We hope you find this newsletter interesting and useful. Each month, we feature an overview of a different topic, some food for thought, and a smile or two. Enjoy! and please invite others to join the Viewpoints subscription list – it’s an opt-in list on our web site: www.infiniteperspectives.com .

Warmest Regards,

Charles (Charlie) Boyer
Infinite Perspectives, LLC
www.infiniteperspectives.com

CONFLICTING INTENTIONS. Does this ever happen to you? Yesterday, you intended to accomplish a task, but things kept getting in your way. Today, that task is still waiting to be completed. Honestly, how important were those things that kept you from doing what you intended? As Alice sang in Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, “I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.”
Conflicting Intentions has been described as the “physics of self-sabotage.” When we set out to do something – write a letter, clean the garage, start a diet, get on the treadmill – and realize that at the end of the week those tasks are still waiting to be done, what has happened? Conflicting Intentions. We intended to get them done, but somehow managed to get sidetracked in the process. Our good intentions got sabotaged – by US. Remember the old Pogo comic strip? Pogo’s famous line says a whole mouthful: “We has met the enemy, and they is us.”

Think about that. When we talk ourselves out of doing what we intended, we indeed become our own worst enemy. That behavior doesn’t happen by accident. It is the result of Conflicting Intentions, another form of Negative Conditioning. When we start out to accomplish something really great, and then start listening to the “yeah, buts” – those annoying little nay-saying voices that talk us out of what we intended to do, what happens? NOTHING!
Nothing! No Thing! The more you let that happen to you, the more you become accustomed to “NO.” Want to start a new project? No, can’t do it because… (you name the excuse). Want to get something done? No, can’t do it because… (insert another excuse here). Keep that up, and you will soon be ready to audition for the commercial that features the “NO” man.

Overcoming inertia is so hard. Think of your best creative idea as positive energy. Next, imagine that all the “NO” energy is a strong magnet pulling against all that positive energy. What’s the result? The negative tends to cancel the positive, and you are left with a flat line – the Status Quo. Remember that quote by humorist Jim Boren? “Status Quo is the epoxy that greases the wheels of progress.”

What happens when people live by conflicting intentions? They . . .

• Put up with being stuck
• Continue to procrastinate
• Continue to make excuses
• Have goals (somewhere) but can’t seem to find them
• Have a long “to do” list, rather than a “ta-da!” list of accomplishments

What do people DO when they have good intentions? They . . .

• Think about what they will do
• Imagine or envision themselves being successful
• Talk about their plans with others, positively and energetically
• Set goals and action steps
• Create affirmations for their actions

Want to turn your “to-do” into “ta-da!” ??? Get some coaching on how to conquer your conflicting intentions.

Dr. Wayne Dyer’s book, The Power of Intention, helps re-define the view of “intention” from a determination to succeed at all costs to a creative force in the universe that allows the act of creation to take place. Dr. Dyer wrote, “You must match intention’s attributes with your own in order to capitalize on those powers in your life.”

Here’s another book that’s chock-full of good thoughts about making the most of who you are and what you can do: Don Miguel Ruiz’s book, The Four Agreements.

The Four Agreements are:

1. Be Impeccable with Your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean.
2. Don’t Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality.
3. Don’t Make Assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want.
4. Always Do Your Best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick.

RESOURCES:
Dyer, Wayne. The Power of Intention. Carlsbad, CA, Hay House, Inc. 2004. ISBN 1-4019-0216-2
Leonard, Thomas. The Portable Coach. New York, NY: Scribner, 1998. ISBN 0-684-85041-9.
Ruiz, Don Miguel. The Four Agreements. San Rafael, CA: Amber-Allen Publishing, 1997. ISBN 1-878424-31-9.

IT’S ABOUT TIME. Take a piece of paper or a sticky note, and write this down in large characters:

86,400

Take a good look at it. What does that number mean to you? It’s something we all have in the same amount, every day. These are the number of seconds in a day. How will you spend these seconds each day? At the end of the day, those unspent seconds disappear. They can’t be saved for another day. Here’s a beautiful mini-movie that tells a powerful story in some well-chosen words, good pictures and calming music: www.thetimemovie.com by Scott Stratten. Hope you enjoy it!

Some Thoughts . . .
All that we do is touched with ocean, yet we remain on the shore of what we know. (Richard Wilburn)

We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them. (Abigail Adams)

Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it’s when you had everything to do, and you've done it. (Margaret Thatcher)


Special Opportunity: How attractive are you? Want to learn the secrets of attracting more clients and customers to your business? Join this teleclass series – four Tuesday evenings in April – to learn Thomas Leonard’s 28 Principles of Attraction. The class is limited to 12 participants so that everyone will get individual attention during the calls. Interested? Send an e-mail to coacharlie@comcast.net for details and enrollment information.

NEXT MONTH: Resisting Change. The world is in a constant state of change, yet we tend to want to keep things the same. We know that change is ever-present, yet we find it difficult to embrace change. What changes are you resisting? What is it in your life you don’t want to change, even though change is coming?

Infinite Perspectives, LLC provides coach-based consulting to business and educational leaders who want to create programs of excellence, to individuals facing major changes in their lives (Retirement, Relocation, Restart), and to those who are hitting walls of resistance and want to find windows of opportunity. Visit us at www.infiniteperspectives.com to discover how coach-based consulting can help you make a difference.
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