Blocks to motivation

In the next blogs I will touch on the subject of the blocks to motivation. These are fear, resistance, procrastination, excuses and stress. Today I will write about fear.

Fear

What are you afraid of? I know different types of people. For example, some are fascinated by diving in the ocean to see all types of fish and all the wonders that exist in the depths of the ocean. Others are afraid of being on the shallow part and have a little fish touch their legs. Where do you fall with fish? Are you afraid of them or do you enjoy them? You have to ask yourself this question with every fear. Remember that fear is just a thought.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, for the Course in Miracles (the Course) there are only two emotions, love and fear. All other emotions are born from them. For example:

• Sadness is fear of not having what I want.

• Anxiety is fear that something I do not want will happen or something that I want will not happen.

• Courage is fear that what I want will not be done, and so on.

“Perfect love casts out fear.

If fear exists,

Then there is no perfect love.

But:

Only perfect love exists.

If there is fear,

It produces a state that does not exist. “

UCDM T.1.VI.5.4-8

According to the Course, perfect love is the only reality, the only thing that exists. Fear arose with the thought that we are separated from God. This unreal state is the ego state. The Course does not refer to Freud’s ego, but calls the ego the set of mistaken thoughts we have about ourselves

• Sometimes we tell ourselves that we will do something we fear, when we are not so afraid. We believe that fear is something that will go away on its own as time goes on. Fear does not go away by itself. We have to work with the mistaken thoughts that causes it.

• Other times, we use fear as an excuse for not doing something, as we see it as a message that we are walking in the wrong direction. Let’s not fool ourselves. When our intuition tries to show us the way, it does so in a smooth and calm way, without fear. When we feel fear, it’s the ego that speaks to us.

Fear is something irrational that will be with us until we face it and see that it was just an illusion, a wrong thought. We will achieve our goals when we switch the position of our fear. Instead of putting it in front as a barrier, we put it behind it, so that it drives us to achieve what we want, since fear, like everything, is energy.

Fear manifests itself in different ways that do not allow us to be successful. Among them are the following:

1. Fear of the unknown.

2. Fear of making a mistake or taking risks.

3. Fear of failure.

4. Fear of success.

5. Fear of being poor.

6. Fear of ridicule.

7. Fear of growing up.

Steps to follow to deal with fears:

1. Analyze the situation

a. What is the worst that can happen? Can you deal with this?

b. What can I lose if I don’t do this?

– How would I feel?

– What is the cost to me?           

– What are the benefits for me if I do it?

2. Recognize that you control your thoughts and emotions and can change them. These do not control you.

3. Do it.

a. Divide it into manageable parts.

b. Claim the power of your Higher Self.

c. Be willing to choose growth over safety.

d. Let your fear die from inattention.

4. Learn to love your fear.

a. Realize that the Universe only brings you what is good for you, even if it’s not apparent.

b. Send light to your fear.

In the next blog I will touch on the topic of resistance. I hope to see you around.

And how do I set my goals?

To be successful, the important thing is to be effective. We can define effectiveness as the union of knowing where you are going, with the discipline of staying on course. That is, goals (know where you are going) + discipline = effectiveness

Goals are the guide that will help you not to waste your time. These will be your compass.

It is important to have long-term and short-term goals. Long-term goals are the big picture of what you want to achieve. This makes it easy to create short-term ones, since we always have that beacon that guides us.

When you have clear goals, before making each decision, ask yourself if what you are going to do brings you closer or further away from your goal. Once you have clear goals and you commit to achieving them, the unconscious mind begins to work to give you ideas, attract people, books that can help you, etc.

The biggest failure is not trying. If you currently have a goal that you consider unrealistic, break it down into short-term goals that you have to achieve before you achieve the bigger goal. Once you achieve it, reward yourself. It is important that you give yourself some recognition.

Exercise: Every day, in your notebook, make a list of your achievements, no matter how small you find them. For example, if you want to overcome your shyness and today you dared to talk to someone new, write it down on your list.

Although it appeared not to be, I was very shy. My self-esteem was on the ground. I remember thinking that nobody was interested in wasting time talking to me, so if I saw someone I knew but who was not my friend, I would cross the street so that they would not have to “waste time”. I thought I was doing them a favor. When I decided to heal my incorrect thoughts, I made it a goal to greet two people a day. After several days of doing this, I not only managed to delve into my fear and say hello, but I realized that people felt very happy when I recognized their presence and greeted them. How wrong I was.

This exercise helps you to put things in perspective. We are used to looking at the things that we fail at and overlooking those that we do not. In addition, the exercise will help you put your mind in a positive frame.

I recommend this exercise to learn how to set your goals.

• List five important goals you want to achieve within the next year.

• Pick your two most important goals and put them in clear, measurable terms.

• Write the critical steps necessary to achieve each of them.

• You will develop a realistic itinerary for each step, and then you finish the form by evaluating the two goals you selected and rewriting them at the bottom of the page.

• Think specifically about the results you want to achieve. Use dates, amounts of money, job description etc.

• Once you know where you want to go in a year, you can create short-term goals to get there.

• Do this for two years and five years.

Exercise My Goals

Period from (day, month and year) to (day, month and year)

Five goals I want to achieve this year are:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Of these, my first goal is …

My second goal is …

Critical steps required to achieve my goals by (date)

First Goal                                                                                       Second Goal

1.                                                                                          1.

2.                                                                                          2.

3.                                                                                          3.

4.                                                                                          4.

5.                                                                                          5.

INDIVIDUAL GOAL SETTING SHEET


 GOAL (MUST BE SPECIFIC TO BE ABLE TO MEASURE IT)  
OBSTACLES TO ACHIEVING YOUR GOALACTION PLAN TO ELIMINATE THE OBSTACLES. (IF YOU CANNOT DEFINE THE STEPS, THE GOAL IS NOT SPECIFIC)  DATE WHEN I WILL ACHIEVE MY GOALAWARD WHAT WILL I GIVE ME FOR ACHIEVING IT  
              ACHIEVING THIS GOAL WILL BRING ME CLOSER TO THIS OTHER GOAL IN THE LONG TERM:      
             

I want to end with a writing that I love on commitment and clearly explains the above:

Until one is commited, there is hesitancy,

the chance to draw back, always

ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of

inititiative and creation, there is one

elementary truth the ignorance of which

kills countless ideas and splendid plans:

that the moment one definitely commits

oneself, then providence moves too. All

sorts of things occur to help one that

would never otherwise have occurred. A

whole stream of events issues from the

decision, raising in ones favor all manner

of unforeseen incidents, meetings and

material assistance which no man could

have dreamed would have come his way.

I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:

“Whatever you can do or dream begin it.

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now!””

W. H. Murray

The Scottish Himalayan Expedition

HOW CAN I ACHIEVE WHAT I WANT? Setting Goals

The best way to achieve what you want is by having clear, short-term and long-term goals. Many times we have great ideas but we don’t take the necessary steps to achieve them. Look at the following formula:

Ideas + ideas = ideas

Ideas + action = result

If we don’t take the right action, we get stuck with ideas. That happens to many people. The successful ones used the second formula. They got results because they took the actions to achieve them.

We all have dreams. Some achieve them. The difference between a dream and a goal is a date. Goals are wishes and objectives set in concrete terms. They become the map that you will follow to achieve your goals, set priorities and manage your time.

To be effective the goals must be:

1. Specific and measurable – they have to answer what you are going to do; when are you going to do it and how are you going to do it. That way you will know when you achieve them.

2. Achievable – Goals have to be realistic. If not, what you will do is reinforce your unconscious thought that you cannot achieve what you want. In addition, this way you will avoid frustrations.

3. Demanding – to challenge and motivate us. In this way we will not fall into the boredom of routine.

4. Written – to remind us.

5. Dated – to create a sense of urgency.

6. Our own – if they have to be fulfilled by your sole responsibility, and do not depend on another person.

7. Or, if they are common goals, they must be Participatory – to ensure the commitment of those who are involved in their fulfillment and

8. Compatible – to synchronize with the goals of the organization or with those of others.

We all have a purpose in life. That’s the reason why we are here. Purpose has to do with our personal development and how to extend it to others through service. The purpose can be as simple as planting bushes that beautify the Earth, or as complicated as being a ruler of a country. The labels of importance are put by us. They are all equally uplifting.

We know our purpose by recognizing our talents. These are the ones that will help us achieve our purposes.

Talents, in turn, we discover by paying attention to those things we like to do. Many times we know what it is when we answer the following question. “If I had all my needs covered, I didn’t need money and I could be doing what I enjoy the most, even without pay, what would I do?”

The following exercise serves to clarify the purpose in your life and what you want.

Make a list of the following things:

1. The values ​​that are important to you.

2. What things do you like most about yourself?

3. The things you like to do the most.

4. What motivates you to do what you want and achieve success?

5. Your skills for what you want to achieve.

6. Your past experiences.

7. Detailed description of your ideal.

8. The ideal environment where you want to carry it out.

Once you finish the exercise you will have a clearer idea of ​​your vision in life. It is important that you have your vision clear. This will help you stay on track. If not, it is like being in an unfamiliar place without a map. You go from one side to the other, without knowing where you are going. Setting clear goals will make your journey much easier.

DID YOU MAKE THE SELF-IMPROVEMENT DECISION?PUT ON YOUR SEAT BELT AND LEARN TO MEDITATE

Once you make the decision to change, get ready. One of the things we fear the most is change.

• We will find resistance in every corner.

• Your family and friends will want you to be the same as before.

• They will directly or indirectly demand that you revert to your previous behavior.

• This will make you afraid of losing the people you love.

When someone changes their thinking to more positive thoughts, their vibrational level changes. It is true that there will be people who move away from your life, because they no longer vibrate the same as you, but others will arrive who are more in tune with the new person you are becoming. Others will adapt to your changes and that will motivate them to grow as well.

Be alert to self-sabotage. The unconscious will give you thousands of reasons why you should not change. Always seek the highest thought and move towards it.

Meditation

To get in tune with your intuition, which is through which the Holy Spirit, also called the Higher Self, speaks to you, it is important that you take a few minutes every day to be silent. The mind is in constant activity and it is necessary to train it to be able to listen to the inner voice that is the voice of God in us.

Meditating is not just a discipline, but a lifestyle, because meditation influences everything we do during the day. The following steps will help you meditate better:

1. Choose a fixed time, preferably in the same place. Regularity, consistency and patience are important.

2. Prepare yourself physically, mentally, and spiritually. Select those things that help you relax and focus when meditating. It can be a candle, incense, soft music, a mantra, mindful breathing, sacred reading, relaxation exercises, praying for three minutes to prepare the mind. Prayer is talking to God. Meditation is listening to God.

3. Invoke Divine protection. Affirm that nothing that doesn’t vibrate with Love will enter your aura.

4. Focus on an affirmation. Start repeating a short affirmation or mantra to help you focus. Use it until you can feel the meaning of the affirmation.

5. Enter into silence. Every time thoughts come up, repeat the affirmation or mantra, or

6. Conscious and Rhythmic Breathing. You can also use the conscious and rhythmic breathing that I explained in the last blog.

7. Pray for others. When asking for others it is always good to say, according to their Divine Plan, or something like that.

8. It is better to meditate sitting in a chair with your back straight. Hands can be palms down or palms up.

Meditation is a technique that dates back thousands of years. It helps us get in touch with that part of us that knows everything. It is where we find the answers to our questions. All knowledge lies within us, but we have to learn to find it. Meditation is one way to do it.

The Forgiveness Diet

Another very powerful technique that helps us forgive is the Forgiveness Diet. This leads us to forgive our primary relationships, so that in our present or future relationships we don’t have to keep repeating the same unresolved issues.

Take several papers and divide them in two by drawing a line down the center from top to bottom.

• In this exercise, you are going to write, on the left side of the paper, 70 times for 7 days the following statement:

• I, (HERE YOUR NAME), FORGIVE (HERE YOU PUT THE NAME YOU CALLED YOUR DAD or your father figure) UNCONDITIONALLY.

After you finish the 7 days, you will do the same with the following people:

Mother or mother figure

• Siblings (each individually)

• And anyone else who had a great influence on your childhood. That can include teachers, neighbors, relatives, as long as it has marked your life in some way.

     Sometimes the resentment we have with the person we are forgiving is such that we cannot end it that day. When it is unconscious, what we will notice is a great resistance to finish the exercise. It does not matter, the next day you try again, until you complete the 7 days. As you end up with one person, start with the other.

This happened to me when I did the exercise. I always thought that the one I had to forgive the most was my father and that since I had an excellent relationship with my mother, hers would be easy. What a surprise I found. With my dad I finished it in a week. With my mom, I couldn’t finish even the first day. Every day I tried and couldn’t go on. I would become very anxious. Finally, after a few days, a very unconscious thought came out that I didn’t even know was there.

Take a good look at the thoughts that arise as you do the exercise and write them on the right side of the page. That is your unconscious speaking. Pay attention to it.

At the end of the exercise, turn each negative thought into a positive one. For example, if when you are doing the forgiveness exercise with your brother the thought that arises is “why am I going to forgive him if he never had time for me” you change it to “my brother always has time for me.” That way you are reprogramming your mind.

As I indicated in another blog, affirmations are always made in the present, as if everything is already given.

This is a very powerful exercise. You can do it as many times as necessary. Remember that we heal to the extent that we are prepared to do so. Once you can go deeper, situations will arise that will signal that the time has come to work with the next layer of the situation. Forgiveness, which is the key to our liberation, is a continuum.

AND WHAT DO I DO WITH MY PROJECTION?

Forgiveness

A Course in Miracles (the Course) teaches that the only way to change your perceptions is through forgiveness. If you understood the explanation of projection from the previous blog, you already know that what you see outside that bothers you, is actually your own projection. Seeing it outside makes you angry. Therefore, when you forgive what you see in another, you are actually forgiving yourself for having that thought.

• The forgiveness the Course talks about is not the forgiveness we know where you see yourself as the saint and the other as the evil one. The Course says that the only thing that exists is love. That is our Reality. Everything that is not love is fear and fear is an illusion, it is not real.

• Continuing with the Course, to forgive is to realize that if your true essence is love and what is not love is not real, nothing really happened. That is, there is nothing to forgive.

• It is seeing God in the other, seeing the innocence that we all are.

• Realizing that when you or the other one are not acting from love, you are in fear and therefore the “wrong” act that you committed is nothing more than a crying out for love, to remind you who you really are.

• When someone does something that hurts you, instead of seeing them as guilty, you can choose to change your perception and see in that person someone who is hurt by circumstances from their past that have not yet healed. If you choose to change your perception, you will realize that you are seeing your wounds in the other and thus you will be able to forgive them more easily.

• You can always choose to think differently. Your reaction will depend on that.

Relationships that you have not completed are part of you, it does not matter if the person is with you or not. All the resentments and anger that come with a battered relationship are carried inside, like baggage, wherever you go. In most cases, we throw that baggage on those who least deserve it. That is why it is so important to complete all of our relationships.

One of the most powerful ways to complete a relationship is through a letter. This can be done even if the person has died. There is always communication on an energetic level.

The following exercise will help you to let go of the resentments that you may carry inside from past events:

• Start a letter to the person with whom you had an unfinished relationship. You are going to start the letter by saying “So and so, something I always wanted to tell you was … Here you are going to tell him everything you would have said if you had dared or had been allowed. For example,” Daddy, something I always wanted to tell you is that I needed you to spend more time with me. “

• Then you are going to say “The consequence of you being like that is … (Here you put the way in which your life was affected by that.) An example would be “The fact that you didn’t spend time with me brought as a consequence that I felt that I was not important. Therefore, I have always brought into my life people who have not valued me.

• In the next step you thank him for the lesson that this brought to your life, such as, “On the other hand I have to thank you because that feeling of not being worthy has made me work with my self-esteem and today my life and my relationships are better thanks to that”.

• You do those steps with everything you wanted to say and never said.

• This exercise will help you to say what you need to say, to realize how it affected you, and also to see that each experience brings learning.

• This letter does not need to be sent. Just writing it is enough.

You can write to as many people as you want. Forgiveness is an internal attitude that leads us to inner peace. You don’t need to tell anyone. Nor is it necessary to continue with the person we forgive, or to continue relating to that person. We merely see it in light and let it go.

The mirror or projection

According to A Course in Miracles, the fundamental law of the mind is that projection gives rise to perception. “The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that… It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive. Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world. Perception is a result, and not a cause.” (T-21.in.1-8)

It is very difficult to recognize what you have in your unconscious. It is easier to see other people’s fault and not your own.  You can gradually recognize what you have to modify:

  • If you recognize that what you see outside of yourself is a projection of what’s inside;
  • If you are very aware of what you attract into your life;
  • And you see those things as a mirror of your interior.

Imagine the following:

  • Your mind is a projector.
  • Your thoughts are the movie, and;
  • Your life and its circumstances are what you see on the screen.
  • You are the writer and producer of your life.
  • You choose the actors who are going to act out your thoughts.
  • Then you forget and get angry with them because they are perfectly acting the role you gave them.

Instead of fighting with the film, what you have to do is change it. And understanding this, your awakening begins.  In the next blog I will give you an exercise that will help you to achieve it.

How do I use affirmations?

We manifest our life based on our beliefs. Once we have a belief engraved in our mind, in order to change the belief it is necessary to replace it with another. If not, soon we will be thinking and doing the same.

  1. To succeed in replacing one belief with another, use affirmations, which are ordered statements of Truth. Affirmations are a tool to help you change negative thought patterns.
  2. We are always affirming, whether in a positive or negative way. When we punish ourselves for failing and call ourselves stupid, idiotic, etc., we are sending an order to the unconscious, which will then create situations in which we feel stupid, idiotic, etc.
  3. Through the process of affirmations you will do this in a conscious way and with positive thoughts. Every time you catch yourself thinking negatively about yourself change it to a positive with an affirmation.

Here is a summary of the main characteristics of the affirmations:

• Affirmations are statements of truth.

• They can be done in a variety of ways, written, verbal or recorded.

• They are done in the present tense, as if it has already been achieved.

• You use your name.

• You use the first three persons of a conjugation, that is, I, you and he or she. You may have your negative thoughts because you came to that conclusion, and decided “I am….” Someone may have told you “you are…,” or, you may have heard someone say “she is….”

• Divide a piece of paper in two, on the left side you write the affirmation and on the right side you write any thoughts in opposition to the affirmation that come to mind.

• Do it daily, until no opposing thoughts arise, for at least 21 days.

Some positive statements:

• I, (your name), have perfect health.

• I, (your name), have the ability to restore health to every cell in my body.

• I, (your name), am a wonderful person who deserves love.

• I, (your name), have power over every aspect of my life.

• I, (your name), am open to receive all the abundance of the Universe.

• I, (your name), create the perfect life for me.

• Perfect relationships show up in my life constantly.

• I, (your name), love and appreciate myself constantly.

• I, (your name), open myself to receive happiness, prosperity, health and love.

• The more I love myself, the more I love others and the more love I receive.

Use the ones that vibrate with you the most. Or make your own. You will see how little by little your life begins to change.