How I Broke the Pattern

Self Esteem 

My self-estimate has constantly been an evolution in my life.  I have been told since a young child, that I was useless and will become nothing by my stepdad.  No one really knew my capabilities, even me.  I thought I could achieve, even at that time I was testing high in mathematics, but I was unsure of how to become anything since most people in my life were uneducated beyond high school.  A lot of my family looked at college as ‘know-it-alls’ comparing my stepdad or the famous phrase being ‘let’s go to college to get stupider.’  When in fact they (my family) were very wrong and I just didn’t realize it.  

One influence in my life that saved me to think positive, started as a very young child and a close family member.  Even though they were negative in some aspects towards higher education, this person did lead me to think more positively and enjoy life.  Simple things I could enjoy aside from my stepdad, allowing me to let loose and be silly at times.  Those little things that were shining through in me, stood out to her enough that she positively reinforced my character.  I can’t thank her enough for this because it changed me enough to keep driving even if I had uncertainties.  I knew I was going places.

Habit Patterns   

Getting more done in a day has taken more energy that I didn’t know where to get from.  Since the program at MMC, readdressing my attitude or habits has really simplified my thought on energy.  I am seeing a change in the way I keep the house cleared of clutter, I have seen a change in my attitude towards achieving Dean’s List, as well as President’s List.  One position that has helped me see the energy needed started a ways back.  

In the Army, I was thrown into situations that I absolutely had to succeed in.  Once I accepted the position of Senior Paralegal, I reprogrammed my effectiveness because more people were coming to me to make a difference.  I enjoyed the questions and much needed advice from me, their source for the right answer.  This was very motivating to be motivated.

Church and being saved has also had a significant effect on my energy level.  I put a lot of trust and faith into the man upstairs because at times, I really don’t know what to do.  Through him, I truly know all things are possible.   In which case, God, I really need to pay my bills soon – I need help making creative ways to accomplish this.   

The most recent achievement in changing habit has happened now in my classes .  I regained my motivation as I am around a positive significant other who is also ‘high speed.’  I have taken what I fear head-on, having realized that is the exact path(s) I need to take in making my goals and be a high performer.  I now visualize and see myself being successful, defeating fears consistently, and where the fear use to be, it is no longer there because I have eliminated it in my mind beforehand. 

Attitude Review

I really analyze the implications of my habits and patterns now.  I have taken my thoughts and imagined completing assignments swiftly and accurately.  My emotions are not negative to doing work.  I have pictured myself happy doing assignments and I am.  I truly and honestly love learning and want to do it. 

Another way to reinforce my goals, I am visualizing myself gaining social attractiveness.  I am blogging and reinforcing others with positive comments even if I am not feeling 100% positive at that moment.  The responses are amazing and their responses are heightening my capabilities.  Since the efforts I am doing are creating a positive outcome, the goals are going higher and higher for me.  My old self no longer serves me because it is ‘too boring.’ 

I use to engage in avoidance.  Not that I would give up my goal to be ‘something’ or socially supportive of friends, but I would not try to enforce myself to be perceived as successful to others.  This is important for networking.  I use to think I didn’t have to show that I am a good person to be accepted as a good person.  Well, this may be true but I am an excellent person, and excellence is achieved through helping others positively, but the key idea is they need to know me to make excellence happen.

Invest in Yourself

I’ve never let myself invest in myself as much until now.  I was always subjecting myself to others’ ‘want to’s’ and desires.  My goals ended up being their goals, to make them happy because honestly, I had a blank mind to my life.  I just let myself be dragged around assimilating other’s goals and not my own.  I was living their life.

Now I am moving towards a new concept.  I think, what do I want?  Let’s say an educator.  I want to educate and I automatically picture a high school teacher.  Okay, so my next thought is to take it a step deeper, and I ask myself, ‘Now, what level of teaching would God want?’  You see, I am blogging and teaching.  No, I am not a high school teacher and I would rather not be because I am limiting myself, my own person, in potential.  I am going to become an author and traveling educator.    

So I invest time in my goal setting, 10 minutes for 10 goals.  I go through in my head and picture each outcome of the future I want it to be.  I do write them out because it concentrates on the ‘pre-meditated’ future.  I will literally make it happen because of this.  Since subconscious is a literal mechanism, then it has no idea I am imagining the future.

Go After What You Really Want

When my expectations are not met, I experience disappointment, but I withhold the appointment to still happen on a later date or to appear in a different manner.  It may not be time for it to happen, or I need to view it in a different perspective.  When determining my career I take out the possible disappointments now,  meaning I don’t mind the possible disappointments because it redirects the thoughts and goals in my mind.  I use to say, 'I’ll accept Miss Congeniality instead of Queen because no one wants it and I will easily get it, even when I do want Queen.'  I am learning to build the tenacity and drive to be comfortable in saying ‘I deserve it and I want it because I can have it.’  I will not settle and expect to have the stars, if I were to aim at something less like an eagle then it is possible to accept something lesser that like a pigeon.  Do you understand me?  It is a vicious cycle I have to keep myself out of it. 

I may not be qualified to be what I want right now, but goals are giving me the efficacy to get it.  I am causing it with my intent and my desires.  This is why I dare to dream.  I recognize this is not a promise, it is a vision.  I create the drive, want, excitement, but most importantly I go after it.  I know I will be surprised with how it truly turns out, but that is the God given purpose in life.  He is the master planner, I just have to want it, I just have to have the motivation and dream to do it and he will bring in the rest.  I dare everyone to try it.   

Your assignment is to go through each category and write out your own thoughts to the main ideas in Self Esteem, Habit Patterns, Attitude Review, and Invest in Yourself, as well as Go After What You Really Want.  Write how you feel about those areas and think if it is negative or positive, if it is moving you ahead in life or keeping you from life.

More to Come- JLO

Four Levels of Self-Talk

1) Negative Resignation - You resign to no change, and this is signified by 'I can't' 'If only' 'I wish' verbiage on a daily basis

2) Recognition, but no change - You recognize that the self-talk is negative in your mind, but you don't do anything about it

3) Stopping the negative self-talk - This is realizing the negative self-talk inside of you and stopping it, but you do not replace it with anything positive

4) Stopping the negative self-talk and telling yourself what you are going to do.  This is identified by "Next time I intend to...' 'I am better than that' 'I want to...'

To be high performance, replacing everything negative by painting and reconstructing into a positive is the main key.

"Thought Patterns for a Successful Career" with Lou Tice and the Pacific Institute

Choose Your Beliefs Wisely

I've been fortunate to study and put to use some of the top psychological material studied by the greatest Ivy League colleges in the nation.  One of the basic, although most difficult task to rearrange for a better life, is the belief system currently inside us.  Again, our subconscious is a literal mechanism so be careful of who you listen to and the words you accept as true, as well as the way you talk to yourself.  If you say 'I can't' or 'I'm not smart,' and 'I have to,' you won't experience the ingenuity inside of you.  The only thing in life that you 'have to' do, is die.  The rest is a choice, 'indecisiveness = decisiveness because your choosing to be indecisive.'  

We all have beliefs and depending on our background, we assimilate certain beliefs from parents, friends, teachers, jobs, managers, the military, and so forth.  Have you ever noticed people always wanting to tell you the 'truth'?  Like when you were a child, your parents probably told you very positive things which sets the stage for potential to be higher, but wait, maybe your parents told you 'not so nice' things like 'You're not smart, you can't do that.'  Even as adults we still encounter these 'beliefs' from people, 'You won't get that job, its too good for you.  Why are you even applying?'  This is the moment you choose to accept the words as true, or disregard them as false.  This is our belief system.

So let's back up, as children we are influenced by our parents and loved ones or the astronaut on TV, it doesn't matter, we don't know any better to not listen.  These are the beliefs we carry with us into adulthood and have the hardest time getting rid of.  So, taking a scenario I really enjoy telling is about a little 5 year old boy, Timmy.  Timmy was coloring in his room on a Saturday morning and thought to himself, 'Wow, I did a good job with this picture, I am going to show sister!'  Samantha, who is eight, was in her room playing with her Barbies and all of a sudden Timmy barges in on her pool party saying 'Sammy, Sammy!  Look at my picture I colored!'  Now, Samantha is annoyed by her brother because he barged in and frankly, she doesn't care about his picture.  Sammy goes forth saying, 'That is dumb!  You can't draw, you don't even know how to stay in the lines!'  So Timmy leaves the room, sad and wondering if he really can't draw.  The following day, Timmy gets an idea to try again with a new colored picture, of course, but this time he decides to ask his older brother, Johnny.  Timmy is thinking, 'Oh man, is Johnny going to like this, I did a good job!'  Johnny, twelve years old, is outside playing with his neighborhood friends when Timmy interrupts him saying, 'Johnny, Johnny!  Look at the picture I drew!'  Johnny is annoyed and tells him, 'Go away, that is a dumb picture, you can't draw!'  Now, Timmy is sad, both brother and sister say he can't draw.  Although, a few days pass and Timmy runs down the stairs to get mother, this one is real good!  He just knows mother is going to love it and tells mother to come look.  He takes her hand and is smiling from ear to ear, but when they get to his room, she smacks him across the head and says, 'Wash that off the wall!  You cannot draw!'  Timmy then has decided he cannot draw and it is even sometimes downright dangerous!  Timmy accepts the belief.  On Timmy's first day of kindergarten the teacher says, 'Okay, class, we are going to do something really fun and exciting now, we are going to draw!'  Timmy stops dead in his tracks and thinks to himself, 'Like hell I am!  I can't draw, its downright dangerous!'

Folks, listen, 'the absence of truth will set you free.'

This is what your thinking when it comes to math, reading, or applying for a high performance job.  Your belief system needs to be readjusted.  Timmy has all the potential in the world to be an artist, but he is not going to take art classes in the future.  You have all the potential in the world also, you must tell yourself you are good enough.  You should ask yourself what you want and then envision it.  Your creative subconscious is a genius -meaning you are a genius- it will get you what you want in amazing ways, it will lead you to people you need to know and create opportunities for you to gain the knowledge.  Don't get me wrong, it takes work, but when you have the dream it gives you the energy, or motivation, to do it.  Dream BIG.

More to come - JLO 

Our Literal Subconscious

I've learned to readjust my self-talk on a higher awareness level.  I have been a positive thinker most of my life, although never realized I was practicing positive self talk or what I like to call positive healing.  I was literally telling myself what I intended to do and become, not as clear as now, but nonetheless it was a strong belief to become a high performance person in my future.

Our literal subconscious is exactly that.  It literally takes the words and phrases we use in our minds everyday and assimilates them precisely as vocalized within us.  This blueprint, so to speak, is the foundation of where our life is headed.  The words, or lines like a blueprint has, can be straight, crooked, twisted, connected, infinite, broken, leaning to the left or even the right and so forth.  Can you imagine what the blueprint of your mind is?

If you are confused or have troubles creating goals, your blueprint to the foundation of your future will not be stable.  Maybe the land isn't leveled right, or possibly it is too tiny of a home to fit you.  This is where you adjust yourself to positive self-talk to straighten out those dreams you have.  Speak 'I want to' not 'I have to' and get ridiculously specific with your goals.  Start small, design a coffee cup in your mind in a spatial pattern.  What material is it going to made from?  Glass?  Plastic? Clay?  Okay, let's make it clay, now what color?  What weight, size, and shape?  Imagine carving your name in it, what style of writing will it be?  Possibly just your initials, oh, but wait, will it have the date too?    This is the step you take to build your dream home or job.

Assignment is to not talk negatively for 24 hours.  Wear a bracelet and switch it from arm to arm every time you speak negative.  This will help you realize how much negativity is around you and coming out of you.



All material can be sourced to 'Thought Patterns for a Successful Career' out of the Pacific Institute with Lou Tice.  Audio and other books are available for further studies.