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Daily Nugget of Gold 636

Generous Hugs

Hugging is one of the best ways of showing another we care. With a big hug, we connect with others in a way that we can’t otherwise. A hug can show appreciation, love, value, respect, and kindness. A hug can be a way to show someone who is hurting that you care about them and what they’re going through. A big hug can say goodbye with meaning, and greet someone who has been away for a bit with warmth. Hugs can communicate “warm fuzzies” from one person to another. What are “warm fuzzies”? That’s the feeling you get when anyone does anything for you or you do something for them that makes us or them feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

We should know that not everyone likes hugs but there are ways to tell if your hug or attempted hug isn’t being received well. If someone stiffens when you are hugging them, that’s a sign to back off. If someone only embraces you very lightly, that’s another sign. Of course, you can take the guess work out of it by avoiding the spontaneous route and asking first. Another way of asking is to throw your arms open wide and approach the other person, if they don’t reciprocate you can transform into a handshake or a fist bump. Keep in mind if you are a guy and you only hug pretty women, you’re headed for trouble.

Don’t get hung up on rejection, however. If you do, you’ll be too introverted to do this right. Your focus needs to be helping other people and making them feel good- and the while it feels good physically to give or get a hug with most people, your goal here is communication, not physical contact. Part of the proof of this should be in what you write when you come across a person either by texting, emailing, writing or whatever- you can express hugs like this: ((())) or a big hug like ((((())))), you get the idea.

Lastly, you may think you aren’t a person who enjoys doing this, and what you think becomes your reality so you’d be right. Change your reality by telling yourself, “I like hugs, I like giving and receiving hugs because it shows people we care” over and over and begin by starting small. Adding this new dimension to your communication toolbox will likely make a huge difference in your reach and depth in how you perceive others and how they see you, too.

Question of the Day to Ask Ourselves

“How can I be more of a hugging type of person to better express my feelings?”

Copyright 2012 Kevin Littleton, all rights reserved.

Daily Nugget of Gold 635

Application of Gratitude

We’ve written about gratitude before and in doing so we’ve discussed about its importance when we receive anything worthwhile. Sometimes the things we receive aren’t what we expected or not the results we wanted, but we want to be very careful about skipping our application of gratitude for whatever we get. The reason for this is simple, gratitude is to be given when we receive anything of value at all- and most times when we get a result which was not wanted or desired, instead we are also given a learning experience in some way. Further, it’s not unusual at all that what we can learn from such an event is far more valuable than the thing we were seeking. Express your gratitude no matter what the outcome was!

The first step of obtaining what we desire is to be grateful for what we already have. That gratitude we show for our current state of affairs, or the thing we presently possess, or the relationships we have already is extremely important. We cannot look at what we have with contempt and expect to attract to us something better along the same lines because we are in essence saying we don’t appreciate the thing we’ve got now. To our subconscious mind, this means that thing that’s similar to what we have now is not desirable, even if it is better. If we hold a job, for instance, and we are not grateful for the things associated with it, such as- we earn money because of it, and enjoy whatever benefits it provides, then our subconscious mind might try and sabotage our efforts to land that dream job, based on our not being thankful for the current job. Both jobs have much in common, and often times our lack of appreciation of our current job is read by the subconscious mind as a disdain for any job.

Rejoice in the thing you currently have, praise its blessings and forgive its faults. Give thanks for all the good things you have with it and turn your attention on your big dream and as you see it in your mind give thanks that its begun its existence in your mind and is coming into fruition. By being consistent in being grateful for the thing in its current form and the new thing we want, we send no mixed messages to our deeper mind, and it won’t fight us as we go for a better deal.

Look it as a father who gave a son a gift of a car. If the son kept complaining about the car he received, it’s unlikely the father is going to be inclined to give him another. Always be grateful for anything your have, so that we don’t chase away the thing we truly want!

Question of the Day to Ask Ourselves

“How can I maintain an “attitude of gratitude” at all times?”

Copyright 2012 Kevin Littleton, all rights reserved.

Daily Nugget of Gold 634

Spiritual Giving

You’ve always known this about yourself, that you are a spiritual being. The natural order of things in the world we were born into and for the universe itself is abundance. When we are not living in abundance, the reason for that is that we are living in a way which is odds with that natural order of things. Whether you call this nature’s laws or God’s laws, the fact remains that the order of the universe is giving to all living things. We already know what makes us feel good, when we give of ourselves to others, yet so many of us try to fight this off and concentrate our efforts on “what’s in it for me”.

Notice that we feel greedy and selfish whenever we focus all or most of our attention on what we get out of our dealings with others. These feelings often lead to other related states such as jealousy and envy for what someone else is getting or how little someone else is doing if they are a co-worker or working for us. All of these negative emotions begin to gather up others like them under the operation of The Law of Attraction and those attracted thoughts come in multiples to us because of how The Law of Growth comes in an multiplies our negativity further. Even a little bit of focus on “what’s in it for me” triggers massive shifts away from abundance based upon our own thoughts about it. Oh, it’s still possible that you can become rich with money just the same, but you will never be wealthy in all areas of your life.

To live the more abundant life, you want to live in harmony with the natural order of the universe or with God’s laws- whatever you choose to call them- by being a giving spirit. Giving can simply mean giving sincere compliments to people when you notice some genuinely positive trait about them, or genuine and sincere praise on how they look. Going beyond that we should make sure that any transaction we engage in benefits all participants and always give more of yourself in service than you receive in monetary compensation. Recognize that every person you deal with in any way is just as much a spiritual being as you are and deserving of a high degree of respect and kindness, no matter what station in life they are currently in. Even the most lowly alcoholic or drug addict is still a human being and still has that spirit in them somewhere- and sometimes it is awakened and strengthened by people who go out of their way to treat them as important and worthy of care and caring. Some of the most influential people in helping others were what some people thought of lowly wretches at one point in their lives.

While this shouldn’t be your main focus, people who treat everyone with respect and kindness, people who live their lives in service to others are far more likely to live in incredible abundance. One thing for sure, people who live like this feel good about themselves and that attracts whatever makes them feel good to them as well. Being a giving person allows you to build riches where no moths can consume them and where robbers cannot enter.

Question of the Day to Ask Ourselves

“What can I do to remind myself to always be giving of myself?”

Copyright 2012 Kevin Littleton, all rights reserved.

Daily Nugget of Gold 633

Selection, Magnification, and Reflection

Our experience of the world is governed by a few basic principles. Whether our experience is ultimately a blessing or a curse comes down to our own personal methods of habit as to how we choose to see things, and this is exciting news, particularly if we are currently unhappy in any way with what’s happening in our world right now. The reason it’s exciting is that since the experience we have is based on those personal habits of how we set our mental sails, we only need to change those habits to have a completely different outcome, one in which we can live in true joy and happiness.

Selection We get to choose what it is we put our attention on, and in particular, what we think about what it is we see from our chosen perspective. We can choose to get involved with something or leave it be. We can choose to think a thought or let it go. The power to make this choice is entirely ours unless we give permission to someone else to impose upon us. The trouble starts when we confuse our own ability to be in total control of our thought processes and other people’s input or even the input from an inanimate object as having the ability to be in control of our thoughts. The more we cede our control, the less likely we’ll find happiness. Every time we make excuses for why someone ticks us off, or how we think that “anyone would be upset by this” we weaken, by our own chosen outlook, our ability to experience the things in life we say we’d like to have. Remember, all this is habit based and we can change these habits- if we choose to.

Magnification When we are interacting with people and things in our world, we not only get to choose what we focus on, but also how much emotion we will invest for any given person or thing. Not only that, but by being selective in what we focus on, we can then give more emotional emphasis to one quality than another. For instance, someone we know and love has an annoying habit we dislike. We can magnify the habit, or we can magnify the gratitude and love we feel for this person and their other qualities. How do we magnify one and not the other? The focus, as we mentioned above, is up to us. Anything we focus on grows in our lives. The way to diminish a trait of someone or something is to mentally ignore it. You might say, “But I can’t ignore it, it’s driving me crazy”- but that’s you ceding your own ability to control your thoughts. Realize that you are in complete control and exercise that control by forcing yourself, at first, to think of something else- something positive that you appreciate rather than the negative you want less of.

Reflection What we experience in our world is very much to product of what we’ve been thinking about. What we choose to think about and magnify we get more of, and what we choose to ignore and not spend mental energy diminishes or disappears completely. This is not an easy concept to grasp because most people are brought up believing that they don’t have the ability to control their own experience based on their own thought selection and chosen magnification, but the truth uncovered and shared by enlightened people throughout ages is that our outside world is simply a reflection of our inner thoughts. That we can change our experience in life based upon how we think ought to be welcome news, but more often than not- people don’t accept this as true. What they do is up to them, what you do is up to you.

Question of the Day to Ask Ourselves

“What can I do to always remember I am in complete control of my thoughts?”

Copyright 2012 Kevin Littleton, all rights reserved.

Daily Nugget of Gold 632

Receptivity to Learning

Every time we deal with anything, we find results- either the results we sought or a different result. Sometimes we find we’ve received what we consider to be a failure as far as the outcome that we were hoping for is concerned. No matter what result we get when we try, we want to be keenly aware of and interested in any lessons we might have been presented with along the way. This is true even if what we did was a success. Much of the time when people succeed, they don’t look for what they can learn from it, because they are just happy that what they did was a success. What we’re saying here is that finding out what we can learn from a situation we’ve handled or were involved in ought to be a big goal of ours.

One of the things we can do to make sure we are always learning is to tell ourselves that we love learning. The more we say this to ourselves and others, and mean it, the more it will be true for us. Another advantage of this stance is that it softens the blow delivered by defeat because we can always learn a lot any time something didn’t work out. If there is value in learning, and we all know that there is, then when things don’t go the way we planned- we still have valuable information at our fingertips from which to make gains in the future.

When we develop a lifelong love of learning, then we always have something to gain from anything we do. Every experience we have has value, no matter whether success comes quickly or not. So called failures can be real blessings because a lot of the little failures we endure carry with them the information we need to prevent massive failures. The word “failure” is a bit misleading as we think of it, for it carries with it this aura of finality which is seldom true. So what if our first attempt wasn’t successful in achieving the desired outcome, as long as we gleaned from the experience information we needed to produce the desired result in a subsequent attempt.

Develop within yourself a hunger for knowledge. Use affirmations like, “I love learning in any situation” or ask yourself “What can I learn from this?” whenever things go wrong. Decide now to get the maximum value out of every result, good or bad, by learning everything you can from what happened. Remember this, too, when learning is the goal, success is assured, because there is always something we can learn from anything.

Question of the Day to Ask Ourselves

“How can I remember to learn something from every situation?”

Copyright 2009-2012 Kevin Littleton, all rights reserved.

Daily Nugget of Gold 631

The Worthless Pennies

We see them everywhere we go. In a shopping mall, on the ground in the street, in schools and elsewhere- discarded pennies. Pennies are no longer made of copper, a metal which has recently become much more valuable, but of zinc, a metal which seems as light as plastic and corrodes easily. A penny by itself doesn’t buy anything to speak of these days and Canada has even given up on minting them now. They’re basically worthless, right? Think again.

Pennies do have value. A hundred pennies is still a dollar, and a dollar can buy many things, in fact, we many have stores devoted to items costing just that and nothing more. Fundraisers devoted to raising money with pennies still raise tremendous amounts of money with them. So these things that most people take for granted as worthless, has-been tokens of value actually do have a significant place in our society, but our focus isn’t going to be on that alone in this message. We are concerned about the way people treat pennies with contempt- kids who throw them at each other or people who just discard them as useless. Almost no one will stop and pick one up.

People complain about not having enough money, do you wonder why? Money represents energy in our society, it represents value that someone added in some way. As such, money is a very important symbol of productivity, and productivity is a good thing. Some would even say that productivity is a Godly thing. Certainly, the scriptures seem to support that, there are several accounts of the goodness of men and women when they are productive. If we treat pennies with disdain, we are in effect condemning the goodness of the system of rewarding productivity as a whole, and doing that chases away the very reward we seek- based on how we think about what we want. We cannot hold two conflicting thoughts at the same time and expect to see measurable results in our lives. If we condemn pennies and attempt to invite dollars, we will only get the mixed results we’ve embraced.

If you see a penny, stop and pick it up, you could use a little exercise anyhow, in all probability. View it as a gift, and give thanks for it. Bless it. Put it in your pocket and remember that to keep these gifts coming it’s also important to give of what you have. Use money for good only and always give thanks when it comes into your life from any honest means. It’s okay to donate the money you find this way, in fact- it’s helpful, just don’t look at it as useless in any way! Stay consistently positive. If you are so inclined, thank God for the gift, if not- just “give thanks”, either way you will operate The Law of Attraction in your favor by doing things in this manner. Don’t ever condemn the gift of money no matter how small the amount. Never condemn that which you are seeking to attract. This works in other areas of life as well, for example, if you are going around singing, “Love Stinks”, for you- it will.

Question of the Day to Ask Ourselves

“What can I do today to attract more of what I want in my life?”

Copyright 2009-2012 Kevin Littleton, all rights reserved.

Daily Nugget of Gold 630

Develop Your Will

Will power is nothing more than the willingness and ability to act in the way in which we desire to. People who speak or think of not having will power are simply choosing a different outcome than what is their stated desire. We sometimes have competing interests and often times we choose the immediate gratification over the long term result, in part- because we failed to establish firmly our desire for that bigger dream. It’s easy to enjoy the short term pleasure if we want to ignore, at least temporarily, the long term consequences of our actions. It becomes easier still if we do one or more things which support the avoidance of the outcome we say we desire.

“I have no will power” or “I can’t resist” or “I’m in the mood for…” are some of the things we tell ourselves as we let ourselves off the hook. When we say and think such things, that becomes our reality. If you’re not serious about the long term goal in the first place, why put yourself through such guilt trips? A person who has ‘decided’ to weigh less but does nothing but counter these efforts by such self-defeating affirmations may be better off just eating what they like and be happy. Most people would interject at this point that, “No, no, no, I really want to be thinner.” but we’d be quick to point out, “No you don’t- at least not as much as you desire short term satisfaction right now.” Prove us wrong, replace the affirmations of defeat with victorious ones. “I am in complete control of every single thing I put in my mouth.” or “I don’t do anything which will jeopardize my long term goals” are far better things to affirm, don’t you agree?

Picture yourself with the result you desire already achieved. If you are a smoker looking to quit, see yourself living a happy, healthy lifestyle. Don’t picture pain and panic for not having nicotine, but instead see yourself living a long happy life and being the perfect picture of health. If you want to lose weight, get a picture of someone who looks like you at your perfect weight and look at that everyday, several times a day and see yourself being that person. Be happy, be joyful with however you are seeing the new you. Be thankful and grateful for installing the vision means you have created it and you are now becoming the person you see.

If we procrastinate but do not wish to any longer, take the most difficult task before us, the one we want to do the least and declare “I like doing this, in fact, I love it.” say it over and over again as you at first force yourself to start on that item. The more we tell ourselves this, and we put our heart in soul in it, the sooner we’ll find some aspects we do indeed like and get it accomplished quickly and easily. What we are is up to us, beware of the dis-empowering affirmations we used in the past and let all of those go with the wind. You are better than that, you have willpower, you can conquer anything you set your mind to. Just prove that to yourself, you’ll be much happier if you do.

Question of the Day to Ask Ourselves

“How can I change what I’ve said to myself in the past which has been stalling my progress?”

Copyright 2009-2012 Kevin Littleton, all rights reserved.

Daily Nugget of Gold 629

Leaders Are Much Like You

One of the things which seems shocking to anyone who gets to know a true leader, whether that person is in industry, a religious organization, a military leader or whatever field they’ve risen to the top in, they are much like us. We often think of leaders are these super-people who are far and above what the average person is in everything they do- but anyone who has gotten to know a true leader knows that they are fairly ordinary human beings like anyone else. Why is that important? If you understand that, then you also understand that there is a wonderful opportunity for you to become a leader- providing you study and apply yourself in the areas of what the differences are between where you are and what they’ve become.

Leaders do make mistakes, and leaders are subject to human tendencies and even some bad habits or other human imperfections, but there are some things that set them apart from others and those things have lead to them taking a leadership role while many of us have not. So what are those things that make them different and give them that edge?

Leaders believe in themselves. Leaders have an unshakable believe in themselves and their ability to lead. Someone who may know them personally may say that their belief in themselves is unrealistic and perhaps that’s correct, but the fact is that someone has to lead every organization and everyone is human, so unless someone thinks they are capable of it and maybe more- no one would do it. Leaders are not only convinced they can do the job, but also handle anything that comes up along the way.

Leaders have a vision of how things can and should be. True leaders have a vision of where they want to take their organization or business and make it their primary focus. They think about that a lot, similar to how a young man thinks about a woman he’s courting to marry.

Leaders are driven to achieve having that vision become a reality. Leaders keep their focus on their big goal, vision, or dream. What they do is designed to accomplish the things needed to make it happen. Leaders don’t find themselves time squandering their time, and that’s because they think of what they want to do, their belief in themselves, and their desire to make it happen much more than other people do.

Leaders use the human resources available to them. True leaders attract dedicated followers who can help with decisions, who have the experience the leader may lack, and who have bought into the mission and the ability of the leader to call the shots and move the organization forward. The followers are a product of the other traits stated above, and have been attracted to the leader just as the leader has been attracted to them.

Just remember, you are not much different than a true leader, you are a human being just like them, the main thing that sets a leader apart is the unshakable belief they have in themselves. This isn’t based on any super-human ability, but is a trait you can learn and apply and become.

Question of the Day to Ask Ourselves

“What can I do to increase my belief in myself?”

Copyright 2009-2012 Kevin Littleton, all rights reserved.

Daily Nugget of Gold 628

The Blessings of Problems

In Doctor Wayne Dyer’s work, There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem, he surprises us by stating that there is no such thing as a problem. That’s an amazing statement, but it’s really is a fact. He points out that a problem isn’t a problem until we see it that way. The good news in all of this is that every situation we come across in life is really a gift of growth, or an opportunity to learn, or a chance to adapt- and the crux of this all is we would have no problems at all if we didn’t see them that way.

All of this is a radical departure from how most of us interact with our world, but he pointed out that in Genesis, the scriptures said that “In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth” and then just a handful of verses later, they said that God looked at what He created and it was good. We again wish to point out, as Dr. Dyer did, that we’re not here to convert anyone, and whatever you choose to be your following- or not- in that regards is your own personal decision. With so many of us claiming to believe in God and God’s word, however, we think it’s only appropriate to discuss this in this way to make it easier to understand.

Wayne Dyer then talked about that if God’s creation is good, then where do the problems come in? Only in how we perceive things to be. A problem isn’t a problem until we believe that it is. We are Spiritual beings, and while we are not God, it would likely be very accurate to say we have the Spirit of God dwelling within us, for as the scriptures say, we were fashioned in the image of God. We’ve always felt that we were more than flesh and blood and an assortment of bones, haven’t we?

It’s not our job here to try and turn what’s in a longer presentation into the Cliff’s Notes version, we want the reader to become more curious and seek out the kind of help Doctor Dyer and others provide. Dyer makes such a powerful point to believers in particular because so many of us have the attitude that the problems are thrust upon us by forces beyond our control, but every great thinker in history, all of whom had spent a great deal of time in contemplative meditation have come to the very same conclusion- we are what we think about. If we think there’s difficulty, there is. If we think that we will be affected in a positive way from the situation we see in front of us, we will be. If God said “It’s all good” so what’s the problem? Maybe we are wanting to look at it from our perspective instead of His.

What if you don’t believe in God? Well, many people don’t. Fortunately, if God exists, he’s not dependent on you to believe in Him, right? For you who have come to the conclusion that God doesn’t exist, the natural laws of the universe certainly do, don’t they? Water seeks its own level, and electricity likes to flow in wires, right? We heat metal and it expands and it does that no matter what nation we’re in or what race we happen to be. Our thoughts become our reality, and that’s a matter of law as well. We can choose to work with the law or against it, but the choice is ours. No one can choose for us. Since the choice is ours, our suggestion here is to choose wisely.

Question of the Day to Ask Ourselves

“If thoughts are where things come from, what thoughts shall I think, good or bad?”

Copyright 2009-2012 Kevin Littleton, all rights reserved.

Daily Nugget of Gold 627

With All Your Might

We all have the urge to do more and to be more effective in what we do. This is a trait built into us for a reason, it’s a survival mechanism. Yes, it’s often true that we fall short in this regard especially when expediency or economy seem to be our greater motivations, but we do want what we do to be effective, lest we wouldn’t bother doing it at all. Fortunately, with a few pointers, we can further develop our ability to be more effective and to more consistently get the results we seek rather than have our efforts be for naught.

Consider for a moment what the emotion of love is. Love is a genuine caring for someone or something, a feeling which is respectful and kind, as well. While what love is may be difficult to put into words as we’re discovering just now- this is one of those things we all understand when we feel the power of this emotion in us and on us. Maturity adds depth to this understanding as well. It’s no mistake that The Law of Attraction is also known as The Law of Love. In order to get the most out of this law, we want to wrap every thought in the power of love. When we do what we do based on love, we are far more likely to be successful.

Jim Rohn said this about how to approaching doing what we do: “Resolve to put your whole heart into whatever you are doing. Start a little earlier, work a little harder, stay a little later. Don’t hold back.” -in other words, do what you do with all your might. What do you think he meant by putting your “whole heart” into it? Matters of the heart are synonymous with the application of love, aren’t they?

When we do what we do out of love, we are as powerful as we can be. When we do what we do out of love, we have leverage we cannot begin to see.

Put all of your heart and soul into what you do. Do it with all your might, do it with love as your primary focus. You’ll be stunned and amazed at how much more you can accomplish if you’ll just do that.

Question of the Day to Ask Ourselves

“How can I make sure I do what I do out of love?”

Copyright 2009-2012 Kevin Littleton, all rights reserved.