Dare to be different! One of the saddest things that I witness on a regular basis is people attempting to fit in — trying their hardest to be like everyone else. There is a reason trying to be like everyone else seems so difficult and uncomfortable — you were not designed to be like anyone else on this planet. You are unique in some very important ways that determine your complete makeup as a person.
When you attempt to squeeze into a box that was not designed to hold your massive potential, you force your potential to go dormant and unactualized. You literally squeeze the vastness of your existence into something that is not designed to hold or support it. Dare to be different. Dare to live in the fullness of your design. Dare to become the fullest expression of your potential and purpose. Dare to step outside of the marginal expectations that others have placed on you to live in the effusiveness of your God-given capacity to elevate and become great.
Dare to Be Different!
Your voluminous potential is pregnant with awesome wonders and extraordinary accomplishments, but in order to birth these things, you must be willing to escape the proclivity to bend toward mediocrity for the sake of fitting in. There is nothing honorable about making yourself small in order to make others more comfortable in your presence. There is nothing befitting your purpose and potential about the complacency so common in a culture that is replete with mediocre performers who take solace in being average.
There is nothing respectable about being average. “Average” is a human default reality. If you simply wake up every day and do what everyone else is doing, you will definitely be average. Being average does not require any great effort of focus. It does not require focus and commitment. You can sleep in and be average. You can show up late to work and be average. You can whine and complain and be average, but if you want to experience achieving the level of phenomenal, then you better be prepared to get up earlier than everyone else. You better be prepared to raise your standards higher than others. You better be prepared to spend more alone time with yourself, as you will inherently separate yourself from the pack. Dare to be different.
The people that you look at and admire now are visible to you because they chose to be different. They stand out and tower among most people because they chose to do things differently. If you want to live a life that most people are not able to live, then you have to be willing to do things that most people are not willing to do — dare to be different. ~ Rick Wallace, Ph.D., Psy.D.
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Redefining Your Self Concept & Centering In on Your Destiny will open an entirely new world up for you. When you learn how to control your thoughts, there is absolutely nothing in this world that you cannot achieve. Most people walk around their entire life living a life that has been defined by someone else’s opinion of them.
Often, when I work with certain clients at The Visionetics Institute, I literally have to help them redefine their self-concept — how they view themselves in relationship to the world around them. Far too many people live within the confines of boxes that others have placed them in — often responding to names, titles, monikers, and associations that are not conducive to achieving massive success.
If you are a person who consistently finds yourself wanted more but struggling to get past the limited and low expectations that consistently govern your life, then you need to redefine your self-concept, which will completely shift the manner in which you view the world around you.
Your mind is infinitely powerful in what it is able to create, but it is neutral in that capacity until you set the direction you will travel with the beliefs and expectations that you have for your life. If you want something more, if you want something different, then you are going to have to change how you see yourself, which will immediately impact what you think about yourself and the world around you. When effectively reconstruct your self-concept in a manner that explores your power to effectively impact and change the world around you, you will learn that you are never stuck in any given situation. You have the power within you to change it, no matter what it is.
Maybe you are a person that believes that your background is what is holding you back from achieving your dreams and pursuing your passions. You have bought into the idea that because you come from a state of poverty, or you never knew your father or mother, or you struggled with your grades in school that you are trapped in a life of mediocrity and substandard living. But, you could not be further from the truth.
Where you come from does not determine where you are going, you do that. The only thing that your origin has to do with your destiny is that it tells you how far you have to go in order to get there. Where you start in life simply establishes how far you have to go to get where it is you want to go.
When you set your mind that you are going somewhere and know within yourself that it is possible. That commitment, that personal decision to go all-in will literally move the universe to bend to your will. The universe will literally conspire on your behalf to bring you the things that you demand of it no matter how outrageous it may seem to others.
You are truly the author of your destiny and the master of your fate! ~ Rick Wallace, Ph.D., Psy.D.
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By Rick Wallace, Ph.D., Pys.D. | Courtesy of Visionetics 2020 | Dec. 26, 2016
Creating an Optimal Future for Yourself
While many people will use the phrase, “you are what you think,” very few actually take the time to truly consider the impact of the their thoughts on a daily basis. Scientists suggest that the average human being processes between 40,000 and 50,000 thoughts per day. What this means is that even when we are not aware of it, our subconscious is at work processing what is known as cognitions — subconscious or unconscious thoughts. It is important to understand that while we may not be aware — at least on a conscious level — of all the thoughts that are being processed by our subconscious, we have the capacity to control the type of thoughts and how they are interpreted.
Actually, there is an epochal amount of truth embedded in the statement “you are what you think,” your thoughts are the seeds of ultimate manifestation. In other words, your thoughts are the staging ground and the catalyst for what you will ultimately become. Whenever clients contact me to be a part of my Visionetics 2020 program, I immediately emphasize the fact that the reason they are where they currently are is because of who they are. You don’t get what you want or wish for out of life; you get what you are. If you don’t have the things that you want out of life, it is because you have not become the person who is capable of obtaining them.
When you determine that it is time for a change in your life, you must begin with changing how you think. Why is changing your thought processes so important? Your thought processes govern your belief system, and your belief system is the conduit through which paradigms are created, and finally, paradigms are the lenses through which we interpret life. So, our thoughts will determine if we view life from the position of a victim or a victor. It will determine whether we see life as happening to us or responding to us.
Creating an Optimal Future for Yourself
Changing your thoughts will help develop and change who you are in multitudinous ways. There are two distinctive ways that this happens. Let’s take a quick look at both.
Feeding & Nurturing the Subconscious
The reason that my Elevation and Empowerment course has proven to be so successful is because it uses, as one of its primary components, cognitive enhancement techniques. The cognitive enhancement process takes into consideration that cognitive biases and cognitive distortions can directly impact the social mobility and mental health of an individual. This is one of my areas of expertise. My research and dissertation for my doctorate in psychology was conducted in this area. In fact, my research produced several theories — two of which being Cognitive Bias Syndrome and Collective Dominative Cognitive Bias Syndrome — explaining how both, individuals and groups can develop negative social paradigms that lead to poor decision making and erroneous behavior.
When I encounter a client who is in need of behavioral adjustments, unlike many of my colleagues, I do not start with habitual adjustments — changing behavioral habits at the superficial level. When habitual behavior is addressed at an adumbrated level, the changes are harder to take hold, and the person will usually revert back to the original habits under pressure. Instead, I work on using the conscious mind to influence the subconscious mind, which will subsequently and inherently influence the spirit of the person. Ignoring the spiritual element of our holistic existence is another way that many of my colleagues fall short. We are holistic in our existence — consisting of a body, mind, soul and spirit. What I have discovered is that whatever the subconscious is fed consistently, will, in turn, be fed to the spirit. This particular interaction between the subconscious and the spirit are prodigious.
As the spirit develops in a positive way, as it is being fed positive thoughts and beliefs about the person through the subconscious, it develops the capacity to provide a new and more powerful type of vision. I call this type of vision, spiritual vision. Spiritual vision has the capacity to see beyond what physical vision can see. While a person’s physical sight can only see the facts associated with any particular circumstance or situation, spiritual sight has the capacity to see those things that have not yet manifested themselves within the physical realm, but are just as real as the facts being presented by the current situation. In other words, while losing your job and being behind in mortgage payments and car note payments presents a gloomy outlook, a spirit that has been conditioned to believe that your destiny of greatness, prosperity and success has been set and guaranteed, will interpret the reality of the circumstance as a temporal challenge in which you have the capacity to overcome. In essence, the spirit will disagree with or override the circumstance. This is the power of properly training the subconscious by guarding what it is being fed consistently.
The Reticular Activating System
The truth is that you are creating your future constantly and consistently — each and every day. Your thoughts are literally writing the narrative of your future life. According to Ernest Holmes, “life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.” Your thoughts are the staging ground and catalyst for the perpetuation of actions, beliefs, feelings, values, goals and dreams. It is important to understand that this is happening regardless of the level of consciousness and awareness you have of the fact that it is taking place.
Basically, the combination of your present moment awareness, conjoined with the future that is created through your thoughts is actually the totality of the aggregate sum of your subconscious programming. This is why it is so important to guard your gates — those openings to your soul — the eyes and ears. What you allow to infiltrate your subconscious on a frequent basis will create an involuntary response in which beliefs will be developed to align with the information received by the subconscious. Finally, in order to maintain sanity, you will naturally perpetuate behavior that is in alignment with the reality created by your subconscious.
To further assist in this adaptation, the human brain is equipped with a mechanism known as the reticular activating system. The reticular activating system can be viewed as a mediator of your future goals and dreams. The RAS functions as a filter between the subconscious and the conscious mind. When your conscious mind perceives an idea or belief, it is passed to the subconscious through the RAS.
Allow me to elucidate what I am attempting to convey here. The RAS is a biological function that takes whatever the conscious is focusing upon or thinking about and transmits it to the subconscious mind where the thought or focus will reproduce itself through physical manifestation at a future date and time. Have you ever had a situation in which you noticed something for the first time — a new car, watch, shirt, etc. — and you decided that you wanted one? Then, all of a sudden, every time you look up you see it. It is not that it started to appear more, it has always been there. The difference is that your thoughts and focus has indicated that you are interested in it, and so the RAS and your subconscious will work to identify it every time it or an opportunity to have it presents itself.
Understanding how the RAS works illuminates the importance of managing your thoughts, ideas and belief systems, because it will reproduce and illuminate what you give gravity to. If you place an emphasis on financial literacy and building wealth, it will continuously identify opportunities for you to do so.
There is so much more to the idea of thought management, but the two concepts presented here will give you, at least, a limited perspicacity of the power of your thoughts to shape your future. You cannot have the things you desire until you become the person who has the capacity to achieve and obtain them. You cannot become that person until you master your thoughts to align with the values, behaviors and habits of the successful person who is capable of having all that you desire. At the end of the day, you are writing the narrative of your life with every thought you process. ~ Rick Wallace, Ph.D., Psy.D.
Positive Thinking: The First Step in Changing Your Life
You are What You Think!
Positive Thinking: The First Step in Changing Your Life ~ Life is both, highly complex and immensely simple. The key to successfully navigating it is to understand when things need to be simplified and when they need to be anatomized. I have invested a substantial amount of my time to understanding human behavior — how to evaluate it, as well as how to help others change it in order to achieve optimal results out of their goals and actions. While human behavior, and the catalysts behind it, is highly complex, the manner in which you change it is actually very simple, at the core.
The most common question I receive from people who approach me for impromptu advice is: How do I get better results out of my efforts? — Or something to that nature. Many of these individuals are quite surprised when my response is so simple: change the way you are thinking. They normally follow with a subsequent question that inquires as to how I can possibly know that it is their thinking without having spent any time with them. My response is also succinct and to the point: It is always your thoughts that are the seed of your reality. Simply put, your thoughts, mixed with emotion, are the foundation of your reality.
It is impossible to think negative thoughts and live a positive and productive life. The entire universe responds to the energy you emit as a result of your beliefs, and your beliefs are established, cultivated and shaped by your thoughts. So, the results you get in life, business, relationships, and more, are all a byproduct of the beliefs that are the results of your thinking.
I have a concept I call “minding your reality,” which gets people to focus on the cognitive influences that have a massive impact on their reality. Many times people have cognitive biases that are founded upon negativity, and they may be influenced by past experiences, or they could be the result of consistent exposure to negative stimuli. When a person suffers from negative cognitive bias to the point that it negatively influences their social functionality, financial progress, and more, I call it Cognitive Bias Syndrome — meaning that the combination of multiple negative biases has created a systematic thought process that leads the person to expect negative results.
Allow me to elucidate my point. You should view life as being cyclical, and in this constant cycle beliefs are inextricably linked to manifested results in life.
Your beliefs establish paradigms through which you view life. It is these paradigms that dictate how you feel about each situation you encounter — because you will interpret every situation based on the beliefs that you used to construct your current paradigm.
Your beliefs also impact your emotions, which play a direct role in how well you perform in any given situation. If you are negative, or even capricious, in your thinking, it will negatively impact your emotions — minimizing your ability to perform optimally.
While there are many factors that impact your results in life, the vast majority are exogenous in nature, meaning that you have very little influence on them. The only factor that you have 100 percent control over is your performance; however, if your thinking has tainted your beliefs, it has negatively impacted your self-confidence. Your mental attitude, which is directly correlated with your thoughts, not only impacts your ability to perform, but it impacts how others perceive and receive you. How you feel about yourself will determine how others perceive you.
Here is where the cycle comes into play. Not only does your thinking directly impact your performance, but your performance will reinforce your thinking. So, if you think negative, it will produce substandard results, and those results, will serve to reinforce your thinking.
This vicious cycle of poor thinking produces poor performances, which in turn reinforce poor thinking — creating the need to be addressed at the source — which is your thoughts. Because people lack a reasonable perspicacity of the manner in which their thinking impacts their reality, they often focus on the idea of persistence and hard work. While I am a firm believer in taking an implacable stance to achieving goals, pressing inexorably through every obstacle, the action must be accompanied by expectation of success. It does not matter how hard you work if you already believe that you are going to fail.
The hard work provides the force and momentum, but it is your thinking that provides the direction. No matter how hard you try, you cannot produce positive results from negative thinking.
Here is something to think about as well. It becomes easier to grasp the concept that thinking manifests reality when you understand that your physical reality is not the ultimate influence of your existence. Your physical reality, everything that is tangible and measurable, exists in the third dimension, but the third dimension is simply the physical manifestation of a reality that was initially created in the fourth and fifth dimensions. You create your reality by first conceptualizing it in your thoughts and then birthing it in either the fourth of fifth dimensions, and then your work and efforts bring the physical manifestation into the third dimension — your reality.
If I could simplify the equation even further, I would say that you will always get what you expect, so to change the results you have to chance the expectations. I work with a wide range of people from multitudinous backgrounds, and when I work with people of faith, I always remind them that God will always meet them at the level of their expectations.
You will be surprised at how many people consistently cling to negative thoughts. How many times have you heard the following statements, or even spoke one or more of them yourself?
I can’t win for losing.
Mondays (insert any day) are always so depressing
The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.
Nothing good ever happens to me.
Life sucks and then you die.
The way that you counter negative beliefs is to begin to adopt new beliefs. I am an avid believer that every person has a purpose and a genius to facilitate that purpose; therefore, mediocrity is a choice, not a lot in life. The moment that you begin to fill your life with positive thoughts that foster positive beliefs and expectations, you will immediately begin to fill your load becoming lighter. This does not mean that there will not be difficulties and challenges, but it means that you will view those challenges differently. You will engage the challenges expecting to win. Following are some beliefs that you can start developing by speaking each at least three times per day.
I take full responsibility for my results.
I always act on purpose.
I push myself past previously self-imposed limits.
I refuse to accept the limits placed on me by others.
I will not wait for the perfect moment, I will take action now.
I will not fear failure, because failure is a competent teacher.
I will only be motivated and inspired by negative feedback; I will get better.
I will guard my mind and body against anything that will harm its capacity to perform optimally.
This is just a few affirmations that you can start using to train your thinking. Monitor your thinking and speech carefully to identify things that you are thinking and saying that could be negatively impacting you.
I will leave you with this one truth that I hope serves as the theme of this short treatise — you are what you think! ~ Rick Wallace, Ph.D., Psy.D.
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Overcoming Procrastination in Order to Achieve Excellence
One of the most inhibiting forces that stop people from actualizing and maximizing their potential is procrastination. Many of you who are reading this article are currently procrastinating about engaging something that you have wanted to do for years. Procrastination can be the result of fear, which we will address shortly. Procrastination seemingly offers the convenience of putting off for tomorrow what should be done today, but actually, it is worse. Procrastination is actually the manifestation of fear, the lack of desire, uncertainty or indecision.
The Reason That it is Important to Overcome Procrastination
One common issue is that many people don’t view procrastination as a problem, but they see it more as a relief mechanism that allows them to avoid those things that they are uncomfortable doing. The problem is growth is not developed within the confines of comfort, it is developed in the fertile soil of adversity. One thing that I have learned in working with people is that most of them are aware of the promise of their potential. They understand that they have the potential to accomplish some extraordinary things, and they want nothing more than to realize the promise of their potential; however, they lack a lucid perspicacity of the principal of “process.” The principal of process dictates that the promise associated with potential can only be achieved through “process.” So, before there can be an attainment of the promise, there must first be an endurance of the process — meaning that there will be some difficulty, disappoint failure and struggle along the way. Most people look to circumvent the process. They want the promise, but they are unwilling to engage the process. This is futile!
Procrastinating may allow you to avoid the vicissitudes and conflict associated with your destiny, but it also blocks you from actualizing your potential and achieving your destiny.
Procrastination — Symptom of an Underlying Issue
One of the first steps in overcoming procrastination is to understand that it is not the issue, but a symptom of an underlying issue — in most cases, fear and uncertainty. In fact, most negative overt behavior is actually the manifestation of symptoms that are indicative of underlying issues that may not be visibly clear. So, as with any negative condition, the best modality for dealing with procrastination is to deal with it at the source — meaning you must discover what it is that is causing you to procrastinate in the first place.
While many consultants and coaches will suggest the implementation of self-discipline practices and time management measures, I prefer to deal with the issue at the source. Implementing superficial mechanisms, such as time management and self-discipline models, will provide some level of improvement, but it is like putting ointment on a mosquito bite. The itching may stop momentarily, but if the mosquito remains in the room, it is likely that you will be bitten again. By getting rid of the mosquito and taking the necessary steps to ensure that more mosquitos can’t get in, you effectively put a stop to the existing problem.
Procrastination is primarily driven by two powerful elemental forces, desire, and fear. Desire serves as a type of fuel or catalyst for progression or moving forward. Where there is no desire, there will be a lack of motivation to achieve anything. Fear can be viewed as a fog that has the capacity to completely surround a desire and quench or stifle it. For most people, fear is always present, but it is when fear becomes greater than desire that procrastination enters the picture.
When I engage a client, a take a dichotomous approach, looking for ways to minimize fear, while maximizing desire. Something else that is worth mentioning is that it is necessary to underwrite desire with purpose because that desire that is superficial will dissipate when challenged. Desire that is underwritten by purpose will be fueled by the passion that is inextricably connected to that purpose. There is no greater force than “purpose” to drive a person toward excellence and their destiny.
Suffering from a Lack of Desire
As much as fear can be an inhibiting force in slowing progression and growth, it is possible to have a lack of desire outside of the presence of fear. While there are multitudinous causes for the lack of desire, the most common reason is a disinterest in the task or responsibility in question. This is seen often when people are attempting to pursue paths that others have chosen for them. It is immensely difficult to become motivated to do something that you are not passionate about. Success is hard work, and it requires perseverance and endurance, and the lack of desire born from disinterest will cripple progression.
This is why it is important for you to follow your own inner compulsions that manifest themselves as desires. No one else can live your life, and, for this reason, they should not be allowed to choose the path that you must take. You must choose your path, and that path should be clearly aligned with your desires, passions, and values.
Dealing with Fear
Fear is the second underlying cause of procrastination, and if the level of fear that a person is experiencing is high enough, it can literally paralyze them. In fact, a person can have a desire to accomplish a certain task, but if their fear is stronger than their desire, they will be compelled to procrastinate. Fear can manifest itself in any number of ways, fear of pain, fear of hardship, fear of failure, fear of uncertainty, fear of not having control, fear of public opinion, fear of rejection or the fear of being alone.
While it can seem bizarre that fear would play such a major role in determining whether a person will take action to pursue their dreams and visions or not, if you would carefully examine and anatomize the areas in your life in which you are procrastinating, you will discover that fear is an integral part of that process of procrastination.
The key is to determine why you are procrastinating. Is it a lack of desire, or are you suffering from fear, or it may be a combination of both? Once you have identified the source, you must confront it rationally and deliberately. This does not mean that you move into the realm of denial, pretending that the impediment is not real. If you have a lack of desire or a significant and unhealthy fear, it is paramount that you address it, and take the necessary steps to move beyond it. In the coming days. I will be contributing some simple steps that people can use to help them move past the impediment of procrastination, by dealing with the lack of desire and fear that is at the core of the problem.
It may be necessary for you to seek the help of a professional therapist or life coach, depending on the depth of your particular issues. The truth is that no matter how bad it may seem, you can get past it; however, the journey to elevation is not one of ease and comfort, and it also does not serve the risk averse well at all. You are going to have to be willing to put some skin in the game. If you are serious about living life at the level of your design, you may be an ideal candidate for my Elevation & Empowerment course. In this course, I will work directly with you to determine the source of your lack of progress, and help you discover and implement solutions that will allow you to experience next level living. ~ Dr. Rick Wallace, Ph.D.
I love the points that Tyrese makes in this video. They are straight forward and extremely powerful. The simplistic point made in this message is that we need to raise our level of living. I speak on this continually when I speak of living at the level of our design. I love when he says, “I learned to dream with my eyes open.” That is so powerful. There are many with dreams that are idle or incapacitated because they are dreaming with their eyes closed. They have an idea of who they are and where they want to go, but their eyes are closed so they miss opportunities and they are easily misled.
Another key element to next level living is a passion to impact the lives of others. It is not simply about achieving, but using your success to be a positive influence in the lives of others. When you live to touch the lives of others, you find that your vision opens up and your path becomes clearer. This does not mean that it becomes easier, but there is less clutter and uncertainty.
I encourage each one of you to dare to live at the level of your design. ~ Dr. Rick Wallace
I am extremely excited about the possibilities associated with this new Elevation and Empowerment 2014 course that we are launching tomorrow. This is an individual one on one intense life transformation course that will challenge you in ways that you never thought possible while taking you places you never knew existed. God has a plan for you life and He wants to engage you at a level of intimacy in which He can elevate your level of living in a manner in which you will effectively represent who He is. I invite those who are really committed to living life at the next level to be a part of this. Watch this short video to learn more. Talk with you soon! ~ Dr.Rick Wallace
