Getting ahead of the majority when learning Spanish doesn’t happen in minimal time. It could take a lot longer if you don’t focus on your goals but, it could also be a fast-phased process if taken seriously. The Spanish language has hundreds of eager learners everyday and the demand to having a good Spanish learning material is overwhelming. But this makes it difficult to choose the appropriate learning material on your own.

It doesn’t have to be this way all the time, though. There is a way and that is for you to handle. Researching for a good Spanish material is important even before you start to sit down and begin your Spanish lessons. Determine first the reasons why you want to learn Spanish since this brings your search down to the important factors only. Are you learning it for travel purposes? Business tie-ups? Normal conversation with Spanish speaking natives? Choose what is best that applies to you as of the moment to make your learning stage smooth. Less interruptions is better. We mentioned “as of the moment” because if you want to switch reasons in learning Spanish eventually, you can shift so without so much fuss.

When you have some Spanish lessons stored at the top of your head, try to ask questions to yourself and answer it back in Spanish. It doesn’t have to be a difficult question. You can start by using questions which require only yes or no answers. Remember, these questions are great for the improvement of your Spanish language comprehension. Together with your Spanish practices, do this activity daily.

Listening to any Spanish material is an extremely effective way of improving your Spanish speech and vocabulary. Remember how Spanish lines from English movies sink in to your memory easily? It’s not so just because it’s interesting and appealing but also because it dictates the perfect way of how it should be pronounced. You know the words, spelling and what it means, but pronouncing Spanish words fluently is also a plus factor for which, tells that you have been doing good on your Spanish lessons.

‘We need to think differently to shift our paradigms
to a new, deeper, “inside-out” level’; Stephen R. Covey

In the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey describes habits as “consistent, often unconscious patterns which constantly, daily express our character and produce our effectiveness, or ineffectiveness”.

Who we are and what we become is a direct result of our habits. It is in the realm of habits that our character is born, nurtured and outwardly expressed. What we see from the outside is a direct reflection of those deeply embedded habits that have gradually, steadily and consistently ingrained themselves into our psyche. Our behavior is therefore informed by these habits, which with time become so deeply ingrained into our minds that changing them is like attempting to break mountains with bare hands.

Breaking free from these deeply-embedded habits is a tall order, especially if they have been acquired over a long period of time. The longer it takes to acquire certain habits, the more difficult it is to break them. And this is not necessarily a bad thing; especially if the habits acquired are positive. Positive habits should be encouraged, even developed where they are lacking.

According Mike Bressica, success comes from behaviors, which start out as thoughts. To change your habits or behaviors, you will need to have different thoughts. What occupies your mind; your thoughts; propels you to behave in a certain way. If you don’t like the results of your behavior, all you need to do is to change your thoughts. The Bible talks of renewing our mind as a way of transforming ourselves into good, acceptable and perfect people that always seek to do the will of God (Rom 12.2).

Renewing or shifting from our current thoughts to those that we desire brings about transformation or change in our lives. This is what is known as having a paradigm shift; adopting a new way of thinking, of doing things, of behavior.

The good thing about habits is that they are acquired over time through learning, nuances, brainwashing and experiences. Since they are acquired, they can be replaced by changing the thought patterns that fostered them in the first place.

To replace negative, self-limiting thought patterns, which Mike Bressica calls “mental patterns of failure”, we must set as a first goal to reduce the impact of these patterns. And this cannot be done overnight. Just as it took time to acquire these mental patterns of failure, it will take time to release them and replace them with ‘mental patterns of success’.

Paul talking to the Church in Rome expressed his frustration with his inability to rein in his patterns of failure. It appeared to him that he was fighting a losing battle with his mind as he found himself doing the very evil that he did not want to do; and not doing the good that he wanted to (Romans 7: 19).

Like so many of us, Paul was at a crossroad. On one side lay the old self-limiting patterns of failure; and on the other, his desire to release these negative patterns, which always led him to do evil, and replace them with those that would propel him into a transformed life of doing good.

Highly successful people are those who rid themselves of their patterns of failure by brushing off distractions. When you have no pattern of failure limiting your progress, you are able to overcome temporary setbacks at the thought level. Since the battle for success is won or lost at the thought level, your success or failure in this arena is what makes you successful or unsuccessful. Success comes naturally when you learn how to control your thought patterns. As Bressica says, if you muster the art of thought control, you will not be ‘tempted to act opposite to what you know is best. You can keep fear at a minimum. Doubt is nowhere to be found.’

But how do you unlearn limiting thought patterns that you have picked up from childhood? How do you break down inscrutable blocks of negative habits that have been distilled and cemented into your psyche since childhood? To merely tell you to change your paradigm would be as vain as telling a hungry person to be filled without giving him food to eat. What we hear, see, experience or sense has a direct bearing on the formation of our habits; which are informed by thoughts, and which are then acted out in the form of behavior.

Thoughts are the foundation on which our habits are formed. These habits, depending on their nature, in turn inform our actions or behavior; and success or lack of it solely depends on the actions we take. To take that crucial first step in starting your own business, you must first of all unlearn the employee mentality and start seeing yourself as a successful entrepreneur.

But to achieve this paradigm shift is no mean fit. What with years of being told to study hard so that, when you grow up, you will get a good job? To break away from this mold of thinking and start seeing or thinking yourself as a successful business person requires much more than positive affirmations such as ‘I can do it’. If ‘I can do it’ is out of tandem with your thought pattern, then, try as much as you will, you can’t do it.

I believe with all my heart that if you can think it, you can do it. The writer of the Book of Proverbs (23:7) knew this all too well when he said that ‘as one thinks in his heart, so is he’. Your thoughts define the kind of person you become. Countless times we blame external circumstances while in reality the core cause of our failure can be found in our thought patterns.

Have you ever had that feeling when it seems everything is against you?

I remember a time many years ago when something was wrong in my relationship. At the same time something went wrong with the finances. My children added more pressure and some thing cracked.

Suddenly life was in turmoil. When this happened I tried to bury my head in the sand. I hoped all the troubles would somehow miraculously go away and tried to pretended nothing was wrong.

As things got progressively worse, I went into fight or flight – do I stay and work this out, or run like mad. I stressed over things that didn’t matter and missed the things that did.

I put on weight. I pretended I was scared and made up woe is me stories in my mind that convinced me I couldn’t do anything about anything. I made excuses. I procrastinated. I paced up and down and my life issues kept going round in circles.

In my experience of working with people, it’s not unusual for people who have troubles to point to their circumstances or to someone else and say it’s their fault. But what I can share with you here is that nothing will change until the blaming stops.

In hindsight, if I’d owned up to my own responsibilities a lot sooner, I’d have spared myself a sack full of emotional pain and moved on to a more pleasurable lifestyle more quickly.

However, one of the things with most of us human beings is that we often only tend to do something about things when we max-out on pain.

This is one of the reasons why I’ve now begun running a programme which turn hard work and difficulties into happiness and freedom. It saves a lot of struggle and speeds up the process of change. In my experience, when you sit on something painful, it hurts. When my partner says to me, we need some time out together, I listen. I do this out of love for her and out of the knowledge that if I didn’t, things would, most likely, become progressively worse.

On the plus side, when we spend more time together we always enjoy it. Our needs are met and we then feel we can handle anything else that comes up in our life from a place of love, rather than a place of need and desperation.

When I’m working late at home and the kids express their demands for my time and attention, they’re saying ‘Dad we need time together.’ If I ignore their request things get worse. If I meet their needs, things get better.

There are countless other examples I could give you. There are many different signals given to us about transforming our lives. Many of these clues are never seen by us. They pass by unnoticed and the stresses, frustration and sense of going nowhere fast builds up.

For many their life journey and purpose becomes obscured. When this happens depression can set in. I’m sure though, and maybe you agree, that there must be a better way to live.

1. What issue keep coming up for you?

2. What have you done to change it?

3. What could you do that you haven’t done?

4. Are you stopping yourself for a reason?

5. Have you researched possible way to overcome this, or have you given up?

6. Don’t give up. In the words of Tony Robbins, ‘Find a way or make a way.’

With Love and good wishes

Neil

Do you have a sense that that we should all be happy? Do you feel there is more to life than stresses and struggling on? Would you like to see life get a little better? Would you like to see your life getting progressively better, a step at a time?