Self-Acceptance to Increase Mind Power

Mind power is an important component of the art of living wellbecause the mind is the hardware of your whole being, controlling what you think and what you do. Mind power is the essence of being. Self-acceptance is one of the ways to increase mind power.

The world is forever changing, and its inhabitants, too, are always changing and growing. Some of these changes are positive, while others are negative. To survive is to go along with the ebb and flow of the tide of changes, and to make the best and the most out of these changes. In this day and age, the art of living well is to develop strategies not only to adapt one’s life to these changes, but also to assume personal growth from these changes. In other words, to live well, one must have personal growth that will bring on a joyful and meaningful life. 

Personal growth, however, thrives only on one’s capability to accept oneself. The importance of self-acceptance to personal growth can be explained thus: without self-acceptance there is no personal growth, and without self-growth there is no increase of mind power. How can there be self-growth if you don’t like who you are and what you have become as a result of the changes in your life? If you don’t like yourself, you are more likely to ignore or disown self, and so do nothing about it, rather than taking positive steps to change what you don’t like about yourself. In other words, if you cannot totally accept who you are, you are most likely to resist changes in your life, and thus preventing self-growth.

What exactly is self-acceptance?

Self-acceptance does not necessarily imply “liking” yourself to the extent that you cannot image any change or wish for any improvement. Quite the contrary, self-acceptance empowers you to initiate meaningful changes into your life to transform what you don't like about yourself. Self-acceptance means you care less about what others think of you, but more about accepting yourself as what you are temporarily, while being conscious that any positive change will be forthcoming if you so desire it.

In this world, “withholding love” is a powerful tool that you can apply to others as well as to yourself. When you were a child, your parents might have used that tool to discipline you, and, knowingly or unknowingly, have shaped you into what you are now, or what you have become—feeling inferior or inadequate, and always looking for approval from others. On the other hand, if you parents have always loved you unconditionally, accepting you for what you are, you will not be seeking approval from others as you grow up. The reason is that you, too, have learned to accept yourself unconditionally through your perceptions of your parents' unconditional acceptance. Remember, a perception is always the reality. If you had acquired self-acceptance early on, it is mostly likely that you will continue to cherish self-acceptance for the rest of your life,

If, unfortunately, you have grown up in an environment that has made you feel not totally accepted by your parents or your peers, you might have internalized subconsciously throughout your life the need to compensate for that lack of acceptance experienced by you in your childhood and during your formative years as a young adult. As a result, you will always be craving for acceptance by others, rather than self-acceptance.

Conditional and Unconditional Self-Acceptance

The level of your self-acceptance is determined largely by how well you feel you are being accepted by the people who are important to you in your life. That is to say, your own level of self-acceptance is a reflection of your perceptions of the attitudes that you think other people have toward you. In other words, it is all in your perceptions of others' attitudes towards you. An attitude is only a perception of the mind. However, a perception often becomes the "reality." Therefore, changing an attitude about how you view not only yourself but also others' perceptions of you is important in developing your own self-acceptance.

What is conditional and unconditional self-acceptance?

Conditional self-acceptance is feeling "good" about yourself when you have reached a goal that you have set for yourself, such as that of attaining good health. Your "good" feelings, thoughts, or actions make you accept yourself. But that attitude of self-acceptance is conditional in that it is based upon your feeling "good" about yourself. In other words, if you fail to reach that goal, you cannot and will not be able to accept yourself completely. That kind of self-acceptance in question is conditional.

Unconditional self-acceptance, on the other hand, is showing a desire to achieve that same goal, which is attaining good health, but without assessing or rating yourself. In other words, the focus is on the desire and effort, rather than on the outcome. In that case, the goal is already a positive one because it has positive attributes—desire to be healthy and taking correct action to bring that desire into fruition—which are the fundamental values of a human being. Remember, the intrinsic value or personal value has nothing to do with what you do, but only with what you are.

Achieving Self-Acceptance

Achieving self-acceptance is an attitude, which begins with your perceptions of how you view self, and how other important people in your life view you as a person.

(1) Change your perceptions to change your attitudes. Use positive affirmations and subliminal messages to change your subconscious mind in order to change your attitudes, and reinforce them with positive images through creative visualization.

(2) Use behavior to instill rational self-acceptance. For example, look at your own naked self in a full-length mirror:

• Examine all the "bad" or distasteful aspects of your physical body, and calmly accept all of them.
•  Express your desire to change your physical image with a practical plan.
• Acknowledge that even change will not make you "like" every aspect of your physical body, and that you will live as best as you can live with these undesirable aspects of your physical body.
• Reaffirm that your physical imperfections are not you!

(3) Change your own values, because they define who and what you are. Re-define what are the most important things in your life, and reiterate to yourself why they are important to you.

(4) Be mindful of yourself, as well as of others. The more you are mindful of yourself and of others in your life, the more clearly you will see yourself as a human being. Remember, your intrinsic values cannot be measured in extrinsic terms, so do not assess or evaluate yourself, let alone allowing others to do that to you. Just accept yourself unconditionally as who and what you are.

Use self-acceptance as your first step to increase mind power to live the life you have always wanted to live. It is all in the mind, and it is always mind over matter.

Tips on how to know your Life Purpose.

“Look and you will find it – what is unsought will go undetected”. 

It’s Already Within You!

“Finding” your purpose is a misleading concept because it’s not something you have to go out and “get,” but rather something you need to turn within and claim. You’ve already got it – even if you haven’t consciously realized or chosen it yet. Of course, whether you believe it is already within you or not, you still need to “find” it in some sense. How do you do that? By looking in the most obvious places – your passions and interests.
Your purpose will always be something that:

• You feel passionate about

• You are naturally good at

• You already love to do

• Is important to you

Remember earlier I mentioned that your fears about your life purpose being unpleasant are groundless? It’s absolutely true. Why would you be given a life purpose that doesn’t match the essence of who you are?

Would the universe expect a musical prodigy to spend his life crunching numbers in an accounting firm? Would the universe expect you to wait tables when your true passion is childhood education? How would these situations serve anyone? They wouldn’t!

Your life purpose will ALWAYS utilize your greatest passions, talents and interests. No exceptions. Does that inspire a little sigh of relief for you? It should.

“Great minds have purposes, little minds have wishes”.
Irving, Washington 

hmm! what is it what I really want...

Identifying Your Passions

Before you can discover your true life purpose, you need to uncover the clues that lead to it. Namely, things you are good at, feel passionate about, love to do, and are important to you.

Exercise:

Take a piece of paper and a pencil and write a list on a few ideas for each of the following categories (listed below). You’ll be looking for the most obvious answers here – even if there are only a handful of them in each category. Focus on things that have been a major part of your life or occupied your thoughts a lot – and it’s okay to have the same answers on multiple sheets.

Categories:

1. Topics or Subjects I’m Passionate About

These would be topics or subjects you feel passionate about, like personal growth, education, arts and crafts, music, pets, spiritual development, business, charity, arts, poetry etc. Anything you think about and enjoy quite often

2. Activities I Love To Do

These would be tangible activities like sports, working out, painting, singing, writing, reading, cooking and so on.

3. Things I Am Naturally Good At

On this sheet, list all of your best talents, skills and experience. Focus on actual activities that you do easily and well, either because you’re naturally good at them or because you have a lot of training/experience with them.

4. Things That  Are Important to Me

World events, situations, groups, causes, people, animals and more that are important to you. Focus on things that impact the world in general, not just things that pertain to your own life, your own family, etc.

Putting the Pieces Together

Now that you’ve identified some of your strongest passions and interests, look again at the worksheets. Do you see any connections or patterns between the items you listed? You may not yet have a full picture but more like a handful of puzzle pieces – you see that they could fit together but you’re not sure how.

Here’s a good way to make the big picture clearer:

Imagine that you are preparing to take a journey. What do you need? First, you need to establish a clear destination. You need a map that shows you how to get to your destination. You need a method of transportation to travel there; and of course, all modes of transportation require fuel to power them.

Your life purpose is very much like a journey.

• The things you love to do are the vehicle you travel in.

• Your natural talents are the map that shows you how to get to your destination.

• The things that are important to you ARE the destination.

• Your passion is the FUEL that powers the whole operation.

With every purpose, you need:

1) A passion for it. (Your passions)

2) A commitment to it. (Important to you)

3) A tangible way to share it with the world. (Activities you love to do)

4) The ability to do it well. (Your natural talents)

When these things come together, you’ve got a virtual explosion of passion, meaning, fulfillment, empowerment – and purpose!

Do you see now why it’s important to get clear on the four lists categories? Every item you write on those lists offers a possibility and each of those possibilities contain still more possibilities!

Of course, you won’t be following all of them right away, but more likely choosing one to start with. You can always incorporate others later if you want to. For now, I strongly encourage you to start with the ONE that speaks most powerfully to you, the one that makes you feel excited and joyful.

“You are what your deep driving desire is; As your deep driving desire is, so is your will;
As your will is so is your deed; As your deed is so is your destiny”.
The Upanishads

Breaking an Addiction : An introductory course

          I am so confused

Addictions manifest in many ways. Some turn a fun hobby like shopping into a financial nightmare. Other times, addictions pose health risks, especially when the addiction is drug or alcohol related. It really does not matter what you are addicted to. The only thing that matters is that you realize that you have a problem and are ready to take the steps needed to take your life back. In this fight, your mind is your biggest ally. It has all the power you need to get back on a healthy track.

You need to get to the root of your problem. Your problem is not with any substance or activity. Your problem is with what drove you to seek refuge in an addiction. Maybe it is to fight boredom. Maybe it is to get a rush. Whatever it is, you need to figure out what drives you to put your life on hold for an addiction. When you have it singled out, find healthy alternatives to receive the feelings that you crave.

Notice what is going on around you when you get an urge to partake in you addiction. If you figure out your trigger, you can plan to avoid any situation that will make you weak. In the beginning of the fight with addiction, you will need to stay away from obvious stressors and triggers in your life. Eventually, you can work up the strength to stare down the habit and walk away clean.

I am addicted to Smoking

The next step in this basic method comes in week two. Make a note every time you want to indulge in your addiction, and also make a note of what’s going on around you at the time. For example:

Cigarette craving 1:00

Just ate lunch

Smoked 1 cigarette

By keeping track of what happens when you have a craving or a need to do something, you can find your triggers, and make yourself realize what causes the urge – and then find a way around it. If you always have a cigarette after lunch, try something new in your routine for at least three weeks. For example, instead of going to a café where smoking is allowed, eat lunch at a different restaurant. Don’t give yourself time to smoke after you finish eating, either. Go right back to work. We are creatures of habit, and addictions are all about breaking these habits. Did you know that you can form a new habit in as little as 27 days? Don’t use chemical dependency as an excuse. Once the withdrawal phase is over, your road blocks are purely in your mind.

Addictive Gambling

Your new daily routines and habits should reflect your new life. Do not stay in the same patterns that you did while you were in full throws of addiction. This trap sets you up to fall back in to repeated patterns, including the ones that drove you to addiction. Vary what you do day to day. This will keep you open to better and more healthy life choices.

As you face your addiction, remember this fight will be for your life. You need to stay strong and take back control of your life. You can and will do it if you put your mind to it.

7 Steps to Sell Anything to Anyone

It’s astonishing to me when I have a discussion with most copywriters, marketers and entrepreneurs and they desperately look for the best approach to communicate or market a written message – when the most obvious tools are staring them right in the face.

What’s even more bewildering to me is that many of them have to look for the “best way” to motivate prospects to purchase their product or services – instead of first understanding what automatically actuates them to act.

If you haven’t judged what the most noticeable tools are that’s staring you right in the face, its unconscious psychological devices – more particularly, thethinking habits of every brain on the face of the planet earth.

Actually these Unconscious psychological devices are “motivations” of the mind that are engrafted deep within a person’s brain, and need only a simple “push button” trigger to set off an automatic response action from their brain in the form of placing an order, a demand for more information (generating leads), and/or a phone call or visit to the store or other place of business.

The idea of mind control has always been tempting to copywriters, salespeople, marketers and entrepreneurs. Why? Obviously, it gives the person who understands these psychological devices the privileged benefits to “push button” automatic fortunes.

If you’re a copywriter, in business or in the marketing arena who’s interested in specializing in this million dollar knowledge, you’re in luck because I’m going to share seven of them with you right here, and here they are:

1. Story– Everyone loves a good story

There’s something magical that occurs when you tell a story. The reader or listener has to become a participant in the story, in order to make sense of it. This is where you get them to FEEL, and almost realistically experience – in their imaginations, what you’re telling them. Unconsciously, this creates a memory and it is more difficult to overlook. Finally, it helps you make a bond with your prospect.

Practical application: Relate to your prospect and come up with a story that gives them imaginative reasons to use your product or service.

2. Time Distortion – “Pretending They Already Are”

Here’s the posture: “You already wish for and own this product and let me explain you what it’s like to.” Actually, what you’re doing is future
pacing their thinkings as if they are holding your product or service in
their hands. Employ simple descriptive phrases that enlighten a “sense” or “touch” response, and it instills in the mind of your prospects that they already own it. They will embark on to visualize the benefits of doing so all on their own.

Practical application: If you sell books, they are flipping through the pages. Electronics, they are applying this neat gizmo (pushing the buttons, twisting knobs etc). Cars, boats, anything – get in and drive it, grab the wheel.

3. Credibility – To Project Authority

Make what you say credible, and nothing hideous. Who is endorsing
your message? Do you have satisfied buyers of your products or services? What do they have to declare? Express that in your message. Show them experts approve your products. If it’s not authentic, your prospects are going to “pick up” on that. Reliability instills what you’re asserting is true, period. Just provide evidence.

Practical application: Request your clients for testimonials, even if you have to decently bribe them for one. Offer a discount, free sample, bonus, or report. In a sentence, the more credibility you create for you and your product or service, the more authentic the message becomes, and the less resistance they have when it comes to make a buying choice.

4. Urgency – To Act Now

Even if your sales message is expressively driven and potent — making
them feel like they want to buy, put a sense of urgency to emphasize
them to buy it now, and to not wait, period. Limited time offers, discounts won’t last, this deal won’t last long. No matter how commanding your sales message is, if they get away – after so long, the feeling and their buying decision erodes away their desire to buy now, until it’s gone.


Practical application: Bring forth a forceful reason to get your prospect to feel so compelled it’s totally necessary they must buy it now, because it’s urgent. Maybe employ “fear of loss.”

5. I Gave It To You Free, You’re Guilty – To Create The Return Effect

Ever found an offer in the mail of a free sample of a product? Ever visited a website and got 3 free chapters of a book? Giving away something to someone for free produces guilt, the feeling to return. If your friend buys you dinner, you might feel you should pay for the next time. It’s a natural instinct. When something’s given, the desire to give back is produced.


Practical application: Give away a free sample or freebie – anything for free. Make sure it is something of real value. After, suggest that you’ve given them something and how they’re one tuff nut to crack, because you’ve provided them something for free, and you haven’t heard back from them. Sit back, and watch them purchase…

6. Commit then remain Consistent – To Create Long-Term Friendships/Action

Here’s the posture: “If you’re purchasing from me now, we’re friends;
you’ll order more from me too.” You’ve acquired the customers’ confidence once you’ve laid down the first sale, and once they’re happy; make them happy again, and again. Buy something from the television and you’re almost always expected to buy more, it’s easy. Then, two months later, another offer from that same company rings on your phone in the other room, or the offer is waiting in your mail box when you get home. Normally, being a much higher priced product or service. Why not ask? You’re obviously qualified.


Practical application: If they buy once, get them to buy again and again. If you sell information memberships, sell all the tools and products that the membership consists of (improving your golf game membership website – sell golf clubs, balls, clothing, shoes etc.) If you sell them a book, sell them a home study course that’s more expensive.

7. Curiosity – To Keep Your Prospect Tuned In

Early in your sales presentation, promise what will happen when they
finish and complete your sales presentation, and keep them curious.
Curiosity is a powerful tool you can use to keep your prospect in suspense, and to search out the answers to satisfy that strong desire to “fill in” the missing information. Leave out certain information in your benefits that “trigger” the thought “What will happen if?”


Practical application: Instill and arouse curiosity early in your sales
presentation to cause your prospect to want to complete your message (i.e. tell them there’s a misspelled word in your sales copy, and if they can find it – they get a special deal. Ask them if they want to compelling benefit, and tell them they’ll find the answer as they continue to read, or pay attention to you.
As you’ve probably noticed, it’s infinitely more powerful to apply
these psychological devices in your presentation when you realize they all open the flood gates of a person’s brain, and deliver compelling emotions and complex thoughts and meaning. Anyone who comes across one of these seven applications will “undergo” the spell of this covert influence because it sparks response below a person’s surface awareness.

So, the only question to ask yourself is: “Are *you* going to use them?
To find out, simply go through the following checklist, and count the
number of items that apply to you.

1. You want more sales
2. You’re willing to look through your sales presentation making sure
each of these devices are applied
3. You prefer to *use* powerful knowledge over just “knowing it”
4. You want more power in your ability to influence others on
undetectable brain levels
5. You are curious and interested in creating more powerful
“unconscious” influence
6. Covert persuasion and influence doesn’t scare you and you’ll use it
to your advantage in ethical and judicious ways
7. You are willing to sit down and brainstorm how you can apply these
psychological devices to your sales presentations, even if only applying one device a day, because you know it’ll bring your more sales, and consequently, profits.

If at least 5 of the 7 above statements are true for you, then you’re
ready to use the most powerful form of undetectable communication that exists today. This is the best time to break into the covert persuasion and influence segment of communication.