Yes, visualizing is a great exercise. However, at the same time, there is no denying that your negative thoughts and feelings related to achieving your dreams have been causing you to feel down. Instead of feeling uplifted, you experience a drain in your energy shortly after. And you become caught in a downward spiral for the day.

What you need to understand is this: your current habit patterns of thought, words and behavior – which essentially affects your paradigm – have already attracted your current situation. This means that if you are hoping for something better than what you are currently already enjoying, you would need to make a change. In energetic terms, you would need to move vibrationally upwards in order to attract a new set of reality. The Law of Attraction explains it as “like attracts like”.

Conscious intent for change

So if you are habitually having negative thoughts and feeling poor, then it is time to make a conscious intent for change. How are habits formed in the first place? Through conditioning. It may be through your parents, caregivers, friends, teachers, and so on. Conditioning usually starts at a young age. Via repeated affirming experiences, a habit is formed. Or you simply have adopted the belief that you have as told. Over time, the act, behavior or thought becomes an automatic response from you.

Habits are not all that bad to begin with. A regular habit of brushing teeth or drinking water is a good one. Adopting habits offer routines to help us organize our lives. However, without awareness, it is possible to have cultivated bad habits that sabotages our well-being. We are not usually conscious of these until we repeatedly find ourselves being held back because of our bad habits.

Bad habits can take the form of using vulgar words, for instance. Since words arise from seeds of thoughts in the first place, you would be aware that the mind has not having a negative thinking. When expressed with plenty of emotions, the vulgar words have a strong energetic resonance to them. Most certainly, a habit of spewing vulgarity would be unhelpful if you are hoping to exude love, patience and expansiveness – all important attributes to abundance.

Someone once said to me, “no change is necessary because it comes from a place of dissatisfaction from the self. And if we understand how complete we are, all that we are motivated to move towards is not necessary.” There are some nuggets of truth but allow me to explain my perspective to make things clearer.

Change is best viewed not as a “have to” or “must”. It is really more like a flow. A constant flow. To begin with, everything in life is in a state of flow. And change is innate in life’s second-to-second movements. So when we loosen up to our shoulds and musts, we become more at peace with the change. There is no destination that we are hoping to reach. We come from a space of moving into alignment rather than a disatisfaction. We are not reacting to the moments of apparent conflict. We allow our true self to unfold.

And hence, if we choose to view “change” appropriately, then the shift happens – with much ease.

What are your thoughts on this?

Somewhere out in the ether of the world there is a desire, a little desire that is lost and travelling, not knowing where it is going.  The desire is searching for someone, without a name, without a face, without an age, without a gender, all the desire knows is that someone might find it someday and without knowing why or how, the desire will know who it’s rightful owner will be.

The vibration of the desire is matched to the vibration of the person looking for it and can only be found when the right vibrations are in alignment.  The desire, no matter where in the ether it is, will be pulled, instantaneously to the person who is ready for it.

Meanwhile back on earth, another part of the ether, there is someone like you who has an inkling of a desire.  You start to think you want something in your life and the feeling is getting stronger.  You’ve tried before to get this but it has  not come to you yet.  What do you need to do to change the vibrational frequency of the desire in order to bring it to you?

5 Steps To Attaining Your Desires

• Ask for the desire to come to you

So many of us are afraid to ask for the things we want in life.  You deserve the things you want in your life, no matter what you think.  The thing is, that your desire will only manifest itself with the work you put into getting it, however if you fall at the first hurdle and don’t ask for it you will never ever receive it into your life.

• Think about the desire often

I used to think that if I thought about the desire too much I would squeeze the life out of it.  However, now I think about my desires often but I almost caress them and cherish the thoughts I have about the desires, so I am not squeezing the life out of them.

• Let go of the need for the desire

Following on from the previous step I have found, time and time again, as soon as I let go of the need for the desire it comes to me a lot quicker.

To illustrate this: Before I got married I was always looking for the perfect woman for me.  I felt I wanted to settle down as I had had enough of playing the field and from the age of around 28 I felt I was ready.  However, nobody came along that matched my idea of the perfect woman: Intelligent, witty, beautiful, petite, assertive, and loving.  On the 19th July 2002, At the age of 32, I walked along Argyle street in Glasgow and told myself I am giving up my active search to meet my perfect woman and would remain single, and if the right person walked into my life then so be it.  I really meant it, I totally let go of finding the right woman for me.

On the night of the 19th July 2002 I was cajoled to go on a night out that I had previously said no to.  2 hours later my perfect woman walked through the door wearing a red T-Shirt, brown cords and a beautiful smile.  We have now been married for 5 years and together for nearly 8 years with two wonderful sons.

• Believe the desire will come

You would think this was a given, but a lot of us want things in our life without really believing we can get them.  I know I have a few things I want that when I question them and really examine them, deep down, I don’t believe I can have them, although this is something I am working on.  For the most part I deep down believe I can get most of my desires.

The thing with beliefs and desires is that once you believe and get one of the ‘big desires’ it is much easier to get another big one or a bigger one: success begets success.

• Accept the desire when it comes

This part might sound a little strange, but a lot of us can’t accept success when it comes to us.  Be prepared, mentally, for the success of attaining your desire and you will be able to handle it a lot better.  To get prepared for success, picture yourself, often, having your desire and how you would act and feel when you have it, really dig deep and be honest.

It’s already happened

Our desires are waiting in the ether, floating around waiting for us to imagine it possible, not the other way around of us thinking of our desires and then they start forming to come to us.

Everything you truly desire in your life, and I say truly because the desire to have lots of money, a big house and fancy cars are not real desires, they are pipe dreams.  A desire is something you’re willing to work towards and to take action to attain.  If you sit on the couch, eating a pizza and slurping coke all day whilst watching  a fitness video and wishing for a perfect body, it’s not going to happen whereas if you watch the fitness video and actually do the workouts day in day out your desire will come to you.

Everything you truly desire in life has already been given to you, life is just the game you play to retrace the steps back to your perfect self.

“A remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection.”

How then can we increase coincidences in our life? This is what this article will look at and hopefully help you on your path to reaching your goals quicker and easier.

A look at coincidence

For a coincidence to have any meaning we first have to recognize the importance of a coincidence and it’s meaning. That is to say, a coincidence is not a coincidence if we don’t recognize it as such.

How then to recognize a coincidence. When our minds are open to the possibilities of coincidences we will see them more and perhaps act on them. Acting on a coincidence simply means; recognizing it and doing something with it, if possible.

To give you an example of a coincidence which was acted upon. I have been thinking about writing a book for a while now and was still swithering whether or not to do it. A few weeks ago I jumped in the car, turned on the radio and hear Elvis Costello singing ‘Everyday I write the book’, a song I haven’t heard on the radio for over 20 years. I immediately thought that it was strange and started laughing to myself (not something I do all the time). I keep driving but switch radio stations and hear the radio presenter interviewing someone. The presenter had just finished asking his question, so when I tuned in I heard the guests reply: “If you’ve got a book inside you, the flame keeps burning. The only way to put the flame out is to write the book and get it out there.” or words to that effect.

To the person observing from the outside that seems like a coincidence of no particular importance. To me it meant something totally different and I acted on it, taking it as a sign. Whether it is a sign or not is irrelevant, the fact is that had I not heard the radio that day I might not have decided to write the book and try and get representation.

So, coincidences, whether you see them as chance happenings or divine messages can change your life. We all know of stories of amazing coincidences and how someone’s life has changed as a result of a coincidence. Why then don’t we try to increase our chances of a coincidence happening to us.

5 Steps to increasing your coincidence factor

1. Open up your mind

It does not matter if you know coincidence to be a matter of probability or if you believe it’s a sign from the ‘world mind’, opening up your mind to coincidences will increase your chances of spotting them and acting upon them.

2. Look for the signs

When we concentrate on our goals in life the chances are that you will see signs pertaining to your goals. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for these signs. The signs will be obvious. I am not talking about signs that would take a cryptographer months to figure out as we could read anything we see and hear to be a sign if we really look hard enough. I am talking about the obvious, in your face, signs, like the example I gave above.

3. Follow the signs

When you spot a coincidence, follow it, if you can, and see where it leads you. The signs might not lead you anywhere but it’s a hell of a lot of fun following them and sometimes they will lead you to a life changing event. Sometimes the coincidences just encourage us to keep going or give us a personal message, a message that is there for everyone to see however a message which we can take as a sign for ourselves.

4. Get yourself out there

Chance meetings, strange coincidences, and divine messages will never happen if we hole ourselves up in a bedroom with no TV, radio, or contact with the outside world. So, to increase your chances of reaching your goals in life quicker and to increase your coincidence factor, take action toward your goals. Taking action means putting yourself in alignment with your goals and seeking out ways to increase your chances of reaching your goals. If you want to be a famous chef, you’ll never get anywhere if you just cook for yourself.

5. The snowball effect

Once you have started opening up and accepting coincidences in your life, you will start to notice them more often. I believe this is you aligning yourself with an energetic force, an invisible force which can be used to better your life and the lives of others. The more you open up the more you will receive.

Esoteric nonsense?

Is this just a lot of new age nonsense, not worth the pixels on your computer? Only you can decide that.

“From the small cracks in life, lie the biggest opportunities”

Is money the root of all evil?

We have been programmed to believe that the pursuit of money is bad and it’s not good for the soul.  This is without doubt one of the biggest lies we have been told as children, that and Santa Claus (I was gutted when I was told that Santa was a lie and I was 23 imagine how children feel!)

You’ve more than likely heard these sayings in your life:

• ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees you know’
• ‘We can’t afford it’
• ‘Money can’t buy you happiness’
• ‘The rich get richer and the poor get poorer’
• ‘To make more money you have to work harder’
• ‘Money is the root of all evil’

Until you rid yourself of the guilt of trying to better yourself financially you can’t begin to create more money into your life.  We’ll speak about four steps to creating more money in your life a bit later but for now I’d like to speak about the difference between greed and making more money.

Greed and money

Thinking of some of my heroes I used to think why would they try and make more money when they obviously don’t need it.  I am thinking of people like Richard Branson, James Dyson, Warren Buffet and Tony Robbins to name but a few.  However when reading their biographies, watching and listening to them on interviews it is clear their goal is not to make more money but to feel alive by building on their brand and their customer loyalty, with the possible exception of Warren Buffet who is an investment genius.  So their goal is not to make more money it is a by-product of their goal of achieving more in their life.  They are also philanthropists and they give back a hell of a lot to the world in the form of donations, settings up schools, giving knowledge and time to the younger generation.  This is not greed it’s a desire to reach their potential, which is what Abraham Maslow speaks about in his ‘hierarchy of needs’ theory.

Greed is a different animal altogether.  Greed is defined in the ‘New Oxford English Dictionary’ as: ‘Intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power or food.’ If your goal is to create more money into your life simply for your own selfish needs then life will be empty after a while.  Giving back something to the world in the form of money, knowledge, education, and time is something everyone should strive for, I believe.

Four steps to creating more money in your life

I have learned these lessons the hard way and it has taken me over twenty years to finally be able to understand them, from the beginnings of selling sweets in the playground to where I am now.  I still want to make more money and be financially able to do whatever I want but I am closer to my goal than when I first started out.

Step one – Blasting through your limiting beliefs

As I said in the beginning of this post we have been programmed to believe the pursuit of money and wealth is not good.  Get rid of this thought as quickly as you can for it will hinder you from making progress in your life’s goal to create more money in your life.  Money is the pathway to freedom for yourself and for others in your life.  You will have the ability to help more people by being wealthy than you will be by being poor.  Think of this for a moment:

More money in your life will mean you will buy more, when you buy more it means small and large businesses can stay in business, when they stay in business it means the banks can lend more money to them to expand therefore keeping the banks in business, when the banks are healthy financially it means they can lend more to people for loans and mortgages, when mortgages are purchased it means house builders are thriving, when house builders thrive it means more choice for house buyers and more social housing stock, when there is more social housing stock it means people getting out of poverty and bad housing conditions…………………….this could go on and on.

Look at the situation just now and what has happened to the whole economy because the banks have made poor decisions.  However we as a nation are perpetuating the situation by not spending the way we used to and if we are really honest our situation has not really changed we still earn the same monthly income, the price of food is the same, the price of clothes has gone down, the price of cars has gone down so we should be spending the same to keep the economy afloat.  However because a global financial crisis is great news for newspapers they print their horror stories and suddenly people have stopped spending, small businesses are going bust, house builders have stopped building and banks have stopped lending.  Do you think if the ‘Global Crisis’ was never reported on TV, on the internet or in newspapers we would be in this situation right now, I definitely believe we wouldn’t.  Yes this is an overly simplistic view of how the economy works but believe me when I say there are people out there making millions because the herd have listened to the media.

You were born to reach your full potential and that certainly does not mean living in poverty and scrimping and saving to get by in life.  There is enough money in the world for everyone to thrive and that includes you.  It’s time to open up your mind to the possibilities of making more money.

Step 2 – Creating your future

You can’t row your own boat until you know your destination.    You can certainly row someone else’s boat and that is what most of us do in life.  We go to school, leave and then go to university, leave and then row someone else’s boat by working for them, then we jump off the boat after 45 years service and retire when it’s almost too late to really enjoy life.  That’s not a life it’s an existence.

Rowing your own boat means controlling your own life.  yes it also means taking more risks and failing more but you will learn a hell of a lot about the world works and how you work and how to better yourself.  To do this you have to know what you want to do with your life, you need dreams to follow, you need a vision to hold and passion to drive you.

Start small, think big and build yourself up from there.  What do you want in life?

Now you know what you want you need to know how you get it.

Step 3 – Help someone create their dream

Yours dreams are undoubtedly different from mine however the key to making more money in your life is to help people realise their dreams.  What I mean by this is create something or pass on knowledge which will help someone else realise their dream.  Now, the dream the other person has might not be huge but if you help them and they are willing to pay for it then you have helped yourself and someone else at the same time.  When one person has a dream there are some others who have the same dream.

A fantastic example of this is someone who is selling an ebook right now, you can check it out on Google, called ‘How to build your own chicken coop‘.  You might think this is a crazy idea, but the owner of the ebook thought ‘If I wanted to know how to build a chicken coup, there must be others too’.  And now there are hundreds of happy people who had a tiny dream to build their own chicken coop and found someone willing to impart their knowledge for a small fee.  This book is doing great and making the owner a lot of money.

So you see, people have all different kinds of dreams big and small and if you can help people realise their dreams, big or small you can help yourself create more money in your life and help people around the world.

Step 4 – Once you’ve made it it’s time to share it

I am nowhere near this stage yet but it is my ultimate goal that when I have become wealthy enough to have anything I want in life I will share my successes and teach people how they can emulate my success.  And I will do this freely to people who have not made it yet and charge for it to businesses who are in the latter stages of step 3.  This way the knowledge is always going round and being shared and I cannot think of a better way to enrich the world than by sharing knowledge on how to better create more money in people’s lives.

See Alex’s Topic Starter to help you join in the conversation.

Basically Alex asked me if I thought the ‘Law of attraction’ is a gimmick.

First off I would like to say that I can understand why a lot of people are sceptical about the ‘Law of attraction’. I think this is because of the rather cheesy way that the film ‘The secret’ came across and the books by Esther Hicks are a bit ‘out there’. Taking away all the hype and the cheesiness of the films and books out there, the underlying principle that our thoughts literally control and lives and the energy around is something I wholeheartedly believe in and something I practice every single day of my life and something I teach my children.

I don’t think it is a gimmick, but what I do think is the way that it is being marketed just now puts a lot of people off the idea that our thoughts control the energy around us. I believe the energy around us can touch other people a few feet away or a few thousand miles away which is where ‘the attraction’ part comes in.

Alex, do you have any personal stories or any anecdotes where the ‘Law of Attraction’ has worked for you?

What are your thoughts on the subject, leave your comments or follow the conversation on Alex’s blog (RSS feed) and see the responses

Failure is a part of life and learning. Even the greatest baseball players in the world fail more than they succeed. They fail to get a hit 7 times for every 3 times they do get one. Does a baseball player think about quitting the game every time he gets out? Is he afraid to go to bat because he might fail? No. He knows he will probably fail 7 out of the 10 times he goes to the plate. He knows that failing is a part of the game. We, too, must learn that failure is part of the game of life. Babe Ruth holds the record for the most strikeouts, but he is considered to be one of the greatest athletes of all time because of the home runs he hit. He struck out 1,330 times and hit 714 home runs during his career.

Tom Watson, Sr., IBM’s founder, called into his office an executive whose mistake had lost the company $10 million. The nervous executive entered the office and said, “I guess you want my resignation?” Watson replied, “You can’t be serious. We’ve just spent $10 million educating you!” (Warren G. Bennis, Burt Nanus, Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge, (New York: HarperCollins, 2003) p. 70) We must come to view mistakes not as failure but as learning. Some seek to eliminate the chance for failure and by default eliminate the possibility of success. “Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, has said, ‘I like to hire people who have made mistakes. It shows that they take risks.’” (Michael Pearn, Chris Mulrooney, and Tim Payne, Ending the Blame Culture, (Brookfield, VT, Gower Publishing, 1998) p. 11–12)

A lesson every man must learn is that he must persist even when it is difficult. When we experience defeat and rejection, the easiest and most logical thing to do is to quit. However, if you give up during the struggle, you will never experience the victory. The formula for success is trying until you succeed. With this view there are no failures only those who quit before success. How many tries do you give a baby to learn to walk? Do you give him five tries or fifty tries and after that say you’re done? “You failed fifty times, no more trying to walk for you.” Is that how we do it? No. We encourage the baby to try until he or she walks. It is a formula that works and so everyone learns to walk.

Sylvester Stallone—The Real Life Rocky

When Sylvester Stallone was first trying to launch his acting career, failure seemed to be the one thing he had success with. By 1973, he had been rejected by every casting agency in New York City, with more than 600 rejections total. In order to keep his days open so he could circulate among casting agents, he worked an assortment of odd jobs, including fish-head cutter, lion cage cleaner, usher, and bouncer. Also, in an attempt to make ends meet, he began writing screenplays.

Stallone recalled of his first screenplay, “I had written one hundred and eighty pages of garbage . . . but even though the script was bad, it gave me a sense of accomplishment . . . I did sit down and I did complete a story from beginning to end. For better or worse, it’s there. This was something new for me because I was a man who had never passed an English course.” During the next year and a half, Stallone wrote eight screenplays but was unable to sell any of them. Stallone decided to move to Hollywood and try his luck there, but he still had no success in selling his scripts.

In 1975, Stallone had $106 ($398 in 2006 dollars) in the bank. His beat-up car had just blown up, so the struggling actor/writer had to hitchhike. To make financial matters worse, his wife was pregnant with their first child. Even though he’d managed to pay off four month’s rent with the $700 ($2,600 in 2006 dollars) he’d earned on Death Race 2000, things were looking bleak—so bleak, if fact, that he was forced to sell his dog and best friend, Butkus, a 135-pound bullmastiff.

He stood outside a store and tried to sell his beloved dog to strangers for $50. Finally, someone bought the dog for $25. Stallone cried as he walked home from the store. The day he had to sell his dog was one of the lowest days of his life. Stallone recalls that day saying, “It was either the dog or us. Trust me. I thought it was over.”

Shortly after selling his dog, Stallone saw a fight between Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner in which Wepner was a 30:1 underdog. Inspired by this fight, Stallone began developing the Rocky screenplay. For the next three and a half days straight (without sleeping), Stallone and his wife, Sasha, wrote the first draft of Rocky.

Stallone took the finished script to his agent and received an offer of $75,000 ($281,000 in 2006 dollars) from United Artists. This was a huge sum of money to Stallone who had no money and a baby on the way. Stallone wanted to play the role of Rocky, however, and United Artists wanted a well-known actor such as Burt Reynolds, Paul Newman, or Al Pacino to play the lead role. United Artists came back with an offer of $200,000 ($750,000 in 2006 dollars) for the script, without Stallone in the leading role. Stallone refused. The offer went up as high as $340,000 ($1.3 million in 2006 dollars), to which Stallone said, “I would sooner burn the script . . . than to have anyone else play Rocky. Even if the price goes up to a million, no sale.”

The producers at United Artists finally gave in and allowed Stallone to play Rocky. However, they also lowered the budget for the film from $2 million to $1 million ($7.5 million to $3.75 million in 2006 dollars). Stallone received $20,000 ($75,000 in 2006 dollars) for the script and the SAG minimum of $350 ($1,300 in 2006 dollars) per week for his acting duties. Stallone also negotiated to receive 8 percent of the film’s net profits.

After Stallone received the $20,000 for the script, he returned to the store, hoping the stranger he sold his dog to would return. After three days the man did return and Stallone offered to buy the dog back for $100. The man refused, saying he loved the dog and would never sell him. Stallone then offered him $1,000 for the dog, to which the man replied, “No amount of money is going to buy you this dog.” Stallone, determined to get his dog back, eventually paid the man $15,000 ($56,000 in 2006 dollars) and also gave him a part in Rocky for the return of his dog. In the movie, Rocky’s dog is played by Stallone’s real-life dog, Butkus.

Rocky opened in theaters on November 21, 1976 and took in $117 million ($389 million in 2006 dollars) in U.S. box office sales, with Stallone making more than $5 million ($16.6 million in 2006 dollars).

There are no failures in life, only those who quit before success. Failure is a part of learning. The formula for success is trying until you succeed.

About the author

This post is an excerpt from the book Does Your Bag Have Holes? 24 Truths That Lead to Financial and Spiritual Freedom by Cameron C. Taylor. www.DoesYourBagHaveHoles.org

Dr Richard Wiseman has studied Luck for over 10 years and has shown that lucky people have certain traits and characteristics that make them more prone to being lucky.

Defining ‘being lucky‘

Being lucky could mean a lot of things to a lot of people. What I am talking about here is being lucky in life, not lucky in the lottery or any other form of gambling, as this is down to chance alone. Being lucky in life is when you have the life you want and it seemingly happens by accident, by pure luck.

I work with someone who seems incredibly unlucky in everything she does. If something unlucky is going to happen it will happen to her. She is a manic person whose mind is constantly racing and she tries to do 100 things at once. When she talks it’s at 100 miles per hour, she asks questions about 5 times before taking it in, she is distrustful of people, she sees the bad in everyone and to top it off she’s a very nice person. However, she must be the unluckiest person I have ever met.

In contrast I know someone else who seems to be incredibly lucky. He is optimistic, sees the good in people, believes that good things will happen to him and his family and regularly has conversations about the good things he wishes for himself and his family. He knows what he wants and he goes after it with all guns blazing. Yet he is laid back, he is a very kind and generous person and is happy in life.

People who are lucky show certain characteristics and beliefs about themselves and the world so I would like to share with you the eight ways to be more lucky.

7 ways to be more lucky

1. Belief: Believing that you will get the things you want in life and deserve the things you want in life will make you more prone to receiving them. Why is this? When you think about something you see a picture in your head, when you have a picture in your head your mind is locked onto receiving it. When you mind is locked onto receiving something it will start, unconsciously, to notice ways of getting what you want. It will start to notice opportunities that you might have missed had you not had that picture in your head and the belief it could happen.
2. Taking risks: People who are lucky take more risks. This doesn’t mean they gamble their house and take risks on new businesses and forgetting their family. Taking a risk can be calculated, you weigh up your options know what you can afford to lose and go for it. If it doesn’t work out you go for it again when you can afford to lose more.
3. Working hard: A lot of sports stars, singers, dancers, actors etc seem to have become famous overnight and are rich beyond belief. However what most people don’t see is that those same people have spent years of hard work and sacrifice to get to where they are today. Take Sylvester Stallone, he auditioned with every casting agency he could and didn’t get anywhere until he wrote a script for Rambo, and the rest is history. Working hard is a pre-requisite to being lucky.
4. Generosity: Being generous to others seems to be a trait in all lucky people. They give generously of their time and their money. They share their luck and wealth among others. A lot of people share their knowledge which can be more valuable than money or time. I have met so many people through this blog and I believe it’s because I share what I know and what I have learned throughout my life and throughout the research I have done over the years.
5. Instinct: Listening to your instinct can be invaluable when it comes to choosing what you want in life. How many times have you had the instinct to go for something but your brain held you back and told you all the reasons not to do it, then later on you find out it would have worked out well after all. We all have instincts for a reason and some people take more heed when it comes to listening to their instincts, you can hone this ability simply by listening with your body, be aware of your bodily sensations when you are thinking about trying something new. The more you trust your instinct the more it will serve you better.
6. Positive outlook: Having a positive outlook on life is a must if you are to become a luckier person. If you outlook on life is doom and gloom then I am afraid to say this is how you will see life itself. Your brain thinks ‘I am a gloomy little git, so I will look for things to be gloomy about’ whereas if you have a positive outlook your brain will say ‘I am a cheery liitle git, I will look for more things to be cheery about’. You control what is input int your brain by your thoughts, change your thoughts and you will change your life.
7. Coping with bad luck: The way you cope with bad luck can change your life. If something bad happens to me I always look at what could have made that situation worse. Two weeks ago my washing machine, power shower and gas all packed up at the same time. It was going to cost over £700 to get them all fixed. Luckily, my wife had taken out a gas plan 1 week previous and we were covered for the repairs which would have cost us hundreds. We managed fine with a bath, and are still doing so, and we bough a new washing machine which was on special offer at the time, how lucky was that. Now, instead of thinking ‘oh why oh why does this happen to me, I am the unluckiest person in the world, what is going to happen next’ I thought ‘jesus, that could have been a lot worse.

Being lucky does not happen by luck it happens by having a positive attitude in life, working hard and sharing yourself with others. This has been proven in numerous studies and time and time again it has been shown that changing your thoughts really does change your luck.

This is the 6th part of 7 in the how to make friends series. You can find the links to all the other parts of the series at the bottom of this article.

Attracting the friends, you want

To attract the type of friends you want you will have to know what type of friends you want to attract, makes sense doesn’t it.

Using the principles of manifestation you can attract to you the type of friends you want in your life.

Although it sounds like another airy-fairy law of attraction type of thing, I know this works as I have used it myself and have married my best friend, my wife. I used to imagine what she looked like, what type of personality she had, how she would react in certain situations etc I have also attracted business relationships this way, friendships, online acquaintances and even readers to my blog. I know it sounds sad thinking about the type of readers you want to read your blog, but I am a bit weird that way. ‘What’s really going to bake your noodle’ is would you be here if I didn’t think about you reading this blog.

How does it work?

This is quite simple. You think about the different attributes that you would like in a friend; honest, strong minded, fun, attractive or whatever it is you are looking for in a true friend. You imagine them and the different situations you would be in together and how they would react if different situations. You imagine feeling a strong bond with them and having a lasting friendship. Imagine yourselves together in years to come and how your friendship will evolve. You imagine going to their parties, meeting up with your future partners, going through difficult times with them.

You don’t go looking for friendships; your friends will come to you when the time is right.

Belief

There is one huge condition to you attracting your friends and potential partners and that is belief. Belief that it will happen when the time is right. This usually means getting rid of all your negative emotions such as feeling lonely, feeling jealousy, hate, depressed; all these feelings will hamper you in meeting your true friends or potential partner. Why is this? When you body and mind is riddled with negative emotions you are concentrating on yourself and your energy field will be low and not very expansive. When you have let go of negative emotions your energy field will be much more expansive and far-reaching, touching the lives of those you want to meet. Have you ever come across someone who just radiates energy and they seem to attract everyone around them? This will be because they have let go of their inhibitions and their negative emotions. These people are usually happy go lucky people and don’t really care what other people think about them and can take people as they are and see they positives in everyone. Don’t get me wrong you still get the people who attract everyone else around them due to their self confidence and yes they may be nasty or unkind but this type of person usually breaks down later on in their lives due to the masking of their negative feelings and emotions.

Does this sound like a lot of rubbish?

Of course it does, because for most of us we simply can’t believe in a world that is interconnected and we are all at this very moment touching each other’s energy. If you don’t believe it can work it won’t work. For some, like me, it took years to start believing in the power of thoughts and manifestation, but it has changed my life in immeasurable ways and I can only pass on what I believe. If you believe it’s a pile of cow dung, that’s great I respect your opinion. However, I would urge you to try it for a week or two and really try to believe in it before dismissing it.

How to make true friends – Part 5 – Get out of self deprication mode

How to make true friends – part 4 – Body language

How to make true friends – part 3 – The art of honesty

How to make true friends – part 2 – The pride of loneliness

How to make true friends – part 1 – know yourself

Other articles you may be interested in

Can attraction principles work to build your business? – Street smarts

Law of attraction carnival: Relationships and the law of attraction – Evolving Times

Improving relationships – the Ordinary Mystic

Can you save your relationships with the law of attraction – Today is that day

How to attract and create a happier love relationshipn – Very happy human

It’s not often I get a chance to read a book for pleasure these days however I was sent a book a few months ago which I have only just picked up at the beginning of the month.

The book is entitled “Sound health, Sound wealth; The biology of hope and manifestation” by Dr. Luanne Oakes, PH.D.

First of all I would like to say I would never put a review of a book on the blog that was bad and one I didn’t think would benefit you, the reader. Also I am not affiliated with the book in any way so I don’t make money from this review.

So here is my review.

Frequency treatment CD

The book comes with a frequency treatment CD which I have pretty much played every day since I received the book. I would say the CD alone is worth the price of the book. I play it in the car, every day, on the way to meeting my clients. I have found it keeps me centered and focused on my job. I also play it when I am picking my boys up from the scouts. My eldest son has asked me to play it on the way to school as it helps him to relax, which is a huge accolade, as he is currently listening to the ‘Nickelback’ and ‘Guns and Roses’CD all the time and doesn’t like any of my CDs.

The book

The book resonated with me from the introduction as Luanne speaks about the power of changing your thoughts to change your life, which is of course the title of my blog. So I was grabbed straight away as I firmly believe in the power of thoughts to change your life.

The book itself is split up into eight chapters, each with a principle:

Chapter 1: The principle of resonance
Chapter 2: The principle of future memories
Chapter 3: The principle of Your Magical Diving Experiment
Chapter 4: The principle of Energetic Boundaries; The power of ‘No’
Chapter 5: The principle of transforming time
Chapter 6: The principle of Sound and Light, Part One; The biology of hope
Chapter 7: The principle of Sound and Light, Part Two; How to enhance your life force
Chapter 8: The principle of True wealth; Sound wealth is true wealth.

I don’t want to go through all the principle above. Instead I have chosen the two that resonated with me the most and the ones which I could use in my daily life.

The principle of future memories

Luanne has introduced a new phrase ‘Quantum Hologram’ which, as I understand it, is your own personal belief on the being, or the force which is helping you in your life. She takes great care not to bring religion into the book but it is clear that she is speaking to people form all beliefs and faiths and the Quantum Hologram is your belief in what controls the world around you including synchronicity. The Quantum Hologram sounds like something from Star Trek (The Next generation) but it is a good way to visualise the life force which helps us in life.

Your thoughts are part of that life force and ultimately you are controlling the life force which in turn helps you to create the life you want.

Luanne describes a system using ‘Feeling based faith’ to create your future memories and is quite powerful. It is a way of connecting your feelings and mind to the Quantum Hologram to get what you most desire in life. The analogy she uses for this is ‘like sending an e-mail’. Luanne advises keeping a feeling based journal, describing the different feelings you have experienced throughout the day. By writing these down you are releasing the energy of them from yourself out into the open, which leaves you feeling lighter, more energetic and less burdened in order to send your own wishes out into the universe. Or

Although I didn’t use a journal for the feeling based writing I tried it for a few days in my head and it does help. It’s like putting a label on your feelings and then releasing them out into the open, quite powerful.

Luanne litters this chapter with stories about science and personal experiences which I found very interesting.

The principle of true wealth

I am deeply interested in prosperity and wealth and am forever clearing my thoughts and actions for the attainment of wealth and prosperity. Every day I am coming to an understanding of true wealth and what it really means and the more I understand the more I am receiving.

That’s what this chapter is all about. Luanne tells a story of a homeless person by the name of Simon who taught her about true wealth through the friendship they struck up over the years.

I am slowly beginning to realise about wealth being an inner game and this book and this chapter reinforced this for me.

Luanne advises that there are certain principles to true wealth which are:

• Being in the present moment
• Being in divine flow
• Frequent experience of Compassion, Reverence, Love Peace and Joy
• The ability to forgive
• Giving without attachment
• Certainty that we are all one
• Certainty in a power greater than yourself
• Certainty that there are enough resources for all of us
• The ability to accurately assess your own and others strengths and weaknesses
• The ability to be grateful for something
• The ability to reduce the intensity for negative thoughts.

Belief is also an important part of attracting wealth into your life. If you believe you can’t make money or don’t deserve it you will never receive it.

Conclusion

I found the book a great read and I particularly liked the stories in the book. Although it said it is a scientific look at health and wealth there is not much science in the book that explains manifestation. I also found that Luanne was using new phrases to describe old concepts but you will recognise these straight away as trying to bring the old concepts into the minds of a newer generation.

I enjoyed the book and particularly the CD and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in the ‘law of attraction’, ‘Manifestation’ and becoming healthy and wealthy.

Thanks you to Luanne for allowing me to review this book and thank you to the publicist for sending me the book, I appreciate it.

I’m going to share the story of a dialogue from a web discussion group in which I participate. I’ll change the name so as not to cause or imply any offense.

Ms. Z wished for a laptop computer. She wanted this badly to help her with her writing and speaking business, but she really didn’t have the money to buy one. She was condemned to using the computer at the local public library; I don’t say that facetiously, you really do need your own computer to do serious business!

At any rate, Ms. Z trusted in the power of the universe to provide her needs. She stayed focused on the thought of having her own computer. She visualized and prayed and did everything possible to access the Law of Attraction, yet she still had to use the library computer. Her faith remained strong; the universe would respond to her call when the time is right. After all, the wisdom of the universe is greater than the wisdom of any of us as individuals.

Finally her prayers were answered. She found a client for her work and realized that she now needed her new computer rather than just wanting one. She ran to the library computer, went on-line and ordered her beautiful new laptop! Money no problem; she used her credit card.

Ms. Z’s laptop story is an interesting example. She could have used her credit card at any time to “manifest” the computer in her life. Of course, once we manifest any material desire using credit our desire is balanced by the reality of a monthly payment. At any given time, that payment may not be in harmony with several factors, not the least of which is our ability to make the payments.

Power is our capacity or ability to perform or act effectively. Power is most effectively applied through balance, focus and timing. Ms. Z obviously considered her situation and at first decided that her purchase was not timely and would not be made in balance with the emotional component of her life; in other words had she bought the computer on her first impulse she may not have been comfortable with the consequences of that purchase.

She shifted her focus. She decided to delay her purchase. Perhaps she decided that the need for the computer was not urgent, though our perception of urgency is often affected by other pressures including, as she mentions, clever advertising.

The Law of Attraction has attracted a lot of sincere and dedicated teachers. I’m going to risk being controversial and simply say that it’s our responsibility to select our words carefully. I’ll cite the confusion over the message of “The Secret” as an example.

There are people who sincerely wish for great things to happen, yet are denied due to conditions and circumstances which are no fault of their own. I’ve heard arguments to the extreme that the people of New Orleans somehow collectively brought hurricane Katrina upon themselves through some collective negative thought. As you can see, this point of view can quickly deteriorate to the point of absurdity.

On the other hand…I’m sure that like me, many of you probably know people who have acted impulsively because they sincerely believed the universe would provide for them. Today many of these people end up in terrible credit card debt or even bankrupt. Their bankruptcy is not just material as their faith in the possibilities open to them is often crushed as well causing poverty in material, emotional and spiritual life.

Positive thought is prerequisite for positive action. Ms. Z, respectfully it seems obvious that your eventual decision to purchase your laptop when and how you did was intelligently considered. You made your decision when the need was great enough to create a balance with the consequences; your work was able to support the payments and you needed the computer to do your work effectively. Had you been in a negative mindset, fear or complacency may have outweighed the benefits of your decision and you might still not have the computer that helps you effective perform your mission.

Positive thought free from the constraints of irrational fear or anxiety opens our minds to possibility. From the possible we can take action to increase probability. Once we take that action, then we do have much greater access to the unlimited resources around us.

That’s the secret.

About the author

Jim is now a regular at ‘Change Your Thoughts’, if you haven’t already visited his site I would urge you to have a look. Jim is an author, businessman, personal development trainer, black belt Karate instructor, football coach….the list goes on. He is the creator of the Dynamic Components of Personal Power program. Visit Jim’s site at www.jimbouchard.org for more information on his self development program.