Imagine getting in to your car and just driving, you have no destination you just drive. It may be ok to do this; some people even relax by going for a leisurely drive with no destination in mind. But its important to remember that you are driving aimlessly you have no direction no pre determined destination, where you will end up is anyone’s guess, you may even go round and round in circles. Now imagine getting into your car and putting a pre determined destination into your sat nav. The sat nav will guide you towards your goal, it has something to aim for, and you have something to aim for.

It’s the same in life if you do not have a destination or a goal then how can you get any where? How will you even know when you are there? Where ever there is! Setting a goal is like putting a destination into your sat nav, only this time it’s your mind that will plan the route and guide you there. Your mind is more powerful than any Sat nav ever invented; it will do what you tell it to do. Programme it to find out negativity and crap and it will do it, its all out there, just switch on your TV if you don’t believe me. Programme it to achieve great things, to be positive and it will do that as well, after all we are surrounded by great people and great things, just pick up an inspirational book…
People don’t set goals for lots of reasons, one is if you don’t set a goal then how can you fail? Some people say that they don’t know how to set a goal. Some people set very vague goals so that they can never achieve them. You might ask why someone would set goals that they can never achieve.

There are lots of reasons for this, some being that they don’t believe they deserve to achieve the goals that they set for themselves. Some believe that they are not good enough to achieve their goals. So they aim low or they may not even aim at all. If you don’t set a goal or if you set an impossible goal then how can you fail? You have the perfect excuse, “I never set goals they are a load of rubbish.” Or “it was impossible I could never do that.”  However by behaving this way your life will never change.

How you see yourself at a deep level, in others words your self worth will determine weather you achieve your goals or not. Do you deserve better than you have right now? Do you want to better yourself in any area?

If you answered yes to any of these questions then you need to set a goal and you need to believe that you are worthy of achieving your new goal? You can set daily goals, monthly goals and yearly goals and I highly recommend that you do all three.

So let’s get down to goal setting. It’s important that you WRITE down you goal in specific time bound language. For example I want to lose three stone by mid day on 12th June 2012. Get three good reasons WHY you want to achieve this goal for example I will live longer and see more of my children and grand children. I will go on that fantastic holiday I that have been putting off for years because of the way I look. I will look and feel so much better. (I hope you agree that these are three very good reasons to lose three stone and there is some emotion attached to them, they are powerful)

Then write down 5 specific action steps that you need to take to get you to your goal, you fill in this bit as I am sure you know what action you need to take.

Remember everything counts. Everything you do is taking you towards or away from your goal. So every time you do something ask yourself and I mean every time you do something (it all counts) “is this taking me towards or a way from my goal?”

You see, what you actually see in the mirror is what you have created.Everyone has a story to tell and that story will go along way towards defining the person in the mirror. It’s important to remember that it is you who is telling yourself the story.
People like your parents may have helped you to start the story they may have even written the opening chapter or even chapters of your story.

But it is you who have carried it on. It’s just a story but it is a very powerful one. So what are you telling yourself? Is your life great, ordinary or even crap? Are you as the main character weak or strong? Are you confident or full of self doubt? Are you the hero or the villain? Are you a winner or a loser? Victim or Victor? Your life is your story so how does it read? Is it an adventure story, a love story, a tragedy? How will it end? What is the next chapter going to be like?

It’s easy to make the next chapter just like the previous ones that takes no effort at all. All you have to do is keep doing the same old things and you will keep getting the same old results. It’s even easier to pretend that you are not writing the story but unfortunately that’s just not true. It doesn’t matter if you agree with me or not but you are writing your own story. You can blame your husband, wife or even your parents, you can say that they are writing your story its there fault or their choice as to how this story goes.

You know and I know that it’s not true, you are writing your own story and the sooner you realise this fact then the better your life will be.
Now you may not even be aware that you are writing your own story and that’s quite possible as a lots of people are not aware of the control that they have in their own lives. But you know now, so what are you going to do about it? It doesn’t have to be a scary thought the fact that you are in charge of writing your own story and hence your own destiny, it is actually a very empowering concept when you get used to it.

We are all born with a clean slate or an empty book, the pages are just waiting to be filled in, and the story is waiting to be written. Circumstances, beliefs, influences, society will all dictate the first few chapters but what then? Who is responsible for the middle chapters and even the end? Believe it or not the biggest section of the book is written by you. You have the power to dictate how the story goes and how it ends, so what are you going to do about it? Most of us pick up the story after the first few chapters and carry on in the same vain. But that was someone else’s story for you, it may be ok but it is not your story. Some people are scared to have the responsibility for writing their own story so they give the power to their husband or wife or anybody else as long as they don’t have to write it themselves.

Why are so many of us scared to write our own story? It is my belief that in the early chapters we believed what was written about us and a part of that is that we are not good enough, we are not worthy of writing a story.  Think about it, if someone asked you to write a book and your first reaction was “who am I to write a book? Who would want to read about what I have to say?”

Then why would you ever want to write a book if your core belief is that you are not good enough or even interesting enough for other people? In other words even you wouldn’t want to read a book about you! Sometimes we have to revisit those first few chapters, edit them and change a few things. Remember you did not write those chapters, at that time you were incapable of writing but you are more than capable now. So what are you going to change? What are you going to re write?

You can literally write and create your own future and that can be scary, other people in their own books will tell you that it’s impossible to change and write your own destiny and in their books they are of course correct. But this is your book, your story so you decide how the story goes, so why not make it a best seller?

For more information about Tony and the courses he offers go to www.tonysomers.com

These words are from an old rolling stones song. I don’t really know what they mean but I like the song and its sentiment. When you’re down on your luck that can be a pretty shitty place. Maybe the girl with far away eyes is meant to represent alcohol or drugs as these are the things that a lot of people turn to in depressing times.

When things get tough it is so tempting to run away and hide or even detach from reality. Drink and drugs distort reality they can even make it seem better for a short while, but even they come with a price to pay. Everything, including this precious life has its price and maybe that price is suffering as some spiritual texts say.

I know that when I feel low or even lost I turn away from the self help books and motivational speakers. It’s as if I know what they are going to say and I know that they are right but I just do not want to hear it at that moment. When I lose my way and things get tough and everything seems to be going wrong I don’t want some pompous arse hole telling me to focus and think positive thoughts. I know he’s right but I don’t want to bloody hear it.

I’ve got no money, no hope no future, I am feeling desperate and all of these fat in authentic life coaches are telling me how to get out of my darkness. All I want is to be left alone, let me hide under the duvet a bit longer, fuck off and spread your bull shit some where else. You can not understand what I am going through from way up there in your ivory tower. You don’t have money troubles or even relationship troubles in your oh so perfect life.

And you wannabee life coaches are even worse in your safe little factory jobs, yes sir, let me kiss your arse sir. Leave me to rot in my misery, none of you understand. But then what? How long do I stay here? Will the scary monster of failure and depression be gone when I lift my head out from under the covers? I have chosen this road, no one else just me, it was my choice and when it gets hard here I go again running for cover, reinforcing that old belief that I am just another failure, just another wannabee.

I know that you are all right in what you are saying, even though half of you have about as much authenticity as Tony Blair. But to be fair you are right even if it has been regurgitated hundreds of times, it is still right. No one ever made it in this world without struggles; even the people in the ivory towers had to struggle to get there. The struggles make us stronger, they build muscle, and we can not lead others with out leading ourselves.

I don’t want to be a plastic life coach, I want to be real, authentic and to do this I need to struggle, to go through the pain barrier. To face my fear of failure and inadequacy because in the end that is what will stand me apart from the plastic life coach that is what will make me oh so very, very strong! All of the top spiritual leaders that I love and admire had to suffer and they suffered in a big way. They are a part of us all, as are the wannabees; we are all related we all have the atoms of Buddha and Jesus within us. So what are we going to do with these atoms? Hide, run away or take massive action.

Action dispels anxiety.

When we believe in who we are at a deep level then none of this matters any way, none of this is real, none of this is secure. The money, the cars, the houses could all be gone tomorrow. I get what Buddha said now when he said all suffering is due to attachment. So what are you attaching to? If this world is an illusion like it says in the course in miracles, then why not shape the illusion in to one that you like.

The key words here being THAT YOU LIKE not what some self help guru likes or thinks you should have but what you like.

Its time to come out from underneath the covers and start to take action, but you choose the action and direction that you want to take and remember who you are, who your fore fathers were and who walks beside you at all times.

This could be something like alcohol, chocolate, sugar, biscuits etc anything that you have been tempted to abstain from but carry on doing.

As my good friend Geoff Thompson always says if we cant even control our pallets then how can we control our own life’s.

I am not asking you to give something up for good but just for one week starting from today.

Lets take action, as we know action leads to change.

PS I enjoyed not watching the news last week!

Taking action is the hard part of this equation but if we dont change what we are doing we will keep getting the same results. We need to get used to taking action which can be done in small steps.

So lets start: for next few days, turn off the news and do not read any newspapers. Trust me you will not miss a lot, its all mind bendingly negative any way, and you will be taking a small step of action.

If you are already sensing some resistance to this request then you need to ask yourself if you really do want to change.

You can imagine the conversation these two people would have about the world and especially the colour of it. We are all wearing imaginary contact lenses and our perceptions are mainly coloured or even clouded by our beliefs. We all see the same events in the world but our lenses will determine how we interpret those events.

These beliefs can be very powerful and very varied, for example let’s take patriotism. Some people believe that British people are superior (mainly British people believe this); Hitler believed that German people were superior and we all know the horrors that happened because of his beliefs. Its just a belief but go any country in the world and there will be people in that country telling you that it is the best country in the world and its people are the best people in the world.

In some ways its okay to have these beliefs but what I am trying to point out is that they are just beliefs. If you have red lenses on then everything is red, if you have blue lenses on then everything is blue. If you have British lenses on then you may perceive everything and everyone British to be the best. If you have German lenses on then everything German will be superior. If you have white lenses on then white people may seem superior, if you have black lenses on then black people may seem superior. If you have Christian lenses on then Christians will be the most important people, if you have Muslim lenses on then Muslim people will be the most important people to you.

We haven’t even talked about gender, sexuality, weight, height, hair colour etc. but I am sure you get the picture, even through your coloured lenses.
So here is the big question, What if you could take your lenses off and see the world in a totally different way?

There are theories that say this world is an illusion although a very persistent one. We are spiritual beings having an earthly experience. People like Buddha talked about not attaching to the illusion. It’s okay to have money and material things as long as we don’t attach to them as they are not real and will return to dust. Jesus said be in this world but not of this world.

Looking at the recent riots, what did people mainly steal? They complained about being poor and having no money but they didn’t steal food they stole mobile phones and giant television sets and lots of other material things. I know there are problems with a lack of work and youth services being closed down, which doesn’t help the situation but look at what they were stealing.

We seem to live in a world where our status or value is dictated by the car we drive, the clothes we wear, the house we live in, the way we look.
It makes me wonder what type of contact lenses we are fitting to the next generations if all that counts is the way we look. The thing about living life by the way we look is that we are actually handing our own power over to somebody else. How I now feel will depend on how good or bad you tell me I look. You can make or break my day by judging me in a positive or a negative way. The only person that has power over you is you, as Buddha said “put no head above your own.”

If one thing was to come from you reading this article I hope it is to make you reflect on your own beliefs and question, are they real? And do you need them?

For more information on Tony go to www.tonysomers.com

Why were some of the greatest people in history killed? Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mohammed’s life was threatened for years. Everyone can see, no matter what your beliefs may be, that all of these people were amazing human beings, so what did they do that was so wrong to deserve to get killed? They dared to be different, they went against the establishment, they were considered to be too dangerous to let walk around this planet. Human beings do not like change so when some one comes along, like a Jesus type of figure and says you can change your whole world, people get scared.

Maybe that fear is because at a deep level we know that what these great people say is true. We are meant to be more than we currently are and that is scary. It’s scary because it means letting go of the known, for a ship to sail to new shores it must lose sight of the old shore, it must pick up its anchor and head out into the deep unpredictable sea and that is scary, exciting but scary.Ships are not meant to stay in port but what if the port is comfortable? It is certainly safe. So what if someone is coming along and encouraging all of the other ships to leave the port? If they all go you will be left alone. So now you are caught between a rock and a hard place. If you leave the port you risk danger, the unknown, if you stay in the port you risk isolation, rejection. However there is a third option, you could always discredit the person who is encouraging everyone to leave but what’s more if that doesn’t work you could always kill them!

We can learn a lot from nature, a chick must be terrified when it comes to flying or leaving the nest for the first time. It has been fed, kept warm and clean by its mother, it has all of its needs met, it has its siblings for company and now it is expected to leave and fly off on its own, into the great unknown. I think at this point if I was a little fluffy chick with new untried wings I would be a little bit scared to put it mildly. However if it doesn’t fly then what will happen? Its mother will leave, it will grow too big for the nest, it will have no food, at some point it will need to leave, to soar up to the sky and do great cart wheels of freedom. It has to face its fear, the pain of staying and dying in the nest becomes greater than the fear of that first flight (pain is a great motivator) It can fly to new horizons, meet other birds, build its own nests, have its own chicks, make fantastic new discoveries, see and experience fantastic adventures.The ship will sail the seas, have great adventures, become weather hardened, and see new shores experience things it will never experience in a port.

So why do we not take this leap of freedom, why do we not listen to these great teachers? One word comes to mind and that is our old friend FEAR!

Some of you were probably already thinking to yourselves, the ship may sink, the bird may get killed. At some point the ship will decay, the bird will age and die. Do you want to be a ship that never leaves the port? Do you want to decay in the same old place that you have anchored in for years? Or do you want to take a risk and experience life with all of its great adventures, some good and some not so good, but adventures all the same. Do you want to stay huddled up in your nest all alone, your brothers and sisters having left long ago? Until you pass to another realm to start this process all over again. Or do you want to do great cart wheels in the sky and see the fantastic wonders of the world and feel the wind beneath your wings as you sore in the bluest of skies?
The purpose of life is not simply to survive but to seek perfection in yourself. The only way to do this is to face your fears, take risks and live your life to the max. All of these great prophets told us the same thing. The only thing we need to change is ourselves and then everything around us will change.

These great prophets were real, they had nothing to hide, and they didn’t pretend to be something that they were not. They truly did wear their hearts on their sleeves, they showed their fears and their weaknesses and people loved them for it. How many people do you know that are truly congruent? The vast majority of people I meet hide behind masks that they have created to keep themselves safe. They act in ways that they think will endear them to others, they are false but this act is so much apart of them that they don’t even know they are acting any more! They will read this and say “you are right Tony I know lots of people like that.” But I am talking to you because this freedom I am talking about comes from within. Drop the masks be real, show your vulnerabilities because that is your strength, your congruence is your strength, dare to be vulnerable. When you are hurt it’s because people are pulling or even ripping your mask apart, if you have nothing to hide then you cannot be hurt. Take the mask off, hand it to them, what can they do?

We have a deep fear of separation, of letting go; this comes from our child hood a baby needs its mother to survive. But at what point do we out grow this need for connection? At what point can you let go? You are not a baby any more, there is a whole new world, a new reality waiting for you, so fly, sail, be free. It is hard work but it is worth it, you can’t swim with out getting wet. You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. Inspiration equals action and action equals change, another reason we fear change is because it requires action and action takes effort. If you want to get fit you have to put in the effort, if you want to learn to play the piano you have got to put in the effort.

That is what the prophets meant by being free and the kingdom of heaven being within. But that will make you a very dangerous human being and we all know what happens to them.

This is one of my favorite pieces of work which is often credited to Nelson Mandela but was actually written my Marianne Williamson.

To me she is saying that we are actually more powerful than we could ever imagine. If this is true then why don’t we believe it? Why can’t we see or feel our hidden power?

I was looking at some research recently that said in 2008, 5706 people committed suicide in the UK. Three times as many men as woman kill themselves.

I know that this is a vast area and that there are many contributory factors. Alcohol, the economic down turn, relationship break down, drugs etc

But Marianne is telling us that we were born to manifest the glory of God that is within all of us, so what is going wrong?

The conclusion that I have reached is that it is obvious that we either don’t know that we possess all of this wonderful power or that we just don’t believe it.

So what would happen if we did start to believe it?

Then we would have to change and change is very scary. People often stay in situations or relationships that although they may be very uncomfortable at least they are known. To change means taking risks and to take risks means having courage. What if it goes wrong? What if I really am a failure? What if I really am inadequate?

My experience of life is that what ever you are scared off which is the thing we usually try to avoid, will catch up with you and need facing at some point any way. So why not face up to it sooner rather than later?

The thing you are scared off is not out there, it’s inside you. It’s the beliefs that you have formed about yourself. Change these beliefs and you change the whole world. Let me just repeat that last sentence change your beliefs and you change your whole world.

I am going to finish with a question, imagine you are about to die and at the gates of heaven you see the man or woman that you could have been in this life. What would they be like?

On the 23rd of July I will be holding an inspirational workshop at the Friends meeting house in Coventry. Places will be strictly limited to 12 people on a first come first serve basis.

It is only £50.00 for the day, to book your place please call Tony on 07708273376 or e-mail tony@tonysomers.com

For more information please go to www.tonysomers.com

Having the mind and will focused on a specific purpose.

I am very much into my martial arts and I have noticed over the years that the best martial artists are the ones with intent. They are going to win no matter what the cost. I am not saying that this is right or wrong, I am not here to judge but that level of intent is very powerful.
When ever I talk to someone like John Awesome Anderson about his times as a doorman in Coventry one of the things that really strikes me is the guy’s intent. When he got into a physical situation that he knew was going to get violent and there was no other way out, his intent was to knock the guy out. He even says that as he was talking to his opponents he would visualise them already knocked out on the floor. When you are in John’s presence you just cannot doubt the guy’s intent.
I am fortunate enough to be able to grapple with Matty Evans one of the best all round Martial artists in the UK. He is the same as John, you can actually almost physically feel his intent. I often try to make him laugh just before we are about to start in an effort to disturb his intent (I do need all the help I can get)
My good friend Geoff Thompson, author and BAFTA winner is another guy with massive intent weather it be in fighting, sparring or business you just cannot fail to pick up on his intent.
So where does this intent come from? And how can we harness it?

It’s my belief that the world is made of energy and that includes you, me the planets the universe, all the animals and everything else that you can see, touch, hear and feel.
Everything in the universe is made up of the same 92 elements and that includes you and me.
We are all made out of atoms and what are atoms? That’s right energy.
Intent is a way of harnessing that energy, of fine tuning it. It’s like taking a magnifying glass and harnessing the light (which is energy) from the sun into a very fine beam that is powerful enough to burn almost anything in just a few seconds.
So going back to our dictionary definition of intent, if you have your mind and will focused on a specific purpose then you become almost unstoppable.
If you don’t have intent or focus you are like a light that lights up a room and that is fine but intent intensifies that light into a beam of energy, just like a laser that is very powerful.
With intent comes belief and commitment. When I applied to join the fire service, I was told that only four out of every hundred people who applied were successful in gaining entry.
My intent was at such a high level that if only one person in a hundred was accepted I would have been that one.
My intent came from pain, the pain of working in car factories day in day out and doing tasks that I hated. The thought of doing a job I detested for the next forty years motivated me to make big changes. Intent enabled me to make those changes. It has been said that when you truly have intent and you commit to something. The whole universe conspires to help you.
If we are all made of the same energy, including the universe then it makes sense to believe that we can mould and create that energy into any shape that we desire and the universe will indeed help you because you are the universe.
Think about what you really want to do in your life, fire up your intent, we are creators so let’s start believing in ourselves and create.

For more information on Tony go to www.tonysomers.com www.realcombatsystem.co.uk