Learning by doing – Repetition and Awareness

Learning by doing. We learn everything by doing. I mean, how can you claim that you know to play guitar if all you’ve ever done is read tons of books on the topic but never held the actual instrument once? Same goes for self-help, personal development and self improvement. So many people (including me!) read so many theories, authors and techniques and just skip from one book to the other without seriously implementing any change or teaching. So my question is: how can stop skipping from one book to the other and really start implementing change in our life?

You need to raise your awareness. You not only need to KNOW that sticking to one (or just a few) self-help techniques is better, you also need to BELIEVE it. The most important part is therefore to stop looking for the perfect technique that is going to work for you, and to start working on any technique that YOU will make work. You need to switch the equation! Repetition does have an advantage though: it allows you to see that the only way up is by sticking to one technique and mastering it. This is true for any other lesson that we learn in life: we repeat the same stories over and over again until we have learned the lessons from them.

Moreover, you cannot teach anything to anyone. You can only take care of your personal growth which can influence others to move in the same direction. You can read my article on “Can you help someone?” to learn more about this.

So I hope that you found and love your personal self-help techniques. In my case, I will focus on these in 2014:

6-Figure Kindle Club

Mental Bank Journal

Science of Getting Rich (by Bob Proctor)

… and of course, I will continue to post regularly on this blog which allows me to clarify my thoughts and put some order in my busy mind!

Martin xx

Law of Attraction Positive Vibrations

Law of Attraction Positive Vibrations: How do you maximize your chances of getting positive effects and faster results with the Law of Attraction? You ensure that you remain in positive vibrations for most of your day, and on a consistent basis! Many people talk about staying over the 500 mark, which is the vibrational level of Love. Most people live between the 200-300 vibrational level so here’s a few things you can do to raise that level:

1. Get out in nature.

2. Exercise, go for a run or any other cardiovascular activity.

3. Drink water, eat healthy food.

4. Spend quality time with a good friend or loved one.

5. Dance and sing on your favourite music!

6. Write an entry in a gratitude journal.

7. Volunteer for a good cause that is meaningful to you.

8. Laugh.

9. Meditate.

10. Treat yourself to something good! (a massage, shopping, your favourite TV show or movie, etc)

Ultimately, anything that you LOVE doing will raise your vibrational level. Also try to remain away from negative activities such as watching the news, having an argument, junk food, caffeine, alcohol, video games, etc.

More importantly though, make your own list. Post it somewhere where you can see it often and you’ll be reminded to shift you vibrational level to a higher one.

I hope this helps!
With love,
Martin

The Recipe for Success versus the power of the subconscious mind

If you knew that it only takes 5 minutes a day to become happier, more successful and to make more money, would you do it? The answer, unfortunately, is: NO! There are so many easy, quick and free ways to change your entire life, but there is also a stronger force that prevents you from putting them in place called homeostasis. Homeostasis is the natural tendency we have to remain the same. The subconscious hates the unknown so it does everything to keep us in the known. It ensures that our current and future days are going to be exactly the same as our previous days. That’s why it will fight any recipe for success we try to undertake, no matter how simple and effective it may be.

The key is repetitiveness. If you repeat something for a long enough period of time, you will incrementally incorporate the new beliefs to your subconscious. I just came across a very interesting way to make things happen. The inventor of this technique, Dr. John Kappas, compares his recipe for success to a bucket, full of water, in which you drop a pebble every day. The first pebble won’t make much of a difference, the second either, but one day, you’ll realize that the bucket is full of pebbles and there is no water left! So here it is:

The Recipe for Success:

1. Come to believe that the subconscious mind can be programmed for success. It is the underlying belief that will keep you going before you see the physical results manifest.

2. It is daily reinforcement that accounts for change. Working on this for 100 hours over 10 days is less effective than 5 minutes for 3 years, although equivalent in duration.

3. You need to use a symbolic language which can be understood by the subconscious mind. That means using currency signs ($, £, €, ¥, etc) combined with numbers. Simply wanting “more money” is not something the mind can recognize.

4. You also need ideomotor response, meaning an activity the body produces without thinking. The handwriting is a perfect example. It’s something unique to every person, very difficult to reproduce, yet completely natural to the writer. The handwriting provides a backdoor to the subconscious mind. Most of us know that personality and the subconscious mind comes out through handwriting, which can be analyzed, but it’s important to know that learning also come IN through the same channel of handwriting.

5. There is a magic period of 30 minutes before you go to bed when homeostasis is at its weakest. This is when you should account for all your daily activities and fill out your mental bank statement. (explained below)

6. Pre-cognitive dreams interpret the data that wasn’t processed during the day. This is when your mental bank balance will be integrated to your real life bank balance.

Once you’ve understood all those steps, write down your current gross yearly salary. Double it to get your mental salary. Quadruple it to get your goal mental bank balance. Then lists all the activities that will contribute to increasing your success. That can be happiness, wealth, health, and so forth. Each activity will have an hourly rate equivalent to your mental salary divided by 1000. So if you current salary is $50,000, your mental salary is $100,000, you bank balance is $400,000 and your hourly rate is $100. Every time you do an activity that brings you more happiness, wealth or health, add $100 to your mental bank balance. Every time you earn real money, deduct it from your mental bank balance. When you reach your objective of $400,000 in your mental bank, then you should have $100,000 in your real life bank account!

To watch the full 2-hour video that describes this recipe for success, click on the following link:

The Recipe for Success

I hope this helps!
Martin

How to use the Law of Attraction to attract your soulmate

I’d like to write more posts on using the Law of Attraction to attract money, but I haven’t been too successful in that field lately. I guess that we all need some coaching! But I’ve been in a very loving relationship for one and a half year now so I’d like to share my story on how to use the Law of Attraction to attract your soulmate.

Contrary to the popular belief, you don’t need to focus on the “attracting” part. You need to focus on the “letting go” of the outcome. That’s tough, I know. I even believe that the reason why it worked in my love life and not in my financial life is that I want to manifest financial results so bad, while I didn’t care much about finding my soulmate. Paradoxical, I know!

The key is to ask yourself what would you do if you already had what you are looking for. In my case, it was easy. First, I had established some rules: I was NOT going to meet my soulmate online or in a bar. So I deleted my meeting websites accounts. Then I went for my biggest dream: getting a European citizenship (I am Canadian). So I sold my condo, with all the furniture and dishes included, and I kept only some clothes and books (self-help books, of course!). My entire life could fit (and still does!) in the trunk of a car. I was determined to live in Europe for my entire life: I had enough money saved up to start and I had no strings attached.

Five weeks before permanently moving overseas, I met my boyfriend in a small village, while doing my last contract for my previous job. He was actually my waiter at the restaurant. But my entire plans were made to leave to Europe! So we lived a beautiful and romantic 5 weeks and I left. A month later, he decided to join me and we lived in Belgium together for 4 months. Then, the beauty of the story is that my dream transformed into wanting to live with someone instead of wanting to live somewhere. Interestingly enough, he had almost never traveled but he discovered an unexpected interest. We still came back to Canada but we now have a lifetime of travel plans together!

Still today, I am amazed at how perfect our match is. There is no way I could have planned any better. That shows me the importance of leaving it up to the Universe to do the pairing. If I would have done it myself, I would have looked at rational criteria like: “does he like to cook and travel” but there is no way I would have found a perfect match at the emotional level like him.

So here’s what to ask yourself: What will you do AFTER you have found your soulmate? Once you have the answer: do it!

With love

Martin

Law of Attraction using Gratitude

Law of Attraction using Gratitude: Yesterday, I realized the importance of using gratitude together with the Law of Attraction (LoA). And I realized this while explaining the LoA to my boyfriend, which shows once more that the best way to learn something is to teach it! He was asking me about the gap between visualizing your goal and then going about your day without the goal fulfilled. For example, we are both in precarious financial situations and, even if we visualize wealth for 20 minutes a day, we have many more minutes to show us that wealth hasn’t arrived yet!

So the secret in closing the gap is gratitude. If you are grateful for your current situation, and equally grateful for your visualized situation, then you are creating a “bridge” to connect your 2 situations. You can read everywhere that what makes the LoA happen is the FEELING that you feel toward a specific situation. Therefore, if you are grateful, and remain in that state because you are grateful for both you current and future situation, of course you’ll speed up the process of manifestation!

Being grateful for an especially tough situation can be challenging though. It took me about a year to recognize the good in all the suffering I endured in my previous relationship. But once I did, I felt a profound release and I am convinced that this is what allowed me to move on and experience a beautiful and loving relationship and to break out of the cycle of my repetitive manipulative relationships of the past.

Another great way to be grateful is to compare yourself with people who are less favoured than you are. For instance, I’m not super proud of my apartment, but I remind myself several times a day that I do have an apartment while a lot of people live on the street. That also reminds me to be more generous to others.

I hope this helps!

With love and gratitude,

Martin

Self-help pride

I went to the hairdresser today, and I got a haircut that’s a little more on the “rebel” side than usual. It’s always been an internal struggle for me to do stuff that I like versus giving myself reasons for not doing it. Work is a reason that comes up often. I’d like to get this funky haircut, buy this flashy shirt, or whatever it is, but I don’t do it because of work. I guess it’s easier for me to blame in on the work context: that way I don’t have to recognize that I care about what other people think more than I should. I know that not all jobs are created equal, and some workplaces offer more flexibility than others. But the real deal stems from how much you accept yourself. And that brings up the topic of self-help pride. My hairdresser was telling me that if you’re really at ease with who you are, then your hairstyle or what you wear matters a lot less to you, but also to others!

It all comes down to HOW you wear it. If you’re scared that you might get criticism, you WILL get criticism. And you will be more affected by it too. It’s like when I came out as gay. The first few people that I came out to, I was embarrassed, I felt ashamed, and people reacted uncomfortably too. But as I gained confidence in telling people, and it wasn’t a big deal for me anymore, then that’s ALSO how people reacted! How interesting is that!

Allowing yourself to be yourself is wonderful! Try it out! Incrementally if you need to, but do it! You’re doing a big favour not only to yourself, but to humanity! Every time someone steps out into greater personal expression, the entire world is uplifted!

Tell me about something bold you’ve done!

Thanks!
Martin

How to win over your ego

There’s been a long and enduring war between my ego and my self. What is the purpose of that? And how do you instill lasting peace instead? Today we’ll address how to win over your ego. This is a battle that is never won through force. Rather, it’s through surrendering. The ego is stronger than any force you can oppose to it. Hence, the only way out of this duality is to accept it completely. Unfortunately, in order to do that, you usually need to go through the full-length battle that will exhaust you and bring you to your knees. Only then, after having tried all the potential exit avenues, will you consider the option of surrendering.

So this is the key: It’s drawing you in the wrong direction so that you can find what the right direction is. The ego also has many disguises. I thought I followed my intuition for a long time until I realized that I was in fact following my ego that wanted me deep into debts. Another time I thought I was following my emotions while realizing 3 years later that it was in fact my ego that was telling me to go back to this unhealthy relationship. So how do you avoid this? My answer is… you don’t! The beauty of experiencing the bad is to benefit from the good afterwards. Most – if not all – life teachers say that overcoming a big challenge also brings big rewards. I believe that you need to go through difficult times to be able to fully enjoy the better times that come after.

But, wouldn’t it be easier to save ourselves some pain and recognize faster how to evolve and raise our awareness? I’m not so sure about that. I believe that experiencing life means going through ups and downs… and enjoying BOTH! I’m so thankful for all the challenges of my life! Of course, when you’re in the deepest of your suffering, you’re not at the thankfulness yet. But when you keep a positive outlook on things, then you recover much faster and you enjoy your newly expanded awareness so much more!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on that!

A great book to read on this topic is A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson.

Happy living!

Martin

Self-help debt: First steps to recovery.

Self-help debt: I just go a call from the bank because I’m not reimbursing one of my credit cards. It’s amazing how a human-made concept such as money can have a powerful grip on the mind. It reminds me of the stories that my ex-boyfriend was telling me and which I didn’t want to hear. My entire body would shiver in fear and terror. The confrontation in my mind was brutal. But I dug deep inside of me. I sought to understand why I was attracted so much to something that was causing me so much pain.

In my current case with money, it’s not causing me pain in the same way. But I certainly didn’t want to face some part of reality. It’s tough to admit that I messed up. I thought so hard that I was following my intuition, while I was in fact following my ego in disguise. Still, I choose to look at the bright side of things. Going through my wall of terror with my ex-boyfriend contributed a great deal to my growth and I’m totally convinced that it’s because I went through that painful experience that I can now embrace a loving relationship.

Same goes with money. I had to put myself in financial “danger” to realize that there was something wrong. I had to uncover my addiction to spending before I could fix it! And now that I am in trouble and need to borrow money, the incentive to make money is much stronger. It’s opening my eyes to quantum leaps and it’s changing my mindset to look for wealth. The debts are an indication showing me that I perceive myself as worthless and, since I’ve recognized it, I can now start working on that. Wow! Life is exciting! All the movement inside that can be created for owing a few thousands! I find my emotional attachment to money so intense, yet so futile. The beauty of the situation is that I’m now taking responsibility and I’m on the way to recovery!

To help you go through this, read my article on how to meditate.

Also read this article if you want to learn more about addiction to spending.

Thanks for reading!
Martin

Self-help mind power – The brain as a 10-storey building

I just finished listening to an interview between T Harv Eker and Alex Mandossian and they were talking about the importance of self-help mind power. They were comparing the brain to a 10-storey building where 9 floors would be inhabited by families and 1 floor by drug addicts. What do you think would happen after a certain time? Of course, the entire building would be contaminated! This example shows the importance of great self discipline to completely overcome bad habits.

This post reminds me of the one I wrote on perseverance. If you only get rid of 90% of the negative thoughts in your mind, and you don’t take care of the last but most important stronghold, then you are bound to gradually fall back in your old patterns. Of course, personal development is not linear. So you will fall back along the way, but the most important part is to get back up as fast as possible.

Understanding this concept gives me the strength to keep going. This doesn’t mean that when everything seems to be ineffective and you feel like you are stuck that you shouldn’t take a break. (See the fly analogy) That’s what I’m going right now: taking a break to allow a space in between my thoughts. When you stop trying so hard, you allow your ineffective technique to be replaced by a creative quantum leap. Read the book You Squared that explains this beautifully!

Cheers!
Martin

Self-help love and relationships

I recently came across a video by Gregg Braden which beautifully explains how we can be “tricked” into thinking that we are falling in love while already being in a relationship. His explanation strongly resonated with me but also with everybody I shared this with so I thought I would write a post on self-help love and relationships. Gregg claims that when we fall in love with someone else, we actually are attracted by the CHARACTERISTICS that we see in the other person, because they are characteristics that we posses but haven’t yet accepted about ourselves.

 

This is very important information because it can prevent the breaking up of some loving and well established relationships. Even if you are married and love your family, you can be subject to meeting someone with whom you’ll have the impression of falling in love. What Gregg recommends doing is to ask yourself WHAT attracts you specifically about that person. Once you’ve made that clear, recognize that this is a characteristic that you also have inside of you, but that you’ve kept buried and didn’t allow to express itself. This recognition will release the tension inside of you and will also detach you from the attraction that you might have felt for someone else.

I believe this theory also very well explains what all relationships are: a mirror to allow you to see what you couldn’t see in yourself otherwise. I’ve been in a relationship for 18 months now and I’ve grown tremendously. I’m always amazed at how my subconscious has always been attracted to what I need the most. If I look at the common characteristic in my previous partners, I can see a clear pattern of the need to “show off”, to put on a show, to be popular and even a drama queen. To me, that’s totally in line with my upcoming public speaker and entertainer career. How wise is my subconscious and how grateful am I to have the courage to look at myself and at my relationships in the mirror!

Here is a link to Gregg Braden’s video. The entire 2-hour lecture is excellent, but if you want to watch only the part relevant to this post, watch from minute 30:00 to 48:00.

Gregg Braden – The 7 Essene Mirrors

Enjoy!
Martin