Like most people, you probably have some areas of your life that are abundant, and some that aren’t.

You probably also have a story about why you’re not abundant in those particular areas.

If you’ve been following this series, you know that story is very likely a lie. It’s an excuse that is preventing you from having what you want.

Because, as I told you last time, whatever you’re experiencing or not experiencing in your life is just an effect.

It’s the direct result of something you’re doing or not doing.

It follows, then, that every result that you want to have in your life would have a direct cause as well.

Identifying that cause was the work of Step 3.

For Step 4, I want you to outline the path that Step 3 uncovered, and then take bold action toward your dream.

How to Make It Bold
I say “bold,” because it’s an engine; it’s a force that strongly pushes forward what you want.

That makes sense, doesn’t it?

If you take lackluster actions, you’re going to get lackluster results.

But if you take bold actions, you’re going to get bold results.

So what do bold actions entail?

They usually put you on the line in some way. You might be exposing yourself, risking disapproval or rejection, or upsetting someone’s idea of who you should be.

A Bold Example
For example, let’s say that, as a youth, you were teased or bullied. As an adult it’s difficult for you to trust, and you’re carrying around an “I can’t have friends” story in your head.

Now, tired of being isolated and lonely, you’ve decided to change that old story, so that you can have healthy, supportive, fun, and intimate friendships.

When you applied Step 3, you realized that the cause of rich friendships was to look at yourself and consider how you can take steps to BE a better friend yourself.

Applying Step 4, you now make a list of bold friendship actions and start doing those actions on a daily basis.

Those bold friendship actions include:

* call one acquaintance every day, just to say hello and ask how they're doing.

* send one thank you card every other day to someone who made a difference in your life.

* take responsibility for a past misunderstanding or argument, and make a weekly phone call to make amends.

* allow yourself to be vulnerable and trust, and open up about something that matters to you to someone you want to be closer to.

How Bold Changes Your Life
By putting yourself on the line and risking rejection on a daily basis, you are giving yourself a new experience that runs counter to your old story, and that your subconscious has to accept.

This creates a new belief, an “I can have friends” story that allows those friendships to manifest in your life, while also building your self-confidence.

Before long, you’re brimming with healthy friendships and confidence, and your life will never be the same.

Dear David,

I have been passionate about building my business. I invest, I work hard, and do my best to provide for my family. And yet, I overhear people talking about how I’m being irresponsible…

I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Am I really being irresponsible to want to build a successful business?

Hello David!

Thanks for taking my question!

How do you determine what is reasonable when setting timelines for goal attainment? Or should timelines be left out of the equation altogether?

Hi James!

Sometimes, time is not a factor when setting goals, and other times, it’s important to do your research before setting that goal.

Some business owners use time as an excuse. They say things like:

“When I get x number clients, I’ll do z.”

This is a dysfunctional way of looking at time, and I certainly don’t recommend it, especially when a quantum leap can sometimes occur just by making a decision that time is NOT a factor.

If you do have a goal that requires time, for example, building a house, you must do your research and be flexible with your timelines.

Obviously it’s tough for me to guess at what your goal entails, but be honest with yourself.

Are you using time as an excuse or are you building in reasons to delay?

OR

Do you need to gather more information to see what tasks need to be completed to you to attain your goal?

A GREAT resource for you is the chapter titled, Desire, in Napoleon Hill’s book, Think and Grow Rich, especially if you’re setting a financial goal.

Happy goal setting!!

PS: The Neagle Code: Directions for Life is a weekly no-cost program that is open to everyone! Each week, I'll select and personally respond to one question received via the above “The Neagle Code” page that I feel in my heart will help the most people. (You may choose to remain anonymous if you wish, with our full support.) It is my deep, heartfelt intention that ~ in answering your questions ~ I may provide you with the Universal Truths that in committed application, will set you free. Simply submit YOUR burning question at: www.DavidNeagle.com/ask-david to participate.

As I told you last time, if you want to change the subconscious beliefs that are creating undesirable results in your life, you need to take action.

But, of course, you don’t want to take just any old action.

You want to take the action that’s going to lead to the result you want.

You want to make sure that you’re pushing the right thing in the right direction.

How do you determine what that right action should be?

That’s what Step 3 is all about.

Cause and Effect
Step 3 is based on the Law of Cause and Effect, which states that whatever you send out into the universe comes back to you.

Every action has a reaction.

Every cause has an effect. And every effect has a cause.

For example, let’s take money. Money is an effect.

The abundance or lack of money in your life is the effect of something you’re doing or not doing.

Your lack of money isn’t caused by the economy or the class in which you were raised or your lack of training and education.

Those are all excuses we tell ourselves so that we don’t have to take actions that might expose us or make us look foolish or upset someone’s idea of who we should be.

Think of all the sales calls you never made, the opportunities you never followed up on, the rates you were reluctant to raise.

A myriad of actions and inactions causes abundance and the lack of it. And all of those actions and inactions create the balance in your accounts.

The same is true for every effect, every result, in your life. Every effect in your life has a direct cause.

What Is the Cause of the Result You Want in Your Life?
Therefore, it follows that every effect, every result that you want to have in your life would have a direct cause as well.

And that’s why in Step 3 you want to identify the cause of the new result that you want in your life.

It’s actually pretty simple in today’s day and age to figure this out. There’s always somebody you can ask or information you can get from the Internet.

It is a little harder to employ because it does take some effort. There’s no question about it. But figuring it out is not difficult to do.

And once you identify the cause of the result you want, not only do the actions you need to take present themselves, but you will feel empowered as well.

Because you will begin to realize that, ultimately, you are the cause. YOU are the cause of the abundance in your life, in every area.

For instance, let’s say the effect you desire is more friendships — healthy, supportive, fun, intimate — friendships.

Then the cause of that would be to look at yourself, and consider how you can take steps to BE a better friend yourself, and start doing those friendship actions on a daily basis.

Once you start taking those actions, as I’ll show you in Step 4, you will start seeing results, and you’ll feel your tremendous power to bring in as much of whatever it is that you want in your life.

You won’t let anyone else dictate the actions you take. You’ll be free from the perceived constraints of others.

You’ll be well on your way to building the kind of self-confidence that truly is unshakeable.

David,

I’ve simply stopped setting goals. I resist even thinking about goals because my pattern is to not follow through. It’s happened so many times, that I think to myself, “Why bother…you’re not going to do it anyway…”

How do I finally break this pattern?

Thanks so much!

Thanks for the question!

I’m going to skip trying to understand why you’re sabotaging yourself and go right to the solution.

If you’re really committed to changing this, do exactly as I tell you below and sooner rather than later you’ll be on your way to success!

First, start with DAILY goals.

That’s right. We’re not talking about 6 and 12-month goals right now, we’re going to start small and build to strengthen your self-confidence muscle over time.

Tonight before you go to bed, take out your notebook and pen and right down THREE things you MUST accomplish before you go to bed tomorrow.

I recommend that these be income generating “things”, but it’s ultimately up to you. Sometimes it’s best to start REALLY small.

When you wake up tomorrow, put that list in front of you, and DO NOT GO TO BED THAT NIGHT until all 3 of those items are completed.

You must be disciplined here…do not allow yourself to make excuses and DO NOT GO TO BED until you’ve checked those three things off your list.

Do the same thing tomorrow night. Write down three ”things” you need to accomplish the next day, and the next day, don’t go to sleep until all 3 things are accomplished.

Setting these small, yet important, goals are small stair steps to your bigger goal and to developing the discipline, confidence and trust within yourself to succeed in whatever you put your mind to.

Once you master the daily goals, begin setting weekly goals on top of your daily goals!

You’ll gain momentum quickly and break the pattern of not following through.

PS: The Neagle Code: Directions for Life is a weekly no-cost program that is open to everyone! Each week, I'll select and personally respond to one question received via the above “The Neagle Code” page that I feel in my heart will help the most people. (You may choose to remain anonymous if you wish, with our full support.) It is my deep, heartfelt intention that ~ in answering your questions ~ I may provide you with the Universal Truths that in committed application, will set you free. Simply submit YOUR burning question at: www.DavidNeagle.com/ask-david to participate.

Hi David! I've recently taken a big leap of faith and left my J.O.B. to pursue my passion. I've gone from making a great salary (6 figures) to making nothing. I'll admit I'm a bit scared, but more excited about my future. I KNOW I can do this! What is the best advice you could offer me to really kick-start my new business?

Congrats on making the decision to pursue your passion, Teresa!

The best advice I can offer you is to master the art of influence.

Webster’s definition of influence is: a person or thing that affects someone or something in an important way.

I see too many new business owners throw all their time and energy into websites and marketing, and really if they would just focus on the art of influence, their business would grow so much faster.

If you master the art of influence, you’ll be able to understand your prospect, pinpoint exactly how you can help them, and enroll them into your programs…all without websites, systems or strategies.

Talk to as many people as you can, speak in front of groups and really get out there!

After you’ve built some capital and have a growing practice, then consider investing in a website, lead generation, and a team.

For now, focus on mastering yourself so you can master your ability to effectively and confidently communicate with your prospects and enroll them into programs that will change their life.

PS: The Neagle Code: Directions for Life is a weekly no-cost program that is open to everyone! Each week, I'll select and personally respond to one question received via the above “The Neagle Code” page that I feel in my heart will help the most people. (You may choose to remain anonymous if you wish, with our full support.) It is my deep, heartfelt intention that ~ in answering your questions ~ I may provide you with the Universal Truths that in committed application, will set you free. Simply submit YOUR burning question at: www.DavidNeagle.com/ask-david to participate.

This series is showing you how to create a new, unwavering belief in yourself.

That way, you’ll pursue your own vision of happiness, and not waste time doing things because other people say you should. You’ll know what you want and go after it.

We got that ball rolling in Steps 1 and 2, when I had you determine the thought, belief or story that was keeping you from seeing the results you want, and then replace that thought with one based in Universal Law.

In Step 3 and 4, you’re going to start creating real change in your life, but in order to do so you have to understand the foundation for why your efforts can be so successful.

How Beliefs Are Formed
Your subconscious does its best to keep you right where you are. It’s designed to carry out programming, and it does that job very well.

Who controls the programming of your subconscious?

You do, with your ability to accept or reject an idea.

However, you don’t develop that ability to reason until about age seven. Until then, without realizing it, you simply absorb the beliefs of your guardians, teachers, and others around you.

By the time you become aware of your consciousness, you are already seeing through a filter of your programming, and you don’t even realize it.

The problem is compounded because your programming creates your reality, the situations and circumstances in your life, and then you react to those circumstances in the way that you’re programmed to do, and, thus, perpetuate the cycle.

In addition, since you’re trained to experience life with your five senses, you likely perceive that everything that is happening around you is not only real, but fixed.

You probably say things like, “This is the way that it is. This is my experience. This is reality,” when, in fact, it’s just what you’re creating in the moment.

Are you beginning to understand why you might be stuck?

How, try as you might, on certain issues, you just haven’t been able to make any headway?

Your New Reality
Now, the good news is that you can change your subconscious through experience.

If you give yourself a different experience, by taking action, your subconscious has to accept it, and then you form a new belief and start to create a new reality from there.

Your subconscious starts generating results based on your new belief, and your self-confidence grows.

For example, I had a student who literally changed her life by flying first-class to Europe. That experience emboldened her so much, that over the next two years, she transitioned out of her old business, which she’d built because it was “safe,” and created a new business of her dreams.

She is now so much more confident, that she’s hardly recognizable to family and old friends.

Her experience is far from unique.

As you grow in confidence, you start taking bigger actions, which create bigger and better results.

And before you know it, you’re trusting yourself implicitly, and your life has truly changed.

I have recognized how comfortable chaos is for me. It’s startling to wake up and admit to myself that when I grow, I create chaos, and then I sit in that chaos until something forces me out of it. I use the chaos as an excuse to stop. I’d like so much to change this, but am not sure how.

Thank you.

What a fantastic question!

Here’s the good news…

You don’t need to create chaos every time you grow and stretch.

And the thing is…you can control it all by controlling your thoughts.

This is something I learned very early on in my own journey, and it’s why even today, I study profusely. Everywhere I go I carry my books with me.

You see your thoughts and emotions CREATE your circumstances. Most people have that backwards. They think that their circumstances “happen”, and then they allow those circumstances to control what they think and feel. This in turn just creates more of the unwanted circumstances.

The next time you stretch in your business or personal life, arm yourself with the TRUTH.

As soon as you feel your mind going into chaos, take control of those thoughts by studying the truth.

Read books like, Working With the Law by Raymond Holliwell, As a Man Thinketh by James Allen, The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles, or even better, pop in one of my home study programs

The most important thing here is that YOU control your thoughts and your thoughts create your circumstances.

You see, THOUGHTS ARE THINGS.

Fill your mind with the truth and the chaos will stop.

PS: The Neagle Code: Directions for Life is a weekly no-cost program that is open to everyone! Each week, I'll select and personally respond to one question received via the above “The Neagle Code” page that I feel in my heart will help the most people. (You may choose to remain anonymous if you wish, with our full support.) It is my deep, heartfelt intention that ~ in answering your questions ~ I may provide you with the Universal Truths that in committed application, will set you free. Simply submit YOUR burning question at: www.DavidNeagle.com/ask-david to participate.