Improve Your Life with a Gratitude Journal

You might have heard that using gratitude accelerates the manifestation of your dream.

I took me a while to discover WHY though.

If you are grateful for your current situation, and equally grateful for your visualized situation, then you are creating a “bridge” that connects both together.

We saw before that what matters most is the FEELING you feel towards a situation. Therefore, if you are grateful, and remain in that state because you are grateful for both you current and future situations, then you’re closing the gap between both!

So how do you become more grateful?

Well, like anything else, you practice!

Write a gratitude journal every day and think about what you truly appreciate in your life.

Write at least 5 things you are grateful for. Try to be very specific.

It’s more efficient to be grateful for the nice warm weather at lunch time that allowed you to go for a walk around your office building than simply being grateful for the nice weather.

When you are thankful for something more precise, you are training your mind to focus on the positive in your life, and you eventually create more of what you focus on.

Being grateful also ignites a shift in your perception.

Have you ever noticed how differently people can react to the same situation?

Let’s say you were supposed to go hiking this weekend but it started raining. Some people will go anyway and won’t notice it more than having to wear a rain jacket. Others will be upset and will simply stay at home. Some others will take this opportunity to visit friends and be surprised that their day turned out to be even more exciting than expected.

It’s all the same rain for everybody, but all with very different perceptions and outcomes.

There is always both positive and negative in everything. It’s simply a matter of CHOOSING to view the most favourable perspective.

After all, the rain isn’t affected by your reaction, but YOU are!

Haven’t you noticed that when you get very upset about something, everything else seems to be tainted by anger for the following few hours?

And have you realized that, when you are in a very good mood, even the things that usually bother you seem to bother you less?

Your life becomes a lot more enjoyable when you realize that you have power over things and events through your reactions.

Letting something bother you, or not, is up to you.

When you take ownership of you feelings, you start to realize that you can control them and recognize that you have the power on how your day goes.

Of course, it’s not simply a matter of awareness.

It takes practice to learn to consistently see things positively.

It’s not a linear process either. When you start trying to see things positively, you also have to learn to let go.

You cannot force yourself to “not care” about something that really bothers you.

But you can focus your energy and thoughts elsewhere, on something more pleasant.

Gradually, you will learn to let go of your grip on what displeases you and disturbs your positive vibrations.

Read this article to get more tips on increasing your persistence to reach your goals.

Or, if you want to take the achievement of your dreams to the next level, check out my course on persistence!

Personal Development Coach

I’m realizing more and more the importance of having a personal development coach to keep evolving. I just finished reading Who Are You Really and What Do You Want by Shad Helmstetter: a powerful book on self-talk and the importance of having a coach. Incidentally, I’m in the 5^th week of my coaching program with Peak Potentials. I had life coaches in the past, I didn’t really see the need to have one now, but boy oh boy is it catapulting me at exponential speed!

It started by a resistance of having to report daily. I find that I already report to myself enough and I didn’t need someone else to keep me in check. I feared that this would add to the pressure I’m already putting on myself to perform. When I openly admitted to my coach that I didn’t want to report on my daily activities, I also opened up to understanding a deeper meaning to this repulsion.

Not reporting to someone else was in fact a way to keep lying to myself into the belief that I was making a lot of effort. When I got that out of my system, I realized that I could ask a lot more of myself… and it didn’t feel demanding at all! In fact, it’s even fun and exciting to exceed the daily and weekly objectives that I set for myself! I’ve also introduced the concept of weekly rewards (I treat myself to a nice restaurant) but I feel that I don’t even need external rewards that much. The simple feeling of pride in beating my weekly goals is enough satisfaction to keep me going and constantly aim higher.

I feel that I’m redoing part of my education. Something went wrong in my initial programming regarding effort and rewards and I have to set that straight. This comparison might sound weird but it feels like training a dog. The reward or the punishment need to come right after the good or bad behaviour. Your window of opportunity to show a dog he did something right or wrong is very narrow. Well I’m applying a similar concept for my efforts. If I do something positive, such as an effort in the right direction of my personal development, I treat myself to something good. If I don’t do what I should be doing, then I don’t allow myself the reward.

That’s how it started at least. Because very quickly, I didn’t need to grant myself physical rewards and the simple pride of knowing that I am on the right track is enough to keep me going. I feel like I’m the parent of my inner child and I’m re-educating and re-programming him so that he enjoys making efforts in order to grow.

This is crucial in setting up passive income streams because it’s a lot of upfront work before results show. I believe that being able to discipline ourselves is crucial in succeeding a passive income project. Bob Proctor says it time and again: “Discipline is the ability to give yourself a command and follow it.” And I can now grasp the full extent of this quote as I am now starting to get scared to see less and less limits to where I can go!

If you want to learn more on building passive income stream, read my article Getting Started With Passive Income.

How to Increase Productivity

When I was first introduced to the power of visualization, the Law of Attraction, the book The Secret and similar concepts, it felt like all there was to do was to focus on the goal and it would automatically be attracted to me. After an intense year of visualizing and hoping, I concluded that something else was required.

It is true that hard work is not required, but persistent and productive work definitely is. For a long time I felt trapped between the need to work hard and return to my past filled with anxiety and the desire to achieve big goals which require a lot of energy. The solution progressively came to me as I witnessed more and more the power of focus. When you concentrate all your attention on a single task at a time, you become a lot more efficient.

Remove Distractions

It has become counterintuitive in our era to focus. Most of us have the impression that multitasking and doing more yields the greatest results. In fact, this only results in a lot of ineffective busyness. I was impressed by the feeling of peace that came over me after I disconnected Facebook, Gmail and Twitter from my phone. I’m not only relieved from the time I was wasting on social media, I’m also free from the perpetual anxiety that was caused by the constant interruptions. I now check my email and Facebook only once a day. When I respond to my email, my mind is clear, focussed on what I write, I remember things more and I feel that I am truly sending quality messages to people who deserve it. My “likes” on Facebook also have more meaning now that I take the time to really read or watch what I “like” instead of simply liking by reflex.

Break Down Your Work Periods

This is one I still sometimes struggle with, but when I do it, breaking down the work periods really helps to increase my productivity. There are many possibilities for this one, such as the 50-10-50 technique which consists of working 50 minutes, taking a 10-minute break and working for another 50 minutes. During the 50-minute work periods, make sure to follow my previous advice on removing distractions, in order to really make it an intensely focussed period of productive work. The 10 minute break is also very important as it will make your following work period more productive too. I sometimes find it difficult to stop when I’m on a momentum, but experience has shown me that taking this break allows me to be more consistent. Otherwise I feel overwhelmed after working 3 or 4 hours non-stop. Taking the 10-minute break is also important so that I finish my productive work periods with a feeling of satisfaction and freshness instead of feeling exhausted and empty. Ending on a positive note motivates me to go back to work the following time.

Have strong SHORT-TERM goals

My BIG dreams are what I’m really in LOVE with. They are the exciting part of my life and they feed my motivation to keep me working on my projects. But when your dreams are big – and they should ALWAYS be! – they will take some time to realize. Probably years. In order to keep yourself motivated, you need to break them down into weekly and even daily goals. Your mind probably gets bored quickly so you need to show it quick results. After you accomplish a weekly goal, and even a daily goal, make sure you reward yourself. Realizing any big project is always done in breaking it down into small easily digestible steps.

Be accountable to someone

I already talked about the importance of having an accountability partner. What I just recently discovered though is a powerful technique that uses fear to create motivation. Although I definitely believe that fear should not be used as a main motivational tool, the technique that I came across is very interesting. It simply consists of creating a situation that is worse than NOT realizing your goal. For example, in my case I wrote a check to a friend and told him to cash it and spend the money on himself if I didn’t achieve a goal by a certain date. I was so afraid of losing that money – which was scarce at the time! – that it really motivated me to keep working on my goal. Of course, the fear cannot be too crushing either, and this technique should be used in combination with rewarding yourself. But still, I found it to be very effective.

Meditate

I already gave tips on how to make your meditation sessions more enjoyable and efficient. Once again, meditating or simply taking a few minutes of nothingness greatly enhances your working periods. If you want, you can also use meditation to visualize your work already accomplished. This could help your mind find shortcuts that you wouldn’t have seen without taking a break.

Bob Proctor seminar review

There’s a quote from Bob Proctor which stuck in my mind for a while and is making more and more sense now. Bob says that, when things start getting better, you think to yourself: “Wow! Things couldn’t get any better!” … but they do! And it gets better and better all the time!

The most difficult part in personal development is getting out of inertia. It’s the same as with riding a bike or launching a rocket: the most energy is required for the take off. Once you are in motion, the force of inertia builds up and a lot less energy is required to keep you going at the same speed or the same level of happiness. You’ve already gained momentum and the extra efforts that you deploy aren’t used to take you off the ground anymore, but rather to add extra happiness to your existing state of bliss.

Matrixx and Science of Getting Rich

In my case, I started studying Bob Proctor’s material a year ago. Four months later I attended Matrixx and 4 more months after, I attended The Science of Getting Rich. You can follow the links to read the Bob Proctor seminar review I did for each of them. And now, I can say that I am definitely reaping the benefits of all the studying and the investment in the seminars. The steady studying is important because it prepares your mind for the new information and it “softens” your subconscious mind. Attending live seminars is even more important because of the energy that builds up on site and gives you courage and strength to do your big change. The follow up mastermind groups and exercises are also extremely important as they allow the theory to really sink in permanently and create durable change in your life.

Another quote I love from Bob and that keeps me moving towards my goals is: “When riches start coming your way, they will come so fast, it will make your head spin!” Well, riches aren’t making my head spin yet, but I’ve seen so many positive changes in my life already that I don’t even need discipline or motivation to keep going. When you realize every day the good that your daily rituals and practice give you, it simply becomes natural to do them! I now always wake up in a super good mood and 6 days out of 7 I remain very enthusiastic throughout the day.

The daily ritual

First on my list is Bob Proctor’s meditation which I LOVE and listen to as often as I can. Then I also do my positive affirmations while looking into my eyes since that apparently speeds up the transformation process. This is a trick I learned at the Science of Getting Rich seminar. I also occasionally watch the You Were Born Rich seminar available on YouTube. This is the video that sparked my interest in Bob a year ago. I must have watched the entire 10-hour seminar about 50 times!

I had already read the book The Secret a few years ago but my attention wasn’t caught by Bob’s teaching then. I’m always curious to find the answer to: “Why me?” Why am I so attracted by Bob Proctor’s teaching while so many aren’t? Why do I feel that this information resonates so deep within me? Anyway, I’ll find the answer to that later I guess!  😉

I also ended up on the stage at The Science of Getting Rich seminar and you can watch a short clip of that here. (That specific exercise was with Mary Morrissey and not Bob)

So that’s it! All I want to tell you is: “Keep going!” I had my struggles to get where I am now but my current state is definitely worth way more than the efforts I put in!

The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

I’m surprised to see the enthusiasm that still lives around the book The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. It was released in 2006 but still, 8 years after its publication, most of the comments I see about self-help books relate to this one. Even one of the comments on my own book is about the secret!

I must say that I got FAR MORE reactions from strangers while reading this book than any other ones! People rarely interrupt to comment or ask about what I am reading. But for The Secret, it was EVERYWHERE and ALL THE TIME!! I initially read it in 2007, one year after it’s release, but even when I reread it years later people would still react and tell me that it is “their favourite book” or that it “changed their lives”!

I’m not sure what kind of impact it had on me. After reading it, I bought an expensive suit and hoped that I would attract a lot of money that way. Unfortunately, I simply ended with an expensive suit and a hefty credit card charge! I reread the book once or twice but it’s only recently, almost a year ago now, that I had my big insight. It’s when I watched YouTube videos from Bob Proctor that the Law of Attraction truly started to resonate with me.

The Secret holds very precious concepts. But I find that putting them into practice is not sufficiently explained in the book. The major thing that needs to change is the mindset. And that’s a though one. The mindset only changes slowly and important and sustained effort is required to make that change last. I find that getting inspiration from people who have already succeeded is a better option.

Most of the rich and successful people are unaware of the concepts of the Law of Attraction. They simply worked hard, steadily, with excellent focus and a clear intention on where they wanted to go. These are the principles that will make you successful. The principles in The Secret make it sound like it requires no effort to attract what we want and that is not entirely true. There is no effort required in manifesting what we think about, but there is GREAT effort required to focus our attention! We are so used to being dissipated, bombarded by distractions all the time, that it is becoming harder and harder to focus on anything.

The theory in the book is very interesting and a good eye-opener on being careful about what we think about, but the true determinant in success is ACTION. I’m glad I read The Secret but most of my progress happened in live seminars and because of the daily routines I established to increase my perseverance. You can read about Self-Help Perseverance here.

I’m curious to know what you thought of the book and if you applied any of its theory into your life. Has it made a significant change for you?

Goal Setting According to Feelings

Goal setting. I came across an EXCELLENT idea recently: set your goals according to what you want to FEEL instead of what you want to achieve. When you do that, it doesn’t matter whether your reached your goal according to the predicated deadline, because you enjoyed every (in theory) step of the way. In reality, you might have ups and downs along the journey, but if you keep your focus of the feeling you want to feel, you’ll enjoy more overall happiness than if you had achieved your goal by the sweat of your brow. My first reaction to that new idea was: but what if I stop accomplishing anything valuable? What if my life becomes a total anarchy of unaccomplished projects? Well, that’s how my rational mind reacted at least. When things settled down, I remembered my year spent in Scotland. (See my article on Taking a Pause in Life) That year, even 14 years later, has been the best year of my life!! Why? Because I didn’t strive to achieve anything special. I simply enjoyed life as it unfolded, savouring a continuous string of present moments. What more can you ask of life?

The video that sparked my thoughts on this is by Marie Forleo and Danielle LaPorte and you can watch it here:

Ask yourself what you need to do to feel the way you want to feel. Also pay close attention to your environment. People around us have a greater impact than we realize, especially when their vibrational level is close to ours, the influence is even stronger. Just like a radio channel is only affected by the radio waves that are close to it. Therefore, the negative vibrations you need to avoid the most are the ones just below yours. Vibrations are part of a continuum. You probably have already been in contact with someone so negative that it made them look ridiculous. Because that person’s vibrational level was so different than yours, it didn’t affect you so much. But when it’s closer to yours, the impact is much more important: it will lift you up if the vibrational level is higher than yours, but drag you down if it is lower.

The number of people will have an effect as well. If the energy level of a group is high, it will lift you up more than if a single person had that same vibrational level. This is why “miracles” can happen at personal development seminars. Everybody’s energy adds up to create a powerful catalyst for change. But this is also why a negative environment at work is worse than simply mixing with just a few negative coworkers. So start paying attention to the environments you spend most of your time in and make sure that they will lift you up.

Follow this link to read more on the power of vibrational levels.

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Subconscious Programming Comes First

I discovered something very important in T Harv Eker’s book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: we cannot originate thoughts that our current subconscious programming doesn’t allow. With all my readings and work around the subconscious mind, I am now well aware that our thoughts are controlled by our subconscious mind, but I never expected that the desired “prosperity” thoughts couldn’t even form until the programming had been modified! I thought that “prosperity” thoughts were simply disregarded until the right subconscious programming was in place.

It reminds me of the moment I started to think in English. My first language is French and until that point, I could only think about certain concepts that this language allows. But once you learn a second language and you start THINKING from it, then you can originate entirely new ideas and whole concepts that simply CANNOT exist in a different language. I think you need to have the capacity to think in a second language to understand what I am trying to express, but I’m still going to try an explanation. Let’s take the Italian expression “Dolce Vita”. First, the fact that we use in English a foreign language expression is usually a good sign that this concept doesn’t have it’s equivalent in the other language. Second, words can be translated, but not the true nature of the concept expressed. “Dolve Vita” literally translates to “sweet life” or “good life”, but if you ask an Italian to describe the concept, he will passionately tell you that it means to live carefree, lazily and devoid of moral principles. This is a concept that can be understood in a different language, but no real equivalent of the Dolce Vita concept exists elsewhere than in Italy.

I believe the same is true for wealth, abundance and many concepts related to the Law of Attraction. As we saw in a previous post, thoughts lead to actions, which lead to results. If we want to change our results, we therefore need to change our thoughts. But now, the new variable in the equation is the subconscious programming, which opens up the realm of possible thoughts as follows:

Subconscious Programming > Thoughts > Actions > Results

So as you can see, in order to even be able to originate a thought, it needs to be made possible by our subconscious programming in the first place. It’s the same to say that computers HAD to be invented before USB keys because nobody could have thought about inventing a USB key if there wasn’t a computer to make use of it first. So now, how do you alter your subconscious programming if it comes before your thoughts? Well, you can take example on others who have done it before you, and follow their advice and copy their actions. Or, and this one takes more courage, you can use your imagination to open up your mind to new thoughts. This is what visionaries do. The ones who imagine something that materializes afterwards are called geniuses, the ones that don’t and considered insane. But Neville insists a lot on the power of imagination in his book Awaked Imagination. He claims that this is the way to open your mind to new realms of thoughts and to experience Heaven on earth. This is how you create your own future and empower yourself to become the master of your own destiny.

Follow this link if you want to read more about Neville and Inner Thought.

Awakened Imagination by Neville

I already talked about Neville’s book on the Power of Awareness. I’m now reading Awakened Imagination by Neville which is the second part of what used to be a single book. Chapter 2 titled “Sealed Instructions” talks about the requirements for manifesting one’s desires. Neville claims that:

“No idea presented to the mind can realize itself unless the mind accepts it.”

That’s a very powerful concept that I experienced fully at the Science of Getting Rich seminar with Bob Proctor last weekend. On the third and final day, Mary Morrissey told the story of a fisherman who rejected all the bigger fish he caught. When asked for an explanation, he said that the larger ones didn’t fit in his frying pan. That means that in order to achieve something, we need in the first place to accept the idea that it CAN be achieved. You need to work FROM a larger frying pan BEFORE you catch the larger fish. That might sound trivial, but disregarding this notion is exactly what keeps us stuck where we are. For example, if you do not TRULY believe that you can be a millionaire, from the bottom of your heart, then it will never happen. That’s also related to the notion that you need to think FROM your goal and not OF your goal. How can you do that? The best way I found is to try and try and try. All my epiphanies happened at a moment when I expected it the least. But I know that it’s the 3 months of no apparent progress that will lead to that desired “ah-ha” moment! Repetition and striving are the only ways I know that will change your core and produce results. That’s what Neville expresses a little bit further when he says that:

” Success is gained not by imitating the outer actions of the successful but by right inner actions and inner talking.”

So many people try to copy successful people by acting the same way, performing the same routines, hoping to get the same success. What you need to do is to change your core, transform your mind, do things in a “Certain Way” as it is said in The Science of Getting Rich by William Wallace. That also reminds me of the process of alchemy. You need an oven to perform alchemy and its the heat that accomplishes the transformation. It’s the same with your body and your mind. You need to have the right information inside of you, along with a high amount of energy, and then change will occur – not gradually, but instantaneously after the right conditions are in place. How do you build the heat? Through repetition! Repeat over and over what you know you should do. You won’t see the change happen externally right away because that kind of change is not progressive. It simply happens all of a sudden when people have built enough heat and have believed long enough. That’s also why faith is such an important part of the process. You need to believe in the unseen for it to manifest externally. It’s like life’s way of testing your commitment towards your goal. The best breakthroughs occur after the worst discouragements. Paolo Coelho talks about it in his Manual of the Warrior of Light.

And as always, parter up with someone who will help you achieve your goals and will be there to celebrate the successes and encourage you to keep going during the hardships.

Happy reading!
Martin

The Science of Getting Rich Bob Proctor review

Today was the third and final day of The Science of Getting Rich with Bob Proctor. What a complete mindset shift! I was ready to leave yesterday and I signed up for more today!

Before going to bed last night I did a meditation that was really powerful! I’ve been meditating for 3 years and I realize that I go deeper and deeper with time. My intuition told me last night that I should meditate even though I was super tired but I’m glad I did anyway!

This morning when I woke up, I was whistling and humming. My mood was completely changed and I was eager for the seminar to start! We did a visualization exercise where we had to picture ourself one year later when we would run into a participant we hadn’t seen since the seminar. What would we say about the year that just passed? Well, I got picked by Mary Morrissey to go on stage and try this with her. She asked me what I had done and all my answers came spontaneously: I had been a trainer, just like Bob Proctor, and I had traveled the world. I spoke in Paris, Berlin and Beijing. I earned $9,000,000! I lived in a beautiful penthouse in Quebec City with my loving boyfriend. What a beautiful picture!! This is a clip filmed by a friend:

This exercise is especially powerful because it sets you in the vibration in which you will be after you get all you want. This is the vibration that you MUST be in to manifest your desires. Plus, this is such an easy exercise that you can do with anyone! I will definitely do it often again! I really learned to experience what it means to come FROM a place of love. You MUST be in the higher vibration BEFORE you get what you desire.

Mary Morrissey also told us a story that had a really strong impact on me. It’s the story of a fisherman who keeps getting fish after fish after fish. A young man observing notices that when he takes fish out, he measures them to a broken ruler and throws the fish longer than the ruler back in the water, while he keeps the ones shorter. The young man wonders if there is some kind of ordinance than prohibits fishing larger fish or if they are more bony or if there is another reason. The fisherman explains that it’s simply that the larger fish don’t fit in his frying pan. That’s how it works with the Law of Attraction too. Life continuously sends you gifts all the time, big and small, but you will only accept the ones that fit your frying pan. You cannot get greater results than what you are ready to accept. So put yourself in the vibration of what you desire and accept the gifts that come your way!

Overall, the Science of Getting Rich was amazing! I realize that my review is a very personal one and I talked more about how I experienced the event than I described it. What you make of the event really is up to you. One thing is for sure: it will be valuable up to the efforts that you put in.

I even decided to become a Thinking Into Results consultant so if you have any big goal you want to achieve and need some help getting it, let me know! It will be my pleasure to help you!

I hope that you found this review helpful! If you missed any of the days, you can read about them here:

The Science of Getting Rich Bob Proctor review – Day 1

The Science of Getting Rich Bob Proctor review – Day 2

Good luck!

Martin

Bob Proctor Book Recommendations – Neville

Bob Proctor Book Recommendations. After attending Bob Proctor’s Matrixx event, we were given a few books to read. Two of these are from Neville Goddard and titled “The Power of Awareness” and “Awakened Imagination” (under $5 each on Amazon). Although I didn’t attend the MasterMind group following the event, I know that Bob insisted on the careful study of these two books. I’m still reading the one on imagination but I can tell you that the book on awareness offered greatly valuable lessons! Chapter 25 on Faith was particularly insightful for me:

[… it is obvious that a lack of faith means disbelief in the existence of that which you desire. Inasmuch as that which you experience is the faithful reproduction of your state of consciousness, lack of faith will mean perpetual failure in any conscious use of the law of assumption.]

The word conscious is in bold because it differentiates the instances when the Law of Attraction worked for me and didn’t. It seems as if the Law worked in my life every time that my desires belonged and remained in the subconscious realm. Every time I tried to consciously attract specific results with the Law, I failed. This specifically happened because of my lack of faith in the Law of Attraction. Neville goes on to say that:

[It is just as though that which you desire is telling you that it will not be yours until you turn from being faithless and perverse to righteousness.]

So how do I improve that? How do you consciously increased your faith? By raising your awareness! I already wrote a few articles that could be helpful if you are experiencing the same issue. Read the one on How to raise your awareness and this other one on Learning to speak the language of the universe. I hope they will prove insightful to you and will help you consciously manifest things better using the Law of Attraction!

Cheers!
Martin