FINDING JOY

That sounds like a good title for a country song! But think about it. Where are you looking for joy in your life?
Are you looking for joy only in the good things that happen to you? Are you looking for joy only in the accomplishments and not the journey? Is it hard for you to find joy in your struggles and challenges?
Lets start with what joy means to you. A common definition is a feeling of satisfaction, contentment, and pleasure. For you joy may even be more exuberant and celebratory or a deep inner connection. Some people feel joy as a more peaceful inner feeling, while others are more outgoing with their joy.
While even others of us are not finding a lot of joy in our lives at all. Not necessarily because our lives are difficult and stressful or we are overwhelmed with responsibilities. Sometimes it’s just because we don’t know where to look for joy or how to find joy. We just don’t seem to have that mindset.
You know that mindset that a lot of us grew up with since our parents lived through the depression. You have to get good grades in school. You have to work hard. You have to make something of yourself. You have to make money and save money. You have responsibilities to your family.
And even when we had achievements and some level of success, we didn’t necessarily get high fives, pats on the back, and congratulations! It was on to striving toward the next achievement. You graduated from high school as valedictorian. You emerged from college with a 4.0 average. You were selected to the top law firm in Chicago. Did you celebrate any of those victories? Did you find the joy in your achievements? If you did, kudos to you. You’re a head above many of the joyless bunch of strivers.
However, if you look at the path of your life, you’ll notice that you spend about 95% of your life on the journey toward your goals, and only 5% in the results, if that much. And if you’re not celebrating the results, you’re most likely not celebrating the journey. And if you looking for joy only in the results, you’re only joyful 5% of your life!
Since most of our lives are spent in the journey, doesn’t it make sense to look for the joy in every day activities as well as the accomplishments at the end of the path? If you were not brought up in an environment that celebrated and found joy in the big as well as little aspects of life, you can turn that around any time. Your joy is in your hands–and mind.
You can now become a joy seeker. Start by noticing what you are grateful for in your life. Can you find the joy in the sun coming through the window each morning? Do you feel joy when you eat a healthy breakfast to start your day? Notice the rewards you get even when you have challenges throughout the day. Can you find joy after settling down an irate client? Are you able to be joyful after you deliver a talk to a tough audience? Is it possible to experience joy while you’re stuck seeking a solution to a major problem?
If you can start finding the joy along the path to your goals, you’ll not only feel better about life and yourself, you’ll probably reach your goals sooner. More circumstances and people who can help you achieve your results will be attracted to your joy. So start looking for joy in all the right places and you’ll attract more joy and feel a lot happier.

Stay Inspired
Mimee pk Musa

SUCCESS

Like most people, I used to feel uncertain about how well I would succeed in my life seeing that I was coming from an average middle class family in Nigeria and society measures success in terms of affluence and material wealth.

This really used to affect my self esteem to the point I lacked self confidence when meeting people I thought were better educated or more affluent than myself. Then one day, (5 years ago) I decided to face my self doubts and learn the skills I felt will help me achieve lifestyle goals I wanted and become the person I wanted to grow into. I started reading self help books I could get my hands on, made list of the pro’s and con’s in my life, my skills ,I also attended training seminars and observed people around me to learn what to do and what not to. Since then, I have achieved all my goals and more. My life is so wonderful. From experience, I can say, being successful can be a lot easier than you think...

If you feel you're not successful it's only because you choose to focus on your failures.

But if you focus on success, you'll attract more success. It's really that simple.

When you focus on success you create success energy.

You give off this energy that says: "I'm successful" and successful people are drawn to that energy. So they'll be drawn to you and will in turn help you be more successful. You'll end up attracting more success.

Focus on the failures and you'll attract more failures and more of what you don't want.

Professional baseball players are a great example of how focusing on success leads to greater success.

They've got their mind and subconscious mind stuck on success... so they send out success energy... people pick up on their success energy and forget about all the failures. Instead, they only see the success... and so they get paid millions and millions, even though their bosses and everyone else knows they will fail more often than they succeed.

Their formula is simple... so simple that you can follow it and have the same success.

Every time a baseball player goes to the plate (to hit the ball) he will miss more often than succeed.

But they don't focus on the failures, their bosses don't focus on their failures, and the fans (who love them so much) don't focus on their failures. They focus on their success. Baseball players are measured by the number of their batting average. (The number of times they hit the ball in relation to the number times they go to bat)

This average often determines their salary.A really good baseball player will hit the ball only 30% of the time and make tens of millions of dollars a year. The fact that he will actually miss 70% of the timeis completely ignored. An average baseball player will hit 25% of the time, miss 75% of the time and still make millions a year. Again, no one focuses on the number of times he misses. Professional Athletes are not focused on failure. They're focused on success.

Professional athletes focus on their success and learn from their mistakes.

Are you focused on the failures or are you focused on your success?

Do you think about how you didn't succeed and what went wrong?

Are you learning from your mistakes and failures or are you giving up just because things didn't work out?

What you regularly think about is what you will attract. Think about the failures in life and you'll keep failing.

Think about the success and you'll attract more success. If baseball players and professional athletes focused on their failures they would never succeed (and they wouldn't get paid very much). They've conditioned their mind and subconscious mind to focus on success and attract more success.

Now you can do the same.

You can be successful.

You can put aside the failures.

You can attract what you want in life.

You can re-program your mind direct your subconscious mind to create the success you want.

Here's what you need to do to stop the endless failures and move on to success.

When things don't go right - look for what worked well and magnify that by 10.

Make that success (no matter how small) the most important aspect.

Learn from what went wrong - and say - I'll do better next time - and then get out there and do better the next time. Keep doing better and better - practice makes perfect.

If you fail, it only means you're going to be better the next time and you're closer to success.

Look back on your life and pick out all the success that you've had. Then write all of it down on a piece of paper. The success can be big or small.

The fact that you're alive is a success.

Small or big - write down the success.

Carry that piece of paper with you.

The next time you get down on yourself or get into a negative mindset - pull out that piece of paper and remember the success you had. Then think about all the great things that are going on in your life.

At first you may find that you can't think of anything. This only happens because your mind is not used to looking at the good things - it's used to looking and seeing all that is going wrong - that's why you keep getting more of what you don't want. Push the mind to focus on the positive. Give the subconscious mind new direction. Focus on your success. You're more successful than you realize - you're just not seeing your success. Once you do - others will join you. You can succeed at anything you want - you just have to believe in yourself.

Michael Jordan, perhaps the best basketball player of all time, was cut from his high school basketball team - but he didn't give up.

Pele - the world's best soccer player - was 2nd string and passed over for years before he began to dominate the game.

The best baseball players will miss nearly 70% of the time - but they make millions. They all focus on their success. Now you need to do the same. So start today. Start right now. Start thinking of all the success you've had in your life. Push your mind to come up with successful situations.

If you graduated high school - that's a success.

You're first relationship - that's a success (even if didn't work out - at least you got started).

If you have a family - that's a success.

Your first job - that's a success.

Anything and everything can be seen as successful. Focus on the success and learn from the mistakes.

Give your mind and subconscious mind a new direction –

You are more successful than you realize.

You are more powerful than you realize.

You are capable of achieving every goal.

You are a unique and awesome human being who is on the road to success.

Everything you want is within your reach - you can and will succeed.

Stay Inspired
Mimee PK Musa