Have you ever had the experience that you know what to do but for whatever reason you still didn’t do it?

Have you ever started projects, even gotten them to 80% complete and then got distracted and not finished them?

I know I have, recently I have found myself staring at the computer screen doing everything I can from doing actual productive work.

Have you ever felt like this before? I know this is not the first time for me and probably won’t be the last, however at least I now I have (and so do you) a solution or a different strategy to help get back on track to the fulfilment of your desires.

After thinking about this for a while, (yes more procrastination) I realized it is really a focus issue, I was more focused on the actions I needed to take rather than the results I am looking to achieve from taking the action.

I was too focused on the task at hand which as enjoyable as it may be, the action is never as exciting as the end result. After all you don’t really want to rank videos in the search engines; you want the affiliate sales that will come from getting your video ranked in the search engines. (For example)

So my question to you is what are you focused on? The action you need to take or the results you desire?

This is just a small shift however a very powerful one.

What I also like about this distinction is that is in alignment with the teachings of law of attraction. By focusing on the end result and not so much the action you are taking you are in a mind state of positively expectation and not hung up or emotional attached to a specific action which may or may not bring you the goals you desire.

I don’t want to get all spiritual and quantum mechanics on you, and there are many ways to address this issue I described at the start of this post however to just keep it simple and break it down to what it really is, which is – what are you focused? Your actions or results?

The results you get are based on what you focus on and the meaning you attach to it in any given moment

If you are focused on actions the meaning you will associate is different and not as empowering I would imagine as if you focus on the end results you desire and the reason why you are taking that action in the first place.

To help me, I have this saying stuck on my mirror.

By being focused on why you are doing a certain action – the result you are looking to achieve you will be more motivated and driven to follow through with that action and live experience the results you dream of.

If you want to make long term change in your life and are not prepared for what might come up and how to handle it. You may find you self right back where you begin sooner that you might think.

Recently I have been making some relatively big changes in my life and I have noticed a couple of patterns that have showed up where I could have easier fallen back to where I started, if I wasn’t prepared.

In this post I thought I would share with you some of these patterns so we can both be more prepared for what shows up and to help push though to make that long term change that we are looking for.

One of my first mentors was my first sales manager Mr Dean R and he used to say that “A Leopard doesn’t changes its spots”

He would say this when a sales rep would leave his team in a hast blaming everything else except themselves only to come crawling back months later with their tail between their legs vowing that they had changed only to make the same mistake as last time and leave the company.

Now after years of observing myself and others what I think Dean was really referring to back then was the self image.

The self image is that image we hold of ourselves deep within our subconscious, the image we hold based on what we believe and value about ourselves to be true and it will determine what we think we are capable of and ultimately dictate the results you get in your life.

How is your self image?

I first learned about the concept of the self image after reading one of my favorite books by Dr Maxwell Maltz called Psycho Cybernetics.

Dr Maltz was a leading plastic surgeon in America  in the 1940’s, 50’s and 1960’s and after observing that so many patients’ unhappiness and insecurities were not cured, as they and he had believed would occur when he gave them the perfect new faces they desired.

Dr. Maltz suggested that many people “see themselves” inaccurately, their perceptions distorted by unchallenged and often erroneous beliefs embedded in the subconscious mind. – The self image.

The classic example and one of the best metaphors to explain what and how the self image works is the demonstration of a thermostat in a room.

If you set a thermostat in a room at 26 degrees Celsius and the room temperature reaches 28 degrees the thermostat will stop and weight for the temperature to drop or cool down to 26 degrees or below.

As soon as the room temperature drops below 26 degrees the thermostat will kick in again and start heating the room up until it gets back to 26 degrees.

Your self image works very much the same way, if you earn lets say $5000 a month and you suddenly start to earn $7000 a month and your self image hasn’t adjusted to except the new found fortune, just like the thermostat your self image will kick in a find a way for you to either spend the extra money, give it away or go back to earning $5000 a month.

I noticed this happen when I was in sales, whenever I had a really big month of sales and earned well above what I would normally earned my self image would kick in and very subtly start to sabotage my thoughts and behaviors.

For example I might have slacked off more the following month or have thoughts like “hey I did really well last month, I can afford to take it easy, I earned it” or I would spend money more impulsively.

The opposite was also true, if I had a slow month and dropped below what I was use to and comfortable with earning I would become extremely focused, stop going out on weekends, stop spending on an impulse and work harder with my clients to get the sale.

You can see the self image at work almost everywhere, you see it when people attempt to lose weight, they tend to progress really well for a few weeks or a month and start to lose some weight and then a month later, lose the momentum only to return to old eating habits and back to where they began.

It is also like the lottery winners who end up broke within a few years, their self image didn’t have time to adjust to their new found fortune and as a result they end up losing the money only to be back where they started or worse off a few short years later.

The self image works in very subtle ways and it can often be hard to identify what is happening until it has already happened.

I find the evolution of change has stages and choices, if you choose badly you will end up stuck isolating where you are or back to where you started, if you choose well and coach your self image to move along with you as you progress, your self image will then maintain and propel you towards the new change for long term results.

To help demonstrate this look at the picture below:

Don't get stuck on the setbacks, learn from them and break though

Let’s say you are moving towards a worthy goal as you go along you will hit challenges , however if you don’t allow yourself to get caught up in them you can break though and you will then coast along often quite easily to the next challenge or setback.

As opposed to the opposite of not breaking though and you just end up get stuck and eventually heading back to where you began, because you didn’t coach your self image along with you.

One of the major traps I have witnessed from the self image is what I call the reward trap or the “I’m doing really good” trap.

If you have ever attempted to make lasting change I am sure you will be able to relate to what I am about to say.

Let’s say you are trying to change your diet, you start out great, you stick to your new diet for a few weeks/months and then you may notice a voice in your head that says “hey, you are doing really well you can afford to have some junk food”

This is yourself image showing its head, now it is fine to treat yourself and reward yourself in fact it helps you stay motivated and on track and if it is only that once then it won’t make a big impact on your long term health or goal.

However if you are not careful and if you don’t nip this in the butt quickly before you know it you can easily be back to where you started, which is not ultimately where you want to be, right?

Getting stuck in patterns from the old self image

What helped me push though these moments is to think about the reason WHY you what to make these changes in the first place.  By following though and committing to these changes what is it going to give me, what pleasures will I gain?

The self image works very subtly, you may only be slipping up a very small amount each day, but these soon compound and before you know it you are stuck where you began.

On the other hand once you have your self image on your side it works in ways to propel you towards your desires, almost effortlessly.

Another strategy I use is visualization, there have been countless studies done on power of visualization and many top athletes and even astronauts use visualization techniques.

Visualization is also one of the techniques Dr Maxwell Maltz talks about in Psycho Cybernetics as a great way to re train your self image.

However the point of this post is to understand what the self image is and to be prepared for it, whenever you make changes in your life there will be setbacks, after all the habits and behaviors you are replacing, changing or improving did serve you at one stage and it only makes sense that your self image doesn’t want to let them go so easily.

If you want to make long term changes you must be prepared for it and learn how to retrain your self image to work for you instead of against you.

Whenever you are faced with a decision to move towards what you desire or to move in the other direction this quote always provides me with the power to choose right.

To get a much more in-depth understanding of how the self image governs your life and how you can reprogram it for success I can’t recommended Dr Maltz Psycho-Cybernetics more highly, it is one of the most impactful books I have ever read.

In the last few posts I have been sharing some strategies that have been working best for me when it comes to creating lasting change, breaking limiting behaviors and creating success habits.

Today I thought I would share one of the most powerful strategies I have been implementing, not just for creating lasting change but to help me stay focused on what is important so I can reach new heights.

When we are growing up most of us had people we looked up to, admired and emulated. These role models could have been your parents, siblings, teachers, or celebrities, in fact really anyone of authority in your life at the time.

Whether you like it or not these role models have shaped the way you think, and react to the world and even the way you make decisions in your life.

When I was growing up my parents owned a video store and my older brother and I loved watching action movies, I was around 7 years old when Commando and Predator were first released staring the biggest action hero at the time, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Arnold Swarchenegger in Commando

I used to emulate Arnold, I’d dress up in camouflage gear running around with a plastic toy M16 playing war with my friends. I admired the guy. He was like a real life cartoon character, could take on 40 men at once, he was my hero.

Like most of us I didn’t consciously choose Arnold as my role model, simply just being exposed to his movies and characters, and especially as such a young age in my mind I formed some kind of bond.

As adults we do the same thing, our minds are a sponge that absorb everything that is in your environment and end up influencing our behaviour often getting caught into patterns that may not serve us the best.

Our environment influences us much more than most of us want to admit, from the television shows you watch, the background music playing at work, the newspaper you read, your friends and colleagues, etc.

I think it was a study that suggested your income is the average amount of your 5 closest friend’s income.

I remember years ago when I first decided that I wanted to be financially free I would ask people “how do I become a millionaire?” one day someone said to me ”if you want to be a millionaire, hang out with millionaires”. This seemed like great advice, except one small problem – I didn’t know any millionaires!

While hanging out and picking the brains of the people who have already walked the path we went to travel is defiantly the best, fastest and almost 100% guaranteed way to succeed at getting what you want, it is not always possible.

This is where having specific role models can help you and makes a huge difference to guiding you directly to where you want to be.

Success leaves clues and almost no matter what results you want in this life there is a very good chance, probably about 99.99% there is someone or many people have already achieved it.

For example, if you wanted to grow a billion dollar company and be billionaire do you think Richard Branson or Bill Gates would be good role models to hang out with?

Even if you have never met Richard Branson you can still pick his brain by reading his books, watch interviews of him, study his companies and how they are structured, etc

You can choose role models to model after in any area of your life, whether it is heath related, maybe to lose weight, have more energy, build muscle, or gain spiritual awareness.

You can have different role models for buying real estate, investing, marketing, leadership, growing a business, whatever you want.

Here are my 4 tips to effectively using role models:

1. When you chose a role model you don’t have to model every aspect of the person or character you have chosen to model. Just the parts that serve you best in the area you want results, after all no one is perfect.

2. Make sure you chose a role model that you resonate with. You will be studying this person so make sure it is someone you enjoy learning about them, like and admire.

3. If they have published a biography, read it. Go to YouTube and watch any seminars or interviews they may have done. But here is the key, when you are reading about them or watching them you want to notice what they value in their life and their belief system. Notice how they how they handle different situations and make decisions, notice the language they use, and how they use their body. What habits have they acquired.

4. This is the most powerful part. As I talked about in previous posts about the limiting patterns and the rituals we do, this is where your role models becomes extremely powerful. As you learn more about them, what they value, how they act and language they use you should become more aware of your own actions, when this happens you need to ask yourself the most powerful question when it comes to working with role models which is. “What would [my role model’s name] do in this situation?” or “would my role model do this?” if the honest answer is no, then here is your chance to change your life.

“It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped” ~ Anthony Robbins

By role modelling someone who has already achieved the results you want you can cut the learning curve down by months, years and sometimes even decades.

The best mistake to learn from is someone else’s

Till next episode

Sam

As some of you know I have hired an Anthony Robbins personal coach to help me break though to new heights and guide me to the fulfilment of my desires.

One of the fundamental principals my coach takes me though is about state management and different strategies to keep you in a better state or mindset

Top athletes and anyone at the top of their game understand that when you are in an empowered state/mindset you make better decisions and take better actions.

I am sure you know and can relate to this too, we have all experienced times when you are feeling totally juiced, energised, in the moment and in a peak state. You feel like you can take on the world and conquer any task even if you don’t know how you will find a way.

And there are also those other less empowering states, feelings of struggle, stressed or ‘simply not in the mood’ which hijack us from living our full potential and rob us of our dreams.

If you have ever been exposed to any of Tony Robbins material or study NLP you know that there are 3 main keys that affect you state:

1. What you are focused on in that moment
2. How you are using your physical body or physiology
3. The language you use and the words you speak.

Simply by changing one or a combination of these things you can start to shift your state, for example if I was to ask you to describe someone who is depressed, what would you say?

How would they hold their body, would they be looking up or down? Standing straight or slouched? What do you think they would be thinking about? Do you think they would be thinking of past successes or past failures? What kind of words would they use? Do you think they would talk with passion and excitement or slow and dull? Speak positive words or negative words?

I hope you are getting the picture, in fact here is a little experiment you can try, next time you are working out, doing exercise put a really big smile on your face and notice how your focus changes and how different you begin to feel. This is a cool little trick you can use to help to push yourself that little bit further. Smiling releases endorphins in your brain that make you happy

Peace begins with a smile. ~ Mother Teresa

We all have run patterns that keep us in a certain state, for example when you first get home from work/school you run a certain pattern, for me it used to be turn on the TV, get changed and sit on the couch to unwind. Because I did this largely without thinking it became a habit, and as the saying goes the things you do habitually will determine your destiny. – I didn’t like the look of that destiny

Recently I have changed this pattern and I did it effortlessly. The new pattern or habit I wanted to install was to do some exercise as soon as I got home.

The problem was just the thought of doing exercise as soon as I got home didn’t excite me to say the least, in fact I dreaded it, even though I knew why I wanted to change.

I had to consciously use a combination of the 3 state changes above to get me into the right mood or state and remind myself WHY I wanted to create this new habit to push myself to follow though.

This was until I discovered how to make this change fun and effortless. One of the easiest ways you can influence your state is to play your favourite song or music.

For all those fans of the Rocky movies I am sure you can relate when you start to hear Eye Of The Tiger! (I know I start to get really fired up)

So this is what I did to create a new empowering success habit effortlessly

Instead of turning on the television as soon as I walked in the front door I would play my favourite music that would get me into an empowering state. The side effect of this one small change was that it kept me in an empowering state and coming from that mind set I naturally wanted to do the exercise.

It was far easier and much more enjoyable for me to change the habit turning on the stereo instead of the TV and as a result I installed a new success habit.

Simply by changing one small and seemly unrelated change I was able to create a long lasting habit that will serve me for years to come.

In order to change the direction of your life many people often get overwhelmed as to the massive changes they might need to make, instead of stressing yourself outlook for the small things you can do to maintain your peak state and you will naturally take the right action.

As the hundreds of successful people that have come before us have shared success is 80% mental and 20% practical or physical.

I would love to hear your thought and comments and what small changes you are committed to in order to break your disempowering states and creates new success habits effortlessly

Before you go I want to leave you on a high, here is a short video that I watch often to get myself into an empowering state. Enjoy

I remember back when I was younger joking around with mates about what you would do for a million dollars tax free money; I have heard everything from very heterosexual men confessing they would give another guy a head job and swallow to others willing to cut off a finger.

We tend to joke about it because secretly as much as we would love it to come true we know no one is going to offer us a $1,000,000 simply for doing stupid stuff …or is there?

Recently Alki David from BattleCam.com recently held a competition what offered a $1,000,000 to streak in front of President Obama.

As you could image it didn’t take long for someone to step up to the plate and that man was… drum roll please…. Juan J. Rodriguez

However just like when we are messing around with our friends it seems like it might just be a fantasy for Mr Rodriguez too, more on that in a moment.

… But this got me thinking – almost all of us wish for financial freedom and riches, as a result we are presented with advertisements, products and courses about various ways to create wealth ranging from property investment, shares, start a business, forex, home business,  mlm, online information business, blogging, affiliate marketing and the list goes on.

You can find a role model of someone who has achieved financial riches in almost any walk of life to use as a role model that best suits your personality. There are many coaches and courses that are proven to have produced multimillionaires if you follow and implement what is taught.

Yet 99.8% of people would still rather buy a lottery ticket or swallow another man’s seamen just for the lure of a $1,000,000 or the perceived happiness that would supply.

Even though they know that this is just a fantasy all along.

For the record I am not a millionaire nor am I financially free but I find it ridiculous when people complain so much about money and how they hate their work and life’s a struggle and all that crap, they say they would do anything even cut off a finger to get out of the situation they are in.

I am here to tell you, you don’t need a magic genie that grants wishes for doing jackass stunts, you need to realise there are no excuses and only choices and you have the power to do whatever you want, yes there is going to be a transition period but if you have a DISICION stay focused you will wake up one day living what you dreamed of just a few months or years ago.

What about our mate Juan J. Rodriguez did he get the $1,000,000?

Well unfortunately no.

The rules stated amounts others that President Obama had to see him to qualify for the million dollars. However despite the failed attempt, David from BattleCam.com has agreed to pay all Rodriguez’s sister’s hospital bills, Rodriguez’s rent for the next year and will provide him with an additional undisclosed amount of cash.

To change the direction of the post, leave a comment letting me know what you would do with a $1,000,000 if you were given it?