Thrive, don't survive... that's the key to how to be happy!

If you want to be happy and feel at peace, you need to stop worrying about how to be happy and just let yourself be yourself.

The problem is that you spend a lot of time in ‘survival mode’ trying to fix problems or just get by. This locks up a huge portion of your potential and keeps you stuck in a cycle of fear. There is no happiness there.

But all it takes is a simple shift in your mindset to open the door to your unlimited future. You see, when you shift from surviving to thriving, you change the way you see the world around you.

Rather than focusing on the problems in your life, you begin focusing on the abundant solutions that surround you every day. This shift allows you to pour your energy into the things that help you thrive, giving you more of what you want and less of what you don’t want.

Start today and choose to get out of survival mode. Look for ways to enhance your life and to grow yourself into the person you want to become. Focus on thriving, stop worrying about being happy, and you will see an immediate change in your daily attitude. Plus, you will feel better and you will find yourself being more productive!

Remember, worrying about how to be happy won’t make you happy – doing things that make you happy WILL!

Are you letting fear keep you from reaching your dreams?

What is the number one thing holding you back and stopping you from reaching the life you dream of?

Can you say what it is? Can you put into words the reason WHY you are struggling to make the changes in your life that you desire?

Just ask yourself, “What is holding me back?”

If you answered ‘fear’, then you are not alone. Fear of one kind or another is almost always the underlying factor in a your lack of success in any area of your life.

In fact, fear is easily the biggest dream killer I know of. If you have been struggling, wanting to change your life, but finding yourself unable to, you are probably stuck in that vicious cycle of fear.  But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can break through your fear. You can change your life, or anything about your life, right now – in spite of those fears.

Fear is a powerful motivator, that much is true, but unfortunately, fear often motivates you to take the wrong actions. It can cause you to act without thinking.

So here is a better question to ask yourself: Are you ready to let go of that ‘thing’ and move forward?

Great! Here is a simple way to conquer your fears and begin the process of transforming your life.

The first step is to be honest with your SELF. This isn’t always easy. You might find yourself making excuses or blaming things outside yourself for your lack of results. This is never the case. Dig deeper and see what you are really afraid of doing.

The answer is within you.

There is something that you know you should do, something that you are not doing, that if you did it, would move you forward. Your job is to find that ‘thing’… and then do it. The more honest you are with yourself about your fears and exactly how you want to change your life, the better you will do.

Sometimes you just can’t figure it out by yourself. Sometimes your problems are so big and so overwhelming that they prevent you from seeing your solutions. If this happens to you, try enlisting the help of a loved one or a trusted friend or your success coach or mentor. A fresh perspective on your challenges is often all it takes to see where you need to focus your attention.

When you get serious about reaching your dreams, when you get serious about changing your life, you will be able to break through your fears and change your life.

Peace,

Bob Crawford
Your Success Coach,
and creator of Growing Your SELF!

Unlock your manifesting ability! My free law of attraction report
shows you simple ways to make big changes in your life.
Grab your copy right now:
www.FreeLawOfAttractionReport.com

How are you doing on YOUR new year's resolutions?

Okay, we are two weeks into the new year… it is time for a resolution round up.

The question is, how are you doing on all those fantastic New Year’s resolutions?

Are you still sticking with it? Are you still committed to making those changes that were so important to you just a few short weeks ago? Or have you fallen back into the same old routine, the same old rut, the same old habits as last year?

Far too many people have already given up on the biggest dreams that they had for this year. Yep, they have given up. It is so easy to let your dreams slide away as the excitement and optimism of the new year give way to the reality of your life.

It turns out that the new year isn’t that much different than the old one. You might have a brand new calendar on the wall, but everything else is the same. You get up in the morning and you face the same problems, the same fears, the same challenges that you faced last year.

Here is something that will help keep you on track with your resolutions and allow you to grow into your dreams.

The reason that you lose your excitement about your new goals so quickly every year is one of focus. As last year ended, you were THINKING about your dreams and goals. You were IMAGINING how different this year would look. You let yourself get swept away in the dreaming portion of the change process.

You were FOCUSED on your goals and dreams.

And do you know what you weren’t focusing on?

You weren’t focusing on your problems. You were focusing on solutions to your problems.

Rather than thinking about your lousy job, 0r the problems in your relationships, or your run-down car, or anything else that stresses you out, you were thinking about better jobs, better relationships, a better car…

You were thinking about a better life.

So what happened?

Life happened.

You changed your focus from dreaming about changing, back to the very problems that you want to escape.

So lets change it back! Because the only way that you are able to turn those dreams of yours into reality is to stay focused on them. You have to get yourself back into the mindset of change.

Try writing your top three goals on a piece of paper and put it on your nightstand by your bed. Read this goals list to yourself three times every night before you go to sleep. Then read it three times in the morning when you wake up. Do that for three weeks.

You’ll be amazed at the change using this simple technique will make in your mindset during the day. You will find yourself looking for solutions rather than finding more problems.

How are you doing on your resolutions so far? Have you reached some of your goals? Are you still struggling? Share your comments below!

Peace,

Bob Crawford
Your Success Coach,
and creator of Growing Your SELF!

Unlock your manifesting ability! My free law of attraction report
shows you simple ways to make big changes in your life.
Grab your copy right now:
www.FreeLawOfAttractionReport.com

How grand is your vision for 2011?

Do you have a vision of what you want your life to look like in 2011? Will the coming year be a GREAT year?

Or will you SETTLE for more of the same problems and setbacks that you experienced this year?

The choice is yours.

I know what you are thinking – who in their right mind would choose more of the same problems? Unfortunately, that is exactly what many people unwittingly do. They let their fear keep them stuck in a cycle of action and reaction, a cycle that keeps producing results they don’t want. When you are stuck in that cycle, it is easy to feel that next year will simply be more of the same garbage as this year.

But know this, this coming year will bring peace and prosperity to many people.  Regardless of all the doom and gloom that is out there, I promise you that in 2011 there will be an abundance of people doing all sorts of amazing things. There will be people finding love, losing weight, starting businesses, becoming millionaires, and achieving thousands and thousands of dreams – both big and small.

How will they do that?

By DECIDING to!

By having a vision of their future.

So let me ask you a question.

What have YOU decided that 2011 will look like for you?

I am not asking you what you want to have happen next year. I want to know what you have decided about next year.

There is a big difference.

Here is another promise about 2011:

I promise you that your life in the coming year will be as grand and exciting as your vision of your life is. No more, no less.

The clearer your vision, the better your results.

It is your vision, your mental picture of your life, that empowers you and connects you with your dreams. There might be thousands of things that you want to do next year… or that you wish would happen next year… or that would be nice to have happen next year… but sadly, few of those things will actually happen next year…

…unless YOU DECIDE that they will happen.

That is the key. You get to decide how big your life will be. You get to decide which of your dreams to make real.

2011 is just around the corner, and from now until the end of the year you will hear people talking about New Year’s Resolutions and about all the things that they want, wish, and hope for next year. Everyone does it. Your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers, your loved ones… maybe even you. The new year brings hope, doesn’t it?

But didn’t you just do this, not too long ago? Wasn’t it this time last year when you sat there at your computer, reading a blog post similar to this one, wishing and hoping that this year would be better than the last?

What will make 2011 better for you?

Get clear on your vision of what you want you life to look like, of what you want to do and experience this coming year. The more specific you are about the details of your desired life and lifestyle, the easier it will be to achieve your dreams.

I will be here to help in any way I can. In the first half of 2011 I have some powerful events and classes coming up that will help you with the changes that you want to make… starting in January with the return of Manifesting Magic, and continuing throughout the year with free calls, free coaching, and lots of other goodies to get you on track and keep you on track.

But there is a catch! You have to be on my list to take advantage of those offers when they come. That is because I always give my newsletter subscribers first shot at anything I have coming up. You can sign up today by putting your name and email address in the box near the top right of this page.

2011 WILL be a great year!

Make it a great year for YOU!

Peace,

Bob Crawford
Your Success Coach

It doesn't matter how many times you fall down... as long as you get up one more time!

There is one quality that separates success from failure. One quality that divides happiness from despair. One quality that all achievement, both great and small, is based on: The ability to get back up after you fall and to start moving forward again.

You can reach practically any goal you set for yourself… if you are willing to get back up after you stumble.

This is one of those powerful ideas that you’ve heard many times before, but that you might not be applying in your life. Because the truth is that you will stumble, you will have setbacks. We all do.

That doesn’t matter. What matters is what you do when the setback hits, what you do when you fall down.

Some people stay down. They give up. These people never see their dreams come to life.

Some people do get back up… but they scurry back to where they started from and proceed to do the same exact thing again. They act surprised when they fall down again. They do this over and over and over. These people never see their dreams come to life either.

But some people get up and ask themselves a question. They say, “Okay, this didn’t work out like I thought it would. What can I do differently that will move me toward my desired outcome?”

They don’t run and hide. They don’t play the blame game. They don’t make excuses for falling down.

They stand up and keep reaching for the stars!

You can too!

Yes, sometimes your setbacks can seem to be dream killers. They can cause you to feel that there is no use in continuing to try to make this dream or goal a reality.

I’ve been there more than once in my own life. I know how easy it is to stay down, to give up.

But getting up and moving forward is the only way to reach my goal. So I get up, dust myself off, and ask that all important question, “What can I do differently that will have the greatest impact on my results?”

Do YOU really want to change?

Then the only solution is to look around yourself, own your results, and try something different.

Get back up and get back on track!

Peace,

Bob Crawford
Your Success Coach,
and creator of Growing Your SELF!

Happy Sunday! Here is your Sunday morning law of attraction video. I recently stumbled across this wonderful video featuring Marianne Williamson and just knew that I had to share it with you.

Truly, this is the path that we all seek to be on. To be open to the wonders of life around us, to be in the flow, to be part of the creation process.

It starts each morning. Each morning you have a choice. You can either choose to let yesterday’s garbage ruin any possibilities that today might bring…

or you can choose to start your day fresh, energized, and ready to move forward on the path you have chosen…

The choice is yours!

Each day brings you a new opportunity to have a GREAT DAY. You simply have to decide to take advantage of it.

It is easy to feel like the choice is not yours to make, that all these terrible things are going on in your life, but the truth is that all that stuff can only effect you to the degree that you allow it to.

Just as a primary lesson in the law of attraction is to learn to allow your desires to come into your life, you also have to learn to NOT allow yesterday’s garbage to stink up today.

You see, you choose what to allow into your life through your attention and your focus. How you react to what happens around you sets the tone for your day.

As Marianne says in this video:

“If you are involved in a deeper inquiry, if you are involved in a more reflective life, if you are involved in prayer and meditation and serious spiritual seeking, that stuff just recedes. Its there, its there to dance with and to have fun with, but its not there to make you suffer.”

Here’s to dancing and having fun!

Peace,

Bob Crawford
Your Success Coach,
and creator of Growing Your SELF!

p.s. Creating your day with the law of attraction is one of the core lessons that we cover in the Inner Circle of Success.  The Inner Circle is our members-only self improvement study group and we’d love to have you join us!

It's not magic! Learn how to create your day the law of attraction way.

Creating your day.  The law of attraction promises us the ability to literally do just that… to change the very fabric of our day, to have a BETTER DAY.

I was thinking about this concept today, as I was out running some errands. I was driving along in my car, half listening to a wonderful course from Bill Harris, half daydreaming, when I realized the fundamental problem most people have when they talk about creating their day.

They simply don’t have better days. At least not enough of them.

In their mind, they envision each day to be full of love and happiness and balloons and candlelit dinners and mailboxes full of fat checks…

…but the reality is that even after trying, REALLY TRYING to use all these wonderful techniques that they learn about from law of attraction books and teachers, even after meditating and getting centered and aligned and who knows what else…

They STILL have bad days.

So they blame the law of attraction or they blame the teacher, or they blame God or the universe.

But that doesn’t help either and soon they find themselves right back in the same mess they started with.

Here is the solution:

Creating your day, regardless of your beliefs about the law of attraction, is NOT about having everything go your way all the time, about the universe lining up to bring you desire after desire after desire. About day after day of bliss and happiness.

Creating your day IS about you learning to control your reactions to the events of your day. Because it is never the events that give you a hard time, it is always your reaction to events in your life that cause you to struggle.

The more control you take over your reactions the better you will be able to guide yourself into taking productive actions that actually help you move forward.

Enlightened people don’t have less problems than you. They have the same things happen to them as you do. They just look at those ‘problems’ in a different light. They react in a different way.

In every situation there is a way of thinking and acting that empowers you and helps you grow.

Your job is to find it and embrace it!

It will happen as soon as you stop TRYING to have a good day and simply decide that you will have a good day, in spite of whatever comes up.

Sometimes you need to pause and step back to see what is really going on. Sometimes you need an outside viewpoint, like a trusted friend or a mentor, to help you see the truth of your problems.

In either case, as soon as you are able to change the way you are looking at your problems and your ‘bad’ days, the sooner you will be able to transform them into ‘good’ days!

You don’t have to be a law of attraction expert to learn to create your day, you just have to be willing to change!

Peace,

Bob Crawford
Your Success Coach,
and creator of Growing Your SELF!

p.s. Creating your day with the law of attraction is one of the core lessons that we cover in the Inner Circle of Success.  The Inner Circle is our members-only self improvement study group and we’d love to have you join us!

Want better results? Learn to take responsibility!

Who is responsible for YOUR results?  Who has the power over your life? That’s a question only you can answer. But how you answer pretty much determines your ability to shape your life and to actually control those very results! Especially when you understand how the law of attraction works.

Do you want better results? Do you want to start crossing those big goals and dreams off of your dream list?

Then you need to get clear about one thing.

You need to decide who is responsible for your life, who is responsible for the results that you are getting now, and for the results you got in the past. If you are feeling stuck, if you are banging your head against the wall over and over…

You need to take control.

You need to take control of your life, in other words, you need to be responsible for your results in life.

Look around you at people who have succeeded where you are still trying. You will discover that each of them did one important thing.

They learned that they are the ones who are ultimately responsible for their success.

This is an important lesson, and one that will help you get unstuck and reaching toward your dreams.

Successful people don’t focus on those things that they can not control. They accept them. They deal with them. They move on!

They do focus on everything else. They pay attention to all the things they can control, all those things that they can do to move toward the results they want.

Guess what? It works!

It will work for you too. You simply need to begin letting go of all those things that are not really under your control and begin paying more attention to those things that are.

Trust me, the path to your dreams lies before you. All you need to do is to step up and choose to walk forward.

Remember, focus on those things you can control. Let go of the things you can’t.

Peace,

Bob Crawford
Your Success Coach,
and creator of Growing Your SELF!

Happiness defined: celebrate more and complain less!

Do you want to be happier? More at peace with your self and your life? It’s not as hard as you might think.

In fact, quite often, all it takes is a simple shift in the way you are doing things right now, a simple change in your day to day actions to make a tremendous difference in your levels of happiness.

All you need to do is follow the advice of Abraham-Hicks, (I never know how to write that. It is awkward to write, ‘Abraham as channeled by Esther Hicks!)…

…and celebrate more and complain less.

This is an obvious strategy, but it’s also one that gets overlooked time and time again.

What do I mean? Pause with me for a moment and ask yourself what your life would look and feel like if you CELEBRATED more and COMPLAINED less.

Can you see what a difference that would make in your life?

If you celebrated more and complained less?

CELEBRATE more by looking for things that uplift and move you. Sure, you celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, and big things like promotions or your child’s report card, but you can do better! Life offers you so many opportunities to rejoice that it would be a shame to let them pass without celebrating.

Did you finish an unpleasant task? Great!

Did you start a big project? Make it to work on time? Go another day without smoking? Fantastic!

The things you celebrate you create more of. The things you are proud of, the things that move you forward, these all bring your attention onto things that feel good! And where your attention goes, your life follows!

So CELEBRATE everything you can!

Of course there is a flip side to this concept…

COMPLAIN less!

No one likes to think of themselves as a complainer, but realize that every single time that you complain about something it lessens your happiness.

It is impossible to be happy when you are busy complaining. You are taking your attention off of all the good things in your life and turning instead to problems.

The truth is there are only two types of problems, and complaining about either of them is a complete waste of your time and energy.

There are problems that you can do something about, and then there are problems that you can’t.

If the problem is one that you can do something about… DO IT! Do something that moves you toward a solution – no matter how small that something is.

If the problem is one that you can’t control… Let it go. Choose to focus on something else.

Complaining never solves problems, and complaining never helps you create your desires.

So complain less and celebrate more.

You will find yourself happier and much more peaceful as well!

Peace,

Bob Crawford
Your Success Coach,
and creator of Growing Your SELF!

There are many pieces to the law of attraction puzzle, but none as critical to your manifesting success than inspired action.  In this video I shot last year I talk about the importance of taking inspired action:

Are you taking inspired action? Or are you just busy taking action? There is a big difference between the two, and there is also a big difference in the results that you will get in life.

Inspired action always comes from within. It can be subtle, but it is always there. It is your inner voice whispering to you, urging you to take a certain action.

Let me ask you this, how many times have you ignored your inner voice and later regretted it?

More than you’d care to admit?

Well, that can change, right now!

It’s just a matter of learning to listen to your SELF.

Most of the time, (if not all of the time,) you know the answer to your problem. You know what to do next. You know in your heart the right path to take.

But you are not acting from your inner self, you are acting from your conscious mind, complete with all your fears and doubts and worries. Maybe you are looking for solutions outside yourself, maybe you are stuck in the blame game, maybe you are torn between conflicting desires.

Those are all things I’ve written about before.

The solution is always the same.

Get clear about your desires and take inspired action.

Once you have decided on a dream, your inner self goes to work. It looks for ways to bring you to your dream. It looks for opportunity, it looks for connections, it looks for the shortest path to your dream.

Then it tells you what it finds. Your inner self actually tells you how to reach your dream. It tells you the steps that you need to take, it tells you where to go, what to do, who to talk to.

The problem is that you don’t listen.

So, let’s change that!

Here are some simple ways to begin taking inspired action:

1. Starting today, commit to paying attention to your inner voice. Promise your SELF that you will listen, that you will take action when the time is right.
2. Meditate. Meditation is a great way to gain control over your focus, which will allow you to hear your inner voice more clearly.
3. Write it down! When you get a great idea or an inspired plan, write it down! Many times your best ideas come when you are busy doing something else, and by the time you are done, you have forgotten your brilliant idea.
4. Believe in yourself.  Believe in YOU. Believe that you will always act in the best possible manner.

That’s all it takes to start benefiting from your inner strength and wisdom, a belief in yourself and a commitment to listen to your SELF.

And don’t waste time worrying about all those times in the past that you didn’t listen to your inner voice. Forgive yourself, love yourself, and move on! The law of attraction proves that if you focus on your past mistakes you will only create more of them.

Focus instead on your dream, and take the inspired action that your inner self guides you toward.

Peace,

Bob Crawford
Your Success Coach,
and creator of Growing Your SELF!

p.s. One inspired action that you can take right now that will have a tremendous impact on your life is to join the Inner Circle of Success, our members-only self improvement study group. It’s a great resource that can provide you the support that you need as you journey toward the life that you desire!