Day 8- life theme song

day 8 life theme song

Mind Alchemy Day 8

Welcome to day 8 of the course.
Today we’re going to be taking it a little easier after 7 days of intense work, however the exercise today is another powerful one.
Download today’s exercise sheet.
What we are doing is choosing 10 songs that really get us motivated, either by getting the old heart pumped up or with the words of the song which have a special meaning and lift our spirits up.
Now you might think this might take a few minutes of your time but if you’re anything like me you’ll really think about this and find songs from past and present. I was that sad, sorry dedicated, that I actually looked through the charts from the 1980s onwards to find a few gems that I had forgotten about.

Singing in our heads

Singing in our heads is something we naturally do. Have you ever had a tune in your head that you just can’t get rid of, well we’re going to be signing songs in our head for a reason and that’s to motivate us.

Steps of association

With each song we have chosen we are going to go through a series of steps to get a strong association with feeling good and feeling motivated.
Step 1:
Close your eyes and think, as vividly as you can, about some events in your life that have really made you excited and when you were really motivated. Think about the events as close up as possible, meaning that you are actually in the event and not looking at it from a distance. See everything you can, hear the sounds, really feel the excitement of the events.
Step2:
For each event you see yourself in, add in the theme songs of your choice. Only add the theme songs at the peak of your excitement and when you are in the middle of the scene in your mind
Step3:
Once you have completed linking your theme songs with all the events in your life you were excited about, add all the scenes together and run them as if you are watching a movie, in a movie theatre and feel the excitement all over again with all the songs added.
Step 4:
Periodically throughout day, for the next few days, re-run the movie inside your head from step 3 and feel the excitement again and again.
Step 5:
Download your theme songs onto your ipod, mp3 player, burn it to a disk or just download it to your computer, whichever way you are most comfortable listening to music. Periodically play these songs to give you a boost of energy and excitement. We don’t want to get fed up with the songs so don’t play them all day every day, the trick here is to associate good feelings with your theme songs as a way to keep you excited and motivated about life and it’s possibilities.

My theme songs

To give you an idea of what I am talking about here I have been collecting songs for a few years that inspire me or just get my heart pumping. Here are just a few of them:

Today we’re going to be taking it a little easier after 7 days of intense work, however the exercise today is another powerful one.
Download today’s exercise sheet.
What we are doing is choosing 10 songs that really get us motivated, either by getting the old heart pumped up or with the words of the song which have a special meaning and lift our spirits up.
Now you might think this might take a few minutes of your time but if you’re anything like me you’ll really think about this and find songs from past and present. I was that sad, sorry dedicated, that I actually looked through the charts from the 1980s onwards to find a few gems that I had forgotten about.

Singing in our heads

Singing in our heads is something we naturally do. Have you ever had a tune in your head that you just can’t get rid of, well we’re going to be signing songs in our head for a reason and that’s to motivate us.

Steps of association

With each song we have chosen we are going to go through a series of steps to get a strong association with feeling good and feeling motivated.
Step 1:
Close your eyes and think, as vividly as you can, about some events in your life that have really made you excited and when you were really motivated. Think about the events as close up as possible, meaning that you are actually in the event and not looking at it from a distance. See everything you can, hear the sounds, really feel the excitement of the events.
Step2:
For each event you see yourself in, add in the theme songs of your choice. Only add the theme songs at the peak of your excitement and when you are in the middle of the scene in your mind
Step3:
Once you have completed linking your theme songs with all the events in your life you were excited about, add all the scenes together and run them as if you are watching a movie, in a movie theatre and feel the excitement all over again with all the songs added.
Step 4:
Periodically throughout day, for the next few days, re-run the movie inside your head from step 3 and feel the excitement again and again.
Step 5:
Download your theme songs onto your ipod, mp3 player, burn it to a disk or just download it to your computer, whichever way you are most comfortable listening to music. Periodically play these songs to give you a boost of energy and excitement. We don’t want to get fed up with the songs so don’t play them all day every day, the trick here is to associate good feelings with your theme songs as a way to keep you excited and motivated about life and it’s possibilities.

My theme songs

To give you an idea of what I am talking about here I have been collecting songs for a few years that inspire me or just get my heart pumping. Here are just a few of them:

Tomorrow

Tomorrow we will be looking at our beliefs and how to change them. Until tomorrow my fellow Mind Alchemists……..

Pink- so raise your glass

pink- who knew

pink- so what

george michael- faith

george michael and elton john- down let the sun go down on me

Jimmy barnes- aint no mountain high enough

aretha franklin- respect
sound of music- lonley goat herd

temper trap

train- soul sister
israel k- somewhere over the rainbow

michael jackson- blame it on the boogey

michael jackson- man in the mirror

Day 7

day 7

Mind Alchemy Day 7

Welcome to day 7 of Mind Alchemy.

We’re going to continue with the mind workout, before taking a relatively restful and fun day on day 8.

Daily routine – if you haven’t done so already take 10-15 minutes to go over your outcomes.  Remember this forms a part of your daily routine and the quicker you get into the habit the quicker your life will change.

The Nature of your thoughts

90% of what you were thinking yesterday will be the same thoughts you think today.

Today I would like to talk about the nature of our thoughts and how we go about changing our thoughts.

Over the last 6 days you’ve seen how to inject new thoughts into your mind, thoughts that will have a viral effect and start you on the path of thinking about what you want in your life.  You can’t have two thoughts at the same time, actually you can have two thoughts at the same time but you can’t focus on two thoughts at the same time, so the more you focus on what you want in your life the less wasteful thoughts you will have.

Your prodigal thoughts

According to some scientists we have around 60,000 thoughts per day, and 95%-98% of those thoughts are the same ones day in and day out, or rather the same types of thoughts.  Let’s do some math here:

95% of 60,000 = 57,000

57,000 thoughts that were the same as, or the same type as yesterday.  We can guestimate that we can take about 10,000 of those thoughts to think about getting up in the morning, planning our day ahead, driving to school/work, practical thinking about issues at work/home etc etc – these are practical thoughts that we have to think about day in and day out.

So we are left with around 47,000 thoughts.  That’s 47,000 spare thoughts, thoughts that are up for grabs and to be turned into something useful. What do you think these thoughts are about?

Here’s are some classifications of the 47,000 thoughts we have:

Worry, boredom, daydreaming, future planning, catastrophising, fighting in our minds, negative self talk, positive self talk, what others think of us, and so on.

How many of the 47,000 spare thoughts that we have each day do we think positively about the future, or plan positively for the future, or ask the right questions to get a better future.  I am willing to guess not very many at all.

Our minds are in constant battle with useless worry (not all worry is bad if you do something with it), other people inside our heads, self pity, self deprication, negative thinking, despair, doom and gloom.  Very few of us have risen above this constant barrage.  It is fueled by you, but it is also fueled by the media, television, newspapers, and radio telling us day in and day out that the world is a shit place to live.  Do you know what, the world is not a shit place to live.  Yes there are others who get murdered, yes there is war, yes there are terrible people out there, but the amount of media stories about the bad events in the world is totally disproportionate to the population as a whole.  We do not live in an evil world, we live in a world inhabited by SOME evil people.

One of the best things you can do to cleanse your mind is to stop reading the newspapers, stop listening to the news, turn news 24 off, turn radio news off.  There is nothing we can do about most of the news we hear so why let it infect our minds.

Okay, back to the topic at hand here.  What can we do with these spare 47,000 thoughts and how do we make sure the 47,000 thoughts are useful?

Management of many is the same as management of few. It is a matter of organization

Sun Tzu

Replace, Stop and Redirection

At the moment a lot of our thoughts are based on a stimulus from our physical world.  We are going to look at changing the 47,000 spare thoughts we have and turning them around in order to help us.

Replace

We are going to inject more of the outcome focused thoughts you learned in the previous 6 days of the course.  This way you will be having more outcome focused thoughts, which lead to more outcome solution oriented thoughts, which leads to taking more action.

Stop

We can’t stop thinking altogether, but what we can do is stop some of the thoughts that we do not want from entering our minds.  The way to do this is through relaxation, meditation, guided mediation, and focused thinking, which we will be looking at later on in the course.

Redirection

Whenever we catch ourselves thinking things we don’t want to think we turn it around in the opposite direction.  For example:

“I can’t afford to put my daughter through college” we turn it around and think

“How can I find a way to put my daughter through college”

You see the difference here.  The first thought leads to more doom and gloom thoughts and feelings of despair, whereas the second thought leads to more solution oriented thoughts, more positive and more likely to find a solution to the issue at hand.

Exercise for the day – Unedited writing of thoughts

Todays exercise is all about unedited recording of our worries and thoughts.

You can download the Mind Alchemy worksheet or take a blank piece of paper and start writing.

I read a post last month from a great guy called Amit Sodha about unedited writing of your thoughts which is something Amit came across on his own without realising there was a name for it called Freewriting.  Anyways I discovered it through Amit and want to pass it on to you as an exercise today.

Get a pen, a piece of paper, what we are going to do is for 30 minutes start writing down every single thought we have and focus on what we are worried about, but also let any thought you have come out on paper, so if a worry thought leads to another thought let it flow.  Alternatively if you are a relatively fast at typing you could open up a word document and start typing away every thought that comes into your head.  The trick here is to not think too much about what you are writing just let it flow.

I think you will find this exercise pretty amazing as it throws up some interesting observations about the way our minds work

Tomorrow

Tomorrow we will be having a little fun with a great exercise to help keep your motivation high.  Until tomorrow my fellow Mind Alchemists……..

thought patterns


i HIGHLY agree with this statement

he best things you can do to cleanse your mind is to stop reading the newspapers, stop listening to the news, turn news 24 off, turn radio news off.  There is nothing we can do about most of the news we hear so why let it infect our minds.

Exercise for the day – Unedited writing of thoughts

Todays exercise is all about unedited recording of our worries and thoughts.

later ;)

day 6- your perfect day

day 6

Mind Alchemy Day 6

Today is another great exercise to help you think about what you ultimately want to do with your life and what direction to take.
Your Perfect Day is an exercise used by a lot of coaches to help clients clarify what they really want to do with their life, and it’s an extremely powerful exercise to introduce images into your mind of where you want to be, say in the next  1 year, 5 years, 10 years.
I have asked clients with alcohol issues to do this, typically here is how it goes:
They describe their perfect day for around 10 minutes and go through all the scenes in their head and tell me about it.  99% of the clients with alcohol issues don’t ever mention having a drink in their perfect day.  When I point this out to them at the end of the exercise a lot of them are stunned by the thought that their perfect day would not involve alcohol in any way.  It’s another way of moving forward: getting the client to admit, visually, that they do not want alcohol in their lives.
The exercise has a similar effect on clients I life coach for.  When the exercise is done correctly you may find some things out about yourself you hadn’t previously thought about.
Take time to really get into this exercise, it can take 30 – 60 minutes so make sure you allow some time to complete it.  It’s better to do it in one sitting, that way you are working on it on a subconscious level, and not thinking about it too much, your subconscious already knows all the answers to the questions, but if you think about it too much your conscious mind gets in the way.

How to do the exercise

First of all download today’s exercise worksheet, which you can use to describe your perfect day.
Download perfect day exercise here
Now, write out your perfect day in the form of a story you are telling someone else.  To help you get the best out of this exercise try and make it as vivid in detail as possible.  When you are writing your story answer all the questions below.

Your perfect day questions

What time do you wake up?
Who do you wake up with (if anyone)?
Where are you living?
What does your bedroom look like?
What does your house look like?
What does it smell like?
What do you do when you get up?
What do you have for breakfast?
What are you be thinking about?
How do you spend your morning?
What do you have for lunch?
Who do you eat with?
What are your friends like?
What would you do for personal development?
What is your life purpose?
What is your business/job?
What time do you start work?
What would you actually do at work?
What are your clients like?
What is your relationship like with spouse? Family?
What do you do for family time?
Where would you eat?
Who would you eat with?
What do you talk about?
What time would you go to bed?
How are you feeling when you go to bed?
What do you think about before you close your eyes?

Your perfect day

If you want to share your perfect day stories you can share them here.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow we will be looking at your thoughts and how we go about cha



Today is another great exercise to help you think about what you ultimately want to do with your life and what direction to take.

Tell your perfect day in story form

answer these questions during the story
What time do you wake up?

With gentle sunlight streaming through the windows i stretch and open my eyes to see its 9am on the clock I roll over and see mark laying in bed holding our child.

Where are you living?
Its time to join the world by walkign through our organised and tidy house,the where isnt important, as long as my most important people are with me and i have my neccesities a house is always home.
What does your bedroom look like?
my bedroom is organised and airy and roomy
What do you do when you get up?
i make my way to the bathroom, do my facial routine and go have some breakfast
What do you have for breakfast?
Whatever is part of my eating plan ( cereal, fruit, toast juice, up and go,banana, eggs)
What are you be thinking about?
i'm sitting out on the mini deck enjoying the outside and air planning the day, thinking about the things to do for the day, the chores that need doing, the plans for dinner, when mark is working
How do you spend your morning? a trip to the gym would be great before it gets too hot, some meal planning and dinner prep, and some scrapbooking and photography

What do you have for lunch? - whatever is on the menu plan
Who do you eat with?
my child and often my husband

What are your friends like? Understanding qirky helpfull inteligent close as sisters and vibrant buddies
What is your life purpose? Raising a family and creating lots of meaningful images and life albums for people while working on some motivational groups and meetings
What is your business/job? Photographer blogger and group motivator
What time do you start work? whenever i want to
What are your clients like? Bright bubbly people with a spark for life and a reasonable time scale.
What is your relationship like with spouse? Family? Loving complete and equal being able to talk about anything and come to a compromise that benifits us both and our family the most
What do you do for family time? walks and picnics family game nights bbqs and bike rides
What time would you go to bed? routinly at about 12 i fall asleep after no more then 20 mins and sleep peacfully all night
How are you feeling when you go to bed? satisfied with the day and whats been done not worrying about anythign not yet done or to be completed

Day 5

day 5

Mind Alchemy Day 5

Today is going to be a great day as we look at all our outcomes for 2011 and beyond.

Outcomes are the things we want to achieve in our life.  I use the word outcomes rather than goals as the word ‘goals’ implies something far off and not as close as we want it to be.  An outcome is something we set our minds on, see it more clearly and has more of an urgency about it.

We are shifting our thinking when we look at outcomes and using more of our imagination, and what NLPers (Neuro Linguistic Programmers) call sub-modalities.  When we think of something we want to achieve we’ve got to be able to see it in our mind, see it up close, colourful, vibrant, full of life, hear clearly the sounds associated with the outcome, feel the excitement.  When we can do this, our thoughts about the outcome will have more of an urgency about it, more excitement surrounding it and will therefore increase our chances of achieving that outcome.  A simple change of the word from goals to outcomes makes a big difference in our thinking.

Setting your outcomes

When you come to set your outcomes it’s important to realise that setting specific outcomes is great, but I would like you to try a different way from what you might have tried before.

Setting outcomes usually involves getting really specific and saying something like:

‘I now drive a top of the range, dark blue, brand new, Audi Q5’

What I’d like you to do is set your outcomes a little less specific and to let go of the outcome and focus on the underlying value and emotion that your outcome will bring once it has been realised..

So, for the above example we could say something like:

I now drive a top of the range, family car of my dreams.  The underlying value here might be: ‘Too feel wealthy’, ‘To keep family comfortable’, ‘To keep family safe’.

The cocktail effect

When you set your sights on an outcome your mind will start to work it’s alchemy and get to work on how to bring about your outcome.  If you’ve ever been on a night out at a club or a bar, the music is playing, lots of noise from people talking, laughing and generally having a good time.  Then someone calls out your name, you immediately turn in the direction of the person calling your name.  The explanation that psychologists give to this is called ‘the cocktail effect’ and speaks about the auditory system and how it is able to filter out background noise but still recognise familiar sounds.

I believe this is how outcome focussed thinking works.  If we set our minds on particular outcomes in our lives, the other non essential, daily routines in our lives will be filtered out.  In other words we will no longer focus on the day to day dramas in our lives, which are only dramas because our minds are bored and want something to do.  For example have you ever been going about your day to day routine and you receive a piece of news, good or bad, that rocks a part of your world.  Suddenly all of the day to day things that you do seem unimportant and you don’t give them a second thought, television becomes a nonsense, gossip seems trivial, people that previously upset you became unimportant and you no longer cared what they said or thought, you wanted your family around you, and appreciated them more, your thoughts were focused on that one piece of news, at least for a short period of time.

When you consciously inject outcome focused thoughts into your mind a lot of the other, unimportant things in your life will be filtered out, leaving room for your mind to be on the lookout for opportunities, for people to meet, for books to read that will all help you reach your outcome.  This is what a lot of ‘LOA’ practitioners call ‘your thoughts become things’.  Obviously your thoughts don’t become things literally but your outcome focused thoughts will help you realise your outcomes, by helping you take action, help you be on the lookout for opportunities, help you meet and talk to the right people.

Today’s exercise – daily routine

With that said, I’d like to offer you todays worksheet to download.

Download PDF Mind Alchemy Day 5 Your outcomes for 2011

Download Word Document  Mind Alchemy Day 5 Your outcomes for 2011
Here is an EXAMPLE COMPLETED SHEET

When you download the outcomes PDF file you’ll see 8 components to it, which I will explain:

Category – This is the categories we used in our wheel of life yesterday.  So there are eight categories to choose from: health, money, family, career, Personal Development, recreation, spirituality and [ ].  Work your way through each category and think about all the outcomes you’d like to achieve in that category.  Some categories might have more outcomes than others.

Outcome – This is the end outcome written in the present tense. E.G. I now spend at least three, quality, hours per day with my family.

Values – What is the underlying life value that this outcome will fulfil? Using the example above the underlying value might be ‘Family’

Outcome picture – start collecting images from Google, from magazines, newspapers, and catalogues and paste them into the box provided.  Or you can even draw the images of your outcomes.  This is an important step so please don’t skip over it.  Use specific images, but also use images that will portray your feelings of having achieved the outcome and your underlying life principle.

Vision Statement – Think about a vision statement, we worked on this on day 4 of the course.  Incorporate emotions, feelings, and senses if you can.

Date to be completed – This is the date you will work toward completing your outcome.

Date completed – This is the date you actually completed your outcome.

Signature – Sign the sheet once you have completed all the sections (not including your affirmation).  This gives you accountability, so think carefully about your outcome and know that you will commit to it.

Daily Routine 1

Once you have completed your outcome sheets, which can take a few hours if you are focused on them, they are going to be used everyday from now on.  This forms part of your ‘Daily Routine’.

Every day, until you complete each outcome, you will be looking over each outcome in turn and giving them your attention for around one minute each.  When you give them your attention, clearly see the outcome as being achieved and feeling the emotions, seeing the pictures clearly, hearing the sounds as clearly as possible and really immerse yourself into the scene.

If the images are far away in your mind, bring them closer to you, same with the sounds, the smells, the feelings.  Bring them all as close as possible, make the sounds as loud as possible, feel the emotions as intensely as possible.  The more your images fade in your mind the less chance you will have of achieving your outcome (this is important).

Also important is not to treat this daily routine as a boring task that has to be done, treat it as something that is going to change your life, even if you don’t believe it just now, it will happen.

Change requires change…

This will mean changing your daily routine.  I know, I know you’ve not got enough time as it is, but do you truly want to change your life or truly just daydream about it?

I have made time by getting up at 5am every day, I work full time as an addiction worker, I have a gorgeous wife and two boys who I spend a lot of time with, I am fairly actively socially, do housework, cook meals, and I still find time to write for the blogs, email, use the social media sites, coach clients etc.  If you truly want to change, something in your life has to be deleted or something has to be slotted in, in this case you maybe shave an hour off your sleep time if you feel you don’t have a lot of time.

I am not joking when I say that adding this into your daily routine, preferably in the morning, can turn your life around.  If you didn’t do anything else in this course and just worked on your wheel of life and your outcomes you would start to see changes within a few months.  BUT, I know you want to continue with the course to get the life you truly want a lot quicker

There are a few reasons this works so well in bringing about change:

1. you are infusing your mind with thoughts of the things you want to see in your life.  You can’t think two thoughts at the same time so the more outcome focused thoughts you have, the more your actions will change, the more your actions change the quicker your life changes.
2. Being outcome focused has a network effect on your other thoughts.  If you have one thought that is focused on something you want, that would lead to another thought in the same direction, which leads to another thought.  Then the negative thoughts start to creep in again: I can’t do that, I’m too old for that, what’s the point it’s never going to happen etc.  But then you do it all over again, every day and pretty soon your outcome focused thoughts will outnumber your negative thoughts and soon you’ll realise you have changed as a person.
3. Because you are going to be letting go of the specific outcome and focusing on the underlying values and feelings, you will reach your outcomes a lot quicker.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow we will be working on an exercise which will look at how you want to live your life.  Until tomorrow my fellow Mind Alchemists……..

Action follows a thought…

This course is about taking action, and to become pro active in changing your life.  Take time to do this exercise and really think about it throughout the day.  You don’t need to wait until tomorrow to take steps to improve your ‘Wheel of Life’, but with the support and encouragement from all the members we can help each other and support each other, but ultimately ‘you have to bring something to the table!’

day 5 is basically goal setting and vision boards...

as i'm already do that i'm going to continue on the ones i'm already doing. :D

Day 4 personal vision

Day 4

Mind Alchemy Day 4

Okay, after yesterday’s mammoth exercise it’s time for something a little easier, just a little.

Today we are going to be looking at your personal vision statements.  These will added to your outcomes worksheet on day 5, and work to help keep you focused and motivated toward your outcomes in life.

What are personal vision statements

A personal vision statements is a statement of intent with regards to your outcomes in life.  It’s similar to a mission statement, but whilst a mission statement encompasses ALL that you stand for in life, a vision statement covers specific outcomes.

Look at some of these vision statements from some famous companies:

Macdonalds:

“McDonald’s vision is to be the world’s best quick service restaurant experience. Being the best means providing outstanding quality, service, cleanliness, and value, so that we make every customer in every restaurant smile.”

Nike:

“To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete*

in the world”

* If you have a body, you are an athlete.

Your vision statements are going to be personal to you and apply to each individual outcome you will achieve in life.  As mentioned before, an outcome is something you want to achieve in the future, and we’ll discuss this at length tomorrow.

For now I’d like you to go back to day 2′s exercise.  You should have written down 4 outcomes you wanted to achieve.  We are going to use these 4 outcomes to practice writing your vision statements.

Today’s exercise

Download today’s exercise sheet here

Vision statement guide

The aim of a vision statement, in this course, is to write a concise statement, 2-3 sentences long that will capture the essence of what you do to achieve your outcome and the feelings, and emotions you feel when have achieved your outcome.

The aim is not to be specific here, the aim is to capture the whole, rather than the pieces that make it up, in other words we are not concerned about how you are going to achieve the outcome we are concerned broadly with the feelings and emotions you have when you have achieved it.

Example vision statement

As an example I will share with you one of my vision statements:

Outcome: I feel amazing, have a deep sense of freedom, and satisfaction  as my business is generating, at least, £10,000 per month in profit, whilst helping others realise their dreams in life.

Vision statement: I provide high quality information products that are affordable, exciting, and help everyone who reads them, whilst building up genuine and amazing relationships with my readers and partners. I wake up every morning bursting with energy, excited, and grateful that I have  the ability, knowledge, and deep motivation to keep writing better products.

You’ll notice, in the example above, that the outcome is a little more specific, whilst the vision statement looks at the way I feel when the outcome has been achieved.

Purpose of vision statements

The purpose of a vision statement is to energise you, to stimulate your creativity, to motivate the hell out of you, you feel the outcome, see it, smell it, taste it and it gets your blood pumping.  The feeling is like Christmas morning; you’re all pumped up ready to run through to the living room to open your presents, you can see the presents in your mind, you can hear yourself ripping off the wrapping paper, you can feel the elation as you can see what you asked for from the big man in the red suit, it’s all too much, you feel overwhelmed, and almost burst like a water filled balloon.  That is the purpose of a vision statement. (sorry, got a bit carried away there )

Get outside your comfort zone

When I first started writing my outcomes (I used to call them goals) down and keeping them in a folder, in my money category I used to say things like ‘I am earning £1,500 per month doing something I love’ and do you know what, I am earning £1,500 per month doing something I love; an addiction worker.  However I was way inside my comfort zone.  Now I am a little more specific and think about what I could comfortably live on and realise all my dreams at the same time.  I don’t want to win the lottery, I want to do something I love doing and get paid well for it but still be my own boss, and take care of my family.  £10,000 per month is a figure I came up with, as I originally thought ‘it would be great to earn £5,000 per month’, then I doubled it and said ‘I am earning £10,000 per month’, then I took off all the overheads I would have to pay and added  ‘I am earning £10,000 per month, in profit’, so I got a little outside my comfort zone.

I once read a quote from a story:

“You don’t get million dollar ideas from a ten dollar vision”

Something amazing happens when you do something like this.  Originally I could see no way of earning £5,000 per month, however when I doubled it  and then made it a profit of £10,000 per month, the £5,000 per month did not seem that big an outcome to shoot for.  When we expand our level of expectation, we demand and expect more of ourselves and our minds begin to work for us in ways that we couldn’t have imagined.  Your mind wants a challenge, Give it one!

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is going to be another massive day for everyone.  This is when we will be working on our outcomes for 2011 and beyond.  I promise this is going to be amazing for you.  We will tie together everything we have learned over the last few days and wrap it up into something we can work on every day for the next lifetime.   Until tomorrow my fellow Mind Alchemists……..

Vission statements!

The aim of a vision statement, in this course, is to write a concise statement, 2-3 sentences long that will capture the essence of what you do to achieve your outcome and the feelings, and emotions you feel when have achieved your outcome.

 “You don’t get million dollar ideas from a ten dollar vision”

1. Outcome:   Being 70kg i've lost 41kg and feel great, bounding with energy, able to do everything and healthy
Visions Statement:  I strive to maintain a healthy body with good nutrition and an active lifestyle while having built my confidence and making my body more capable for pregnancy, while sustaining the motivation to keep going and maintain the perfect state to be in.

2. Outcome:   Fortune's Wedding album finished and adored
Visions Statement: I have used all my talents to provide the best visual representation of the images, All the family love the album and would like copies this leads to more wedding/ engagement work.

3. Outcome:      Having the first 2 weeks of c25k done and dusted i am roaring to keep going.
Visions Statement: I'm managing the c25k easily, and see the weight dripping off and the stamina has increased and is still gaining momentum. My legs are toned and lean. Loving the running.


4. Outcome:     The Blogs are flourishing and being read and followed daily. I've gained ability to write and have the confidence to expand
Visions Statement: I learn the most interesting ways or ideas behind fitness and nutrition forwarding these ideas onto a growing audience of readers that are gaining knowledge confiedenct and fitness by following my ideas

Day 3

So its onwards and upwards to Value Defining

Day 3

Mind Alchemy Day 3

Welcome to day 3 of the MIND Alchemy course, I hope you are enjoying it so far and ready to take the next step on your journey?

We spoke yesterday of our motivation direction.  You should now know what general direction your motivations lye, either ‘away from’ or ‘toward’.

Now you know what your motivation direction is, it’s time to learn how to inject a little fire into your outcomes, which we will be working on in day 5.

Today we will be looking at our core values, which guide our whole life on an unconscious level.  we’ll look at ways of developing new values and look at the values that guide our life just now.

A lot of us have lost our direction in life, we’ve forgotten what we believe in, what values are most important to us and we wander aimlessly through life not standing for anything or anyone.

Making decisions becomes harder and harder, because we don’t know what our values and principles are in life, therefore we don’t know what we stand for.

Think about the most respected people that you know, people that you admire.  Sometimes you might not know why you admire them so much, but if you look close enough, you’ll more than likely find it’s because they live their lives based on their values and principles, values that guide them through life and values that they don’t deviate from; they stand to protect.

What is a value?

Simply put our values are psychological constructs which determine the way we act, the way we dress, who our friends are, our self confidence, our beliefs; in essence our very being.

An example of values could be when you meet someone new in the workplace and have befriended them. You find out they have started to lie about silly little things and slowly your original opinion of them begins to change if one of your core values is to always be honest and transparent. If you find out this person lies all the time then chances are you will never be good friends as their values differ dramatically from yours. This is a simple example and obviously if that person has other values which match yours then there will be a play off as to which values win out.

Values provide valuable filters for us to live our lives and to a degree control the way we think about something or someone, control the way we behave and control how we act emotionally to the world around us, in other words the way we live our lives.

When we see the most successful people around the world we can quickly see what their values are how they have managed to get where they are today. people like Oprah Winfrey , Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Eben Pagan, Richard Branson, and Martha Stewart to name only a few. Their values obviously include; self-reliance, hard work, commitment, discipline and more if we were to dig a little deeper.

Away from and toward values

Just like yesterday we have values we move ‘away from’ and we have values we move ‘toward’.

You will no doubt have seen in the news recently that the people of Tunisia stood up for their values, and collectively managed to bring about a change in government after President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was forced to step down.  This came about because the people of Tunisia became increasingly disillusioned with the government over unemployment, food price rises and corruption.  They fought for what they believed in, stood up for their values and brought about change.  Many people lost their lives by standing up to their values.

What were their values here? For a lot of them their values of security, comfort, and freedom will have been obstructed because of their perceived corrupt government.  They wanted to move ‘toward’ their values of Freedom, security, and comfort so when one or more of those values were challenged they stood up and fought for those values.

Living by your values

I believe one of the ways to be truly happy in life is to live by our values, even if other people don’t agree with them, you’ll be known as a person of integrity, someone who stands up for what they believe in.

” We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values..”
Barack Obama

How are values formed?

Your values are formed from a very early age through a process called imprinting and mostly influenced by your primary and secondary caregivers.

As you get older your values can be aligned with the teachers who work with you, your friends, and role models you associate with.
The power of values is what makes our society tick, laws are based around values, wars are waged because of cultural values, groups are formed through a shared set of values. Almost everybody we are friends with will have shared values.
When we keep digging we will find that values affect every aspect of our lives and that is why I believe it is so important to know your values and change and adapt our values.

How to know your values?

A simple exercise in finding out what your values are is to look at what you don’t like either about yourself or someone else. For example ask the questions;

Do you like people who are lazy?
Do you like people who are dishonest?
Do you like people who are pessimistic?
Do you like people who rely on you to get things done?
Do you like people who are closed minded?
Do you like people who are unfaithful?
By looking at the questions above you will discover what some of your values are, simply by knowing what you don’t like in other people.  If you don’t like the fact that someone is dishonest one of your values, either weak or strong, is honesty.
To figure out more of your own values look at someone you like a lot and ask yourself what you like about them, conversely look at someone you don’t like and ask yourself what you don’t like about them, you will soon have a long list of values.  More digging will uncover a list of values you would like to have or like to strengthen about yourself. A lot of people say I wish I was more like ‘her’ or ‘him’. What we are really saying is that we wish we could acquire their values.
An example of this would be assertive people. They are admired a lot because they can stand up for themselves and seem to say the right thing at the right time. A lot of people would like to have their values of; honesty, respect for others, self-reliance, independence, integrity etc. So if you admire a trait about someone, dig out the core values of that trait and align it with your own and work on the values that make up that particular trait.
You will find that everyone you admire and the qualities you like about them can be traced back to their core values and it is often transparent. so there’s no need to run up to Bill Gates and say ‘Excuse me Mr Gates, I know you’re a busy man, but could you possibly tell me what your core values are?’ This is not necessary because a little observation on your part can uncover their core values. NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) is based upon finding the good traits of others and modeling yourself on them. Steve Andreas in his book ‘NLP – The technology of achievement’ states that “If one person can do something, anyone can learn to do it.”

Today’s exercise – Deciding what values you want

It’s now time to look at some values and decide what ones you would like to have:

Download today’s exercise worksheet

Part 1

Part 2

You might not be able to choose 10 values for every category, but it’s worth the effort of trying.

All of the values in the exercise are what we call ‘toward’ values i.e. Values that we want to bring into our life and that we aspire to live by these values.

We also have to look at the values that we want to move away from and that cause us pain in some way, however I think this exercise is big enough for now and we will skip looking at your ‘away from’ values.

Start living your core values

You will most likely have some of the values you have ticked from the todays worksheet  and are already living them however there will be other ones which you are not living but would like to start living. Start putting them into practice immediately and start aligning yourself with your new values.  Your might have higher priority values depending on the life category it’s in for example you might value honesty higher in your family category than in your workplace, as other values take precedence in the workplace.

An example of this could be the value of ‘Hard-working’; if you’ve previously been a lazy so and so and not too bothered about your quality of work, and want to be a hard worker start telling yourself that you are hard working and care about your work and take actions that show this. Start to look for evidence to prove that you are a hard worker, make the belief stronger.  The more you do this the more hard working you will become and the more your new core value is imprinted in your mind. Does that sound too easy? that’s because it is easy. The hard part is uncovering a value you would like to become aligned to.

Values change

It’s important to remember that our values change over time, so it’s important not to adopt a value and think it’s rigid and cannot change.  I am sure your value of health has changed from when you were 16 to your current value of health, at 16 we probably didn’t even think about our health.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow we will be working on ‘Personal Vision statements’. Until tomorrow my fellow Mind Alchemists…

All of the values in the exercise are what we call ‘toward’ values i.e. Values that we want to bring into our life and that we aspire to live by these values.

We also have to look at the values that we want to move away from and that cause us pain in some way, however I think this exercise is big enough for now and we will skip looking at your ‘away from’ values.

 ok so values for each section from the list of 350 are ( the first few in order- repeat values different colour):
Health-

1. Achievement 
2. health 
3. fitness
4. balance
5. diligence
6. drive
7.  energy
8. enjoyment
9. motivation
10. satisfaction
11. strength
12. vitality

Money

1. Simplicity 
2. Stability
3. abundance
4. efficiancy
5. organisation
6. security
7. sagacity
8. prosperity
9. wealth
10. restraint
11. economy
12. sucess  

Family

1. Appreciation
2. Love
3. passion
4. affection
5. acceptance
6. synergy
7. stability
8. sponteniet
9. harmony
10. tidiness
11. trust
12. balance

Personal Development

1. Organisation
2. confidence
3. acceptance
4. articularcy
5. dignity
6. integrity
7. intuition
8. success
9. creativity
10. honesty
11.  hygiene
12. populariy

Career

1. Brilliance
2. achievement
3. creativity
4. imagination
5. variety
6. uniqueness
7. calmness
8. direction
9. mastery
10. self reliance
11. flow
12. adroitness

Recreation

1. pleasure
2. creativity
3. balance
4. solitude
5. inspiration
6. achievement
7. credibility
8. flow

Spirit

1. Tranquility
2. clarity
3. wisdom
4. wonder
5. resiliance
6. grace
7. delight
8.  comraderie
9. open mindedness
10. spirit
11. solidarity
12. altruism

Goals

1. Achievement
2. acknowledgement
3. accuracy
4. adroitness
5. self control
6. liveleness
7. longevity
8. joy
9. knowledge
10. leadership
11. mindfulness
12. order

There are some values i aim to have or live by that dont really fit into any of those specific slots

• ammusement
• attractuvebessáydacity
• beauty
• belonging
• eagerness
• elegance
• family
• inventiveness
• logic
• sanguinity
• sensuality
• cheerfulness
• composre
• desire
• fidelity
• humour
• insightfulness
• persistence
• poise
• resourcefulness

day 2

day 2
oday is another gentle day, but another powerful one.  When I have spoken to people about this in the past it’s always been a surprise to them to find out what their motivation direction is.

I’d like you to think about your motivation direction and what your primary direction is.

What is Motivation Direction?

You might have heard already that all motivation is either moving away from pain or moving toward pleasure.  Most of us tend to have a dominant direction.  This is a completely unconscious direction and many of us will never have thought about it before.  However if we consciously think about it we can begin to strengthen our motivation, and that’s the aim of today’s exercise.

Your motivation direction is asking yourself if you are moving toward pleasure or moving away from pain.  Think about the words you use when you are hoping to fulfil your outcomes in life.

For example if you want to stop smoking you might think to yourself; ‘I want to stop people nagging me about smoking’, ‘I don’t want to spend so much money on cigarettes’, ‘I don’t want to get cancer’.

You’ll notice all the above reasons for giving up have a ‘don’t want to’ about them.  So the primary motivation is moving away pain: Moving away from the pain of getting cancer, moving away from people nagging, moving away from the pain of spending so much money.

Another person, who smokes and wants to give up, has a different reality from you might be thinking; ‘I want to be much healthier’, ‘I want to be able to climb that mountain I’ve always wanted to climb.’ ‘I want to fit in socially’.

All of the reasons above have a ‘want to’ statement in them.  The primary motivation here is moving toward pleasure: Moving toward being healthy, moving toward climbing that mountain.

Toward Motivation

People who move toward what they want in life tend to look at the possibilities of the future, with little regard for the obstacles that could get in their way.

Away from Motivation

People who move away from what they don’t want in life are people who look at solving the problems in their life in order to make it easier for themselves and others.

Thinking about your own motivation

Download a copy of Motivation Direction worksheet

Think about 4 of your smaller outcomes for the next month e.g. To give up smoking, to go to the gym 3 times per week, to lose weight, to get another job.

Look at the words you use and determine if your motivation direction is moving away from pain, or moving toward pleasure.  Once you have done this for all of your short term outcomes you should begin to build up a pattern of your motivation direction and what your primary direction is.

This becomes important when we go on to do the work on your outcomes which we will spend a lot of time on in day 5 of the course.

Increasing your motivation

You will notice that sometimes you are ‘away motivated’ and sometimes you are ‘toward motivated’.  If you find yourself putting something off, or your ‘away from’ motivation is not particularly strong, you can use your imagination to make it stronger, completely change direction or use a combination of both directions to help you fulfil your outcomes.

For example:

I used to be a smoker, I told myself I enjoyed it and it didn’t matter what anybody said I was going to continue to smoke.  Then due to the kids getting at me all the time and feeling their worry about me dying from smoking, I decided to give up.  Well when you give up for someone else and not for yourself it can be a recipe for disaster.  I was away from motivated: I wanted my children to stop worrying, and I wanted them to stop getting on at me (just some of the reasons to give up).  I set a date in my head and made the move to stop smoking.

I realised that the images in my head weren’t particularly strong, I would imagine the boys nagging at me, but it was off in the distance, I imagined them worrying, but the image was very small and not very bright.  So I blew the images up, made them close, made the sounds boom at me, I put myself right in the picture and sure enough my motivation would increase.  I also decided to use a mixed approach, some ‘toward motivation’ images, such as me being healthy, playing around with my boys without feeling out of breath and really made the movie inside my head bright, colourful, up close, loud, and very vivid.  I also used some ‘away motivation’ as I mentioned above.

So, knowing what your motivation direction can be important.  Knowing how you are seeing the images and movies in your head is also very important.  If the images in your head are small, in black and white, off into the distance, bring everything up very close, make it bright and colourful, make the sounds loud, and use as many of your senses as possible. Also think about your outcomes often whilst making them as vivid as possible.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow we will be looking at unearthing your core principles and adding some new ones as a way to live your life.  Until tomorrow my fellow Mind Alchemists……..

Motivational Direction
Today we look at weather we move towards pleasure or away from pain.
I think this is a bit vague for me as its not 100% black and white.
Only someone who catagorically thinks in the black and white manner can think that..... and i dont think i do.
Take one eg. Loose 40kg-- its that away from pain because i hate being this size and uncomfortable or towards pleasure because i want to be healthy, able to get pg and be a size 12?  its not one or the other, its both!

But as i degress it occurs to me i should just do the set thinking for today, and not over think it all

after going through my list of goals and marking them as T or A i find myself with a score of - 9xT and 4xA which makes me a towards type person, and that worries me.

Toward Motivation

People who move toward what they want in life tend to look at the possibilities of the future, with little regard for the obstacles that could get in their way.

Away from Motivation

People who move away from what they don’t want in life are people who look at solving the problems in their life in order to make it easier for themselves and others.

To me, from the above quote, it seems to be that Towards people wont succeed ( or at least succeed easily) because they dont consider any obstacles. Where as away people see every possibility and think of the path that makes it easier to cope and overcome... but here is my homework

Think about 4 of your smaller outcomes for the next month 
fill out the following
1)
Outcome: I will have lost 6.2kg by March 17th ( 5.5weeks = 1.1kg a week)
Why do you want outcome: To complete the goal on time. Up my motivation to keep going and give me something to be pleased about to help get through the 1yr anniversary of dad's death.
Motivation Direction: Towards and away from

2)
Outcome: Finish Post Processing and album design on all images
Why do you want outcome: To get album printed in time for delivery. Stop Jasmine Hassling me
Motivation Direction:  Towards ... completion  & away from hassling


3)
Outcome: Complete at least 2 weeks of Couch to 5km program
Why do you want outcome: To increase fitness and muscle toning
Motivation Direction:  Towards completing the physical challenge of the system


4)
Outcome: have Posted 3 blog posts a week, ( so atleast 12 posts total) both for personal and for JKS
Why do you want outcome: Increase writting ability, gather a folowing and motivate the girls to follow through
Motivation Direction:  Towards. goal and improved skills 

So the next month is all about TOWARDS with a little away from ;)