The outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to be harmoniously related to his inner state…Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are. ~ James Allen
We’re all feeling our way through this miraculous life of ours.
We’re not always as strong as we would like to be; we don’t always occupy a state where nothing can touch our peace of mind.
We don’t always see others as the beautiful, brilliant, magnificent beings they are.
We might not always see the sunny side of life and, for many, optimism is out of reach, whilst pessimism somehow always seems available to come along for the ride.
And, more often than not, we forget to think well of ourselves and, heaven help us, were probably taught some version of the idea that self-praise is no recommendation. I remember hearing that my own self.
We often find it hard to see how our beliefs influence our choices, or how our perceived deficiencies, or our hurts, cause us to fly off the handle or withdraw into feeling sorry for ourselves.
And it’s even more challenging to see that habits like procrastination or a lack of imagination have us continually stuck in situations that serve no one, especially not us.
We are where we are today because our old thoughts led us there, and tomorrow we’ll be where our new thoughts take us.
And yet many of us remain oblivious to this internal process.
In fact, we often can’t see ourselves at all because we are on a recurring loop, too busy thinking and doing, without noticing what we are thinking, or why we do what we do.
But for each of us there is a way to step out from the shadow of where we were, or who we currently are, and fly as high as we choose, where we can live a life that nourishes and fulfills us. The one that is perfect just for us.
Our minds are built to gain knowledge through repetition which is a blessing we can use and count on.
We are the makers of every habit of thought we have and we can choose to alter them.
Even thoughts that might be difficult to hold in mind, will eventually if repeatedly focused on, become a natural part of our being. And therein lies our power.
You can assume new habits that will rock your life.
1.Decide
Begin each day with a review…play out in your mind’s eye conversations you’d like to have and in your imagination listen to the response you want to hear.
Have the day unfold into your ideal.
Imagine how you felt today.
Did you have fun, did you enjoy the blossoming of previous seeds you’d planted.
Decide on the ideal outcome for each experience you’d like to have this day and have it play out like a movie in your mind, with you in the starring role of course.
Review your day mentally as though it were early evening and you were enjoying the memory of success and happiness, feeling relaxed and contented.
Don’t ask what’s possible, decide what was possible and then envision it.
2.Heartfelt communication
Communication isn’t simply about speaking, it’s about listening. Listening with the heart. We don’t connect with one another through only our words, we connect through our hearts. We not only hear what’s being said, we feel it.
We need to practice being present.
I had to learn to switch my attention from what I was working on and practice turning away from my computer, or putting down that book or pen, in order to be present in the moment with my companion. And we can’t be formulating our response whilst someone is speaking to us.
As we truly pay attention to each other a wonderful thing happens, we are breathing greater life into our connection and it pays huge dividends in our world. It could mean the difference between a successful outcome or not.
3.Participate
You must be relentless in being the maker of your own blessings. The more you can claim and own the happiness that is yours for the asking in each brand new day, the less time you have to be critical of yourself or others. You’re too busy with happiness to look for worry or troubles.
You always have choices: seek happiness in the day or focus on the challenges. Okay, we might still have challenges to manage, but that doesn’t stop us from seeing happiness.
Every day is filled with hundreds of minutes, and just because one of them, or five of them, is hard doesn’t mean they all have to be.
4.Hang on to your power
If I do something, if I say something and you react to it, then I’m in charge of you. You’ve handed over your power to me…thank you very much.
The second we react to a situation or event, then it’s in charge of us.
Here we are with the most fabulous thing called life and we’re bouncing around reacting to this here and that there. No wonder we get sick, no wonder our bodies and hearts and spirits break down, we’re swirling around in a vibration of chaos. And we’re opening ourselves up to the whims and mercy of each experience that comes our way.
We have a choice with each and every experience that shows up; we can mindlessly react from our old conditioned habits or we can create what we want from a space of positivity.
The possibilities are endless once we decide to respond and not react. Hang on to your power.
5.Truth
We need uninhibited, unabashed, blunt honesty with ourselves about where we currently are. We can rationalize anything and often do.
It doesn’t matter where we are on the scale of being, growth isn’t a competition. Truth washes away old habits that get in the way of us radiating who we are now.
It doesn’t make any difference what you did, or where you’ve been or who you were, what matters is where you are right now and what you’re doing right now.
Be willing to shine today, or don’t shine. Shining isn’t mandatory. Forget your imperfections, in fact, embrace them. Get out there and play the music of your heart and don’t let anyone shut you up.
You can spend your life letting the world tell you who you are, or you can choose for yourself.
Choose to be awesome. Then prepare to be amazed.
Now for an action challenge: Look within and ask, what one habit could I adopt that would make the biggest difference in my life right now? It doesn’t have to be one of these, any habit that feels good to you will work.
And let us know in the comments below. What you have to say really matters because we learn and grow together.
Thank you for reading and sharing. You light up my life.
Encourage one another.
Love Elle
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23 Comments
Elle, I’m working on heartfelt communication and presence at the moment. Trying to stop the multi-tasking and being more aware of what I’m doing now. I find that the more present I am in a moment, the more focused I can be at the task at hand. So easy in today’s world to get distracted so formulating this habit is particularly challenging.
Hi Vishnu…I think this is an area a few of us could do a little better and as we both know it’s about keeping it simple and keeping it consistent and it will happen. 😀
Hi Vishnu, reading through the comments this is a good one for us all to practice. We all have the capacity to turn our focus our attention on to whatever we want. And as you say formulating this as a new habit can sometimes be challenging. Persistence and practice is working for me. 🙂 Not yet perfectly, but then we all have our moments, don’t we.
Do you have any tricks up your sleeve that might help the rest of us? 😀
Love these positive habits, Elle. They are wonderful suggestions to live a better life. Listening with the heart is a suggestion I’m paying attention to at the moment. Letting go of multi-tasking and really focusing when someone is speaking builds stronger relationships and respect. Thanks for a great post!
Hi Cathy – of course there’s tons of habits we could put into practice, but then we just feel overwhelmed…so a few seem to go a long way. I’m still practicing stopping what I’m doing, to be present and respectful of another being. We think we can focus on our task and being responsive, but it just doesn’t work, in my opinion. Nothing gets our full attention. 🙂
Hi Cathy it’s always lovely to have you stop by. Funny how so many of us are distracted by our multi tasking lives. Partly why I added this habit was because I noticed that I didn’t feel good because I was too often not giving people the attention they deserved and I’m doing much better at literally turning away from whatever I’m doing so I know I’m not being half hearted in my listening.
You are so right in that it does build better and more respectful relationships. We can all feel when someone isn’t paying full attention and it’s not the best feeling in the world. 🙂
Hi Elle ,
I like that point you make about hanging on to our power.
In fact ,i believe,that we can hold on to our power only when we have habituated ourselves to do that through repeated episodes of doing so.
Just as you brush your teeth daily,take a haircut regularly,get a physical health checkup periodically,you must do a self analysis frequently as well.Its simple if you are committed to being emotionally effective.
The only reason is that you don’t have to remain at the mercy of habitual tendencies for life,tendencies that do not contribute to your personal effectiveness in any way,or tendencies that take away from you even an iota of your personal happiness index(PHI).
After all happiness is our all time goal.It makes sense to commit ourselves to mastering our approach to life,instead of ad nauseum repeating the same ineffective responses.
Thanks
Mona
Hi Mona, You are so right, it is a practice. We have learned the habit of reaction and if we’re to experience a greater way of living in the world a new practice needs to take over. Part of the problem with reacting is that we move ourselves from the happier state we were in to begin with into the state where we’re reacting. And there it is, our power to choose, our power to direct consciousness to be creating the life we want to leave has been given away.
You always put things so clearly Mona, and it’s always good to have your voice on this forum. 🙂
Hi Elle,
Thanks for your encouragement.
In fact being on your blog is one of those” 5 important habits” for me.
Thanks
Mona
I often need to remind myself to be present – deciding each morning to turn off the computer during family time has been key for me.
Hi Poppy and thanks for stopping by. I think we’re all pretty much in that boat and good for you for turning off your computer in the morning. Do you have any other techniques that you use to stay present? Would love to hear them. 🙂
Hi Elle,
This is a favorite sentence in your post ” Don’t ask what’s possible, decide what was possible and then envision it.”. If only we would realize the power of doing just that, what a difference it would make in our life!
Being fully present with someone, completely there giving them your full attention and not just hearing, but actually listening to what they are saying, is a wonderful habit to form and one which strengthens your relationships.
My morning habit is singing;
Oh what a beautiful morning,
Oh what a beautiful day,
I’ve got a wonderful feeling,
Everything’s going my way.
I picked this up from reading something, can’t remember who it was now, but I have made it my habit in the morning and it certainly works wonders for me.
As always great suggestions Elle, lets all decide together to believe in our magnificence and begin to shine as we were always intended too 🙂
Clare
Hi Clare, now you’ve put a smile on my face this morning. I love your morning singing habit. I tend to sign affirmations in my car, it seems theres a power in moving them from the mental level into the physical level of sound that works well for me.
And I’m with you on the decision that we’re all blooming magnificent. Just think if we all choose to do that even for one day, we’d be radiating huge joy and love and happiness out into our world we could be making a difference in someone’s life. What say you? 🙂
Absolutely Elle, even one day on doing this would have a huge ripple effect and impact positively on the life of others as well as our own!
I forgot to say I love the picture on this post, it radiates happy and joyous energy 🙂
Great post!
Sandy
Great advice Elle! My favorite way to deal with the holding onto power thing? Bruce Lee’s line, “Be like water.” Best metaphor ever.
Hi Tammy and thanks for stopping by to have a chat. That is a great mantra for letting go of reacting and staying in a responsive state. Wow, I bet you just flow through life with ease and grace. 🙂
Hi dear Elle-
I think the toughest one for me is ‘holding on to my power’. Although I’d like to think that I do, when I observe myself mindfully, I am amazed at how easily I give it away. It can be deceptive- cloaking itself in a veil of generosity, being flexible or of service – always much to learn. The good news I am keen to move disengage myself from negative behaviors and no longer feel shame when I see these weaknesses. -xxoo-Fran
Hi Fran, it’s so good to have you back! I think we’re all members of that club to some degree or another. What a great point you make about it often being a hidden thing so we hardly notice we’ve handed our power over to someone else. It’s not always about an obvious, loud reaction to something or someone. That’s a great reminder for us all. Words of wisdom indeed dear Fran. 🙂
Hi Elle….thanks again for a great post with some really good reminders. Reading through a lot of the other commenters I could see that I wasn’t the only one who could use help with focus and letting go of distractions. Being present in the moment is always a big one for me because I’m “so darn good!” at multitasking.
I’m also working on gratitude for the month of November with my 2nd Annual 30-Day Gratitude Challenge. Besides writing a bit about gratitude once a week I am linking at least 7 to 10 different blog posts from all my blogging friends in the area of gratitude and thankful living. Do any of your past posts work that I can take a look at? Please email me the link and I’ll read them at kathy AT smartliving365.com I would also love to see links from any of your followers that might apply as well.
Thanks again for your inspiring post! ~Kathy
What a fantastic post – thanks a lot Elle. I started about a year ago to begin each day with a review, with a 10-15 minute visualization how I would like my day to unfold and it literally transformed my life. Additionally, I do a short visualization just before an important event, like an important phone call, a meeting… This really works wonders and I would have never thought that this would be so powerful.
Hi Robert, I like your discipline and dedication. And I’m so happy it pays off. You have much to share with our global community my friend. You’re inspiring. 🙂
Hi Elle; Your posts always make me think. When i heard you mention a endless playback loop it made me think about the movies where people are fooled by playback video into thinking what they are seeing is real when it is really just a big distraction. And I have adopted a strategy with my mom that comes from what you say about imagining how conversations will go. She is forever asking me questions that she should know the answer to. If you are a mom, you know the kinds of questions I mean. So a while back i decided that instead of getting offended and angry that i would just ignore those questions. This doesn’t always work. Sometimes i have to actually tell her mom i thought that was one of those questions you have to ask but that you don’t really expect an answer to. And yesterday I went so far as to say mom shouldn’t you assume better of me. And surprise of surprised she agreed. This has stopped so many arguments in mid stream. so thankful the books I’ve been reading and the blogs I’ve been following has helped me with a problem that had frustrated me for years. Thanks for the post and take care, max