Belief Equals Possibility

I went to a funeral today of a person who was loved and liked by many. She left her mark on so many people because of her concern, appreciation, and interest in others. Her positive attitude and genuine smile were admired and welcomed too.

Some said they hoped to be like her as much as possible and learned a great deal from her wonderful gestures and examples. Today’s experience brought about 2 very important thoughts to me. One was how much we need to appreciate life and the people around us that we care about because it is so fragile and can end at any moment. The other is how we want to live our lives so we can be proud of our efforts and accomplishments instead of disappointed by them.

My friend that passed today was loved and liked by so many people because she cared so much about others. Her heart was for other people and she knew how to give kind compliments or much needed words of comfort just at the appropriate moments. Not only that, but she was so happy to see you that if you didn’t know her, you would wonder if she was up to something or what. I tend to be a pretty positive person and yet she was a breath of fresh air. Her smile said much more than words can express and of course when you are a positive uplifting person, everyone wants to be around you. She lit up the room when she was around. What kind of life do you live? What are your actions toward others? What do people think about you? How do you want to be known when you pass?

And of course the fragility of life; I know that I often take for granted the time I have on this planet and the wonderful people we share it with and how quickly it can all end when our time or that of a friend is up in this world. Today made me think deeply about my life and the ones I love and how much they mean to me. According to what I heard, my friend that passed today had cancer and was told by her doctor that she was had a month to live. How might you live your life differently if you lived it as if this kind of information was told to you every day upon rising? How might you excel at your tasks, goals, and dreams if you lived your life like it was about to end? What might you do differently than that of what you are doing today? Why can’t you live this way without having the realization of such a troubling outcome? If you could accomplish and realize more and live a life that brings increased happiness and satisfaction than you currently are today, then why not start and do it today?

As I listened to family and friends talk about my friends passing, it was amazing the love that she had for them and vice versa. And it was clear to me at those moments how important love and relationships are. Don’t hesitate to ponder these wonderful thoughts about life as you live yours, for that is what makes life truly special. Jim Rohn says “We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.” It’s so important that we make every day count; the choice is up to us.

Everyone runs into brick walls going through their lives sooner or later. It may be a huge financial loss. It may be a struggle with some opposing force. It may be not getting that job, promotion, or opportunity that you are so very much hoping for. From time to time, we all find ourselves in situations that appear so devastating to us that it can be hard to carry on. Yet life goes on. How do we cope with these kinds of situations? That’s a question you should ask yourself when faced with extreme disappointment. Because the answer to that question will determine if we move on and upward or if we sink with the bad news and reality of the situation into a never-ending hole of depression. I’m not talking about a death of a close person here, but rather other events.

I’ve had this kind of situation happen to me and know others who have had them happen to themselves too. Fortunately, they are rare; however their affects can be very lasting if we let them be. I suggest that we analyze them, like we most likely have already over and over and not focus on the destruction or the terrible results that happened, but rather what can be learned from this situation and how it can be avoided in the future. Let’s face it, we can’t change the past. We also owe it to ourselves to not let the past negatively influence the future. We can think about the past, but that will only cause us to become less than we can be, with the exception of learning from it. So you may want to ask the question, “If I could do it all over again, what might I have changed?” and “What learning is there to be gained by having gone through this situation that I didn’t know before?” This is your chance to either grow through the situation or live it in and it’s misery for as long as you choose.

Life is so short and can be so beautiful if we choose to see it that way. With every bad situation, there is an equal and opposite positive situation that has occurred as well. Let’s seek out the joys of that positive event and bath in it.

I have two young daughters age 10 and 11 and one thing they have helped me with is appreciating the world and all the little beautiful things that are around us. I find that I work a lot and take for granted the little beautiful wonderful things we all have to enjoy around us. The beautiful food that we enjoy, the wonderful call we get from a loved one to tell us an accomplishment that they have achieved, the bee flying around a flower, a dog’s eyes showing love for his or her master. There are billions of beautiful things and events that we can bask in if we look for and at them.

If we dwell in the misery of a loss as described here, then we will most likely miss the beauty I speak about here. And when we work to move on and put this behind us, we have the possibility of fixing the loss that occurred. For example, let’s say you lost $600,000 due to some unforeseeable situation. Next after having put that behind you and working hard on your fortune again with the new knowledge you have from that experience, you find yourself a millionaire. That $600,000 loss will not seem to be a loss at all, but rather a lesson. If you don’t move on to find your destiny and the success that can be yours, then you will never know and you will never feel this experience.

The fact is if you can create $600,000 you can do it again and more. To do this you need to ask for forgiveness to yourself in what happened so you can let it go completely and then believe that you can succeed. As Napoleon Hill said, “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” So your loss can become a lesson instead and the pain from thinking about it can be replaced with a sense of appreciation and gratefulness. What do you think?

I was talking to a friend today and a thought came to my mind. That being, sometimes I’m up and sometimes I’m down a bit. And nothing has changed except my thoughts.

When I am up, I’m thinking good thoughts about almost everything I can think of. For example, how grateful I am for a place to live and sleep comfortably and how I have the blessing of being able to make my payments to keep those things working for me. Or perhaps how grateful I am to have my family and that our health and safety is not being compromised, and so on.

When I am down, I may be thinking about how bad things are and how they could be better and yet my life hasn’t changed, nor anything around me in my environment, only my thinking has, nothing more.

So how do we find hope when we are in these kinds of hopeless thinking situations? We do it through first realizing what our thinking is. And that it is what it is and nothing more. Then we can protect ourselves from our own thinking by thinking oppositely of that which we are thinking. Because when you think about it, there is an equivalent amount of good in comparison to that which is bad and vice versa. So if we can shift our thinking in finding the good that exists, then we accomplish finding hope in a sometimes thought to be hopeless moments. It’s up to us to make the shift.

Other times and may I say on extremely rare occasions we are unable to find the equivalent good that lies before us as we dwell on our hopelessness. I think it may be that we aren’t trying hard enough to find the positive and good elements that are there. For example when a family or good friend passes or when justice or fairness isn’t adhered to. But if we search hard enough we will find the good that exists from every experience. Even if it’s our ability to handle more challenges easier than the last because we grow stronger through each one.

Yet hopelessness can be used for good by recognizing it and then taking actions to do what you feel is right. To make a stand by confronting in a loving manner the people that make you feel this way and by doing so becoming a hero and a leader to others because you have the courage to stand up for what you believe in. Or maybe you can use your hopelessness energies for the good as you do some act of helping others by perhaps volunteering your time in some way and dedicating this act of kindness to the situation or person with whom your hopelessness has been manifested from. You see, when you do this wonderful deed, you are working in a positive way and the hopelessness will fade away into a feeling of goodness. The actions that you take will result in good having been done all because the experience of hopelessness that you encountered.

May these thoughts be a source of strength as you look for peace and happiness in your life when times get tough and your attempt at trying to understand situations appears to fail you. Please provide your thoughts on this topic; we’d love to hear from you on them.

How can we get better? By telling the truth

Brian Tracy says it this way, “be impeccably honest”. It seems like such a simple concept and one that we always follow, but the truth is that most of us are dishonest from time to time and we need to correct those occurrences and make them less frequent.

Do you ever catch yourself telling a little white lie? How does it make you feel? Not very good. And usually to keep the lie sounding like the truth, you must continue to lie until you get caught in circle of untruths.

There is a lot written about not telling the truth by many people and even in the bible. Joe Girard, known as “The world’s greatest salesman” says this about telling the truth in his book called How to sell yourself, “[Don’t lie] if you want to sell yourself to others as a person who can be relied upon, who is honorable and honest in all his or her dealings, who can be believed without the so-called shadow of a doubt. [This] truth applies no matter who you are or what you do or where you do it.”

What do you hold as important in your life? Make telling the truth one of those traits you hold above most others. What do you think?

Thank you for visiting Belief Equals Possibility website. This site is designed to focus on the good things in life and on self improvement. In today’s world we can all use as much focus as possible in finding what is right and becoming our best. I hope you will find this site as useful as I intend it to be and encourage you to provide words of wisdom for us all to share.