The Affirmation Spot

The Power of L.O.S.S. – The Affirmation Spot for Tuesday November 10, 2009

Ray Davis — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:57:13 +0000

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Check out our new affirmation apps for Apple devices or search i-mobilize on the iTunes store. The Affirmation Spot is developing these motivation apps in partnership with i-mobilize. Click an app to view it – Love Magnet, Sales Booster, Confidence Affirmation, or Full Body Scan.

Many people see losing or a loss as a very negative thing. Like anything else, losing is all in how you look at it. A well-studied loss can be every bit as valuable in our journey as a victory. I’m not saying that losing is more fun than winning or that winning isn’t valuable. Clearly, we all want to win.

The truth is that most winners had to experience losing before they ever succeeded. So what if you chose to look at your losses in a slightly different light. A loss might be seen as Lessons and Obstacles on your way to Stunning Successes.

L – Lessons: Losing nearly always provides some lessons and some clues on how to improve. If you pay attention to the things that contributed to the loss, you can apply those lessons to future situations. Given time, you find the winning combination.
O – Obstacles – Losses are clearly obstacles. After all, your goal was to win or succeed. However, an obstacle might challenge you to improve or increase your determination to succeed. Used as mental and emotional leverage, a good obstacle can propel you to future victories.
S – Stunning – Losing can get you down and make you feel unworthy. In that dark moment of loss, remember to see what a stunning miracle you are. You are a diamond in the rough slowly being polished into something very special.
S – Successes – Success is that moment of break through when the journey of loss has been transformed into victory. The lessons, obstacles, and seeing how stunning you are kept you on track to enjoy the sweet taste of success.

So you see a loss is never loss. It’s an opportunity, an invitation to a journey of self-discovery, stretching yourself, and new achievement.

Stay inspired!

Ray

2009 Affirmation

“This year I am absolutely committed to being the person I came here to be!”

Success Is…. – The Affirmation Spot for Friday November 6, 2009

Ray Davis — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:00:45 +0000

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There are as many definitions of success as there are people. Many people see success as status or financial abundance. While others see it as feeling happy or living in peace. What does success or successful mean to you? I recently asked this question on Twitter and here were some of the responses I received.

@ScrapbookLatino
Success: Emotional state achieved when PERSONAL, not external, dreams/goals materialize.
@DrCathySubber
Success: waking up everyday excited abt wht i’m doing whether its work, kids, networking or just having fun 4 the day!
@terrysweetser
Success: To learn from failure.
@PamelaBruner
Success: Living in alignment with my values, enjoying every day!
@blissmonger
Success: autonomy belonging contribution solitude delight challenge display creativity diligence curiosity articulation integrity.
@narjoy
Success: achieving your goals, no matter how small.

I’d love to hear your definition of success. Leave a comment to share what success means to you.

Stay inspired!

Ray

2009 Affirmation

“I am absolutely committed to being the person I came here to be!”

Accept The Rainy Days – The Affirmation Spot for Thursday November 4, 2009

Ray Davis — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:08:52 +0000

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It is a beautiful day, a day of hope for the future; a day of limitless beginnings. For your life is like a garden, you must plant it and tend it before the harvest comes. You must nurture the garden of your life as you go; weeding it of old destructive patterns of thought and action. Making sure it receives the love and care necessary for its growth and ultimately its blossoming.

As with any garden, there must come times of sunshine and times of rain. Both must be if the garden is to succeed and flourish. Conventional wisdom claims that joy is easier to find in the proverbial sunshine than in the proverbial rain.

I have found, however, that when I accept the necessity of the rain, stand in it willingly, and understand its nature and purpose; it can be even sweeter than the sunshine.

The sunshine is the provider of life, doing its work over long hours, days, and weeks. Without it, there is no life. The rain, by contrast, is an occasional visitor. It appears in short increments, but is the source of rapid growth. It brings newness to all it touches.

So keep in mind that if today brings a little rain into your life, it’s OK. The sun will return soon enough. It is right behind the clouds. For today, stand strong, give yourself to the rain, and grow grow grow!

Stay inspired!

Ray

2009 Affirmation

“This year I am absolutely committed to being the person I came here to be!”

Snap Judgments – The Affirmation Spot for Friday October 30, 2009

Ray Davis — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:33:24 +0000

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Thought: Love and judgment are like matter and antimatter. They cannot occupy the same space without utterly destroying each other.

I had a little epiphany the other day about the way – in our fast-paced, high-pressure world – we make snap judgments about others and how harmful that can be. I was driving along the main street that runs through a local shopping center. This is one of those modern strip shopping centers where the doors to all the shops come out to the street and there is a continuous parking lot stretching for blocks.

While making my way down that street, I always try to be a good citizen and stop to allow people to cross the street back to the parking lot rather than racing to get by them before they beat me to it. There are a couple of dozen shops and this often involves stopping several times on my way down the row.

This day I had stopped four or five times to allow people to cross. People usually smile in appreciation for the small gift of patience.

As I neared my destination at the far end of the shopping center, an older woman appeared from behind a car and took a step to cross. By the time I saw her, I would have had to slam on the brakes to stop. So I slowed and kept going. She shot me an angry look as I passed by.

It occurred to me that she was doing what we all do so often. She made a snap judgment about me based on her immediate experience. The look indicated she thought I was one of those selfish people determined to get where I’m going even if I have to run an old lady down in the process. She didn’t have a frame of reference to know that I had just stopped for five other people or that I would have stopped for her had I seen her in time.

How often do we do this in our lives? Our snap judgments, the pressure of our day, that little twinge of anger right below the surface ready to show itself at the first slight? We often don’t have a frame of reference to judge people the way we do. They might be the best person on the planet having a bad day, a bad moment, or just not seeing us or what we need in time to act.

Judging is easy. If you ever kept track, most of you would find you do it dozens if not hundreds of times a day. Those judging moments add discomfort to your day as your blood pressure and your stress rise. They also put negative vibes out there in the universe because sometimes we give signals, shout, or worse. This is what happens in road rage.

These situations often feed the anger and frustration forward. Her reaction to me could have caused me to say, “Well, I’m not going to stop for anyone because people don’t appreciate it.” Or, I might have maintained my bad mood and snapped at the coffee shop girl when got my order wrong a few moments later.

Let us not judge so much. Let us not help to perpetuate the negative feelings when we feel we’ve been wrongly judged by a stranger. It takes strength and control, but we are capable.

If we could just step back, take a breath, slow down, and recognize that in most cases the other person had no intention of wronging us; we’d find a capacity within us not so quickly judge people. We’ll feel better and the energy we put out to the world will be more positive.

Stay inspired!

Ray

2009 Affirmation

“I am absolutely committed to being the person I came here to be!”

All We Have Is Each Other – The Affirmation Spot for Wednesday October 28, 2009

Ray Davis — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:17:07 +0000

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Contact is a 1997 movie based on a book by Carl Sagan and starring Jodie Foster. It is one of my all-time favorite movies. Foster plays Ellie Arroway a highly-driven, highly rational astronomer searching for extraterrestrial life.

Her ridiculed search becomes an international sensation when her team detects a sentient message coming outer space. The message contains instructions for building a vehicle to rendezvous with the aliens. After a few twists and turns, Arroway winds up being Earth’s representative.

Her spiritual skepticism is tested when she has a profound experience that defies scientific explanation. The following scene includes her voyage to the rendezvous point and her meeting with an alien who represents himself as her father.

The key is the message delivered by the alien about how important we all are. The scene has unforgettable imagery. Enjoy and remember all we have is each other!

Upon return, Arroway has to explain her unprovable experience before a Congressional committee investigating the whole situation as a fraud. She makes an impassioned speech wishing that everyone could see what she has seen.

Stay inspired!

Ray

2009 Affirmation

“This year I am absolutely committed to being the person I came here to be!”

Listening Passively to Affirmations – The Affirmation Spot for Tuesday October 27, 2009

Ray Davis — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:12:04 +0000

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Today’s Affirmation: “Today I make a bold statement. The world deserves the real me and today it gets me.”

Let’s face it. You live in a multi-tasking rich world. You juggle multiple projects at work or school. You have to get the kids to soccer practice and dance practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Tae Kwon Do on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Or is it the other way around? You care for your aging parents. You take the dog for a walk. You try to be a part of your community.

Somewhere in the middle of all of that you try to find time to better yourself and understand the meaning of this crazy world.

I understand. I live that life too. That is why I started The Affirmation Spot. I’ve written, recorded, and used audio affirmations for more than 15 years. The reason I preferred audio affirmations over saying them or reading them is because I could listen to them wherever and whenever I wanted. With the advent of digital media that is more true than ever.

Over the years, I’ve found that passive listening is very effective. You’ve had the experience of hearing a song or a commercial many times – without paying conscious attention – and suddenly one day you’re singing the song or saying the words to the commercial. That’s the result of passive listening. You have unconsciously learned it through repetition. That’s why advertisers run the same commercial on a radio station 20 times a day. That’s why they play Top 40 songs over and over. It’s to unconsciously put them into your head. Passive listening is powerful!

You can use your affirmations the same way. Put your headphones on and listen while you work or play them in the car on the way to Tae Kwon Do. You don’t have to really be listening to get the benefit. Your mind is absorbing them. Sometimes it’s even better than conscious listening because you’re not really questioning as much.

Pretty soon you’ll find yourself saying the positive words to an affirmation when a negative situation arises because, like the song, you have unconsciously absorbed it. Unlike the song, though, it brings real benefit to your life.

Be positive Be peaceful Be prosperous!

Ray

Turning Doubt Into a Useful Tool – The Affirmation Spot for Monday October 19, 2009

Ray Davis — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:39:01 +0000

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Doubt Affirmation: “Doubt may be my constant companion, but it will NEVER be my master.”

Check out Daretowish.com for products with this design.

When discussing a word it always helps to understand its orgin. The word doubt comes from the Old French douter from the Latin dubitare – which means “to hesitate, waiver”. A concept of fear was attached to the word’s meaning in its Old French incarnation and that meaning made its way into the English definition. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

A modern definition is: “to be uncertain, consider questionable or unlikely, hesitate to believe, to distrust, to fear or be apprehensive about.”

The fact is that we live in a world full of uncertainty. Some doubt is normal and natural. The trouble comes when doubt paralyzes; when you take up residence in a constant state of doubt. When that happens you find it hard to move on to acceptance or trust.

Doubt has long been recognized as an obstacle to growth or progress. Buddha named doubt one of the Five Hindrances that prevent enlightenment. Modern psychotherapy has developed cognitive and behavioral approaches to dealing with doubt. Many motivational speakers and teachers encourage us to find ways to overcome doubt.

Doubt has also occasionally been a stepping stone to deeper understanding such as in the case of the Christian Apostle Thomas. He required rational proof of Jesus’ post-Crucifixion appearances and even had to see the holes in Jesus’ hands to believe. Some rationalists extol doubt as a necessary part of weighing evidence and coming to a rational conclusion based upon it.

So, given these differing views of doubt, how can you come to terms with it and use it? I’m not sure it’s healthy or productive to try to remove doubt from your life. It is a natural part of being human. What you can do is make peace with it and use to your advantage.

My answer is to let a focused doubt run wild in your life! Doubt your weaknesses, doubt your fears, doubt your doubts. Just never doubt yourself.

Doubt is not the challenge. The challenge is what you choose to focus your doubt on. The tendency is to doubt the good things about yourself or your circumstances and believe the “realistic” or negative aspects. Turn that on its head by using “the power of doubt” to eat away at your obstacles and challenges rather than your dreams and your belief.

Why fight this natural human tendency when by directing it appropriately you can use it as a tool to improve your circumstances? So become a doubter of every negative, disempowering thought you think and watch your positives grow.

Stay inspired!

Ray

2009 Affirmation

“I am absolutely committed to being the person I came here to be!”

Kansas State Win Demonstration of Not Giving Up – The Affirmation Spot for Sunday October 18, 2009

Ray Davis — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:29:29 +0000

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Belief Affirmation: “Others can count me out, but my belief is the only thing that counts!”

(AP) Kansas State Football Coach Bill Snyder coaches players from the sideline during KSU's 62-14 victory of over Texas A&M

As a coach who took the Kansas State football program from the basement of college football to parties in the penthouse during the 1990s, Coach Bill Snyder knows a little about not giving up. When he came out of retirement this year to try to revive his beloved KSU football program, there were many reasons to doubt that even he could succeed.

Thus far the K-State season has had its ups and downs. Last week’s 66-14 loss in Lubbock to Texas Tech was a definite down. Given the challenges being faced by the program, a loss like that could have caused this team to fold its tent for the season.

Not on Bill Snyder’s watch! Kudos to Coach Snyder and his team for an outstanding demonstration of not giving up Saturday night. Snyder certainly added a chapter to his legendary ability to get his teams prepared to play.

After last week’s loss to Texas Tech, the Wildcats found themselves a touchdown underdog at home against Texas A&M.

Doubt could have crept in. Effort could have gone AWOL. Performance could have tanked. Instead, the Wildcats came out and absolutely dominated the Aggies. The 62-14 stunner has to rank as one of the largest one week turnarounds in college football history.

It would have been easy for K-State to count itself out. What a wonderful example of not doing so. After all, a loss is simply – L essons and O bstacles preparing me for S tunning S uccesses! Every struggle has within it the seeds of a massive triumph.

Have you had a setback or a big loss? Remember that with determination it is always possible to turn things around. Sometimes more quickly than anyone expects.

Stay inspired!

Ray

2009 Affirmation

“I am absolutely committed to being the person I came here to be!”

Where Peace Begins – The Affirmation Spot for Tuesday October 13, 2009

Ray Davis — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:15:27 +0000

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Peace Affirmation: “Peace comes to my world one person at a time beginning with me!”

It is my firm belief that 99% of the people who live on this planet get up every morning and have a desire to live in a peaceful world. They are not interested in struggle, strife, or violence. They want to live their lives, raise their children, and enjoy the richness of community.

The problem that humanity faces is knowing how to get there. Where does this peaceful world emerge? How does it overcome centuries of hatred, constant advertiser pandering to selfishness, and greedy hearts? How do the great faiths and philosophies learn to share this planet together?

S.N. Goenka is one of the great teachers of the Buddhist tradition of Vipassana – “Insight meditation”. His message of non-sectarianism and universality is a beginning to the goals we all seek. Following is a brief excerpt from a speech he gave at a U.N. conference back in 2000. He speaks eloquently of the birthplace of peace in our world.

“Conversion,” Goenka says, “should be from the impurity of the mind to purity of the mind.”

Stay inspired!

Ray

2009 Affirmation

“This year I am absolutely committed to being the person I came here to be!”

Overcoming the Fear of Failure – The Affirmation Spot for Monday October 12, 2009

Ray Davis — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 04:03:21 +0000

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“The fear of failure is the shortest route to it.”

~ Ray Davis

I was recently reading an article where they were comparing Japanese and American students’ approaches to learning. The writer pointed out that it is not uncommon to see a Japanese student fail numerous times on his or her way to learning something successfully. In Japan, there is no stigma to failing along the road to success. It is an expected and accepted part of the learning process.

In the United States, we attach a tremendous amount of stigma to failing. So much so that American students are generally not willing to go through the process of failing to learn. American students tend to focus their attention on subjects where they can be successful and shy away from subjects where failure might be involved.

So instead of going through the failure to learn process we often hear our children say things like, “I hate math.” They don’t really mean that they have something personal against math. What they are saying is, “I would have to fail too many times to get math and I’m not willing to do it.”

I’m not here to say that one nation’s approach to learning is superior. However, this fear of failing extends beyond school and impacts our adult life as well. Many people have big dreams or goals they would like to accomplish, but, again, they are still not willing feel the sting of failure to get there. Instead, they learn to play it safe just as their children do with the math.

That’s where my little aphorism at the top comes in. When fear failure so much that we are unwilling to try, unwilling to risk learning new things and failing a little; we cannot achieve our goals and dreams. All because of the stigma of failure.

Recondition yourself to overcome your fear of failure. In an outstanding article, Olimpio Zapanta offers five steps for overcoming the fear of failure.

Divorce failure from your self=esteem.
Failure is not all bad. It can be a great teacher.
Failure and success are intimately linked – failure is often a prerequisite for success.
Successful people fail constantly. That’s how they succeed.
Everything doesn’t have to be perfect before you go for it.

With these five great steps and determination, don’t let the fear of failure sidetrack you from your destiny! Remember that “A Success” is what we call someone who had the courage to persist through failures.

Stay Inspired!

Ray

2009 Affirmation

“This year I am absolutely committed to being the person I came here to be!”