A while back I saved an article I read about a girls college softball team that did something amazing. They identified with positive motivating statements and started winning games. This is a perfect example of how self-talk and affirmations can affect your actions.

It started when coach Kathy Straham of Sacramento State looked up 10 motivational sports related sayings and asked each player to pick two that they could relate to. The girls took this to heart and after receiving the sayings they started to win games, in fact they logged 8 consecutive victories ending the season as winning their conference.

Here are a few of the sayings that helped motivate the players into believing in themselves;

“The best way to predict your future is to create it.” – unknown

“Ask not what your teammates can do for you; ask what you can do for your teammates.”
– Magic Johnson

“Champions keep playing until they get it right.” – Billie Jean King

“If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way; if you don’t, you’ll find and excuse.” – unknown

If you say these statements to yourself and allow yourself to get excited about the meaning, your motivation will increase. When your motivation increases, you will do more, do it better and with more energy. Then you will see some success, which in turn increases your motivation, your energy and your desire to take actions. With more success comes more motivation, more energy, more action . . .

See what happens – all from a statement that you choose to internalize and get emotional about in a positive way. Many think that repeating positive phrases does nothing towards success. I know different and so does the team described above.

The power of doing this is in what it does to your thinking, then your feelings – that’s where the power is. If you are not experiencing what you want, your thinking is not supporting what you want, it can’t be any other way. By repeating a positive supportive phrase that is in alignment with what you want and who you want to be, you are essentially retraining your  minds default thinking. Default thinking is those thoughts that just come up on their own, you can change that with better more supportive thoughts.
What statements can you come up with that support what you want?

What statements can you get intense feelings about?

Find them, read them, think about them, and imagine through them.

It starts with ‘I think I can’

As you make attempts with this mindset it will get easier to do and you will start to see more ways to align your thinking with the life direction or accomplishment you desire.

 
John Halderman

Have you written off your dreams because you think you are too old?

Think about this, more and more Olympic athletes are over 30 and some over 40. The 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing China has more athletes over 30 participating than any time in history. Do you realize how difficult it is to make the Olympic team in a country with a lot of athletes trying to get on the team and where there are many young athletes competing for the positions?                     

Dara Torres, 41-year-old swimmer for the USA, just got two Silver medals and she out swam her much younger competitor during the last leg of the relay. She has successfully balanced the rigorous training needed with being the mother of a 3-year-old daughter.

Ekaterina Karsten of Belarus, competing in the women’s single skull rowing, brings home a bronze medal and she is 36. This is her 4th Olympics, she has won three gold’s and one silver in this event in those efforts proving she has remained in top shape for many years.

Romania’s Constantina Tomescu is 38 and just won the gold in the women’s marathon. In fact at the halfway point she was in 26th place before she gathered speed to end up finishing almost two and a half minutes ahead of the second place finisher. She finished 20th in the 2004 Olympics but has improved steadily in the last four years as she has gotten older in age.

Oksana Chusovitina the 33 year old German gymnast received a silver medal on the vault. My two daughters were both involved in competitive gymnastics, I know how physicaly brutal this sport is. She has stated that if she is able to qualify for the next Olympics she will, she will be 37. She said, “if I can I’ll do a sixth Olympics.” Is she giving up on what she loves? She says, “I don’t feel 33, I feel 18.” She not only made the German team, she took 3rd place amongst all competitors, most of which are about 16 years old!

Jason Lezek, the US swimmer who helped Michael Phelps win the two team relays, is 32 swimming against athletes 10 to 15 years younger. He has shown that he can still compete in finals in the Olympics as well as other international events.

The ability of athletes continuing to compete at such a high level as they age can be attributed to several factors; more financial support for athletes, better sports medicine, more understanding about diet, but mental perspective and determination is at the foundation of it all. It definitely can become more difficult physically to train as a person gets older and the drive to continue must be strong. But the decisions you make based on your perceptions are the determining factor to what you will motivate yourself to do.

These older athletes are redefining what is possible as we get older. Their success shows what we are capable of when we have the vision, motivation and determination. More importantly is shows that more people are able to see themselves in this role as they continue to get older. When you can see something as possible you are more likely to find the ways to bring it about.

The demise of ones abilities begins with their perception of what is possible and not possible. So often people fall into the mental trap of thinking they are too old for something or that it is not appropriate for an older person. This is just not the case in all instances. Your physical abilities and mental drive is governed by your perceptions of what is possible, what you ’should’ be doing and many times the influence of others.

This concept does not just apply to sports, any endeavor that you have stopped allowing yourself to see as possible is not necessarily dead, unless you condemn it in your mind. Take time to assess your deep wants and desires and rather than staying with restrictive perceptions, take a fresh look at it. You will discover that many times it is your own mental decisions that have stopped your progress and squelched your dreams, not your actual abilities.

Harland (Colonel) Sanders did not even start franchising his chicken until he was 65 years old, you may have heard of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

What is really possible for you ‘if’ you were to follow your dreams without telling yourself no?

John Halderman
More life changing concepts at Effective Personal Development Blog

I’m sure you have heard about the Qantas Airways Flight 30 jet that had to make an emergency landing at the Manila International Airport shortly after leaving Hong Kong while in route to Melbourne, Australia. It was discovered that there was a large hole in the fuselage and a this point no explanation has been given as to how it happened, although it’s not likely caused by a terrorism act. All the passengers are fine and were very calm during the unknown course of actions needed to get the plane down safely in Manila.

This is just the event that can trigger your personal growth and development. Have you ever been in a situation where your life is quite possibly in imminent jeopardy? If you have, you will know first hand how you quickly go through an awakening, which commonly includes ’seeing your life flash before your eyes’. You all of a sudden see yourself and your life from a different perspective. It is much like the perspective many people come to when they are at the place of imminent death from old age or illness. They are able to see in a new light many of their long held feelings, thoughts, and perspectives from a more ‘outside looking in’ point of view.

When you are living ‘in’ your life you have a harder time taking an outside view of what you are doing. What you think is important or necessary may not actually be so. Your perspectives and your interpretations of the people, situations and events in your life may not be the most desirable to have to support the life you really want. When your life has evolved as it has, you accept much of it as ‘how it is’ and don’t really look at it as something that can be different.

When an event wakes you up so to speak, you are sort of knocked off kilter a bit and suddenly you are able to see things differently. At this point many people do a lot of reassessment of what is important to them and of their priorities, making changes that are more aligned with their true feelings. As undesirable as the trigger event may be, it can be a wake up call for you to take a look at how you are using your life.

Like at old age when people look back and say, “I should have done this or that, or not have acted that way” and regret what they did for so many years. Why wait the facing of death to reassess your life? You can do it any time you choose. Just because your life has evolved mostly in an automatic way, you don’t have to let it stay that way. You can shift gears and change direction any time you want. The first point is to realize that you can, and you can. You don’t have to be shocked into it, although that can make it quick!

There are many helpful methods and tools available for you to use helping yourself see your life in a new view and then with making any alterations you may choose to make. The second requirement is you must want to change, as your mind will most easily keep doing what it has been doing up to this point so you will need personal motivation to override this. You are intended to continuously change and evolve throughout your life, but many get stuck and don’t realize why they feel unfulfilled and frustrated.

You have your thinking, reasoning and the ability to choose which are your basic tools to navigate your personal evolution through life. Your connections with your inner self and your intuition serve as guidance as you go but can only respond to what you seek. A life unquestioned is a life unchanged except by outside influences. Allowing outside influences to be your only guide, you will be much like the ball in an old style pinball machine bouncing from peg to peg with little to no choice.

Choice is part of your basic equipment, learn how to use it and do so. Don’t wait for some outside event or near death to wake you up, assess your life and how your feel now. What is working and what is no? Everything in the universe is in constant change, what makes you think you can remain the same and feel good about it? You can’t - dissatisfaction, unrest and unhappiness are the result. Rather, learn to navigate the change to best suit the life you are guided from within to live and you will see your happiness and satisfaction increase dramatically.

As you navigate your natural change, as guided from within, you will actually feel more calm and secure than when you were seeking comfort by trying to keep everything the same. Let this latest in air emergency be the catalyst for you to asses your life, don’t wait for something to happen to you. If we can learn from what happens to others, we may not need to experience it ourselves. Your first choice is to take a look at yourself - or not.

John Halderman

John Halderman writes and trains in personal growth and development focusing on what can be done daily to enhance your happiness and satisfaction with life through the understanding of how life works, managing your thoughts and purposeful actions. Find out what you can do daily to improve your life. And see the Effective Personal Development Blog for insight, methods and tools for life growth.

 I had a reminder recently that just further demonstrated how important it is that we establish and maintain positive habits that support our desired life.

I have taken or should I say participated in Mark Joyner’s Simpleology 101 and 102 courses.  I have to say they are very good if you are looking to gain focus with what is important in your life and keep it.  It is a wonderful tool to support the life you want to live versus the life that automatically shows up as the default when you don’t direct your thinking. 

What I did though was allow myself to get distracted out of my morning routine where I did the “Daily Target Praxis”, which is the daily focusing routine taught in Simpleology, for a few days.  Well, actually about two weeks.  And did I ever pay for it. 

Going through the two courses took over two months, with a gradual change taking place in your thinking, so the difference in how you think can seem subtle.  I had actually changes my thinking quite a bit and my general feeling and confidence were heightened. 

So after I had not been doing the morning Praxis for several days, I all of a sudden realized how I quickly changed back to how I felt before the course.  I was loosing focus and not getting as much accomplished. 

And, then I was not feeling very good about it either.  My attitude was getting more negative, I was loosing the intense drive and motivation I had been experiencing.  Upon making the connection between how I was feeling and not doing the ‘Daily Target Praxis”, I began again. 

And this is astounding, after just doing it again one day –I felt better and was more energized.  The key here is that I energize myself as the result of my thoughts.  When I am focusing on what is important to me and continuously remind myself of it, I feel better, have more energy and get a lot more accomplished. 

However you choose to focus your thinking and keep it focused is up to you, but do it. Take command of your thinking, and guide yourself into the life you know is possible. Simpleology is a very good tool for this.  The difference between keeping the focus and just allowing life to happen is huge.  When you feel better, you have more energy, you get more done, you are then more motivated.  All this leads to satisfaction and fulfillment. 

The root of happiness is not ‘finding’ it but rather being it.  And you ‘be’ happiness through your thought and activity. Only through some form of action will you change, and it starts with thought action. 

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Look for more articles here on self-improvement addressing topics like motivation, goal setting, self-confidence and living a purpose driven life. 

Grow, discover, and thrive, 

John 
John Halderman, a writer, speaker, and trainer intent on helping you get real results from your personal growth efforts.  He supports methods, tools, and knowledge that bridge the gap between information and effective results. 

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