I love Jack's simple approach to turning problems into solutions ... stumbling blocks into stepping stones ... stop signs into yield signs! Click here for more tips, tools, resources to help you get from where you are to where you want to be! In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this article by Jack Canfield ~Trisha


What stands between you and what you most desire?

Your answers might relate to a lack of money, time, support from family, or all of these. Obstacles can seem so numerous, so obvious, and so tough to change.

You can relate to obstacles in many ways. Typical responses are to explain them orresist them.

Both responses take a lot of time and energy. And both anchor you firmly in the past, keeping your focus on areas of your life that are not working.

To immediately generate alternatives, remember a simple analogy...

Imagine that you’re driving down a scenic highway. Suddenly you come to a huge rock in the middle of the road.

At this moment you have several options. You could try to explain how the rock ended up there. You could also go into resistance mode, complaining about the carelessness of highway construction or the lack of state funding for rock removal.

Or, you could bypass all this negativity and remove the obstacle from your life at once. Instead of explaining the rock or resisting it, just drive around it.

When faced with obstacles, people often respond with questions based on explanation and resistance, such as:

- Why am I so alone? 
- Why does this always happen to me?
- Why am I such a failure?

However, you always have another option. You can ask questions that help you drive around any obstacle in your life.

Questions have uncanny power. Questions direct your attention— and along with it, how you think and how you feel. If you want to create different thoughts, feelings, and results into your life, then ask different questions.

Start now by skipping the why questions and begin asking what questions, such as:

1) What’s the lesson here?There’s an old saying about learning from experience: Beware the person with twenty years of experience. This may consist of one year of learning and nineteen years of repetition.

The point is that experiences do not come prepackaged with empowering lessons. Everything hinges on how you interpret experiences, and your interpretations can change over the years. A single event can take you a step closer to emotional contraction or expansion. It all depends on how you interpret that event.

Psychologist Martin Seligman has made a career by studying how human beings interpret their experience. He notes that each of us has an explanatory style. People who chronically feel helpless tend to explain events in ways that are:

• Permanent: “I always get confused when trying to learn something new.”
• Personal: “I’m just no good at meeting people.”
• Pervasive: “I’m just the kind of person who fails to follow through, no matter what kind of goals I set.”

Optimistic people use a different style. They explain events in ways that are:

• Temporary: “When I feel confused, I ask questions that lead me to understanding.”
• External: “I find it hard to talk to people in bars, so I invite them to quiet restaurants instead.”
• Specific: “I find it challenging to meet long-term goals, so for now I will focus on achieving short-term objectives.”

You should interpret these obstacles as yield signs rather than stop signs.

These are signals that the world is expanding to accommodate your growth. Instead of resisting a challenge, just lean into it. Ask yourself: How can I interpret this event in a more powerful way? What’s a positive lesson that’s waiting here to be learned?

2) What’s great about having this problem?There’s an easy answer to this question: “Nothing!” However, looking beyond that knee-jerk response can quickly open up your perspective.

Tony Robbins offers an example in his book Awakening the Giant Within. He recalls a time when he’d been on the road for nearly 100 days out of 120. Returning to his office, he found a stack of urgent memos and a list of 100 phone calls that he needed to personally return. Before making these discoveries, he was tired. Now he felt exhausted.

Tony managed to shift his internal state simply by asking: What’s great about having this problem? He then realized that just a few years ago he would have been grateful to get calls from twenty people—let alone one hundred people with national reputations.

This insight was enough to break his pattern of frustration. He found himself feeling grateful that so many people he loved and respected were willing to connect with him.

3) What’s my next action?This question shines a spotlight on solutions. No matter what happens, you can choose what to say and do in response. Rather than manifesting resistance or explanation, you can choose your next action.
Successful people hold a bias for action. Add inspiration and intention to the mix, and you gain an unstoppable momentum.

 

Jack Canfield, America's #1 Success Coach, is founder of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul® and a leading authority on Peak Performance and Life Success. If you're ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at:www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com

This morning, as part of my "power hour", which consists of 20 minutes of meditation, 20 minutes of inspirational reading and 20 minutes of physical activity (I'm working on this part!), I read a summary of The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. The premise of the book is that our success in life and in reaching our goals and dreams is all about myelin and where and how we choose to build it up.

Myelin. I remember learning about myelin in pharmacy school. It's an essential part of our nervous system. The coating, if you will, of the neuronal pathways that make our bodies do what we do ... think, feel, act, perform, process information, act, react to impulses and stimulii, etc. The best way I know to describe myelin (see diagram below) is to use a coated wire as an example. On the outside, the rubber serves a coating or insulation to keep the inside wires together and to keep the electricity from leaking out, thus the wires allow electricity to flow through them and provide power to whatever they are connected to.

It is the same in our nervous system, with a slight difference. We have the power in our physiology to generate our own myelin. The more we perform a task, think a thought or accomplish a complex set of movements, the more myelin is formed and the thicker it gets.

The good news is that the thicker the myelin, the more accomplished we are at whatever it is we are doing. As Daniel Coyne points out, practice makes perfect because myelin gets thicker and thicker along the neuronal pathway towards mastering a task, making the neurons work with more precision, efficiency and speed.

Unfortunately, it is just as easy to build myelin along pathways that do not serve us as it is to build myelin over the pathways that, with persistent practice, will lead us to mastery.

This weekend I spent alot of time with family. I was amazed to observe the result of  what I learned this morning was thickly myelinized fear pathways and negative thought patterns. Unfortunately, my family of origin was raised on fear ... and, for a long time, I made my choices within the deep core of fear-based pathways surrounded by the thick myelin linings that I had inadvertently created. 

Fear is our natural response to an environment that threatens our survival, however, in this day in age, our fears, more often than not, no longer serve us in moving forward in the direction of our dreams and goals.

I was struck by the quote cited above

"It's all about deep practice, 
ignited by a vision of what is possible,
fueled by passion and supported by strong teachers 
that enables us to rewire our brain with myelin in all the right places." 
~Daniel Coyle, The Talent Code

I am grateful that I have been able to break free of most of the subconscious, limiting fear patterns of my past. Today, when they show up, I can observe them and reframe them using my vision, passion, positive thought patterns and new skills I've developed as fuel, with the help of my teachers coaches and support network.

Today I am learning to build myelin around the pathways to my goals, hopes and dreams. When i find myself on the fear pathway, it isn't long that my construction crew helps reroute me to my own personal Myelin Highway as I continue on the road to  creating the life of my dreams!

How about you?  

Do you have a support team to help you reroute fear? Have you identified  your unique vision, passion and purpose? Are you traveling your own Myelin Highway to success, consciously reframing old fear patterns? Or do you find yourself struggling to break through old patterns of thinking, believing and acting that limit your possibilities?

Falll is coming and now is a wonderful time to get resdy to repave your Myelin Highway! 

To learn more about coaching click here.

To learn more about Philosopher's Notes, a wonderful way for busy people to glean pearls of wisdom from a collection of amazing books that will enhance your life, visit
http://www.entheos.com/philosophersnotes/trisharx