Succeed By Trying To Fly Like Rambo

Many people never find out what they can achieve until life has passed them by and with it the chance to discover what they are capable of. In Rambo III, the hero hijacks a Soviet attack helicopter in Afghanistan during the Afghan-Soviet war. His friend, the Colonel, asks: "Can you fly that thing?"

Rambo's reply is memorable: "Let's find out!" He wastes no time climbing aboard and 'finding out'. Of course, he can not only fly it, he can also fire rockets from it. He soon makes full use of both abilities! The experienced Soviet pilots are no match for him.

Notice that he does not confidently say: "I can fly that helicopter!" Instead his attitude is surprisingly less macho. The words "Let's find out!" imply that he will "try" and see if he can fly the helicopter. Some self help gurus argue that only wimps use words like "try".

I disagree. Wimps don't try even when there is a possibility of success. They give up before they even start or at the first hurdle. Strong people try without boasting that they will succeed. Reality demands that they walk before they can run or fly! They try and keep trying. Then, as they succeed step by step, their confidence can grow to the point where they believe strongly that they can and will achieve victory.

Reality teaches again and again that the most confident and the most experienced don't always succeed. Even the great Muhammad Ali and Iron Mike Tyson were eventually defeated.

Unlike Muhammad Ali, the fictional Rambo never boasts about what a great fighter he is. The Colonel does that for him. When a Mujahadeen fighter doubts Rambo's abilities in battle, Rambo makes no comment. He lets his actions win respect as he rescues the Colonel.

Sports teams and their fans often boast that they will win before a game although, to be fair, they are frequently joking. Time and again, their boasts are proved wrong. However, if the team tries hard, their fans will usually forgive them. They will not forgive a lack of ambition or effort. They will not forgive a team that fails to try.

Sometimes, teams that try hard against teams that are supposed to be far superior to them find that they are doing better than they thought they would. Their confidence rockets and they end up victorious.

In one of the first matches of the 2008 Six Nations Rugby Union Championship, Wales played England at Twickenham, the home of English rugby. Wales had seldom beaten England on their home ground and had exited the 2007 World Cup early. England, on the other hand had reached the final.

No one was surprised that England was leading at half time. But in the second half, Wales started to try harder and, as their point score went up, the Welsh team grew in confidence until they were playing like men possessed. Wales won and have gone on to beat every other team they have played so far in the championship. They achieved all this simply because they began to try and to try hard.

Recently, in what some call the greatest club soccer competition in the world, the FA cup, teams from the lower English and Welsh leagues have beaten the top teams like Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal. These shock results took place in early March 2008.

They succeeded because they tried very hard. They could easily have rolled over and made the reasonable excuse that the top teams have huge financial resources which allow them to buy up the best players in the world.

Beverly Sills highlights the importance of trying: "You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try."

If you don't try, you won't fail but you won't achieve much. Even if you fail, you will learn lessons and your skills and knowledge will grow. No one enjoys failing but it may be the quickest road to eventual success.

Sometimes we don't try or we try in a half hearted manner because we have been convinced in childhood or later that we are useless at something. We need to clear our minds of such thoughts and find out the truth for ourselves.

We also need to believe in ourselves enough to try. If we lack enough belief to even try, we can test out methods like affirmations and visualizations to see if they will help us to develop the necessary belief. Google 'affirmations' and 'visualizations' and you will find many websites that can help you learn how to make affirmations and how to visualize.

One site, for example, suggests a variety of ways to affirm effectively. You can affirm while you are walking or exercising. You could for example say: "I am strong and healthy" or "I am improving daily." Repeat this affirmation as you walk or train.

When I was at school in the Isle of Man, I soon discovered that cross country running was not my strong point. However, I improved by repeating one word "Faster" as I ran or, rather, struggled along! I never achieved "fast" but I did achieve "less slow!"

I suggest to my martial arts students that they say to themselves phrases like: "I am becoming faster and stronger." They can say these at training sessions and at gradings when they need to replace nervousness with confidence.

A typical NLP technique suggests that when you say or think something negative like "I am no good at making money," listen in your mind to the phrase diminishing in volume until it disappears. You can then replace that phrase with a positive one like "I am getting good at making money". Let this phrase become louder and louder in your mind until it dominates your thinking.

Another method uses writing. Write down what you want in your life about fifteen times a day. You could write "I am healthy, wealthy and wise." Writing things down is an effective way of releasing the power of your subconscious mind.

The website I visited suggested several affirmations like: "I radiate good health" or "I have all the energy I need to accomplish my goals and to fulfil my desires" or "I am healthy and full of energy and vitality."

Visualization also helps. I tell my students to imagine receiving their blackbelt. If you want to receive money rather than a blackbelt imagine a huge cheque being presented to you instead. Alternatively, you could visual pound notes and/or dollar bills raining down on you from the sky. You will, of course, need to visualize for some time and to take appropriate action daily before these images become true. Do not imagine coins raining down from the sky for obvious reasons.

You could imagine things you don't want like that broken down car spinning away from you and then visualize a smart and powerful car spinning towards you. Imagine it stopping before it knocks you down!

Imagine yourself performing that skill which you are trying to master. See yourself doing the necessary movements with ease. If you are learning how to dance like a Zulu (one of my secret ambitions), imagine yourself stamping on the ground and waving your arms about like one of the best!

Like Rambo, we should climb into that helicopter and try to master the controls. We could find that we, too, can fly and destroy the obstacles that hold us back from success.

John Watson

Discovering Hidden Positives Behind The Negatives

This is a good exercise to use when you want to discover what is really going on behind the scenes of your negative experiences. There is something positive beyond them - you just need to discover what it is.

You see, your higher self sees beyond time and current circumstances. It knows your “true intentions“, even if you are unaware of them consciously, and it will do everything in its power to match you vibrationally to that thing you are “truly” wanting. For instance, if your higher intention is safety and security and something comes up that will jeopardize that safety and security (even if you are unaware that it will jeopardize it at the time) it is not at all surprising that obstacles will suddenly appear to prevent you from making a mistake. Quite often we can misinterpret this obstacles as negative things happening to us or it is just us “not getting what we want when we want it” but there is a little more to it than that.

The point is, quite often we don’t realize when we are right in the thick of what we perceive to be a negative situation, that there is something for our greater good beyond it. We get so focused on cursing the darkness in the tunnel that we forget to look for the light at the end of it. So here is the exercise for you. It comes in two parts with a bonus at the end if you really want to get into it.

Part One
Think back and write down all the times when what you thought was a negative situation turned into a positive one. For instance:

When you had to cancel vacation plans due to work or lack of money and found out later they had a hurricane that week.
When you missed your flight due to bad weather and then found out the plane you were supposed to be on got stuck on the tarmac for 7 hours and you were at least in a comfortable airport with a bar and a bathroom!
When you didn’t get a job you thought you wanted and ended up being available for a better one. When the person you wanted to call you never did, and you ended up meeting the “one” because you were single.
When you missed making the perfect investment, only to find out the company tanked and you would have lost a ton of money.

You get the idea. These things happen all the time. Writing them down helps reaffirm to you that Universe (or your higher self, if you prefer) does in fact have your best interests at heart. If you have a hard time coming up with anything, think about every good thing in your life right now and backtrack. Believe me, you will start to see many ways these things couldn’t have come to you if you had indeed gotten what you originally asked for.

Part Two
Start looking for the light at the end of your tunnel by asking What If? What If The Reason I Haven’t Gotten What I Want Yet Is Because….? Start stretching your mind with ideas of what your higher self might have in store for you that you just haven’t realized yet. For example:

What if (I didn’t get this position) because a better one is waiting for me.
What if (the reason the deal on buying the house fell through) was because the roof is about to collapse this winter and it would have cost me a fortune I wouldn’t have.
What if (the reason he/she hasn’t called me for another date) was because they are total psychos and my higher self knows better than for me to get involved with them.
What if (the reason the car broke down today when I had somewhere really important to be) was because I would have been involved in a major accident if I had been on the highway today. What if (the reason I can’t afford the ski trip right now) is because I would have broken my leg on the slopes.
What if (the reason I am stuck on the absolutely slowest line in the store) is because if I left earlier I would run into someone I really don’t want to see right now.

Really stretch your imagination. The fun part of this exercise is that it can help soothe you through disappointment. But the most important part happens later when you prove yourself to be right and you indeed confirm that your higher self has your best interests at heart. That’s when you begin to trust that everything is happening in exactly the right order. Now for the Bonus Part if you really want to get into it.

Part Three
Try to find your true “hidden intention” as opposed to what you think that you want. For instance, with my Jersey house. I originally thought my intention was to have this beautifully built house in New Jersey. But in truth my “hidden intention” was just to live in a beautiful house I could afford. This was obvious by how I wrote my intention on my list. After struggling financially in our first house, security was really all I was looking for and just hadn’t realized it. It wasn’t until after I received it that I noticed the blessing it really was.

Maybe in your case, your “hidden intention” was to find someone who really cared about you and was interested in the same things you are. You might have originally thought you were going to find this with a person of the opposite sex but instead you found it in the new best friend you made six months ago and you just haven‘t realized it yet. So start enjoying and appreciating that friend that Universe sent you in answer to your request and watch how that higher vibration will automatically attract the opposite sex person you are also wanting. Heck! It might even be through that friend.

We are happily such complicated creatures. So much lies below the surface we aren‘t even aware of. But the daily discovery of these things is what makes life so fun and interesting. Just the fact that you are reading these types of articles means you are already on your way to discovery.

So start looking for the positives that await you in your future. If something you are going through appears negative at the moment, it simply means you haven’t yet discovered the place your higher self is leading you to. Don’t get discouraged, don’t give up and don’t curse the darkness. Start taking the first steps now to finding the light at the end of your tunnel. Happy Creating!

Janeen Clark