Do you fight with decisions every day and wonder “Should I be doing this?” or just “Don’t feel right” about some things?

A big problem that many people face in ataining the things they want such as inenr pecae, loving rleationships and a life of success is a lack of core values.

Chances are, you’ve heard of core values and may have dismissed them as unimportant. Having core values is extremely important and it’s vital that you create your own if you want to reach any level of success, happiness or peace of mind in life.

By having a set of core values you clearly state what you stand for so that you have a set of guidelines that define what you are all about and what you believe in. You can evaluate your life and the choices that you need to make in it by comparing potential actions and situations that present themselves with your core values.

So how do you create a set of core values?

It’s actually very easy. Get a sheet of paper and write “What I Won’t Do” at the very top of it. No simply write down all of the things that you won’t do.

Examples would be…

I will not lie just because someone asks me to.
I will never talk behind someones back or stick around in an environment where this is taking place.
I will not waste time on meaningless things such as aimlessly surfing the Internet all day.
I will not procrastinate.
I will not make promises that I am not fully intent on keeping.

These are just some of the things that you can add to your list. You may have more which is great, write them all out and get them on paper.

Once you’ve listed all of the things that you will not do, it’s time to take them and morph them into a positive Core Value Statement. A Core Value Statement is a statement that conveys the essence of what you are about in a positive and energetic way.

What you want to do is create a statement that is based on the things you will not do by reversing them into the opposite things you “will do” via a powerful statement.

Here’s an example using our example list above…

I will be honest & truthful regardless of outside influences because honesty is always the best policy. I will never talk behind someones back and will always keep the promises that I make because this is how I expect people to treat me. My time will be spent on meaningful things that bring me close to my dreams and I will always focus on action because this will make my dreams come true as fast as possible.

As you can see, this statement is incredibly powerful and states the things that you will do that fall right in line with what you believe is “right”. Obviously everyones statement is going to be different because we all have different desires as far as what values are most important to us.

Once you have this statement it’s easy to put it right along side any decisions that you need to make to see whether that action is in line with your core values. If it isn’t, you don’t take that action and you find one that’s more in line with your core values.

This one exercise alone could save you tons of stress, anxiety and pointless worrying about where your life is going. Once you have a core value statement, you have a gauge to tell you “yes” or “no” to any situation in your life and things will become much easier for you.

You will notice that you have less and less of those moments of indecision or uneasiness that come from being “unsure” about a decision your about to make or action you’re about to take as you integrate your core values into your decision making processes.

I encourage you to print your statement out on a piece of paper and hang it in your bathroom so every morning you get up, the first thing you see is your Core Value Statement. You should read it aloud in the morning to start your day instilling your Core Value Statement into your mind.

Love & Peace,
Chris Elliott

It seems that everyone is looking for the elusive, blissful feeling of “inner peace” now a days doesn’t it?

The reason that most people are working so hard for the attainment of this feeling is because, as a society, we are losing touch with inner peace without really realizing it.

But how?

In one word the reason can only be described as seclusion.

Now, you might be thinking “I’m not seclusive, I’m outgoing and social” and you could be right but seclusion plays a part in your life while it might not be obvious to you.

Please bear with me here…

Where do almost all of us work?  Indoors.

Where do we entertain ourselves?  Mostly indoors.

Where do we sleep?  Indoors.

When we hang out with friends, even in a social setting with friends, where are we usually?  Indoors.

What do we commute in?  Inside of a car.

Slowly, over the last 100 years, the human race has become more and more secluded as a whole based on our working and living conveniences and our entertainment options.

100 years ago most jobs where outdoors.

100 years ago, there weren’t TV’s or computers so people entertained themselves via more outdoor activities.

100 years ago, outings consisted of mainly outdoor events.  Not movies, dance clubs & shopping malls.

The truth is, the outdoor enviroment does something special for the mind, body and spirit.

A breath of fresh air invigorates you.  The feeling of a gentle breeze brushing against your face calms you.  Walking along a shorline soothes your soul with the sound of water lapping up against the shore.  Taking in the sky on a star filled night makes you feel at peace with the world.

There are so many things that this outside environment does for our soul that we take for granted.

Now, I’m not saying we should all go back to living in homes with no electricity and sit on the porch widdling wood all day, that would be absurd.  What I am saying is that we need to integrate more of the outdoor world into our life.

This can be an extremely simple and soul soothing task.

Here are some things that you can incorporate into your life that will help you take in more of the elements of the earth to help you move toward inner peace…

Take a walk early in the morning as the sun comes up.  Taking a walk in the morning right as the sun comes up gives you a huge mental boost.  You can think of walking as the sun arises as a metaphor for the arising of your soul for the day.

And being in a cold place isn’t a good excuse unless it’s dangerously cold outside.  I was born and raised in Alaska and just moved away less than a year ago so that’s not a good reason to not take walks.  Get a coat, a hat and some boots.

Make a point of getting to a body of water every week or two and walk along it.  This could be the ocean, a river, a lake.  Just the sound of water hitting a shore or running along a rocky river bed are soothing alone.  Why do you think every set of relaxation audios is mostly water?  It isn’t a coincidence.

At least once every 30-60 days go camping and sleep outdoors (in a tent).  There’s something calming about sleeping in the fresh outdoor air and waking up in the elements.  Sleeping outdoors recharges you.

Take notice of public happenings outside.  Most communities (or one close to you if you live in a small town) have outdoor events such as concerts, walks for a charitable cause or community events like “clean up day”.

Get out and take part in these events.  Besides the incredible feeling of contribution you’ll get from doing these activities, you’ll also enjoy fresh air, sunshine & get your blood moving.

If you work inside, pack a lunch and eat your lunch outside.  Drive to a local park or just go sit on the lawn in front of your workplace if you don’t have enough time for that drive and eat your lunch.

This will help you clear your mind and get your soul aligned more with calmness.  You’d be surprised how much more productive this will make you and how much more you will enjoy your day.

I urge you to start using some of the ideas in this post in your life and try to think of ways that you can start spending more time outside.  I assure you that once you start spending more time outdoors, you will start noticing more opportunities to do it even more and will start feeling calmer and much more aligned with inner peace.

Love & Peace
Chris Elliott

We’ve all read a self help book or two at least but have we experienced any real change as a result?

I’ve personally read hundreds and I have to admit, there was a time that I expected just the act of reading the book to change my life or change something inside of me.

I’ve also encountered people who spend thousands on personal development courses, success coaching, subliminal audios, etc. and just wonder why their lives aren’t changing.

Well, let me get a little real here…

It doesn’t matter how many times you listen to that subliminal CD or that Binaural beat CD or read that success course you paid $300 for, if you aren’t wiling to change, if you aren’t going into that training or self help aid with the attitude of “okay, I’m going to change and this is going to help me do it”, you’re in trouble.

The act of listening to a CD or taking part in some kind of training alone is worthless.

It’s in those moments after using these tools that you decide that you are going to “Act” towards the better life that you want.  Even if you know all the success strategies in the world, if you don’t commit to change, put your nose to the grindstone and move toward what it is you want, you’ll never get there.

Change isn’t easy.  If someone told you that it was, they lied.  There will always be an adjustment period when you are changing something in your life whether it be your eating habits, quitting smoking or drinking, starting an exercise routine, being more organized and results oriented in your job or your business.

The point that I’m trying to make here is that changing anything in your life can only happen if you first move toward what it is that you want.  It might be taking that first walk, completing that first task on a new project in your business, talking to your wife about rejuvenating your loving relationship, eating a salad instead of a gut burger.

Without action, it doesn’t matter what knowledge you have.  When you act on your urges to change and use the ideas you’ve learned through courses or success training to make that action easier, that’s when miracles happen.

I want you to do something very simple.  Get a 3X5 index card and a marker.  Then, in big letters, write the words “I AM TAKING ACTION” on the front of it and on the other side write “BECAUSE IT IS CHANGING MY LIFE”.

Now put that card in something you carry with you at all times such as your purse or wallet. Every time that you feel the urge to take action on something but feel that “something” holding you back, pull out that card and look at the side with “I AM TAKING ACTION” and read it out loud.

Now, without flipping over to the other side, recite what’s on the back from memory (”BECAUSE IT IS CHANGING MY LIFE”).  If you don’t have it memorized at first, turn the card around and read it aloud but try to memorize it as quickly as you can (It’s actually important to the effectiveness of this exercise).

While this might seem a bit corny, it’s actually very powerful because it’s getting you to do 4 important things…

1) Getting You To Take ACTION! - Taking out the card and reading out the message it contains alone is an action.  This creates some momentum that you can use to push you forward with the action that you need to take.

2) Instilling This Message Into Your Head - Because you are saying “BECAUSE IT IS CHANGING MY LIFE” from memory after saying “I AM TAKING ACTION” you are pulling it from memory and your sub-conscious mind to your conscious.

Your mind is like a muscle and the more times that you do this, the more vivid the reason (BECAUSE IT IS CHANGING MY LIFE) for taking action is in your mind, the more likely you are to take action.

3)  Arming You With A Tool - Just by having this little “crutch” you can feel a bit more at peace knowing that you do have this exercise that you can do to push yourself to action and moving toward what you want.

4)  Forcing You To Speak Actively - Instead of saying “I WILL TAKE ACTION” you say “I AM TAKING ACTION” because this gets you into the active mindset of taking action.  Saying “I WILL TAKE ACTION” basically tells your sub-conscious that “you will” meaning that you’ll do it later.

There are also some other things you can do to help increase the effect of this exercise if you so choose.

1)  Find small pictures that you can attach to your 3X5 card as motivators for your actions to change.  Maybe it’s a picture of a car you want or a home you want.  Maybe there’s a place you’d like to take your family on vacation.

Find pictures of these things and resize them to sticker size print them out, cut them out and then tape them around the words on the front and back of your 3X5 card.

This will create a visual impact that will further motivate you to take the action that you are moving toward.

2)  Say the things you want out loud.  When you do the exercise and say “I AM TAKING ACTION”, “BECAUSE IT IS CHANGING MY LIFE” add “AND MOVING ME TOWARD [insert item here] and [insert item here] and [insert item here], etc.”

This will further embed the fact that you are taking action for a reason and put the things that move you to action right in front of you to fire you up.

I’ll end today’s session with this…

Use this little exercise for a week and see if it helps you start moving toward your dreams, all it takes is a marker and a 3X5 index card.

Love & Peace
Chris Elliott

I’m sure that most of you have heard of the movie and book The Secret that has hit the market with a bang.

I thought it would be a good thing to talk about here today.

Now, I have to say, there are a lot of people out there today that are just full of it when it comes to manifestation and success and I probably would have passed on this one but a person who I have a tremendous respect for, Dr. Joe Vitale, was involved in it so I checked out.  That was a great choice.

At first glance, you can’t really tell what “The Secret” is but once you start watching the video you find that the “The Secret” is The Law Of Attraction and how to apply it in your life.

I strongly believe in the law of attraction and use it in my life so I really enjoyed the movie.  It was full of experts that I’m familiar with that share their particular views of The Law Of Attraction which is great for broadening your view of the law for application in your life.  The Law Of Attraction is definitely capable of helping you gain inner peace, loving relationships or anything else you desire if it’s applied correctly.

The DVD was inspirational and extremely well put together with Hollywood quality special effects and excellent information.  I haven’t read the book so I can’t comment on that but the DVD is excellent and makes for a truly uplifting viewing.

If you are at all interested in manifestation, the law of attraction or how to align yourself with the things you’ve always wanted, this is a great buy and it’s cheap for what you get.  For under 20 bucks you can grab a copy at any bookstore or at the website TheSecret.TV

Love & Peace,
Chris Elliott

Today’s topic deals with being selective in what you allow into your mind.

As I’m sure you are aware, the news is filled with almost all “bad news”.  It’s a fact, bad news gets peoples attention.

You may not be aware of it consciously but when you take in tons of bad news through the television, newspaper, magazine, Internet news sites, etc, you are actually putting yourself in alignment with that mood subconsciously.

Maybe you won’t get as depressed as the person who lost their house in a hurricane but you’ll probably find it hard to be happy while taking in negative stories like that consistently which is going to limit the joy that you experience in your everyday life.

Watching the latest story about the bus full of people that died because of a bombing at war and another about a woman who’s child was kidnapped are hardly going to serve you in any positive way and may have you asking questions like…

“What if that happened to me?”

 Questions like this are going to have you putting yourself in the place of a victim which will sadden and depress you.

The key point that I want to make here is this…

Only take in information that aims to serve you in a positive way.  Stop watching the news and reading the paper except for essential segments that you need to function in your career or finances.  If it isn’t something that you need to know to survive, stop taking it in.

You might be thinking “Whoa, how am I going to know what’s going on in the world?” and the truth is, there’s very little in the news that you would ever need to know.  Unless you are a politician (and very few of us are) then you don’t need to know what’s going on in foreign negotiations or how many people have died.

If you really want to get up to date news, I highly reccomend a site that focues on bringing posotive stories and “good news” to the public called The Good News Network.

You can find them here:

http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/

You will find tons of up to the minute stories that will not only inform you but also put you in a inspired and happy mood.

I challenge you to not take in any news programs or read any news publications for 7 days.  If you can make it that long, I promise that you will realize that you really don’t need all of that news which does nothing but bring you down.  If you get an itch for some news check out the site above.

Love & Peace,
Chris Elliott

We all want to have a relationship as close to perfect as possible but the truth is a “perfect” relationship doesn’t exist. We all encounter bumps when it comes to our relationships. Obviously no relationship is perfect all the time.

This isn’t to say that you can’t be complete happy all the time in your relationship, you absolutely can. Finding inner peace in relationships isn’t as hard as some people think either.

How do you do this? I can really put this concept down in one word…

Perception.

The way that we perceive the things that happen in our relationships directly dictates what we will feel as a result of that experience.

Here’s an example…

You’re home waiting for your wife to get home and she’s running late. After she’s about an hour late you start worrying and try to call her on her cell phone which she doesn’t answer. You might start thinking that she has been in an accident or that something happened to her so you start worrying.

This is how many people think, they start imagining the worst possible scenario.

Usually your spouse will show up and you’ll jump at them asking “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?”, “I HAVE BEEN WORRIED SICK!” Then your spouse starts to explain that they were caught in traffic and that their phone battery went dead or something of that nature and you feel like you over reacted which you most certainly did!

The key here is that you “chose” to be worried instead of thinking “they are probably just stuck in traffic” and to top it off, you jumped down your spouse’s throat when they came in the door. I don’t know about you but if I was stuck in traffic for an hour I sure wouldn’t want to be greeted like that when I got in the door!

Just as you “chose” to be worried, you can “chose” to be optimistic and think the best of every situation.

By doing this you will save yourself a huge amount of stress and also save yourself tons of arguments and fights as a result of always thinking the worse of every situation.

When you take control of your perception and chose to perceive things optimistically and always think the best of each situation you will find that nearly every experience you have will turn out to be a positive one.

The first step though is making that choice to change your instinct to think the worst about a situation.

This isn’t as easy as flipping a switch at first. You really need to be conscious of your thinking and catch yourself when you start thinking like this so that you can quickly change your thinking.

You won’t catch every instance at first but over time you will find that you gain more control of how you perceive things and you will automatically start perceiving everything in a happy, go lucky way.

Just like a muscle in your body, your mind will grow and become stronger as you train it perceive things optimistically.

So start being conscious of the way you perceive the situations in your relationships and you will find that it’s much easier to continuously be happy and achieve a much more peaceful and fulfilling relationship.

Love & Peace,
Chris Elliott