My 28-Days to Success Journey: Day 8 - Resetting My Self-Limiting Thoughts/Beliefs!

If this is your first time reading this blog, read this first!

Today's task was to reset my thoughts. I am already a strong believer in the power of the mind in dictating the kind of life a person lives. I know that there is a prison of the mind which is a lot worst than the prison of body. 


However, the tast today was to clearly identify and write down my positive beliefs, my negative beliefs, and my positive affirmations that convert my self-limiting (negative) beliefs into positive and self-empowering ones. 

Here is what I wrote:

My Self Limiting Beliefs

• I procrastinate.
• I am afraid to face my problems and challenges and suffer great losses in form of elongation of the problem because I don’t face it.
• I fall to temptation/distraction really easily.
• I am not disciplined.
• I lack the working habits of successful businessmen.

My Self Empowering Beliefs

• I am a confident person. 
• If I put my mind to something, I succeed in it.
• I can easily socialize with most types of people.
• I can learn fast and get good at anything really easy. 
• I am not afraid to try new things anymore. 
• I love being kind and nice to people.
• I am an "idea machine" and a super problem solver.
• I have developed an entrepreneurial mind.

My affirmation to convert my most prominent self-limiting belief in to a positive belief.

• I am timely in my work. I plan ahead and I work on my tasks well ahead of time.
• When I have a major problem, I man up and face it. I apologize and correct the problem.
• I do not fall to temptation and I do not get distracted from my work. I set time for work and allow time for fun and that’s the way I live my life.
• I am disciplined. While I understand that no one is 100% disciplined, I continuously observe myself for bad habits, face them, break them, and eventually replace them.
• I do everything in the time I have scheduled for them. I do not let anything or anyone destroy my plan for the day by engaging me and wasting my time while I should be doing something else that is better.

Previous Post in this Series                                                                                                          Next Post in this series  

My 28-Days to Success Journey: Day 7 - Taking A Break To Be Happy!

If this is your first time reading this blog, read this first!

In today's task, the thing to do was to BEGIN to feel happy and successful. This is an important and crucial step as Mr. Macken says: 

"Low self-esteem keeps you from enjoying life, doing the things you want to do, and working toward personal goals. You have a right to feel good about yourself; for success we have to feel love deep inside ourselves before we can share it with others."

I am happy to say that I have been doing that for a few weeks already after a pleasant realization. I realized a few weeks back that I am already living about 65% of the dream lifestyle I always imagined. I had a job in my family business which never really allowed me to take days off for a few years in a row. If I did take days off, I felt uncomfortable doing so. One of my dreams was to have a job when I can completely say good bye to work for at least two days and have the satisfaction in knowing that even if I did work, it will not make any difference so I should rather enjoy. I am glad to say that my current job fulfills that dream for me.

Another dream was to work from home (or be mobile) and be able to travel for work so it covers my expenses while I get to do my work and enjoy traveling. My current job fulfills both of these rolls for me also. I have and continue to travel up and down the Northeastern US. I also work from home and sometimes work from my car in front of a lake in a nearby park.

At this point, I am doing well with my family and make occasional fun trips with my friends to go hiking and the like. On top of that, I have enough time to work on any side projects I want. I am learning two different new softwares, making websites for religious organizations for free, and doing basic graphic design work for someone just because I feel like doing so.

The reason why I say that this is only 65%, even though for many it may be 115% of their dreams, is because I feel I have the potential to go much higher. As a result, I have made a promise to myself that I will enjoy my time at this stage for as long as I don't upgrade but I definitely will go higher.

As usual, the other daily tasks are in order. No need to beat a dead horse.

Previous Post in this Series                                                                                                                          Next Post in this series

My 28-Days to Success Journey: Day 6 - My Love Affair

If this is your first time reading this blog, read this first!

Today's task requires me to develop an exercise plan. I have been exercising for some time on and off. Though I have been exercising by way of brisk walks in a park nearby, my plan in the near future is to find some free or cheap access to a treadmill, which reminds me of my love affair with treadmills. 

Running on the treadmill is my favorite mode of exercise. I prefer that over anything else because of the following reasons: 

1. Safety: You don’t need to worry about potholes or traffic.
2. Lesser shock to the knees: I have heard that running on a treadmill is better for the knees than running on something other than the obvious other option. I haven't seen proof for it but it makes sense.
3. Automation: You can set the treadmill to automatic routines and just go with the flow without actively thinking much. That is like driving on the highway when your second nature and muscle memory does most of the work and your mind is free to wander. In the meanwhile, you can enjoy some meditation, your favorite form of mp3 media, or simply watch TV.
4. Weather-proof: You don’t have to worry about the weather. Hot or cold do not make a difference if your treadmill is located in a climate controlled facility. 

For the past one year, I do not have a TV in my house but I love watching certain news programs. At my last apartment, I had access to a fitness room as part of my lease which was equipped with some basic machines including a treadmill and a TV right in front of it. I used to work out at the same time as my favorite news program and I loved the combination.

Sadly, I don’t have access to something like that anymore and I am going to find a way to get it. As the old proverb goes, “when there is a will, there is a way,” I am sure I can find a few community members looking for something similar and willing to contribute to a communally owned and used treadmill. There are challenges but I am sure they can be overcome. If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to comment or email me.

That is my plan. I would like to be able to run about Seven to Eight miles in an hour on a daily basis. At the same time, I need to cut down on my food intake. I have gained about 35 lbs. in the past year and it doesn’t seem to be stopping. I am not overweight right now but I am close to it. I don’t want to be at the borderline which means I can easily slip over.

My second option would be to get a bike and go biking daily for an hour in any direction or go to park that has a track. I want to be able to combine my quiet time for reflection with my exercise time but it is not possible if I have to watch for traffic all the time.

As for the rest of the daily tasks, the program has switched to second gear now and the demands are slowly increasing. The wake up time has been moved 40 minutes earlier and reading time has been increased to half an hour. These are both things that I do not mind. I have also not been challenged by both because I normally wakeup at dawn anyways and since getting my kindle, I have been putting in some decent reading time.

I dedicate my Saturdays to my wife and take her wherever she tells me she wants to go. Once again, we were out shopping today and I got well over half hour of some tiring walk.

That’s all the ranting for the day. I will be incorporating some new ideas into my daily updates so stay tuned.

Previous Post in this Series                                                                       Next Post in this series

My 28-Days to Success Journey: Day 5 - Gaining Back Extra Hours In The Day!

If this is your first time reading this blog, read this first!

Today I was supposed to sit down and give a long, hard look at how I spend my time. It is a very eye-opening exercise. I can easily see why the issue of time is always upfront when it comes to success and personal development. I wrote a lot about my observation in my private journal and made detailed plans to change my routines.

I have done something similar before but never followed through on the new schedule I had made for myself. This time, I will.

Here is the exercise table as filled up by me. Its called the "My Time Check" exercise.

As for the rest of the tasks, I must admit that I fell behind on some of them today since Friday is the only day of the week when I have to travel for work. For that reason and others, Fridays are completely different for me then the rest of the days. I will catch up with everything tomorrow and make room for this change in my upcoming daily/weekly schedule so I don't miss things I need to do.

Daily Tasks:

1. Get up 30 minutes earlier than usual. Not done.
2. Read 15 Minutes. Done.
3. Affirmation:  I am a Success Now and Always, Because of This, I Have Peace of Mind, Joy and Happiness. Done.
4. Take a walk or do a chosen exercise for 15 minutes. Not done.

This is the last time I am updating "not done" on some of the daily tasks. I will stick to this statement, that's a promise to the most important person in my life. Me.

Previous Post in this Series                                                                             Next Post in this series

My 28-Days to Success Journey: Day 4 - The Wheel of Life!

If this is your first time reading this blog, read this first!

Thanks to all those who were emailed asking me how I was doing. The sickness is gone and I am back in action with the update on Day 4.

The task on hand today was to draw the wheel of life and contemplate on it. It was a very beneficial exercise for sure. It makes one look at his/her life from outside the box and see what has one achieved and what is still missing. I decided to give it my own color code with read and green. My goal by the end of the month is to increase the green and decrease the red.


Here is my wheel.

As for the rest of the tasks, here is an update:

1. Get up 30 minutes earlier than usual. I woke up early but the rainy/romantic whether made me go back to sleep and sadly, I wasted most of the day that way.
2. Read for 15 minutes. Done. I must say that this is really my favorite part. I search for some new books on time management and have been reading those.
3. Affirmation:  I am a Success Now and Always, Because of This, I Have Peace of Mind, Joy and Happiness. Done.
4. Take a walk or do a chosen exercise for 15 minutes. The rain prevent me from doing my usual walk in the park however I did have to deliver a heavy object to my dad and I all the struggle in that can kind of cover for this.

Tomorrow, there is a real exciting exercise coming up. I have been looking forward to it very much. Finally, the wait is over.

Previous Post in this Series                                                                             Next Post in this series