Changing Negatives to Positives

Once you have acknowledged personal fear associations and accepted their existence, you can alter their power to affect you. First, evaluate the negative fear associations as lessons you need to learn. By acknowledging things you fear you can take their power away forever. You can alter your perceptions of fear patterns of negative thoughts that may have been with you for years.

The best way to disempower a negative belief is to link it, by repetition, to a positive belief. This technique is widely used by advertising agencies. Sometimes a negative can be empowered and changed to a positive by frequent repetitions of association with something positive. It is a technique used to redirect the focus of a negative to a positive. Wendy’s did it with its chili. Coca Cola did it with its Classic Coke®, and as we all know, many politicians do it with their personal lives. Once you realize that it is all perception and how you can control your own perception it gets much easier. Once you realize what you choose to believe or not believe is in your control you can begin to feel empowered.

Winning the game of life is about choosing to learn the rules you have set for yourself and adjust your own rules (perceptions in relation to beliefs true or desired) for you to win the game of life.
Clarifying your perceptions is not that difficult if you apply the knowledge of what it is you are doing. You know you hold the key to your destiny. If you accept this and take responsibility for it you can control the wind of your life sails.

You know all lives have storms that come to pass. They are not meant to come to stay. They only stay if you hold on to the fear of what has caused the storm and don’t recognize or anticipate the inevitable calm that comes from the knowledge of its source.

A True Story

Let this true story be a guide. A young man suffered the plight of many other people. He stuttered. He could not even say his own name without stuttering. He, like so many others, was constantly made fun of by cruel and unfeeling people. As a result he tried to avoid talking at all cost. He was thought to be slow and dimwitted. This stuttering curse followed him into his adulthood. He tried to keep people from being aware of his affliction. It had scarred him deeply. He had many fear-based negative associations about his life. However, he chose to change these negative associations by finding a way to empower his suffering by giving it a purpose. He did this by inventing a device that stopped stuttering in countless numbers of those who tried it. His pain was changed to great pleasure. You can do this with your own fear-based negative associations.

You can turn them around and make them lessons learned. You do not have to be a victim of your own thoughts and actions. By disempowering your negative associations of pain they can become paths to pleasure through achievement. You may have allowed negative thoughts to have power over your day to day life. They could be stopping you from being all you can be. You can recognize those things you fear by the internal dialogue that goes on in your head. They are the conversations that are filled with doubt, guilt, frustration and pain. Once you define the subject of those pointless internal conversations you have the source of that particular fear.

Check each of the big 7 areas of your life for the beliefs that create positive thoughts and actions and for those beliefs that support negative thoughts and actions. Make a check of your emotional life, your financial life, your intellectual life, your personal life, your professional life, your physical life and your spiritual life. Notate internal dialogue you have had in each of them. Make note of those internal conversations concerning each of these areas that are positive or negative.

An example: identify what expectations you have had with acting classes. Have you had thoughts that made you angry or frustrated by what you thought you would learn and what you actually learned. In truth you may have unresolved negative beliefs about all acting classes that have manifest in your present reality.

You may find that your frustration really comes from a differt place all together. You may have had experiences in acting classes that turned you against them. You may harber deeper beliefs , based on your previous experiences, that acting classes are a waste of time and money. You need to rethink the reasons for your taking an acting class. You want to have your work evaluated, critiqued, supported, enhanced, developed, or perhaps, redirected. But, you may have a fear that you don't want to hear the opinions of others observations. Those opinions may unlease in you your own true fears.

You need to know exactly why you are going to a class in order to keep unwanted negative thoughts (fears) that could be keeping you from what you seek to learn. You must go to any circumstance of learning to get honest feedback about your potential value to the acting industry. And yes, it is an industry. The power, passion and healing ability it has to an audience is between you and the audience. The job is between you and the producer. The producer's bottom line is financial.

Another example, say in your financial life, is what your internal dialogue is telling you about your survival job. What beliefs do you have about waiting on tables, doing temp work, catering, or clerical work late at night in a law office? Negative beliefs about the work you and your friends do to survive could be devastating. The beliefs could be re-enforcing a negative memory which then undermines the reason you are doing the job in the first place. In that case, the end does not support the means.

You change all negative beliefs by first recognizing them. Once a non-supportive negative belief has been recognized you can exchange the negative belief for a positive belief. (Remember, these beliefs are recognized by your internal dialogue of frustration and annoyance.)

You have the power to make these changes because, in truth, change is a choice. You can choose to change the belief or you can choose to change the circumstances supporting the belief. To continue the circumstance while maintaining the negative belief about it seems a bit masochistic. And, let's be clear. A negative belief can only be based on "a fear." Therefore, what that exact fear is must be discovered.

Once you set out to exchange a negative non-supportive belief (fear) to a positive supportive belief, you then use the power of your energy to accomplish it. First, link a negative belief to a positive belief. Such as, “I know that waiting on tables is something that I believe is below my education and ability level, but I also know it is a means to an end." or "I have a personal responsibility to make an honest wage while I pursue my goals for a successful professional acting career.”

When you have recognized the belief (waiting on tables is beneath me) to the fear (what will people think of me as a server) then you can go to a desired positive belief that is even strong than the one before. Such as, "I can use waiting on tables as an acting class that I set up for myself. I can practice my energy control, my emotion need projections, my varying personality traits, my charm and a thousand other things characters must do to survive in their world of make believe." By waiting on tables you also have the ability to practice your levels of energy in order to sustain them in make believe.

Remember, the higher the energy level you use to disempower a negative belief by linking it to a positive belief the faster the exchange will occur.

This should be easy for you to understand because the actor knows that the intensity of creating a character is directly related to the passion and resulting energy level he uses to perform the character in make believe. Knowing how to take your physical body to excitement is part of what the actor does. Use this skill while you reprogram yourself by transferring a negative belief to a positive belief. As an actor, you can change stupid to bright, homely to handsome, low class to upscale, etc. I’m sure you get the idea. The idea is that it is up to you. It is acting.

Recognize the consequences of your present beliefs to acting as a profession? What are your associations as a participant? Do you associate your ability to that of James Franco? How about Julie Roberts? Are you one of those who say "I could have played that role?" I hope not because the truth is you couldn’t even if you could. Julie Roberts is not just an actor, she is a business. Her value to a project is at the box office. Her company guarantees a profit. When those profits stop coming so will her job offers. That is true for all actors who are on the "A" list. They are about market attraction. Their acting provability is, for the most part, a given.

This does not apply to you today. In the future you may decide that this level of fame is what you want. Now, however, your goal should be about recognizing your talents. You need to be able to recognize your ability to go to Talent. These are two completely different realities. One is an ability and the other is a place. To creat a talent you must face the fears that keep you from acquiring the knowledge you need to then turn that knowledge to muscle memory through repetition. To go to Talent you must have the ability to recognize that actual physical place in you that is without fear.

You also need to identify your level of competition at the present time. You need to address your current personal abilities and personal knowledge in order to create actions that will lead to change. Change beliefs that are getting in your way and then change your new beliefs to success.
The Best You

What are your positive beliefs that support your efforts? Could some of them be: "Learning is great. People are honest. All things are possible. If you build it, they will come. Being bullied empowers me to stop bullies." These could be a few of your positive beliefs. However, you want to become aware of those beliefs in your life that have taken hold of you because they give you instant gratification. They may include: smoking, excessive drinking, recreational drugs or anonymous sex. Many of these instant gratifications in the long run may carry a heavy price tag for your health, your life, your security, and your self-respect.

For this reason you want to recognize your true beliefs (those beliefs that you act on) and your desired beliefs (those beliefs that you would like to think you use to live your life). You can not pretend that you live your life with your desired beliefs when your true beliefs are your reality. Your true beliefs are your actionable beliefs and usually differ greatly from your desired belief. You can change the actions that are supported by true beliefs. You can change those actions that take away the time and money necessary to work toward your career. But first, and here is the rub, you must recognize them.

You are looking to become your "best you." To prepare yourself to be highly competitive and ultimately successful as an actor, you are going to make yourself aware of what your “best you” really means. You want to focus your daily efforts in the presence of your “best you”. A key element in creating a character is allowing the character to "behave badly." You want the character to show how little control he has over his creature as he learns his/her life lessons during the play, the film or the TV show.

However, behaving badly can not be an option in your reality.

In the reality of your life you know when you are behaving badly. You also know when you are behaving your very best. You know when you’re putting your best foot forward. You know when you are your most attractive physically and emotionally. You know this.

You want to use your “best you” in all seven areas of your life. You want to know how you can go about doing this.

First, you become aware of your emotional behavior and own it. If your behavior is not something you wish to own, take corrective actions to change it. Make achieving your “best you” a priority in your life. It is directly related to your true beliefs (actionable) and your desired belief (wishful thinking). Give the quest for discovering your behavioral patterns more attention. Give it more focus. Once you recognize your negative behavioral patterns you must work to change them. Give your recognition power a chance to strengthen you without slipping into a place of judgment.

Don’t judge yourself and don't jusdge others. It is a waste of time and allows your internal dialogue to be controlled by your earthly need for survival not your spiritual and intellectual desire for a happier life. Intolerance of yourself or others is often used as a device to justify your internal dialogues use of incorrect thinking.

Do not allow yourself the luxury of judgmental thoughts of yourself or others. Use your thinking time to take control of your own behavior. Use your thinking time to work on your own reality. Being the best you is a quest that will result in life changing experiences in your world. Practice being in control of your best you. See how those around you respond to you. It will give you confidence and personal gratification.

Addictive Behavior

Addictions are attempts to keep your fears at bay. They are personal efforts to patronize your fears. Most of the time any addiction can be substituted for another. Addictive behaviors can ruin the life of you and your loved ones. If you want to free yourself from addictions you must identify the fear beliefs you have attached to allow them. You can change any addiction by recognizing the fear the addiction is pretending to control. That fear can usually be recognized because it usually lies in the forefront of the addiction.

Remember, if you are not experiencing the life you want, you are experiencing the life you choose.

For that reason the ability to change your circumstance and redirect your future is totally within your control. Learn what it takes to accept this power with grace and responsibility. If not, you run the risk of being at the mercy of those around you. Don't forget, your control of your career is based on the associations your career has to the seven areas of your life. You must understand your responsibility to getting the job as well as your responsibility to performing the job. This all requires your clarity in relation to the way you live your life and the methods you have chosen to cope.

You may have learned to associate pleasure to many things that at first you rejected as unacceptable. Yet, through peer pressure, role models, or desperation you may have conditioned yourself to accept these negative addictions as acceptable operating percedures in your life. Some misguided thoughts (internal dialogue) that support your addictions could be that the addiction helps you overcome your fears. This, of course, is rediculous. Those thoughts are only hiding what are actual dangers to you. You must accept that you are allowing this to happen. Acknowledge the things you are doing that are defocusing you and take control of them before they destroy your dreams, your goals and your life.

The key to changing addictive behavior is at your disposal. It is in the skill of the person who is peddeling the addictive circumstance. If you go into the mindset of the person making a profit on your addictions you will have the answer to your personal fear and weakness.

Let's be clear, you always know what is best for you. You can say anything you want to justify your accepting a wolf in sheep’s clothing but the truth is always in you.

You are ultimately in charge of acceptance and change. If you associate “good times” with doing stupid things and wasting precious time, you may find it difficult to associate “success” to using constant effort and focus through discipline (use of time).

Review your list of true beliefs you have toward acting as a career. Remember, a true belief is how you actually live your life. It is true, even if it is not what you purport to be true, in that you act on it. Be aware of how difficult you may be making life work for you by the rules (true beliefs) your have set for yourself. You may not recognize that your behavior is based on your true beliefs. If those beliefs are not acknowleged as your rules for living they will be impossible to change.

Only you set the rules by which you lead your life. No one else can do that. If the truth of how you wish to live your life is in your desired beliefs then make those desired beliefs your true beliefs. You do this by the actions you take to live your life.

The game of life will be won by the rules you set for yourself. You can not ignore society’s rules just as you can not ignore the rules of any given game. But, you can adjust the rules to work for you.

Decide on what level you wish to play the game and how much of a competitor you desire to be.
Your competitive level is based on your willingness to recognize your fears. You recognize those fears by what you try to avoid or by what you are addicted to. Accept your fears as real. Expose them to yourself with purpose. Disempower them by learning the lessons they are trying to keep your from learning.

Have a great week.

I wish you well.
Russ