Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life: How to Unlock Your Full Potential for Success and Achievement (33 page)

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YOUR RECOVERY RATE

When you experience a disappointment of any kind, your natural reaction is to feel stunned emotionally.You feel as though you have ccc_tracy_11_201-221.qxd 6/23/03 3:38 PM Page 216

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been punched in your
emotional
solar plexus. You feel hurt, let down, disappointed, and discouraged. You occasionally feel like quitting altogether and doing something completely different.

These feelings are normal and natural when you experience frustration or failure of any kind. The only question is, how long do they last?

When you go to a doctor or clinic for a complete medical exam, you will often be given a stress test. First, they will take your pulse at your resting heart rate. Then they will ask you to do some aerobic exercises to raise your heart rate. Once your heart rate is up to a particular point, they will measure it again. They will wait one, two, and five minutes after the exercise, and again take your pulse. The mark of how fit you are is how rapidly your heart returns to its resting pulse rate after exercise.

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BOUNCING BACK

With your personality, it is the same. The mark of how mentally healthy you are can be measured by how quickly you recover after experiencing a disappointment. Of course, a setback or reversal will hurt. It always hurts if what you are trying to do is important to you. But that’s not the main point. The main point is how quickly you bounce back.Your recovery rate is everything. If you plan in advance for setbacks and problems, and preprogram your mind the way we have described in this chapter, your recovery rate will be much faster.

Your recovery rate is under your control. It is completely determined by the way you think about what happens to you. It is not the event itself that affects you, but rather the way that you interpret the event to yourself. And this is very much a choice you make.

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YOUR INNER DIALOGUE

Here are several powerful affirmations that you can use to take immediate mental and emotional control over a negative situation. These words quickly neutralize any negative feelings you might have.

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The first thing you say when something goes wrong is the words: “I am responsible!”

Your natural tendency when something goes wrong will be to become angry and upset and either blame someone or something else or make excuses. But the moment you say, “I am responsible!” you stop blaming someone else for the problem. By accepting responsibility, even if it is only for the way you react, you short-circuit your feelings of disappointment, anger, and frustration. The instant you say, “I am responsible!” your mind becomes calm and clear again.You begin to think of positive, constructive things you can do to minimize the damage or to maximize the opportunity.

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INTERPRET IT POSITIVELY

Here is an affirmation that has been extraordinarily helpful to me over the years. No matter what has happened, and no matter how disappointed I am, I immediately say,
“Every experience is a positive
experience if I view it as an opportunity for growth and self-mastery.”
This statement enables you to assert control over your emotions. It forces you to think about how you can learn and grow from this problem. Like the statement “I am responsible,” these words give you a sense of control and personal power in any situation.

“Every situation is a positive situation if I view it as an opportunity for
growth and self-mastery.”

You then look into the situation and ask yourself what you can possibly learn from what has just happened. How can you grow as a result of this difficulty? What has this situation been sent to teach you?

If you had a divine force that was controlling your destiny, and this force was sending you specific learning experiences to help you to be successful, what lessons could you find in your current problem?

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ONE THOUGHT AT A TIME

Your mind can hold only one thought at a time, positive or negative.

If you are constructively looking for a solution for or a valuable lesson from every difficulty, you can’t be upset or angry at the same time. If you apply the Law of Substitution and deliberately force yourself to ccc_tracy_11_201-221.qxd 6/23/03 3:38 PM Page 218

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think about the positive aspects of the situation, you will always find them.You will then be able to turn them to your advantage.

A positive mental attitude, which means a positive and constructive response to disappointments and setbacks, is largely determined by your feeling a
sense of control
. Having a sense of control means that you feel you are in control of your own life.You feel that you are in charge. You feel that you are in the driver’s seat. You feel that you are on top of things.

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THINK ABOUT YOUR GOALS

One of the most powerful ways to bounce back from failure is to put the negative situation into its proper perspective. Remember, failure is never final. Most mistakes that you make are small relative to the great scheme of things. If you think back, you will probably not even be able to remember what it was you were worrying about a year ago, much less three, four, or five years ago.

The key to your having a sense of control is for you to develop and maintain a clear sense of direction. This sense of direction comes from having clear, specific, written goals. One of the most powerful ways to keep your mind positive is to simply
think about your goals
.

When something goes wrong, think about your goals. When you lose a sale, or even a job, think about your goals.When an investment fails or a business deal falls through, think about your goals.

Your long-term goals are to be financially independent, to enjoy excellent health, to have wonderful relationships, and to do work that makes a difference in the world, among others.

When you keep your mind on these goals, and on what you are doing to achieve each of these goals, you will find that it is almost impossible to feel upset or angry. Thinking about your goals empowers you and makes you a more positive and confident person.

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THINK IN TERMS OF

CYCLES AND TRENDS

Look at your life as a series of cycles and trends. Think in terms of regular ups and downs. Think in terms of summers and winters, falls and springs. When you develop this long-term perspective and ccc_tracy_11_201-221.qxd 6/23/03 3:38 PM Page 219

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you see things that happen as part of a larger pattern, you will not be too caught up in short-term fluctuations of your fortunes. You become much more capable of responding effectively to little problems and difficulties of day-to-day life. You can put things into proper perspective.

The sigmoid curve, which looks like an “S” lying on its side, explains much of human life. It has three phases. In the first phase, you are struggling and working hard to figure things out and get established. This is true for a job, a relationship, a new business start-up, or the introduction of a new product or service.

The second phase comes after you have learned the critical lessons of phase one. This is the growth phase, where you make great progress and get excellent results.Your business expands, your products and services sell well, your career takes off, and your relationships are at their best.

Then comes phase three, the decline phase, which follows phase two just as the winter follows the harvest season. In this phase, it becomes harder and harder to get the same results and satisfactions as in phase two. Sales and profitability are harder to achieve. Your job or relationship is no longer as enjoyable. Your company struggles to survive or thrive.

Which phase are you in today, in each of the important areas of your life and work? What could you do to get into or back into phase two, the growth phase? What are the cycles and trends in your life and business?

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“DENIAL” IS NOT A RIVER IN EGYPT

Many of our problems in dealing with setbacks and disappointments come from our resisting reality. We engage in denial. We become angry and insist that this should not have happened to us or should not have happened at all. We reject it and wish that it hadn’t occurred in the first place.

It is this resistance and denial that causes most of our stress.

When you say,
“What can’t be cured must be endured,”
you lower your flash point. You become more relaxed. You become calmer and you develop a more detached perspective. You stand back and you look at the situation as though it were happening to someone else. As a ccc_tracy_11_201-221.qxd 6/23/03 3:38 PM Page 220

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result you become more constructive about how the situation can best be resolved.You don’t allow yourself to become emotionally involved in every little thing that happens to you.

Abraham Lincoln wrote,
“Most people are just about as happy as
they make up their minds to be.”
In the Foundation for Inner Peace’s
Course in Miracles
, it says,
“You give meaning to everything you see.”
Without the meaning or emotion that you attach to an event or circumstance, it has no emotional significance for you. And you can change the meaning by controlling your thinking. You can even eliminate its negative effect on you altogether by refusing to become emotionally involved in a short-term setback. It is up to you.

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THE DECIDING FACTOR

Your ability to deal with disappointment in a positive, constructive way will do more to enable you to succeed and say more about you to other people than any other single factor. This is a learned ability, acquired by practice. Effective men and women are invariably those who have developed the ability to respond constructively to the large and small crises that occur unbidden, unexpectedly, and unavoidably.You must do the same.

Decide in advance that, no matter what happens, nothing will ever stop you. Decide in advance that, although you will have countless ups and downs in the course of your life, you will keep on persisting until you win through to your goals. When you make this decision in advance, you will be ready. When you engage in mental prepreparation, you will be fast on your feet when the inevitable problems appear, and be ready to bounce instead of break.You will be virtually
unstoppable
.

ACTION EXERCISES

1.
Resolve that you will bounce rather than break. Examine your biggest disappointment in life right now and determine how you can learn or benefit from it.

2.
Identify the three worst things that could happen to you in the months ahead. What is your plan to avoid or minimize their possible negative effects?

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3.
Select your biggest worry or problem right now and determine how you can learn and grow from this difficulty. What is the most important lesson that it contains?

4.
Practice the Edison approach to life. Calmly accept that every temporary setback is merely a way of identifying a way that does not work. Therefore, it is a success.

5.
No matter what happens, think about your goals and what you can do right now to achieve them. Get busy.

6.
Identify the trends in your business. Which way is the market going? If things continue the way they are today, what decisions or changes will you have to make?

7.
Ask two questions about your most recent important experience: What did you do right? And what would you do differently next time? Resolve to learn every possible lesson from every setback or difficulty.

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C 12

h a p t e r

Live A Great Life

The only true measure of success is the ratio between
what we might have done and what we might have
been on the one hand, and the things we have done
and the things we have made of ourselves on
the other.

—H. G. Wells

The Law of Correspondence is perhaps the most important of all laws in determining your success or failure in life. As we’ve discussed in previous chapters, this law says that your outer world is a reflection of your inner world. It says that whatever you are on the
inside
, you will soon see the results of it on the
outside
. When you change your thinking, you change your life.

This law applies to everything you do. Your inner world of knowledge and preparation will determine your outer world of income and career success. Your inner world of personality development will determine your outer world of friendships and relationships.Your inner attitudes toward health and fitness will determine the condition of your physical body. Your inner beliefs and expectations will determine your outer attitudes and your behaviors toward other people. Your outer world will always reflect your inner world.

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HAPPINESS IS THE SUPREME GOAL

Aristotle, perhaps the greatest of the philosophers, wrote more than 2,300 years ago that the ultimate aim of all human action is
happiness
. He concluded that everything a person does is to achieve happiness of some kind. Sometimes they are successful, and sometimes they are unsuccessful, but happiness is always the target each person aims at.

He concluded that every act is merely an interim step in the direction of happiness. For example, you want to get a good job. Why?

So you can earn good money. Why? So you can get a comfortable home and a nice car. Why? So you can have good relationships and a nice family. Why? So that you can have a satisfying home life.