EMPOWERING QUOTES #1

Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values, and in no other way.

Stephen R. Covey

The important thing is this: to be able, at any moment, to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.

Charles Du Dos

Is it not what others do or even our own mistakes that hurt us the most; it is our response to those things.

Stephen R. Covey

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

Mother Teresa

Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a persons’ characters lies in their own hands.

Anne Frank

As far as your self-control goes, as far goes your freedom.

Marie von Edner Eschenbach

When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion.

Ethiopian Proverb

What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?

George Eliot

Learn to say no; it will be more use to you than being able to read Latin.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Whatever lies at the center of a person’s life becomes the primary source of security, guidance, wisdom, and power.

Stephen R. Covey

It seemed rather incongruous that in society of super sophisticated communication, we often suffer from a shortage of listeners.

Erma Bombeck

OVERCOMING FAILURE

George H. Mathason said, “We conquer – not in any brilliant fashion – we conquer by continuing!” The value of courage, persistence, and perseverance has rarely been illustrated more convincing than in the life story of this man:

At age 22, he failed in business.

At age 23, he ran for the state legislature and was defeated.

At age 24, he again failed in business.

At age 25, he was elected to state legislature.

At age 26, he experienced the death of his sweetheart.

At age 27, he had a nervous breakdown.

At age 29, he was defeated for the position of house speaker.

At age 31, he was defeated in the position of elector.

At age 34, he was defeated for Congress.

At age 37, he was elected for Congress.

At age 39, he was defeated for Congress.

At age 46, he was defeated for the Senate.

At age 47, he was defeated for Vice Presidency.

At age 49, he was again defeated for the Senate.

At age 51, he was elected President of the United States.

That man was Abraham Lincoln, considered by many people to be the greatest President of the United States. Yet in a span of almost thirty years, he experienced at least 12 major failures. He persisted because he know that success in reaching his goals would take time and dedication. 

ONE & ONLY YOU

Every single blade of grass,

And every flake of snow

Is just a wee bit different

There’s no two alike, you know.

From something small, like grains of sand,

To each gigantic star

All were made with this in mind,

To be just the way they are

How foolish then to imitate

How useless to pretend,

Since each of us comes from a mind,

Whose ideas never end.

There’ll only be just one of me

To show what I can do

And you should likewise feel very proud,

There’s only one of you.

That is where it all starts with you

A wonderful ad unlimited human being.

James T. Moore

ALL IN THE STATE OF MIND

If you think you are beaten – you are

If you think you dare not – you don’t

If you would like to win and don’t think you can

It’s almost a cinch you won’t.

If you think you’ll lose – you’re lost.

For out in the world you’ll find

Success begins with a fellow’s will

It’s all in the state of mind.

For many a race is lost

Ere even a step is run

A many a coward fails

Ere even his work is begun.

Think big and your deeds will grow

Think small and you’ll fall behind

Think that you can – and you will

It’s all in the state of mind.

If you think you’re outclassed – you are

You’ve got to think high to rise

You’ve got to be sure of yourself before

You can even win the prize.

Life’s battles don’t always go

To the strongest or fastest man

But sooner or later, the man who wins

Is the man who thinks he can!

IS 99.9% GOOD ENOUGH?

If 99.9% is good enough then:

• A new born baby in Australia will be given to the wrong parents every day.

• 7,630 mismatched pairs of shoes will be sold every year.
  
• 29, 315 pieces of mail will be mishandled every hour.
  
• 133,335 documents will be lost by ATO (Australian Taxation Office) every year.
  
• 42 landings every day at Sydney Airport will have problems.
  
• 315 entries in Webster's Dictionary will be misspelled.
  
• 58,600 credit cards will have incorrect information on the magnetic strip.
  
• 12,000 income tax returns will be processed incorrectly.
  
• 4,500 parts will fail in every Boeing 747.
  
• 48,800 copies of Women's Day every year will go missing before delivery.

HABIT

I am your constant companion.

I am your greatest helper or heaviest burden.

I will push you onward or drag you down to failure.

I am completely at your command. Half the things you do, you might just as well turn over to me and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly.

I am easily managed – you must merely be firm with me.

Show me exactly how you want something done and after a few lessons, I will do it automatically.

I am a servant of all great me and women; and alas, of all failures as well.

Those who are great, I have made great.

Those who are failures, I have made failures.

I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine plus the intelligence of a woman or a man.

You may run for profit or run me to ruin – it makes no difference to me.

Take me, train me, be firm with me, and I will place the world at your feet.

Be easy with me and I will destroy you.

WHO AM I?

I AM YOUR HABITS.

Anonymous

BELIEFS

Think of the “I am weak and worthless” versus the “I am strong and powerful” exercise (do try this exercise out before you continue with the reading). Remember how much difference there was in your existence saying the two different phrases. The scary and the exciting thing is that you were just asked to say the two different phrases; you didn’t necessarily have to believe them. What if you believed you were weak and worthless? Do you think your life would be different than if you believed you were strong and powerful?

To see how beliefs are created you need to understand how your brain works. Whenever anything happens in your life, your brain asks, “What does this mean?” To find an answer your brain searches through your beliefs.

A belief is a generalisation. Rather than having to evaluate each incident that occurs on an individual basis, a belief groups incidents of similar nature together and makes a blanket rule about them. For example if someone smiles at you, you will probably think that they like you. This is because people have a belief that “if someone smiles at me, then they like me”.

A belief has a major effect on the way you operate. We do not consciously think about our beliefs very often (although we are usually aware of what they are).

A belief is a lot like a table. The surface of the table is held up by its legs, similarly a belief (the tabletop) is held by references from our past (the legs).

Let’s say you had abusive parents, the kids at school treated you badly and had been mugged. Each of these are references. These references could support a belief (the tabletop) that people are bad ad will try to cause me harm. Someone from a cosy background who got on well at school has a very different references (legs). They are much more like to have a belief like “People are good and kind”.

What causes a belief to develop is having enough strong references to support it. Just say someone had abusive parents but everyone else treated them well. Although the abusive parents are a strong factor, there might not be enough references (legs) to support the belief that all people are abd and will try to cause me harm”.

Just like a table a belief can’t stand on one leg alone.

Beliefs affect the way you associate meaning to carious occurences, which in turn affects your behavior. Just say that a person with belief “people are bad and will try to cause me harm” drives past a broken down car. More likely that they won’t stop while someone who has a different belief (e.g. People are good) would.

The challenge is that we quickly become convinced that our beliefs are true when often – times they are wrong. The key to beliefs is to become aware of the references you have from your past to support them, then you can determine, based on the quality of the references, whether or not they are useful beliefs to have.

For example if you have the belief that “all people are dishonest” based on the reference of the someone stealing 15 cents from you when you were in kindergarten then you probably need to review and change that belief. If you realize that you have silly or unimportant references for your belief then you can quite easily change them. It’s like kicking the legs out from under the table – if you wreck the references, the belief will no longer stand.

The opposite is true about building up good beliefs. If you want to believe you are confident, think of the many times you have acted or felt confident, the more legs your table has, the stronger it will be.