Thinking Positively - INTRO
"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought."
Jonathan Swift: English author and satirist

Thinking Positively
 Setting goals
 Keeping focused
 Why do we set goals?
 What are your goals?
 Where will you be in 5 years time?

Thinking Positively
Let’s look “behind the scenes”
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How do we “set goals”?
What informs the process?
Where does the information come from?
Where does emotional well being fit in?
How do emotions influence our goals?
What is the biggest thing that stops us?

Thinking Positively
 Belief systems – paradigms! These all have their roots in the subconscious programming that occurs from the moment that life begins in the human psyche.
(Culture is a group habit).
 People – which leg of your pants do you put on first?
Parental programming!

Thinking Positively

Thinking Positively
 If you always do what you always do, you will always get what you always get!
 If you do nothing, then the results will continue to be the same and add to the fuel.
 Changing the way you think is the only way to make positive changes in your life
 Making choices - experimenting
 Where do thoughts come from and how can we change them?

Thinking Positively
 Fears impact goals in a negative way – where do they come from?
 What are paradigms?
“To ignore the power of paradigms to influence your judgement is to put yourself at risk when exploring the future” – Joel Barker (Author of “Paradigms”)

Thinking Positively
What are paradigms?
 Paradigms are a multitude of habits – often they are other people’s habits!
 Negative paradigms typically manifest as negative results in life
 Positive paradigms typically manifest as positive results in life
 Paradigms are belief systems

Thinking Positively
 How do we think?
 Think about your car, your sweetheart, your home, your favourite food...
 What goes on in your mind?
 So, let’s ask the question again... How do we think?

Thinking Positively
We think in pictures
 You know what things look like
 You watch the pictures change as you go through life – you adjust your paradigm
 Can you picture a broken leg?
 Can you picture a “broken” mind?

Thinking Positively
 Can you picture a mind?
 What does your mind look like?
 If you don’t know what your mind looks like, how can you change it?
 What can we use to paint a picture of the mind?

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 Paint a picture with your own understanding
 Only then can you change your beliefs

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The conscious mind
Cognitive senses
Intellectual senses
Imagination
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The subconscious mind
Emotions
Feelings
Paradigms (behaviour patterns)

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The Auto-pilot (subconscious mind)
 Learning to ride a bike
 Learning to drive
 Learning to fly
 Learning to swim
 Getting dressed
 Eating... Etc... Etc...

Positive Thinking
 To create a picture of the mind
 First create a picture in the conscious mind
 Then imprint it on our subconscious mind
 Programme the subconscious “auto-pilot”
 Thought – emotion – chemical response in body – action or reaction in outer world
 Mentally build a better self image – the rest will follow

Positive Thinking

Positive Thinking
PARADIGMS
 Imagine you earn £10,000pa
 Now try thinking you earn £100,000pa
 The autopilot rejects the idea
 It doesn’t “fit”
 Belief system reinforced

Thinking Positively
To change the way you think you have to go back and understand how you learned...
 To drive a car
 To walk
 To swim
You had to establish a paradigm so your subconscious could take over (auto-pilot)

Positive Thinking

Positive Thinking
It is the conscious mind that created the paradigm in the first place.
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What influences the conscious mind?
Seeing
Hearing
Taste
Touch
Smell

Positive Thinking
 External stimuli impacts on all the senses
 These stimuli create paradigms
 In turn produce automatic responses
 Responses produce a chemical reaction in the body
 The body reacts in the outer world

Thinking Positively
What other factors influence the conscious mind?
• Reason
• Will – concentration and focus
• Memory – a mental muscle
• Imagination
• Perception
• Intuition – pick up energy from others

Thinking Positively
Imagination is the most powerful force in the world – if you can imagine it, you can make it happen!
Everything in the world today is the result of someone’s imagination – every invention in the world began with just a single imaginative thought!

Thinking Positively

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Negatively charged paradigms:
 Low self-esteem
 Low self-confidence
 Self doubts
 Fears
 Anxiety and worry

Thinking Positively
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They are all life denying: Fear becomes internalised
Fear
Anxiety
Suppression of desire
Depression
Dis-ease
Disintegration

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Positively charged paradigms
 Knowledge
 Understanding
 Faith
 Gratitude and Thankfulness

Thinking Positively
They are life affirming: Sources of creation
 Well Being
 Anticipation
 Accelerated Desire
 At-ease
 Creation

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Questions:
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What is the most powerful force in the world?
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What is the nature of the subconscious mind?

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Answers
The imagination
The subconscious mind can’t tell the difference between what is imagined and what is real
Who can think of implications for this in sport, for example?

Thinking Positively
 The subconscious mind is an emotional mind
 Thoughts cause feelings
 Everything just “is” until we decide to make it what it is
(one person’s pleasure is another person’s poison)
 It’s all about our paradigm perceptions

Thinking Positively
PARADIGMS
 What is their nature?
 How are we going to change them?
 How do we convince the subconscious mind that what we now think is “real”?

Thinking Positively

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Thoughts – Feelings – Actions – Reactions
Reactions cause changes – altering conditions, circumstances and the environment of your outer world
 You think about a goal
 You get emotionally involved – excited, motivated
 You carry out your plan successfully

Thinking Positively
 You get the rewards (increased income, for example)
 Never change the goal – change the plan!
 Keep experimenting
 Analyse all your resources so you learn “what works”
Do you think the greatest inventors ever got it right the first time?

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SUCCESS:
Success comes from good judgement
Good judgement comes from experience
Experience comes from mistakes
Mistakes come from bad judgement

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People Look at goals in 3 ways:
What they know – repeat performances and stay in the same paradigm
What they think they can do
In terms of what they want
Which of these has emotional content?
Which of these stand a better chance of being successful?

Thinking Positively
Goals are about increasing your aspirations – they are about growth
Three stages to creation:
 Fantasy – ideas, thoughts, mental images, motivation
 Theory – using your conscious faculties; setting a goal and making a plan
 Fact – successful resolution; achieving the goal

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Steps to Success
Picture a goal
Feel what it is like to have achieved the goal
Own the goal as if it has already happened
Feel the emotional response in your body as you “own” the goal
Make a plan
Change the plan
Achieve the goal

Thinking Positively
 Until you make an image of your goal you cannot challenge your paradigm within.
 Get excited – get enthusiastic – think positive!
 Success leaves a trail! All the most successful people in the world create goals
 Some create goals daily
 What goal will you set to reach each day?

Thinking Positively
 Setting mini-goals
 First have the prime goal in mind
 Then work towards it in easy steps
This leads us into the “planning” stage...

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Planning
Set a goal – decide where you want to go
Plan a way of getting there
Take action
Review the plan
Take action
Repeat 4 and 5 then reach the goal

Thinking Positively
Before you do anything:
 Understand yourself and what barriers you subconsciously put in the way
 Understand paradigms
 If you focus on the doubts and fears, you won’t get there
 Focus on the goal and doors will open for you
 Then recognise the doors when they open

Thinking Positively
“Financial success has a lot to do with being in the right place at the right time” - is quoted frequently – but there is another factor:
You have to be AWARE that you are in the right place at the right time!

Thinking Positively

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“There is a difference between WISHING for a thing and being READY to receive it. No-one is ready for anything until they believe they can acquire it. The state of mind must be BELIEF, not mere hope or wish.
Open-mindedness is essential for belief. Closed minds do not inspire faith, courage or belief.”
“Remember, no more effort is required to aim high in life, to demand abundance and prosperity, than is required to accept misery and poverty.” Think & Grow
Rich - Napoleon Hill

Thinking Positively
“There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving and that is yourself.”
Aldus Huxley

Thinking Positively