The Articles Site

Are you focusing your time and attention to the right things? Are you placing importance on the right thoughts, feelings and behaviors? Did you know that for most people, much of what they do in life was not consciously chosen by them? And many times we have done these things for so long they now do seem important to us, but deep down they really are not. At least not as important as what truly is deeply important. This is because doing so requires us to take command of our thinking and analyze the state of our life. But letting our minds just run things is easier, efficient and more comfortable.

Your life is going on and on and on. This is a good thing of course and your brain is designed to keep it this way. Part of your brains function is to simplify as much as possible and to help you feel good which it is very good at. Now you may think that you are always feeling as good as you want this is because your brain sees keeping things the same as more comforting than change. So even what may not be good for you is perpetuated. Your brain is very good at keeping everything the same, in fact it helps to enhance whatever has already been experienced. The way the brain sees this is, you must want it – you chose it, even if not consciously. The easiest course for your life is for more of the same and that is likely what you have been experiencing. This of course may be all good if you are totally satisfied with everything. But if you want anything about your life to be different, that’s not what your brain is in charge of. When your day is completely full of what you already think, feel and do where does the new come in? When your unconscious and conscious though are consumed with what is now going on, which I assure you they are, all of your attention is there as well. Your day to day life is essentially a habit that continues to feed and support itself, keeping you locked in as it is. What happens is that you can become blind to other things, that are different. How this affects your life is this – You can become so involved with your repeating thoughts which increase in importance by default that you are not even aware of what you are not doing, what you are missing, and what is deeply important to you. I ran across a video that illustrates this. Pay attention to the guy speaking and do what he instructs you to do. Perception This attention blindness keeps us doing what we have done and away from what is different and unrelated. You’ve heard the saying, “you can’t see the forest through the trees.” You may not see things that are right in front of you because your attention is already taken up with something. When focusing on the trees that are right in front of you, you are not able to see the scope of the entire forest and it’s varied landscapes. Many of the things that you have grown to think are important because of your continual involvement, may not be so important to you at a deeper level. As you focus your attention on something it’s importance increases just from the increased presence of the involved thoughts and actions. With this higher level of importance your brain gives it more attention too making it even more prominent in your conscious and unconscious thought, thus many other things are completely shut out of your awareness. It is important to know that you can really only focus on one thing at a time. When you are ‘multi-tasking’ you are actually jumping quickly back and forth from one thing to another. There is only so much of this that your brain is capable of doing. Plus, there is the time utilized factor. There are 24 hours in a day and when you have allowed the repetitive thoughts to inhabit those hours you are awake, there is no more time for other, new thoughts. You can easily use up your day pretty much thinking about the same things as you did yesterday and the day before. So where does new thinking fit it? Essentially your life is easily consumed with what you have already experienced, have thought about a lot and have established feelings for. This is almost too simple. Allowing your daily life to continue on in the same way, as your brain helps you do, you are actually preventing yourself from seeing and experiencing anything new and different. You do however have the ability and the right to make changes in your life anytime you want, you must choose to first and then follow through with persistence and determination to override what is already established in your mind. Your real power as a human lies with your ultimate command of your thought. Just because your brain functions the way it does does not prevent you from aver changing any of it. Where the problem lies is that most of us have a pattern of allowing our minds to perpetuate the same thoughts and experiences over and over rather than making frequent changes. Making frequent changes and adjustments to your thinking can become part of your normal operating system once do do it for a while. Your brain will support this just as it has supported anything else you have focused on. To change any of your repeating life experience you will need to assert your command of your thought and make choices about what you do and don’t want to be your life experience. Just be aware of how your brain works, it wants to keep you comfortable by keeping things as they are. As you work on change you may experience some of the following:

• Un-supportive ‘Mind Chatter’,
• Negative thoughts,
• Doubt and worry,
• Challenging your ability and self-esteem,
• Brain fog, clouding your thought,
• Anxiety,
• Distraction,
• Short term gratification,
• and more.

Don’t let this stop you, you don’t need to remain blinded by your existing life experience. Realizing what may occur up front you will be less likely to be influenced by it. Determination, persistence and the belief that you are fully capable will help you learn to make the wanted adjustments to your thought and what you focus on. It’s your mind, use it to your benefit.

Are you a done with yourself or are you continuing to discover more about yourself, seek personal growth and development? You see it all around how science keeps going, discovering more and more about the world and universe we exist in. As technology improves, which is change, science is able to understand more about our universe plus obtain more ways to describe it all. For example, this picture of a supernova remnant was not possible just a few years ago even though the object was there. This is how life is, ever expanding in its awareness of itself. Plus, the increasing awareness of humans to what is already there. Much of the change seems to not exist or that the change is very slow, but it is there. Everything in the universe grows and changes we are certainly not excluded. We have the ability to continue to change and grow throughout our entire life, including our final change here, death. But at the same time there are so many people who are ‘checking out’ so early. Getting tired, feeling aches and pain, feeling beat down - telling themselves they are wearing out -that it’s too late. I’m not trying to tell you that pains should be ignored, but how you look at them can have a huge affect on the power they play in your life. The biggest factor to your growth is your thinking. What you think about your life and your growth determines what you see, feel and do. If you see possibilities - you will see them, and if you see the ‘end’ in your mind, you will see it in your life. If you think you are too tired, sick or whatever - you are. Time to check yourself: · How are you the same today as you were 10 years ago? · How are you different? · What are you doing that you thought were not possible for you a few years ago? · Do you look at things in the same way you did several years ago? · Do you see possibilities for your life or feel hopeless? · Do you feel that your life continues to move on or do you feel stuck? · Are you open to new ideas and concepts or do you want to keep things the way they are? · Do you feel your problems hold you back, sap your energy and nix your motivation? · Are your dreams alive or have you given up on what you want in your life? Can you change any of this? Well yes you can - much of it. Many times we let one thing affect all of our life. We allow our attitude and outlook to be clouded when one thing has happened when we don’t need to. Certainly there are situations where something may temporarily set you back but it does not need to be for all time. Only you can determine if you are temporarily off or if it has been too long. You will need to ask yourself honest straight questions about it. The easy answer is of course, “I will just suffer a little longer” but maybe not the best! The truth is that a broken foot does not come with a bad attitude, that’s our choice. A marital separation does not come with resentment that carries through all of your life, that’s our choice. Because something did not work out for us does not mean nothing ever will, that’s our choice to think so. The thing to be careful for is that when something that appears negative happens don’t allow it to affect all of your life any more than is necessary. Ask yourself some key questions that help enhance your self awareness so you discover how you think and feel about everything. There is always more out there for you if you allow it and if you are open to recognize it. When you are clouded by negative reactions it may not seem so, but you can always change and grow. Your outlook on life is a choice - yours. You are never done, unless you choose. John Halderman - More on daily life actions to support a better life, http://www.effectivepersonaldevelopmentblog.com