Having listened to Brian Tracy’s ‘Psychology of Achievement’ on audio CD, and thought it was packed full of great information. Personally to get the most of these audio materials, I need to listen to the material at least twice. Writing notes as listening also helps.
So I’ve decided to write notes on this audio series.
Just a few initial notes/feelings about the program: The concepts presented, are a little meta-physical, and may seem ‘out there’. On another note, by the end of the presentation, it’s clear that Brian is religious. At first the religious references are scattered but worthy of the topic. By the end of the program there is (in my opinion) a little too much religious correlations. It didn’t by no means take away from the message. It just clearly evident (to me), and felt that it wasn’t really necessary.
Track 01:
Brian describes success in six requirements.
01. Piece of mind: simply defined as freedom from fear, freedom from anger, freedom from guilt. The feeling of going to sleep at night in complete harmony, and waking up in the same state of mind.
02. High levels of health and energy: if we don’t have our health an energy to enjoy our lives, we don’t get much satisfaction out of life.
03. Loving relationships: the ability to enter and maintain mature, intimate, long term, loving relationships with other people. As soon as we reach a comfortable level of piece of mind, and a certain level of health and energy, our minds automatically turn to loving relationships with other people.
04. Financial freedom: having enough money to not worry about money. Not being pre-occupied about where money will come from for our next bill, rent, etc .
05. Worthy goals and ideals : personal meaning and purpose.
06. Feeling of personal fulfillment: Feeling of becoming all the we can become as human beings. fulfilling our potential .
As humans we take 30, 40 or 50 years to learn how to ‘operate’ and it’s too late in life. This course serves as an ‘instructional manual’ to get maximum performance out of ourselves.
Two things we need : Understanding of our being, and effort to apply the learned things.
Several basic laws (laws used loosely; more like principles)
Law of Control : Degree of control that we feel that we have, is in direct proportion to the amount of mental health that we have. We feel good about selves to the exact degree to which we feel that we ate in control of our lives. Difference between internal locus of control (feeling of being behind the steering wheel of our own lives), and external locus of control (feeling that someone/something else is controlling our lives).
Control begins with our thoughts, which controls our feelings, which leads how we perform and our actions.
Law of Accident : This law states that there is no way that we can control what happens to us. This is wrong. Vast majority of people live by this principle. Common expressions: Being in the right place at the right time. It’s the way the cookie crumbles. Its now that you know, its who you know. Everything just happens by accident.
No goals past the short term, no plans, don’t feel they are in control of their own destiny and they jope that everything works out.
By failing to plan, they are planning to fail.
Law of Cause and Effect : Opposite of Law of accident. For every effect in our lives, there is a specific cause. If you don’t like the effect (your situation), it is up to us to figure out the cause, and change the cause. Wether or not we know what the cause is, there is a reason for everything that happens.
It’s our responsibility to understand what controls our destiny, and control the causes to change the effects in our lives.
One major point – Thoughts are causes, and conditions are effects. Our thoughts are always the primary causes of the conditions or effects of our lives. If we want our life to be different in the future, we need to change our thinking in the present thus changing the direction of our lives.
Three mental laws:
Law of belief : Whatever you believe with feeling becomes your reality. You are the sum total of your beliefs up to this moment. Your beliefs form a screen of logic or prejudices through which you see the entire world. You never allow in any information which is inconsistent with your beliefs. Even if you have beliefs that are totally inconsistent with reality, to the degree to which you believe these things to be true, they become true for you.
The most useful application : If we have self limiting beliefs, regardless if they are based on reality, the degree to which we believe them, they become true for us. Most of the beliefs that we have that limit, or impair our abilities which are limiting, are not base on reality at all. They are based on information we taken in over our lifetime from numerous sources and to the degree to which we believe them they become true for us, and we live in a manner consistent with those beliefs. Our mind edits out/refuses to allow in any evidence/information that is contrary to what we have decided to believe.
Track 02:
Law of Expectations : Whatever we expect with confidence becomes our own reality/self fulfilling prophecy. People who enjoy high levels of accomplishment are continually talking to and about themselves as though they expected things to work out well, and are continuously looking forward to good things happening for them. People with unhappy lives, are continuously talking about the future turning out poorly.
Expectations have a powerful effect/impact on our relationships with others, and what we become in our lives. The expectations don’t need to be based on true information.
Three key areas:
Expectations our parents have/had of us, have a dramatic impact on how we perform today.
Expectations we have of the people/children who look up to us. People who look up to us always try to fulfill our expectations of them whether they are positive or negative. Always expect the very best of those looking up to you.
Expectations that we have of ourselves. We always tend to fulfill our own expectations of ourselves whether they are positive or negative, high or low. Always expect the best of ourselves. Always expect ourselves to grow, to get better, to improve, to throw off past mistakes and failures.
Law of Attraction : each human being is a magnet, which attract people and circumstances that harmonize with our dominant thoughts. Our lives are surrounded by people and representations of our dominant thought patterns. To attract different people, circumstances, different events we need to change the content of our conscious mind.
Earl Nightingale : “You become what you think about”
“You are not what you think you are, but what you think, you are.”
Attitude : A positive mental attitude is absolutely indispensable pre-requisite for success. A study at Harvard U cane to the conclusion that 85% of everything a person would accomplish (finance, money, success, prestige, status) after they left Harvard U would be based on their attitude, and only 15% on their aptitude or ability. 94% of executives in Fortune 500 companies attributed their success more to attitude then to any other ingredient.
Attitudes come from expectations about outcomes. If we expect things to come out well, we have positive outcomes. If we expect things to turn out poorly, we have negatives attitudes.
What winners do is manufacture their own positive expectations in advance of the event, even though they have no information upon which to base it. Make a habbit of always expecting the very best to come out of everything we do.
Expectations come from beliefs. Fundamental beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. Expectations are manufactured to the degree to which we believe the source.
Beliefs come from self concept. We always perform in a manner consistent with our self concept. Our self concept is the combination of all the ideas, thought, experiences, that comes together to form a composite image of the person we believe ourselves to be, and we always act in a manner consistent with it.
There is a direct relationship between our level of performance/level of effectiveness and our self concept/our concept of ourselves. We never perform at a higher level then our self concept level of performance.
Track 03:
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