The Power of Mental Rehearsal

To start let me define the difference between imagery and mental rehearsal.  Imagery is a mental process or a mode of thought.  Imagery can be defined as a “symbolic sensory experience”.  It is sometimes referred to as “visualisation”, although this term implies that it only involves using the visual (seeing) sensory mode.  In fact imagery can, and indeed should, incorporate all sensory modes – visual (images), auditory (sounds), kinaesthetic (feelings), olfactory (smells) and gustatory (tastes).

Mental rehearsal, on the other hand, is defined the employment of imagery to mentally practise an act or behaviour.  Thus mental rehearsal is a technique as opposed to merely a mental process.

Mental rehearsal is the process of practising mentally.  For example you could imagine in your mind the specific behaviour that you want to rehearse.  Although this sounds very simple, mental rehearsal is a very powerful method of performance enhancement.

Please be assured that using your imagination to rehearse is not some strange or mystical practice!  It is a very common amongst all manner of people especially athletes.

Having conducted an extensive review of the psychological research into mental rehearsal, I can report two robust conclusions:

1. Mental rehearsal is better than no practise at all
   
2. Mental rehearsal combined with physical practise is more effective than either alone

So how can you apply these powerful conclusions to your life? For a start, I am certainly not advocating that you abandon physical practice!  However, there may be times when it may not be possible for you to practise physically.There is a famous story about an American army officer who was held captive for several years during the Vietnam war.  In order to keep himself occupied he would play a game of golf in his imagination every day.  When he was finally released from captivity, he went to play an actual game of golf for the first time in many years.  He played one of the best games of golf in his life - the many years of mental rehearsal had resulted in a huge improvement in his physical golfing performance!

However, the real power of mental rehearsal is when it is combined with physical practice.  As detailed above, psychological research confirms that, mental rehearsal when combined with physical practice is more effective than either alone.

Another way of considering this is that the person who practices physically and rehearses mentally will have a distinct advantage over the person who only practices physically.

Almost 100% of Olympic athletes surveyed by sports psychologist reported the use of mental rehearsal.  Elite athletes use this technique for one reason and one reason only – it works.  Mental rehearsal is a powerful performance enhancement method.

Until next time, yours for Increasing Life!

Simon Hazeldine
Founder
Increasing Life
Dedicated to Your Health, Wealth, Success, Happiness and Freedom

P.S. When you join the "Increasing Life" community newsletter you will receive these 4 powerful free gifts:

1. "How Winners Really Set Goals" e-book
2. "Are you tough enough? How to develop your mental strength" e-book
3.  "The Real Truth About Visualisation" e-book
4. "The 3 Secrets of the Billionaire Brain" video

Sign up details are at the top of the page on the left hand side - we look forward to welcoming you to our community.

Are you a Probability Thinker or a Possibility Thinker?

In my last blog post we explored the concept of “Increasing Life” as being a philosophy and approach of expansion, enlargement and growth in all aspects of our lives, and asked the question: "Have you chosen to adopt an increasing infinite mind-set or a contracting finite mindset?"

These mindsets are often accompanied by their respective styles of thinking: Finite probability thinking, or Infinite possibility thinking.

People with the more rigid finite probability thinking orientation will often have fixed mental models about the ways things are, the ways things must be and therefore have rigid limitations about what they think is possible.

Some amusing historical examples include:

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."

Lord Kelvin, Scientist 1897

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

Charles Duell, U.S. Office of Patents 1899

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”

Ken Olson, Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers”

Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943 

“We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out”

Decca record executive on the Beatles, 1962

By contrast people with the more fluid infinite possibility mindset will frequently challenge their own and others mental models in order to make improvements, advances and progress. They think in terms of possibility. Many of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs seem to have adopted this thinking style:

“We are going to where no one has gone before.”

Richard Branson

“It's kind of fun to do the impossible.”

Walt Disney

"When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for
people telling you that you are nuts.“

Larry Ellison

"Every time you state what you want or believe, you're the first to hear it. It's a message to both you and others about what you think is possible.
Don't put a ceiling on yourself."

Oprah Winfrey

And before any of us get too amused by some of the probability thinking examples shared earlier – it is important to realise that we are all subject (to some degree or other) to our own personal limitations about what we think is possible or probable.

“In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially or experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the province of the mind there are no limits."

Dr John Lilly

So are you a probability thinker or a possibility thinker?

Until next time, yours for Increasing Life!

Simon Hazeldine
Founder
Increasing Life
Dedicated to Your Health, Wealth, Success, Happiness and Freedom

P.S. When you join the "Increasing Life" community newsletter you will receive these 4 powerful free gifts:
1) "How Winners Really Set Goals" e-book
2) "Are you tough enough? How to develop your mental strength" e-book
3) "The Real Truth About Visualisation" e-book
4) "The 3 Secrets of the Billionaire Brain" video

Sign up details are at the top of the page on the left hand side - we look forward to welcoming you to our community.

What is "Increasing Life"?

In the book "The Science of Getting Rich" the author Wallace D. Wattles states:

"Every living thing must continually seek for the enlargement of its life because life - in the mere act of living - must increase itself."

"Life, by living, multiplies itself. It is forever becoming more; it must do so to continue to exist.""Consciousness is continually expanding. Every fact we learn leads us to the learning of another fact. Knowledge is continually increasing. Every talent we cultivate brings to mind the desire to cultivate a new talent. We are subject to the urge of life."

The concept of “Increasing Life” is one of expansion, enlargement and growth in all aspects of our lives. The Universe’s momentum is one of expansion. As part of that universe we have two basic choices. We can “go with the flow” and expand and become (and have) more. Or we can attempt to fight the inevitable and contract.

Those who choose (and it is a choice) expansion become greater than they were.

Those who choose (and it is a choice) to contract become smaller, less significant and more dependent upon others.

So have you adopted an increasing infinite mind-set or a contracting finite mindset?

Those of us with an infinite mind-set enjoy learning, discovery, experience, innovation, risk and challenge.

Those with a finite mind-set avoid opportunity to diminish the perceived risk. They will often have a very rigid and fixed view of the world and how it is supposed to be. Out of a fear of the infinite mind-set they will often try to impose this rigid world view on the rest of us.

I am sure you can see that many of the world’s current problems have as their root cause a fixed, finite, fundamentalist mind-set.

In my next newsletter I will explore how the infinite and finite mindsets are often accompanied by their respective styles of thinking – possibility thinking or probability thinking.

Until next time, yours for Increasing Life!

Simon Hazeldine
Founder
Increasing Life
Dedicated to Your Health, Wealth, Success, Happiness and Freedom

P.S. When you join the "Increasing Life" community newsletter you will receive these 4 powerful free gifts:
1) "How Winners Really Set Goals" e-book
2) "Are you tough enough? How to develop your mental strength" e-book
3) "The Real Truth About Visualisation" e-book
4) "The 3 Secrets of the Billionaire Brain" video

Sign up details are at the top of the page on the left hand side - we look forward to welcoming you to our community.

How to Use Visualisation to Maximise Your Success!

Would you like to benefit from a mental training technique that is used almost universally by Olympic athletes? A major psychological study reported that 99% of Olympic athletes use imagery as part of their training programme.

In addition, sports psychologists have identified that one of the characteristics of elite athletes is that they are more proficient at imagery than non-elite performers.  The use of imagery is not confined to the sports world.  It has massive power in all walks of life.

Before we look at what imagery is, let me first invite you to participate in an experiment (please do not participate if you have sort of back or neck problem and please consult your doctor before participating if you have any doubt whatsoever) that will demonstrate what it can do for you.

Step 1: Stand up, lift your right arm and point out your index finger.  If you are reading this article in a public place then you may choose to leave this experiment for later - or if you are feeling brave just do it any way!

Step 2:  Keeping your feet pointing straight ahead, turn around clockwise as far as you can comfortably go.  Notice where your index finger is pointing to on the wall behind you.  Then return to the start position.

Step 3: Put your right arm down by your side, close your eyes and in your mind imagine repeating the same movement.  Imagine that as you do it,  that this time you find it much easier than the first time.  Imagine that when you reach the place where you stopped previously that you carry on turning around and notice that you finger is pointing to a place much, further around than before.

Step 4: Open your eyes, lift up your right arm and again point out your index finger.

Step 5: Keeping your feet pointing straight ahead, again turn around clockwise and this time notice how much further you actually turn around than before!

When I ask participants at my motivation and peak performance seminars to try this experiment, I usually hear gasps of astonishment as they discover how much further they turn around the second time!

Based upon the results of our simple experiment, and more importantly on the results of significant psychological research, imagery can be very beneficial as a method of performance enhancement.

So what is imagery? Imagery can be defined as a “symbolic sensory experience” that may occur in any sensory mode. It is sometimes referred to as “visualisation”, although this term implies that it only involves using just the visual sensory mode.  In fact imagery can, and indeed should, incorporate all sensory modes – visual (images), auditory (sound), kinaesthetic (feeling), olfactory (smell) and gustatory (taste). 

Imagery is a mental process or a mode of thought.  Imagery uses all of the sensory modes to re-create or create an experience in the mind.

One of the most fascinating aspects of research into imagery is that when an individual engages in vivid imagery and absorb themselves into it, their brain interprets the imagery as being identical to the actual situation itself.  The brain appears to not be able to distinguish between a vividly imagined situation and a real situation.

With this fact in mind (no pun intended!), in future blog posts we will use what we have learned about imagery and apply it to the powerful performance enhancing technique of mental rehearsal - so please subscribe to this blog to make sure you don't miss out!

If you want to discover more about how to use imagery, mental rehearsal and visualisation please subscribe to the "Increasing Life" newsletter.  As a thank you for joining our community you will receive the fascinating e-book ""The Real Truth About Visualisation" for free plus three other powerful free gifts too! Sign up details are at the top of the page on the left hand side - we look forward to welcoming you to our community.

Until next time, please keep your imagery positive and focussed on the results you want to achieve.  As a wise person once commented, “Be careful what you imagine - it might just come true!”

Simon Hazeldine
Founder
Increasing Life

Dedicated to Your Health, Wealth, Success, Happiness and Freedom

P.S. When you join the "Increasing Life" community newsletter you will receive these 4 powerful free gifts:
1) "How Winners Really Set Goals" e-book
2) "Are you tough enough? How to develop your mental strength" e-book
3) "The Real Truth About Visualisation" e-book
4) "The 3 Secrets of the Billionaire Brain" video
Sign up details are at the top of the page on the left hand side - we look forward to welcoming you to our community.

How Winners Really Set Goals

In our last blog post we looked at the power of goal setting.  Goal setting is a proven method of performance enhancement and is extensively utilised by many high performers ncluding elite athletes.

What follows is a simple step- by step process that you can use to set goals. This is the powerful process employed by elite athletes.  It has been further enhanced by cutting edge techniques from NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) - the psychology of human excellence.

1) Ask yourself the powerful question: What do you want?

Make sure you know exactly what it is you want to achieve.  Although this may seem very simple, in reality very few people are clear about exactly what it is they want to achieve. As a result they may tend to drift and never achieve their potential.

2) You can't do a don't!

Your goal must be stated in a positive manner.  What you do want rather than what you do not want.  Express your goal in a positive, present tense way e.g. "I am a millionaire". 

3) How will you know when you have achieved your goal?

What will it look, sound, feel and even taste and smell like when you achieve your goal?  The more sensory specific data you can include, the more your brain has to lock onto.

4) Is your goal under your control?

Make sure the ability to achieve and maintain your goal is something over which you have control.  If your goal relies on other people acting or behaving in certain way, then this is not under your control.  Your goal must be about what you are going to do.

5) Is there anything that you might lose as a result of achieving your goal?

Achieving your goal may mean you have to put in some additional effort , and may impact, for example, on your free time. Find creative ways to achieve your goal and maintain the current benefits. This will help to prevent the phenomena known as "self-sabotage".

6) Write your goal down.

Write it in a positive, present tense way and use block capitals.  This helps to embed the goal into your unconscious mind.  Writing down the date by which you will achieve your goal creates focus.

7) Read your goal out loud to yourself every day. 

This also helps to embed your goal into your unconscious mind.

8) Put your written goals where you will see them every day.

Put your list of goals on the wall above your desk or bed or bathroom mirror so that you can see them regularly.  Keep your goals front of mind and they will go deep into your mind.

9) Experience your goal as being reality.

Imagine achieving your goal.  This "programmes" the goal into your unconscious mind.  Recent research has revealed that 99% of Olympic athletes use mental imagery or as it is sometimes referred to visualisation as part of their goal setting procedures. 

10) Plan your work and then work your plan.

Olympic Rower James Cracknell told me that he sets short and long term goals.  Combining short and long term goals produces the greatest improvements in performance and achievement.  Set a series of short-term goals along the route to your long -term goals. 

11) Take action now!

The real power of goals is in taking action once you have set them. What is the first action you could take towards achieving this goal? Do it now! If you leave this first vital action until later you may never do it.  An ancient Chinese proverb says:  "The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step".  Take that important first step right now. 

Goal setting is a proven and powerful method for generating performance improvements.  Set you goals and take action towards them now!

If you are looking for further information on goal setting and visualisation you will receive a free copy of "How Winners Really Set Goals" e-book and "The Real Truth About Visualisation" e-book (and 2 further valuable free gifts - details below) when you subscribe to the "Increasing Life" community newsletter. Sign up details at the top of the page on the left hand side!

Simon Hazeldine
Founder
Increasing Life

Dedicated to Your Health, Wealth, Success, Happiness and Freedom

P.S. When you join the "Increasing Life" community newsletter you will receive these 4 powerful free gifts:
1) "How Winners Really Set Goals" e-book
2) "Are you tough enough? How to develop your mental strength" e-book
3) "The Real Truth About Visualisation" e-book
4) "The 3 Secrets of the Billionaire Brain" video
Sign up details are at the top of the page on the left hand side - we look forward to welcoming you to our community.

The Real Truth About The Power of Goal Setting

Have you ever wondered what methods elite athletes use to enhance their performance?   A study of over 200 Olympic athletes concluded that one of their main characterising features was their use of clear goals.

If you want to improve your personal performance in any sphere of your life and be more successful than you are now, then you too need to set goals.

Why set goals?

Goal setting consistently facilitates improved performance.  Goal setting is a powerful technique for enhancing your performance and achievements.

Goal setting as a motivational approach to enhancing performance is one of the most thoroughly researched areas of psychology.  The psychological research on goal setting is impressive in that it has been conducted in a variety of laboratory and field settings, and has used a wide variety of tasks & diverse samples of people including children, managers and unskilled workers.    

A comprehensive review of over 100 psychological studies on goal setting concluded that "the beneficial effect of goal setting on task performance is one of the most robust and replicable findings in the psychological literature".

Goals set specific standards that will motivate you to take direct action by focussing attention, increasing effort and intensity, prompting the development of new problem-solving strategies and encouraging persistence in the face of failure.

Having specific goals will lead you to higher levels of performance than having no goals or "easy" goals or "do your best" goals.

What are goals?

A goal is something that you want to accomplish.  It is the object or aim of an action.  Goals can also be set to achieve a specific standard of proficiency on a task, usually within a specified time limit.

The famous football coach Sven Goran Erikkson has said: "Goals are the things we want to achieve.  It is important to set them".

It is also useful to define the different kinds of goals that you can set:

Outcome Goals 

These focus on achieving specific results.e.g. Winning a particular tournament or getting a new sports car

Performance Goals 
These focus on improvements relative to one's own past performance e.g. Achieving a specific score or grade 

Process Goals 

These focus on the procedures in which you will engage during performance i.e. the actual physical steps necessary to achieve the performance and outcome goal.

What is known as "goal proximity" is a further defining factor.  An individual can set Long Term, and Medium/Short Term goals within the three categories defined above. Research suggests that having a combination of Long and Medium/Short Term goals produces the greatest performance improvements.

The attainment of a series of sub-goals (Short/Medium term) is particularly effective, as this provides indicators of performance improvement that can lead to enhanced confidence and motivation.

How Does Goal Setting Work?
The theoretical explanations for the relationship between goal setting and performance include:

1. Goals direct and focus your attention to important aspects of a specific task.

2. Goals help you to mobilize effort e.g. by setting a series of steps towards a goal you will exhibit greater effort towards achieving your goal.

3. Goals not only increase immediate effort but prolong effort and increase persistence

4. Research has shown that you will often develop and employ new learning strategies through the process of setting and achieving goals.

Therefore we can conclude that goal setting is a very powerful method of performance enhancement and the act of setting goals correctly should be a high priority for us.

If you are looking for further information on goal setting you will receive a free copy of "How Winners Really Set Goals" e-book (and 3 further valuable free gifts - details below) when you subscribe to the "Increasing Life" community newsletter. Sign up details at the top of the page on the left hand side!

Simon Hazeldine
Founder
Increasing Life

Dedicated to Your Health, Wealth, Success, Happiness and Freedom

P.S. When you join the "Increasing Life" community newsletter you will receive these 4 powerful free gifts:
1) "How Winners Really Set Goals" e-book
2) "Are you tough enough? How to develop your mental strength" e-book
3) "The Real Truth About Visualisation" e-book
4) "The 3 Secrets of the Billionaire Brain" video
Sign up details are at the top of the page on the left hand side - we look forward to welcoming you to our community.

3 Common Misconceptions About Self Confidence

A consistent finding in psychological research is a direct correlation between self-confidence and success. Confidence is a major differentiating factor between elite and non-elite performers.
To develop your self confidence it is important to explore how you think and how your mind works.  A useful place to start will be to look at some of the misconceptions or limiting beliefs that people have about confidence.

Misconception Number 1: Either you are confident person or you are not.

Some people believe that confidence is something that comes naturally to some people and not to others.  Confidence is sometimes perceived to be in someway an inherited trait.  This is incorrect.  High levels of self-confidence do not occur randomly.  Self-confidence is the result of thinking positively and constructively on an on-going basis.

People who develop high levels of self-confidence retain the positive benefits from successful experiences and de-emphasise their less successful experiences.  Confidence is gained in exactly the same way as other skills – through practice and repetition of the desired skill.

Misconception Number Two: Confident people are arrogant. 

Whilst we may all be familiar with confident individuals who are outspoken and brash, it is crucial to realise that you can be confident without being conceited or arrogant.  It could be suggested that those who are truly confident would have no need to demonstrate it with brash or arrogant behaviour.

Misconception Number Three: Making mistakes/losing damages confidence.   The truth is that we are only human, and part of being human is making mistakes from time to time!  Some people respond to mistakes by weakening their confidence.  Other people continue to build their confidence despite any failures.  They choose to seek the learning from any mistake and use it to get improvements in their performance.

The truth of the matter is that confidence is the result of how you think, what you choose to focus upon, and how you choose to respond to the events that occur in your life.  The truth is also that confidence can be developed by anyone.

Simon Hazeldine
Founder
Increasing Life

Dedicated to Your Health, Wealth, Success, Happiness and Freedom

The Power of Your Self Image

Our recent blog posts have been exploring the subject of self-confidence.  A consistent finding in psychological research is a direct correlation between self-confidence and success. Confidence is a major differentiating factor between elite and non-elite performers.

To develop your self confidence it is important to explore how we think and how our minds work.  An important aspect for us to understand is that of our self image, how it is made up and what you can do to improve it.

In my last blog post I explained the difference between the two spheres of activity of your mind.  These spheres are often described as the conscious mind and the unconscious mind.

The conscious mind is your reasoning, objective level of mind.  It is the mind you are aware of when you are awake.  It’s role is to take in information, analyse it and decide if some action should be taken.

The unconscious mind is your automatic, subjective level of mind. It operates below your level of conscious awareness.  It maintains all essential life maintenance systems such as digestion, breathing and so on.  It is rather like a vast memory bank in which every experience of your life in its vast data bank.  This data contributes towards what can be described as your self-image.

Your self-image is quite simply the image you have of yourself that you believe is true.  As you were growing up, your unconscious mind has stored all the experiences, emotions, criticisms, praise and so forth in its data bank.

This has all been instrumental in forming your self-image.  It is the sum total of all of your past experiences, both good and bad, plus all of the thoughts you have accumulated throughout your life.

Your self -image is made up of thousands and perhaps even millions of mini self-images.  You will have a self-image of how good or bad you are at a huge range of activities – various sports, cooking, making love, reading, writing, making money and so on.  Then you will have a huge number of self-images about how intelligent you are, how popular you are, how funny you are and so on.  You have a mini self-image for every single aspect of your life. 

It is believed that our early experiences as children, for example, continue to affect our self-image when we are adults.  It is worth noting that our parents and other people have had a lot of influence over our self-image.  Many of these people may have had poor self-images themselves!

These influences can be passed on from parent to child and can be useful or not depending upon what they are.

When you enter into any situation in your adult life your mind instantly compares it to the information it has stored in its data bank.  Your self-image therefore has considerable control over your life.  As the psychologist William James put it: “We lead our lives as it is imagined in our minds”.

Much of how you feel about yourself is the result of a self-image (or more specifically a collection of mini-self images) that you probably haven’t been consciously aware of.  Your thoughts, feelings and behaviour will reflect your self-image.  Much of your conscious thought is the result of the content of your unconscious mind and your self-image.

It would therefore be useful to have a healthy self-image and holding data in your unconscious mind that supports you in a positive manner.  As Brian Tracy states in his excellent programme “The Psychology Of Achievement”: “What you think – you are”.

Quite simply, if you change your thoughts you can change your life.  Your life up to today has been the result of your thoughts – both conscious and unconscious.  If you change these thoughts now, in the present, you can change your life in the future. 

The past does not necessarily equal the future.  You can design the future you want.  By changing the data stored in your unconscious mind and by enhancing your self-image you can make significant and positive changes to your confidence and success.

In next month’s column we will look at some simple yet effective ways that we can do this.  Until then consider that what you think about yourself will frequently determine how successful you are in many areas of your life.  By practising thinking positive things about yourself you will be enhancing your self-image, your confidence, and therefore your performance. 

Simon Hazeldine
Founder
Increasing Life

Dedicated to Your Health, Wealth, Success, Happiness and Freedom  

The Two Spheres Of Your Mind

A consistent finding in psychological research is a direct correlation between self-confidence and success.  For example, a study of over 700 athletes from over 23 different sports concluded that elite performers had higher and more stable levels of self-confidence.  The conclusion was that confidence was a major differentiating factor between elite and non-elite performers.

 To develop your self confidence it is important to explore how we think and how our mind works.  It may come as some surprise to you that you have not one mind but two!  Or to be more precise, two spheres of activity within one mind.  These spheres of activity are often referred to as the conscious and unconscious mind.

 Your Conscious Mind

Your conscious mind is your reasoning, objective level of mind.  It is the mind you are aware of when you are fully awake.  Its role is to take in information, analyse it and decide if some action should be taken.  It is the mind that you consciously “think” with.

 If your conscious mind accepts some information as valid, it is transferred immediately to the unconscious mind that accepts it.  For example, as a small child you did not know that a flame would burn your skin.  Either from actually burning yourself or by observing the terrified reactions of your parents as you moved towards the flame, your conscious mind realised that “Flame equals pain.  Do not touch flames.”  This information would then be passed to the unconscious mind that accepts it without question.

 Your Unconscious Mind

Your unconscious mind is your automatic, subjective level of mind.  It operates below your level of conscious awareness. It maintains all essential like maintenance systems such as digestion, breathing, eyelid blinking etc

 It can be likened to a vast memory bank.  All of your life experiences pass through the conscious mind and are stored in the unconscious mind.  All experiences are stored be they positive or negative.  These experiences are not just passively stored but are actively stored.  This stored data persistently floods your conscious mind with feelings and emotions that affect your thoughts.

 The famous hypnotherapist Ormond McGill has said that each of these memories and experiences stored in the unconscious mind are “forming a thread in the texture of our personality, the total of these impressions being the nature of the individual.”

The role of the unconscious mind is to make sure that you always think, behave and perform in a manner consistent with the information you have accepted as true with your conscious mind.

 Your unconscious mind is concerned with your survival. It maintains a constant vigil. It never sleeps. No psychologist or scientist has ever been able to give a full description of its abilities or activities.   It is universally accepted as a very powerful force in our lives.

 Your unconscious mind concentrates on maintaining what is known as your “world-view”. This is your unconscious mind’s map of the world.  Your world-view is a powerful survival tool.  For example, your world-view tells you that if you step off a cliff you will hurt or kill yourself.  This aspect of your world-view protects you from danger by preventing you from having to experience the danger of falling every time you are on a cliff top!

Once your unconscious mind has established a coherent world-view it is reluctant to allow any data in that conflicts with it.  It will therefore accept or reject information depending upon other information that it holds.

 In the process of growing up we will all have experienced our share of “positive” and “negative” events.  All of these events are stored in your unconscious data bank.  You have probably consciously forgotten many of the actual incidents, but their unconscious effect continues.

If a new idea is now presented to you, you will either reject or accept it depending upon your stored date.  In addition to this your unconscious mind influences your emotions, thoughts and attitude.  You may not be consciously aware of this but it does have a powerful influence over your life.

It is important that you realise that the unconscious mind does not rationalise.  It does not enter into logical debate.  It just controls.  Your unconscious mind does not necessarily work to provide what is logically best for you.  It works to provide what its stored data tells it is best for you.

It does not care if you are “happy”. It does not understand happy.  It does not think in the conscious sense of the word.  It instructs automatically based upon its stored data.  If the data it holds is negative then it could actually be working against what you desire.

Simon Hazeldine
Founder
Increasing Life: Dedicated to Your Health, Wealth, Success, Happiness and Freedom

How You Can Develop Unshakeable Self-Confidence

Whatever your current level of self-confidence is the inspiring news is that you can improve and enhance it.  People who are confident have developed their confidence.

As a result of developing their confidence they will tend to think about themselves in a different way from those who lack confidence.

 If you wish to enhance and strengthen your self-confidence then you need to understand that the mind can, and must be, disciplined in a similar way that the physical body is disciplined by physical training.

Your mind is not necessarily going to automatically going to support you in what you want to achieve.  It can and must be trained to think effectively.

 Our thoughts affect how we are feeling and this affects our actions.  Inappropriate thinking often leads to negative feelings and poor performance.  Appropriate thinking leads to positive and enabling feelings and good performance.

 Confidence is the result of specific thinking habits, and when these habits are practised until they become natural and automatic significant benefits can be realised.

 To develop your self confidence it is important to explore the area of thinking and mind in depth.  It may come as some surprise to you that you have not one mind but two.  Or to be more precise, two spheres of activity within one mind.  These minds are called the conscious mind and the unconscious mind.  This fascinating subject will be the subject of my next blog.  

Until next time, please remember to have confidence in yourself – you can if you think you can!

Simon Hazeldine
Founder

Increasing Life: Dedicated to Your Health, Wealth, Happiness, Success & Freedom

What is Self Confidence?

Self-confidence is a somewhat nebulous term.  It will be helpful to understand it in greater detail.  Specifically self-confidence can be thought of as a “global” trait that accounts for overall performance optimism, one’s overall attitude, and can also be much more specific –relating to a perception about one’s ability to perform specific skills.

 This perceived ability to perform specific skills is often referred to as self-efficacy, or “situation specific self-confidence”.  Self-efficacy can be thought of as your perception of your confidence to succeed in a given task at a given time.  It can be thought of as referring to specific/particular skills.

 A concept that is related to confidence is optimism.  Optimism can be thought of as a tendency to expect the best possible result or to focus on the most positive/hopeful aspects of any situation.

The propensity to look for opportunities to grow, develop, win and excel regardless of the circumstance is vital to success in life.

 When the three elements described above – self-confidence, self-efficacy and optimism are combined, they make up a very powerful “I Can Do It” belief that is both global and specific.

Confidence is often confused with arrogance.  It is true that certain confident individuals are outspoken, loud, abrasive and brash. Muhammad Ali would be an obvious example.

However, many quieter and more respectful individuals are every bit as confident.  You can be a highly confident individual without being conceited or arrogant.  A well-developed sense of self-confidence and a positive “Can Do” attitude is a very useful, practical and healthy thing to possess.

Simon Hazeldine

Founder

Increasing Life

How to Develop Your Self Confidence

How confident are you?  How confident are you about your abilities? How do you feel when you are confident?  How do you feel when you are lacking confidence?  You don’t have to be a highly qualified psychologist to understand that when you feel confident about yourself it feels good!  However as vitally important as it is to feel good about yourself, feeling confident about yourself and your abilities has many other significant benefits.

 A consistent finding in psychological research is a direct correlation between self-confidence and success.  A study of over 700 athletes from 23 different sports concluded that elite performers had higher and more stable levels of self-confidence.  The conclusion was that confidence was a major differentiating factor between elite and non-elite performers.

Psychological research that suggests that high self-confidence leads to individuals selecting more difficult goals, and having greater commitment to achieving these goals once they have been set. This means that having confidence in yourself leads to you attempting more ambitious goals for your life.

Further psychological research suggests that when in stressful situations, individuals low in self-confidence will tend to give up more readily and experience greater anxiety. The self-confident individual will tend to demonstrate greater tenacity and to generally be more relaxed when confronted with challenging situations.

For the person who wants to achieve their full potential, ensuring that they have developed their confidence to its fullest extent has to be an important priority.

In a series of forthcoming blog posts we will discover exactly how to develop our self-confidence!

Stay tuned!

Simon Hazeldine
Founder
Increasing Life
Health, Wealth, Happiness, Success, Freedom

Where Do Our Beliefs Come From?

Our beliefs can come from a variety of sources.  They can come from the way we were brought up, from observing and copying significant people in our lives (such as our parents), from past events that have scared or traumatised us, or from repetitive experiences. 

We build our beliefs by having an experience of the world and other people and generalising it.

We may currently believe some things as a result of what we were told when we were growing up.  When you were young you had no way of knowing if these things were true or not.  The expectations that that people around us had during our childhood can instil beliefs.  Some of these beliefs may persist and influence you to this day.

When we believe something, we act as if it is true.  This makes it very difficult to disprove. 

Our beliefs act as very powerful filters on what we perceive.

What The Thinker Thinks…The Prover Proves

Leonard Orr models the human mind as having two main parts, a “thinker” and a “prover”.  The thinker is very flexible, and can think any number of things.  The thinker can think the earth is flat, the thinker can think the earth is round.  The thinker can think pretty much anything!
The prover, however, is far more predictable.  Whatever the thinker is thinking, the prover will search and sort for evidence to support the belief.  If someone believes that they lack intelligence (perhaps from comments made to them by their parents or teachers at an earlier stage of their life) then the prover will show that to be true.  Evidence to support the belief will be noted and evidence that contradicts the belief may be ignored or deleted.  In this way beliefs can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Beliefs are very powerful and help us to get a sense of certainty and direction in a world that can be anything but predictable. 

Beliefs can become so powerful that we don’t remember that they are not necessarily true – but we behave as if they are. 

Beliefs are not just “maps” of what happened in the past – we also use them as “blueprints” for our future actions.

Perhaps the point to reflect upon is not if your beliefs are true or not.  The question is: Are they useful or not?

The Power of Belief

The Power of Belief
By
Simon Hazeldine MSc

“Man is what he believes” - Anton Chekov

The beliefs that we have about ourselves, about other people, and the world around us, will exert a powerful influence over our performance in every single area of our lives.

They can power us to success and achievement or, like prison chains, shackle us to mediocrity and limitation.  So let us examine beliefs and the effect they can have upon us.

What are beliefs?

Beliefs are essentially judgements and evaluations about ourselves as individuals, other people and the world that we live in.  Beliefs are our guiding principles, the inner “maps” we use to make sense of the world.  They can give us stability and continuity in a constantly changing world.

Most of us share some basic beliefs about the world we live in.  The majority of people on the planet believe that our earth is round, for example.  However, I am reliably informed that there exists a society for people who still think that the earth is flat!

As amusing as this may seem, you do not have to go very far back in history to find a time when most people believed that the earth was flat and that the sun and planets revolved around the earth.
Many of our beliefs are very helpful and useful.  We believe that fire burns and that broken glass is sharp.  Therefore we avoid exposing our bodies to hot flames and don’t step onto broken glass in our bare feet.

Beliefs can be thought of as generalisations about what causes certain things to happen, what things mean and the boundaries in the world around us, in our behaviour and our capabilities.
Beliefs can affect our behaviour.  For example, depending upon which belief you have:

1. “Success requires hard work” or
2. “Success is mainly a matter of luck”

…will affect your approach to attempting to reach success!

Next time we will look at where our beliefs some from.

How to Bounce Back From Failure

Let’s face the facts. Let’s face the brutal truth. You are going to fail.  You are going to lose. Or at the very least you are going to experience failing and losing if you are challenging yourself enough. 


The simple truth is that if you have dedicated yourself to achieving exceptional levels of achievement and exceptional levels of performance then you have chosen to expose yourself to far higher possibilities of failure or loss.So the first step in bouncing back from failure is to realise that you have chosen to put yourself into situations where you could lose.  You have chosen to challenge yourself.  You have chosen to test yourself and your abilities in this demanding way.The majority of people do not have the courage to place themselves into such challenging and demanding situations. They prefer to play it safe; they aren’t brave enough to take the risk. Such people are also often characterised by their eagerness to criticise the performance of those that are brave enough to challenge themselves! It is very easy to criticise someone’s performance. It is not so easy to have the bravery and courage to step outside of your comfort zone yourself.


You have chosen to test yourself, to challenge yourself, to seek victory and achievement. In doing so you have the courage to place yourself into situations where you may experience failure.


On the path to achieving mastery in your chosen field it is inevitable that if you are challenging yourself and your abilities sufficiently, that you will face challenges and setbacks.  High achievers know that this is the price you pay for achieving any significant success. 


You have chosen to place yourself into a situation where you may experience failure.  You can also choose how you wish to manage losing or failure - if it occurs.  You could choose to get angry and frustrated with yourself, or to moan and whine.  Or you could choose to view such events as a positive and good thing.  A positive and good thing! How can failure be a positive and good thing?

If you have chosen to achieve exceptional levels of performance and achieve mastery in your chosen field then you have made a long term (perhaps even a lifetime) commitment to improving yourself and your abilities on an on-going basis.  You have chosen to challenge, stretch and develop yourself.  Without this you would not be growing as a human being.

Therefore it does not make sense to get frustrated and angry with the very setbacks that you yourself have invited through your chosen commitment!  You need to learn to welcome and even enjoy the challenges and the setbacks, for in this way you will truly learn.

Simon Hazeldine

Every living thing must continually seek for the enlargement of its life, because life, in the mere act of living, must increase itself.

A seed, dropped into the ground, springs into activity, and in the act of living produces a hundred more seeds; life, by living, multiplies itself. It is forever becoming more. It must do so, if it continues to be at all.

Intelligence is under this same necessity for continuous increase. Every thought we think makes it necessary for us to think another thought; consciousness is continually expanding. Every fact we learn leads us to the learning of another fact; knowledge is continually increasing. Every talent we cultivate brings to the mind the desire to cultivate another talent; we are subject to the urge of life, seeking expression, which ever drives us on to know more, to do more, and to be more.

In order to know more, do more, and be more we must have more. We must have things to use, for we learn, and do, and become only by using things. We must get rich so that we can live more.

The desire for riches is simply the capacity for larger life seeking fulfillment. Every desire is the effort of an unexpressed possibility to come into action. It is power seeking to manifest which causes desire. That which makes you want more money is the same as that which makes the plant grow; it is life seeking fuller expression.