This weekend is Superbowl XLIV. I’m sure that many of you are disappointed that your favorite team isn’t one of the teams competing in one of the most watched events of the year. I have to admit that I am a little disappointed that the Chargers aren’t competing. But that’s a completely different story.

I love sports stories and since the Superbowl is upon us I’d like to share one of my favorite football stories. It’s about the Green Bay Packers Coach, Vince Lombardi and a very famous lineman that played for him. It illustrates how helping others succeed can help us in ways that we don’t even expect.

During a practice session that wasn’t going very well Coach Lombardi singled out a guard and belittled him for his failure to “put out”. It was a typical hot, humid late summer day when Coach Lombardi called the big guard over and opened up on him with both barrels of his vocal guns.

“Son,” the coach began, you are a lousy football player. You’re not blocking, you’re not tackling – you’re not putting out. As a matter of fact, it’s all over for you today, go take a shower!” The big guard looked as if he had been hit by an atomic bomb. He dropped his head and slowly wandered back to the dressing room.

At the end of practice Coach Lombardi walked into the dressing room where he saw the big guard sitting in front of his locker still wearing his uniform. His head was bowed in his hands and he was quietly sobbing to himself.

If anything, Vince Lombardi was a very compassionate coach. He walked over to the big guard and put his arm around his shoulder and told him, “Son, I gave it to your straight today. You’re a lousy football player. You’re not blocking, you’re not tackling – you’re not putting out.”

The great coach paused for a moment and then continued, “But, in all fairness to you I should have finished the story. Because inside of you, son, is a great football player and I’m going to stick by your side until the great football player inside you has a chance to get out and assert himself.

As the big guard, Jerry Kramer, told the story many years later, he said his head straightened and he sat up, feeling a whole lot deal better about himself. In 1996 The Hall of Fame Senior Committee nominated him for selection to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Jerry Kramer said he became the Hall or Fame Player he was as a result of motivational thoughts Coach Lombardi communicated with him that day.

Coach Lombardi could have left the big guard alone that day and quietly slip into oblivion but he didn’t. He understood that helping others succeed can also directly help you at the same time. So he made a decision and acted to help this loser see the kind of football player he could become. As a result Jerry Kramer helped the Packers win five NFL titles and the first two Super Bowls. He was also a 3-time Pro Bowler and a 5-time First-Team All-Pro. He also kicked 3 field goals and 1 extra point in the Packers 16-7 victory over the New York Giants in the 1962 NFL title game. Not bad for a lousy football player.

That’s really the story here, helping others to succeed really is a benefit to you. When you do this not only do you feel good about yourself, but you’ll also notice that others are more willing to help you in return!

Here are a few ways that helping others to succeed can benefit you:

1. As the bible verse says, “You reap what you sow”. The law of attraction, Karma or whatever you choose to name it states that the more you give the more you get so if you want to attract more, give more! When you give, you’re more likely to receive. Now you don’t necessarily need to give with the idea of receiving in mind, but when you decide to give nature may just take its course. Maybe a friend will unexpectedly return a favor. Maybe you’ll stumble upon some good fortune. If you read this article to the end and see what inspired me to write this, you’ll understand what I mean.

2. Helping others succeed, or just helping others, brings good feelings with it. When you volunteer your time to help others, you’re sharing your blessings with those less fortunate, which is a wonderful way to show your gratitude! You’ll likely return home after volunteering with a smile on your face and a positive mindset. Just by completing a giving act, you go a long way toward developing a positive mental attitude toward life.

3. Helping others is an excellent method to build your self esteem. You can’t help but feel better about yourself as you help others succeed. When you help others, you are building your self esteem. The positive feedback you receive can help you to feel pride in your accomplishments, as well as build even bigger momentum for accomplishing your goals and dreams.

4. Helping others to succeed is a great confidence builder. Success is a matter of developing confidence in yourself and your abilities. Helping others succeed is an excellent method of boosting your self confidence and self esteem. The mere fact that your helpful acts turned out positive might be just the confidence builder you need to take you to greater success in your own life.

5. Helping others succeed will give you a more positive mental attitude about your own situation. Sometimes you’ll find that you’re your own worst critic. You might accept the faults of others, but you may be less likely to accept your own. Helping others can give you a different perspective and help you to better accept your own situation as well as your faults. Helping others may help you to start seeing everything with a more positive mindset.

Spreading Your Positive Mindset

You may not often think about how your moods and feelings affect the world and the people around you. If you go out with a frown on your face, you might be spreading that negative energy around without knowing it. The opposite is also true. So why wouldn’t you want to go around passing out your positive mindset?

The truth is that when you make an effort to help others, you’re showing that you have the power to spread positive energy. The people you help may even be overcome with your positive mental attitude. By keeping a positive mindset, one by one, you’ll keep the train of positive energy chugging along.

Your Positive Mental Attitude Makes A Difference

When all is said and done, the main reason why helping others succeed benefits you is because you’re leaving your mark on the world. When you help others, you live on in their memories as a true difference in their lives and I’d like to give you proof. It’s actually the inspiration I used to write this article. I was a very touching comment a martial arts student of mine placed on my personal blog this last week:

Hello Master Dieck,

This is Karl Balch, one of your former students of Tang Soo Do who trained up to Black Belt with you in San Diego. You probably remember me as the red-headed kid with a lot of energy.

I tried looking you up online and I am very pleased to hear you are still able to teach martial arts and are doing well these days. I wanted to write and thank you for the positive impact you have had on my life.

You were a very strong positive role model for me as a kid. Someone who was strong, focused, and very disciplined. I was a very hyper kid and self-control was something I struggled with. I felt training with you was one of the most influential things in my childhood giving me control over my mind and my body. I learned discipline and the benefit of that training has extended throughout my life.

Since then I studied psychology and neuroscience at USC and afterwards went on to medical school at the University of Chicago. I have done very well in medical school and will be graduating within the next few months. I will be going on to a career in Orthopedic Surgery.

During my interviews for surgical residency I have frequently talked about the strong influence my Tang Soo Do training has had on my life. I thought it would be nice to let you know that one of your former students has benefited so greatly from your mentorship.

Thank you for your years of hard work teaching and always remember you have done your students a great service.

-Karl Balch

If you would like to read my response to Karl’s very touching remarks you can find it on my personal blog – here -

For many, leaving their mark on the world is one of their most important desires. Doesn’t it make you feel fulfilled to know that you’ve made a positive difference in the world? And it all starts with some simple gestures of helping fellow members of our human family.

Here’s what it all comes down to. Seek out opportunities to help others succeed today. You’ll be glad you did!

Wil Dieck is the founder of Total Mind Therapy and author of, “Reprogramming Your Subconscious Mind” along with “Unlocking the Secret Advantage of Hypnosis” and “Overcoming Stress” three e-courses you can have at absolutely no charge. Drop by http://www.TotalMindTherapy.net/ or http://www. OnlineStressReliefCourse.com  for your copies today.

Have you watched the movie “Yes Man”? If you haven’t I highly recommend it. It’s about a guy named Carl, (Jim Carey) who is stuck in a really bad place in life. In fact he’s so badly stuck that he almost drives away all his friends. After having an epiphany, Karl decides to attend a seminar that is built around saying “Yes” to everything. The first thing he says yes to is a homeless man that wants a ride to a city park on the other side of town. After allowing him to make phone calls on his cell phone and running down his battery he ends up out of gas and without a way to contact anybody in the middle of a far away park. He walks to the gas station and then his new life begins.

Now I don’t want to spoil the movie for you, and although it’s not for everyone, I do recommend that you watch it. It goes through Karl’s transformation by saying yes to life’s opportunities. By saying yes his whole attitude toward life changes, which in turn changes his life.

So what can you do to boost your attitude? Do you have to say yes to everything? That’s probably not a great idea, but changing your attitude about life might be just what the doctor ordered. Saying yes to life more of the time might be a good start. That’s because saying yes to life or having a positive mental attitude is one of the most important factors for success. A bad attitude gets you nowhere, while a good one can provide you with enough positive motivation to succeed beyond your wildest dreams.

Maybe you think that you already have a positive mental attitude, and maybe you do. However, if you begin to say yes to more in life, if you go about finding ways to help strengthen your attitude you can even soar to even higher levels of success.

Today we’ll look at five methods of saying yes to life, developing a winning attitude and boosting your attitude for success.

1. Find your life’s purpose. You can find your life’s purpose by discovering what inspires you. When you understand what inspires you it can put you on the fast track to success. Me? I like learning and helping people. That’s why I research, write, help people make significant changes in their lives and teach martial arts.  These things inspire me to learn, teach and help.

What inspires you? When you feel inspired you increase your personal positive motivation which will increase your drive to find success. Do anything and everything you can to discover your inspiration. It’ll be the best investment of your time you can ever make. Here’s how:

• Make a list of your ultimate dreams, and then ask yourself if you’re on the right path. If you are, you’ll know that everything you’re doing will be rewarded.

• If you don’t feel like you’re on the right path, perhaps it’s time to make a change. Maybe there’s a deeper reason why you’ve felt a lack of motivation. Reflect on what your reasons might be, and then decide on how you can renew your motivational drive. When you’re on the right journey, you’ll feel inspired!

2. Hang out with positive people. When you’re around positive and inspiring people, you’re more likely to adopt their traits into your own personality and go for your goals with enthusiasm. They’ll be the kind of boost your positive mental attitude needs. Negative people, on the other hand, tend to make you negative also. They can drag you down and keep you stuck. So getting unstuck from them, or being stuck as little as possible in these relationships needs to be a priority.

• If you must be around people that have a tendency to bring you down, do your best to keep them from controlling your attitude. You know that they not on the same page as you. Keep the peace as best as you can so you can keep your positive mental attitude, get through the situation and then move onward and upward toward your goals and dreams.

3. Take a leap. In order to live life to the fullest you have to put yourself out there, just like Karl from “Yes Man”. New adventures can and will stimulate your attitude in a positive direction. Living life to the fullest is all about discovering who you are and what you enjoy. It’s about meeting new people and getting new inputs. Don’t be afraid to take the initiative and plunge forward in a new direction. Nobody ever ended their life thinking that they did too much with it. People who take action find success. When you take action and start to see the results of your efforts, you’ll really be living life to the fullest.

• The increased drive and motivation you get from your actions can be and usually are the difference between your success and failure.

4. Focus on your success. Your success focus also plays a role in your positive mental attitude. When you focus on your success you are maintaining your drive toward success. With a success focus it’s easier for you to have an optimistic attitude. If you lack focus you won’t know where you’re going which will lead to being unmotivated and uncaring.

5. Remember – its okay to make mistakes. On your path to living life to the fullest you are bound to make some mistakes. It’s okay. Avoid judging yourself harshly when this happens because it will negatively affect your positive mental attitude and self-confidence. Try to work on more of a “go with the flow” attitude. What you’ll find is that you’ll be able to pick yourself back up quickly and continue moving forward after you make a mistake

• Here’s something I learned from Neuro Linguistic Programming that has helped me deal with my mistakes. Think of your mistakes as feedback. Ask yourself, “What can I learn from this?” and then move on. Like James Joyce once said, “A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.”

There you have it, five methods of saying yes to life, developing a winning attitude and boosting your attitude for success. Just keep in mind that living life to the fullest means taking action and staying engaged. As you apply these methods you’ll develop an unstoppable positive mental attitude that says ‘yes” to life and all it has to offer.

Wil Dieck is the founder of Total Mind Therapy and author of, “Reprogramming Your Subconscious Mind” along with “Unlocking the Secret Advantage of Hypnosis” and “Overcoming Stress” three e-courses you can have at absolutely no charge. Drop by http://www.TotalMindTherapy.net/ or http://www. OnlineStressReliefCourse.com  for your copies today

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared; he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther.

The man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.

As the man continued to watch he expected that the butterfly’s wings would enlarge at any moment and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time.

But neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It died, never being able to fly.

What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were nature’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Struggles are what we need in our life to grow. If nature allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us because we would not have the strength to face life’s challenges. And we would die never being able to fly…

It’s a piece of cake to maintain your positive mental attitude when everything’s going along smoothly. But when adversity arises, it can become increasingly difficult. It can be hard to overcome adversity so as you go through life it’s best to be prepared for those unavoidable bumps in the road just because you’re bound to hit them from time to time.

The best thing you can do is work on your skills to boost and maintain your enthusiasm and positive mental attitude. Having the right mindset for overcoming adversity is such an important skill to have because it can be the driving force that strengthens your will to succeed.

The following tips can help you develop a positive mental attitude for overcoming adversity

1. Believe that there is a solution and picture it in your mind. Your mind is like a heat seeking missile. It will go in the direction you program it. Unfortunately, many people use their imagination to visualize solutions they don’t want instead of what they do want. One of the most important things you can do is visualize the outcome you want.

By keeping your eye on the prize you avoid getting caught up in the struggle itself and the negative pattern of thinking that can follow. By keeping a positive mental attitude about your success, or at least getting through the current struggle, you can develop the positive motivation to succeed which can help you form a clear plan to get you back on the road to achievement.

2. Minimize stress.  You can do this by taking action. In fact, taking action is a one of the best ways to relieve stress. When you allow yourself to become stressed your mind will often dwell on your adversities rather than how to overcome them.

By taking action toward overcoming adversity you are improving your positive mental attitude. Focusing on your struggles actually increases the difficulty you’ll have getting out of them, which will definitely put a damper on your enthusiasm.

3. Stay focused on what you want. Overcoming adversity is a matter of maintaining your focus. You’ll find that it’s easier to sustain positive mental attitude when you’re focused on the direction you want to be headed. A positive focus can help you overcome adversity and move you toward success.

4. Do new things that help you keep your life fresh. If you do the same things over and over again, your life can fall into a stagnant pattern. This can become a struggle in itself. Vary how you do things and take time to brainstorm new ideas. This can give you “new eyes”. You can keep your positive mental attitude growing with fresh thinking.

5. Stop procrastinating. Putting things off just puts more stress in your life. More stress gives you more adversity which will slow down your success. It’s important to keep yourself moving in a positive direction. If you feel that you are falling victim to your procrastination take action. By taking action, you can get your enthusiasm and positive mental attitude back.

6. Allow for new ideas by keeping an open mind. Sometimes the problem with overcoming adversity is that we think about our challenges the same old way. Strive to keep your mind open to new ideas and new ways of doing things. Creative thinking often comes up with the exact solution you need.

7. Don’t sweat the small stuff – and remember – it’s all small stuff. Unless you are dealing with some catastrophic illness or the death or illness of a loved one, it’s truly all small stuff. Most setbacks, no matter how large they seem, will be passing memories in the grand scheme of things. By simply redirecting your focus back to your plan and you’ll find that you easily overcome the adversity of these small annoyances.

Remember, if things were easy life accomplishments wouldn’t be much fun at all. You would never get that feeling of success. Life the butterfly, your greatest triumphs come as a result overcoming adversity.

When you have a lot of obstacles to overcome on your way to the finish line of this vacation on earth, your sense of satisfaction will be so much greater when you achieve your success. No success is sweeter than one that needed all of your talents and resources to achieve.

So when times are tough and you find it hard to maintain your positive mental attitude, use these tips to help you boost your enthusiasm so you can stay focused on the prize. Then life’s winds can take you to places only you can dream of!

Wil Dieck is the founder of Total Mind Therapy and author of, “Reprogramming Your Subconscious Mind” along with “Unlocking the Secret Advantage of Hypnosis” and “Overcoming Stress” three e-courses you can have at absolutely no charge. Drop by http://www.TotalMindTherapy.net/ or http://www. OnlineStressReliefCourse.com  for your copies today.

In the March 1997 edition of Bits & Pieces there is story about Economics Press Novelist Sinclair Lewis who was supposed to deliver an hour-long lecture to a group of college students who planned to be writers.

Lewis opened his talk with a question:

“How many of you really intend to be writers?”

All hands went up.

“In that case,” said Lewis, “my advice to you is to go home and write.”

With that, he left.

Are you living life to the fullest? Are you living life with a purpose or are you still looking for ideas on what your life’s purpose is?

How do you find your life’s purpose? There are many avenues to walk down when it comes to discovering your life purpose but nobody else can find it for you. Since finding your life’s purpose is unique to you, it’s a mission that you – and only you – can complete.

Remember, in your quest for living life to the fullest, concentrate on enjoying the journey itself. Sometimes when you stop stressing about finding your life’s purpose, it falls into your lap!

Here are seven ways you to help you find your life’s purpose and develop a winning attitude:

1. Use a journal to write about how you feel. I prefer journaling with a pen and paper but you can use your laptop if you prefer. What’s important is to just start writing. Write about how you truly feel and what could help you live life to the fullest. No one is going to read this other than you, so don’t be afraid to express your thoughts.

One of the things that can help you in finding your life’s purpose is to go back and reread your entries every week or two. Many times this process of looking with fresh eyes can bring you new realizations that you didn’t think of when you were writing it in the first place.

2. Pursue your passions. If you’re passionate about a certain subject, such as helping people learn to read, maybe you can make a career or hobby out of it by becoming a teacher or volunteering to read at a public school or library in your neighborhood. This gives you the opportunity to engage in activities that are personally meaningful to you. This way, you will feel like your life matters and you are living your life to the fullest.

3. Consider your talents and decide what you do well. What do you naturally excel in? How can you turn these skills into something meaningful for you?

Many people find that their life’s purpose is one that makes them feel like they’re making a true difference in the lives of other people. You may find it fulfilling to be using something you’re good at to help others that are in need.

For example, if you find that you’re good at comforting people, perhaps you can consider a career as a counselor or volunteer as someone who listens to people who are facing challenges.

4. Find people who you think are living life to the fullest and talk with them about their life’s passions. This could be in person or though books or recordings. While you might not be interested in the same things, understanding how they discovered their life’s purpose can be a good way to understand how to find yours. Their triumphs and struggles will make good lessons for you in your journey to find your life’s purpose.

5. What brings you joy and contentment? Take some time to reflect on the moments in your life when you are the happiest. What are you doing that makes you happy at these times? You can start on your path for living life to the fullest by doing what already makes you happy.

Remember that you’re not necessarily searching for something exotic! You don’t have to go to a different continent to find your life’s purpose. Your life purpose may already be under your nose. Maybe you’re most happy when you’re just sitting at home with your family or talking with friends. If you enjoy that then you have a wonderful gift!

6. Embrace life’s changes. It’s very common to hear, “I hate change”. The problem with that statement is that change happens whether you like it or not. Sometimes the thing that holds you back from living life to the fullest is a fear of change. While there is comfort and safety in not taking risks, if you don’t take risks you’ll probably never discover your life’s true purpose. The only thing constant in life is change so learn to embrace it because, like it or not, life is constantly changing around you.

7. Stick to your values. Everyone has a set of values that they tend to follow. Use your values as a starting point for finding you life’s purpose. You can start by making a list of your values with your most important ones at the top. Then decide what you can do to honor those values in your life every day. This may help you find your life’s purpose.

Finding your life’s purpose may not be as hard as you think. These strategies will work if you do. Put in the time to use these strategies on your journey and one day soon you’ll realize that you’re living your life to the fullest. This will make everything you do on your vacation here on earth worthwhile.

Do you want a copy of the Inspirational Wallpaper that is the image in this article? Go here to get your FREE copy!

Wil Dieck is the founder of Total Mind Therapy and author of, “Reprogramming Your Subconscious Mind” along with “Unlocking the Secret Advantage of Hypnosis” and “Overcoming Stress” three e-courses you can have at absolutely no charge. Drop by http://www.TotalMindTherapy.net/ or http://www.OnlineStressReliefCourse.com for your copies today.

A while ago I read about a New York social psychologist who was studying rat behavior. He was trying to discover a way to more accurately determine social behavior. He took a rat, put it on one end of a maze and put cheese at the other end. Fairly quickly the rat found the cheese. The psychologist then changed the maze; put the rat and the cheese back in and to no one’s amazement the rat found the cheese.

Then the psychologist changed the game. He put the rat back in but didn’t replace the cheese. Being conditioned to find the cheese, the rat went looking for it and looked disappointed when he didn’t find it. The psychologist repeated putting the rat in the maze with no cheese a few more times and within a short while the rat would no longer look for the cheese.

With this information the psychologist made this observation. The difference between rats and man is that rats, when given different information, will give up. They take what happens to them and use it to give themselves a way to evaluate what they want to do in the future.

Man on the other hand will continue doing what he’s doing and hope to achieve different results. We allow our lives to become and stay stuck.

I believe that being stuck makes us stressed. When we’re stressed it’s hard to have a positive mental attitude. Having a positive mental attitude is one of the keys that determine if you are living life to the fullest. If you’re not living life to the fullest you are adding unnecessary stress to your life. If you want to overcome stress and live life to the fullest then getting unstuck needs to be a priority in your life.

Getting unstuck and living life to the fullest requires constant exposure to positive motivation. Even though you know this you might find it hard to motivate yourself.

Zig Ziglar, the famous motivational speaker, was once asked by a colleague of mine who motivated him. In fact the question went something like this, “Zig, since you’re always motivating people how do you stay motivated?”

Zig’s answer was profound. He said, “I guess the motivator motivates the motivator.” In other words motivating yourself to have a positive mental attitude is your own responsibility. Nobody’s going to show up and do it for you.

You probably already knew this, or a least suspected it but just knowing doesn’t make it any easier to increase your motivation. But like everything it takes action. So if you feel that you’re having trouble properly motivating yourself, it’s time for you to act. Not tomorrow, but today.

Finding your positive mental attitude is something personal. It takes motivation. The best way to find your positive motivation is to explore your options and discover what works for you.

Here are 7 ways for getting unstuck and improving your positive mental attitude:

1. Stop just going though the motions. One reason you may find it difficult to live life to the fullest is that you feel stuck. You’re stuck because you are bored with life. You’re bored with your work and the things you have to do on a regular basis so you’re bored with your life. You are bored because you see your life as slow and tedious. Getting unstuck is a matter of adding some depth to your thinking while engaged in tasks you dislike.

Lot’s of things I do used to bore me. That’s why I’m always figuring out more exciting ways of doing them. You can increase your positive mental attitude the same way.

One way you can do this is to brainstorm ways that you can complete a task in a more efficient manner. Then you can compete with yourself to see how quickly you can complete the task in the future. The quicker you get it done, the sooner you can move on to things that allow you to live life to the fullest.
2. Get spiritual. Of all the aspects of my life, the number one that has pulled me through challenges and difficulties is my faith. Don’t be afraid to get in touch with your spiritual side. Many people, like me, find that it provides consistent positive motivation in all areas of life. When you begin to discover some of the answers to life’s tough questions, it brings you clarity. It can form a positive visualization in your mind of what life can be. Using this vision you’ll probably be more likely to work harder to live your life to the fullest.

3. Decide on what you want and set a goal. In fact set lots of goals. You can’t live life to the fullest if you don’t have a goal. If you aren’t even sure what you’re working towards, you’ll have a great deal of difficulty having a positive mental attitude.

4. Break your big goals into smaller achievable goals. You can become stuck if your goal seems too large. To get unstuck, break your goal into a series of small, achievable tasks and then make each task a separate goal. This helps you maintain your positive motivation because you’re consistently achieving tasks you have assigned yourself. This allows you to see the results of your hard work!

5. Make yourself accountable for your success. In order to ensure that you don’t stray from your chosen path, evaluate your progress every week or even every day. Using this process decide on what you can do better and resolve to do what it takes to be better. That’s why it’s so important to write down your goals. Then you’ll have the information to determine if you have or haven’t done what you have told yourself you were going to do.

If you find that it’s difficult to keep yourself accountable, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Sometimes trusted friends, co-workers or family members can be persuaded to help.  You may even enjoy getting feedback from others that help you stay on task.

6. Use daily affirmations to keep your thoughts positive. Negative thinking and a lack of motivation go hand in hand. You can increase your positive motivation by using daily affirmations to concentrate on the positive and eliminate your negative thinking patterns. Your affirmations replace negative feelings with optimism and positive visualizations. I believe so much in daily affirmations I’ve included a link to a complimentary reflection exercise at the end of this article.

7. If you are still stuck, decide on one change and make it. If you think you’ve tried everything and you still can’t get motivated, perhaps you should consider a life change. Maybe there’s a reason why you’re feeling this way.

Living life to the fullest often involves making changes that start you in a slightly different direction. If you find yourself not feeling motivated to work toward your major life goals those goals might not be what you really want. Take some time to consider some alternatives that may be more in line with your true desires.

If you’re having trouble finding motivation for everyday tasks, see if you can find a way to hire some help. If you can’t afford to get someone to do the tasks for you perhaps you should get some help in how you feel about them. Self hypnosis is a method that can help with this.

If you want to live life to the fullest keep in mind that the time to do that is now. Getting unstuck means putting procrastination into your past and once you do this you’ll feel happy and a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day, instead of feeling stressed out and regretful.

When you have a positive mental attitude your life is more fulfilling and more worth living. Use these positive motivation strategies for getting unstuck and helping you start living life to the fullest. You’ll enjoy the difference they make!

Wil Dieck is the founder of Total Mind Therapy and author of, “Reprogramming Your Subconscious Mind” along with Unlocking the Secret Advantage of Hypnosis” and “Overcoming Stress” two e-courses you can have at absolutely no charge. Drop by http://www.TotalMindTherapy.net/ or http://www. OnlineStressReliefCourse.COM for your copies today.

A couple of decades ago, a movie titled “Short Time” played in the movie theaters. It wasn’t a big box office hit, but it was amusing and it did make a point about living life to the fullest.

The movie was about a 50 year-old detective who was about to retire from the New York police force in eight days. Like most detectives, he worked all the time and definitely wasn’t living his life to the fullest. As a result of his dedication to his work he’s divorced and his ten year-old son, who he really wants to be a part of his life, lives with his ex-wife. He wants to retire to have more time to spend with his son. As you can probably imagine, this man doesn’t have the most positive mental attitude and, with eight days left on the force, he just wants to finish his time and play it safe.

Since he’s retiring he decides to take out a life insurance policy. To qualify for the policy he needs to take a physical. He and his partner go to the public employee’s clinic where he can get a physical done for free. While sitting there a city bus driver, who is there for a random drug test and doesn’t know that the two are detectives asks,” If someone smoked marijuana two days ago, will it show up on their drug test?”

The two detectives look at each other and reply, “Yes!”, as they show their badges to the bus driver. Then the bus driver then says “I didn’t say I used marijuana, I was just asking!” which sends the two detectives walking away chuckling.

The detective and the bus driver go into their respective rooms to give their urine samples. The cart holding these samples is left in the passageway between the rooms. The bus driver sneaks out of his room and switches tags on the urine samples for himself and the detective.

When the samples come back, the detective’s blood sample (which is actually the bus driver’s) shows that he has a rare blood disease and will die within two weeks. Of course now he won’t be able to take out the insurance policy. But the detective discovers that he does have a very valuable insurance policy with the police force. The only problem is that he has to die on the job for his son to collect. From this point on the detective’s attitude changes from someone who is just on the job to one who is living life to the fullest. He does everything he can to be a great cop that gets killed on the job.

Since he only has two weeks to live he lives his life passionately, improving his relationship with his son, his ex-wife, his partner and everyone he meets. Believing he was to die, the man started really living life to the fullest. He filled his life with an abundance of love and caring. Now, even though it is a 20 year old movie I think it’s a movie worth watching and I don’t want to give the whole story away. To make a long story short the experience of thinking he was going to die helped him change into a person who was living life to the fullest and who developed a very positive mental attitude. This, in turn, made his whole life better.

What does this have to do with you and me? Well when I saw this movie it made me ask myself if I was living my life to the fullest. It made me realize that, even though it’s more than two weeks, we don’t really have all that much time for this vacation on earth.

One of the things I do to help people improve their personal production and time management. To help my clients get a grasp on living life to the fullest I have often asked, “If the average age of a person is 78 years old (81 years for women and 77 years for men) how many days does that give them to accomplish what they want to do in life?”

The answers are nearly always wrong, and not by a small margin. I often get answers like 100,000, 200,000 or (with younger people) even a million but the actual answer is 21,190 days. Now this isn’t the total number of days that you will live in 78 years but rather the total number of days you’ll statistically be alive after you are 21 years old. I figure that, for most people, up to age of 21 is really just training time, school and all that. It’s after that where we really begin to accomplish things. That’s about 57 years. It’s really only a short time.

Let me ask, do you want a life full of abundance and prosperity? Then what are you going to do differently this year? Are you going to make a goal about living life to the fullest or just keep procrastinating? Are you going to continue to live life as though there is no end in sight or live life knowing you only have a short time?

Since you are reading this I believe that you want to live life to the fullest. I believe that you want to give and have more in your life. My only suggestion for you is to stop procrastinating and make a plan for living life to the fullest. After that all you have to do is to get started. I would suggest you stop procrastinating and get started today. If you do, this year and every year will be full of abundance and prosperity in every area of your life.

Remember, life is short. That’s not a bad thing. It’s only not making the most of it, not living life to the fullest by taking advantage of every moment possible that is a bad thing.

So what have you been putting off? What have you been telling yourself you want to do but you’re putting it off until tomorrow? What would add to have more abundance and prosperity to your life? Take a few minutes today to figure it out and write down what it is you want to do. Then stop procrastinating and take action. Then you’ll be living life to the fullest and you’ll probably forget what a short time you have.

If you would like to jump start your decade I recently reordered a self hypnosis recording titled “Attracting Abundance”. Just follow this link to get your copy today.

Wil Dieck is the founder of Total Mind Therapy and author of, “Boost your Attitude” and “Overcoming Stress” two e-courses you can have at absolutely no charge. Drop by http://www.TotalMindTherapy.net/ or http://www. OnlineStressReliefCourse.com  for your copy today.

Throughout most of my life I could fall asleep quickly and easily. After I’d fall asleep I’d usually stay asleep throughout the night. That was until a few years ago when I had the call. The call was from the hospital telling me that both of my parents were very sick. That’s when I really started to have difficulty sleeping.

The voice on the other end of the phone informed me that my parents were both in the hospital. Both my parents had come down with the flu. As a result, my father was dying from pneumonia. My mother would recover but since she had dementia she would need me to make some decisions about where she would stay.

I spent the following week with my father as he lay dying and worked frantically to find somewhere my mother would find comfortable as she recovered from her illness. My plan was then to move her to San Diego to a assisted care facility so she would me near me and my children. Finally my father passed away and I found a place that seemed to be nice enough to care for my mother. Unfortunately she contracted another disease while in the facility and passed on a couple of months later.

All this stress took a toll on me. During that time and for many months afterwards I had real trouble falling asleep. When I did fall asleep it would only be for a little while then I would find myself up tossing and turning. I had a real sleeping disorder.

Soon the effects of insomnia began to affect me negatively. My sleeping disorder was making me groggy and grumpy. I was unable to concentrate and it was difficult for me to make decisions or do my regular daily tasks. I would walk around in a daze all day but even though I was exhausted at night I still couldn’t get to sleep.

Maybe you’ve experienced the effects of insomnia also. Maybe you’ve gone through something similar to what I went through, or events even more traumatic, and your sleeping disorder is affecting you too.

I soon began to think that it was normal to have difficulty sleeping with so much stress. After a while I really didn’t think anything of it at all. What surprised me was that even after my mom passed on and the stress of taking care of her went away… I still had trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. I had turned into an insomniac.

At the very least it would take me a minimum of an hour to fall asleep. Even if I went to sleep at 2:30 in the morning I would wake up at the crack of dawn. As soon as the first rays of sunshine hit my eyes I was wide awake. My sleeping disorder was growing into a real problem. Nothing I did would let me fall back asleep.

I tried everything I could think of to get a good night’s sleep. I tried taking over the counter sleep or cold medicine, but they didn’t help. I then went to see my doctor and he prescribed me some pharmaceuticals.

For a couple of days the pills worked and for a while I felt like I was in heaven. My difficulty sleeping had gone away. I was able to fall asleep within minutes of taking the pills and I slept well throughout the entire night. Almost exactly 8 hours after taking the pills, I would wake up and, for a few days, I felt great.

The problem was that a week later, I started waking up in the morning not feeling so great. Even though the pills seemed to handle my sleeping disorder they also made me feel drowsy all the time. I started sleep walking at night and there were times during the day I would fall asleep without any warning. As a result I was constantly either trying to wake myself up and if I didn’t take the pills, I couldn’t sleep at all.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when I went to a friend’s house one day and I had no recollection of having driven there. I was scared of what these pills were doing to me and I immediately flushed them all down the toilet.

I had enough of modern cures, I wanted a cure for insomnia that was safe and wouldn’t harm my body. I spent months researching to find out how to overcome the effects of insomnia and figured out what worked for me. Through this process I was able to overcome my insomnia.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to let you in on how I ended my difficulty sleeping. If you can’t sleep and wished more than anything in the world to shut your eyes and fall into a deep, deep sleep, this information might help you too. Hopefully this can help you overcome insomnia too.

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Why do I have difficulty sleeping?

Too many people go to bed every night wondering why they have difficulty sleeping. When my parents became ill I had trouble falling asleep and my sleeping disorder affected me negatively. I found my self tossing and turning all night as I stayed awake, unable to sleep. Here’s what happened when I had difficulty sleeping.

They stay awake and think about how ad their job is, or how their child is not doing as well in school as they would like or how their good friend is suffering from sickness and depression. They continue to spin these things over and over in their heads until their minds go out of control! They have trouble sleeping night after night. As a result their whole life suffers.

About a year or so ago, a lady came to me because she was having difficulty sleeping. She hadn’t slept more than two or three hours at a time in nearly six months. Now there were a lot of things going on in her life. She had a teenager that was acting out. Her father had cancer. As a result of thinking about these things she was losing sleep. The effects of insomnia on her life were she was missing work, her relationship with her husband was strained and she was exhausted.

After discussing her situation and the effects of insomnia in her life with me she decided to go through a series of hypnosis relaxation sessions with me. In these sessions I used hypnosis to help her to focus on things she had control over while letting go of things that she didn’t have control over. She took home a series of sleep and hypnosis relaxation recordings I had recorded to listen to at night when she was having trouble sleeping. She also received a simple NLP trigger she could use to use as an insomnia treatment to calm her thoughts when her mind became overactive and made it difficult to fall asleep.

The results were staggering. She really wanted to make her situation with her husband better so she talked with her him about how important their relationship was to her. She found that since she had been spending a lot of time with her father her husband had felt neglected. They figured out a plan to that allowed them to have time together which made both of them feel better about their relationship.

She made time to talk with her teenager a couple of times a week and she started focusing on what he did right instead of what he did wrong. These two adjustments caused a huge change in his behavior for the better. He stopped acting out and his grades improved to A’s and B’s.

She also continued to love her father while realizing that there was nothing more she could do to improve his health. More importantly she learned to control her anxiety and started sleeping again. As a result her performance at work improved and she was given a raise!

What is interesting is that I didn’t make any of these suggestions directly to her but rather they came about as a result of her relaxing in trance and allowing her subconscious mind to develop a plan for her to deal with her issues. In other words she discovered her reasons for insomnia and a plan to deal with them by herself.

As a hypnotist I am always amazed by the insight of my clients’ wise subconscious minds. Hypnosis is a powerful method that relaxes the conscious mind and the body. This allows the subconscious to focus on the reasons behind them having trouble sleeping. Having this insight helps them to then work on their underlying issues.

Hypnosis relaxation techniques have been used for thousands of years and have been well documented for treating all types of stress and anxiety disorders.  NLP, or Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a cutting edge method used by athletes, actors and everyday people like you and me to make changes and improvements. NLP uses sensory signals (see, hear, and touch) the mind receives and changes the manner in which we respond to them. Since we all use a primary mode (see, hear, and touch) of processing information one method NLP uses is to work with a person’s primary mode to help them anchor new behaviors.

The wonderful thing about these types of insomnia treatments is that they are natural, non addictive methods of helping people that are having trouble sleeping. They have worked for millions of people and, in the case of hypnosis relaxation techniques, for thousands of years to help people overcome the effects of insomnia and sleep again.

Wil Dieck is the founder of Total Mind Therapy and author of, “Overcoming Insomnia” and “Overcoming Stress” two e-courses you can have at absolutely no charge. Drop by http://www.LearnToSleepCourse.com/ or http://www. OnlineStressReliefCourse.com  for your copy today.

Life is about making choices. Making healthy choices for your mind as well as your body is one of the best things you can do for yourself and your loved ones. Making healthy choices involves making decisions about the direction you want your life to go. Making a decision is also one of the best ways to relieve stress. Not making decisions or putting them off adds stress to your life. Making a decision is a great way of relieving stress and might be the positive motivation you need for getting unstuck and making this your best year ever.

In his Book, “The Psychology of Winning” Dr. Denis Waitley, a widely respected Sports Psychologist and an ex-Navy fighter pilot, talks about how humans are a goals seeking mechanism. He points out that the brain works similarly to a cruise missile. When programmed correctly the cruise missile makes course corrections and adjusts its directions to strike its target. If aimed incorrectly or at a target too far out of range the cruise missile will wander around aimlessly and then finally crash at an unknown destination.

Like a wise man once said, “If you don’t know where you are going you might already be there.” Making a decision gives you mind the directions it needs to start looking for ways to arrive at its destination, your goal. Putting off or not deciding just adds stress to your life.

When you take a trip you always have a destination in mind. In fact, I’ve heard that most people put in much more effort planning a trip then planning goals for their lives.

Let me ask you, if you were to go to an airport to take a trip what would the person behind the counter ask you? Where would you like to go, right? What if you told them you don’t care, anyplace will do, what would they say? At first they might think you were joking but in a couple of minutes they would have security talking to you because they would be convinced you were either crazy or a terrorist.

Many people wish their life would change, they think their life should change; they might even believe their life should change but they don’t decide to take the steps needed to make the change. These people don’t understand that one of the best ways of relieving stress and getting unstuck is setting personal goals.

Goal setting, when done properly allows you to focus your energy on what you want to accomplish. It helps you in getting unstuck by allowing you to think through the steps you’ll need to go through. Goal setting is a perfect example of making a healthy decision because setting personal goals relieves stress and gets you moving in the direction you want to go. Then you move on to goal achievement.

Let’s take a quick look at the four Steps to Goal Achievement.

1. Make a decision and set an outcome.
2. Make a plan
3. Measure Your Progress (feedback).
4. Adjust your behavior until you achieve your desired outcome.

For example let’s say that this year you want to get back into shape.
The first thing you need to do is to make a decision. Then you would need to define what “being in shape” means to you. Is it a size, a weight, the way you fit in your clothes, how you feel?

The next thing you would have to do is decide on a how you are going to get into shape. Are you going to join a gym? Are you going to start walking? Are you going to join a Yoga class? Are you going to eat differently?

The third thing you need to do is measure your progress. If you are getting in shape are you looking the way you want to? Are you getting closer to your desired weight? What is that weight or size? Be specific. You see, in order to monitor any goal, from the number of new clients you see to the desired weight you want to achieve, goals must be measurable. So figure out a way to measure your progress.

Finally you need to adjust your behavior until you achieve your desired outcome. That’s because no one goes in a straight line toward their goals.

Imagine yourself as an airplane pilot flying from L.A. to Hawaii. When you fly towards Hawaii there is a headwind blowing against you. The fact is that because of the headwind your plane is being blown off course much of the time.  You add this to traffic, route changes and turbulence and you have a route that is always changing. The plane is seldom flying in the direction the pilot wants it to. In fact, experts say that the plane is actually off course 95% of the time. The pilot constantly monitors their instruments, finds out their location, adjusts their course and steers as directly as they can toward Hawaii. The instruments the pilot steers by are the plane’s feedback devices helping them keep the plane on course.

The same goes for your goals. There are always going to be things that take you off course. From the economy, to your relationships to little incidents that temporarily take your focus away from your goals, you will be blown off course. That’s when you have to make course corrections and go through the whole process again.

Achieving your life’s desires begins with making healthy choices about where you want to go in life. Getting unstuck is a matter of having a plan and taking steps in the direction you want to go.  Once you begin your journey check in on a regular basis to see if you’re on course. If you are off course then simply make those course corrections.

The problem with setting personal goals is that they take work. But the solution is to simply get started. It’s definitely worth the effort. So take a few minutes today to begin the process. It’ll help make 2010 your best year yet!
Wil Dieck is the founder of Total Mind Therapy and author of the self development course “Boost your Attitude” as well as the stress relief video course “Overcoming Stress” that you can have at absolutely no charge. Drop by http://www.TotalMindTherapy.net/ or http://www.OnlineStressReliefCourse.com/ for your copy(s) today.

Have you ever felt stuck?  I mean have you ever felt that your life is taking you nowhere?  You want to make a change in your life, maybe start a business, lose weight, quit smoking, get a date or just feel like you’re going somewhere in life? How can you get the positive motivation to move you from where you are to where you want to be? How do you go about getting unstuck? I believe it all starts with taking it one step at a time.

When I was in basic training, known as boot camp in the Navy, we had to do a qualifying swim. What we had to do was go on the diving board, take a step off and swim to the side. Once we did this we were considered to be able to swim and therefore could become sailors in the United States Navy.

There were at least four or five trained instructors in the pool, and the same number outside of the pool, so we were perfectly safe, but some of my fellow recruits didn’t think so. A few were “non-swims”, young men who had never learned to swim. Now I always wondered why someone who didn’t know how to swim would want to join the Navy but we all have our dreams. These guys would go up on the diving board and peer palely down into the water. When told to jump in they would say things like “I can’t swim”, or “The water’s too deep”. In reality any excuse would have done. They had decided that they were not going to take that first step.

The instructors in boot camp were excellent at increasing motivation and helping these young men in getting unstuck. They were very good at helping them take that first step on their own. Often they would say something very motivational like, “Either you jump in right now or you’ll you’ll be marching 24 hours a day for the next week.” Many, given this choice, would jump.

But there were a few who wouldn’t jump. Getting unstuck wasn’t easy for them. A few seemed to be riveted on the diving board and couldn’t or wouldn’t take that first step. Many times, after reasoning with the recruit for a few minutes, one of the instructors would “accidentally” push the recruit off the diving board and help them take that first step. What was amazing was that when more than 50% of these “non-swims” hit the water they actually made it over to the side of the pool without any help at all. In fact, a few of them seemed to have actually walked on water. The instructors were excellent at increasing motivation in these young men to at least attempt to swim.

Are you stuck on the diving board of life because “the water is too deep” or “I can’t swim”? What is it that you’d like to achieve but you just haven’t taken that first step?

Earl Nightingale once said, “What overwhelms us is not the work itself. Its thinking how hard it’s going to be. It’s seeing it get larger every day. It’s putting it off and hoping that somehow, through some miracle, it will disappear.” I think what Earl was saying is that it’s that first step that holds us back from our success.

I read one time that a researcher in Toronto found that the difference between people who conform to an exercise regime and those that don’t are the people that exercise don’t think about it, they just do it. Getting unstuck is a matter of taking that first step without thinking about it.

Interesting enough those that don’t work out think about working out, but don’t. They have the malady called the paralysis of analysis. They think about all the reasons why it’s too hard, takes too much work or why they have failed in the past.

I believe the researcher in Toronto and Earl Nightingale are saying the same thing, the way to get unstuck is to take that first step and just do it. That’s because the longer you look at something you should be doing, the more difficult it is. You become stuck in all the reasons it won’t work instead of taking action.

I’m sure you’ve heard “A job begun is half done”. How true it is. If you want to accomplish something in life make a decision. Go though the goal setting process and then give yourself the first step. Give yourself a task that starts you on your way toward your goal, start it and then keep at it, step by step. Before long, whatever it was that seemed to be blocking your success is behind you and you are on your way toward better life.

You are not stuck by the task. It’s thinking about how hard it’s going to be that keeps you stuck. Sometimes it seems that putting it off will cause the problem, through some miracle, to disappear. But it won’t. Only moving in the direction of your goals will increase motivation. You need to take that first step. And that step accomplishes two things. First, it shortens how far you still have to travel, and, second, it makes you feel better, because you’re on your way. You’ve started your journey.

Starting your journey will continue increasing your motivation and will make you feel hope full. When you just keep putting one foot in front of the other, you’ll be amazed at where you’ll go, what you’ll see and what you’ll do. When you arrive you’ll wonder why you ever worried about being stuck in the first place.

So are you still stuck? Then pick one thing that you would like move toward, decide on a task that will move you in that direction and then start. That is positive motivation at work. Once you begin you are no longer stuck but traveling down the road of life in the direction you’ve chosen.

Life is about choices so whatever it is you want to do decide to take action and just do it. Get started today. Decide to take that first step in the direction you want to go. Then you’re on the road toward getting unstuck. You’re on the road to accomplishment.

By the way, if you are feeling stuck and would like some help in clarifying your direction hypnotherapy can help. It’s one of the things I work with people with all the time, from losing weight, building confidence, quitting smoking or increasing motivation and more. Helping people in getting unstuck and moving in the direction of their goals is what I do. But whether you get my help, someone else’s or just do it yourself, the key is to start. Do it today.

Wil Dieck is the founder of Total Mind Therapy and author of the self development course “Boost your Attitude” as well as the stress relief video course “Overcoming Stress” that you can have at absolutely no charge. Drop by http://www.TotalMindTherapy.net/ or http://www.OnlineStressReliefCourse.com/ for your copy(s) today.