Category Archives: Positive Thinking

My Success Formula (pt 6) Action

Posted on by
1

(Continued from part 5: Expectations)

You’ve got it all: the vision, knowledge, belief in yourself, positive thoughts, and you’re ready to act.  So, you get ready, get set, get set, get set…

Why is it so hard sometime to just get going?  Why do you find yourself coming up with new excuses? Why are you second-guessing yourself?  You’re thinking maybe you are not smart enough, don’t have enough money, or don’t feel you deserve to succeed.  If this is the case, you must first work on yourself and the best way is to get going, face your fear, and prove to yourself that you have what it takes.

If You Dream a Dream It’s Possible

Creating a vision is an action.  It starts the process, but you can’t stop there otherwise it’s just wishful thinking.  We live in a creative universe and that’s what we were designed to do. It’s in our DNA to Dream, Note that dream, and Act on it.  I firmly believe that we would not have a vision or inspiring dream unless it were possible for us to achieve it.  The reason is we are all different, have different talents, and want different things.  So if you are dragging your feet, Stop!  Take the first step.  Do something, even a little something everyday.  If you don’t act, all the work you’ve done so far is for naught.  Nobody can read the book unpublished, watch the play without an ending, or enjoy the song unfinished.

But, What If Something Is Still Missing?

But let’s assume that you have achieved all of the elements in our success formula, that you have visualized the outcome, that you have the knowledge you need to start, and that you are motivated by the right thoughts and expectations.  Now what?  Check out the one thing that can derail any dream or plan in my series on Dream Derailers .  It is so critical that if you don’t take it into consideration, failure is assured.

I’m Barbara Talley, the poet who speaks and inspires.  To find out more about me check out: What Does Barbara Do? or visit  my website.

My Success Formula (pt 5d)- Expectations and Emotional Congruency

Posted on by
2

(From 5c: Emotions and Expectations)

When Our Emotions and Expectations Are Congruent, We Excel!

Do you expect success?  Do you feel successful?  You attract what you feel.  Are your thoughts affirming of your success?  Are your conversations focused on your successful outcome, devoid of fear and instead confident of the outcome?  Are your actions congruent with your dreams, thoughts, and words?  If not, you can sabotage your results.  And while most people can understand the rationale for making sure that their thoughts, words, and actions are congruent, they rarely think about or understand the importance of emotional congruence.   Expectations have an emotional component.  A quick Google search of emotions and success revealed over 17 millions results!

You Can’t Fake It.

You might fool others, but you can’t fool yourself.  Emotions are our internal honesty meter.  When we’re moving closer to our dreams we are happier; when moving away from them, we’re sadder.  We know the difference between excitement and fear, between expectation and dread, and between confidence and doubt.  Emotions are our guides to living authentically.  Don’t ignore your feelings for they provide you important feedback about your current state.  That’s why some say, “If it feels right and moral, keep doing it.”  If doesn’t feel right, pause, reflect, investigate and be in a constant mood of learning and flexibility.  We should be like our GPS systems that say, “Recalculating,” whenever we’ve missed a turn and not berate ourselves when we get off track.

Our Emotions and Expectations Should Match

Emotions emit a certain frequency and have the power of attraction. Our emotions should match our beliefs and expectations.  You could think, speak, and act in a certain way, and not feel it and this would be hypocrisy.  Our feelings are the only part of the formula that must be real.  You can’t fake excitement.  You either are or you aren’t.  You can’t fake anticipation; either you are expecting something to happen or you aren’t!  In fact, our feelings are in many cases the real drivers in our journey towards success.  They can get us there quickly or cause us to get lost.   Our feelings influence our thoughts, words, and deeds.  If we feel good, feel confident, feel invincible, or feel certain, our thoughts, words, and actions are one way.  However, if we feel doubtful, weak, or fearful, we are very likely thinking very different kinds of  thoughts. (Continue to Part 6 of My Success Formula: ACTION!

I’m Barbara Talley, the poet who speaks and inspires.  To find out more about me check out: What Does Barbara Do? or visit  my website.

My Success Formula (pt 5c)- More on Expectations and Emotions

Posted on by
3

If You Think You Can, You Can!

(From 5b: Expectations and Emotions)

To sum it all up, if you expect good things to happen  with all your heart, in most cases they will.  The key word here is heart.  The heart holds the power of attraction.  This is also true of less desirable outcomes.  What you feel, you attract.  So, are you feeling optimistic or pessimistic about your dreams, goals, and future?

Expectations+ Emotions Have Creative Power

Whatever you are feeling, you are creating.  Our feelings move us beyond lip service. So we’ve got to think about and feel about only those things we want to attract into our lives.  When you truly love someone or something, you can’t help but think about, talk about, and feel exhilarated by that person or thing.  This energy moves you to action.  It is the same principle when pursuing our dreams.  It’s not enough to just want success.  We must also think, speak, act, and feel our way to our goal.  That is when we begin to realize the power of expectations. When our expectations and emotions are congruent we excel.  You can’t expect something wonderful and hate or resent it at the same time.  You can’t fear something awful and want or love it.

Pygmalion and Galatea Effects

I just read an article about the power of expectations at work,’The Pygmalion and Galatea Effects.  In this About.com article, Susan Heathfield writes, “Your expectations of people and their expectations of themselves are the key factors in how well people perform at work. Known as the Pygmalion effect and the Galatea effect, respectively, the power of expectations cannot be overestimated.” I submit, that your expectation is the key factors in achieving any goal you pursue whether professional or personal.   In another article on the Galatea effect, the author writes, “One of life’s greatest gifts you can give someone is to believe in them. Think about someone who believes in you? Don’t you work harder to live up to those expectations? Sure you do. It’s human nature.” Another fact of human nature is that you get back magnified what you send out.  So, give someone a priceless gift by letting them know how much you believe in them.  Continue to 5c: Expectations and Emotional Congruence.

I’m Barbara Talley, the poet who speaks and inspires.  To find out more about me check out: What Does Barbara Do? or visit  my website.

My Success Formula (pt 5b)- Expectations and Emotions

Posted on by
4

(From 5a: Expectations)

I believe that fear is the most powerful negative motivator and faith is the most powerful positive motivator.   Some might say love and hate because faith is rooted in love and hate is rooted in fear.  We do what we do to move towards that which we love and away from that which we hate or fear.   I assert that most of our actions are faith-based or fear-based.    While you could potentially have the same outcome, acting out of fear is more stressful and a lot less enjoyable.  For example, you might stay in school because you fear joblessness and poverty, but it would be far better experience to stay in school because you love learning.

Emotions Can Motivate or Manipulate

The media does that to us all the time.   They use fear tactics to get us to act in a certain way.  But, while fear can motivate us to act, it can also paralyze us.  How many times have you neglected to go after a dream because you convinced yourself that you would fail.  You allowed your own fear or someone else’s opinion to stop you from pursuing your dreams.

Faith Is A Greater Motivator

Faith is a far greater motivator, can “move mountains,” and can give the advantage to the underdog.  When we get hyped up we release powerful endorphins that can give us an emotional boost. When you pursue a goal that you care about with faith, you create radiant energy and excitement.   Emotions matter; what we feel, we give energy to!  Until we actually feel it, some say we will not see it.  When we expect something, we anticipate that something will happen beforehand.   To anticipate means to think, speak, act, or feel an emotional response in advance.  ‘In Advance‘ are the key words, which mean we must begin thinking, speaking, acting, and feeling before we manifest our dreams. If we really believe and expect success, we must do what we must to feel it!  That is why sales people spend millions of dollars advertising their products, they want you to feel what the actors are feeling.  They know that when we associate their products to a feeling, we’ll buy it.  And, so it is with our own goals and dreams.   If we don’t feel it, it isn’t yet real to us and our success is not certain.  Continue to 5c: More on Expectations and Emotions

I’m Barbara Talley, the poet who speaks and inspires.  To find out more about me check out: What Does Barbara Do? or visit  my website.

My Success Formula (pt 5a)- Expectations

Posted on by
3

(Continued from Part 4: Thoughts)

This is the fifth in the series describing my personal success formula. We’ve discussed how we must first have a vision or an outcome in mind.  Next, we must be aware of and seek the knowledge required to create a plan and carry it out.  Thirdly, we must have the faith or belief that our vision or dream is possible.  Then we must make sure that our thoughts are positive and affirming and work in our favor.   After that, we must be clear about and focus on the importance and power of our expectations.  The ‘E” in my formula stands for expectations and emotions.  While our thoughts focus on visualizing and articulating our vision, our expectations also include an emotional aspect.

Emotions Motivate Quicker Than Thoughts

Some experts say our emotions motivate us to action quicker than our thoughts do.  How many times have you thought about doing something and even talked about doing something, but never really did anything about it?  Everyone has had that happen.  So, what is it that moves us to action?  It is our emotions!  They can make us do something or prevent us.  But, which emotions are the most powerful?  Continue to 5b: Expectations and Emotions )

I’m Barbara Talley, the poet who speaks and inspires.  To find out more about me check out: What Does Barbara Do? or visit  my website.