

Let Your Goals Drive Your Actions

Bottom line, follow your vision and your goals . . . and they will lead you to where you want to be, even in the midst of tumultuous feelings.

And besides, and you've heard me say it 1000s of times - Let Your Goals Drive Your Actions.

Set your goals - make them what you want, not what you want to feel. The feelings will follow, if your goals are truly what you want.

Your List of Goals is NOT a To-Do List

What is the Difference between Goals and Actions (To-Do List)?

Simply stated Goals are the purpose toward which we direct our attention.

Actions (the things you have on a To-Do List) are the things you do to achieve your purpose (or goals).

Goals are what you desire to have or create, actions (your to-do list) are what you are going to do to create your goals.

- The essence of Goals is the answer to the question, "Why?"

- The essence of Actions is the answer to the questions, "What?" and"How?"

Would You Rather Vacation In Fargo or Cancun?

Truth is, all too often we live in a world of actions - and tell ourselves that we have goals. That's tantamount to deciding to deciding on going on vacation via a plane, without ever knowing where you want to go. Sure the plane might be the right choice, but then again, it might not.

Imagine if you decided to go on a vacation and just went to the airport and got on the first plane that had an open seat. Sure, you could end up in Cancun, where you would praise yourself for not wasting your time deciding where to go. But you could just as easily end up in Fargo, North Dakota (where you would blame the plane, not your lack of selecting a destination first).

Don't get me wrong, I love North Dakota, but it's NOT where I want to Vacation.

The airplane represents what we are going to do, but the Cancun and Fargo represent our goal. If we don't first choose our destination, we have little chance of really getting there.

In all honesty, as silly as this may sound for planning a vacation - it's just as silly for living your life.

STOP Picking WHAT and HOW First - Instead Pick WHY - The WHAT and HOW Can Follow

Everyday we ask ourselves the question, "What do I need to get done today?" (what is the mode of transportation?). But how many people really ask themselves "why they need to get those things done?" (where do I want to go?).

Unfortunately, in today's fast paced world this becomes a bigger and bigger problem. Each day, we pile on more actions that need to be done - but very rarely do we actually slow down long enough to figure out why they are doing them - or even if there are better ways of doing them.

I believe that when you establish Goals and face them everyday, your Goals drive your Actions - and this leads to you achieving the life you want to create. But, if you haven't defined your goals, you end up taking Actions with no real intent, then you will end up getting whatever LIFE decides to give to you.

The first key to creating the life you want - is first deciding what it is you want.

If you want to change your life, stop focusing on changing your actions (your to-do list). Instead, start by defining your goals. Only then will you be able to figure out which actions need to be done, which ones don't and, of course, which new ones need to be added to the list.

Finally, here are some 5 easy steps to Making Your Goals Drive Your Actions:

- Start simple - make a small list of short term goals (1 week to 1 month).

- Figure out what you need to make those goals happen - make your to-do list.

- Everyday, before you start working on your to-do list, review and concentrate on your goals - empower yourself with purpose.

- Periodically review your goals and make sure that your actions (your to-do list) are actually leading you toward your goals . . . or not

- Make changes as you need to make to your to-do list to stay on track with your goals - but don't change your goals.

Good luck. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at coach.jj@impossiblefutures.com.

Need To Reach Your Goals? Read Your E-Mail

In next week's Time Magazine, Dr. Sunjay Gupta, published an article, Too Fat? Read Your E-Mail, about the positive influence of daily / regular reminders in helping people eat healthier - keeping people on track to what they want to accomplish.

The article was based on a study published in the June issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine and found dramatic improvements on the fulfillment of health goals of a study group as compared to their control group.

It turns out that with weekly plus reminders, the targeted groupd increased their exercise regimen by an hour a week, reduced their consumption of saturated and trans fats by more than 1 gram / day, and increased their fruit / vegetable intake by 1/3 cup over the control group.

The truth is, the effects aren't limited to just health improvements.

These email reminders can work to support the accomplishment of any goal - health, professional, monetary, business, or personal. It doesn't matter the goal, what matters is how daily interaction with them affects the way you think and act.

Goals drive you actions! And the more you are thinking about your goals, the more likely it is that you will take the actions you need / must take to accomplish them. In this study, it was shown to work with health related goals -and specifically target emails to keep you focused, but over the course of the past 5 months, I have watched it work as well with personal, business, life, health, and even career goals.

If you are interested in finding out more about the effects of regular emails - that remind you about your goals as well as provide support and advice every day, please contact us at coach@impossiblefutures.com.

Your Actions Speak Much Louder Than Your Words.

Do YOU walk your talk? How about your business, does it do what it promises to do?

It's easy to say what you want to be or what your clients want to hear - it's a whole other thing to actually pull it off.

How many people do you know that truly walk their talk - live with integrity?

How about businesses - can you name any that you know will deliver on every promise they make?

Let's take it one step further - know any politicians that really walk their talk?

So many people think that success in life and business is built on saying the right thing - and they act as if DOING is irrelevant. But I will argue that what you say doesn't matter nearly as much as what you do.

Truth is, saying what you think others want to hear is called politics.

And saying whatever it takes to get someone to believe you is called sales.

Unfortunately, neither of those will build a business. They might generate short term, one-time sales, but the business won't last. The customers won't come back - because they will feel betrayed. It takes a real leader and a real business man to keep people coming back again and again, not just once. It takes walking your talk.

Stop trying to be everything to everyone. Stop telling people what they want to hear - you can't deliver on it . . . and you know it.

Instead promise ONLY what you know you can deliver - and nothing more. Become THE most reliable person in your market at walking your talk.

You don't have to promise a lot - just deliver on what you do promise every time,
and you will get more business than you know what to do with.

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

A client of mine told me yesterday that making more money, doing what he was doing, is easy. But then he said, he isn't doing it, because he doesn't like what he's doing anymore.

Can you say EXCUSE?

Yep, that's what it is - nothing but an excuse.

It's amazing the excuses we make trying to defend our actions - or even better our in-actions (and I use the pronoun 'we' in the preceding statement purposefully). The scary thing is that we reward this "excuse-able" behavior by convincing ourselves that the excuses are legitimate - that they are valid reasons to prevent us from taking action.

Don't kid yourselves - these excuses may help you feel better in the short term, but in the long term you will kick yourself over them. And most likely you are setting yourself up for a life of regret if you don't break this habit immediately.

Frankly, you have a choice - either you can choose to NOT have the world you want, making excuses for every little thing that gets in your way. Or, you can take control of your life by taking full responsibility for what you do (or don't do).

It is your choice. And whether you realize it or not, everyday you're making this choice - even though most of the time it's done completely unconsciously.

So as you are going about your day, listen to yourself. Listen to the language you use when you tell yourself or others why you didn't do something you intended to get done. Listen to the reasons and ask yourself, "Am I just making excuses?"

The Power Of Your Subconscious Mind, Part III

In the past two days, I have been discussing the Power of the Subconscious Mind – both from a stand point of understanding what it does and doesn't do for you as well as explain how it does it. Today, I will close the three part series with a couple examples of how others leverage this power and how you can as well.

There are many ways to leverage the power of the subconscious mind, but I'm going to discuss two very specific ones, and give some examples of how these tools are helping people all over the world - right now. And I will show you can use them yourself in your everyday life. The two methods are Briefing and Visualizing.

My background, as you may or may not know, is in Naval Aviation. For nearly 20 years, I flew FA-18s for the US Navy. This is a dangerous community, that unfortunately has written most of its "lessons learned" in the blood of lost Aviators. But it's also a community that does everything it can to prevent making the same mistakes more than once. It is for that reason that Naval Aviation began to formalize it's Briefing process to help Aviators prepare for missions and minimize the tragedies that were so costly in the early years of Carrier Aviation.

The Brief has two purposes. The first, not as relevant to this discussion, is to assign responsibilities during the flight and to make sure everyone knows what they are supposed to do when. The second, which is directly related to this discussion is to cue the memories of the pilots and flight officers of what they are going to do, before they are put into the position of having to do it.

Each flight, pilots, whether flying alone or with others, review everything they expect to encounter on the forthcoming flight from standard checklists to emergency situations that they are most likely to encounter during the flight.

Specifically, there is one Immediate Action Emergencies (as we called them – because the procedures had to memorized verbatim) that comes to mind. It is our “Settle Off The Catapult Procedures” - what you do if you get to the end of the catapult shot off the front of the carrier and you don't have enough speed to actually go flying safely. These procedures are probably the most time critical procedures that any pilot must learn, because reaction time for survival is often seconds at most (and often tenths of seconds in the worst cases).

*** Click here to watch a quick video showing these dangers. ***

If the situation occurs that the pilot must go through these procedures, there is little time to figure out what to do, it is pure reaction. And it often requires responses faster than you have time to consciously process – literally, you must rely on your subconscious inputs. As such, every flight, that launches from the carrier, briefs these procedures so that they are refreshed into the forefront of the Pilot's subconscious mind. This has been proven time and again to save lives by ensuring the pilot's subconscious mind is prepared to draw from the right procedures very quickly.

In fact, I know many pilots (including myself when I flew) that would make sure to go through the procedures one last time while taxiing into position just before all night catapult shots. They would literally touch gently each button or handle that is part of the procedure – so as not to forget EXACTLY where they are – cuing there mind one last time. And it works!

Briefing and mentally preparing works because your subconscious mind has prepared itself for likely situations it will face. So where else, besides aviation, is this technique used?

Just about everywhere you see consistent success.

Most often people do it somewhat informally – and they see good results. But if they were to just start formalizing the practice, they would generate considerably better results in every endeavor of their lives.

For example, game preparation for any sporting event is about going over the game plan and the plays that you expect to use – and how the opponent may react. It involves reviewing in your mind what you are going to do, when, and how - thinking through at some level all the differing problems you might face and what actions you would like to take when they happen.

It's important to note, that this is in no way a guarantee that you take the planned actions. You may choose to do something different, real time, given the situation. But by briefing all contingencies, you have a higher probability of success.

Additionally, you see this in business teams (as well as individual efforts). As an example, think about Sales Teams. The Sales Team that briefs how they are going to follow their system before making calls (cold or hot) is prepared for all contingencies. They will be more prepared to handle each situation that the perspective customer could throw at them – even before they encounter it, because the response will be “top of mind” for them. This improves consistency and reduces individual errors. And these teams that brief are far more likely to make their target goals, as they are able to recognize resistance from the customer quicker, often responding to it, even before the customers feels it consciously themselves.

And there is no reason that it can't apply to everyone on a personal level as well. No matter what your daily activities involve, you can better prepare yourself to handle the situations, at a much higher level of success, simply by reviewing what you are going to do and how you are going to do it, minutes or hours before hand.

The other technique that I wanted to discuss was visualization – visualization of both short term desire and long term goals.

Although, you can use visualization techniques during briefing, what I'm referring to goes a bit further than just leveraging the power of visualization in preparation for a planned situation. The visualization I'm referring to is about first creating what you desire in your mind – and then creating it in the real world.

Truth is, before anything can be created in reality, it must first be an idea or thought in your mind. And when you create a new idea or desire a new outcome, you subconscious mind looks at this as a problem to be solved – which it LOVES to do.

Whether it is a short term desired outcome or a long term goal, it will go through the same process. First it will look through file structure already in your mind - the solutions from your past. But in the absence of a good solution, it will begin to rapidly blend pre-existing solutions, as well as look for external (outside) opportunities to try to come up with a solution. The stronger your visualization of the desired outcome, the higher the probability of it finding a solution that will solve the problem.

In the case of visualizing short term solutions, you are most often tapping into your own ability to create a solution from internal blends of pre-existing solutions. This is often called “thinking on your feet” – coming up with creative blends of situations that you may or not have seen in the past. And because the subconscious can't tell the difference between reality and fantasy, it may create solutions then blend your own experiences with those that you have read about or even dreamed of. Some are better than others at this. But not because they are better thinkers or more creative. Instead people who are better at "thinking on their feet" tend to be those that have a larger database of solutions to pull from – based on their past. And that requires prep work - practice.

As an example, in golf, one of my favorite sports, Phil Mickelson is the master at this. No one is more creative in coming up with “off the wall” shots to save a horrible lie. As you watch him, it almost seems like he is inventing the shots as he goes. But as it turns out, that's not the case. I've seen him in interviews discuss how he tries hundreds of different types of shots in practice because he knows he's going to find himself in weird situation during a tournament.

So when Phil Mickelson has a horrible lie and can't see the hole that he is aiming for because of a big tree in his way, he stops, visualizes what he wants to do and leaves the rest to his subconscious mind to come up with a solution. Does he know this is happening? Probably not, but that doesn't matter. It happens because that's the way our mind works. He sees the shot he wants to make and his subconscious mind retrieves the method he used to do it in practice. Then it's all “muscle memory” that puts the shot in place.

Visualization of long term goals is a little different.

I'm guessing you've heard ideas about the Law of Attraction or “asking the Universe” for what you want as taught through the Teachings of Abraham and The Secret. The concepts are that if you simply think about what you want, and ask the universe, the energy of the thoughts alone will attract to your your desires and actually turn them into reality. In one way, I believe in these ideas, but not because of some cosmic energy creates it. Instead I believe it is YOU that creates the solution – your subconscious mind – not an external force over which you have no direct control.

When you “visualize” a problem for your subconscious mind that it cannot solve immediately, it doesn't quit looking - it continues to look for answers until you direct it elsewhere. If there are no answers within your memories to the solution, you subconscious mind tries to find a solution outside externally. It listens more intently, watches your surroundings closer, and does what it can to manipulate your thoughts to attract you to situations that it believes will most likely provide answers.

Let's say you are looking to surround yourself with people who are truly happy. As long as you can visualize that happiness in a powerful way and do so again and again, your subconscious mind will feed your conscious mind with thousands of thoughts steering you away from negativity in others and towards people that bring happiness to you. Its not that these people magically come into your life – they are going about their own life, seeking the things they are seeking. What has happened is that your subconscious mind has gone through all your existing patterns and steered you towards taking actions that will increase the likelihood of you meeting and engaging with these positive people.

And you recognize these happy people easier – because your sense are tuned to their presence. As opposed to the presence of negativity. You subconscious mind doesn't create their happiness nor does the universe bring them to you. Instead, you change your habits (as controlled by your subconscious) to give you a better chance of meeting these people and building a relationship with them.

The same thing can happen with wealth. If there is a specific goal that you want to create - and you commit to that goal as a priority - your subconscious mind will first look for a solution internal to your past experiences. But in the absence of a solution, it will look elsewhere - external to your own memories and experiences. It will lead you down new paths - meeting new people, reading new books, and living new experiences - all of which it thinks will supply you with the solution.

What is the difference between believing it is your subconscious mind is creating your world and some powerful universal force? Simple – in one situation, you are at the will of some outside (external force), giving you an excuse when it fails. And the other is completely controlled by you and you alone. And you have no excuses any more - for the situation you are in.

Bottomline, the power to create your world is within YOU not with some outside force. But in order to create the world you want, you can't just continue to do what you have always done, you must to accept that you do have the power and learn how to leverage it.

You must learn how to leverage the Power of Your Subconscious Mind!

The Power Of Your Subconscious Mind, Part II

The power of the human experience is truly limitless – and I believe the key to that power rests in the ability to unlock and leverage the energies and capabilities of the subconscious mind. In Part I of this three part series, I endeavored to explain what the subconscious mind does and how it interacts with our conscious thoughts. And in this part, Part II, I intend to further expand on the ability of the subconscious mind by discussing how it can be distracted and let you down during times that you need it most, how you can leverage the power of your existing file structures and finally how you can start to change your patterns of thinking and begin to take control of your subconscious mind.

First, let's talk about the why and how the subconscious mind can be distracted and let you down in times that you often need it the most. As I discussed in first part of this series, the subconscious mind is constantly absorbing information from all around you – through your senses that you are both focusing attention on and the ones that you aren't. It is recording all the information in your memory – including that which you aren't even consciously aware of. It does this constantly. But that's not all it is doing.

Another major task that your subconscious mind is constantly working on is to find solutions to the problems that you have in your life. It is constantly going through its existing file structure (using the computer analogy) again, looking for the answers to questions that you have posed to it. Some of these questions have simple answers, but some are much more complex.

How many times has a name, date, or other significant thought suddenly popped into your head minutes or even hours after you tried remembering the fact – even when you weren't consciously thinking of the question? Believe it or not, this is your subconscious mind diligently going through all of the files in your brain looking for the answer. The more recently the file had been accessed, the easier it is to find.

These efforts to find solutions to your problems would seem to be a very good thing (and it is very useful), but it can be costly as well.

You see, even though, your subconscious mind is very powerful, capable of handling, storing and retrieving, millions of bits of data, it does have it's limitations. The more you burden your subconscious mind with difficult problems to solve, the less processor time it has to spend on some of its normal, every day work – absorbing and analyzing incoming data from the senses, and feeding insight and recommendations to the conscious mind given its comparison of current situations to past circumstances of your life. Literally, the processor is overloaded and like your computer it will slow down and even lock-up.

How does this affect you? Believe it or not, the impact could be dramatic. As an example, during the car accident rates for normally safe driving adults spike during time periods around a divorce (plus or minus 6 months). And the reason is simple.

During a divorce, we are experiencing more complex and unique problems than we have ever faced before. This causes the subconscious mind to work overtime to try to solve these very complex problems (day and night). As it is spending so much “processor time” trying to solve your marital problems as well as find ways of binning all the new information that is coming in, it is not supporting your daily life activities by monitoring your surroundings through the senses that you aren't paying attention to. So when your conscious mind is distracted by a ringing telephone, a song that comes on the radio, or the driver that just cut you off, the normal support you get from your subconscious mind isn't there, and your likelihood of an accident goes up dramatically.

Now, before you panic about the “low level stress” (as I like to call it) that distracts your subconscious mind from supporting you in your daily activities, please note there is something you can do about it. First, be aware of the “stress” in your life. The fights that you are having with love ones, the bills that aren't getting paid, a love one that is terribly ill or has recently passed away and anything else that would normally keep you up at night are all things that will distract your subconscious mind. And when you see them beginning to develop, stop. Assess your life and simply be aware. Take your time with your daily activities – noting that your best will be slightly compromised on these days. And the more these things are bothering you, the more pronounced your decreased performance will be.

Some have a skill called “compartmentalizing”. This is where you can separate circumstances from one part of your life from affecting another – so as to not allow them to interfere with each other. An example is a fight at home that you manage to leave at home to as to not allow it to interfere with your job performance. This is a very powerful skill, but it primarily focuses around conscious thought – and has only limited control over the subconscious mind. The key is noting that when these things occur, you may not be at your best, unless you take some actions to do something about it. We will talk about this more in tomorrow's Part III of the blog.

Now that I've discussed one of the dangers of the depending on the subconscious mind, let's talk about how to leverage the power of the existing file structures that lie within your subconscious mind.

Just about everything in your life has been recorded in the annals of your mind – including many things that you weren't even aware of at the time. These things can be leveraged to help you perform at peaks levels in every aspect of your life.

You see, as I stated yesterday, your subconscious mind is believed to work 1000-3000 times faster than your conscious mind. It is analyzing your existing conditions and comparing them to past situations (your old files) to find the best response to every situation you find yourself in.

So, the question is, how can you leverage your subconscious mind to become the best you can be?

Well, it is believed the best way to do this is to actually “cue” up the files you want your subconscious mind to access, before you need them and make sure that it is pulling from experiences and ideas that will benefit you when you need them rather than those that will harm you.

But how do you do that? Even though it sounds quite complex, it's actually quite simple. You access the files right before you need them, so that they are “top of mind” when a situation that is going to require them comes up. This is the essence of “visualization”.

Frankly, as good as the subconscious mind is at accepting inputs from the five senses, it has no way of telling the difference between reality and fantasy. Whether you are watching a movie, dreaming, or living your life, it tends to take in those events and bin them the same. As your subconscious mind experiences each of these situations, it stores the memories in the files that they relate to, based on your existing file structure – which is why every one experiences things and remembers them just a little bit differently – they are stored in ways that match the individuals personal experience.

Now in a stressful event, or just going through every day life for that matter, your subconscious mind will usually look first in the file folders that have been most recently accessed to compare your current situation to and to find solutions to problems that arise. This occurs, even when there may be a better file to assist you in the situation. So, although you can't directly control what files your subconscious pulls from, you can increase the likelihood that it will pull from the files that will increase your success.

You can actually see a great example of this in Football (and in all sports for that matter). By watching hours and hours of tapes on their opponents, players and coaches can actually begin to program their subconscious mind to see how their opposition will most likely respond given certain situations. And if done properly, the players can actually increase the likelihood that their subconscious mind will notice a given formation and play before the conscious mind will even see it. This gives the player the feeling that they are inside the mind of their opponent – literally seeing their moves before they make them – at an unconscious level. And I know you've heard the term, “He's unconscious.” when referring to a player that is playing at a level far and above normal skill level.

So the key hear is making sure the information you want to access is “top of mind” for the subconscious mind to draw from before the event occurs. There are many ways to accomplish this goal, but the most common being visualization techniques, briefing, and even “warming up” before the event.

They all work, but what is most important is that you find one that works for you – and that you use it.

Finally, in Part II of this blog, I want to discuss, at least at a cursory level how to begin to take control of your subconscious mind and shape it to assist you even more to achieve your desired goals.

You've heard people say that if you want to change a habit, it takes 21 days of consistent practice. The time frame is arguable, but the concept is absolutely true – if you want to change the way your subconscious mind supports and controls your life, you have to create new file folders from which it will draw information and feed it to your mind.

As I said before, our subconscious mind loves repetition. In fact, it tries to bin everything that comes in to your mind into pre-existing file folders. Partly, because it's the easiest thing to do, and partly because it knows that you conscious mind is quite random – always chasing new ideas and new fads.

Over time it has seen thousands of new ideas come in. And nearly everyone of those ideas has died on the vine – eventually forgotten before it really gained any ground. Your subconscious knows that if it kept a file folder for everyone of those ideas, it would make it VERY hard to find the files that it really needed in a timely fashion – just as you have trouble finding files on your computer if you don't manage your file folders in an organized fashion.

This means that if you want to create a new way of thinking, and generate support from your subconscious mind to help you perpetuate that thought process, you have to be both focused and diligent. You have to do everything you can, every day, to make sure that you are emphasizing this new way of thinking and drive these thoughts repeatedly into your subconscious.

For example, if you have new goals that you want to create – read them out loud, so that you are using your sight, your speech, and your listening all at the same time – and do this at least once a day. For the first couple of days, they feel powerful to your conscious mind, but not so much to the subconscious. Mostly because the subconscious doesn't know what to make of them – they don't really fit into your existing model of thinking. But over time, you start to make a dent into the way the subconscious views these goals – it starts to look that them as real problems that need to be solved. And instead of trying to bin them in already existing file folders, it tries to figure out a “new way” to resolve the situation.

It is at this moment, that you have your first level of break though into making these goals a reality. Precisely when your subconscious recognizes that there are no old paradigms or methods of solving / binning these goals, it begins to look at the problems differently – it begins to seek new solutions. And it creates new file folders that it can access regularly to solve this and other problems like it.

And finally, as this occurs, you are unleashing the most powerful tool in our personal arsenal – your subconscious mind.

Tomorrow, in the final part of this blog series, I will give you some powerful tools that you can apply to your life as well as some powerful examples of people that have leveraged the power of their subconscious mind. I hope you are enjoying this series and I am looking for any and all feedback and comments you might have on it.

The Power Of Your Subconscious Mind, Part I

Have you ever driven somewhere, and when you arrived wondered how you got there safely - thinking to yourself, "How did I not kill myself, I wasn't even paying attention?"

Have you ever felt like you were "in the zone" playing a sport,where everything seemed to just be easier – you could see he ball better, you were two steps ahead of your opponent, and / or it just felt like you knew what was going to happen, before it did?

Or have you ever struggled because no matter how bad you think you want something, you seem never be able to make it happen - and it often feels like you sabotage your own efforts?

The reason these things happen is because of a little understood power that each and everyone of us within us - called our sub-conscious mind.

This blog is the first of a three part blog that will help you understand why these things happen and hopefully give you a tool or two to help you leverage and unleash the power of your subconscious mind.

Frankly, and I think most of will agree with me, no matter how hard we try to change our behaviors and to create the world we want, we tend to end up in the same place we started. Why is that?

Believe it or not, the answer is simple to answer, but complex to rectify. But, I will tell you that those who have mastered it have an unlimited power to create the world they want.

The simple answer is the power of our subconscious mind. It is the part of our mind that loves to perpetuate life as we know it - and is the primary reason we resist change. But it is the also the part of the brain that has tremendous power to solve our problems and unlock our limitless potential.

To better understand the subconscious mind, I want you to give you an over-simplification metaphor of the subconscious mind as I understand it.

Lets just for a moment, imagine that our mind is actually two different computers – one of those computers is a Commodore 64 * (circa 1983) and the other an Apple PowerBook (circa 2009). And these two computers are networked through a complex direct cable interface.

Now, imagine that the Powerbook has stored in it every memory you have ever had of every situation you've ever been in. And because of amazing new technologies (that we still can quite duplicate), the Powerbook has the ability to capture everything going on around you - all the sites, sounds, smells, tastes constantly – even the ones that you aren't really paying attention to.

Unfortunately, you would think that life would be easier if we had direct access to the Powerbook – to store and retrieve what we want, when we want. But to be honest, if you think about it, you would probably go crazy from the rapid fire of thoughts in and out of your conscious mind. So instead, you are stuck providing inputs and drawing responses to all the stored information of your life through the old, slow Commodore 64 and the keyboard that comes with it.

Even though you have control of what goes through the Commodore 64 to the Powerbook, you are only one input into the supercomputer – as it is perceiving and storing everything that is going on around you. So while you are typing just what you see, hear, taste, smell, and feel, consciously, the Powerbook is also absorbing and storing all the rest of what it is coming in through your senses that you aren't consciously aware of – at a rate estimated to be 3000 times faster than you can type. Scary, when you think about it.

To make matters worse, the Powerbook has a predetermined file structure – it stores all the information it receives in folders that are nearly as old as you are. Those file folders are built in your childhood, based on the feeds that came in during your formidable years. In your infancy, file folders are constantly being built – with little regard to any form of organization. Then as you go through your adolescence, the Powerbook, begins to bin the information and re-organize your file structure for optimized use.

It is this file structure, and contents of your file folders that determines how you will react in most situations. In fact, the older you get, the more difficult it is (taking a lot of time and effort) to create new folders for the storage of information. So much so, the Powerbook, (your subconscious mind) only creates new folders when it finds things becoming VERY regular – until they appear to be a new habitual behavior.

So regardless of how situations change, your Powerbook continues to bin all the information the same way it always did – until it sees that a long term change has occurred, and it isn't changing back.

Unfortunately, this means that as much as you may try to enter in new ideas, new goals, new ways of doing things through the keyboard into the Commodore 64, you aren't changing the way the Powerbook stores and retrieves thoughts - right away. Truth be known, your new thoughts are hardly a ripple in all the terabytes of information that is already stored and coming in daily.

So what does this all mean to you and how you behave and act in life?

This is the truly amazing part.

When things happen to you (often even before you are able to consciously recognize them) your Powerbook (through feeds from your senses), recognizes a situation developing and begins finding the file folder on that situation. It opens the folder and immediately starts to bombard the Commodore 64 with how you handled the situation in the past. In the case where you are driving and not paying attention, this is good, because your subconscious mind is keeping you alive – making sure you make the correct turns and not speeding (too much). However, in the case of you wanting to change who you are, this is not so beneficial, because those feeds from the Powerbook to the Commodore 64 are both faster and more consistent than anything you can type into the keyboard – so you tend to follow your old path -in spite of your real desires.

Sure, YOU have the power to manipulate the Powerbook's processes and information feeds, but it is a lot harder than you might think. Which is why so many fail to actually pull it off.

In the next day, dwell on these ideas and look at how and what you do, a little bit differently. Think about different situations where your subconscious mind has both helped you and hindered your efforts to accomplish the goals you strive to achieve.

Tomorrow, in part two of this blog series, I will go a bit further into how your subconscious mind can be distracted and let you down during times that you need it most, how you can leverage the power of your existing file structures and finally how you can start to change your patterns of thinking and begin to take control of your subconscious mind.

And finally, in part three of my three part blog series, I will give you some powerful tools that you can apply to your life as well as some real world examples of people that have leveraged the power of their subconscious mind.

*For those of you who don't know what a Commodore 64 is, just accept that it is one of the very first home computers – and it had very little power or speed.

Focus On What You Want Every Day

When was the last time you faced your goals? I don't mean casually thinking that you have goals, I mean actually reading and reviewing them.

If its been more than a day, then its been too long.

Goals exist for one reason and one reason only - to drive your actions. To get you to take charge of your life by creating what you want instead of just letting life happen to you. But if you aren't reviewing your goals regularly - if they aren't "top of mind" for you - then you are most likely not taking direct actions to cause them to become a reality.

It doesn't mean that you aren't working hard or doing good work. It just means that your work isn't completely aligned with what you are trying to create. Its usually just work.

Unfortunately, lets face it, most people don't reach their goals. Why is that?

Is it because they were too lofty?

Is it because they didn't try?

Is it because they really didn't want their goals?

The answer to all of these things is usually NO, though they may have been contributing factors. The real reason, the underlying cause, that most people do NOT reach their goals is simple - they forgot they had them - or they ignored them as they made critical daily decisions. They didn't take them into account when they needed to each and every time they made a decision that affected whether or not they goal would come true.

So start your day different tomorrow than you have every other day this week (and last). Start your day by reviewing your goals, by reading them out loud. By facing them and making them part of your day. And ask yourself when you are done - what one thing can I do today, to get me one step closer to making those goals a reality.

Immediate Gratification or Long Term Goals - Which Do You Choose?

We are a society built on immediate gratification. We want everything right now - and we want it the way we want it. Instant gratification is good, but it often gets in the way of what we want in the long term. So if you are one of those out there that is making decisions only with immediate (or short term gratification) in mind, and you are not happy with either your life or the way you business is working for you, then there is a simple solution - start focusing on what you want to create, not only what you want right now.

Up until 3 months ago, I had a goal to lose weight. I had gotten a bit of a belly and wanted to make it go away. I had the goal of losing the weight, but for some reason, I wasn't changing my actions. It was then that I realized, I was making decisions for short term gratification, instead of thinking about what I wanted in the long term.

I would wake up in the morning, tell (ok, lie to) myself, "Today is going to be the day that I start to change my life." Unfortunately, as the day would go on, life would get in the way. Meetings would run late. I would be in a hurry. And my stomach would growl. So before I knew it, I would go back to my old habits - my old eating patterns of fast food and pop.

Somehow, I had to break this pattern - I had to build accountability into my life to make the changes that I did really want. And since that day in mid November, there have been a couple of things that I've done to change my life. They first included hiring a personal trainer (who holds me accountable week to week for my eating). But the biggest change I made was to realize that I was letting my short term gratification over ride my long term goals.

So now, as I go throughout my day, making decisions - even the smallest decisions - I stop and think, "What is the best decision for both my immediate gratification and long term goals?" And I do my best to stay focused on my long term goals of losing weight and my belly.

I won't lie to you, there are still times when the immediate gratification wins. But now I know that it was my choice to let it win, not anything I can blame on anything or anyone else.

So, the important thing to recognize is that this is NOT just a weight loss thing - its applicable in every aspect of your life - especially in business. Every decision you make in your daily business activities, from when to open and close, how much to charge, to how you are going to spend your time today has both short term and long term repercussions. When you don't stop and think about those repercussions, you tend to make decisions that are only about immediate gratification.

Why does this have such applicability in business? Simple. Most businesses are good at Operations and Sales, but struggle with Marketing. And when you think about it, Operations and Sales are immediate gratification actions, while time spent on Marketing is a long term investment.

Needless to say, I suggest that as you go about your day, stop and think about what you are doing. Evaluate whether you are satisfying your immediate gratification needs or longer term goals. As you shift your thought in this way, you will begin (slowly at first) to shift your actions to account for both your immediate needs as well as what you want to create - your goals. And believe it or not, you will be amazed at how quickly you will start to see a change in what you are doing, and how you look at your day.

**In case you are curious, I have lost over 20 lbs since I started - and have gotten rid of nearly all of my little belly that had cropped up on me. It works!