Habit of Excellence #1: The Habit of a Grateful Heart
You are a reflection of your own conditioning, a multitude of habits. A habit is something you do without any conscious thought. It’s something you been doing repeatedly & got accustomed to doing it. Habits come from ideas and ideas comes from thoughts that took the form of an idea and is now fixed, conditioned in your mind.
In some way, people are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want. And if they can’t find them, they make them.
The focus is on energy, what you focus on Grows. The more you focus all your energy on that one desire your energy will get stronger. Focus on what you DO want, not what you don’t want! What you think about you bring about. We become what we think about. So, whatever you are thinking, think bigger!
Here is an exercise for you:
Every night before you sleep, for only 10 minutes, list down 3 to 5 things you’re grateful for today. It can be as simple as getting a parking space when you’re almost late to work or even be alive today. The important thing is to really embrace and feel that gratefulness within you for a couple of seconds and thank God or Allah for those little things in life. Focusing on gratitude, on what we have not what we don’t have, or what we lack; will always keep us in positive alignment. It creates positive energy too. The more we feel grateful, the more positive energy we emit. The more positive energy we emit, the more we see great things in our life! Remember, what we focus on expands!
Oprah Winfrey, a self-made billionaire, credited her success to her habit of writing down things she is grateful about in her gratitude journal, before she sleeps, and really feel and soak in the sense of gratitude as she goes through her list. She says: “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more”. Shouldn’t you and I do the same if we were seeking success and excellence in our life?
Law of Excellence #1: The Law of Thinking
By focusing on positive or negative thoughts, you can bring positive or negative experiences into your life. The belief is based on the idea that people and their thoughts are both made from pure energy, and that through the process of like energy attracting like energy a person can improve their own health, wealth, and personal relationships. Master this law to manifest every single one of your heart’s desire with lightning speed.
Here is a quick exercise on how to properly harness the full potential and put it to work for you:
Know your strengths & weaknesses
Everyone has their own strengths. We are born with it. And as we grow up, it develops and becomes our skills and knowledge. However, many of us have lost sight of ourselves because of the negative environment surrounding us which becomes our worldview as we grow. To help you regain who you really are, here is a secret – it’s in your N.A.M.E.
For example, my name is Fathiah. But it is more than that. To me, my name means I am Fabulous, Achiever, Talented, Happy, Inspiring, Abundant & Heart-centered.
Now, what’s yours? You can also build strengths in your children’s names so that they know who they really are and were born to become. Every day, first thing in the morning, look yourself into the mirror and declare your “true self”. Get your children to do the same too! Keep giving this positive reinforcement on each other and make it your family culture…. the Malaysian family culture.
After identifying your strengths, the next step is to know the areas you can improve on (your weakness). While it is not easy to admit that there are areas where you have a deficiency or weakness that you may have, it is important to identify the weakness with the intention of improving yourself so that you can move forward in your life and career and become better. After all, excellence is about focusing on being better and better in all that we do.
Write down the areas where you are not good at, but you are open to fixing them. But do not focus too much on your weakness as what you focus on expands; positive or negative; strengths or weakness! Focus on how you want to fix them. For example, one of my weaknesses is I have very little patience (notice I used the word “little patience” which is more positive, instead of the negative word “I am impatient” – we will discuss more about this in our later section on “words have power”). So, what do I want better? I want to work on being more patient by always thinking before I speak. Or every time I lose my patience, I will fine myself RM10 (ouch…)!
Our journey towards excellence is about knowing who we really are and who we were created to be. As Bob Proctor famously states: “You were born rich”. We all were born rich!
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