In this article I’d like to share with you some life-changing tools, ideas and time-tested techniques, along with some of the latest research in the human performance arena. I’m going to share information about beliefs and strategies that will enable you to take charge of your emotions and behaviors. It’s going to require some effort on your part, because nothing happens until you do something. Remember, you can’t hire someone to do your push-ups for you!
Setting Your Intention
Setting Your Intention is a transformational technique. It requires you to spend a few minutes each morning, sitting quietly and thinking about the day ahead of you. Instead of thinking, “I hope this will happen, I wish that would happen…,” make it more powerful. Make it an intention. Begin with the words, “I intend that today…,” and add your intention: “I will begin exercising, reading my goals, asking for referrals,” or whatever action has a high priority for you. Next, write down your intention on a 3″ x 5″ index card and carry it with you to refer to throughout the day. With this technique, you can alter the energy that you bring to your day and the results you produce. My friend, Jack Canfield, suggests that you set your intention the night before—it’s like giving your subconscious mind instructions to manifest the day you desire!
The Law of Attraction
A principle that is written about a lot is called the Law of Attraction. It’s another name for an old concept, “You get what you think about.” Research has shown that any thought that is held for fifteen to twenty seconds begins to attract a similar energy. You’ve heard it said before, “You get what you focus on.”
Earl Nightingale said, “Life moves in the direction of your most dominant thoughts.” We’ve learned that thoughts are things and that every word we speak, every thought we have, and every outcome we affirm creates a similar result. You are creating your own reality with your mind, your thoughts and your words. As it says in the Bible, “As a man thinketh, so is he.” It says this in various ways in almost every book that’s ever been written about religion, psychology, and philosophy. Everything you experience and every result you produce is the result of something you think, imagine, or do.
What the Bleep?
A whole body of research has been created about frequency and vibration and why it is that we attract the things we focus on into our lives. There’s a movie called What the Bleep, by Masaru Emoto, in Japan, who is doing work with water molecules and photographing them under different energy states. He’ll literally take a glass of water and focus love on it and a glass of water and focus anger on it. He then photographs the ice crystals that are formed when the water is frozen and you can see a tremendous difference in the shape of the crystals, depending upon the energy state they were exposed to. The water exposed to anger produces crystals that are much less defined and more haphazard than the crystals of the water exposed to love. These crystals are sharp, well defined and very organized. Your emotional state can create a measurable change in the physical universe. It’s amazing stuff. Check out Masaru–emoto.net if you want to learn more.
What’s Your Frequency?
It boils down to something you’ve heard your whole life, “Like attracts like.” So how does this help you achieve your goals and create the practice and life you desire? It’s really quite simple. You cannot attract positive results from a negative place. It’s like you are listening to the radio, and you want to hear what’s on 98.6 FM, but you tune your radio to 101.5. You’re not going to hear what’s coming out of 98.6! You have to get on the same frequency! You can’t walk around angry and expect to attract a desirable state.
Emotions Have Energy
David Hawkins, MD, PhD conducted a twenty-nine year study that demonstrated that the human body becomes stronger or weaker depending on a person’s mental state. He measured various emotional states, with anger being at the bottom and bliss being at the top. If you consider prosperity and abundance to be desirable things and you’re in a place of anger, envy, rage, or jealousy, you cannot possibly attract the positive things you desire into your life. This is what stops a lot of people. They want to walk around hanging onto their problems, their complaints, and all that’s going on wrong around them, and wonder why they are not getting what they want in their life. It just can’t happen. Energetically, it’s impossible! This is an important point—put out the energy you want to get back!
We broadcast our thoughts. It’s all going out there! Especially so, if you are walking around with objections in your mind. You’ll find that you will attract patients with the same objections that you are holding on to. If you walk around thinking that your care is too expensive and that no one can afford it, you will find patients objecting to your fees—because you are broadcasting the objection! Pay close attention to your thoughts. Notice where your mind goes throughout the day. Are you focusing on what you want or are you spending a lot of time and energy on thoughts of what you don’t have yet?
Limiting Beliefs
Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right.”
I’ll change that a little bit to, “Whether you believe you can or believe you can’t, you are right.” Your beliefs control everything you will attempt to do and anything you will accomplish in life. The action you take is directly proportional to the strength you give the belief underlying it. For example, if you strongly believe a disempowering belief, you’ll exert minimal action to change that belief (and strong action to prove it true) and you’ll produce a poor result. If you think you’re bad at asking for referrals, you might ask three patients for a referral and get three “No’s” in response. You’ll say to yourself, “See, I knew I wasn’t good at asking for referrals!” And you’ll give up asking.
In reality, your underlying belief isn’t necessarily true. If you found a way to weaken your limiting belief or replace it with a strong belief that “I’m great at asking for referrals,” you would have taken greater action. Instead of asking three people for a referral, you would have asked twenty-three people and the twenty-third person might have been the one who produced the result you were looking for! Develop strong beliefs about what you want to accomplish and undermine the beliefs that are getting in your way.
Be Grateful for What You Have
Catch yourself when you focus on the opposite of what it is that you want to attract and replace the thoughts and words that are not working with thoughts that are going to take you where you want to go. Don’t focus on the finances or new patients or whatever it is that you desire that hasn’t come in yet. Be thankful for what you have. Become grateful for everything you have in your life. At the end of each day, perform a Gratitude Exercise, by writing down five things that you are grateful for in your life and reflecting on them. Your life will change. I guarantee it.
Dr. Mark Sanna is the CEO of Breakthrough Coaching. You can learn more about Breakthrough Coaching by visiting www.mybreakthrough.com or by calling 1-800-723-8423.