Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life: How to Unlock Your Full Potential for Success and Achievement by Brian Tracy Read Free Book Online
Authors: Brian Tracy
is that your life will be a continuous series of problems, difficulties, setbacks, and temporary failures. These unexpected and unwanted reversals and disappointments are a normal, natural, and unavoidable fact of growing up. To change your thinking and change your life, you must make a decision to get over them and to get on with your life, no matter what happened. Until you do, you remain a slave to the past, which cannot be changed in any case. Make a decision today that, from now on, you are going to eliminate all the “if only’s” from your life.
■ REINTERPRET EVENTS DIFFERENTLY
The author and speaker Wayne Dyer says, “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.” He means that at any time you can reinterpret the unhappy events of your early life in a positive way. You can practice the Law of Substitution and look into those negative experiences for something good, and think about that instead.
You can focus on how your unhappy experiences have made you a better, wiser person. You can actually be grateful to people who have hurt you in the past because they have made you so much stronger in the present. And in any case, it could not have happened otherwise.
Your parents had no experience with raising children. In addition, they were a product of the way they were raised. Like all humans, they came to parenting with their problems and weaknesses, just as you have today. Nonetheless, they did the best they could ccc_tracy_2_18-39.qxd 6/23/03 2:46 PM Page 24
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with what they had. They were the people they were, and they could not have raised you any differently than they did. It is silly to continue to be unhappy about things they did or didn’t do that they were incapable of doing otherwise. Let it go and get on with your life.
■ DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY
The second major cause of negative emotions according to Ouspensky, is identification , or attachment. This occurs when you take something personally or you become attached to a person or thing.
You see the unhappy outcome of an event or circumstance as a personal affront or attack on you or on something you believe in or hold dearly. You become emotionally involved in a situation and identify so strongly with it that it affects your emotions and your reason in a negative way.
The great spiritual teachers, such as Buddha and Jesus, have emphasized the importance of separating yourself emotionally from the situation ( disidentification ), in order to regain your calmness and composure. Psychologist and philosopher William James of Harvard wrote, “The first step in dealing with any difficulty is to be willing to have it so.” He encouraged people to say, “What cannot be cured must be endured.” In other words, practice detachment from any person or situation that makes you feel angry or upset. Withdraw the emotional energy from it so that you can regain your calmness and composure.
This approach does not suggest that you passively accept anything that happens to you. Instead, it encourages you to use your willpower to keep your mind and emotions under control.You discipline yourself to stand back mentally and deal with the problem intelligently. You use your mind to see the situation objectively and make better decisions to resolve it.
Nothing and no one can have any control over you unless there is something you still want from them. They must have something that they can still give you or withhold from you. As soon as you detach emotionally from a person or object and no longer want anything from them, you are free. This ability to practice detachment is ccc_tracy_2_18-39.qxd 6/23/03 2:46 PM Page 25
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a power you can develop through practice. It can make you the master of a situation that might otherwise cause you to become upset and angry.
One of the kindest things you can do to help others is to encourage them to stand back from a problem situation and be objective
■ REINTERPRET EVENTS DIFFERENTLY
The author and speaker Wayne Dyer says, “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.” He means that at any time you can reinterpret the unhappy events of your early life in a positive way. You can practice the Law of Substitution and look into those negative experiences for something good, and think about that instead.
You can focus on how your unhappy experiences have made you a better, wiser person. You can actually be grateful to people who have hurt you in the past because they have made you so much stronger in the present. And in any case, it could not have happened otherwise.
Your parents had no experience with raising children. In addition, they were a product of the way they were raised. Like all humans, they came to parenting with their problems and weaknesses, just as you have today. Nonetheless, they did the best they could ccc_tracy_2_18-39.qxd 6/23/03 2:46 PM Page 24
24
➤
CHANGE YOUR THINKING, CHANGE YOUR LIFE
with what they had. They were the people they were, and they could not have raised you any differently than they did. It is silly to continue to be unhappy about things they did or didn’t do that they were incapable of doing otherwise. Let it go and get on with your life.
■ DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY
The second major cause of negative emotions according to Ouspensky, is identification , or attachment. This occurs when you take something personally or you become attached to a person or thing.
You see the unhappy outcome of an event or circumstance as a personal affront or attack on you or on something you believe in or hold dearly. You become emotionally involved in a situation and identify so strongly with it that it affects your emotions and your reason in a negative way.
The great spiritual teachers, such as Buddha and Jesus, have emphasized the importance of separating yourself emotionally from the situation ( disidentification ), in order to regain your calmness and composure. Psychologist and philosopher William James of Harvard wrote, “The first step in dealing with any difficulty is to be willing to have it so.” He encouraged people to say, “What cannot be cured must be endured.” In other words, practice detachment from any person or situation that makes you feel angry or upset. Withdraw the emotional energy from it so that you can regain your calmness and composure.
This approach does not suggest that you passively accept anything that happens to you. Instead, it encourages you to use your willpower to keep your mind and emotions under control.You discipline yourself to stand back mentally and deal with the problem intelligently. You use your mind to see the situation objectively and make better decisions to resolve it.
Nothing and no one can have any control over you unless there is something you still want from them. They must have something that they can still give you or withhold from you. As soon as you detach emotionally from a person or object and no longer want anything from them, you are free. This ability to practice detachment is ccc_tracy_2_18-39.qxd 6/23/03 2:46 PM Page 25
Change Your Life
➤ 25
a power you can develop through practice. It can make you the master of a situation that might otherwise cause you to become upset and angry.
One of the kindest things you can do to help others is to encourage them to stand back from a problem situation and be objective
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