Positive Thinking: Everything you have always known about positive thinking but were afraid to put into practice. Vera Peiffer

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СКАЧАТЬ begin to live in the here and now, rather than in the past or the future, you will discover a great many things that give you pleasure. All you have to do is begin to look for them and you will find them everywhere. Expect to be lucky today, and you will be lucky. Try it, it works.

      On your way to a better life, your biggest enemy (next to yourself) is probably habit. We get so used to doing things in a certain way, to thinking along certain lines, to reacting so automatically to certain situations that it almost seems as if our mind switches into ‘auto-pilot’ in certain situations, and that is why it appears nearly impossible to change. As long as the habit is something fairly straightforward, like giving up smoking or cutting down on junk food, we can just about imagine that this is feasible, especially when we have just had lots of champagne and it is the 31st December and there is more champagne to come.

      Breaking habits like worrying or bottling up anger, on the other hand, seem to be beyond our control because we believe that they are caused by external events. We feel we simply cannot give up worrying when our husbands or wives are not home on time. We feel we cannot possibly complain about a lousy meal in an expensive restaurant. Instead, we say, ‘We’ll just not come here again,’ and then go home and stew over it for a whole week.

      Excuses for not wanting to change abound, ‘I have to worry because I care so much!’, or, ‘I mustn’t complain because that would be rude’. Nonsense! Think about it. There is nothing you can achieve through worrying. If your husband has had an accident, you cannot change it. If your wife is having an affair, you would do better to ask her about it than to worry. If you complain in a restaurant, you do not have to be impolite. There is nothing wrong with pointing out that you were not impressed with a badly prepared meal. These habits can be changed. Others have done it, so why not you?

      If you want to put your life into a more positive framework, here are some points that will need attention:

      • Take responsibility for yourself, your actions and your feelings. They are yours, and you are the only person who can influence them. Don’t wait for the outside world to change, because it won’t.

      • Take stock. What is your present situation? Go through every aspect – health, finances, job, partnership, self-image and so on. What points would you like to improve?

      • Make a list of things you want to change and put them in order of priority. Tackle the points one by one – getting to grips with one point is better than making half-hearted attempts at several.

      • Look at the first point on your list. What exactly is the problem? Take it apart and determine which are the external factors that come into play and which are your own attitudes that aggravate the situation. Let us assume you are fuming because three shop assistants are chatting while you are waiting to be served. The external factors are that the shop assistants don’t do their job. The internal factor is that you are too timid to attract their attention. There will always be shop assistants who prefer chatting to working, but you do not have to be timid for the rest of your life.

      You will see that often there is not much you can do about the external factors. The point of attack must therefore lie in your own attitudes.

      • Set yourself a target. Be precise about what you want. Don’t say, ‘I would like to be more popular’, say ‘I would like to feel more at ease when I go to parties’. Be realistic about your targets. Don’t say, ‘I want a figure like Kate Moss’, say ‘I want to lose that excess weight’.

      • Start doing your groundwork. If your target is to finally tackle your driving test, you will have to practise your three-point turn. All the positive thinking in the world will not help you pass if you cannot do it before you go in for the test.

      If you want to attract a partner, make sure you look attractive. Curlers in your hair and a cigarette hanging from the corner of your mouth are not likely to drive a man wild with desire, any more than a stained shirt over a potbelly and the general appearance of a one-man slum will have women throwing themselves at your feet.

      • Eliminate the expression ‘I can’t’ from your vocabulary. If you say ‘I can’t’ you are setting yourself limits. Think of the bumblebee. According to the laws of aerodynamics it is impossible to fly with the proportions of body-weight to wing area that it has, but the bumblebee doesn’t know that and simply flies.

       Note: You can because you think you can.

      • Get ready physically and mentally. Make sure you are in the best frame of mind to start on your first point. Do one of the relaxation exercises on pages 24–8 everyday for at least three weeks. Get into the habit of relaxing at least once a day and you will see that it becomes easier to switch off. This will help you preserve your energy, which you will need for the tasks ahead.

      • Begin your day by standing in front of the mirror and say to yourself, ‘From now on, things are going to change for the better’ and mean it.

      • See yourself having achieved your aim. What you can imagine, you can do in reality. If you want to lose weight, see yourself in your mind as a slim person, see yourself wearing a new, smaller size outfit, imagine yourself in front of a mirror in this outfit and see the proud smile on your face.

      If you have been slimmer at one time, find a photograph and carry it around with you. Take out a skirt or a pair of trousers that are too tight now and leave them out for you to look at, saying to yourself, ‘I am going to wear these again!’

      Fill your mind with images of the new you. If you are a man who gets flustered when he is talking to women, imagine yourself engaged in a conversation, see yourself confident, speaking fluently, see your partner listening to you attentively, enjoying your conversation, see her smiling at you. See yourself as successful and you will be successful.

      • Stop making excuses and start now.

       7 Some Personality Traits and Their Strategies

      In this chapter you will see a variety of personality types and their respective idiosyncrasies.

      Please note that there is hardly anybody who is entirely in one category – we are all made up of a variety of personality elements that have evolved over the years. Personality is something that we are born with but it is also subject to external influences.

      If you have children, you will be able to confirm that personality is evident at a very early age. One baby will sleep through the night while another will cry frequently. One child is lively and curious and eager to learn, the other placid and quiet, developing rather late.

      In the following years, a lot depends on the environment of that lively or placid child. If the liveliness is seen as a positive quality, then it is likely that the child will eventually learn to channel this energy in a useful way. If the liveliness is seen as desirable (which it usually is for boys, but not for girls) and the child is given total freedom to display this lively behaviour at all times, the child can become very unruly because it lacks boundaries.

      If, on the other hand, parents and/or teachers define the lively child as hyperactive and naughty, the child may get into all sorts of trouble for its ‘negative behaviour’. Punishment of some sort may follow a display of liveliness, and the child will learn to either suppress the behaviour or to start displaying the behaviour in an exaggerated way, thus provoking more punishment, which, in turn, makes the child СКАЧАТЬ