Napoleon Hill's formula for achieving your goals:

Napoleon Hill  was a speech writer for U.S. President Harry Truman in the last Depression.

He wrote some famous motivational books and is considered one of the founders of Positive Psychology.

This type of thinking has many detractors but "foul water will quench fire", in other words, I look to efficacy as my metric. *

He has a 3 step process to achieve your goals:

1. Write a clear description of your one major desire, i.e., Sobriety

2. Write a precise statement of what you intend to give for your sobriety, i.e., strict adherence to the 12 steps of A.A.

3. Memorize both statements and begin repeating them to yourself hourly.

Whatever your mind feeds upon, your mind attracts to you. You need definiteness of purpose and a clear picture of what you want from life. Sobriety is number one because without it, all else fails.

This may look like brainwashing yourself and that's probably what you are doing to undo all the negative messages you have given yourself over the years.

He has a prayer of thankfulness you say a few times a day:

"Divine Providence, I ask not for more riches but for more wisdom with which to accept and use wisely the riches I was given at birth in the form of the ability to direct my mind to ends of my own choice."

The riches you can enjoy if you take possession of your own mind and direct it to ends of your own choice include:

• Sound health
• Peace of mind
•  A labor of love of your choosing
• Freedom from fear and worry
• A positive mental attitude
• Material riches of your choice in the quantity you desire.

On the other hand, the penalties if you do not take possession of your mind are:

• Ill health
• Fear and worry
• Indecision and doubt
• Frustration and discouragement
• Poverty and want
• And a litany of evils like envy greed jealousy, anger, hatred and superstition.

* Write some information about adhering to evidence-based principles like Dean Ornish-heart health and Jon Kabat-Zinn, MBSR

PositivityRatio.com - About the Author

Photo by Jeff Chappell

Barbara Fredrickson is Kenan Distinguished Professor of Psychology and principal investigator of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory (a.k.a. PEP Lab) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research reveals how positive emotions, fleeting as they are, can tip the scales toward a life of flourishing.
Winner of several awards for her research and teaching – including the American Psychological Association’s inaugural Templeton Prize in Positive Psychology and the Society of Experimental Social Psychology’s Career Trajectory Award – Barb created her broaden-and-build theory to describe how positive emotions evolved for our human ancestors and how, today, they vitally shape people’s health and well-being.
Barb’s scientific contributions have influenced scholars and practitioners worldwide, in disciplines ranging from education to business and beyond. Her research has been featured in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, CNN, PBS, U.S. News & World Report, USA Today, Oprah Magazine, and elsewhere. In May 2010, she was invited to brief His Holiness the Dalai Lama on her research.

Barb lives with her husband and two sons in Carrboro, North Carolina, where she continually seeks out new ways to raise her positivity ratio.
For more on her research, visit the PEP Lab website at UNC-Chapel Hill.
For information on Author Events, click here.

Home | PEP Lab | Terms and Conditions | Publisher | Privacy Policy

Copyright Dr. Barbara Fredrickson 2009.

PositivityRatio.com - About the Author

Practice patience to become mindful

   

The key to everything is patience.  You get the chicken by hatching
the egg, not by smashing it.
- Arnold H. Glasgow


Talent is long patience.
- Gustavew Flaubert


The patience for waiting is possibly the greatest wisdom of all: the wisdom to plant the seed and let the tree bear fruit.
-John MacEnulty


A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.
Dutch Proverb



Patience is the art of hoping.
- Lucky Luciano


Patience helps us live longer and with less Stress.
- David March


With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown.
-- Chinese proverb


Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.
- Michael Le Fan


Patience [is one of those] "feminine qualities which have their origin in our oppression but should be preserved after our liberation.
- Simone de Beauvoir


Patience furthers.
- Lama Surya Das


We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.
- Helen Keller


Awareness releases reality to change you.
- Anthony de Mello


If we love and cherish each other as much as we can, I am sure love and compassion will triumph in the end.
- Aung San Su Kyi


Long is not forever.
- German poverb


We can do no great things; only small things with great love.
- Mother Teresa


Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
- Henry W. Longfellow


I think and think for months and years, ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false.
The hundredth time I am right.
- Albert Einstein



The thing with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
- Lily Tomlin



When people are bored it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.
- Eric Hoffer


Keep cool: it will all be one a hundred years hence.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson


Waiting sharpens desire.  In fact it helps us recognize where our real desires lie.  It separates our passing enthusiasms from our true longings.
- David Runcorn



Faith is the belief in the unseen, the quietly held conviction that even though you can't imagine how, at some time, in some place, in the right way, the thing you desire will indeed come to pass.
- Daphne Rose Kingma




Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you, but not in the one ahead.
- David March



To practice patience, you need a real rascal to help you. It's no use practicing on gentle and kind creatures, for they require no patience.
- from "The Magic of Patience" a Jataka
tale written around 300 B.C.



If there is a defining characteristic of a man as opposed to a boy, maybe it is patience.
- Lance Armstrong




Folks differs, dearie.  They differs a lot.  Some can stand things that others can't.  There's never no way of knowin' how much they can stand.
- Ann Petry



Every moment a beginning.
Every moment an end.
- Mark Salzman



The shortest and the surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be; all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.
-- Socrates





Something happens when we don't resist, when we don't hate ourselves for what we are experiencing.  Our hearts open...
Sharon Salzberg



It's taken time and practice ... to appreciate that how [we] start the day sets the pace for
everything that comes next.
- David March



You must first have a lot of patience to learn to have patience.
- Bruce Lee


Patience... is cultivated through the rational process of analysis...
It is essential that we begin our training in patience calmly, not while experiencing anger.
-the Dali Lama



Problems are only opportunities in work clothes.
- Henry J. Kaiser


Nothing is more effective than a deep, slow inhale and release for surrendering what you can't control and focusing again on what is right in front of you.
- Oprah



When the crowded refugee boats met with storms or pirates, if everyone panicked, all would be lost.  But if even one person remained calm and centered, it was enough.  They showed the way for everyone to survive.
- Thich Nhat Hanh




He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty.
And he who rules his spirit, than he who takes a city.
Proverbs 1 6:32



You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What
you'll discover will be wonderful.  What you discover will be yourself.
- Alan Alda


Our nervous system isn't just a fiction, it's part of our physical body, and our soul exists in space and inside us, like teeth in our mouth.
- Boris Pasternak


You will be pleased to know that the heat in Lucknow has been really hot!... It is good to burn with the heat of God outside since we don't burn with the heat of God in our hearts.
- Mother Teresa



A great preservative against angry and mutinous thoughts, and all impatience and quarreling, is to have some great business and interest in your mind, which, like a sponge shall suck up your attention and keep you from brooding over what displeases you.
- Joseph Rickard



How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong - because one day you will have been all of these.
-George Washington Carver




When some misfortune threatens, consider seriously and deliberately what is the very worst that could possibly happen.  Having looked this possible misfortune in the face, give yourself sound reasons for thinking that after all it would be no such terrible disaster.
- Bertrand Russell



I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.
Margret Thatcher



We are all dangling in mid-process between what already happened (which is just a memory) and what might happen (which is only an idea).  Now is the only time anything happens.  When we are awake in our lives we know what's happening.
- Sylvia Boorstein






Life is so short, we should all move more slowly.
-Thich Nhat Hanh

New Year's Resolutions

WHAT BETTER WAY TO CELEBRATE ANOTHER TRIP AROUND THE SUN THAN WITH SOME HEALTHY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS FOR THE COMING YEAR 2013...  

 I HOPE YOU ARE FEELING IN THE "PINK"  and that you are SET TO INVENT YOURSELF ALL OVER AGAIN...... A LITTLE OLDER, A LITTLE WISER BUT STILL YOUNG AT HEART!

Credit: dreamstime.

Mental prowess

We expect the prowess of our joints and lungs to slowly decline as we age, but the thought of our minds doing the same is intolerable. Here are some top prevention tips worth their weight in wits, plus a few to forget.

1. Exercise: Do something!

Scientists are starting to think that regular aerobic exercise may be the single most important thing you can do for the long-term health of your brain. While the heart and lungs respond loudly to a sprint on the treadmill, the brain is quietly getting fitter with each step, too. For mental fitness, aim for at least 30 minutes of physical activity every other day.

Credit: dreamstime

 

2. Follow Dean Ornish Principles -Eat Healthy Foods:

Too much or too little energy throws a kink in the brain’s delicate machinery. A low glycemic diet — high fiber, with moderate amounts of fat and protein — is broken down more slowly in the body than high glycemic foods, such as sweets and white starches. A steady pace of digestion in the gut gives a more reliable flow of energy to the brain, likely optimizing the organ’s long-term health and performance.

3. Eat 3 small meals plus several healthy snacks to keep blood sugar stable:

While overindulging can make the brain sluggish and lead to long-term detriments to your brain, too few calories can also impair brain function. Extreme dieting can cause some diehards to feel stretches of calm — a feeling that may underlie the addiction of anorexia — but many studies have also linked dieting with distraction, confusion and memory impairment.

4. Preventative Medicine -Take care of your body:

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"

Largely preventable diseases — such as Type II diabetes, obesity and hypertension — all affect your brain, too. System-wide health concerns have been linked to an increased risk of cognitive decline and memory impairments. Keeping your circulatory system in working order, by, say, avoiding cigarettes and saturated fat, lessens the onslaught of age-related damage to the brain.

 

 

5. Get plenty of restful sleep:

When we rest and dream, memories are sifted through, some discarded, others consolidated and saved. When we don't sleep, a recent study found, proteins build up on synapses, possibly making it hard to think and learn new things. Furthermore, chronically sleeping poorly (in contrast to not enough) is linked to cognitive decline in old age, although the relationship may not be causal.


 

6. Enjoy your coffee:

Growing evidence suggests a caffeine habit may protect the brain. According to large longitudinal studies, two to four perk-me-ups a day may stave off normal cognitive decline and decrease the incidence of Alzheimer's by 30 to 60 percent. It is unclear whether the benefits come from caffeine or the antioxidants found in coffee and tea, but that latte may improve cognition this afternoon and several decades from now.

 

7. Eat fish:

Some theories credit the introduction of fish into the human diet with the evolution of our tremendous cognitive prowess. Essential fatty acids, such as Omega 3s, are critical to brain function and are proving beneficial for treating such brain-sapping ailments as depression. Studies on the efficacy of Omega 3 supplements, however, have had mixed results, so get doses from food sources, such as flax seeds, fatty fish and grass-fed animals.

Credit: Dreamstime

 

8. Practice MBSR of Jon Kabat-Zinn:

Practice meditation.  Take a few minutes away from your work for one minute at a time to center yourself, take a few deep breaths and evaluate your activity.  Ias it the best way to be spending your time.  What priorities are listed on your 'to do list'?

Stress takes a toll on the brain by washing harmful chemicals over the hippocampus and other brain areas involved in memory. Some scientists suspect that living a balanced lifestyle and pursuing relaxing activities such as yoga, socializing and crafting may delay memory impairment by reducing stress.

Credit: Steve Knight (stevekrh19)

 

9. Supplements (caveate: take vitamin D and ...)

Supplements have been getting a bad rap recently, with even the familiar multivitamin now looking like a waste of money — or worse. Brain pills, such as ginkgo and melatonin, likely belong in the trash as well. Despite their "natural" origins, they are not free of potential side effects, such as high blood pressure, digestion trouble, fertility problems and depression. And among healthy individuals, ginkgo offers no brain benefits beyond that of a placebo. (In some cases, the placebo worked better.)

Credit: Jane M Sawyer / MorgueFile

10. Tease your brain

Whether crossword puzzles, sudokus and other brain teasers actually keep your brain in shape, has not been well-established. However, lack of education is a strong predictor of cognitive decline. The more you've tried to learn, the better you'll be at mental sit-ups in old age. The key may be tackling something new; the challenge of the unknown is likely more beneficial than putting together the same jigsaw puzzle over and over again.

Source: http://www.livescience.com/12915-10-ways-mind-sharp.html

Multiple Sclerosis has no cure but don't let the facts defeat you.

"When something of an affliction happens to you, you either let it defeat you, or you defeat it."
- Rousseau


Or you learn to work around the obstacle, if it is an incurable disease like M.S. that is ongoing and causes systematically more disability.


It is important to take an attitude of adapting and thriving in spite of the disease.  

Leave the cure to the scientists and manage your life with the attitude that you can deal with the problems created by the disease. 

You will probably need to give up some activities,like the balance beam (LOL) and other athletic pursuits that require balance, strength or require being on your feet for too long. 


Focus on what you can still do and not on what you have lost.

How To Be Happy in 12 Simple Steps

By SONJA LYUBOMIRSKY






STEP 1 - Show gratitude 

(* There's a lot more to gratitude than saying "thank you." Emerging research shows that people who are consistently grateful are happier, more energetic and hopeful, more forgiving and less materialistic. Gratitude needs to be practised daily because it doesn't necessarily come naturally.)


STEP 2 - Cultivate Optimism


STEP 3 - Avoid overthinking and social comparison

(* Many of us believe that when we feel down we should try to focus inwardly to attain self-insight and find solutions to our problems. But numerous studies have shown that overthinking sustains or worsens sadness.)


STEP 4 - Practice kindnessChewbaaka and Koya



STEP 5 - Nurture social relationships


STEP 6 - Develop coping skills


STEP 7 - Learn to forgive 

(* Forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation, pardoning or condoning. Nor is it a denial of your own hurt. Forgiveness is a shift in thinking and something that you do for yourself and not for the person who has harmed you. Research confirms that clinging to bitterness or hate harms you more than the object of your hatred. Forgiving people are less likely to be hostile, depressed, anxious or neurotic.


* Forgive yourself for past wrongs. Recognising that you too can be a transgressor will make you more empathetic to others. )


STEP 8 - Find more flow

(* "Flow" was a phrase coined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the 1960s. It means you are totally immersed in what you are doing and unaware of yourself. Happy people have the capacity to enjoy their lives even when their material conditions are lacking and even when many of their goals have not been reached.)


STEP 9 - Savour the day



STEP 10 - Commit to your goals 

(* People who strive for something personally significant, whether it's learning a new craft or changing careers, are far happier than those who don't have strong dreams or aspirations. Working towards a goal is more important to wellbeing than its attainment.)


STEP 11 - Take care of your soul

 (* A growing body of psychological research suggests that religious people are happier, healthier and recover better after traumas than nonreligious people. ...

* Find the sacred in ordinary life ...)

STEP 12 - Take care of your body

"The How of Happiness" Sonja Lyubomirsky - TalkRational



Sonja Lyubomirsky

link: http://lyubomirsky.socialpsychology.org/




 

Quotes

"Not here, not here the darkness, in this twittering world."
 -- T.S. Eliot, "Four Quartets"

Quotes

It is nobler to declare oneself wrong than to insist on being right - especially when one is right. 
--- Nietzsche

Carl Jung (1875 - 1961)

Carl Gustav Jung
(1875 - 1961)

 The source for this picture is a large site dedicated to Jung.

http://www.templeilluminatus.com/group/carljung 

Ambitious or Greedy?

 

Stress Relief

Richard Carlson wrote about coping strategies to get along in the world, suggesting that people ought to approach life with good humor, positive thinking and perspective. 

 

 

Success Ideas

The Principles work, if your work the principles.

Study the fundamentals and begin at the beginning to learn the necessary SKILLS; for instance:
Dean Ornish for healthy diet, Jon K-Z for Mindfulness, Benjamin Graham for Value Investing,  and so on.




"For every failure, there's an alternative course of action. You just have to find it.
When you come to a roadblock,take a detour."
- Mary Kay Ash




Life is a disease, sexually transmitted and fatal.   -Neil Gaiman



"Let no feeling of discouragement prey upon you, and in the end you
are sure to succeed."  - Abraham Lincoln


We are not abandoning our convictions, our philosophy or traditions, nor do we urge anyone to abandon theirs.

~ Mikhail Gorbachev




"Life is like a combination lock; your job is to find the right numbers, in the
right order so you can have anything you want."

Notes To Myself

Learn to skim when reading, look for reviews and summaries rather than read every book that looks mildly interesting.


Goals and ambitions need constant review because they fade from the mind.  Write your goals on recipe cards and review them daily.


All we get is a hint, a glimmer or an inkling of an idea and it is up to us to pay attention to your intuition and develop the ideas further.

Sort yourself out...

The philosophy that can turn your life around is to take stock of who you are and what you love, and follow your intuition.  If you feel strongly about an idea for an income generating activity, you may be onto something.  Explore and develop you good ideas.

Quick Links

NEWS CNN Headline News LA Times Online New York Times Online Washington Post Online AMUSEMENT Endnear.com The Onion BOOKSTORES Powell's Bookstore Scholar's Bookshelf Smith Family Bookstore Rare and Antiquarian Book Vendors HTML Clip art Site Html Made Easy. MOMspider Shelly Powers' Article Web classroom from LANWRights REFERENCE Greek Mythology Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online MLA online Net Dictionary Online Netlingo Orb: Online Reference Book for Medieval CONCORDANCES Chaucer Concordance Shakespeare's Complete Works RESEARCH Calliope (online journal) BOOKS ONLINE 39 Articles of Religion of the Church of English 1662 Book of Common Prayer Bartleby Project Bible Concordance to 300 works of Literature Shakespeare The Shakespeare Home Page Folio and Quarto Versions of Shakespeare Shakespeare's Complete Works Search the Complete Works Index to Shakespeare's Sonnets Shakespeare's Works Represented in Art Thoreau webpage Walking WEATHER Weatherlinks Intellicast.com

The Sustainability Mantra

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.”
- Mahatma Gandhi


WHEN SPIDERS UNITE, THEY CAN TIE DOWN A LION.
-Ethiopian proverb


Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. - Albert Einstein



Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. - Howard Zinn

John Wooden: the difference between winning and succeeding - YouTube

 uploaded by TEDtalksDirector on Mar 26, 2009

http://www.ted.com With profound simplicity, Coach John Wooden redefines success and urges us all to pursue the best in ourselves. In this inspiring talk he shares the advice he gave his players at UCLA, quotes poetry and remembers his father's wisdom.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Watch the Top 10 TEDTalks on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

Category: Education

License: Standard YouTube License

John Wooden: the difference between winning and succeeding - YouTube

Notes To Myself

Discipline: Wasted time is lost opportunoity.

We work not only to produce but also to give value to time.

Redemption - lessons learned.

The WWW is the new fontier for business...

Always change a losing game...

Reduce main purpose to a series of goals that are then reduced to bite sized chunks ...achievable tasks within the course of a day

Break your day into blocks of time, assigning tasks to those blocks, such as, personal hygiene, apartment maintenance, directed reading...

My reading to be around a few topics...

MBSR with Jon Kabat-Zinn

Aaron Beck with behavior therapy and combine the two in mindfulness based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy...

Read Martin Seligman and  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi  Positive Psychology

Aaron Temkin Beck, M.D. is the father of Cognitive Therapy, having created and refined cognitive therapy over the course of his research and clinical career. He has published more than 550 scholarly articles and 18 books and has developed widely-used assessment scales. He has received many prestigious awards including the 2006 Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award for developing cognitive therapy, which fundamentally changed the way that psychopathology is viewed and its treatment is conducted. He has been listed as one of the "10 individuals who shaped the face of American Psychiatry" and one of the 5 most influential psychotherapists of all time.

Dr. Beck is an emeritus professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and the director of the Aaron T. Beck Psychopathology Research Center, which is the parent organization of the Center for the Prevention of Suicide. His current research focuses on cognitive therapy for suicide prevention, dissemination of cognitive therapy into community settings, and cognitive therapy for schizophrenia.

 Focus on the one day at a time philosophy...

Tony Robbins is a good guy to motivate yourself to action.....

3 Pillars of Zen are learn, practice, teach...  try not to get ahead of yourself.  Practice meditation.

Remember to begin with the end in mind, as Steven Covey prescribes in 7 Habits

Choose books to read with a purpose in mind... there are too many books in the library and too little time to read them all...

Life Mission - write a statement to be your compass....

Don't find fault, find a remedy.  Henry Ford

Pay attention and focus on one task at a time...

Change attitude from one of employee to entrepreneur creating an income...

Plan for Probable outcomes, if you act in certain ways, work hard, advertise....

Start a Donate Box and add something every day.

What is your destination, you are drifting...focus now.

All things in moderation

transform habits, always replacing a habit with more effective ways of doing.....

Realize that there is no way to make up for lost time look to this day, where your strength to act is what counts...start from where you are now and begin to build a better future for yourself and your loved ones....

Remember... tattoo this on your brain:

Focus:  If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.