Who wants to be happy? Most of us, of course. However, chasing happiness will always leave you chasing happiness. When people pursue success, aren’t they really pursuing happiness?

Think about this…

When you’re unhappy, you want to be happy. When you are, you want what you want and go get it.

This weeks experiment/exercise:

Imagine that you are happy already (because you choose to be). What do you still want? Your answer might be surprising. Write/type at least a page on what you would do if you were already happy and you’ll know your next steps.

How many times have you met someone, an expert or a so-called expert, and you said no to them because there was something, you couldn’t quite put your finger on it (or maybe you could) as why you wanted to say no? Or you felt it was easier to say no?

I hate to say it, but sometimes looks matter. I’m not talking about the dna that you were born with, but getting a client to say yes could come down to what you’re wearing (amongst other things).

Picture One: You’re meeting with an expert (in whatever area you need an expert in) and she or he is wearing khakis and nice shirt.  This person is very casual and casual brings on a different posture and offers a more relaxed feeling. It also often allows a cubicle worker to get more done. What this business person says is great and might even be compelling. The product or service that this person is offering, however, has a pretty hefty price.

Picture Two: You’re meeting with an expert (in whatever area you need an expert in) and she or he is wearing savvy, expensive looking, business attire (doesn’t actually have to be expensive). This person is casual and has the movement and posture of a successful business consultant. What this business owner says is great and might even be compelling. The product or service that this person is offering, however, has a pretty hefty price.

Who do you have an easier time saying “no” to? Some of you might say the person in picture two.

However, the majority of people find it easier to say no to a person that resembles picture one.

Now if you do most of your business by phone or internet, it might not matter so much. It occurred to me to look at this one day as a couple of people came to visit me for a consultation and I was employing a “Casual Friday” type of attire. Still business like, but not a look saying “I’m very successful and you can be, too” look. The people loved the the service I offer, however, they didn’t move forward with it. One of them was kind enough to mention that I didn’t look the part because I was wearing khakis.

This made me think a bit about my own unconscious purchasing strategies. I have to admit I would rather purchase from someone who looks successful and looks the part which he or she is offering. I’m the first to say, I don’t judge people by the way they look and for the most part I don’t. However, in business, many of us find that we have some unconscious (and conscious) criteria of who to work with.

What are your thoughts on success, business and image? Do you think it’s easier to say no to someone who is dressed “the part?”

Do you want to make the most important relationships in your life work? What are the significant relationships in your life – examples: your spouse, your child, your boss, your colleague, your parent, your sibling — anyone who is a major player in your life.

What approach do you take in regards to particular major relationships?  Do you make that relationship work, do you let that person walk all over you, or are you passive to the point where you’re just waiting to see what’s going to happen.

I’m often surprised that when someone comes in to talk with me about a relationship, they are usually waiting to see what’s going to happen next. This might look like a good choice at first, but the problem with this approach isthat if you wait long enough – you’ll inevitably see things you don’t like.

I’ve noted three key differences between a relationship that a person want to make work and one where the person is waiting to see if things will turn out the way they want.

First, you can choose your battles you can use the my way or the highwayapproach. In any of my relationships, there are certain areas I just won’t negotiate,including boundaries that involve my physical and mental well-being. It theline gets crossed, the person isn’t allowed to remain in my presence. However, inrelationships that I choose to wait and see, I give a more leeway to somepeople than I do others.

Forexample, if your 5 year old sticks her tongue out at you, is that a “dealbreaker” for the relationship? Of course not. If a friend sticks his tongue outat you and calls you a name, you might not like that. If you don’t, you mightjust use that as a “deal breaker” and relinquish the relationship.

Second, you can fix the problem or fix the relationship.As with anything, what you focus on expands. If you want to fix the problem,the problem becomes more evident. It also become less tolerable. When you decide that you want to make the relationship work, you bring in more of the concept of relating. You build on the better points of that relationship.However, if you’re in a “wait and see” relationship, and there’s a problem being focused on, you tend to re-evaluate the relationship.

Third, Many people care about things and what happens and some people over-care. When we decide to focus on making a relationship work, we don’t stop caring about ourselves and our own personal needs. When choosing for the relationship, we also don’t require to make our happiness dependent on relationship. On the other hand, when we are waiting tosee what happens and how things will turn out, we can get caught in the “over-care”trap. This means that when something doesn’t go your way, you take it personal and get caught in the never-ending cycle of inner argument and resentment.

Today’s Experiment:

Make a list of you top five important relationships.

Next to each one, decipher whether this is a relationship you have decided to make work or are you “waiting to see” how it turns out.

If you have chosen to “wait and see” in any of your relationships, experiment with how that relationship would change if you decided to make it work.

Nice job Steve Chandler. I highly recommend Steve’s work  and he has written several books that you can find on Amazon.com. Just type in his name and there’s a nice list of them. He also has built a wonderful club called Club Fearless which can be found at http://www.clubfearless.net

In order to create what you want, you have to build a tolerance for getting what you want. You read that right – NOT a tolerance for what you don’t want but a tolerance for what you DO want. Right now, there are lots of people who haven’t built that tolerance or have lost there tolerance because of everything that seems to be going wrong around them. We have to build this tolerance for success, well-being, being happy, whatever it is that you want to increase and build it like a muscle. There are very few people who can skip the building up the muscle part of success.

Cheryl Richardson, Life Coach and author of Stand Up For Your Life, mentioned a great little tid bit last about conscious creation and building that muscle. Years ago when she was just learning about conscious creation she decided to imagine every day that she would create something new each day. She started out with things that didn’t mean that much to her, which made it easier to follow through in the beginning. If you ask for something that you desire, need or want too much, you’ll create a stopper instead of allowing it. So she imagined a big, juicy, succulent rent tomato and kept imagining it for several minutes. She then proceeded to go about her day and that very morning as she was driving to work a produce truck pulled up along side her at the stop light. There on the side of the truck was a beautiful, large, juicy looking tomato. She was amused, but still wasn’t quite sure that it wasn’t a coincidence. So the next day she decided she wanted to see a Rolls Royce. She had never seen one in her area before so that would help make her a believer if she did. The next day she saw two of them.

When she told me about this, I decided to try this experiment myself. I thought of a marshmallow – they’re not a familiar site in my life. So I meditated on this and forgot about it. (Remember one of the keys to magnetizing something is to not obsess about it.) That evening, I decided to relax in front of the TV for a little bit and a commercial came on with somewhat peculiar photographs. One of those photographs what an adorable white kitten laying on a bed of marshmallows. I love feeling amazed and allow myself to feel it a lot and this was one of those times.

Now I keep a log of all the small and large things I create in my life including how long it takes them to come in. It makes it a fun game for me. Could that work for you?

This week’s experiment:

1. Choose something to meditate on that you would like to see in your life. Pick something small and not to significant like I did. One magnificent thing about this experiment is that you don’t even have to believe it will work.

2. Write down what you are attracting and make a place for how long it takes for it to come in.

3. Let me know your results. The first three people to give me their feedback on how they did with this experiment will receive my Shape Your Success system “Fearless Public Speaking.”

Have you ever wondered, “how did I get here? Life certainly isn’t turning out like I thought it would.”

A couple of months ago, I was speaking with a group of people who had come together to learn more about creating a better working environment for themselves. Many people believe that they are stuck in employment situations in which they cannot flourish or move forward. One person spoke up regarding her weight as being a problem for her in moving forward with her career. She heard comments about her weight from people around her and she was finding it hard to stick with a process for losing the excess weight.

Since her weight had been confronted from hearing comments of other people, I asked “Do you really dislike yourself the way your are, or, are you more hurt by the comments of other people? Which of these drives your weight loss more?” The woman thought for a moment and then said, “I really just want to be accepted. I think that I’m losing out on opportunities because of my weight. I really just want people to like me for who I am.” As we went on, this person realized she was trying to lose weight to please other people and not herself. She knew she was intelligent and could do more, but she thought others just didn’t see her that way.

What we really had to get down to is who are you going to let create your life?  This is something we all have to think about whether we want to boost our careers, be healthier, or prosper in a marriage. It’s hard for many of us to move past the idea that our environment controls who we are and what our future holds, when in reality, the control lies within us.

This week’s experiment:

If you have been experiencing your life as externally controlled, here are some exercises that can help you regain your internal creative edge:

1.     Take a break in your daily schedule to settle in with who you really are. Write down what you like about yourself and your life and then write down a few things that aren’t feeling good because they are prompted by other people. Review these lists and look at why you like certain things and why you don’t like others. Is it because you get a feeling of gratitude from yourself or is it because you’ve created a mold that others put together for you?

2.     Take all of the desires that aren’t really yours, but the ideas of other people, and meditate on whether or not you really want these things in your life. Do they make you happy or do they only make the people around you happy? Are they truly necessary in your life?

3.     Make the choice whether to keep the attitudes and desires of other people in your beliefs.

4.     When you decide to relinquish one of the things that truly is not good for you, imagine a chalk board in front of you and erase the unwanted ideas that you previously took on as yours.

5.     Write on this chalk board what you would like to include in your thoughts and desires. What will your life be like? Will you be happier? Will you enjoy yourself alone and with others more?

Moving forward in our own thoughts and desires can often take us through places in which negative attitudes hide and want to remain strong. By thoughtfully and deliberately revisiting what we truly want for ourselves can help us along our journey and expose these hidden beliefs that aren’t doing us any good. Being true to ourselves, we become more spiritually enlightened and enjoy the presence of our own company in a different light.

Do you have a goal that seems to just stay out there in front of you? One that you just can’t seem to wrap your mind around it. Maybe even a small goal seem huge for whatever reason. Just like many of you, I let goals get the best of me until I really learned to annihilate them.

If you have one or more goals getting the best of you, what could you do to make it smaller than you? Alicia works in sales and most of her sales begin with speaking with a potential client by phone. She always had trouble with making these calls. She would put them off and put them off, finding other tasks to keep her busy. Her initial goal was to call four people per day to invite them to review what she had to offer.

Sure this could be deduced to fear of rejection, this or that, however, we decided to try an experiment to help her crush that goal. Instead of letting that goal control her, she became bigger than that goal and began imagining her success as having made the calls and feeling the freedom of being successful.

To her surprise, she began making her calls earlier and earlier in the day and she was calling approximately nine people per day. She told me that her goal was something that she didn’t want to do, however when she decided to beat it down and use her mind to accept no as a no instead of no meaning she wasn’t enough, she was able to make more calls than she anticipated. To her further surprise, she 2/3 of the people she spoke with were interested in speaking with her further.

This weeks experiment:

Do you have a goal that seems to always be there or you have trouble maintaining certain tasks (such as calling customers on the phone)? How is it controlling you? How can you make yourself larger than it?

Make the decision to annihilate that goal. Laugh at it, stomp on it. Imagine having accomplished it and how you feel with it behind you. Use that as your motivation to follow through with it.

Then notice how easy it really is to blast your goals because you’re bigger than they are and you’re in control.

Let me know how you do.

Remember going to the carnival as a child? You were in such awe as you watched and maybe even participated in the spectacular shows and rides that were offered. The clowns and actors made spectacles of themselves to entertain you and the rest of the audience. If you had a sore toe or were feeling a little blue, having fun helped you refocus on something that made you feel good.

Letting your imagination take you to new places within yourself can also alter your perception and state of being. Even though the world seems like it’s becoming less stable and other people are struggling to pay their bills, you can evolve to a higher state by using your wonderful imagination.

When you are feeling down or negative, do you scold or even belittle yourself for having an attitude that feels bad? Have you ever thought about letting yourself have the negative without attaching yourself to them? Rather, let the come up, however, let them float away just the same. Instead of scolding yourself or judging the emotion as bad, could you just let it be for a moment?

When going through the feelings of sadness, anxiety, or resentment, people tend to forget to allow themselves to be human. Humans are emotional beings. When people stuff their emotions down or tell themselves that they are bad, they learn to distrust themselves and he value of of all of their emotions.

If you beat yourself up for having a negative emotion, this often activates a justification of unworthiness of better things. Our self-worth lowers as a result and guilt sets in for not being in control. It’s a big cycle. However, when you allow yourself to feel and metabolize your feelings and all self-forgiveness to take place, we see things in a different light plus we move from that space instead of resentment.

This week’s experiment:

Recognize your feelings for what they really are. Thoughts about people, events and things generate feelings. Do you best to acknowledge all of your feelings, including the ones that feel bad – like fear or sadness. Allow these feelings to be. Don’t judge them. Imagine them moving through your body and out your feet.

Then work at noticing how that affects your life. You’ll find that you’re more at peace, centered in the present moment, and your get more done with less effort.

Let me know your thoughts and how you do.

Have you been putting off larger tasks because they seem so big? Or getting smaller tasks out of the way in order to immerse yourself into the larger task, except the little things keep cropping up and you don’t make much headway? That used to be what I experienced and those larger tasks or projects were the money making portions of my business. So what did I do?

I made the larger projects my first priority and created focus days. Now I take one or two days per week to focus entirely on the larger projects.

The smaller stuff doesn’t tend to generate income, so it can be organized into other times around my projects or an assistant can do the smaller things for me.

Focus Days are spent exclusively on high-income projects. This means no interruptions, email, phone calls (unless these are your high income activities). These days could be spent making proprietary systems or fine tuning the ones you have.

For a salesperson, Focus Days might include following-up with customers to see if their needs are met and contacting leads for future business.

Now if you don’t have someone to help you with the smaller tasks, you can create Support Days. These are the days you commit to tasks that help maintain your business. These are days you return phone calls, clear your inbox, file all of your papers, and set up more Focus Days.

With all of this, you must schedule at least one free day per week. If you don’t, you will suffer. Whenever I push myself further without a free day, my immunity goes down. So I’m a stickler for the free day. It relieves stress, lets you focus on non-business priorities, and allows you a day of fun.

A lot of people wince at taking breaks or time off, however, you will be more productive and more focused if you do so.

This Week’s Experiment:

First, figure out what your high income projects/tasks are and begin scheduling your Focus Days for later this week.

Second, use the days before as Support Days and plow through as much maintenance as you can.

Third, schedule your Free Day. Make a list of things you like to do. Go to a movie, take the kids out for a play day, or go for a hike. You will look forward to these days every week.

Remember why you are in business – to make money. So make sure you prioritize your high income projects into their own day. By organizing by the day, you’ll accomplish more and stress less.