Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life: How to Unlock Your Full Potential for Success and Achievement (8 page)

Decide this very day to give up your negative emotions. Resolve from this moment forward to become a positive, optimistic, happy, enthusiastic person in every part of your life. Change your thinking about yourself and your possibilities, and you change your life.

ACTION EXERCISES

1.
Resolve today that you are going to be a completely happy person. Now ask, “What is it in my life that makes me unhappy or causes me stress?” Whatever your answer, decide to deal with it and eliminate it.

2.
Recall an experience from your childhood that you are still angry about. Now reinterpret that experience positively and view it as a valuable learning experience.

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3.
In what areas of your life are you angry or resentful because you are still blaming someone for something he did or didn’t do?

Whatever it is, accept responsibility and get on with your life.

4.
Who is there in your past that you have not forgiven? What previous experience causes you the most anger still today? Whoever or whatever it is, resolve to forgive and let it go.

5.
Don’t take things personally anymore. From now on, when people do not respect you or treat you as you wish to be treated, rise above it and go about your business.

6.
Make a decision today to forgive everyone in your past toward whom you still feel any negative emotion. Let them go and let yourself go at the same time.

7.
Forgive yourself for every mistake you have ever made. If it is appropriate, go and ask forgiveness of the other person. Set yourself free.

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C h 3

a p t e r

Dream Big Dreams

Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you
become. Your vision is the promise of you shall at
last unveil.

—John Ruskin

Your mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Your thoughts alone have the power to make you healthy or sick, rich or poor, popular or unpopular. Your mind is like a powerful force that can be turned in any direction to bring about wonderful results, or wreak havoc and destruction.Your main goal in life must be to har-ness your amazing powers and direct them intelligently and systematically toward achieving everything you really want.

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A JOURNEY THROUGH ITALY

Let me tell you a story. Some years ago, I took my family to Italy on vacation. We toured several of the great art museums of Rome and Florence. In Florence, there is a special museum that was built to house the statue of David created by Michelangelo several hundred years ago. This is perhaps the most beautiful piece of sculpture in the world. The actual physical experience of being in the same room with it is something that none of us has ever forgotten.

The story of the creation of the
David
is very interesting and contains a lesson for all of us. Michelangelo was commissioned by the Medicis to create a statue for the main square in Florence.

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The Medicis were the wealthiest and most powerful family of Italy at the time. A commission for a statue from the Medicis was not only a great honor; it was also a task that could not be refused. For two years, Michelangelo searched for a block of stone out of which he could create the kind of masterpiece the Medicis were looking for.

Finally, on a side street of Florence, partially overgrown with weeds and covered with dirt, he found a huge slab of marble lying on wooden trestles. It had been hauled down from the mountains years before and had never been used.

Michelangelo had walked past this street many times, but this time he stopped and looked more closely. As he walked back and forth studying the block of marble, he actually envisioned the statue of David and saw it in its entirety.

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GREAT SUCCESS REQUIRES

LONG, HARD WORK

The sculptor quickly arranged to have workmen haul the block of marble to his studio some distance away. He then began the long, hard job of hammering and chiseling. It took him two solid years of work to create the rough outline of the statue. He then put his hammers and chisels aside and spent two more years polishing and sanding before the statue was complete.

Michelangelo was already famous as a sculptor, and the news that he was working on a major commission for the Medicis spread all over Italy. When the day came for its first public viewing, thousands of people came from all over Italy and gathered in the main square. When it was unveiled, the crowd stood gaping in awe. It was breathtakingly beautiful. People cheered. Women fainted. The audience was amazed at the incredible beauty of the enormous statue.

Michelangelo was immediately recognized as the greatest sculptor of his age.

Afterward, when Michelangelo was asked how he was able to create such a masterpiece, he replied by saying that he saw the
David
complete and perfect in the marble. All he did was to remove everything that was
not
the
David
.

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YOU ARE A MASTERPIECE

There are many parallels between yourself and the
David
. You are very much like a great masterpiece enclosed in marble as well. But the marble that envelops you, and most other people, is the marble of small, limited thinking and excessive worry about the possibilities of loss or failure, rather than an excited anticipation of the rewards of success and achievement.

To realize your full potential, your greatest need is to break out of your limited thinking by dreaming big dreams and imagining unlimited possibilities.You need to remove all the negative beliefs that hold you back from becoming all you are capable of becoming.

But remember, even after the
David
had been released from the marble, it took Michelangelo two solid years of sanding and polishing to turn it into a masterpiece. In the same way, you also have to work on yourself, sanding and polishing, learning and practicing, for days, weeks, months, and even years, to develop and bring out all the talents and abilities that lie deep inside of you.

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YOU CAN BECOME UNSTOPPABLE

The central purpose of this book is to help you change your thinking in such a way that you become absolutely
unstoppable
in achieving any goal you can set for yourself.Your goal is to develop yourself to the point
psychologically
where you become like an irresistible force of nature.You will be like the tide coming in, or like a powerful storm that sweeps across the land.

Your aim is to become so confident, courageous, strong, and resolute that you can set any goal for yourself with the firm knowledge that you can learn what you need to learn, and do what you need to do, to eventually achieve it. You will become so persistent and determined that nothing and no one can slow you down or alter your course.You will become truly unstoppable!

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DREAM BIG DREAMS

You begin the process of becoming unstoppable by dreaming big dreams. Since everything you create in your world begins with a ccc_tracy_3_40-51.qxd 6/23/03 2:47 PM Page 43

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thought, the bigger the dreams you dream, the bigger the goals you will achieve. All successful men and women are dreamers. All peak performers are what are called “blue-sky thinkers.” They continually allow their minds to float freely when they think about what is possible for them. They look at the unlimited blue sky above them as the only limit to everything and anything that they could possibly be, or have or do.

Successful people continually practice “back from the future” thinking. They project into the future several years and imagine what their lives would look like if they had achieved all of their goals. They look back to the present, from the mental vantage point of the future, like looking from the top of a high mountain down to where they are actually standing in the valley, in the present. They then look at the path that they would have to take to get to where they want to be in the future.

By the law of correspondence, whatever you can clearly see on the inside, you will eventually experience on the outside.You should therefore visualize your goals with as much clarity and
vividness
as possible. Visualize your goals
intensely
and create within yourself the same feeling that you would have if you had already achieved your goals. Visualize your goals
frequently
. Replay a picture of your goal, as if you had already realized it, on the screen of your mind as many times a day as you possibly can. Visualize your goals for
as long
as you possibly can, preferably just before falling asleep each night.

Repeat these exercises of visualization—vividness, intensity, frequency, and duration—until your goals become absolutely clear, living, breathing, exciting, clear pictures in your mind. The more skilled you become at moving from the dream through the goal to the visualization, the more motivated and determined you will be.

The more clarity you develop, the more courage and confidence you will have, and the more unstoppable you will become.

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CREATE YOUR IDEAL FUTURE VISION

The most important part of dreaming big dreams is for you to define your
ideal future vision
. It is for you to think about what you
want
before you begin to think about what is
possible
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limitations holding you back from achieving anything you set your mind on.

Detach yourself from your current situation and allow yourself to dream. Pretend for the moment that you have all the time and money you need. Imagine that you have all the connections and contacts, all the resources and opportunities, all the education and knowledge, all the skills and experience that you require to be, have, or do
anything
that you could dream of.

Imagine your ideal lifestyle. Imagine your ideal job or income.

Imagine where you would like to live and how you would like to spend each day, each week, each month. Imagine your ideal family life. Imagine your ideal state of health. Design your perfect life in every respect.

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MAKE YOUR OWN DREAM LIST

Here is an exercise for you. Take out a piece of paper and at the top write the words “Dream List.” Underline these words and then write down everything that you can think of that you could ever possibly want if you had no limitations whatsoever.

Most people are held back by their self-limiting beliefs. The way you burst these mental chains is with a dream list. The very fact that you can write down something that you would love to have someday means that you probably have within you, right now, the ability to achieve it. Let your mind float freely as you write. There will be lots of time to organize and evaluate your dreams later.

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WHAT WOULD YOU DARE TO DREAM?

Here is a great question: “What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail?”

If you were absolutely guaranteed of success in the achievement of any one goal, big or small, long-term or short-term, what would it be? If a billionaire took a liking to you and offered to write you a check to cover any goal that you could clearly define, what one goal would you choose?

If you could have any job, what would it be? If you could work for any kind of company, what kind of a company would you se-ccc_tracy_3_40-51.qxd 6/23/03 2:47 PM Page 45

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lect? Where would it be, and what would it be doing? If your family life and your relationships could be perfect in every respect, what would they look like? Answer these questions clearly. Write them down.

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START WORK ON YOUR FUTURE

You begin the creation of your ideal future by making up your dream list.You write down everything that you would want to be, do and have, exactly as if you had no limitations at all. You make up your list as if you were absolutely guaranteed of success. Then you can begin refining your list, step by step to develop a detailed blueprint for your life.

Henry David Thoreau once wrote,
“Have you built your castles in
the air? Good, that’s where they should be built. Now, go to work and
build foundations under them.”
Once you have broken free from your limited thinking, like a balloon casting loose its moorings and rising high into the sky, you can begin to turn your dreams and fantasies into concrete practical goals with specific plans of action.

Your ability to set goals and to make plans for their accomplishment is the “master skill” of success. With this master skill, there are no limits on what you can accomplish. Putting your goals on paper is the next step in the process.

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HOW TO ACHIEVE ANY GOAL

There is a seven-step method for goal setting and achievement that you can use, over and over, in any situation, to accomplish anything you could ever want for yourself. These seven steps constitute a powerful, proven formula that you can use to change your life immediately.

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STEP ONE: DECIDE EXACTLY

WHAT YOU WANT

A real goal is clear, specific, measurable, and time bounded. A non-goal—a wish or a hope—is fuzzy and unclear. It is a fantasy that floats in the air. People with clear, specific goals, who know exactly ccc_tracy_3_40-51.qxd 6/23/03 2:47 PM Page 46

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what they want, are very different from people who are going through life hoping for the best.Your ability to decide
exactly
what it is you want in each area of your life is one of the most important responsibilities of adult life.