HOW TO START LIVING A BETTER LIFE THIS VERY MOMENT

INRTODUCTION

W.W. Ziege said, “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goals, nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.’’ And Marylyn Lohsdon said, “if your life takes a turn for the worst, remember that you are the one who is driving.”
It is wrong for you to say things are costly; the things you claim are costly are still being bought by other people like you. Things only become costly because you can’t afford them. If those things were really costly as you claim, people would have stopped buying them by now. If you will improve on yourself, then you qualify for more money to buy those things. As an employee, you should stop complaining about what your employer is paying you. Your employer is only paying you what you are worth at the moment; if you work on yourself, you will attract a higher pay.

Life has a way of putting some of the more valuable things on the high shelf so that you can’t get to them until you qualify. If you want the things on the high shelf, you must stand on BOOKS, TAPES, CDs and SEMINARS. With every good book you read, every good tape you listen to, and every good seminar you attend, you get to stand a little higher. In a Nutshell, success is something you attract by the person you become. So if you want to start living a better Life this very moment, then you must at this very moment put you energy into becoming a better you. This is because; income will seldom exceed your own personal development. Well, once in a long while, income could take a lucky jump, but unless you grow out to where it is, it will go back to where you are. A wise man once said, “If you took all the money in the world and divided it among everyone equally, it would soon be back in the same pockets.” However, you can have more because you can become more. In other words, you can have more than you’ve got because you can become more than you are. So unless you change how you are, you will always have what you’ve got. All your marketing plans no matter how good they may seem, won’t work without you. It is the human effort that counts; so you’ve got to work it. This is the major reason why some people seem to be doing far better than you. The people that are doing better than you may not necessarily be smarter than you or of better character. Infact, they may even be having difficult personalities and questionable ethics. Their ideas and opinions may not make much sense, but they nonetheless are doing better than you. Now, when you throw out your blame list and start becoming more yourself, then everything else will begin to change around you.



This book was written to assist you become a better you so that you can start living a better life. Let’s go into the book right away as we begin to consider the various steps you need to take in order to start living a better life this very moment.

1. WORK ON YOUR CHOICES
Aristotle said. “We live in a world governed by laws, not chance. Everything happens for a reason, whether or not we know what it is. Every effect has a specific cause or has an effect of some kind, whether we can see it and whether we like it or not.’’ Success in anything in life is not a miracle, nor is it a matter of luck. Every thing happens for a reason, good or bad, positive or negative. When you decide on what you really want, you then go ahead to copy other people who have achieved it before you, and you will eventually get the same results that they have. But let it be known to you that you create your entire world by the way you think. All the people and situations in your life have only the meaning you give them by the way you think about them. And when you change your thinking, you change your life, sometimes in second! What I am trying to say in a Nutshell is that, you become what you think about most of the time. This principle is as applicable to individuals as it is to groups of individuals and organizations.

Now, it is not what happens to you but how you think about what happens to you that determine how you feel and react. It may interest you to know that it is not the world outside you that dictates your circumstances or conditions. It is the world inside that creates the conditions of your life. In other words, you choose your emotions and your behaviors by the way you choose to think about the world around you and about what is happening to you. You can decide to react to any situation or condition in such a way that your responses are constructive and effective. But the facts remains that you are always free to choose. The way you explain things to yourself is under your control. But its good for you to know that your thoughts and feedings are continually changing. They are quickly affected by the events around you. For instance, when you receive a piece of good news, your countenance immediately brightens and you feel more positive toward everyone and everything. But if on the other hand, you unexpectedly receive some bad news, you can immediately become upset, angry, and short- tempered, even if the news is inaccurate or untrue. Do you now agree with me that it is the way you interpret events to yourself that determines how you react to them? So, what changes can you make in your thinking to improve the quality of some parts of your life starting from this very moment?



2, CHALLENGE ALL YOUR SELF-LIMITING BELIEFS
A particular dictionary defines belief as “a feeling that something or somebody is real and true; or confidence in something or somebody”. While Napoleon Hill said, “The person who closes his mind to new ideas, concepts and experiences, enslaves his own personality.’’ Your beliefs act like a set of filters that screens out information that is inconsistent with them. Now, you may not necessarily believe what you see, but you will always see what you already believe. You consciously or unconsciously reject information that contradicts what you have already decided to believe, whether or not your beliefs, or your prejudices, are based on facts or fantasy. The word “prejudice” means to prejudge, to reach a conclusion in advance of any information, or even in spite of information, to the contrary. To start living a better life from this very moment, you refrain from judging other people or situations until you have enough information to make an informed decision.

Now, the worst beliefs you can have are “self-limiting beliefs.”

 You many think yourself to be less talented or capable than others.
 You may think that others are superior to you in some way.
 You may have fallen into the common trap of selling yourself short and settling for far less than you are truly capable of.

It may interest you to know that these self-limiting beliefs act like brakes on your potentials. They have a way of holding you back from achieving your goals in life. They give birth to the two major enemies of better life - doubt and fear. These self-limiting beliefs paralyzes your enthusiasm and cause you to hesitate to take the intelligent risks that are necessary for you to fulfill your true potential. So, if living a better life from this very moment is your desire, then you must begin from this very moment to continually challenge your self- limiting beliefs. Reject any thought or suggestion that says you are limited in any way. Accept as a basic principle from this very moment, that you cannot be limited and that what others have done, you can do as well. If other people are doing better than you, it is largely because they have developed their natural talents and abilities more than you have and not necessarily because they are better or smarter than you are. They have been able to learn and applied the law of Cause and Effect to their lives and work before you have. And anything anyone else has done within reason, you can probably do as well. You just need to learn how. Go to someone you know and respects and ask him or her if he or she sees any beliefs that you might have that are causing you to perform below your potential. Let me say this as I conclude this chapter; your most deeply entrenched beliefs about yourself and your abilities may not be true at all.

3. CHECK YOUR EXPECTATIONS
Andrew Carnegie said, “People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.’’ If you expect negative things to happen, you are usually not disappointed, and when you confidently expect good things to happen, good things usually happen to you. You may not know it, but your expectations have an inordinate effect on the people around you as well. What you expect from people and situations determines your attitude toward them more than any other factor, and people reflect your attitude right back at you, like a mirror, in a positive or negative way. What I am trying to say in a nutshell is that, your expectation determines your results. This is because your expectations exert a powerful influence on people and event, for good or for ill, so be always careful.

4. WATCH YOUR MAGNETIC NATURE
Conway Stone said, “Choice and death are two sides of the same coin. Each choice we choose involves the death of thousands of other opportunities. Therefore choose carefully, and let the other options die”. Everyone of us are like magnet; we invariably attract into our lives the people, situations, and circumstances that are in harmony with our dominant thoughts. In other words, you attract only people and products of your dominant thoughts. Everything you have, you have attracted to yourself because of the way you think, and because of the person you are. But you can start living a better life this very moment because you can change your life by changing the way you think, and change the person you are.

Companies develop products, processes, services, and ways of doing business that attracts customers, employees, suppliers, financiers and circumstances that are in harmony with the dominant thinking of the organization; and that is why whenever things are not going well in any organization, the fastest way to bring about change is to bring in a new person who will change the way people think and feel about themselves and what they are doing. As I bring this chapter to a close, permit me to say that if you truly desire to start living a better life this very moment, then you must begin this very moment to look into yourself and ask, “What is it in me that is causing this situation?”. Assume as a basic principle this very moment, that you are the ongoing architect of your own life and your own destiny. And always remember that you continually create what happens to you by the way you think. Therefore, what changes do you think you need to make in your thinking if you want to change or improve some aspect of your life?

5. CONCENTRATE MORE ON YOUR INSIDE
Orsen Marden said, “A strong successful man is not the victim of his environment. He creates favourable conditions.” To change or improve anything in your life, you must begin by changing the inner aspects of your mind. If you truly desire to start living a better life this very moment, then your greatest task would be to create within yourself the mental equivalent of what you want to experience on the outside. It may interest you to know that you cannot achieve a goal on the outside until you have first created it on the inside. Unfortunately, most people think that the problems in their lives are cause by other people and external circumstance. They are shocked and angered to be told that they are the primary architects of everything that happens to them. These set of people want other people to change, they want the government to change, they want the economy of their country to change, they even want the world to change too, but they do not want to change themselves. Listen to me, you can only control one thing in the world, and that is the way you think. When you take complete control over your thinking, you take control over all the other aspects of your life.

CONCLUSIONS
Melvin Evans said, “The men who build the future are those who know that greater things are yet to come, and that they themselves will help bring them about. Their minds are illumined by the blazing sun of hope. They never stop to doubt. They haven’t time.”

Let me conclude by saying that to start living a better life this very moment, you must overcome the hesitation syndrome. People who postpone making decisions that can lead to incredible outcomes are cutting themselves right out of the action. It seems the purpose of postponement, in most cases, is to avoid been saddled with a high-stakes decision that turns out to be wrong. By pushing a decision into the future, we fool ourselves into thinking that better information or more facts will become available that will increase the odds of making a better decision. So we are left with no option but to procrastinate. We also sense, but certainly don’t fully acknowledge, that making such a decision is only the first of many acts in a series that can lead to desired results. It is very difficult taking initiative; but procrastinating is much more comfortable and with less risk though it offers no promising future.

Hear me, anyone who wants to succeed in anything in life, must learn to take calculated risks and accept changes. We live in a world of change. Like death, change is inevitable. If you must start living a better life this very moment, then you must stop emulating people who are looking forward to having a colourful future but base their plans on past experiences. In today’s highly competitive, ever-changing business world, decisions must be made as changes occur. You will be deceiving yourself by thinking that present business trends are going to continue. Trends don’t always continue. There will always be changes in direction, goals, expansion, economy and a multitude of other areas that impacts those trends. So, forward-thinking people must evaluate their forecast reports, then take actions that requires risks to meet the changes and challenges of the future. By mastering change, you can make those daring adventures work for you rather than against you. Now, change can mean disaster or opportunity. But by accepting change and making it work for you. You will definitely be better prepared for the future.

I wish you all the best!