Articles By: Denis Waitley
- This Week’s Jump-Start
- The Champion Within Article
- Seeds of Greatness
- The Winner’s Edge Coaching Tips
1. This Week’s Jump-Start
The Art of Visualization
The art of visualization helps you make your goals part of your subconscious reflex habits, like brushing your teeth or driving your car. Imagine that you’re driving home. Think about the steps you take. You start the car, turn left at the light on Main Street, take a right to the expressway, and head west to the foothills. These interim steps break down your final objective into easily segmented steps.
Psychologists call this interior model or template a “cognitive map.” The cognitive map gives you an image by which to check progress at every moment. If you expect to reach a landmark in less time than you are taking on this particular trip, you might speed up a little to get back on pace. Scientists refer to the process of adjusting your actions to fit your image of what is right as using a “negative feedback loop.” This doesn’t mean that you berate yourself when you get off track. It means you mentally correct to the target.
This week begin to utilize or increase your utilization of the art of visualizing your dreams, so that accomplishment of your goals simply becomes a habit!
—Denis Waitley
2. The Champion Within Article
Beware the Dream Stealers by Denis Waitley
Although your own internal measurements are the most important, you will occasionally need to seek external feedback on your progress toward your goals. When you do, be sure it is from people who are truly interested in seeing you succeed. Don’t seek feedback from fair-weather friends, competitive peers, or any person who doesn’t have your best interests at heart. Neutral doesn’t count. Get feedback from someone who is on your side but will still be objective and honest with you.
I’ve observed time and again that misery truly does love company. Jealousy creates some of the most miserable people I know. Surpass the achievements of your particular social crowd or your business colleagues, and look out for the slings and arrows of those who wish you were back where they are. You have to dodge the snide remarks and catty comments. Let them roll right off you. Don’t internalize them.
Only pay attention to feedback from those who have similar goals or who are working actively alongside you to achieve goals of their own. Motives and fears run deep. Study them in others. The sympathetic fair-weather friend who supports you and comforts you when you’re down, may like you best when you are in just that state: down and dependent.
Ultimately, nobody else is responsible for your life but you. Nobody else is accountable for your actions but you. Therefore, nobody’s expectations for you and opinions about you are as important as your own. So make sure those take precedence in your mind over all others, and if you do need to consult with someone else, think very carefully before you choose exactly who.
Equally important, be prepared to sell your ideas to an indifferent world. As passionate as you are about your business and the fact that your products and services will have positive, life-changing benefits to everyone you meet, you are going to find resistance every time you tell your story.
People are most interested in their own dreams and goals. They have difficulty believing that you have found a better way than they have to reach them. They are suspicious and guarded when anyone tries to sell them or change their minds. Rather than have others steal your dreams by raining on them, ask questions and find out about their dreams before you launch into your sermon. People buy what they want first, then what they need. Find what turns them on. It may not be what turns you on. By helping others get what they want, you’ll get what you want too!
3. Seeds of Greatness
Self-Esteem
(an excerpt from Denis’s Safari to the Soul)
Many times since, people have asked me what the most important thing you should take with you on a tented safari in East Africa. I always answer, “If you don’t love yourself, and life, you will be lost, ill at ease or bored.”
When I think of self-love, I don’t see it as narcissism or selfish worship of the man or woman in the mirror. I believe self-esteem is a healthy ability to share with others the value you feel inside yourself, without expecting a quid pro quo payoff. When I consider the word soul as I’m referring to it in this book, I believe it is the purity and beauty of an individual’s core values. Core values radiate like rings, as when a leaf falls in a pond. —Denis Waitley
4. The Winner’s Edge Coaching Tips
Chris Widener, best-selling author and renowned expert on the art of influence, talks about the seven “C’s” of success. Here is his take on “confidence.”
—Denis Waitley
Confidence by Chris Widener
Success comes to those who have the confidence to try, and more than that, the confidence to win. Confidence is something that you can grow in your mind and heart. Each passing victory that you achieve builds more and more confidence in you to draw from the next time you go to fight another battle on your journey to success. Do what you can to build confidence inside of yourself so you will be able to dip deeply into that well when you need it!
