The Power Of Words

This story is so good I have to share it:

The Power Of Words

A group of frogs were traveling through the woods, and two of them fell into a deep pit. All the other frogs gathered around the pit. When they saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead.

The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all of their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. He fell down and died.

The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out.

When he got out, the other frogs said, "Did you not hear us?" The frog explained to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.

This story gives us thoughts to think about:

1. An encouraging word to someone who is down can encourage them to achieve their goal.

2. A destructive word to someone who is down can have negative effects. Be careful of what you say.

- Author Unknown

7 Ways to Go From Distress to De-stress

In our continually changing environment, our bodies and minds are suffering from wear and tear. We call it STRESS. Sometimes it’s family problems, money problems, or problems at work. However, we all have to deal with it from day to day. Having stress in your life is not the issue these days, how you cope with it is more important. Living a healthy lifestyle is one way to reduce the stress levels. When you’re living healthy, you just automatically cope with stress better. Developing ways to deal with your stress makes you more resilient, more energetic, with concentration that is more effective.

The first step to determining how you handle stress is knowing what causes it. Many find keeping a stress journal very helpful for understanding not only the causes, but also for giving you insight as to how you react. Use it to record each event in your life, how you’re feeling, exactly what causes you to feel stressed and out of control, or in other words, the patterns of stress in your life.

Once you’ve determined the cause or causes of stress in your life, you can then go about finding ways to de-stress, or decompress, bringing harmony back into your life.

1) Relaxation techniques, such as music are very effective in calming your harried mind. Music helps by calming you down, giving your mind a chance to relax if only for a few minutes. Find a quiet place, where you can be alone, pop in a CD of soft sounds, such as ocean waves or falling rain. Experiment until you determine which sound makes you feel relaxed and calm. Turn on the CD, close your eyes and take a deep breath. Focus on the sound, push everything else from your mind. Let your muscles relax, one at a time. Let yourself just get lost in the sound.

2) Breathing techniques are very helpful and can be used almost anywhere, even at work. Once again, find a quiet place to sit down. Close your eyes and take a deep breath, then let it out. Take the next breath slowly, counting to five, hold that breath to the count of four, then release it very slowly. This works particularly well if you feel a bit panicky. When in panic mode, the body tends to breathe very fast and shallow, intensifying the feeling of fight-or-flight. Doing this breathing technique for fifteen or twenty minutes will be very calming.

3) Sleep is so important, especially during extremely stressful times, but stress often makes getting to sleep very difficult. The thoughts keep swirling around in your mind, keeping you awake. Let your body get used to a routine by keeping the same bedtime each night, even on weekends. In addition, several hours before bedtime, give your brain a chance to wind down. Avoid any mentally demanding work and agitation. Cutting back on alcohol and caffeine will help you fall asleep more easily. Instead of watching television, find a nice relaxing, book. Before you know it, your body will relax, your eyes will close, and you’ll drift off for a great night’s sleep.

4) Exercise is another great way to de-stress your body and your mind. It improves blood flow to the brain, bringing it more oxygen. Believe it or not, long hours of sitting and thinking cause the neurons of your brain to build up toxic waste products. If you’ve ever experienced that foggy feeling, that feeling that your brain has turned to mush, this is why. Exercise releases chemicals called endorphins, into your blood stream. These endorphins are what give you that happy feeling, a feeling of well-being. When the pressure is on, it’s the more physically fit people who are able to fight off illness. You’ll stay healthier and suffer less from burnout. Please remember to talk to your doctor before starting an exercise program. In addition, keep in mind that exercise should be fun. If it stops being fun, you’ll stop exercising.

5) Try and spend time with your loved ones. Relaxing with family and friends is a great stress reliever. Finding fun activities will make you feel happy, relaxed, and more able to handle the day-to-day stress. They say laughter is the best medicine, so laugh and enjoy life whenever you can. Take regular vacations. Not only will you enjoy the break from work and home duties, but just the act of planning and looking forward to the vacation will improve your state of mind. Sometimes, anticipation is half the fun.

6) Find a hobby or a sport that you enjoy. If your work is very competitive, try and find something that will allow you to relax and enjoy yourself. Reading, gardening, sewing, etc. allows your mind to focus on something besides the worries. Moreover, working with your hands and being creative is very freeing.

7) Try a little positive thinking. Use your imagination to conjure up positive images and thoughts of your desired outcome. It’s a fact that optimists enjoy increased health and long life, have less stress, and are able to move forward and succeed where others might quit. We all have to expect some failures, some sorrow and frustration, but we don’t have to let them rule our lives. Find some like-minded friends who will remind you of your successes now and then. Focus on realistic goals and remember that failure isn’t fatal. And don’t be so hard on yourself. Tomorrow is another day.

Two mental skills that make all the difference

Here they are:

1)Getting started
2)Sticking with it

Also known as action-focus and persistence.
With these two virtues highly developed nothing can stop you. But how do you develop them?
Simple: Focus on one virtue every other month. Then, every day whenever you have a meal (this means 3 times) you remind yourself of working on that character trait. In the evening you have a little notepad or calendar and there you note on a scale of 1 to 10 how well you did today. 3 points for reminding yourself, the other seven for how well you did. Work on action-focus one month and on persistence the other month. Of course the two overlap to a great degree. The goal is to turn you into a person that can get things done.
Okay,
back to work.

Assigning Success Qualities

I want to share this inspiring story about a potential failure who turned into a success magnet. Here it is:

My Dad's way of disciplining me when I was growing up could have made me a big time failure, had I not realized its consequences in time.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love my Dad very much, and I respect him. I'm sharing this story for the purpose of making you aware of things that could set you up for failure, so you can avoid them.

Now back to the story. When I was a young boy growing up, I oftentimes make mistakes (as small boys usually do). Everytime I do something stupid or something that my Dad doesn't like, he would say things like "You're not using your head", "This is common sense stuff, and you don't know it", "Your cousin is much better than you are", etc.

My Dad often made me feel like I'm a stupid person, that all other people are smarter and much better than me.

He said that it's his way of disciplining me, so that I can grow up to be a better person.

As I grew up, his words often echo in my head. In due time, his words made their way to my subconscious. I was literally telling myself that "I am stupid" or "I am a failure" every time I make a mistake.

And I indeed failed in a lot of my endeavors. It was very frustrating for me to keep on failing and being a nobody.

But because I simply cannot accept my fate, I read all sorts of self-improvement books to get out of my predicament.

And that's when I found out what's wrong with me. I've let my Dad's negative words about me become a part of my life. And because I accepted his teachings as words of wisdom, I took on the personality of a failure.

They say that people act or behave according to how you treat them. So if you treat, let's say, an average student as a genius, and tell him that his performance exhibits that of a highly intellectual person, he will indeed become a very smart person. Try it; you'll be shocked.

I have also learned how to become a human filter. To become one, you must learn to filter out negative comments or suggestions. You know yourself better than anyone else. So block out all those pessimistic views, while you absorb the positive ones.

And of course, I never listened to those who have nothing good to say. I just know deep inside that I'm fully capable of doing things which they don't think I can do. That's how I got over it.

They say that opinion is the cheapest commodity. And because different people have different opinions, you just can't simply accept the viewpoint of one person as the standard rule.

If you're a parent, assign positive qualities to your children, even if they don't have those qualities yet. Tell them they're smart, and they will indeed become smart. That's the power of the subconscious mind.

Affirmations don't work, unless..

Affirmation is a powerful self-improvement technique. But my friend and I are talking about some reasons why it won't work.

For example, if you're affirming, "I am a self-made millionaire," but you're in a tight situation with debts to pay, your subconscious would dismiss your affirmation simply because it's not true.

To counter this, you can alter your wordings to "I choose to become a self-made millionaire," and "I am moving forward to becoming a self-made millionaire."

You also must have the belief and the proper mindset to make affirmations effective. In order to reinforce your belief, express a little gratitude and say "thank you" after reciting your affirmation.
By saying "thank you," you made it seem like the affirmation is already manifesting or happening.

And of course, repetition and emotions are essential ingredients. Recite your affirmations repeatedly and feel them already manifesting in your life.

Stuff they Fail to Teach in School

Recently I finished reading “Rich Dad, Poor Dad.” After reading it, I realized school really doesn't prepare us much for financial life – or even self improvement. Go to college, get a job, be a subordinate (maybe get a promotion); and that's the way to get ahead. But nowadays, even that doesn't work!

With everybody here having different backgrounds, I'm not sure if your school taught these things or not, but mine certainly didn't. I'm only beginning to learn. I was never taught how to save money in school. My conservative parents schooled me on that and I still don't have it right

My question: can anybody think of other VERY important things about life and personal growth schools should be teaching? Maybe courses like Effective Entrepreneurship 101 or how to build your assets column with income producing assets – something like that...

We need a bit of laughter

Hi Friends,
My kids never stop amusing me.
I don’t know if they feel that I am sitting doing my new project and scratching my head and need a break or what, but every time I am stuck in some bug searching expedition, email with a good joke from them arrived.
I am working on my new project/website and, you know story, bug after bug, tweak after tweak, few extra grey hair and …ting… email from my kids with a joke. I would like to share it with you.




GREAT TRUTHS THAT LITTLE CHILDREN HAVE LEARNED:

1) No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats.
2) When your Mum is mad at your Dad, don't let her brush
your hair.
3) If your sister hits you, don't hit her back. They always
catch the second person.
4) Never ask your 3-year old brother to hold a tomato.
5) You can't trust dogs to watch your food.
6) Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.
7) Never hold a Dust-Buster and a cat at the same time.
8) You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.
9) Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts.
10) The best place to be when you're sad is Grandpa's lap.



GREAT TRUTHS THAT ADULTS HAVE LEARNED:

1) Raising teenagers is like nailing jelly to a tree.
2) Wrinkles don't hurt.
3) Families are like fudge...mostly sweet, with a few nuts.
4) Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held
its ground.
5) Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.
6) Middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fiber,
not the toy.





GREAT TRUTHS ABOUT GROWING OLD

1) Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.
2) Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I
can get.
3) When you fall down, you wonder what else you can do while
you're down there.
4) You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a
rocking chair that you once got from a roller coaster.
5) It's frustrating when you know all the answers but nobody
bothers to ask you the questions.
6) Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician.
7) Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.




THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE:

1) You believe in Santa Claus.
2) You don't believe in Santa Claus.
3) You are Santa Claus.
4) You look like Santa Claus.



SUCCESS:

At age 4 success is . . . not piddling in your pants.
At age 12 success is . . . having friends.
At age 17 success is . . having a drivers license.
At age 35 success is . . having money.
At age 50 success is . . . having money.
At age 70 success is . .. . having a drivers license.
At age 75 success is . . . having friends.
At age 80 success is . . . not piddling in your pants.



Pass this on to someone who could use a laugh.

Always remember to forget the troubles that pass your way;
BUT NEVER forget the blessings that come each day.


Have a wonderful day with many *smiles*


Take the time to live!!!
Life is too short. Dance naked