Kensray.com

It’s been quite a while since I’ve updated the blog. I’ve actually been quite busy lately with lots of things on the go. I really want to write about my experience in India. I was there for two weeks and all I can say is that it was one of the best experience of my life.
At the same time, I am experimenting with different goals so that’s keeping me busy too.
I’ve tried establishing a lot of new habits over the years but majority of them have fallen through. So, I’ve been trying to find ways to establish new habits.
Stay tuned…

When I was younger I used to drive at really high speeds. I’m sure everyone’s gone through that. Going over 200km/h on the highways was not unusual for me. Even on normal streets where the speed limit was 50-60km/h, driving over 120 km/h was also quite usual for me.

Those times have passed and I have calmed down except for sudden bursts on the highway every once in a while.

One thing I learned while driving at really high speeds is the concentration it required. I was totally concentrating on driving and I was in the “zone” as it’s called.

I was totally concentrating on driving and could not afford to think about anything else. And because of that my driving was much better!

My mind was racing at such high speed as well and making decisions with lightning speed. My reflexes were much faster and I was going through traffic with incredible calm. I was driving much better and much safer than I do when I drive at normal speed limits.

That is the same thing with setting goals. If we set small and miniscule goals, our concentration is all over the place. We work on our goals for a minutes here and there and work on some other stuff and watch tv and chit chat with friends and so on. Before we know it, the whole day’s gone by and we complain about not having enough time.

When we set huuuuuge and scary goals for ourselves and totally commit to achieving them, we do not have time to think about anything else, nor do we have time to just hang out or engage in idle chit chat.

And once we enter that total concentration zone that’s when magic begins to happen. We start achieving incredible results. Things we never thought we could do before, we start doing easily and we seem to accomplish all of this in the same amount of time.

Now please do not go out there trying this experiment of driving at high speeds. It’s incredibly foolish and a stupid thing to do. You may easily hurt yourself or someone else so do not engage in that.

If you do want to drive at fast speeds then go to a track and do it. There are a lot of tracks where you can take your car for a day for a small fee and drive however you feel like driving but just don’t do it on normal roads!

But do try and set goals that require you to stretch beyond your comfort zone! Think about what it is that you want and totally commit yourself to it. Just test it out! It doesn’t have to be anything extraordinary, just something that might require your total concentration. Do that and see how it feels!

“Aim at the sun and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far higher than if you had aimed at an object on a level with yourself.” – F. Hawes

Does listening to subliminal tapes work? How about recording affirmations onto a tape and listening to them while sleeping? That’s what I had decided to find out for myself.

Subliminal messages on a tape or cd

A method that has been around for a long time now is using tapes with subliminal messages on them. A lot of people swear by them. There are literally tons of tapes and cds being sold (with subliminal messages) for just about every area of your life.

Basically, the tape contains some music and positive affirmations. All you can consciously hear is the music and not the messages. But your subconscious mind is supposedly able to listen to the hidden messages.

In theory this works because your conscious mind is busy listening to the music and the messages/affirmations bypass it and get directly imbedded in your subconscious mind.

Audio Affirmations

I had heard that a very effective method for using affirmations is recording them onto a tape or cd and listening to them while sleeping. To make it more effective you can actually listen to them while you’re falling asleep, through out the night while you’re sleeping and wake up listening to them.

These are the times that the conscious mind is dormant and you have direct access to subconscious mind without much resistance. You can theoretically bypass your analytical and self-limiting beliefs.

That’s briefly how they work. I’m assuming everyone has a basic understanding of them.

If not then there are probably many places online that can describe them in much greater detail than me, for anyone interested.

I wanted to find out for myself if they did indeed work. If they did then that would be simply awesome as both of these methods were very simple and easy to apply.

So, this is was my plan:

1. Listen to tapes while I fell asleep, through out the night while I was sleeping, and wake up listening to them
2. Do it consistently for at least 30-60 days
3. If no change then same as #1 but also listen to them through out the day
4. Do it consistently for at least 30-60 days again
5. If desired change not there then record baroke music along with the affirmations
6. Listen to them again for at least 30-60 days
7. Listen to subliminal tapes while I fell asleep, through out the night while I was sleeping and wake up listening to them
8. Do it consistently for at least 60 days
9. Same as #7 but also listen to them through out the day
10. Do it consistently for at least 60 days

How to measure results?

First of all I really wanted it to work. I had read how this had helped so many people so I was actually very motivated and very much looking forward to them working.

So how exactly would I know if either of these methods worked?

I was looking for any difference in my attitude. I also wanted to see if I was acting in accordance with the new messages or if I was still acting the same.

If a situation presented itself I would notice what thoughts came to my mind and what actions I took. I was not necessarily looking for a total change in my thinking but even a little reminder or a nudge in the right direction.

For example:

I was afraid of roller coasters, every time I got close to them I would start panicking and mind would be filled with fearful thoughts.

After applying these processes, even if I could feel myself thinking that even though it roller coasters were something I’d been afraid of I could actually take steps to overcome this fear, that would have been considered successful for me.

Basically, I was looking any, even a tiniest change in my thinking and attitude.

Results:

I did not notice any change.

The subliminal tapes also provided manuals with written affirmations that were recorded on the tapes so I actually would read through those affirmations as well to make sure I knew what was being programmed in my mind.

For the example of roller coaster above, I noticed if I was still acting out of fear or not. But in the moment of fear I could not even remember any affirmations that were being programmed in my mind through subliminal tapes or while sleeping via tapes I had created.

I had several affirmations regarding many different issues but I did not notice any change whatsoever in any of those areas nor in my attitude in those areas. That was very disappointing.

I had a lot of limiting beliefs toward these processes though. Even though I had really wanted them to work and was willing to put in the work required to make them work, I was also not very optimistic about them.

It’s quite possible they might have worked with a different attitude. But the whole point of these processes was to develop a different attitude. It was catch 22.

Even though both of these processes have apparently worked for a lot of people, for me neither the subliminal tapes, nor audio affirmations worked.

My mind is everywhere. I want to do this but I need to do this or I want to do this but what if I’m wasting my time with this, maybe I should do this, or maybe I should do both at the same time?

Never really concentrating on one thing long enough to see it to fruition.

Recently, I was concentrating on affirmations and finding out what worked for me and what didn’t. Then I got interested in eating healthy. Then it was exercising. Then it was using the law of attraction more effectively. Then it was de-cluttering my house and keeping it that way. Then it was “maybe I should try to go on a vegetarian diet for a month?” Then I thought maybe I should buy organic meat and try that before going on a vegetarian diet. Then I thought about how I can work fewer hours at work and still get paid the same. Then I thought more about gossiping at work and how I am getting involved again. Then I thought about doing some more 30 day experiments. Then I thought about over 4,000 email messages that are in my yahoo account that I should clean out. And this is not all, that’s just what I can think of right now.

In the end I ended up doing a lot of things in bits and pieces but nothing to full completion.

So, you can see that I did not do anything effectively.

This is the multi-tasking world, with multi-tasking mentality! At work, you should be able to respond to your emails, converse with your colleagues/boss, work on your project and update the reporting sheets all at the same time.

I started looking around at people who were achieving enormous results in a very short period of time and every single one of them had one thing in common. They were all focusing on that particular item with all of their energy.

So…. what would happen if I started doing that? hmm…

I’ve done a lot of 30 day experiments but since I feel like there is so much I want to do, taking a whole month for just one item seems like a long time. It’s not really because time is passing anyways and a month is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Also, a month can easily pass by just in all this confusion. Instead of getting confused, I could have done some one thing for that month. If I started to just do things that I want to or would love to do, I would learn a lot more about myself whether I failed or succeeded.

I have trained myself to be disciplined whenever I need to be. I don’t doubt that I can concentrate on one thing for a whole month for example. It’s just deciding which one thing to concentrate on. It’s more in my mind than anything else.

Still I have to look out for myself and work with myself so instead I will devise some 7 day experiments. I will totally focus on one item for 7 days.

That means not even browsing the internet for other stuff. Totally excluding, even going to forums or websites that are not directly related to my goal of the week. Let’s see what happens!

Ivy Lee’s system

In one of his books Napoleon Hill tells a story about Ivy Lee who was working with Charles Schwab, the head of Bethlehem Steel. Ivy Lee is considered the father of modern public relations.

Charles Schawb told Lee that the biggest problem he had was making his managers more effective – helping them better utilize their time. Lee provided a system to Schwab and told Schwab to first try the system out for a while and then pay him whatever Schwab thought the idea was worth.

This is basically what Ivy Lee told Charles Schwab:

1. List the six most important things you have to do tomorrow
2. Number them in order of importance/priority
3. Take the paper out tomorrow morning – start with 1 and stay with it until it is completed
4. Only then go to 2 and repeat until the end of day. If you don’t finish all six you probably wouldn’t have finished them using any other system anyway

In a short while after trying this system out, Schwab sent Ivy Lee a cheque for $25,000. Now this was in 1920s so you can imagine what that amount is today. This shows you what Schwab thought of Lee’s idea and Napoleon Hill gave it to us for free!

There are literally thousands of time management books, tapes, videos, seminars out there but so often we get caught up in designing really complex systems that we lose track of the basics. If Charles Schwab thought so highly of this basic system, and if this simple system helped people at that level, surely it can help us!

Focus on one thing until it’s done! I am going to devise some experiments for myself and find out what can be achieved in one week!

Over the weekend I attended a real estate investors’ meeting. I am not yet ready to invest in real estate so why did I attend this meeting?

It all goes back to the law of attraction and changing our vibrational state. Like I mentioned in a previous article, in order to change our vibrational state, one way is to put ourself in a different environment. In an environment that is more fitting to the person we want to become.

As an experiment I’ve been meeting different people who’re interested in investing in real estate. I am a real estate sales person as well so I can sell property but investing is a different ball game all together.

Coming from poverty, the idea of investing in real estate scares me as I do not have the money even now to buy an investment property. The fact that I would have to deal with tenants and any problems that might arise from them also discourage me. So, I thought this would be perfect.

There was a real estate investors’ meeting this past weekend which I attended. Every single person there had an investment property besides their principle residence. Every single person seemed to have a lot of money just sitting in the bank. They were talking about using 20%-25% down payment versus using 35% down payment to buy another investment property. An Indian person there with broken english was the star of the evening. Very helpful and one of the most positive people I’ve met. He apparently had recently just bought 60 properties.

I felt very uncomfortable sitting there. All sorts of negative emotions were coming out. I started to feel quite bad and poor sitting amongst them. I felt like there wasn’t much I could contribute to the meeting as well.

But then I reminded myself the reason for me being there. Near the end of the conversation I was feeling a lot more comfortable there.

Another reason I loved being there was because each one of these people had actually stepped outside the box. Where people at my work are totally conditioned to be employees for the rest of their lives, these people had actually realized that it was possible to be financially independent without a job.

Being around people like these could not hurt me in any which way!

So, the trick is: put yourself amongst people who’re where you want to be. Stay there until it starts to feel comfortable to be there. That’s when you know your vibration has changed and that’s when you’ll automatically start to attract things that’ll actually bring you closer to your goal! Easy, right?!