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188 articles by Willie Horton · showing 50

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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

The Importance of Being Calm

For those of us who live in these times – where economic adversity continues to be the order of the day, where extremism simmers in various quarters from Al-Qaida to Yemen, to Plains, Georgia where an effigy of President Obama was found hanging recently, to the ongoing political upheaval in Iran to the crumbling peace accord in Sudan, to a massive growth in domestic violence, to an upsurge in graphic violence on our television screens to the fact that our young children are watching music videos which would have been banned as pornographic fifteen years ago – there is an extraordinary onus

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Stop Limping Through Life

Decades of psychological research prove that about 96% of people use only 1% of their mental energy to focus in the present moment. Instead, the “normal” subconscious (the greater part of your mental energy) lives in your formative years, when you were so “sponge-like” and open-minded that you learned the subconscious programs that now create your reactive, habitual behaviour. All these programs together make up your personality. An acquaintance, Tom, recently told me “I love my personality!” But your personality is not who you are – it’s who other people told you you should be.r

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Desperate Times Call for... Simple Measures

From talking to clients in various countries, from talking to radio talk-show hosts, from following the latest news it could be said that we live in desperate times. And, as the old saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures. No they don’t. What people need now is a sharper and clearer understanding of the reality of the here and now, rather than continuously wallowing in the perceived desperation of today’s apparent reality. My last sentence is a deliberately loaded one. The normal person doesn’t see or experience reality. The normal person perceives their own version of real

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

How to be a Life Coach at 25

I recently received an email from a jou alist in the US asking me what I knew about people gaining an online certification for life coaching. And a few weeks back, one of my clients mentioned to me that he'd been approached by a life coach who had "qualified" following a weekend course and some follow-up telephone tutorials. At least, I suppose, that was better than being certified online! But the one that really sticks out in my mind is the time a client told me that he'd received a pitch from a life coach who was twenty five years old.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Simple Steps to Personal Effectiveness

We would all like to be more effective – to get the really important stuff done effortlessly, to simply do the things that we don’t like doing or want to do without any distraction, to get much more done to the very best of our ability in far less time and have plenty more time to do all the things that we keep promising ourselves that we will do – spend much more time doing the things that we really and truly enjoy. There you have it – my definition of personal effectiveness. How far removed is that from your ordinary daily life?

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Your Success Depends on Your Intentions

Are your intentions honourable?! An age-old question asked by prospective fathers-in-law – and one that is at the very centre of whether or not you can achieve the success that you want out of life. In terms of aiming for success, we need to know what we intend to get. Truth is, most people have no idea what will give them peace of mind, contentment and happiness. Many believe that “enough” money will do the trick but the record shows that when people do have enough, their definition of enough simply shifts – enough turns into “more”.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

What Normal People Want

I know that people are constantly striving to get more out of life. I know that many people wish for, hope for, want for more success, more happiness, more wealth. But wishing, hoping and wanting something is simply a useless mental activity - a waste of energy - because the only thing that will get you what you want is beyond wishing, hoping and wanting - it's believing. More of that later!

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Living "Outside the Box"

Do you think that Bill Gates thinks there's a box? Or Warren Buffet? Do you think that Muhammad Ali thought there was a box? What about Sir Richard Branson? How do you think Tiger Woods or Roger Federer would feel if they thought that they had to operate inside 'the box'. Very often, I hear business leaders - I mean 'normal' business leaders, not the people whose names we all know - talk about 'thinking outside the box'. This phrase is frequently used in business, whether it relates to problem solving or innovation.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

You Will Never Live Your Best Life if You’re Not Mentally Fit

How are you going to be up to the not-too-onerous task of getting the very best out of life if you are mentally unfit? Unfortunately, many years of research confirms that the normal mind is not just unfit for effortless living, it has been living on a diet of clapped-out old movies (from your childhood) all of your adult life. It’s the ultimate couch potato. And, if, for all of your adult life, you had sat like a lazy slob on a couch, would you really expect to be able to spring from your couch, put on your trainers and go out for even a light jog?

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Surfing Life’s Big Waves

I got an invoice from my lawyer a couple of days back – for what exactly I’m not sure, as his services didn’t really match the bill! He said he was sending out invoices to a as many people as he could think of, to “keep the wolf from the door in these challenging times”.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Focus - What It Is and How to Do It

The word ‘focus’ is often used in the context of success. We’re told, for example, that highly successful people are better focused than the rest of us. We hear stories about athletes or sports people who are totally focused. Surely, if either you or I could get some of this focus, at the very least, our lives would be the better for it. We might not end up being world-beaters – we may not even want to be world-beaters – but a little focus, a bit more success and a lot of happiness wouldn’t go astray!! So, what is focus? What does being focused mean? How can I focus my mind?

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

How to Achieve Financial Freedom

Over the many years that I’ve been working with clients who want to better their lives I’ve come across the goal of “financial freedom” – people looking for an end to financial worry (over 905 of males claim that it is their greatest source of worry), people looking for “passive income” or people wanting to have “more than enough”. But, what is “more than enough”? In a comment once attributed to Rockefeller (I’ve really no idea whether he said it or not) he is reputed to have said that “Enough is just one more!” Enough, perhaps, is never enough.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Whatever Happened the Mindful Revolution?

It is now almost three years since Time Magazine announced “The Mindful Revolution” with a cover story that heralded a new age of happiness and productivity for both corporate America and , naturally, the people who make up corporate America… or, perhaps, the so-called little people… those who actually produce, make and generate “bottom line”.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Personal Development: Familiarity Breeds Contempt

Familiarity breeds contempt – so the old saying goes – and, indeed, there is considerable psychological evidence to back this up. Many years research has proved that the normal mind performs its routine tasks in a mindless manner, without paying what is being done any attention at all. This psychological “facility” do perform routine tasks without paying them any attention has undoubted benefits – imagine if you had to pay attention to how you put one foot in front of the other when you walk?

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Practical Tips to Focus Your Mind

Once our day gets going it is the easiest thing in the world to get swept away by the routine, the urgent (which, by the way, is quite different from the important), the latest minor crisis (which probably seems major at the time) or, most common of all, the endless stream of useless thought that simply distracts us. Even if you have made the effort and started your day properly, it is simply all too easy to become submerged in the cares and worries of the moment and, as a result, revert to our default state of unfocused mindlessness.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Seeing Sense in the Here and Now

If your life isn’t all that you want it to be or if you’re unhappy with yourself – what you think is going on has nothing to do with reality! Decades of research prove that the normal subconscious mind quite literally makes up your reality for you. This personal version of reality has absolutely nothing to do with the real thing.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Ignore Worry – It Will Go Away

Undoubtedly, we, as normal crazy adults, are built to worry – it appears to be an integral part of our hard-wiring. And, if we can’t find something to worry about, we’ll invent it. I once had a client, who should have known better, telephone me to tell me that he was having sleepless and that he was becoming increasingly worried. When I asked what he was actually worried about, he replied “I’m worried because I’ve nothing to worry about!

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Understanding Awareness

Personal development or self improvement is all about awareness and, in particular, self awareness. But do you actually know what awareness is? Certainly, much has been written and said about it – but, all too often, the simple has been over-complicated. And, because the psychology of the normal mind means that most of us are completely unaware – or mindless – we have great difficulty understanding a concept that we have never actually experienced. So, here’s a simple question – the answer to which will provide you with both a major insight and a major opportunity.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Why Approval is Worse tha Crack (and how to quit)

Think about it, there's nothing nicer than someone saying something really nice to you - or about you. It makes you feel better about yourself. And what that means is you're giving other people the power to make you happy. And, if you give others the power to make you happy, by definition, you've also given anyone and everyone the power to make you unhappy.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

So, You Think that You're Suffering from Stress!

The World Health Organization believes that stress will be one of the biggest killers of the 21st century. Stress is responsible for millions of lost workdays in the US and UK each year. Stress leads to eating disorders, sleep disorders, heart problems, a multitude of other health problems – stress kills.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Work Hard, Go to College, Get a Good Job

This is the conventional “wisdom” that has been foisted on so many children during their formative years – when we all formed our view of the world, how it works and our place in it. It suggests that hard work will be rewarded and that you have to work hard to be a success. It suggests that higher level education will make you a better person and will secure your future. And, of course, it suggests that a good job will provide the necessities of life on an ongoing basis and, indeed, security into old age. All of these myths have been busted over the last couple of years.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

What Do You Want Out of Life?

Is it possible that your life is not the joyful, effortless, successful, happy and carefree promenade that your heart desires because, in fact, you haven’t really got the first clue what your heart truly desires at all? I’ve been working with personal development or self improvement clients since the beginning of 1996. In my experience, almost nobody has ever given any thought to what they actually want out of life.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Low Self Esteem

What impact does your self esteem have on your personal effectiveness, your relationships and the normal course of your daily life? How does low self esteem affect your view of what you can and cannot achieve? Indeed, what is low self-esteem, how does it even come about in the first place? Are you one of the many people that find themselves suffering from low self esteem? Would you like to learn how to build your self esteem and change your life completely?

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

How to Stay Positive in A World Gone Mad

Spend a few moments glancing at the websites of any of the major international news services - it is little wonder that so many of my clients have been emailing me to tell me just how difficult it is to stay positive at present. And these are people that I've been working with for some time - sometimes for years - they should know better. Actually, they do know better - but with so much bad news around, they're finding that it takes less effort to simply follow the herd and slip into the same weird and "wonderful" world that most so-called normal people are drowning in at present.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

The Dangers of Personal Development

Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, you’re surrounded by people who have no idea that their subconscious mind is creating their very own version reality as we speak. All these people – so-called normal people – have no idea that their subconscious mind controls them and, by virtue of the fact that they, in the ordinary course of their lives, exercise no control over their own mind, that they are actually crazy.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

The Essence of Leadership

We’re all called upon to be leaders – if you have children, people reporting to you at work, friends who confide in you – leadership is required of you. You mightn’t call it that, but that is what it is. Above all, we’re called upon to lead our own lives. Yes, we’re called upon to be leaders and few wish to shoulder the responsibility. Most normal people will look to someone else – if not for leadership, then for blame.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Cosmic Ordering and the Law of Attraction

Ask and you shall receive! The concept of so-called “cosmic ordering” apparently works along these lines – definitions of cosmic ordering suggest that you write out your wish list (which is somehow cast out into the cosmos) and wait for it to happen (wait for the cosmos to respond).

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Even More Strategies for Effortless Business Success

You may have already my two articles exploring the best strategies for effortless business success. In the second article we explored what success actually means - and in the first, I suggested four specific steps anyone in business - from the "one man band" to the multi-national - can take to achieve the kind of effortless success we're talking about. In this article, I want to add a couple of further incredibly simple steps to the ones we've already covered - add these and your effortless business success starts today. Let me start by telling you Mike's story.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

You've Read the Self Help Books... But You're Still Not Happy

You’re one of those people who want to, to quote Oprah, live your best life. So, you’ve read the books – you know the ones, those feel-good self-help books. And you felt good while you were reading them. But your life has gone on much as it did before – with the normal stress and worry of everyday life – and, instead of feeling good, you don’t even feel bad – you feel worse! Because you’ve explored, you’ve read about it, you know that it works for others (or maybe all those self-help authors are just making it up!) and you’ve discovered that it hasn’t worked for you.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Waiting for Something to Happen

Too many people are going through their lives wishing, hoping, wanting or waiting for something to happen. “I wish I could just get that lucky break.” “I hope that tomorrow will be better.” “I want to win the Lottery!” Unfortunately, what most people don’t realize is that nothing “just happens” in life – you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do yourself to get the ball rolling.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Stress Explored, Explained, Beaten

There are only a few days left in April… just a few days left of Stress Awareness Month and, no doubt, pretty much just as many people are suffering from stress at the end of the month than there were at the beginning… the WHO says stress is an epidemic and that it will be the single biggest killer in the developed world in the 21st century.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

The Five Minute Miracle

I was sent an article on lottery sales by a reader a couple of weeks back - how, the Texas State Lottery was heading for record sales of US$3.83bn this year. Yes, that's one State and that's billion, not million! You'll also see in the article that its the poorer people who spend a disproportionate amount of their income on lottery tickets.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Building a Winning Business Team

Anyone out there got the guts to do it? I mean, is anyone "brave" enough to create and lead a team of like-minded people towards the kind of exceptional business success that one only sees, if one is lucky, once in a career? I've spent the last couple of weeks talking to and working with business people - I heard a lot of anecdotal evidence which proves the old adage that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Highly placed executives falsifying new business projections whilst lining their pockets based on their lies.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Focus Your Mind: Real Self Help

Did you leave your house naked this morning? Of course you didn’t. Isn’t it bizarre that everyone has no problem preparing themselves physically for the day ahead whilst almost no one bothers to mentally prepare – and being mentally prepared is far more important because the quality of your life, your success, your peace of mind, your wealth, your health and your happiness all depend upon it. I say this with absolute certainty because many years research backs me up. What occupies your mind creates your life.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Leading Yourself Out of Recession

I simply don't know how many clients have said to me, over the last few months, that they crave leadership. The current global economic has found national and international leaders wanting. Governments have often scrambled, like headless chickens, to implement sticky-plaster solutions to a mess which was partly of their own making.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

No More Stress or Depression

The World Health Organisation believes that stress will be the biggest killer of the 21st century. UK Government statistics indicate that over 15 million workdays were lost in 2008 due to stress. In the US, the National Institute for Occupational Safety predicts that depression will be the leading occupational disease of the 21st century. The same organisation regularly publishes reports on the affects of stress on heart disease, accidental injury in the workplace, etc., etc.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Awareness and an End to Suffering

I recently spoke to a client who told me that he was plagued by what I would describe as useless thought – feelings of inadequacy, distractions, negative thoughts, worries, even fears. The first thing that I said to him was that, at the very least, he could count himself among the horribly small percentage of people who are actually aware that they are, in fact, having useless thoughts.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Some Self Help Alte ative Medicine!

For many years, Eastern medicine – acupuncture, Vedic medicine – was termed “alte ative” by a Western society whose medical traditions could only be described as youthful or adolescent by comparison. As an Ayurvedic surgeon from Cambridge said to me last Autumn, “If I’d studied conventional surgery at somewhere like Stanford or Harvard, I’d be using text books that are fifty years old, at most. In Bangalore, I was using texts that were five thousand years old.” But the “developed world” knows best! I’ve been talking to a variety of business people – people suffer

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Be Your Own Motivational Speaker!

Do you ever wake up in the morning full of good intentions for the day ahead and find that, by the time that you get to work you’re no longer motivated? Or, maybe, you get off to a flying start but when the first minor distraction or interruption occurs, you go off the rails. Do you ever find that, despite your best efforts, the little voices in your head keep dragging you down? Do you keep finding yourself being internally asked searching questions that make you question either your own ability or the prospects for success? In other words, how easy is it for you to run out of steam?

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Being Overwhelmed by Useless Thoughts

I’ve been running Personal Development Seminars now for over fifteen years and still, after all these years practicing what I preach, I wake up some mornings plagued with useless thoughts – or the little rascals come after me during the day when I least expect it. But, of course, I should expect them because, sad as it may seem, the adult human appears to be hell-bent on destroying our best efforts in the course of our everyday lives.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Self Help Books That Don't Help!

Are you an avid reader of self help or self improvement books? Because many people that I know are constantly reading, constantly learning, constantly searching, constantly gaining a deeper understanding of what it takes to change your life. Unfortunately, however, it is not reading that changes your life, but doing – and far too many people are content with the feel good factor that self help books often give you, whilst nothing concrete actually changes for the better in their lives.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Work Harder - Not Smarter!

I know, I bet you that you think the title of this article is the wrong way around - but, unfortunately, that's how the vast majority of so-called "normal" people approach their daily routine. A recent survey of US employees by Gallup found that 74% of people don't like their work or workplace - and are either "sleep-walking" through their day or are actively engaged in trying to make the remaining 26% dissatisfied too! If you start each working day with the useless thought that you don't like your work or workplace, you've already made that day's work so much harder.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Do Self Affirmations Work?

Do positive self-affirmations actually work? The short answer is ‘No’ – unless you have a few years to spare and a heavy-duty supply of perseverance. The problem is that self-affirmation is directed at the conscious mind and, unfortunately, your conscious mind has absolutely nothing to do with the way you behave, how you react to people and in situations, how you view the world or, most importantly, the view that you take of yourself.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

Looking for Love

I Googled "dating" this morning - Google came up with 268m results. Whether it's online dating, speed dating, lunch dating or singles holidays, events for singles... actually I Google gave me even more results for singles - 288m. Lots of people are looking for something that's missing in their lives - whether it's companionship, friendship or love. But there's a problem. Almost everyone who's out there "looking for love" is normal.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

How to Build Self Esteem

Do you ever suffer from low self esteem? The Oxford English Dictionary defines “self esteem” as confidence in you own worth or abilities. So let me ask the same question a different way - do you ever doubt yourself or question your abilities? Because, if you do ever question your own value or capabilities, who is questioning whom? Who is doubting your self worth? And who or what is the self? Are you somehow a split personality? Let’s get something straight right here, right now. No one can suffer from low self esteem – they can only imagine that they’re suffering. The co

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

You Need to Get in Touch with Reality!

For the vast majority of our adult lives, we live in a world of make-believe. However, as most of us know, it’s no fairy story – most normal lives are a mundane up and down affair that never really goes anywhere – more like a second-rate soap opera. However, in stark contrast to our personal make-believe, reality does really exist. It’s wonderful, it’s the world of opportunity, the world of happiness and peace of mind – and it’s right before your very eyes.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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By Willie HortonRecently published1 topic

How to Focus Your Mind and Change Your Life

Over seventy years of psychological research proves conclusively that we live automatic lives. "Automaticity" is what psychologists call our extremely efficient ability to perform routine tasks without paying attention to them. Stop for a moment to reflect on how much attention you paid, this morning, to brushing your teeth, showering, shaving, walking or driving. Do you drive today the way you drove the first time you ever sat behind a steering wheel? We learn our routine tasks in two ways.

Primary topic: Personal Development
Personal Development
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