Enjoy today!

How many times do you catch yourself thinking about what happened yesterday or last week or even last year? How many hours of your life have you spent thinking about the past? Worse even, how much time have you wasted dwelling on possible outcomes of what might happen tomorrow or next week or next year?

Can you see the underlying theme?

Time you spend dreaming about the future or thinking about the past is time you will never have back today! There is nothing wrong thinking about good times in the past or visualising your future, but if you spend most of your time concentrating on what happened or what is yet to come then you are really wasting precious minutes and hours.

Your time is precious

You will never have that time again and you should use it in the present! Today is a beautiful day and tomorrow is always tomorrow, you can never have tomorrow today so why waste most of today thinking about it? Also what happened in the past can never be re-done or re-lived.

It is so easy to let go and avoid the current day.

If you are going through a bad patch it is much easier to “cry” about the past or dread the future, but you end up losing the opportunity to do something about it all today. By all means learn from what happened in the past, but there is no need to dissect it to the extreme and waste precious moments.

Same applies with dreaming about the future...

When you will meet the perfect stranger or win the lottery or get a new job or just when things are better. Again visualising your future for a few moments a day is a positive action but if you spend all day thinking about the possible outcomes of the future instead of living in the present you are wasting today. And if you actually act on it today, then that future might soon be your present!

Enjoy today!

Enjoy today, do something today to get you closer to your goals. Be happy and grateful for what you have and act on your life. Whatever you do today if it is according to your purpose and towards your goal, no matter how small action you take it will be a positive one. Similarly the time you spend thinking about the past or the future is a time wasted that you will never have again.

There is always tomorrow, but you will never have another today!!!

Go on, go and take positive actions towards your goals and enjoy today!

Have a brilliant day!

Speak soon,

Paulo

x

A special second

I was listening to the radio the other day whilst driving in Portugal, and the radio dj mentioned that the next day it was going to be very special, with an occurrence happening that would not repeat itself for more than a century. This occurrence was a special second...

12 hours, 34 minutes, 56 seconds of the 7th of August 2009

That was the second, the only time for more than 100 years that all the numbers were in sequence 123456789!!! That got me thinking, sure that second was unique and special because of that but surely all our seconds are unique and special!!!

Are your seconds special?

My question to you today is, are all your seconds special? Are you making the most out of your seconds to ensure that they mean something to your life? Or are you simply wasting those seconds away wishing for them to be special?

Well, I have news for you...

It all depends on only one person... YOU. You are the only person that can ensure that your seconds, minutes, hours and days are special by taking action on whatever your goals are. Don't just sit back and complain about how difficult or hard your life may be, do something about instead!

If you do then they will be special!

If you take action and every thing you do to occupy your seconds gets you that extra step closer to your goal then every single second will be special. If you mop around than guess what, all will remain as bad as it might be today.

I have a final question for you...

What are you going to do today to make your seconds special and make them count? I am going to go to the gym later this afternoon and then continue working on my new project. How about you?

Looking forward to read what your plans are.

Have a brilliant day.

Speak soon,

Paulo

What I Learned From My Grandfather

I have been thinking about writing this post for a while now. He was one of my heroes, I loved him to bits and he was one of my best friends in the World. He passed away almost 15 years ago already but I still think of him a lot.

Throughout his life, like all of us, he made mistakes and even said or acted badly or out of turn, but he was always capable of recognising his mistakes and amending them when he could. I admired a lot of things about him, and learned a lot from him. Today I thought I would pay praise to him and share with you some of these learnings.

Do you want respect, then earn that respect...

He always told me that if you want people to respect you for who you are then you first have to earn that respect. How do you do that? By beeing yourself at all times and by making sure you respect who you are. If you don't respect yourself how can you expect others to respect you?

He was of the opinion that no matter what your status in society was, if you wanted his respect you would have to earn it and prove to him that you would be worthy of it. He once told me that just because he was my Grandfather that wasn't an excuse for him not to earn my respect from him. Funny to hear this from someone that I idolised but in more then one occasion he proved that concept to me. He also told me...

Respecting someone doesn't mean you agree with them...

Looking back this teaching was a sour one for both me and my Grandfather. He had told me in the past that disagreeing with another person was natural and if you always kept each others respect then the disagreement would eventually turn out to be positive for the relationship.

A few years before his death me and my Grandfather had a big disagreement that even threathened our relationship. The reason why it didn't was because we respected each other above all others and were able to see the points we were both making and eventually "made up". Our relationship became stronger than ever before from that point onwards.

Always dress to impress... yourself!

From my first memory of him up to the last one, he always looked extremely smart and well dressed. His hair was always impecably taken care off and his nails expertly cleaned and tidy. He never dressed to impressed the World outside, he had no need to do that because he only wanted to impress himself.

Even around the house well after his retirement, his clothes were nicely colour coordinated, pressed and neatly presented. To his last day he combed his hair with "brilhantina" and had his silk scarf on his neck. No point in trying to impress others if you are not impressed with yourself.

Some might call it vanity, I call it pride...

This is a story my Mum told many times and I often tell it too. My Grandfather used to work as a tailor, so he always looked impeccably dressed at all times. On his way to and from work he had to cross a field that often was dirty or even muddy.

So every day without fail, either on way to work or home, my Grandfather proceeded to walk through the field, and on reaching the other side, he would remove his handkerchief and would thoroughly clean his shoes from any dirt and mud ensuring they looked clean and polished and off he went on his way.

Some people might say that it was very vain of him to do that, but for me was pride, pride on his appearance and, most importantly, pride on himself. He was also a role model on how men dressed, on account of his job, so if his attire was not perfect why would anyone buy from him?

Hard work pays up in the end...

I have never believed in easy work for easy pay. A lot of people out there wants you to believe that it is easy to achieve your goals, but it always involves hard work from your part. I also believe that, at least in part, that belief of mine comes from him.

You can achieve anything you set your heart upon but you always have to be prepared to put the effort in. Once you do that it will pay handsomely in the end! You are responsible for your dream! Dream big, act big and reality will be big...

I could go on...

And tell you more of his learnings... Someday I might add a few more, or maybe not. Today I just felt it was time to pay homage to a great man, that I miss dearly and I loved throughout my life and still do, in the hope that some of his "teachings" could of assistance to you as well.

As always comments are appreciated.

Speak soon,

Paulo

Law of Attraction - Part 3

Now that we discussed what the Law of Attraction really is and we found out the one missing ingredient was, how do we actually go about applying it?

Well, it is rather simple but it does require a great deal of belief in you as well as in your overall beliefs. For the purpose of explaining it better, we shall use as an example something that many people will like to achieve one day or class as one of their goals.

Millionaire status...

Let's assume for a bit that you want to be a millionaire. Cool, you want to be a millionaire, so you have already completed step 1 of the Law of Attraction, know what you want. The next step is to ask for it, visualise you already have it and that is it, just sit back, relax and will finally will come to you, right?

Well...

Wrong!!! In fact, if you paid attention to what I wrote in my last two posts, the sure fire thing to happen if you do exactly as above is that after a while you will think that this Law of Attraction is total BS and doesn't work and you will give up. Well I have news for you, off course it will not work and off course you will think is total BS, mainly because you have asked for something and you have done nothing to achieve it!

This is what you should do instead...

You want to be a Millionaire! Ok, now lets be more specific and how much of a millionaire you want to be. Like when setting a goal we need to specify exactly what it is you want. So to make things simple, let's assume you want to have £1M in your bank account. Know you know what you want and that is £1M in your bank account.

Second step...

Now that you know what you want, you ask for it. Ask the universe that you want £1M in your bank account. Simple, hey? Well, you actually have to believe that you can get £1M in your bank account, so you need to focus on your values about money and strengthen them as well as removing all negative ones from your psyche.

You want One Million Pounds...

But it is your belief that only "dodgy" people get rich or win the lottery or indeed good honest people can not become millionaires through hard work. If this is you then you are already sabotaging yourself before you even started. If you believe in all that, then you will never get it, because, you get what you ask for and what you believe. You need to work on your values and beliefs before you ask the universe for something that you don't believe in. This is something you can do on your own, although it might take a long time, or you can get a coach or mentor, like myself, to help you on it.

You now believe that you can get it...

It is now time to visualise yourself with £1M in your bank account. Visualisation is a very strong tool in this process. You need to see your life like you already have that money. Imagine what would you do in your normal day with your goal already achieved. See, hear, smell, feel your new life. All the places you have visited and all the items you have bought. Visualise it all until you are certain that it is really true and here!

And now... Do something about it...

Take action on it. Don't sit back and wait. With all the beliefs and visualisation work you have done, your subconscious knows that you already capable of having it. So you are now more open to new opportunities that come your way and you will be more alert to act on it. The more actions you take towards it the sooner it will come to you.

Be grateful...

Be grateful for all that you, in your head, already received. Be charitable to others as you are in a position to do it and also teach others how to get where you got. Now you must, detach yourself from the outcome.

This is seems to be the hardest part of it all...

By detaching yourself from the outcome, you are not placing a life or death status to you achieving the outcome itself. By detaching yourself, you are in fact saying that this is something you want and are willing to go for it and for it to take as long as required to achieve it. It will not rule your life and that your happiness and satisfaction in life is not solely dependent upon achieving. You are telling the "universe" that you will have a good life whatever the outcome. Achieving it will add to your life, rather than make your life!

And there it is, the Law of Attraction explained...

For the sake of this example I used money, but you can apply the LOA to any part of your life. New job, new girlfriend, new house, whatever it is if you can ask for it you will receive it... provided you act on it!

What you waiting for?

Go on! Go and apply the LOA in your life. Don't just read about it and forget it. Apply it and see it working for you. If you doubt it from the very beginning then unless you do some work on your values and beliefs, then you will fail. So believe in it and go for it.

It has worked for me, and still does...

Many times throughout my life, most of the times without knowing, I have applied the Law of Attraction to many areas of my life and have been very successful and happy with the results and will continue to apply it.

Hope you found this useful and interesting. As usual comments are welcomed and appreciated and please do let me know of your successes using the LOA in your life!

Have a brilliant day.

Speak soon,

Paulo

Law of Attraction - Part 2

On my previous post we discussed the Law of Attraction and what it meant and how was interpreted. If you missed it head over here to read it – http://reigniteyourlife.blogspot.com/2009/07/law-of-attraction-part-1.html.

Today we are going to talk about the missing ingredient of the Law of Attraction that makes all the difference in how to apply it and to make it work for you. The movie “The Secret” did a really good job in opening up the law of attraction to the World out there, but, unfortunately neglected to mention one very important and crucial part of it.

Many people are now applying the Law of Attraction in their daily lives, unfortunately most seem to fail to get the results desired. How do I know this? Well the main question that I seem to be getting from friends and clients, and indeed one of the main questions floating around the internet is “How long to I have to wait for the results to manifest?”.

That question poses two problems.

The first one is the fact that if you are indeed asking that, then your belief regarding the actual success of your “request” is weak to say the least, and that you believe that actually getting your desires is not dependent on you but on some external sources. And secondly, perhaps most importantly, you failed to really understand the Law of Attraction.

See when you ask when the results appear

It means that you haven’t done anything about getting those results. The missing ingredient that wasn’t mentioned or taught in The Secret is Action! You need to take action. That is the only way the Law of Attraction can work for you. If you want a new better paid job, then you need to start searching for one and apply for the ones you would like to have. If you want a new girlfriend you will not find her in your empty living room whilst you are sat doing nothing.

Basically no-one has become successful in any of their endeavours by being a lazy lay about doing nothing. They took action and they went after what they wanted. You need to take action. It might take one day, it might take one year, who knows, but the sooner you take action the sooner you will get your desires!

Going back to the Law of Attraction summary from last time and adding in the missing component this is what the Law of Attraction should look like:

1. Know what you want.

2. Ask for it.

3. Visualise that you have it already.

4. Take Action - Most important step!!

5. Receive, be grateful and detach yourself from the outcome.

Well, that is it for today. Next time I will go into more detail on how to apply the law of attraction in your life to get the best results for your goals.

Have a brilliant day

Speak soon,

Paulo

Is Self-Help Negative to You????

Weird question for my blog, don't you think? Well it suits what I wanted to talk about it today. I don't know if you have seen it in the news yesterday or on the internet, but a group of Canadian researchers, found that "turning to self-help mantras to boost your spirits may have the opposite effect".

What have they found...

They found that "those with low self-esteem actually felt worst after repeating positive statements about themselves". Apparently saying "I am a loveable person" only worked with people which already had high self esteem.

And...

"The researchers, from the University of Waterloo and the University of New Brunswick, asked people with high and low self-esteem to say "I am a lovable person." They then measured the participants' moods and their feelings about themselves.In the low self-esteem group, those who repeated the mantra felt worse afterwards compared with others who did not. However people with high self-esteem felt better after repeating the positive self-statement - but only slightly."

And you know what?

I completely understand those findings and am pretty sure that if I conducted a similar study the results would be the same. Why? Because what those researchers neglected to do was the whole essence of self-help:

You will only change when you are ready to change!

What the researchers did was simply ask people to repeat phrases. If you are feeling low about yourself and someone tells you to do this because it will make you feel better, it will not necessarily make you feel better unless you are allowing it to do so. People who buy self-help books, or go and see a coach or a mentor, and go to seminars or retreats, have already made the decision to change and are embracing the help that is going to be given to them.

They have pre-disposed themselves to change.

That is the fundamental rule or law of self-help or "external" help, you must want that change to happen. Someone telling you to do something is not self help, is instead an order. They would have made better use of the research grant they got, by going to coaches clients and ask for testimonials, go to a seminar and ask participants how they felt before and after the seminar, or indeed trail the internet for all the websites with unsolicited testimonials of clients to coaches from all over the World.

Don't let this put you off...

If you are ready to make a change in your life and you are seeking help, don't let this study put you off. You have reached that stage that you are about to take action so do it, buy a book, go and see a coach, go to a seminar, whatever you do, if you are ready for it, you will succeed. Change is possible and you can achieve it if you really want it! I will not lie to you and say change is easy, because it is not, but change is possible if you really want that change to happen.

Here's to your success,

Paulo