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     2011 has been a great year for all of us. Fountains of opportunities, accomplished goals that we created to do and: WE GOT THINGS DONE - simply by focusing on the things we set out to do to attain the dreams(s) we are striving for. With the New Year, comes new challenges, new goals, new desires and a new you. Let us reflect on ourselves in this fresh chapter of 2012 and pin point on the subtle attributes that we will be using towards our path to greatness, as we continue to build the foundation of our attitude in January's edition - The Little Things!

     By the "Little Things", I am talking about the bits and pieces that are essential to our growth in our attitudes towards anything. They are things like FEELING, SPEECH, GESTURES and IMAGES of ourselves and of others. All of these points put together adds up to EQUAL the attitudes we generate and bring out to life, enabling us to say everything comes from within and to reach out into the enviroment that surrounds us. The "architect" who created us made us perfectly in all aspects and it is upon us to create in ourselves and out - the reality that we have envisioned to live.

As many great minds have said in the past:

"YOU ARE WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT"

     Imagine our attitude as a big jigsaw puzzle. Our puzzle relies on many small pieces that need to fit well together to show the big and complete picture. With our little pieces, we do not know the big and complete picture will be, but if we work on putting the little jigsaw pieces of what we have available to us into play - the feeling, the speech, the gestures and the images - these little pieces will fit in perfectly together to show the picture of our attitude that we are building towards. Now the question is: How do we fit the pieces perfectly?

     We need to build a soild foundation. Yes, a very good, but that is not the whole answer. It is much simpler but deeper then that. It has to do with your brain, to simply THINK. We have to train the brain in a way that will switch bad habits with good habits. Good habits as in; being friendsly to family and neighbours, exercising your body, setting goals, listening, politeness, being kind being aware, etc.... the list goes on, you only need to pick the most important pieces that make you and your attitude in the end; and practice them religiously as if it were a very part of you.

In order to do this, and to get the answer to how we will fit the pieces together is this: Affirmations and Acting...

     If you are willing, try this out. Take a sheet of paperand think of ten things you want to be as a person. Do you want to socialize more? Be more active in sports? be a respectable person? Meet a certain someone? Whatever you come up with, write them all down. If you feel like your stuck, take a moment and look deep down inside yourself and find your faults or what you're lacking and write down the positive side of those for things lacking and for faults. Next number the ones that strike you the most on being who you want to be from 1 - 10. Rewrite them on a new sheet of paper if you like.

     Now the challenge: take your numbered traits which we will now call "affirmations" and read these everyday and as often as you can, and really see yourself as the person you are going to be. Throughout the day ACT out your affirmations as though you already have habituated your affirmations. Do this for 32 days; keep in mind that if you begin to think about negative thoughts or anything that is opposite of what you have written as your affirmations then your must restart the count. The More you do this consistantly the more you will turn in to the persona you wanted to become.

Look at it like a build who uses bricks to build his walls for his house. Place them carelessly and inconsistently with no purpose and the building's walls will be weak and unstable. Eventually the walls will break and collapse. Put your pieces of brick firmly, consistently, and with care and you will get strong walls that can possibly stand the hardships of the future.

     The attitude you have is like this wall: Properly take care of the little traits you have by being strong, attentive, while acting with purpose and focus, and you may have just earned the best attitude for the centuries to come.

(the 'red brick' concept was presented and inspired by an audio tape by: Earl Nightingale "The Strangest Secret". You can find the audio here at Earl Nightingales Site.)

     Your attitude is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT factor that drives your to either accomplish of fail your goals. All you have to do is THINK, think whether you want to be an accomplishment or the opposite. Whichever one you choose (hopefully you have choosen success over defeat) just continue to work on imporving and building upon your little traits, and eventually you will get there. I just know it!

The essence is to...

"TAKE IT ONE DAY AT A TIME"

To a smashing good year, Cheers!

Jonathan Gotengco