Taking Back Control

I admit it - there is no excuse for what I've done today. I know perfectly well the thing to do is keep my mind on good things, things I want to happen, things that energize me and empower me, and I take a lot of pleasure out of helping other people do the same... and what have I been doing all day?

Well, pretty nearly nothing. Nothing that's gone right, at any rate. The only thing I've done successfully from morning until night is make a mess of everything I've touched - and if that sounds uncharacteristically negative, that's just the point.

I dropped my guard and let myself be swamped by negative thoughts and feelings, and I've been reaping the rewards in terms of damaged concentration, mistakes, annoyance and wasted effort without once stopping to take the most important step of all - a step backwards to put things into perspective.

The story actually starts a couple of days ago, when I worked ridiculously late to finish something I was doing as a favor to a friend. Being overtired yesterday wasn't a good start... then the friend took the favor totally for granted, and I admit I wasn't pleased.

It shouldn't have mattered. I'd put a lot of effort into what I'd done, and I was pleased with the outcome. It's the fact that I'd completed the task successfully and with enjoyment that should have counted - but I'd expected to be complimented on it, or at least be thanked, or something.

I should have remembered that other people's appreciation (or the lack of it!) isn't what's important. If you rely on other people to make you feel good about yourself, even for a moment, the one thing you can almost always guarantee is disappointment.

What I should have done, of course, was to be honest with myself about the real reason for my annoyance (hurt pride, I'm sorry to admit!), then let it go, refocus on the things I'm aiming to achieve, and take the next step forward.

What I did was let my anger fester. I slept badly, and got up even more tired this morning... and the inevitable happened. Hard as I might try, I couldn't do a single thing and get it right.

My e-mails took what seemed like twice forever to download. I tried another e-mail program, and it was even slower. I'd meant to do a blog post, but I couldn't get the page to open. I tried to access Google, and I couldn't. The computer seemed to have no power, and was running ridiculously slowly. I ran a spyware check, and it took three times longer than it should have done.

By this time I was getting paranoid. What was it that I'd read about a sudden drastic falling-off in computer performance meaning it had been hijacked as a net-bot, and was sending tons of spam without my knowledge?

Fortunately at this point I began to realize that maybe it wasn't the computer that was running amok so much as my own thoughts and feelings. I took a deep breath, and went and made myself a cup of coffee.

When I came back and sat down again at the computer, I idly clicked on a piece of work I do (or rather, the computer does) for a University science project. It's one of those things where people volunteer a bit of their computer's spare capacity to help to process scientific data. It runs in the background, and doesn't affect whatever work you're doing.

On second thoughts, make that "it doesn't usually affect whatever work you're doing" - because with that one mouse-click the whole problem was resolved. The project was collecting its next batch of work, which usually takes only a few minutes... but this particular batch of work was enormous, and the download was taking several hours.

Not surprisingly, everything else that I'd been trying to do online was not responding as I'd thought it would - but all I had to do was wait till it had finished, and the computer would start working normally again.

It was an exact parallel with what had been going on in my own mind. Just as I'd been doing with my friend, I'd expected the computer to behave in ways that I'd mapped out for it, and was completely wrong-footed when it didn't.

Well, at least it's been a useful lesson. Even when you know the power your thoughts and feelings have to replicate themselves in what happens in your outside world, and you're determined to keep them positive and energizing, there's always a temptation to let yourself be swept away by a powerful emotion that gets out of your control.

Don't beat yourself up over it - just let your annoyance, worry, fear, anxiety or whatever else is knocking you off-balance, go.

Once you reach a calmer frame of mind, ask yourself what, is anything, is real about that emotion (in my friend's case, for example, absolutely nothing - in the computer's, a performance problem that needed to be identified and dealt with).

If there's something that you need to do to put any genuine difficulty right, go do it - if there's not, just take a break for a few minutes so you can refocus. Clear your mind completely, and let it stay blank for a few moments while you take several deep breaths.

Now go back to whatever you were doing, and see how much easier it is!

If you find it hard to keep your thoughts and feelings under your control, or you've never realized that it's even possible, you might like to check out Free Your Life From Stress, or fill your mind with the empowering and energizing track called "Above The Pairs Of Opposites", which is part of the Supreme Success system.

Your mind is under your control - but, as I've proved today, you have to reassert your authority over it from time to time!

Sphere Of Influence

Last night's TV movie was The Sphere, a sci-fi thriller starring Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone and Samuel L. Jackson. It's the story of a group of scientists who enter a strange underwater sphere and find that they've been given the power to create anything they think about.

The problem is that all they can think about is what they fear the most... so all the things they fear the most are exactly what they get.

Frustratingly, having got themselves into a situation where their lives are being threatened by all the fears of all of them, it doesn't occur to any of these scientific minds that if they can manifest the things they fear, they can surely learn to manifest the things they really want, as well... like getting back to safety, fast.

Even though Dustin Hoffman's character says at one point, "Imagine what you will, and you can have it," not a single one of them ever imagines anything at all they actually want, but only what they don't want.

In fact, they do this to such an extent that when they do eventually make it back to safety the only thing they want to do with this great power they've been given... is to forget that they've been given it.

Because they can manifest anything they want, they simply manifest the way they thought and felt before they'd gone into the sphere, and they immediately forget their power.

"What we've manifested," says Dustin Hoffman's character when he suggests the idea, "is the worst of us, not the best of us. We aren't ready for it."

Well, the simple answer to that is - get ready for it, because whether you want it or not, that power is something you've already got. You were born with it, and whether you choose to use it wisely or to forget it, you can not get rid of it.

The story may be fiction, but the idea behind it's solid fact.

The sphere is your own mind. It gives you the power to achieve the things you want - whatever you focus on is what you get.

If you choose to direct your attention to the things you really want from life, then sooner or later they will come to you - you'll find the ideas, the inspiration, the motivation and the energy to take you there.

If you prefer to keep your mind on what you don't want, or the things you fear, guess what? Your mind will cause you to act in ways that bring those undesired outcomes to you.

Either way, you'll get the things you focus on in great abundance... so it's pretty obvious which choice to make.

You can't opt out. If you don't deliberately direct your attention and your energy, then other people will direct them for you.

If you don't control your own mind, others will (the advertising industry is all the evidence you need of that!).

Make a conscious and deliberate decision, right here, right now, that in future you, and only you, determine what goes on in your own sphere of influence - your mind.

It'll make all the difference to what goes on in your whole life, too.

If you need some help to overcome any idea that you're not good enough, or any other kind of negative thinking that might get in the way of making sure your mind is under your direct control (and no-one else's!), visit Supreme-Success.com to find out how.

The 6-Fold Increase

I've just heard a story that I think you'll like. It comes from round about the beginning of the 20th Century, and it involves a very rich industrialist named Charles Schwab. You may not know the name, but at the time he would have been just about as famous as Bill Gates is now - a real example of Supreme Success, in fact.

One day Mr. Schwab was contacted by a member of a fairly new profession - an efficiency expert. The offer he was made intrigued him.

"If you let me spend just 15 minutes with each member of your executive staff," the expert said, "I'll increase your company's productivity and profits six-fold... and all you have to do is pay me, after 90 days, exactly what you think my work is worth."

Charles Schwab couldn't resist. After all, he was an efficient man, and he insisted his executives be every bit as efficient as himself. How could a total stranger possibly achieve a 6-fold increase in his business in that time?

Well, if it didn't work, at least it wasn't going to cost him anything.

He gave the go-ahead, and authorized the efficiency expert to talk to each of his executives in turn, for about a quarter of an hour.

By the time the 90 days were up, Charles Schwab had seen his already-thriving business transformed beyond his recognition - so much so that he gratefully wrote the expert a check for $35,000.

Now, by today's standards that might not sound like much of a recompense for someone who'd boosted a company's efficiency to that extent, but, remember, this was at a time when an average worker would be lucky to go home with $10 in his pocket for the week.

You'd imagine that the expert must have come up with something really groundbreaking to achieve results like that, wouldn't you? Something no-one else had ever heard or thought of? Something radical and difficult, that only top executives could use?

Not a bit of it. The technique that each executive was taught was very simple.

It's something you can do, as well, and you can start today. It won't cost you $35,000 - in fact, it doesn't cost you anything at all - and it'll work for you, just as it worked for Charles Schwab's company.

Every night, list the 6 most important things you have to do next day to get you where you want to go, and every morning...

Do them.

Start working on the first 6 things you know you need to do that day, and don't let anything distract you.

Focus on them till you've got them finished.

Unplug the phone. Switch off the TV. Don't check out your e-mails, unless they're work-related and you really need to. Keep away from all the social network sites. Ignore all invitations to have coffee and a chat, and anything else that might get in the way, until you've finished.

A clear view of where you want to go (listing the next day's 6 most important items) and a strong and energetic focus on getting there (getting those things done) will transform your life and fortunes, too.

Try it yourself for 90 days, and see!