1. Realize you have the power to choose. You can choose how to think, how to feel and how to act. (Yes, you can!) The way you think determines where you end up. Pay attention to your thinking! Don’t allow yourself the luxury of negative thoughts – they only serve to keep you small.
2. Understand abundance. The concept of abundance must be everywhere in your life. Look at nature for examples: nature (and the universe) is always doing one of two things: growing or decaying. Ask yourself where you’d like to focus. If you’re not moving forward and growing, what are you doing?
3. Be conscious of where you are at any moment. Honestly. If you don’t know where you are, how can you know where to start from and how to get where you want to go? Along those lines, also be highly conscious of where you want to go and why! When you are clear on where you’re going you will a) be able to plug that into your personal internal GPA system and b) be able to redirect as needed when you are off course.
4. Love where you are. Once you have a clear understanding of where you are, appreciate and see it for what it is (without judgment!). Love what you are learning, how far you’ve come and the fact that this moment gives you an opportunity for further growth. When you resist where you are, you create a whole host of negativity and are simply creating more of what you don’t want. Also, if you don’t know where you are, it’s hard to get back on the path to your goals.
5. To make a change, focus on the cause not the effect. And then, do something different! Often, we focus on what’s wrong. For instance, an effect might be: “I don’t have enough money” – instead of what caused the effect, i.e., what led to your not having enough money. When you change the cause you will naturally change the effect.
6. Don’t wait for someone to save you or to do it for you! You are the one in charge of your life, so step into that and know that you are creating where you are and where you are going. Waiting for someone to save you disempowers you. Blaming someone for where you are is just as bad, if not worse. The time to act is NOW.
7. Want it badly enough to do something different. Get out of your comfort zone and become comfortable with being uncomfortable. If you’re not uncomfortable (to a certain extent) you’re not growing. There’s a saying that if you want something different, you have to do something different. Are you doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?
8. Forget about playing it safe. My mentor, David Neagle, says, “Most people tiptoe through life only to make it safely to death” which means they end up not really fully living. Playing it safe comes from your fears, which come from the thoughts you tell yourself over and over again. It’s not about being safe, it’s about being alive and stepping into who you are meant to be. That puts you in the flow.
9. Understand that your false subconscious (and limiting) belief system undermines you. Not the government, not your ex, not your family, not your kids and not the socio-economic group you were born into. Those are all excuses. It’s time to get real with your excuses and the limiting belief system you’re operating under. That is the only way to let it go and change that paradigm.
10. Realize that money is just energy. Seriously. Where we get stuck with this is in what we attach to money: For example, you might think you derive your value from making money, or that you’re inferior for not. This, by the way, is part of your false belief system and can be one insidious sucker to unwind.
11. Continually develop and build your trust and faith no matter what shows up in front of you. You must have complete faith in your dream. Know that if you could imagine it, you have the means to achieve it. Your faith will open doors you never knew existed, and bring opportunities forward. Increase your expectations – and trust that they will occur. Give yourself permission to accept the dreams that are in your heart.
12. Connect to some sort of spirituality – whatever wordless creative power you believe in. This will serve you during the difficult times, and help you keep the faith. Sometimes you just have to let go and let god.
13. Remember that your achievement and thinking tend to match the achievement and thinking of your five closest friends. Take an honest appraisal of who you are hanging out with. Are these people positive or negative. In other words, do they raise you up or bring you down?
14. Be the master of your life and business – not a slave. Don’t let your life or business run you. Take the reins and be proactive instead of reactive.
15. Get sleep! No one can be a visionary, see around corners or function at a high level when poorly rested. Sleep gives you the energy to stay in a positive mindset and pay attention to opportunities. You are also much more efficient when you’re well rested.
16. See failure for what it is. In fact, there is no such thing as failure. Remember what Edison said: that failure is really just a step closer to that new invention, aka your dreams and goals. All things can help us grow if we choose to see them as learning experiences.
17. Let go of needing to know “how” your dream will manifest. You only need to know your own personal why of your dream. Trust that all is lining up for you perfectly. That doesn’t mean that you don’t have to be in charge of your life or your business, but when you try to micromanage, you don’t allow for other possibilities to present themselves. Or, you simply won’t see them. Wallace Wattles points out that desire is simply the underlying urge of spirit seeking fuller expression.
18. Remember fear and worrying are like praying for what you don’t want. And why wouldn’t they be? Fears are a bunch of thoughts you say over and over again to yourself. But they only hold meaning and power only if you give it to them. Look fears directly in the eye, and decide to act anyway. The most profound changes happen when you take action in spite of your fears. When you do something you’ve never done, there certainly is a respectable amount of fear that goes along with that. Look at your fear and do what you fear anyway.
19. Know that no one is too small to be effective or powerful. I once heard Arianna Huffington say, “If you believe that, look at a mosquito.” Enough said.
20. Love. Love with such depth, breadth and abandon that it takes your breath away and makes your soul flutter. When you recognize (really recognize) this in others, too, you begin to see that we are all connected and what you want is already there. Life really can become a great big love-fest. Besides, it’s about giving, not getting. The getting is inevitable when you approach life that way.
