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Thoughts III
“Our destiny is not mapped out for us by some exterior power; we map it out for ourselves. What we think and do in the present determines what shall happen to us in the future. There is nothing in your life that you cannot modify, change, or improve when you learn to regulate your thought.” – Christian Larson (1874-1954)
What you think about and do today, affects tomorrow. What has been your thoughts today? Is this who you want to be tomorrow and in the future?
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It seems that there are two types of pain to experience as we make our way through the world. There is the pain of regret that is felt after doing something that you know you shouldn’t. Then there is the pain of self-discipline which is felt as you try to do what you should even though you may not want to. We each get to choose which type of pain we will feel. Having spent thousands of hours with clients struggling with addiction issues I have come to believe that the pain of regret is much harder to carry than the pain of self-discipline. Exercising self-discipline is refining and purifying while the other is not.
”Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not, It is the first lesson that ought to be learned.” -Thomas Huxley
Although it may be challenging to face temptation it is the very thing that allows you to exercise and strengthen your self-discipline. The power is in you to make of yourself whatever you will! Meeting difficulties with courage and overcoming handicaps make character. It is not the difficulties, but the power gained by rising above them, that builds goodness.
Plant Your Future Picture Seed but State it in the Present Tense
When you write out your Future Picture Statement it is critical that you write it in the present tense as if it were already a reality. It is important to understand that the unconscious brain simply responds to the program it has been given. The power of the pre-frontal cortex lies in the fact that it can write the new program and send it to the unconscious brain though consistent application of the daily’s and pro-active present tense affirmations. To the unconscious brain the part that drives 95% of our behavior everything is in the present. It cannot distinguish between past present and the future. If you say “Someday” I’ll do this or that to the unconscious it hears, “I don’t have to worry about that now” and the action is put off.
Remember to “Seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain. It is not in the moment of their forming but in the moment of their producing motor effects, that resolves and aspirations communicate the new “set” to the brain.” -William James
