Vision Poster & Guidebook (Yours to keep)

“I have a dream”…”Well, pin it up on the wall then!”

Turn My Dream into Reality Vision Poster & Guidebook.

Free for you to download and use.

You may have read one of my previous posts about setting goals.

Here is a terrific ‘goal focus’ tool that I have used effectively, which has helped me to stay centered and focused on what I really want to achieve.

The Law of Attraction states that what you focus on, you will get, but you must have a very clear picture in your mind of what exactly you want.

Having a beautiful poster on the wall in front of you every day with your goal and how to achieve it is a great way to help you focus on your goals.

I have done 3 vision posters, one each for my 3 biggest goals which I have pinned to my bedroom wall. I look at them every morning when I wake up, and every night just before going to bed.

The Vision Poster has been designed by my partner Anneli, who is also the webmaster/graphic designer for our website www.the-secret-dvd.net

It is a high-resolution poster that you can print out in any size up to A2, and pin up in a prominent place in your bedroom, office, on the back of the toilet door – anywhere really.

The Poster also comes with a guidebook to help you with setting up your own vision poster.

It is free to use and send to your friends.

Click here for Vision Poster

Click here for Vision Guidebook

I will be posting a number of other free tools over the coming months so please stay tuned.

Each self help tool that I post will of course will not be enough by itself to change your entire future, but it will be one more piece in an overall system of powerful tools and strategies that will help you improve your life and work towards your dreams.

Meditation Explained

For those who have never tried it, they may think it is some sort of new age mumbo jumbo, or consider it to be prayer or worship, but this is far from the truth.
Meditation is now proven to be more than just a ‘warm and fuzzy’ feeling, it actually works.
In fact, most of us meditate regularly during our lives, but don’t even know that we are doing it.

Why Meditate?

Scientists and doctors study meditation and recommend it. Meditation is now proven to be more than just a ‘warm and fuzzy’ feeling. It works. So there are many reasons why people begin to meditate. Some learn meditation to become more relaxed, for improvement in health, to reduce stress, for clearer thinking, to become more creative, to sleep better and to improve mental strength. There are physical, emotional and spiritual Benefits of Meditation. It’s safe, it’s simple and it’s free.

People who are not familiar with meditation may consider it to be prayer or worship, but this is far from the truth. Meditation can be described as concentrated awareness – so as you overcome distractions and focus your mind on something you are becoming aware; you are meditating when you maintain a continued state of awareness. There are a wide range of disciplines taught for bringing your attention on to some object or thought or awareness. In fact what happens in the process is that meditation moves your brainwaves into an alpha state. This is a relaxed state with a level of consciousness where you are still aware. In the alpha state learning and healing are promoted.

Brainwaves

In the alpha state your brainwaves run between 8 – 12 cycles per second or hertz, compared with your normal waking state beta – of 13 – 25 hertz. Deeper states of relaxation move through theta, delta to the deepest delta, which is a highly creative state of relaxation.

In fact you are meditating when you focus on birds singing – to the exclusion of all other thoughts, or staring into the fire, just focusing on that, or concentrating on your breath coming in and out, thinking of nothing else.

Traditionally Eastern cultures have practised meditation for centuries as part of their spiritual teachings, and until recently, say the last 30 or 40 years , Westerners viewed meditation with a bit of suspicion. Now, the benefits are so well documented and experienced by so many that it has become common practice for many doctors and health practitioners to recommend meditation as part of their healing plan.

There are two basic techniques of meditating and the different practices fall in to either of these two categories, with some variations possible. In mindfulness meditation the meditator sits in a comfortable position and focuses his attention and awareness on an object or activity – such as a candle, breathing, a visualisation or a mantra, keeping an open focus and awareness of the present moment as he does so. This method allows for free flowing and observing of his thoughts while using the focus as an ‘anchor’ he constantly brings his mind back to the focus, when he starts to wander off in to different thoughts.

With concentration meditation which is used by most spiritual and religious traditions, the meditator keeps his attention on a particular object like repetition of a prayer or a mantra to minimize distractions, and continually brings his mind back to the chosen object. Lawrence LeShan defined meditation in ‘How to Meditate’ as “doing one thing at a time with your whole being”.

In some traditions both mindful and concentration meditation are combined.

It is possible to practice meditation even while walking or doing simple repetitive tasks. It is in moments when your mind is clear that you get that ‘realisation’, ‘inspiration’ or ‘BFO’ (blinding flash of the obvious). “AHA” you say, as something miraculously pops in to your head.

Learn How to Meditate

You can attend sessions somewhere in your city, usually free, to learn how to meditate. There are many books and tapes to help you, most of them excellent aids. It is easy and simple to learn. There are many tools to help you move into a meditative state. The one I absolutely love is the Holosync audio tapes from Centrepointe (I don’t lightly recommend products, but this advanced Neuro technology is light years ahead of anything else I have tried and read about. I use it daily).

When you practice meditation regularly you begin to liberate the energy in your mind and the quality of your consciousness will expand. You will become more relaxed and happy, experiencing a sense of control of your life. You tend to approach life in a much more peaceful manner, not stressing in ways you might have done previously. This is not just a generalised statement, but is now being proven by empirical research.

I maintain wholeheartedly that meditation is truly beneficial. Do try it.

How to beat Procrastination

"Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment. "

~Robert Benchley

Does this sound like you?

Here is an article written by my mother Winsome (who also writes for our Secret Website) who has, in the past been a famous procrastinator in my circle of family and friends. They are very simple suggestions about how to deal with procrastination, but are very effective.

Sit down at the start of the day and set your priorities...........Read on.

Procrastination 101 - Don’t do it Now – Put it on Your List

Do you have a “To Do” list?

Do you constantly have trouble completing your “To Do” list?

Here are some of the BEST hints I’ve ever heard about how to tackle something that seems to be innate in most humans – Procrastination!

If you are really well organised, get things done in a timely manner, and do NOT have a huge undoable list called:
“LIST OF THINGS TO DO”,
then don’t waste your time reading this

Procrastination………I am really well qualified to write on this topic, because I have been known to not only have a list of things to do, but in that same list I have even written – ‘read this list’.

I mean to say …….

I am happy to report that I am getting over this ‘List Addiction’
If this strikes a cord with you, then I have discovered the best hint ever. I am not kidding; this has really helped me….

Procrastinate no longer.

We are nearly all aware these days of the importance of goal setting.
You may have read about the recent Harvard study of a class of young men, a generation ago now. Some of whom wrote very clear goals, and some of them didn’t. I don’t think I need to spell out the outcome 40 years later….

So you probably have goals, I hope you do; and have even written them down. We know that goal setting and being very focused about our dream is crucial.
But while you are busy, busy with a list of ‘Things To Do’, a list often of trivial things, you are not really focusing at all.

So what is the BEST hint for Procrastinators?
This is it. From today’s list of things to do – PRIORITISE, look at those tasks and put them in order of importance.
Start with Number 1 and do it until it is done. Then and only then can you allow yourself to move on to Number 2.

Prioritise – what does that really mean?
It means put at the top of the list the MOST IMPORTANT things that will lead you towards your goal.
And all those silly little tasks you put on your list that are easy to do, and that don’t move you directly towards our goal – down to the bottom of the list they go.
It means things like – don’t go checking your emails every 5 minutes to see if something new has arrived, no nipping out for a coffee every so often, instead of doing another task.

It also means doing the important things and NOT the ‘urgent things’. It means not jumping to fill in a survey that was sent to you, or fixing up something for the person who shouts the loudest. It means not putting off something that seems a bit uncomfortable – just get on with it.

Once you start, then you will see what the next step will be.

Bonus Hint Number 2

"To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing." ~Eva Young

If there is a 2 minute job (or less) that pops up – do it NOW.
That’s it, that’s all. Don’t put it on the list to look at over and over again. Just get it out of the way now – and out of your head so that it doesn’t take up valuable space.

Now you will have some time to really work on getting clear about your goals.

"Procrastination is something best put off until tomorrow." ~Gerald Vaughan

This quote is a little rude so I have put it at the bottom of this blog. It made me laugh though:

"Procrastination is like masturbation. At first it feels good, but in the end you're only screwing yourself." ~Author Unknown

Hit the ground running

Well, I'm back from 2 weeks of surfing, relaxing and spending time with my family. It has taken a little longer to get back into my blog than I first envisaged. To go from spending life at a snails pace, to touching down at my local airport and hitting the ground running, is a hard thing to adjust to.

I have now caught up and am back into it, refreshed and invigorated with a new goal and vision in my head to do a lot more 'snails pace' living in the future.
To make my goal a concrete goal, I have made a specific promise to myself that next year I will have no less than 2 months of this on June 1st 2008. Perhaps someone else can write for me during that time.

I will let you know how it goes.

Back in 2 weeks

Hi all,

I am off to Fiji to pursue my own form of meditation - surfing (and relaxing) with my partner and daughter.
There will be no blog posts until 12th November.

Until then, stay happy and positive.

Richie.

Visualising – How to keep your goals in focus.

Almost everyone will agree that to achieve something big, you need to set a goal.

You need to have a vision of what you want in your mind so that you can work towards it. You need to make your goal detailed, and you need to hold that vision persistently in your head.

But what if we don’t even know what our goals are, let alone describe them in detail?

And once you have set a goal, how do you hold that vision in your mind every day with so many day to day distractions around you?

Well, here is the method that I use every day to achieve my goals and hold that vision.
Every day, I write down 3 gratitude points, and write about “My Perfect Life”.

Here is an excerpt from May earlier this year.

My Perfect Life.

Gratitude

22/05/07

1. I have had a really good day, attitude wise. I have felt really good all day and I feel like I have a really positive attitude. I am really happy about this, it is so much better to have a good, positive attitude than a negative one. It’s such a better state of mind to be in.
2. I love a winter’s day. Today has been showers on and off with a biting coldness to the air. The change of seasons makes me feel alive.
3. I completed all of my tasks today on my list. What a great thing to happen. This will certainly be happening a lot more from now on. In fact, all the time.

Lifestyle, The Freedom I have, The time I have

22/05/07

This is what I have dreamt about for a long time but always thought not possible in the past.

Time for me has been one of the biggest issues in my life, especially in the last 5 years. In the past I never seem to have had enough time. Tasks were not being done, I felt like I was going nowhere.

What a turnaround. At last I only have to work (realistically) 2 days a week at the most, and they usually finish well before 5pm and often don’t start until well after 9pm. In fact, I don’t really have to work at all for money if I didn’t really want to, and that is probably what I will do in the near future. Maybe just a bit of share trading or looking for another investment property.

But this wonderful new amount of extra time that has been freed up because of the freedom of not having to work has given me so much freedom to be able to start doing the things that I really wanted to do. Being involved in the local tree planting group, spending a lot of the time in the veggie garden. You should see the veggies!! Virtually all of the fresh produce that we eat, including fruit, veggies, nuts, coffee, honey, eggs, meat, even the flowers that we put in a vase on the table, comes from our property. Only occasionally do we swap produce with other neighbours or the guy from the local organic shop for stuff that is out of season, or can’t be grown in our area such as mangoes. All of this wonderful extra time that has been freed up from working in the past has given me the time to develop this amazing, rich, bountiful, vibrant garden.

Sounds good doesn’t it? This is exactly the picture that I have held in my mind since May and it has been a very easy vision to maintain.

But before I discovered this method of holding my vision, I was struggling.

When I first learnt about visualising to achieve goals, I would set myself down in a quiet spot every morning, my biggest goals written down neatly in front of me and go through them one by one in my head, seeing myself already in possession of these goals.
This worked for quite a while, but soon it started to dwindle. After a while my mind would begin to wander during these peaceful morning sessions, and I started to have trouble concentrating and focusing on the task – to visualise my goals.
And the truth that I was losing concentration made it even harder because I was also losing my passion and enthusiasm for my goals.

I needed another way to stay on track.

And then my partner came up with a fantastic idea, and we created “My Perfect Life”.
It’s a bit like me being the author of my own book of life – My…Perfect Life.
It has helped me to stay so focused and excited about my goals and for me it is a really wonderful way to help me visualise.

It can also be of great help for those who aren’t’ really sure what their goals should be in the first place.

Here’s how to create your “Perfect Life”.

Spend 15 minutes a day doing this – no more, but do it every day. The trick is to push yourself for at least 30 days, and then it will become a habit.
You can type your daily entries in a word doc but you could also use a nice exercise book.
I usually put on some good music to get me in the mood. (Music is one of my passions that really inspires me and gets me into a visualising mood).

The first thing to do is to get into an “attitude of gratitude”. Simply write down 3 things that you are grateful for on the day.
They could be as simple as “I just love my beautiful daughter, she is so cute”, or “Gee I’m glad my football team won this weekend, what a team!”, or even about the weather or the simple fact that you have a roof over your head.

The next task is to focus on the goals that you have set for yourself. If you don’t have any goals, just work out some broad topics.

My topics are:

• Lifestyle, The Freedom I have, The time I have, Doing the things I love.
• My partner, my family, The people in my life
• My soul, my journey, my growth, my state of mind. I am happy.
• The money I have
• Holidays, The big adventure next year
• My health, my body
• My house, my garden, my surroundings, this is where I live.

It’s easiest to choose one topic per night, rather than tackling all of them at once, and just ‘go for it’.
Put yourself totally into the place that you are writing about, see yourself there, enjoying whatever you have in your mind. Describe the colours, the smells, your feelings, describe everything in detail. Make it in the present tense – be in that place, now. Be really descriptive.

Don’t hold back either, this is your “Dream Life”, you can write about whatever it is you desire, there should not be any limitations.

One of the reasons I think that this method of goal setting and visualising works so well is that the act of writing it down seems to make it much more concrete. It becomes a physical description of what you want, rather than just a fleeting thought through your mind. You can read back over it too which is a fun thing to do, and again, this brings you to the place that you really want to be when you read it again.

You’ll find that after a while you start to get into the real ‘nitty gritty’. Once you’ve been doing this for a month or so you will have gone through all the topics several times so you start to describe things in real details.

It really is a wonderful exercise and after a while you will start to see things really clearly.

After all, you have been writing about “Your Dream Life”, so plainly, these are what your goals should be.

Coming up next – What I have achieved using this method.

The Sequel to The Secret cont.

More on The Secret # 2.

This is really an update on a post from last month about The Secret sequel and what it is going to be about and when it will be released.
According to a good contact ;), that I talked to over the weekend, the sequel to The Secret will be very different to the original Secret Movie. According to him, Prime Time Productions have created a movie which is more about the Earth – ie. the world we live in and that it seems to have more of a conservation theme - taking care of nature. Prime Time Productions have been very quiet regarding the sequel to The Secret film - the only thing that is fairly clear is that it is going to be quite different.
There is also a suggestion that they appear to be gathering personal stories of gratitude and success with using The Secret.
This could be very useful for the many people who have watched the secret a half a dozen times, who thought it was wonderful and loved the message but have never really taken it any further to actually try and use it to improve their lives.
I’m sure this has happened with a huge percentage of those who watched the Secret.
They loved it, were inspired by it, watched it another few times, showed their friends, had some fantastic thoughts about trying some of the methods that they learn t from The Secret and then the next busy phase of their lives comes up and it is all forgotten.
There really is so much more to attracting exactly what you want in your life and creating your own life.
Bob Proctor teamed up with Jack Canfield and Michael Beckwith, 3 of The Teachers in The Secret, to produce a whole program which goes into much more detail than The Secret has about manifesting and The Law of Attraction. It is called 'The Secret Science of Getting Rich" program which I highly recommend as my partner and I have been following this home study program since we bought it in march 2007 and have just loved it (not to mention achieved some wonderful results from using it). But that’s another post altogether.
Here’s some information about it for those who are interested.
The Secret Science of Getting Rich Home Study Course

I have seen a number of online discussions about how a sequel to The Secret would be nothing more than a marketing exercise designed to make more money.
There is no doubt that this is one of the reasons for them to do a sequel. It would be hard to guess what sort of money they made from the first Secret Movie. But to me, there is nothing wrong with this.
The Secret has added value to millions of lives. And this is how we as a society function – we provide a service, offer value to others and get paid accordingly to the value that we offer.
Bob Proctor dedicates a whole chapter in the SGR program to this notion, this idea of adding value to other peoples lives.
Our aim should be to “Give people more in use value than you take from them in cash value. Then, you are adding to the life of the world with every business transaction”.
If just 5% of those who have seen The Secret went out and improved their lives for the better using the methods in The Secret. That is a great service.
Or for those who saw the movie and were inspired enough to achieve something in their lives, even if they had no intention of using the methods in The Secret, then that is also a great service and is well worth the value that was spent on it.
But I think there were actually a lot more people than just 5% of those who saw The Secret who’s lives have changed for the better because of it.
And considering there have been millions of copies sold, as well as the obviously countless number of people that watched it online or have burnt a copy, that adds up to a lot of individuals.

For those that think it is purely money making exercise alone, they have obviously not looked into The Secret deeply enough!

New update: November 16th, 2007

Well, the November release date hasn’t happened, and we still haven’t heard any more news about what the next Secret movie will be about.

We will be one of the first to find out when the news is finally released so if you would like to stay updated, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed.

Update: June 2008

We have just received confirmation that the next product to be released will be the new Secret Book. Exact dates haven’t been disclosed yet but it is not too far away. One of the major ‘Secret’ distributors that we know well have mentioned that it should be released sometime between now and October 08.

Planet Earth Forever

The most recent release from The Secret is a wonderful inspirational clip called Planet Earth Forever. Who knows, maybe this is what the sequel to The Secret will be about.

Do take a look at this lovely film clip, just sit back and enjoy the music and our beautiful Planet Earth for three minutes. It’s good for your soul.