Ok. Apparently, you are looking to move on in your life. Better your life in some way. Improve your present status in whatever area of your life. If that is true , where should you begin ? On of our dear friends had inspired us to ask questions so as to elicit some response , for any situation , if you are looking for some life direction at any time. The quality of your life depends on the quality of questions you ask yourself.
Questions make you think , let me repeat , they make you think .. THINK .. that is the key. Now is the time to put your most precious , most invaluable tool to work ! Your brain , your thought process. We will come to that in a bit.
First let us explore , how to begin , where to begin our journey. For any journey to begin , where do you normally begin ? If you are planning a vacation , what do you do first ? You decide on a location to visit. Then you plan your vacation , for eg, how many days for the vacation, when can you go , which time of the year , where to stay , how to travel, plan ahead the travel bookings. How to get dropped to the airport , if travelling by air. It all begins when you know where to start your journey-- the FROM (location). Even when you try to get directions, your GPS needs to know where you are now . The second question will be TO location. Where do you want to go ? Applying similar analogy , your life journey also needs two main points of reference :
Where are you now ?
Where do you want to be , say 2 years from today?
If you have ever been to a mall, you must have seen the map which depicts the layout and then the red arrow mark which shows where you are now. Unless you know where to begin , you really cannot chalk out an effective plan of action for where you want to go. This needs some homework to be done. Because this is your life. Get serious. Spend some time , analyzing your present position in life. Ask your self some quality questions. Make your brain think. Examine all areas of your life :
Personal
Economic / Financial
Career
Relationships
Family
Spiritual
Social
Health
On a scale of 1 - 10 , where do you rank yourself ? Make sure you are honest to yourself. This is not the time to impress anyone. The more true you are to yourself, the better the results would be. After all , it is YOUR LIFE. Once you have found answers to all these , now you are all set to move on to the second step.
Now , where do you want to see yourself in the next 2 years or 5 years ? Let us explore another analogy here. Are you aware of a trajectory ? An arch like path formed when a missile is fired or any similar object is ejected with a force. This arch like path is called a trajectory. The picture below is self-explanatory ::
Pay attention to the fact that it has a begin point and an end point. Irrespective of where the begin point is today , even with a slight change in the angle of the trajectory , the end point variation will be considerable. We apply this analogy to our life and it translates into , insignificant changes , done at minute levels , end up changing our end point in a major way. So , let us not get intimidated by the fact that it takes some change to see a change in our end point. The change need not be a drastic one . Even minutest small changes have the potential to make voluminous changes to the end results.
To get to where you are today , it took some (considerable) time. So do not be in a rush to see immediate results. Any change , to show up as a tangible one , will take some time. Be patient and be kind to yourself. Allow some time and do not berate yourself if things do not turn out to be the way you expected in the given time period.
Now that you have identified where you are and where you want to be in a given time period , we need to know how to go about it. There are specifics involved . depending on each of your needs, but there are some general directions , which every one can follow to achieve the desired results. Let us discuss some concepts about beliefs - how they are formed and how they can be changed to aid us in our journey for a better tomorrow.
When we are born, we are born with a clean hard disk , which is completely blank , and un-formatted. But as we grow , it gets written down by our various experiences, some are good and positive and some may be negative and self-defeating. At present , whatever has been written so far , if the net effect is positive , you experience a positive life and if that is a negative net effect , you may be experiencing negativity in your life. Stop right now , and examine your present thought - is that thought something that is helping you move forward ? If you continue in the same thought line , where will it take you ? Be honest and admit it frankly. This is the home work for all of us. Assign a time per day , if that is difficult, maybe some time per week , if that is difficult also , some time per month , to sit down in a closed room , without any disturbance - external or internal (no tv, no cell phone , no dear friends , no relatives , no one around you ). Now sit still and become an observer of yourself. Pay attention to the thoughts that you are thinking. Say thanks for that thought and let it go. Do not let that thought build further. If a bird starts building a nest on your head , would you let it continue ? No !. So stop that nest from forming , right now . Now , there is another thought coming in - catch it right there . Express thanks for its coming and let it go. Keep doing that for some time. Eventually , you will become better at that. Initially , you will have to keep reminding yourself to release the thoughts as they keep coming. This is the only way , you train yourself to become aware of your thoughts. This is the first step in the process of self advancement. And this is the only way to get into the habit of identifying your thoughts.
Then comes the second step of changing your not so friendly thoughts ( or even the worst thoughts) to those of friendly , helpful, uplifting and encouraging ones. Now that you have become aware of your thoughts , you can also understand the underlying tone of those thoughts. You are the best judge to know if it is a uplifting thought or a demeaning thought. If it falls in the second category, immediately stop that thought , acknowledge and appreciate its entry and at the same time release it , just express thanks and let it go. Repeat this as many times as you can. Until it becomes a habit and you are comfortably able to pay attention to at least 50% of your thoughts. It is humanly impossible to become aware of every single thought. Becoming aware of at least 50 % of thoughts will help you catapult your life into a quantum leap.
Now that you are aware of your thoughts , you can recognize the undercurrent of that thought process, now comes the time to know how to channel the new thoughts. What should your thoughts be ? On what lines ? What should be the tone ? Here , let me repeat how thoughts are an important part of our lives :
Thoughts ===> repeated thoughts form beliefs====>leads to Actions ====> form Habits ====> forms your character ====> is your destiny.
Hence , to change your destiny , you should make attempt to change your thoughts. To get a good fruit from a tree, what do you do ? Water the roots well. You would fertilize properly. Aerate the soil near and around the roots. Nothing to do with the branch endings ! Similarly , to see good fruit on our life tree , we need to tend to our roots -- our thoughts ! As simple as that ! There is no better secret than this.
Let us examine another analogy here. Have you ever appreciated a well kept garden ? Have you realized how much effort has gone into getting to that end point ? A lot of effort must have gone into weeding , planting desired seeds, tending to those new germinated seeds , water the plants regularly , consistently , keep away the new weeds, provide support to growing plants , ward off any wild animals or bugs that may harm the plants , etc , etc. If you pay attention here , you can see that if unattended , a garden will attract weeds by default. They do not need special care , nor do they need any support. On the contrary , it is very tedious effort to have a beautiful blooming garden. It needs constant attention , persistent removal of weeds , continuous watering , constantly keeping away the bugs to have the beauty of a colourful garden. On the same lines , if you are not watchful , you will easily fall prey to negative thoughts or unsupportive thoughts , just like weeds. It needs conscious effort to identify the weeds , or in our case , the unsupportive thoughts , and replace those with uplifting and supportive thoughts.
So now , we have identified that we should become aware of our thoughts and also accepted that it takes conscious and persistent and ongoing effort to keep off any unwanted , unsupportive , self defeating thoughts. Let us now see how we can achieve this. Once you have identified a thought as negative or unfriendly, acknowledge , accept it as is , express thanks and let go. Accepting the present is the only best way to a better future. At every phase , acknowledging the present moment is the begin point. Then take the second step of replacing that thought with a more helpful thought.
Let us use an example here :
A: I am not good at talking with people. ==> not a supportive thought
B: I am getting better and becoming more friendly.
OR
I am a friendly person and people love talking with me. ===> uplifting thought
It may not be helping you change your feeling immediately , but once you get into the habit of converting all such thoughts into helpful thoughts , you will start seeing the difference over time, in the way you feel , which will change the way you respond to events and which eventually results in changing your situations and circumstances , thus basically , you will see a completely better picture , given enough time between the beginning and seeing changes around you.
For thoughts to turn into a belief , it takes repetition. In the same way that repeated input from peers, relatives and friends , over a period of some years , have formed your present day beliefs , similarly , your new beliefs will take some consistent repetition to form a belief. You keep repeating your new beliefs in the form of affirmations , constantly , until they become so inbuilt that your brain processes those by default. Your actions stem from those beliefs. So , for each area of your life , you can create your own affirmations , the new beliefs and follow this process of repetition until you see the results desired by you.
Now you have a blueprint of action items to be taken by you - to move on from POINT of BEGINNING to POINT of your DESIRE.
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