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Warning: Personal Development

Categories: Articles
July 19th, 2010 by selfimprovementmomma

I’m not sure exactly how many personal development or popular self help books sold over the last year – but I do know that it is the fastest area of growth in the publishing world with millions of books being bought every year. In addition, I know that, if you turn on your TV, look at your newspaper or go browsing the web’s discussion groups and forums, these self help books aren’t making a blind bit of difference.

Many recent surveys testify to people being more fearful, stressed and worried than at any other time in modern history – even a world war didn’t give rise to such abject fear as we are witnessing in a millennium where we all fell for the notion that humankind was finally rising to a new plane. Indeed, the wartime spirit that galvanized nations into powerful forces during the second world war, is conspicuous by its absence from a world where obsession with money – and constantly wanting more of it – is the order of the day and it’s every man for himself. What the hell has happened – and I use the world ‘hell’ advisedly because it seems to me that everyday life for many is much nearer to hell than heaven.

Books like ‘The Secret’ or ‘The Power of Positive Thinking’ point towards a brighter, better life if you use your mind in the right direction. On the other hand, Barbara Ehrenreich in her book, ‘Smile or Die’, claims that positive thinking has destroyed the US and ruined the world.

Having worked in the self improvement field since 1996 – having started out before it was fashionable to confide in your friends or colleagues that you were ‘into it’ – I firmly believe that people who read these books are not only fooling themselves but are a danger to themselves and those around them. They read a little, experience the ‘feel-good’ after-glow, perhaps put a bit of what they’ve read into practice for a short while and then convince themselves that things are either better or, even more dangerous, about to get better – this is a general excuse for taking no action while the wheels come off your life.

Reading books doesn’t change your life. Action changes your life – real action every day – action that you’ve got to take yourself. And I’ve seen precious little evidence of action. Sure, I see lots of reaction – but everybody reacts, we’re experts at is and it makes our lives worse instead of better.

So, put away your self help books and ask yourself this probing question? What action could you take today that will make your life better? As I don’t know anything about your life, I’ve no idea whether something major needs to be done or, maybe it’s just something small. But I do know this – I am regularly questioning myself, challenging myself making certain that I keep taking the little and large actions that need to be done to push – yes, you’ve got to push yourself – my life in the right direction. And I’ve the results to show for it.

Tags: abject fear barbara ehrenreich better life discussion groups everyday life heaven books improvement field millions of books modern history new plane personal development Personal Growth positive thinking power of positive thinking right direction second world war self help books Self Improvement
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The Dangers Of Positive Thinking

Categories: Articles
April 26th, 2010 by selfimprovementmomma

It’s bizarre the number of people who swear by the benefits of Positive Thinking but have very little to show for it. Of course, positive thinking is far better than negative thinking, but it is still just thinking – and most of the thinking that we do exercises our conscious mind, that small part of our mind that plays little or no part in the creation of our everyday lives. Rather, it is our programmed subconscious mind that creates our automatic behaviour as a result of which our version of reality unfolds before our very eyes. It is our subconscious that creates stress, anxiety and the fear of taking the brave and courageous decisions that we need to often take if we are, indeed, to follow up on our positive thinking. Of course, the kind of decisions that I’m talking about are only “brave” or “courageous” to normal, crazy people.

Even though positive thinking is better than the negative alternative, thinking stops doing. Or worse, recent work in the United States indicates that positive thinking has duped otherwise well-informed business people from the obvious pitfalls of pursuing a certain course of action – senior figures in the banking world get a particular mention! That aside, at very best, too much thinking is a dangerous thing.

If you really wanted to pursue the route of Self-Improvement, you would be far better of trying a little positive doing! So, having prioritized the things that are truly important to your success and happiness, actually doing just the important things that need to be done to achieve your goals, to Change Your Life or, indeed, to play the perfect game of golf – if that is what turns you on! If you have financial worries or your business is suffering as a result of the economic downturn, if you feel inadequate in certain business or social situations, if your relationship is on the rocks or if your health is going downhill, if you hate your job or hate your life – you have got to take action. By action I mean real action, not the normal automatic reaction that makes things worse rather than better and, indeed, not more of the same. If you want something different in your business, career or life, you’ve got to do something different – thinking about it will not only get you nowhere, it may actually convince you to take no action at all.

But, how will you know what positive action needs to be taken, what doing needs to be done? Well, you can’t do anything without a clear and present mind. Too often we are paralysed for want of stepping back from the perceived mess in which we find ourselves, too often the normal mind is too muddled – and positive thinking may actually muddle it more. To embark on the correct positive action, you need to take one step back from all your cares, worries and frustrations. You’re going to have to take or make a few minutes each day to experience the reality of the here and now. You need to come to your senses – you have five of them, it’s time that you used them. In doing so, you will be more present which, in turn, means that you will have presence – the hallmark of all great positive doers.

Tags: personal development Personal Growth positive thinking power of positive thinking Self Improvement
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How To Make Sure You Acquire The Most Influential Self Improvement Books To Suit You

Categories: Articles
January 31st, 2010 by selfimprovementmomma

There’s no doubt that many are perplexed by the large number of self-help books in the bookshops, and in fact the personal involvement in picking out and reading self-help books could be be a healing exercise on its own, but by virtue of so many writers, each suggesting their personal method to the subject matter and a range of self-improvement applications which can render self-help subject material perplexing for a person with incomplete knowledge about the subject
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It is dependent on the method of the author as to whether they will have a positive affect on the recipient.The Positive-thinking texts by Norman Vincent Peale were the earliest of the self-help genre, and since ‘The Power Of Positive Thinking’ (1952) there have been many subsequent titles to provide the help and support to positively affect many peoples lives..
Self-help manuals embrace a range of areas including…

Addiction

Low self worth

Divorce

Wealth

Raising spiritual awareness

Stress and depression can be caused by concern over commonplace stuff and self-help books have shown to be valuable for putting events in perspective. By absorbing a self-help book, your attention will be directed towards the solution of the problem which alone has proved to help you to produce a solution on your own.

The key point is to uncover an author whose style you can empathize with and while this is a very personal choice it will in addition be very satisfying.
Even though the answer may possibly be generic, each writer has their technique of developing the best manner of approaching the issue and this results in many experts in the diverse segments of self-help and readers find those whom they identify with with as being most effective.

The most certain manner to acquire valuable self-help books is to study the numerous authors and maybe try out a few of their books to see if you empathize with their method.

Psychological approaches used to develop improvement in performance, both physical and mental involve NLP(Neuro Linguistic Programming), EFT(Emotional Freedom Technique, or ‘tapping’) and Energy Psychology and there are numerous self-help titles with information on how they can be learned and applied at home,

Other types of widely available psychological tools that can be learned solely with self-help titles include

learning to increase intuition and clairvoyant senses
learning to dowse with a pendulum,
learning muscle testing,
learning special methods of chakra clearing,
learning to make use of crystals to alleviate illnesses

and more…

A familiar practice linked to most of these methods is visualization, which combined with deep relaxation can be enormously commanding. This is the basis of the Law of Attraction which defines that what you consistently think about is that which you magnetize in your life. If you perform visualizations as regards what you really want in your existence and replicate the emotions allied to the experience , your vibration will be resonated to the state necessary to attract the outcome.

To facilitate you to achieve this you need to get in the mood to induce these emotions and this is where you have to work on your emotional level.

To achieve the necessary Alpha state, there are a variety of frequency sessions and hypnosis therapies accessible such as the collection supplied by the Unexplainable Store which can help you to locate the correct frequency to attune your brain enabling you to attain success in several areas you once thought to be inaccessible.

Learn more with reference to self improvement and lifestyle issues at self improvement books

The following are all tremendous authors in their field but as they can all differ in treatment of the subject relatively considerably you may find that you favor the writing style of one of them more than some of the others

Deepak Chopra – Spirituality and laws of coincidence and applied principles of universal law
Wayne Dyer – Functional writing style to manifesting and developing self-consciousness.
Anthony Robbins – Plain-spoken approach to self-empowerment.
Tolle Eckhart – Mystical approach to the self-awareness and existing in the now.
Barefoot Doctor – Tao writing style suggesting meditation, raising natural energy and principles of manifestation through visualization.

If you would like to find out how the positive influence of hypnosis can be applied to all of these areas to generate a potent and beneficial affect on your situation feel free to look at self hypnosis CDs

Find helpful things to know about the topic of emotional freedom technique – please go through the publication. The times have come when concise info is really within one click, use this chance.

Tags: norman vincent peale power of positive thinking self help book self help books Self Improvement
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