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How to Get Out of Debt Using Law of Attraction

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Two days ago I woke up in the morning with an unusual thought.

“What is debt?”

I really have no idea where this thought came from, especially being my first thought upon awakening, but I just lay there for a few minutes and let things flow.

“What is debt, from an energy point of view?”

“What is the real feeling / vibration behind debt?”

“What vibration / feeling do we put out to the universe at the levels of pure energy to manifest debt in the physical form in our lives?”

I was able to refine the question to be more specific and clear, as I know clarity is very important.

“Non-Deservingness.”

That’s the answer I got.

I lay there thinking about this for a minute and it was very clear to me.

We manifest debt in our lives when we are feeling un-deserving at the deepest levels.

It’s almost as if our subconscious mind keeps a tally of everything we’ve GOTTEN from the world, and everything we’ve GIVEN to the world, and if we feel like we’ve GOTTEN more than we’ve GIVEN, then we feel un-deserving.

For example, let’s say that you’ve been working at a job for some time and over time you’ve become somewhat lazy at work, just barely putting in enough work not to get fired.

Really the challenge is that you’re no longer inspired to be doing that kind of work, but you’re too lazy to figure out what you are inspired to do or to make any effort towards doing it.  So you make your daily trip to work to put in your hours, but really you don’t want to be there, so your work reflects that.

Your subconscious begins to catch on to the fact that you’ve been playing Minesweeper instead of working when the boss isn’t looking so it begins to eat away at your self esteem.

Every time you receive a paycheck your subconscious is saying “We don’t deserve this!  We’ve been slackin!” while your conscious mind is saying “If they only paid me what I should be getting paid by now, then I would work way harder.”

You justify your mediocre performance with complaints about your pay, but your subconscious mind isn’t buying it.

Deep down, your feelings of undeservingness begin to grow, even though you’d never admit it to anyone.

As you project that vibration / energy / feeling of underservingness to the universe, it begins to manifest itself in your physical world as increased debt.

You try to drown your feelings by going to the electronics store to look at the newest big screen TV’s they have on sale this week.  As you stand there in the store, you know you can’t afford the TV.  Maybe if you got a raise at work you could afford it, but that bastard boss of yours hasn’t given you a raise in a long time.  So, you decide to treat yourself and end up buying a big screen TV, a Blueray DVD player and a Surround Sound System on your credit card.

While you’re in the store, the adrenaline kicks in, your dopamine receptors are in overdrive and you start to feel euphoria.  Your conscious mind screams “Why not?  I deserve this dammit!” while your subconscious mind is silently repeating “We don’t deserve this.  We don’t deserve this.  We don’t deserve this.”

The next day you wake up feeling crappy, wondering why in the world you blew all that money on your new home theater package when you clearly know you can’t afford it right now.

In a panic, you storm into your bosses office and demand a raise because it’s been over 6 months since your last raise.  Reluctantly he agrees, but points out that your performance hasn’t been exactly the greatest lately.  You agree to improve.

Of course as soon as you leave his office, your subconscious is once again screaming “We don’t deserve this raise!” while your conscious mind tries to justify things with promises of improved performance.

Improved performance lasts about a week, but it quickly diminishes as your stress at home keeps growing along with your debts.  Just days after your home theater purchase, your car all of a sudden had engine trouble which ended up costing $900 to fix, you got a speeding ticket for $300 and your latest credit card statement came in with hundreds of dollars in charges you totally forgot you made.  Your debts just skyrocketed.

This is the cycle of continuous “undeservingness.”

You can’t out-earn this cycle.  The more money you try to make with the same efforts, the more debt you get into because your subconscious screams “I don’t deserve this!” louder and louder.

Retail therapy (aka shopping) doesn’t help either.  It feels good for a few moments as your adrenaline kicks in for doing something “bad” and triggers a dopamine release in the brain, but it’s short lived and now you’re left with more debt.  No amount of shoes, purses, clothing, shiny toys, cars, electronics, trips, or romantic evenings at a restaurant will make you feel any better.  In fact, the more you try to solve this problem using these methods the worst it gets!

You can’t cheat your subconscious mind this way, no more than you can convince it to allow you to hold your breath indefinitely.

The Solution

The only way to stop attracting more debt into your life is to stop your subconscious mind from broadcasting the energy of “I don’t deserve what I have in life!”

To do that you need to get to be bottom of what’s making you feel undeserving.

Here are three examples in which feeling undeserving may appear in your life:

  1. Feelings of depression in one area of your life caused you to seek out shopping as a way to temporarily feel happy and fill the void.  Shopping for things you can’t afford on credit increases your feelings of undeservingness.  Debts increase as a result.
  2. Your job situation or work conditions improve.  You get a raise, change career paths, or even find the job of your dreams.  You are now making more money than ever before in your life, and you enjoy the work you do, however your beliefs growing up were that making money is hard and work should be hard, so subconsciously you’re feeling guilty and undeserving of your new-found career path and income level.  Debts increase as a result.
  3. You get laid off.  Economic conditions force your boss to lay you off.  Your Ego takes it personally and labels you as a loser that “didn’t make the cut“.  Deep down you start feeling like you don’t deserve the job you had, or the money you were making.  This makes it harder to find another job, as you now believe that you don’t even deserve any job.  Debts increase as a result.

As you can see “undeservingness” can manifest itself as a results of events we would label as “positive” (getting a raise for example), just as easily as a result of events that we would label as “negative” (getting laid off for example).  It’s not the event itself that dictates whether we feel more undeserving – it’s our interpretation of the event.

Even if you can’t pin-point exactly where and why you’re feeling undeserving, just be aware that all feelings of “undeservingness” are a result of your subconscious mind believing that you’ve GOTTEN more than you’ve GIVEN.

There are several ways to change this:

  1. Change your subconscious perceptions of how much you’ve GIVEN.
  2. Change your subconscious perceptions of how much you’ve GOTTEN.
  3. Change your subconscious programming on how much value what you GIVE is worth.
  4. Change your subconscious programming on how much you deserve to GET for what you GIVE.
  5. Begin immediately GIVING more.
  6. Begin immediately GETTING less .
  7. Combinations of any / all of the above.

Changing Your Subconscious Perceptions of How Much You’ve Given

Most people are conditioned to count certain things they do in life as being valuable, while other things as not being valuable.  For example, one person would not count playing three hours of video games as being valuable to the world.  Meaning, after a three hour gaming session they don’t get out of their chair and think to themselves “I just gave three hours worth of value to the world.”

However, a person who is a game tester or a game reviewer does consider that valuable.  They play a game for three hours and then demand to get paid for it!  It’s all just perceptions.

The trick is to look at all you do in life and re-classify things.  Most of us take things that come easy to us for granted and don’t count them as “giving”.

That alone can totally kill your plans to make money doing what you love.  If you don’t consider any work that you enjoy doing as “real work”, then every time you engage in such work you’ll consider it as not valuable.

This is why it’s so hard for most people to do what they love.  It’s not because it’s so hard to make money doing the thing that they enjoy doing.  It’s because they themselves don’t value their own work because it’s so easy for them and so much fun.

A person who enjoys cooking for example, will often discount preparing a delicious meal as an act of “Giving”.  In most cases they won’t even accept praise from the people who enjoyed the meal.  They’ll say something like “Oh, it was nothing.” When someone suggests that they should start their own catering business, or do cooking classes, they never take the suggestions seriously because they don’t believe anyone would actually pay them for cooking, since it’s so easy and fun for them.

After all, we all know that we shouldn’t get paid for things that are easy and fun, right?

Come on, look around.  How many people do you know in your life that are amazing at doing something, yet they work at a job doing something else.  Their excuse is that they can’t make money doing what they love, yet another person in the same town is making a killing doing just that.  Of course that person isn’t even that good at doing that thing, his real passion lies somewhere else. :)

Start to question your perceptions of what you’ve given.  Think about all the times you’ve lent a helping hand, or helped a friend move.  What about all the times you’ve made someone smile or offered some sage advice to someone in need.  Re-evaluable your perceptions.

Changing Your Subconscious Perceptions of How Much You’ve Gotten

A lot of times at the same time as we discount our own efforts, we condition our subconscious minds to believe that we’ve already gotten so much out of life.

We say things like “Oh, that person saved my life!” or “If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know what I would have done!”, how do we expect our subconscious mind to interpret that?

If someone lends you $50 and you tell your subsconscious mind “He saved my life!“, it’s going to count that as a huge debt you can never repay.

I’m not saying not to be grateful.  What I’m saying is to stop over exaggerating when you GET something and ignoring whenever you GIVE something.

The universe always preserves equilibrium.  If someone gives you a gift, you may feel that they’ve given you something but you haven’t given them anything back.  That is incorrect.  You accepting the gift may have made them feel happy.  It may have relieved some guilt they had from the past.  The satisfaction of seeing you smile may have brightened their day.

When I go to the store and buy my puppy Zoe a bone, and I bring it home and give it to her, she goes nuts.  She starts wagging her tail, she’s all excited and parades around the house with it.  Can you not see that by giving her the bone I get something back in return from seeing her all excited and happy?  It’s an equal transaction.  Stop assuming that money is the only form of value exchange.

Once again I’m not saying not to be grateful or to feel like you should always be “getting” without every giving anything in return.  All I’m pointing out is that most people have a slanted perception here.  They value others time more than they value their own.  They value getting love from someone (in whichever form) more than they value giving their own love (in whichever form).

Changing Your Subconscious Programming on How Much Value What You GIVE is Worth

Does a $700/hour lawyer work twice as hard as a $350/hour lawyer?

Does a $150/hour web designer work 10x as hard as a $15/hour web designer?

Is a smile or a hug from you worth less than a smile from Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt?

Who decides these things?  Do you really think the Universe values your love less than someone else’s just because they’re famous?  Get real.

There is only one person that determines the value of what you give is worth.  You see them staring back at you in the mirror all the time.

Change your subconscious programming on how much you deserve to GET for what you GIVE

Sometimes we encounter people who do so much and ask for so little.  At first this feels good because we feel like we’ve finally found a person that genuinely cares about what they do.

However, pretty soon we start to feel guilty, especially when they refuse to accept our appreciation.  Ever try to pay someone for a job well done and they refuse to take your money?

Ever try to compliment someone and they refuse to accept it?  They leave and you feeling miserable and rejected.  You feel like there’s this debt you owe them.

Pretty soon you end up finding someone else to work with because you don’t want to feel like that anymore.  And the person wonders why you no longer want their services.  They conclude that they didn’t do enough, so they work even harder for the next person they encounter, and accept even less, and the cycle continues.

Fair Exchange

The above four examples all revolve around one thing.  The concept of “Fair Exchange”.

Fair exchange simply means not trying to GET more than you GIVE, or trying to GIVE more than you GET.

Of course there is no universal law of what things are worth, so the only real way we can assume “fair exchange” has taken place is to charge and pay market prices.

In other words, charge what the market will bear.  It doesn’t matter if the service you’re providing is fun for you to do.  Undercharging screws everything up, as does overcharging.

At the same time, pay what the market demands.  Don’t try to drive harsh bargains at every turn.  I’m not saying not to negotiate, but also don’t try to thrive on the feeling of thinking you just GOT more than you paid for.  What energy / feeling / vibration do you feel that results in?  More undeservingness!

You save $200 by driving a harsh bargain with someone who is already undercharging for their services, and magically your debts increase by $500 the same week.

Begin immediately GIVING more.

Assuming you’re not undervaluing or overvaluing what you’re GIVING or GETTING, the obvious next step to increasing your subconscious level of “Deservingness” is to start GIVING more to the world!

Stop feeling depressed and sorry for yourself and your growing debt situation, and start GIVING!

Find your inspiration and express it.

Sometimes when we’re hurting for money we get stuck in this rut of trying to figure out what we can do to make more money, and we ignore all the opportunities that present themselves to us just because we don’t think those opportunities will result in a paycheck.

For example, you’re an amazing artist and someone at work asks you if you know anyone who can draw a portrait for them.  You know you could do it, but you’re too scared to ask for money for doing what you love, so you tell them you don’t know anyone while you desperately try to find some “paid work”.

Just start giving.  Giving in the way that inspires you the most is usually the most potent.  You just have to make sure you value what you give.  Pay attention to how people react when you give to them.  Once you see the joy you bring into people’s lives, your feelings of undeservingness will begin to melt away, and so will your debts.

Begin immediately GETTING less .

At the same time, stop buying crap you don’t need!  You’re not going to prove to your subconscious mind that you deserve that shiny new toy that you don’t even need by buying it on credit.  Rebelling against yourself can give you a temporary adrenaline rush, followed by a dopamine fix, but it’s temporary and in the end you’re left with a house full of crap you don’t need and a crapload of debts that just keep growing.

If the first 37 pairs of shoes didn’t make you happy, trust me, the next 40 pairs won’t either.

Once again, I’m not saying that we don’t deserve to have nice things.  I’m just saying to be aware of the real intention behind the purchase.  Are you buying something because you really want it and really need it, or are you just trying to buy something/anything to try change how you feel in this moment.

Combinations of any / all of the above.

Want the fast-pass to deb freedom?  Get rid of your feelings of undeservingness by combining all of the above.  Change your perceptions, then give more and stop buying useless crap.  Your debts will melt away faster than you ever though possible.

Tracking Your Progress

Nothing inspires people more than seeing progress being made towards a goal.

I’ve taken a popular method of eliminating debts often called “DEBT STACKING”, combined it with an affirmation/ process taught by Abraham/Hicks (Ask and It Is Give – Process #19 – Releasing Resistance to Become Free of Debt) and the insights I’ve taught above and put it all into a spreadsheet which combines all three of these powerful and extremely effective debt elimination strategies.

Here’s what the sheet looks like:

 

Here’s how it works:

(1) Download the spreadsheet here: Excel 2007 Format or Excel 97 – 2003 Format ( Click Save As on Each Link to Save To Your Computer )

(2) Open up the spreadsheet.  List your debts in order, from largest to smallest.  So if you own your own home and have a mortgage, and that is your largest debt, then place that in the first row of debts.  Change the name from “Debt #1″ to “Home Mortgage” for example.  Change the dollar amount to the outstanding balance of your mortgage.  If you don’t know the exact amount, it’s time to find out.  You need to stop hiding from your debts, and this spreadsheet will help you track and eliminate your debts.

Lets say that your next biggest debt is a student loan you have for $40,000.  Change “Debt #2″ to “Student Loan” and enter in the amount you owe in the “Total Balance” column.

Do this for all of your outstanding debts, listing them from largest to smallest.  Don’t miss anything.  If you owe $40 on your last cell phone bill, put that in.  If you owe $10 to someone for lunch, put that in.

Once you’ve listed all of your debts from largest to smallest, enter in any debts that you have outstanding amounts on.  For example if you have a credit card with $2,000 on it, and your minimum payment is $150, but you missed your payment last month, enter in $150 under “Overdue Balance” and $300 under “Minimum Payment”.

Once you’ve done that, enter in the date that your next payment is due for each debt.  For mortgages, enter in the date of your next mortgage payment, etc.

Now you have a clear picture of all of your debts, from largest to smallest.

You also now have a total of all of your debts, outstanding balances and your minimum monthly payments.

Whatever that “Minimum Monthly Payments” column says is the minimum you’re paying monthly on your debts right now.  Take note of this amount.  In the example above it’s $3,813.00/month.

(3) Now here’s what you do.  You look at your smallest debt.  In the example above the smallest debt is “Debt #17″ which is a debt for $54.  Let’s assume this is a $54 balance you have on your cell phone bill.  When it comes time to pay this bill, pay double the minimum payment or pay off the debt completely, whichever is less.

In the example above, the debt is $54 and the minimum monthly payment is also $54 so there is no need to pay double the minimum payment since the total debt is only $54.  In this case you would just pay the $54 and clear the debt.

Now, here’s the trick.  Since you’ve just paid off that $54 debt, your next month’s “Minimum Payment Due” (assuming you don’t add on any more debt) will be $54 less than it was before, right?

So instead of $3,813 for example it may  now be $3,759.  Most people would now take that extra $54/m they have after paying off that debt and spend it on something else the following month.  You don’t want to do that.

Instead, keep your minimum monthly payment at $3,813 (or more if you wish of course), and just apply the extra $54 you now have towards your next debt.

Let’s fast forward a few months to illustrate how this works.  Lets say that in the example above we’ve paid off Debts #17, #16, #15, and #14.  They weren’t huge debts and the minimum monthly payments paid them off in just a few months.

Well, now we have an extra $54 + $54 + $85 + $50 = $243/month in our debt reduction budget while still only paying $3,813/m total.  What you do then is you take that $243 and apply it to the next biggest debt.  In our case that would probably pay off Debt #13 completely as well as put a dent in Debt #12.  Once you pay off Debt #12, you add yet another $40/m you used to pay towards it to your next debt.  Now you’re accelerating your debts by an extra $243 + $40 = $283/month.

If you keep going this way you’ll pay off your debts a LOT quicker.  You could get to the point where you’re actually doubling up on your mortgage payments (if you wish) and getting that paid down faster.

(4) At the end of each month, take the total # of debts you have and the total debt amount and record it in the “Track Record” table.  This will show you a month-to-month track record of how much you’re paying off on your debts.  A lot of times we pay our debts every month but because we never really add them up, we don’t realize just how much (or how little) we’re paying off each month.  We make all these payments but see no progress because our monthly cash flow situation doesn’t improve, so we get depressed.

If you track your debts accurately, you may be surprised just how much you’re paying off each month.  It may just be enough inspiration to get you to stop spending more money and to accelerate your debt payments.

Don’t underestimate the motivational power of progress tracking.

(By the way.  The “Difference” column calculates the difference from month to month.  As you enter in each months total, copy and paste the cell above in the difference column to get an automatic calculation.  You can also select the last months cell in the difference column as well as this months cell and click “CTRL-D” to copy down.)

(5) As your bills come in every month, add them into your tracker immediately.  As you pay your bills, update your tracker as well.  This will give you much greater awareness of your situation.  Don’t be afraid to call your creditors and ask them what your exact balance is right now for any debts you have that don’t give you regular statements.

(6) Read the affirmations at the top and bottom of the spreadsheet every time you go in there to update a bill.  As you pay off your bills from smallest to largest, your subconscious mind will start to broadcast a totally different frequency which will help you make more money and pay off your debts even faster.

I know it may seem like a good idea to try to pay your biggest, highest interest debts first, and that is what everyone tries to do, but it doesn’t work.  Pay the smallest debts off first as that will build momentum for you.  Once you pay off some of your smaller debts you’ll start to feel better.  That will attract more money to you and the cycle of success continues.

Final Words

I know this is a long post.  I spent over four hours writing it and creating the Excel spreadsheet.  If you’re in debt, I would highly encourage you to read the post in its entirety and apply the techniques I described along with the spreadsheet.

Even if you don’t believe in some of the more “woo woo” stuff I talked about above in terms of Law of Attraction and energy and vibration, the strategy used in the spreadsheet will work anyways.

However, if you are one of those skeptical people who labels things like the Law of Attraction as “woo woo” stuff, ask yourself – How is your current strategy working for you?

If the state of most people’s growing debts is any indication, probably not too good right?

Why not just try it?

How to Make a Scorpio Happy

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Just for fun, today I decided to write a quick little post on how to make a Scorpio happy.  I’m not really an expert in astrology or anything like that, but I am a Scorpio and I know what makes me happy so I think that automatically qualifies me as an expert.  🙂

Firstly, Scorpio’s pride themselves in being sexy and determined, and those are our favorite compliments we like to hear.  We’re not stubborn, we’re “determined”.  There’s a difference there, and if you want to make a Scorpio happy, compliment them on their determination and perseverance.  Don’t bother arguing with us, since we’re determined to win the fight so you’re in for a long battle.  Plus you’ll lose, and then neither of us will be happy.

The second thing you need to know about Scorpio’s is that when we want to tell you something about ourselves, we’ll share it with you openly.  However, if we don’t want to talk about something we are masters of being aloof and not disclosing any information that we don’t want you to know so don’t bother trying to pry as that just annoys us.  You won’t get anything out of us anyways, so don’t waste your time – or ours.  To make us happy, listen when we’re trying to tell you something and don’t pry when we don’t want to talk about it.

Scorpio’s have a cool outer shell that can sometimes be mistaken by others as being uncaring.  That is simply not true.  Inside, Scorpio’s are very fiery and passionate and we deeply care for those who we love, and we expect the same back.  We are very demanding of ourselves and others, so if you want to make a Scorpio happy, always do your best.  We don’t expect you to be perfect, but at least try your best.  We can smell a half-assed effort a mile away.

We are very loyal in our loving relationships, and we expect you to be loyal as well so keep that in mind when getting into a relationship with us.  We are the strong, silent types with magnetic personalities and have no problems making friends.  Scorpio’s will make friends wherever they go, if they decide to open up and let their energy be known.  Don’t be jealous of us, we’re master hypnotists and we can make people love us quite easily.  You have your gifts, we have ours.

Never try to push a Scorpio to do anything.  We are not the type that can be pushed around. We will not back down, and if you push too hard be prepared to feel the sting of the Scorpio.  Don’t mistake our silent, cool nature for weakness as when provoked we will turn it into a battle and you will lose in body, mind and spirit. If you want to get a Scorpio to happily do something for you, present it us as an opportunity and clearly state how it’s in our best interest to do so.  In other words, you’ll have to bribe us.  🙂

Scorpio’s are hard workers, so if you really want to make us happy find a way to help us with our work.  Scorpio’s are very aware of their dark and light side, and aren’t afraid of their dark side.  Our work keeps us out of trouble and often focused on the light side, so if you think you’re going to get a Scorpio to slow down and stop working for a while – be prepared to see our dark side.

Finally, Scorpio’s are very capable of handling a lot of challenges in life simultaneously so we will often seek that out in life.  Don’t freak out – we usually have everything under control.  Trust that we will get everything done in its perfect time.  Once in a while, however, we will overload ourselves and that’s when the bomb drops.  If you see us running and yelling “RUN!”, please don’t ask why – just run!

For gifts we like money, women like precious shiny things and guys like electronic shiny things usually with blue lights.  Also, for some reason we all seem to like the color red.  Blood red to be exact.

Follow these tips and you’ll make the Scorpio in your life very happy.

P90X Log Sheet

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Looking for a free P90X Log Sheet? Ever since I started on my P90X workout schedule I’ve been looking for a simple Excel based P90X Log Sheet to track my P90X workouts. After looking for a couple of weeks I haven’t found anything I liked so I decided to just create my own. After days of messing around with Excel I finally got a really nice tracking sheet that I use for all my P90X Workouts. If you’re looking for a way to organize your P90X workout schedule, and to track all of your stats, you’re going to love this spreadsheet. This P90X Log Sheet tracks exactly how many reps you’re doing with each exercise, (including Ab Ripper X exercises!), how much weight you’re using for each exercise, whether you’re using dumbbells or bands, and the type of exercise you’re doing (regular, modified, knee etc.).

P90X Fitness Test Page

The P90X Log Sheet will allow you to enter in all of your Fitness Test scores from your initial Fitness Test and your Fitness Test after 90 day. The sheet also allows you to track your Body Composition (Weight, Body Fat %) as well as Body Measurements at the end of each of the Phases in the program (Phase I – Day 28, Phase II – Day 56, Phase III – Day 90).

P90X Workout Schedule

The P90X Workout Schedule allows you to enter in the start date for your program, and it automatically generates a workout calendar schedule that shows you exactly what you will be doing for each day in the program. Each one of the days in the program links to a tracking sheet where you can enter in the stats for that day.

P90X Workout Tracking Sheets

For each of the different DVD’s in the P90X Workout Program, I created a tracking sheet where you can keep track of every detail of every workout. Most of the other trackers I’ve seen out there assume that you’re going to be doing regular pull-ups and regular push-ups. However, many people on the P90X system don’t start off with regular pull-ups and regular pull-ups when first getting going. Some of us need to use resistance bands instead of pull-ups at first, or at least use a chair when doing your pull-ups. This P90X Log Sheet will allow you to track all of that. The same thing goes for push-ups. Most of us will modify our push-ups to either make them a bit easier (knees down) or harder (one leg up) etc. and this sheet allows you to track that as well.

 

The P90X Log Sheet includes tracking sheets for:

  • Chest & Back
  • Shoulders & Arms
  • Legs & Back
  • Chest, Shoulders & Triceps
  • Back & Biceps
  • Ab Ripper X
  • Plyometrics
  • Yoga X
  • Core Synergistics
  • Kenpo X
  • X Stretch

P90X Ab Ripper X Tracking Sheet

In addition to the other tracking sheets which track your strength training workouts, the P90X Schedule Workout Sheet tracks your Ab Ripper X progress as well! You simply enter in the amount of reps you were able to do for each of the separate exercises and it tallies up the total number of Ab exercises you did for each session. This way you can easily see your improvement over time. Maybe you start out and you can’t do 25 Crunchy Frogs, so you do 10. The next time you do Ab Ripper X you try for 12, and 14 the time after that. Do that on any of the exercises that you’re doing and the sheet will add up your progress. You’ll be surprised how quickly things add up when you do just “two more” here and “two more” there.

 

The P90X Log Sheet is available for download free of charge to my newsletter subscribers.

If you have not yet subscribed to my free newsletter, you may do so by clicking here:

 

How to Assemble and Meet Your Team of Invisible Counselors

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Today I’d like to share a visualization / meditation technique I use from time to time to help me make decisions, and to provide fresh new perspectives on challenges I may be facing. It is a technique that is also especially effective when you’re feeling stuck.

I first began using this process almost by chance, and then refined it’s use when I discovered that Napoleon Hill wrote about this exact process in “Think and Grow Rich”. It’s a technique he originally kept secret and didn’t really talk about in fear of being ridiculed by his peers.

In fact, once I tell you what the technique involves you may think I’m crazy as well. Regardless what your first reaction is, the technique does work pretty effectively, so if you choose to ignore it without trying it out a few times you will be missing out on an important personal development process that could really help you in some really difficult situations.

The process first involves creating a list of 5-10 “counselors” that you would like to get advice from. For example, Napoleon Hill’s “Invisible Counselors” were Emerson, Paine, Edison, Darwin, Lincoln, Burbank, Napoleon, Ford and Carnegie. You can pretty much pick anyone you want, dead or alive, it doesn’t matter. You want to narrow down your list to 5-10 people in life that you have a lot of respect for and who you would definitely listen to in terms of advice. You might want to include people in your list from diverse backgrounds and different areas of expertise. For example, you may want to include someone with a spiritual perspective, someone with an intellectual perspective, someone with an emotional perspective, etc.

Once you have your list, the very basic process involves simply closing your eyes and imagining a boardroom. In the boardroom there is a large boardroom table with chairs all around. You are sitting at the head of the table and the individual counselors are sitting in the chairs.

Let me use an actual example to illustrate the process. I’ll just mention three of my counselors that I often use. The three are Bruce Lee, Bill Gates and Einstein. In my actual visualization there are others, but I’m just going to mention these three to illustrate my point.

Yesterday, I wanted to ask my counselors for any ideas they might have for helping me to grow my Blog traffic and audience quicker than it already is growing. So I closed my eyes, and I imagined being in a boardroom and I imagined all my counselors sitting around the table. Next I imagine myself saying something along the lines of “Gentlemen, I’ve got a challenge. I want to increase the speed at which I’m growing my Blog audience and traffic. I’ve got my own ideas on how I can accomplish that, but I’d also like to hear your input. What could you suggest?”

And then I just listen. I try to empty my mind and not think, and just listen to hear what they might say. If I hear nothing, I try to more specifically go around the room focusing on each character to get an answer. Yesterday when I did this, I got an answer almost immediately from Bruce Lee who said “Utilize Leverage.”

Next I asked if anyone else had any other suggestions and nobody else did. That was the end of the visualization.

So, after doing this exercise I left with the advice of “Utilize Leverage.” from my imaginary Bruce Lee. It’s funny because when I thought about it after words, it totally makes sense that Bruce Lee would offer that kind of advice. If you study Bruce Lee’s philosophies and his martial art, you’ll see that he taught the principles of leverage. It’s a common thing taught in marital arts. It is how someone really small can take on an opponent many times bigger.

Napoleon Hill utilized this process to meet with his counselors on a regular basis. After a while, each of the characters he imagined actually took on a life of their own. For example, he mentions that Abraham Lincoln was always late and never smiled. :)

Whether you look at this exercise from a complete spiritual perspective and believe that by going through this process you are actually connecting to a part of each of these people’s spirits, or if you just believe this to be an exercise in flexing your imagination muscles, it is a very useful tool I have found that offers some pretty neat perspectives once in a while that I haven’t been able to get just by regular meditation / visualization alone.

Once you assemble your team of invisible counselors, here are some questions you may want to ask them:

  • What is my true passion in life?
  • How can I better express my passion and purpose in life?
  • How can I start making money doing what I love?
  • Who else could we really benefit from having join our council?
  • What action step can I take right now to help me achieve my goal?
  • What beliefs are limiting me from achieving my goal?
  • What is the most important thing you want to tell me right now?
  • etc.

I know this process sounds a bit goofy, but try it out. You might be surprised to see what you find when you actually take the time to go through this visualization.

Don’t know who to invite to your list of counselors? Here are some fun characters that you might consider inviting:

  • Yoda
  • Napoleon Hill
  • Tony Robbins
  • Stephen Covey
  • Jim Carrey
  • Einstein
  • Stephen Hawkin
  • Napoleon
  • Shakespeare
  • The Oracle (from the Matrix)
  • Deepak Chopra
  • Bruce Lee
  • Joe Vitale
  • Wallace Wattles
  • Henry Ford
  • The Google Guys
  • Jesus
  • Don King
  • Mohammad Ali
  • Buddha
  • etc.

Hey, you might even want to invite me to the meeting. Just don’t be surprised if I arrive dressed as a Ninja. :)

Try it out. It’s a pretty cool little visualization. Have some fun with it.

14 Most Common Fears in Life and What To Do About Them

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Yesterday I wrote about the 15 Things That May Be Killing Your Success.

The first item on the list of things that may be killing your chances at success is Fear. Fear comes in many flavors. Today I’d like to explore some of the most common types of fears and offer a bit of advice on how to overcome some of them.

Although there are many different types of fears out there, a lot of the smaller fears actually stem from a group of base fears common to most people. For example, the fear of spiders can actually be tied back to the real fear of death, pain or sickness. It is not necessarily the spider that we are afraid of, but rather what will happen if the spider bites us.

Fear of flying in an airplane is another example. It is actually more probable that we have a fear of dying in a plane crash than simply being in an airplane.

Here is a list of the 14 most common base fears which other fears derive from:

1. Fear of Disease, Sickness or Poor Health

This is a very common fear. It is deeply routed in our natural desire to avoid pain. This fear is amplified in individuals who have encountered sickness or poor health early on in their lives or have had a friend or loved one encounter sickness or poor health.

The challenge here is that a lot of us spend all of our energy worrying about different kinds of diseases like Cancers or some exotic disease we might “catch” from someone at some point or some condition we think has been genetically programmed into our DNA.

In actual fact, my extensive studies in the area of nutrition reveal that the human body is incredibly resilient and incredibly strong. It has the ability to heal and recover from some incredibly unfortunate circumstances if we treat our bodies with respect and provide them with proper nutrition and exercise.

2. Fear of Losing Your Job

Most of us rely on a “job” of some sort to pay our monthly bills. Most people nowadays have thought about building a second income stream so that they’re not dependent on one income stream, but they usually don’t know where to get started. This is why most people are stuck in the rat race of being an employee.

You may very well be a good employee, but the company you work for may encounter some tough times and you may be laid off. Another possibility is that you may be fired due to some form of conflict between yourself and your superiors.

One of the ways to overcome having to worry about this fear is to constantly work on improving the value you provide to your employer, regardless where you are working. Become so invaluable that your employer stays up at night worrying about losing you as an employee, not the other way around. This way, even if for some reason you end up losing your job, you will be able to find something else very quickly and most likely without having to endure a pay cut.

Ultimately, however, the BEST path to overcoming this fear long term is to become your own boss by starting your own business.

However, for most people, the concept of starting your own business creates a whole new set of fears.

That is why it is imperative to follow a proven system that other people have been successful with.

One example of proven business systems is a franchise opportunity such as a McDonald’s or a Starbucks etc.

Most top franchises have an incredibly high success rate for those who purchase them.

The only problem with most franchises is that they have a high start-up cost that can range upwards of $250,000 just to get started.

In the recent years, a new type of business opportunity has been very effective at producing results using the Internet to make money online.

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3. Fear of Dying

A close cousin of the fear of disease and sickness, the fear of dying can have a debilitating effect on people. This is not an easy fear to overcome as it is basically bred into our DNA as a species. There are a few perspectives that may aid you in overcoming this fear.

Firstly, realize that one day we will all die. There is no escaping it. However, what you can escape is the burden of living your life and worrying every single day about dying. Why live that way? Isn’t it a waste of your life to spend so much energy worrying about something you have no control over? Unless you are consciously increasing your likelihood of dying by participating in unhealthy habits like cigarette smoking, there really is no reason to expend energy towards worrying about dying. What will it accomplish?

Secondly, something that has personally had a huge impact on me in this area of life is getting clear on my spiritual beliefs. Taking the time to get clear on your spiritual beliefs can often bring about a level of peace and acceptance that eliminates much of the fear surrounding death.

For people with an irrational fear of death that starts to consume their lives, processes like B.E.S.T. treatments can be of huge help as well as PSYCH-K.

4. Fear of Loneliness

A lot of us have a deep need to be connected to other people. Our relationships are very important to us. Unfortunately a lot of times our fear of loneliness can keep us locked into destructive relationships which aren’t healthy for us.

One of the most important elements of overcoming the fear of loneliness is to work on improving your relationship with YOURSELF. This is such a major point in personal development, I think it deserves a lot of attention. You need to develop a strong, healthy relationship with yourself first and foremost. You will never have a healthy relationship with anyone else if you can’t have a healthy relationship with yourself. Become your own best friend. Only then can you share yourself with others completely.

When you reach that stage in your life where you are completely comfortable with yourself, you will experience two very interesting things. Firstly, you will find that you no longer fear loneliness as much anymore. You realize that if you were left alone, things wouldn’t be that bad. Being by yourself, spending time in the company of nobody else but yourself doesn’t seem so bad anymore. Secondly, even though you’re totally OK with being alone now, everyone around you all of a sudden wants to be friends with you. It’s like all of a sudden you have unlimited friends coming into your life.

This happens because people are naturally drawn towards those people who don’t NEED people. If you NEED other people to be happy, people will be repulsed by your energy and this further feeds your fear of loneliness in an endless spiral. If, however, you learn to love yourself you will find that people are attracted to you and your fear of loneliness disappears.

5. Fear of Uncertainty About Your Future

Lets say that your current circumstances are totally fine and you are happy in the present moment and everything is exactly as you want it to be. Well, even under those kinds of circumstances a lot of us still have this fear of uncertainty about our future. It’s almost like we’re just waiting for everything to go wrong and our life to get screwed up.

Don’t allow this fear to destroy your present moment life. It is not healthy to worry about the future all the time. Yes there is a time for future planning and such, but a lot of us spend way too much time worrying about tomorrow instead of enjoying where we are today.

Work on strengthening your confidence in your own abilities to face unforeseen circumstances. Learn to have faith that if something does happen in the future that you couldn’t predict or avoid that you will have the strength and ability to handle it with ease.

One of the best ways to stop worrying about the future is to join organizations, clubs and network groups that attract people who are positive thinkers and who don’t worry about thing.

When you get around people who are positive and who never worry about things, you stop worrying yourself.

Whereas if you are constantly hanging out with people who are constantly worrying about things, you end up doing the same.

6. Fear of Failure

The fear of failure is a paralyzing fear that prevents a lot of people from realizing their true potential in life. The only real way to overcome this fear is to change your philosophy of how you see failure. Our traditional school system breeds a philosophy that encourages us to avoid failure at all costs. Students who try and fail are often punished, while others who don’t even try are simply left alone.

We must learn to frame our failures as temporary mis-takes which simply need to be re-taken again. Remember that every time we fail at something we can learn something from that mis-take if we have a learning attitude on, instead of a frustrated attitude on. We are naturally programmed from birth to be OK with failure, and it is only later that we are taught to avoid it. Babies FAIL at walking over and over and over and over again and again until one day they succeed, and they are OK with that. The parents sit there and cheer them on in delight. Yet what happens in school later on is that as soon as we make a mis-take on something we get punished.

The most successful people in the world are the ones who have actually failed the most. They have made mis-takes over and over again, but their attitude didn’t focus on the mis-take, it focused them on continuing to try again and again.

Don’t try to avoid failure. Embrace it. Go fail at something a bunch of times and you’ll see that as long as you learn something from each “failure” experience, as long as you don’t give up, you’ll eventually succeed.

7. Fear of Making Decisions

This is a rather humorous fear in my opinion. The reason I think it’s somewhat funny is that our Ego’s have so cleverly distorted our perceptions that we actually don’t see the very logical thing that is staring us in the face. A lot of people fear making decisions, yet they don’t realize that by not making a decision they are actually MAKING A DECISION.

If, for example you don’t DECIDE to brush your teeth today, what happens? You don’t brush your teeth right? So in effect, you are actually DECIDING NOT TO brush your teeth if you don’t DECIDE TO brush your teeth. Do you follow what I mean?

“Oh, I just can’t decide whether to buy this house today.” Well…then that means you are DECIDING not to buy the house today.

“Oh, I just can’t decide if I want to go to this party.” Well….then you are then DECIDING not to go to the party.

Do you see what I mean? Making this realization, however, doesn’t get rid of the fear though, right? Well, if you really truly look at the fear of making decisions, it really is just the fear of failure masked as a fear of making decisions right? You’re not afraid of making decisions. You’re afraid of making the WRONG decisions, right? Explore your feelings about the fear of failure. If you overcome that one, your fear of making the wrong decisions will probably disappear as well.

8. Fear of Conflict

A lot of us are very much afraid of engaging in any kind of conflict in life. This fear may actually be an irrational fear of death disguising itself. If you’re afraid of people and situations where conflicts may arise, you may want to take some courses on conflict resolution or even martial arts training if you’re afraid of people actually hurting you.

If you’re out there living your life to the fullest, you will surely encounter situations where conflicts may arise. Don’t avoid these situations. Just accept the fact that they will arise from time to time and you do have the ability to engage and negotiate a win-win resolution. Don’t allow this fear to paralyze you into hiding from the world.

9. Fear of Rejection

This one requires you to really work on your own self confidence. If you are self confident and you know you are a good person, rejection will just slide off your back. If you have low self esteem and you are always looking for validation from others to tell you that you are a good person, you will always shy away from rejection. You will not ask for what you want in life from people because you will be afraid that they will say no.

Rejection will happen. It will probably happen to you all the time, like every week. If you’re in sales, it will probably happen several times every day. Don’t take it personally. Remember that similar to the fear of making decisions, often times when we don’t ask for something in fear of hearing a no, we are in effect saying NO to ourselves. By default the answer is NO, but if you ASK at least you have a chance of getting a yes.

10. Fear of Stupidity, Ignorance, Lack of Knowledge

Lack of preparation in life brings this fear to life. A lot of people are too lazy to study and take the time to prepare for future circumstances, and then they develop this fear of being unprepared, unqualified and ignorant to the situation at hand. Become an avid reader and student in life and discipline yourself to prepare for situations. If you have a test to write, study for it. If you continuously put yourself in situations where you are unprepared, you will develop and strengthen this fear of stupidity.

This is actually just laziness disguised. Don’t allow laziness to create fears in your life.

11. Fear of Losing Your Most Important Relationships

Take the time to spend time with your loved ones and create cherished memories that will stay with you forever. Take note that the fear of loneliness may play a big part here as well. If you get rid of that fear, this fear will also lose its hold on you.

12. Fear of Public Speaking

I have often heard people say that the fear of public speaking for most people is greater than the fear of death. I don’t know if it’s true, but I can definitely attest to the fact that the fear of public speaking is massive for most people. Perhaps this is why public speakers make so much money, because nobody else wants to do it. 🙂

One of the best ways to overcome this fear is to start really small and put yourself in a situation where you are in front of supportive, positive people. Prepare a presentation for just two of your friends over lunch. Then work on presenting to a group of your friends at your house, perhaps to 5 or 6 of your friends. Then maybe move up to something a bit bigger like a presentation in front of a boardroom of people. Work your way up in baby steps and practice and prepare before your presentations.

Becoming a part of a club that offers public speaking training in a safe environment can be a huge help.

If you’d like to join an organization that provides such training, click here.

13. Fear of Being Poor

If you have ever experienced being poor or you grew up your entire life being poor, you may have a very strong fear of poverty. The best way to combat poverty is to educate yourself in finances. Don’t leave it up to someone else to take care of your finances. Learn how money works. There are tonnes of resources out there which you can tap into very inexpensively to learn about finances and how money works. You could sit down with a financial professional, or go to the public library to borrow books on finances. There are also a lot of resources available on the Internet in eBooks or on blogs like this one.

Become a student of money and how it works. Don’t dismiss money or treat it as an after-thought. Money plays a central role in our lives and it deserves our attention. If you really study how money works, how to make it and how to grab control over your personal finances you will vaporize your fear of poverty forever.

14. Fear of Success

People always laugh at this one when they first hear it. “Yeah right, who’s afraid of success…” they say.

Actually, I am completely convinced that the fear of success is responsible for more failure in life than the fear of failure. I wouldn’t have believed this ten years ago, but from my experience there is actually a lot more to this fear than most people realize.

You’d think that if you were successful overnight that your life would instantly improve and all your problems would disappear. Well, our fear is that it won’t. We fear that things won’t get better, that things will stay exactly the same, or even get worse, which is why we prefer to fantasize about success instead of actually pursuing it.

If you were a multi-millionaire tomorrow, what would your friends think of you? Who would ask to borrow money from you? How would you deal with that? What would you do with yourself? How would you invest your money? How would you make sure someone doesn’t take advantage of you? Would you still be able to trust your friends to like you for who you are? Rich people are evil, right? Money is the root of all evil, right? The list goes on. See how many things a person can have attached towards “success”?

Visualize being successful, and see if any feelings of fear come up. Explore this fear and you may find that it is actually at the center of your lack of success, more so than all the other fears combined.

Summary

Hopefully this sheds a bit of light on some of the most common fears we face each day and gives you a good starting point of how to address some of them. Fear is a huge success killer so be aware of that and go to work on eliminating your fears. Be patient with yourself and realize that you’ve been living with these fears for decades so most likely they will not just disappear overnight. Stay at it though and work on facing your fears every day and you will see just how much your life will improve.

One of the most powerful ways of dealing with ALL kinds of fears is to join a success club that specializes in helping people overcome fears, such as the fear of poverty, public speaking, etc.

I strongly recommend visiting the following link to learn more about a success club that I joined that helped me to overcome some of my fears and boosted my confidence in life in a big way.

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