Pillars of Self-mastery part-1

"One who conquers himself is greater than another who conquers a thousand times a thousand on the battlefield"-Buddha

1. Sleep less. This one of the best investments you can make to make your life more productive and rewarding. Most people do not need more than 6 hours to maintain an excellent state of health. Try getting up one hour earlier for 21 days and it will develop into a powerful habit. Remember, it is the quality not the quantity of sleep that is important. And just imagine having an extra 30 hours a month to spend on the things that are important to you. 
2. Set aside one hour every morning for personal development matters. Meditate, visualize your day, read inspirational texts to set the tone of your day, listen to motivational tapes or read great literature. Take this quiet period to vitalize and energize your spirit for the productive day ahead. Watch the sun rise once a week or be with nature. Starting the day off well is a powerful strategy for self-renewal and personal effectiveness. 
3. Do not allow those things that matter the most in your life be at the mercy of activities that matter the least. Every day, take the time to ask yourself the question “is this the best use of my time and energy?” Time management is life management so guard your time with great care.
4. Use the rubber band method to condition your mind to focus solely on the most positive elements in your life. Place a rubber band around your wrist. Each time a negative, energy sapping thought enters your mind, snap the rubber band. Through the power of conditioning, your mind will associate pain with negative thinking and you will soon possess a strongly positive mindset. 
5. Always answer the phone with enthusiasm in your voice and show your appreciation for the caller. Good phone manners are essential. To convey authority on the line, stand up. This will instill further confidence in your voice. 
6. Through the day we all get inspiration and excellent ideas. Keep a set of cards (the size of business cards; available at most stationery stores) in your wallet along with a pencil to jot down these insights. When you get home, put the ideas in a central place such as a coil notepad and review them from time to time. As noted by Oliver Wendwell Homes:“Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”

Willpower defines realm

“Most of life’s actions are within our reach, but decisions take willpower.”

-Robert Mackee

Enhance your will-power. Will-power is a combination of self-discipline and personal sacrifice. If you can improve your willpower you will be much more able to make any positive changes to your life that you want to, especially in establishing new good habits and getting rid of the old, bad habits. There are many ways at your disposal with which you can improve your willpower. Here are some ideas to strengthen your will and become a stronger person:

• Do not let your mind float like a piece of paper in the wind. Work hard to keep it focused at all times.  When doing a task, think of nothing else. When walking to work, count the steps that it takes to get all the way to the office. This is not easy but your mind will soon understand that you hold its reins and not vice-versa. Your mind must eventually become as still as a candle flame in a corner where there is no draft. 

• Your will is like a muscle. You must first exercise it and then push before it gets stronger. This necessarily involves short term pain but be assured that the improvements will come and will touch your character in a most positive way. When you are hungry, wait another hour before your meal. When you are laboring over a difficult task and your mind is prompting you to pick up the latest magazine for a break or to get up and go talk to a friend, curb the impulse. Soon you will be able to sit for hours in a precisely concentrated state. 

• You can also build your will-power by restraint in your conduct with others. Speak less (use the 60/40 Rule = listen 60% of the time and speak a mere 40%, if that). This will not only make your more popular but you will learn much wisdom as everyone we meet, every day has something to teach us. Also restrain the urge to gossip or to condemn someone who you feel has made a mistake. Stop complaining and develop a cheerful, vital and strong personality. You will greatly influence others. 

• When a negative thought comes to your mind, immediately replace it with one that is positive. Positive always dominates over the negative and your mind has to be conditioned to think only the best thoughts. Negative thinking is a conditioned process whereby the negative patterns are established over and over. Rid yourself of any limitations and become a powerful positive thinker. 

“If you have dream, don’t just sit there. Gather courage to believe that you can succeed and leave no stone unturned to make it a reality.” –Roopleen.

Realization of lasting wealth and prosperity is to know that what wealth and prosperity means to you.

"To become wealthy & prosperous, you must feel wealthy & prosperous."

Wealth means many things to many people. To a person in the world of business, it might mean a net worth of $50,000,000. To a person more focused on the spiritual aspects of life, it may mean the attainment of peace of mind and a deep faith in the existence and powers of a divine being. Most people are searching for some sort of wealth in their lives and what follows are the time-tested secrets of achieving it. 

The first step to the realization of lasting wealth is to know that wealth means to you. What is it that your are searching for. Remember that happiness is not a destination but a way of travelling through life’s journey. Happiness is not an oasis that lies at the edge of the desert, a place that you reach only when you are prosperous. Study many of the greatest success stories of our time and they will say that they were happiest when they were starting to build their massive fortunes. They were happiest when they were working against the odds and had the raging fire of ambition and determination burning in their bellies. Determine to be happy now, not later. This requires nothing more than a conscious choice on your part.  

Once you have figured out very clearly what wealth means to you and what your key destination is, the next step is to develop what is known as a prosperity consciousness. To be wealthy, you must think wealthy. To become wealthy, you must feel wealthy. As with all success, everything beings with the mind since your outer world reflects your inner world. Recognize that the mind is a treasure house of power to bring you all the richness you seek. It will soon come as surety as the night follows the day. Every man and woman in this world was born to succeed, be wealthy and be prosperous. The potential for prosperity is one of your most essential human qualities, whether you realize it or not. If there is not an abundance of all that you desire in your life, do something about it and do something this very day. Throughout the day, affirm, “I am attracting great prosperity and wealth.” Also repeat,” every day in every single way, I am getting better and better.” The more you focus on your wishes, the more you believe deeply in their realization and the more every thought in your mind is a good one, the more you will receive.  Never let go of a tight hold on your dreams. They will all come about. But first, once and for all, agree that the mind is the source of unlimited power.

Being proactive is the first step to personal mastery.

"You don't have to be great to start, but you have to be start to be great."

-Zig Zagler 

Being proactive means you no longer chalk up past failures of lack of achievement to your family background or personal circumstances. Being proactive means that you no longer cry over spilt milk and complaint about the hand this world has dealt you.You must exercise your proactivity muscles to develop the mindset of a true champion. You must see yourself as a little god on this earth, one who has all the qualities required for great success and a burning desire to achieve it.  If you have such dreams, you will indeed find a way to achieve them. Gandhi, Ford, Lincoln, Bell, Kennedy and Salk all did and so can you. 

 

All highly successful people are proactive. They view setbacks and failures as lessons and see mistakes as wonderful opportunities to grow. They have come to understand that pain is a teacher and there are no negative events in life, only outcomes which you can choose to view in a positive light if you wish. Study any rose and its stem. Some will see it as a rosebush with a few little thorns along the way. Others might see it as a thornbush with a little rose at the end. The object to study is the same, what is different is your interpretation. Once you develop the essential habit of thinking effectively, a new reality will unfold. When you begin to realize that you hold in your mind infinite power to shape your destiny, wonderful things start to happen. More than likely, you are only using 25% of your mind incredible potential, at best. What about the rest? Are you really willing to waste the billions of brain cells that you have been given and the marvel we call the human body on a life of mediocrity? In the twinkling of an eye, this very second you can transform your life. Make the decision and the commitment to be the very best you can be. Being the proactive means you shape the circumstances and they do not shape you. You have the choice of interpreting any event that has happened in the past or that will unfold in the future according to your wishes. For example, if someone is particularly insulting to you, you have a choice as to how you interpret the event. The average person becomes angry and repeatedly asks himself why someone would do this-pushing himself into a negative, fully unproductive state. The person who has developed proactivity appreciates that he has the power to interpret the event in a manner to empower him. As Eleanor Roosevelt said: “no one can hurt you without your consent.” Gandhi put it another way:”they cannot take our self-respect if we do not give it to them.” The key is the interpretation of the action and to choose to see the event as one that will help you grow. 

Being proactive means that you can live a blissful existence, seeing the good in all events unfolding on the beautiful canopy of life. There is no such thing as an unpleasant experience. Every experience has the potential to improve an element of your character or to present a challenge to you which may lift you to a higher level spiritually, physically, mentally and professionally. True winners see problems as great opportunities. Where other fail, they thrive. See blue sky above every rain storm-it is there. Proactivity is the first step to personal mastery. It is really nothing more than self-control. And self-control, like all essential mastery qualities, can be developed through patient and consistent perseverance and regular conditioning. Once you make the choice to run these muscles on a daily basis, you will take control of your life and awaken the true potential that now slumbers deep within you.

You are responsible for everything that happens to you in your life.

“Everyone knows that weeds eat out the life of the garden and of the productive fields. The gardener and the farmer alike each has to keep the weeding process alive. It’s like that in the building and developing of character. No one knows our faults and tendencies better than we do ourselves, so that it is up to each of us to keep the weeds out, and to keep all growth vigorous and fruitful.”

-George Matthew Adams 

Before you can ever hope to change your circumstances, you must first improve yourself. If you want to lead a company, learn to lead yourself first. If you want to manage a family or a team, learn to manage yourself first. Self-mastery is the DNA of life mastery. The surface of your thoughts is your character. All of the thoughts which dominate your mind, come together like the wires of a powerful cable to create your character. If you have weak thoughts, you will most certainly have a weak character. Be a strongly disciplined thinker and your are assured of a strong, unstoppable character. A character rich with integrity, courage and trustworthiness is the bedrock of lifelong success. 

You are responsible for everything that happens to you in your life. You can make your existence a shining example of personal and professional excellence or you can make your life miserable. You can choose a nirvana or a nightmare. The key is to realize that you have power to see problems as challenges and to take any action required to have what you want. The quality of your life is determined by your interpretation of what happens to you. 

Remember, it is not the snake bite that kills but the venom which circulates afterwards that is fatal. Do not let the snakebite of another person release any venom inside of you. You can control its entry and you are responsible for every thought in your mind. You can make every day an extraordinary celebration once you control the thoughts you allow into your mental garden every second of every minute of every day. Your mind is like any of the other muscles of the body: you must use it or “lose it”. Not only must you use it, but if you do not push it and challenge it daily, it will grow weaker. If you are not going forward, you are going backward. 

Keep in mind one thing that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and you must start off small if you want to achieve big results.