Dreams: What Are They?

Dreams are basically successions of mental images during sleep; they appear involuntarily to the mind while you are sleeping. Dreams are often combinations of real and imaginary characters, places, or events, and trying to go further into what dreams really mean prompts you to enter into the mysterious yet fascinating world where the rules of reality are not applicable.

So What Are Dreams?

Dreams are unique — no one can distinguish a clear description of the background, the emotions involved, or the experiences that happen in them. Apparently, dreams are somehow connected with your own physical world. It has the ability to unify the body, the mind, and the spirit, and takes you to another level by providing you a quick insight into your self and your ways of self-exploration. When you interpret your dream, you are led to a new discovery and a better understanding of what your true self really is.

Dreams Further Explained

Dreams are divided into two different categories that run alternately in a span of ninety minutes. About twenty-five percent of sleep is spent in an REM state or Rapid Eye Movement, and the remaining seventy-five percent is for the non-rapid eye movement.

The Non-REM state has four stages. The first is called light sleep. This is the state where your body is half asleep and half awake. The next state is when you start sleeping already and the conscious mind starts to disengage itself from its surroundings. Your heart and breathing rates begin a rhythmic pattern and the body’s temperature drops a bit.

Both Stages 3 and 4 are the where you are at your most restful state of sleep. At these stages, your blood pressure starts to drop and your breathing begins to slow down. Your muscles will then relax, followed by tissue growth and repair. Hormones are released once the energy is stored.

Dreams, accordingly, are the reactions of the brain to various biological processes that happen in your sleep. They help you regain total control over your past pains. Dreaming of your past experiences will help you heal any imbalances in your life and eventually lead you to options on the directions that you can take.

To have a healthy body and mind, dreaming is very important. People who are deprived of REM sleep consequently suffer from difficulties in concentrating, which then lead them to become more irritable and ill-tempered.

Learning how to interpret your dreams is helpful in keeping up with the stressors around you. Although dreams are merely a representation of either a reality or a fantasy, the insights you gain from them are powerful enough to aid you in leading a fruitful life while awake.

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Life Mapping: A Vision of Success

Success is more than economic gains, titles, and degrees. Planning for success is about mapping out all the aspects of your life. Similar to a map, you need to define the following details: origin, destination, vehicle, backpack, landmarks, and route.

Origin: Who you are

A map has a starting point. Your origin is who you are right now. Most people when asked to introduce themselves would say, “Hi, I’m Jean and I am a 17-year old, senior highschool student.” It does not tell you about who Jean is; it only tells you her present preoccupation. To gain insights about yourself, you need to look closely at your beliefs, values, and principles aside from your economic, professional, cultural, and civil status. Moreover, you can also reflect on your experiences to give you insights on your good and not-so-good traits, skills, knowledge, strengths, and weaknesses. Upon introspection, Jean realized that she was highly motivated, generous, service-oriented, but impatient. Her inclination was in the biological-medical field. Furthermore, she believed that life must serve a purpose, and that wars were destructive to human dignity.

Destination: A vision of who you want to be

“Who do want to be?” this is your vision. Now it is important that you know yourself so that you would have a clearer idea of who you want to be; and the things you want to change whether they are attitudes, habits, or points of view. If you hardly know yourself, then your vision and targets for the future would also be unclear. Your destination should cover all the aspects of your being: the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Continuing Jean’s story, after she defined her beliefs, values, and principles in life, she decided that she wanted to have a life dedicated in serving her fellowmen.

Vehicle: Your Mission

A vehicle is the means by which you can reach your destination. It can be analogized to your mission or vocation in life. To a great extent, your mission would depend on what you know about yourself. Bases on Jean’s self-assessment, she decided that she was suited to become a doctor, and that she wanted to become one. Her chosen vocation was a medical doctor. Describing her vision-mission fully: it was to live a life dedicated to serving her fellowmen as a doctor in conflict-areas.

Travel Bag: Your knowledge, skills, and attitude

Food, drinks, medicines, and other travelling necessities are contained in a bag. Applying this concept to your life map, you also bring with you certain knowledge, skills, and attitudes. These determine your competence and help you in attaining your vision. Given such, there is a need for you to assess what knowledge, skills, and attitudes you have at present and what you need to gain along the way. This two-fold assessment will give you insights on your landmarks or measures of success. Jean realized that she needed to gain professional knowledge and skills on medicine so that she could become a doctor. She knew that she was a bit impatient with people so she realized that this was something she wanted to change.

Landmarks and Route: S.M.A.R.T. objectives

Landmarks confirm if you are on the right track while the route determines the travel time. Thus, in planning out your life, you also need to have landmarks and a route. These landmarks are your measures of success. These measures must be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound. Thus you cannot set two major landmarks such as earning a master’s degree and a doctorate degree within a period of three years, since the minimum number of years to complete a master’s degree is two years. Going back to Jean as an example, she identified the following landmarks in her life map: completing a bachelor’s degree in biology by the age of 21; completing medicine by the age of 27; earning her specialization in infectious diseases by the age of 30; getting deployed in local public hospitals of their town by the age of 32; and serving as doctor in war-torn areas by the age of 35.

Anticipate Turns, Detours, and Potholes

The purpose of your life map is to minimize hasty and spur-of-the-moment decisions that can make you lose your way. But oftentimes our plans are modified along the way due to some inconveniences, delays, and other situations beyond our control. Like in any path, there are turns, detours, and potholes thus; we must anticipate them and adjust accordingly.

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Goal Setting For Beginners

Do you have goals? Well, most of us do. It might be a daily goal, a weekly goal, even a yearly goal, but we have goals. However, not everyone knows how to properly set goals. This article aims to educate the goal-setting novices out there on how to properly set goals.

Setting goals for yourself is like creating a road map to get to your destination. In goal-setting, your destination is succeeding in accomplishing your goals. This means you have to write down your goals on a piece of paper so you can start to get organized. This step allows you to concentrate on your goals rather than leave your ideas scattered throughout your mind.

The first question you have to ask yourself is: Is my goal something that I would really like for myself or is it just something that looks good to other people? This question is crucial because many people make the mistake of setting a goal just to please other people. A good example of this is a college student who chooses a course so that his parents will praise him. What he should actually do is to go where his heart leads him. This means that the goal should match the individual’s personal value system.

Second, a goal should correspond with the other goals you have set for yourself. Like the example we gave above, a college student must not take courses that deviate from the career path he is creating for himself. Not only is this a waste of money but it also opposes the purpose of goal setting – which is to keep his life organized. Deviating is dubbed non-integrated thinking.

Third, set goals for the 6 aspects of your life, which are: Mental and Educational, Physical and Health, Financial and Career, Social and Cultural, Spiritual and Ethical, and lastly, Family and Home. This guarantees that you will maintain a balanced life as you evaluate and amend the basics of your daily life. This step also lessens the level of non-integrated thinking.

Fourth, create goals that emphasize positive thinking rather than negative thoughts. We create a list of goals partly because we want to program our subconscious mind to follow our instructions. This part of our mind – the subconscious – was made solely to follow instructions. So if you want your subconscious to follow positive thinking, think of positive instructions to give it. (Positive thinking is also a useful tool for our development in daily life as a person.)

The next step is to define our goal in a detailed fashion. For the college student who is trying to choose a course, he could write down: “I want to study BA European Languages with a major in German and a minor in French” rather than just state “I want to pick a course in the College of Arts and Letters”. You will notice that the more detailed statement serves to provide the subconscious mind with detailed instructions to follow. Your final outcome becomes more and more definite as you provide more details in the instructions you write down. The subconscious mind works more efficiently if the final outcome is defined well.

In the sixth step, do not downgrade your goals – keep reaching high! That way, if you do not reach your goals, at least you reached a level that is higher than you imagined you could reach.

Lastly, you ought to list your goals on paper. Read your list often so you can focus on them one by one. If you concentrate on accomplishing your goals, it is probable that you will be able to get to where you want to be in life. As you review your goals, it is also possible that you may have to revise your list but that’s okay. Stay flexible if circumstances warrant it.

Big Thoughts and Big Actions Make Dreams Come True!

Yes, these two can indeed make your thoughts materialize – even big, seemingly impossible dreams. The process is very straightforward, applying the law of manifestation.

It all begins in your mind, with a single thought. If you think small, you get small results. But if you think big, what do you think your results will be? If you think, a small bungalow will be fine as my house, then most likely that is what you will get. On the other hand, if you think you would like a two-storey house with a pool and garden, then again, that is what you will most likely get.

Feeling, or passion, follows. This is where the question “How badly do I want this?” comes in. Also, “What am I willing to do in order to get this?” The answer to this determines your level of commitment. Your passion and commitment also dictate your results.

Based on your thought and passion, you set a specific goal with a specific deadline. It is best to write it down as the subconscious mind absorbs it better when you write it down.

Then take big actions that are only worthy of your big thoughts! If you are looking for your dream house, find out how much it costs and how you are going to get it. Think about and visualize your dream house everyday. This activates the law of attraction, where you attract people and events related with what you think about most. Stay alert for “coincidences” from the universe – for example, suddenly meeting an architect or anyone who can help you get that dream house.

Change your actions if needed until you reach your goal. If for example your sources of income are not enough to finance your dream house, then you may have to change them or add to them.
In time, you will reach your goal.

Just keep this formula in mind – big thoughts and big feelings lead to big goals, which in turn lead to big actions, finally leading to big results!

Turn Your Thoughts into Reality!

Is there anything you desire that you feel you cannot have? Is what you want always far from your reach? Anything you want is yours for the taking if you can just tap into the power of your mind. With imagination and belief, you can turn your thoughts into reality. Below are some tips to help you turn your thoughts into reality.

Desire it. Passion is a strong bridge between you and what you want. Ask yourself – how much do you really want this thing you are thinking of? Is it something you can do without, or something you are really passionate about? Passion is power.

Be specific. Be very clear about what you want. What you get is only as clear as what you want. If you want a house, see it very clearly on your mind – the architectural design of the interior and exterior, the garden, and more. Set a deadline. When do you want to have that house?

Visualize. This is arguably the most powerful tool of the mind. Be the director and leading actor in your own movie. Walk through your dream house, see the sights, smell the scents, feel the feeling of being there. The subconscious brain does not differentiate between a real experience and an imagined experience. So, once you vividly imagine a scene, you are close to letting it manifest into reality. Visualize daily.

Believe. Fear and doubt stand in the way between you and your dream. Should you feel any doubts, believe that the universe will give it to you. The universe is overflowing in blessings and abundance if only you ask and believe! What you believe, the universe gives. If you believe that you will get it, the universe will give it to you. If you believe you won’t, then the universe won’t give it to you.

Take inspired action. From your daily visualizations, you may suddenly get a spark of an idea of how to get the house. Or you might meet a person who knows where you can buy your dream house. At these moments, don’t hesitate. Act!

Follow these steps and you will prove that you can indeed turn your thoughts into reality!

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If you watch this video, you will see real people that are making a difference in their lives….Why not you??

After watching this clip go to the….top right of this page and click to get started.

We look forward to being able to help you.

Goal Setting For Beginners

Do you have goals? Well, most of us do. It might be a daily goal, a weekly goal, even a yearly goal, but we have goals. However, not everyone knows how to properly set goals. This article aims to educate the goal-setting novices out there on how to properly set goals.

Setting goals for yourself is like creating a road map to get to your destination. In goal-setting, your destination is succeeding in accomplishing your goals. This means you have to write down your goals on a piece of paper so you can start to get organized. This step allows you to concentrate on your goals rather than leave your ideas scattered throughout your mind.

The first question you have to ask yourself is: Is my goal something that I would really like for myself or is it just something that looks good to other people? This question is crucial because many people make the mistake of setting a goal just to please other people. A good example of this is a college student who chooses a course so that his parents will praise him. What he should actually do is to go where his heart leads him. This means that the goal should match the individual’s personal value system.

Second, a goal should correspond with the other goals you have set for yourself. Like the example we gave above, a college student must not take courses that deviate from the career path he is creating for himself. Not only is this a waste of money but it also opposes the purpose of goal setting – which is to keep his life organized. Deviating is dubbed non-integrated thinking.

Third, set goals for the 6 aspects of your life, which are: Mental and Educational, Physical and Health, Financial and Career, Social and Cultural, Spiritual and Ethical, and lastly, Family and Home. This guarantees that you will maintain a balanced life as you evaluate and amend the basics of your daily life. This step also lessens the level of non-integrated thinking.

Fourth, create goals that emphasize positive thinking rather than negative thoughts. We create a list of goals partly because we want to program our subconscious mind to follow our instructions. This part of our mind – the subconscious – was made solely to follow instructions. So if you want your subconscious to follow positive thinking, think of positive instructions to give it. (Positive thinking is also a useful tool for our development in daily life as a person.)

The next step is to define our goal in a detailed fashion. For the college student who is trying to choose a course, he could write down: “I want to study BA European Languages with a major in German and a minor in French” rather than just state “I want to pick a course in the College of Arts and Letters”. You will notice that the more detailed statement serves to provide the subconscious mind with detailed instructions to follow. Your final outcome becomes more and more definite as you provide more details in the instructions you write down. The subconscious mind works more efficiently if the final outcome is defined well.

In the sixth step, do not downgrade your goals – keep reaching high! That way, if you do not reach your goals, at least you reached a level that is higher than you imagined you could reach.

Lastly, you ought to list your goals on paper. Read your list often so you can focus on them one by one. If you concentrate on accomplishing your goals, it is probable that you will be able to get to where you want to be in life. As you review your goals, it is also possible that you may have to revise your list but that’s okay. Stay flexible if circumstances warrant it.

Remember Live Your Life By Choice, Not By Chance.

www.selfimageimprovement.com

Be the Best!

Are you complaining that your life style is not good or that your income level is very low?

Let me ask you…

What are you doing to develop yourself?

When was the last time you read a book? When was the last time you attended a seminar?

Continuous self improvement is vital for your success.

You must become more to achieve more. It is very normal that you stay where you are as long as you are the same person.

When you learn something new and develop new skills, you will position yourself to reach a higher level in life.

Always strive to be the best that you can be. Set self improvement goals and take action to achieve them.

Continuously, work on yourself. Don’t stop your personal growth. Your personal growth should be a life long journey.

Learn from the experts, study success and life, and make it a habit to read 20 minutes everyday. And the most important thing is to apply what you learn.

Everyday take an action to expand your mind and develop yourself.

Make this statement your personal philosophy…”Be the best that you can be”. Grow and your life will grow.

Your current level in life is corresponding to your personal capabilities.

Improve everyday and increase your potential and personal value.

Your potential is unlimited and you can do whatever you want. You just need to commit yourself to the continuous improvement journey.

Make the decision today to do whatever you can to be the best that you can be.

www.selfimageimprovement.com