Hi friends,

I would like to start this post by thank­ing you all for your par­tic­i­pa­tion on my blog. I’m so glad to read how much you ben­e­fit from my short videos every week. So BIG thanks to you for your con­stant pos­i­tive feed­back and com­ments. Since I have been get­ting so many ques­tions lately, I decided to do 2 videos this week!

I’ll be address­ing more ques­tions than usual today and to no sur­prise most of the ques­tions I got were related to heal­ing. That seems to be a very pop­u­lar topic lately, espe­cially after I released my Heal­ing Tri­an­gle a few months ago.

When it comes to heal­ing, the most impor­tant thing is to have con­fi­dence and an atti­tude of intent. Then you’ll find that heal­ing comes nat­u­rally. All you are doing is using your mind to facil­i­tate a form of energy with the inten­tion is to heal. The power of inten­tion is then extremely pow­er­ful when it comes to the sub­ject of energy healing.

Here are the ques­tions for this week:

Dear Burt,

I have a ques­tion regard­ing the Heal­ing Tri­an­gle. Does a per­son have to be a Silva Grad to take the course? Can you tell us what you did when you healed that woman’s knee dur­ing your class? You also said that the main thing needed when doing heal­ing is your inten­tion to heal and keep out the emo­tions. Does this mean you can do any­thing with your hands or what­ever as long as your desire is there to heal peo­ple?
Ron Daack

Dear Burt,

What’s the best way to gain con­trol over my emo­tions and thoughts? I keep catch­ing myself liv­ing in worry or feel­ing shame over silly things and I’d love to let all that go and just move on in happiness.Thanks for every­thing!
Grane

Dear Burt,

Some weeks ago you said that you would talk about our Love for God. Please tell us more about that and THANK YOU for your beau­ti­ful atti­tude toward life which radi­ates to all of us in the whole world. I would like to be like you some day.
Lou

Dear Burt,

Thanks again for your won­der­ful knowl­edge. Many peo­ple say that events in your life are all about tim­ing. Do you agree with this? How much of our lives are mapped out for us (if at all) and how much con­trol do we really have over the course of our life? I read in a spir­i­tual book that before com­ing into our phys­i­cal body we knew when we would exit it again, that is, the time/year of our death. Do you believe this? Thanks again.
Lor

Dear Burt,

How does one keep from pro­cras­ti­nat­ing? Any new technique?

Dear Burt,

Thank you, Burt, for another great “Dear Burt”. I get so much out of this. My ques­tion is this: When send­ing heal­ing energy, does a per­son have to pro­tect their own self from being drained of energy. I have been told this by oth­ers. If the answer is yes — what is a method for doing so?
Nan

Here are my video responses:

I look for­ward to hear­ing from you for next week!

Sin­cerely,

Burt

Hi Friends,

Today is Fri­day and you know what that means. It’s time for another Dear Burt.

Today I’ve decided to address the 7 years period. It’s quite a broad sub­ject so I had a long some­what involved answer it.

Every 7 years we enter into another octave of life.

The dif­fer­ence in these cycles is most notable dur­ing the early, for­ma­tive years. The 14 year old is dras­ti­cally dif­fer­ent from the 7 year old, the 21 year old is miles apart from the 14 year old and so on. While there remains a vast dif­fer­ence between the ages of 7 and 14, we tend not to notice as big of one between the ages of 21 to 28, 28 to 35, and so forth but the dif­fer­ence still exists.

What we can expect from each cycle or octave depends on our intent. If you believe that at a given age you’re “old”, then you’ll reflect age. If you believe it’s a new start, then watch out world, here you come.

So set the inten­tion today to approach either your cur­rent octave or your upcom­ing one as a fresh start at life and don’t think of your­self as get­ting older, you’re sim­ply being given an oppor­tu­nity to do it all again. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.

Now onto the ques­tions for this week

Dear Burt,

Thanks for all your weekly com­ments, I always look for­ward to them. You men­tioned some­thing about the SEVEN YEAR PERIODS of life. This week I will be hit­ting age 71. Enter­ing the 11th. period. Any com­ments on that period, what to expect, etc.?James

Dear Burt,

Thanks Burt, I also enjoy these weekly videos very much. I have a ques­tion con­cern­ing Quan­tum Jump­ing. Is it pos­si­ble to expe­ri­ence a Quan­tum Jump through dreams?David

Dear Burt,

Burt, I want to read your books but I can’t find them any­where. Do you have them in e-book for­mat? I’ve wanted to read them from the moment I was aware of them but didn’t know how to get them. Please e-mail me as I know no other way to get your response. Thanks — Love your paint­ing. I am an artist as well. I live in Com­merce, GA a small, small place and I like it that way. Thanks for shar­ing your wis­dom. I will think of my head and eye when they ache. Epiclari­tis be gone!Carla

Dear Burt,

Thanks again Burt. I look fo­ward to Fri­days! Can you tell me the dif­fer­ence between Reiki and Qigong energy work? Do they both work from a dis­tance? Do they work bet­ter in per­son? PS I love the picture!Valerie

Dear Burt,

I really look for­ward to Fri­day evenings when I get to lis­ten to your mes­sage. I have been lis­ten­ing to the Daisy Pond for quite some time now. Some­where I read that it is not good to fall asleep dur­ing med­i­ta­tion. I seem to fall asleep every time. Could you share your thoughts on this? I am try­ing to do a new set of cds that include relax­ation, breath­ing tech­niques, and heal­ing and want to get the most from them. Thank you.Lin

Dear Burt,

Love your ”Dear Burt”, so insight­ful. I have been a fol­lower of your work for a cou­ple of years now and I must say, my life is so much more fun now. I quit hav­ing excuses; I only have projects now, tons of projects. I don’t worry any­more and I cer­tainly don’t lack in any way shape or form. I am happy and ful­filled. Thank you. Just one ques­tion. I still fall asleep some­times when med­i­tat­ing. I knew it was nor­mal when I started but how long is this going to last?Thank, love your stuff. Mar­tyne from Que­bec City Canada

Here is my video response:

I hope you enjoyed this edi­tion of “Dear Burt”. Please leave your ques­tions and com­ments for next week.

Sin­cerely,

Burt

Hi Friends,

Wel­come to yet another edi­tion of Dear Burt. It’s hard to believe we’re already at num­ber 25! Time sure flies when you’re hav­ing fun.

In fact, that’s an impor­tant topic I’ll be cov­er­ing dur­ing this week’s video: Time. Have you ever noticed how at dif­fer­ent points in your life, it seems as though time passes at dif­fer­ent speeds?

There’s a rea­son for this. When we’re com­fort­able, time seems to pass much more quickly than when we’re uncom­fort­able. This comes in handy when dis­tort­ing time to man­i­fest change in your life.

In some cases a week can seem like an incred­i­bly long time, while a month can lit­er­ally fly by. While at the meta­phys­i­cal level, there really isn’t any time. So my advice for all of you is to not be con­cerned with time and to detach from any “dead­lines” in man­i­fest­ing your desires; if the change is going to hap­pen, it will happen.

I’d also like to share with you another one of my paint­ings. This one was inspired by a pho­to­graph I took while in Dublin, Ire­land at a local indoor mar­ket. It’s not quite fin­ished yet but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Now, onto the ques­tions for this week

Dear Burt,

Great Mes­sage of Love, for the ones that already have one. How­ever, do you have any advice for the ones that don’t have a sig­nif­i­cant other? Any tech­niques on how to attract the right per­son?
I thank you for your insight!
Mary

Dear Burt,

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE all the pos­i­tive energy that you send. I look for­ward every week to hear and see what you have to say. It is so great to hear you wis­dom words, com­ments and truths. A quick ques­tion? Do you take vit­a­mins?
Lucia from Los Ange­les, Cal­i­for­nia.

Dear Burt,

I always look for­ward to Fri­day because of your pos­i­tive mes­sages. Thank you. ?I have a ques­tion : If some­thing really good is fore­casted to hap­pen to me, do I really need a psy­chic to do some­thing to make these “fore­casted good things” to hap­pen? Appar­ently one was say­ing i need her help now.
Look­ing for­ward to your enlight­en­ment. Thank you!
Janette (Canada)

Dear Burt,

Good morn­ing Burt! I really appre­ci­ate your shar­ing. Am still learn­ing to use all those tech­niques. The response I get is not imme­di­ate and seems to take some time, so instead of feel­ing dis­ap­pointed I keep doing it believ­ing that even­tu­ally it will work. Is there some­thing I need to cor­rect so the change is faster? By the way,I live in Malaysia above Sin­ga­pore and below Thai­land.
Vivian Mario Gunter

Dear Burt,

I am from Brook­lyn New York. What steps do you take in order to ener­gize your own fin­ger for heal­ing? Can it be taught to oth­ers? You also healed a woman of her knee pain on one of the YouTube Videos, but you didn’t men­tion there either what you did with your hands as you motioned around her painful knee. Yet another method you taught of slap­ping your own chest and tummy up and down if you had an upset stom­ach. Again, what do you actu­ally think or feel or visu­al­ize. Can that same tap­ping method be used on other parts of the body that are in pain? Thanks so much… You are deeply loved and respected.
Paulina

Here is my video response:

I sin­cerely hope you enjoyed this edi­tion of “Dear Burt.” Thank You for all of your insight­ful ques­tions and for all of your con­tin­ued involve­ment. I look for­ward to read­ing your ques­tions and com­ments for next week.

Sin­cerely,

Burt

Hello friends,

Today, I just wanted to record a quick lit­tle Valentine’s mes­sage for you. I think you’ll enjoy it.

I hope your day is filled with love and light.

Happy Valen­tines Day,

Burt

P.S. I’ll see you Fri­day for the next “Dear Burt.”

Hi Friends,

Last week was a busy one! I received a lot of ques­tions so get ready to take some notes

First (as usual), I’d like to show you another one of my paint­ings. It’s a paint­ing of a pho­to­graph I snapped in Ams­ter­dam. Let me know what you think!

Before going any fur­ther, I would like you to write down one very impor­tant thing that I’ll be cov­er­ing in my video. I want to be sure you remem­ber it so you can act on it. So often, we spend our time “think­ing” about what we need to do and not actu­ally doing it! Per­haps writ­ing these words of wis­dom down will help.

The bit of advice I have to give you is some­thing I’ve been fol­low­ing for years and it has always worked for me.

When you find your­self in a sit­u­a­tion where you need to deal with some­one who is louder and more abra­sive than you are, there is one sim­ple thing you need to say to make sure they don’t over­power you or start a shout­ing match.

Those words are:

“You’re absolutely right… for YOU.”

Then state your opin­ion calmly.

Remem­ber, what you believe IS for you but not nec­es­sar­ily for any body else.

Now, onto the ques­tions for this week

Dear Burt,

I was won­der­ing, if I had the Quan­tum Jump­ing mate­r­ial, would I really need any­thing else like the Mind­Box. I would think on this level, the here and now‚ going into the infi­nite uni­verses would give me all the infor­ma­tion, I would want on any sub­ject.
Bruce

Dear Burt,

Is there any par­tic­u­lar tech­nique which I can use to heal sick peo­ple? I am a doc­tor by pro­fes­sion but I cant ask my patients to visu­al­ize white light or use chi water. They will laugh at me . I know these tech­niques work.  I am using them for myself and my fam­ily and I am really grate­ful to you for all these heal­ing tech­niques. What I want to have is some tech­nique that I can use men­tally while giv­ing my patients med­i­cine. I would love to have your opin­ion on this mat­ter please.
Sin­cerely yours,
Mohammed

Dear Burt,

Your work is won­der­ful, some of the best. What do you do if you are not shy but actu­ally strongly in favor of a gen­tler way of being? Yet the loud peo­ple around you over­power you so you end up either squelched, or louder than them to get past their loud energy.
Warmly,
Flora

Dear Burt,

Thank you for con­firm­ing & clear­ing the con­cept of power words! I admit that the idea of using a sin­gle word appeals to me bet­ter than using a whole sen­tence. Now, a sim­ple ques­tion — would you share with us your opin­ion of out-of-body-experiences? Thank you!
Bye,
Dras

Dear Burt,

I want to know how I can com­pre­hend the things I read. Do you have any tips for stu­dents who are very pas­sion­ate about learn­ing? I am sure that an answer to this ques­tion will ben­e­fit stu­dents like me.
Thanks,
E. Shah

Here is my video response:

I hope you enjoyed this edi­tion of “Dear Burt.” Please leave your ques­tions and com­ments for next week.

Sin­cerely,

Burt

Hi Friends,

Today is Fri­day and you know what that means. It’s time for another Dear Burt.

Let me first share another one of my mon­tages with you. I call it “Wall Street” and I must admit, it’s a lit­tle bit dif­fer­ent than what you would nor­mally see.

Today I’ve decided to address the power of words again. It’s one my favorite top­ics and cer­tainly one of the most important.

Have you ever won­dered how words can impact your results? As you may know, words cre­ate impres­sions, images and even expec­ta­tions. They build psy­cho­log­i­cal con­nec­tions. They influ­ence how we think. Since thoughts deter­mine actions, there’s an incred­i­bly pow­er­ful con­nec­tion between the words we use and the results we get.

So take a moment and think…what are the pos­i­tive words you con­sis­tently use and what kind of dif­fer­ence do they make in your life?

I came to real­ize that the words I use reg­u­larly to think and talk about my daily life, my rel­a­tives, and my work… influ­enced my thoughts and actions towards them. So in order to change my actions, I decided to change my words.  Poorly cho­sen words can kill enthu­si­asm, impact self-esteem, lower expec­ta­tions or even hold peo­ple back. Con­versely, well-chosen, pos­i­tive words can moti­vate, offer hope, cre­ate vision, impact think­ing and alter results more dra­mat­i­cally than we could ever imagine.

Let me tie this in with another sub­ject: the Power of Stop; it is one of the most pow­er­ful tech­niques you can use and can bring you amaz­ing results if used appropriately.

So… do you want bet­ter results? Check your words.

Here are the ques­tions I’m address­ing this week.

Dear Burt,

As usu­ally, received a lot of great infor­ma­tion this week. In some par­al­lel uni­verses do peo­ple choose to have a lim­i­ta­tion which they will not over­come for that life­time?
Bless­ings to you Burt and to everyone else–Nan : )

Dear Burt

Its me again. I just read Jean’s Q and too want to know if you have any sem­i­nars ( par­tic­u­larly on healing)scheduled as we hope to travel to the con­ti­nent in the sum­mer. Josi

Dear Burt,

Thank you, Burt! Be with us always! How excit­ing to know about POWER WORDS. I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THAT.
Power words for abun­dance of sup­ply as needed. Lou

Dear Burt,
I love learn­ing from you. Today we don’t have to search the wise man from cave med­i­tat­ing in some­where far away coun­try. We can find him on inter­net blog­ging and post­ing Youtube videos.
What are your five favorite Silva tech­niques and your own tech­niques? You do not have to tell more about those tech­niques, names of those tech­niques are ade­quate. I’m inter­ested to know. Michael

Dear Burt,

I came across your site a few months ago whilst feel­ing sorry for myself because my part­ner of 5 years had said it was over because he wanted chil­dren and I didn’t. It was dev­as­tat­ing. I bought the Mind­Box and want to tell you the power shout “STOP” is amaz­ing, when I start to think about him. I now look for­ward to your weekly videos and read­ing all the lovely com­ments. I can­not tell you how much I have improved in my feel­ings and with your help I finally feel I am going to get through this. Susan

Dear Burt,

Thanks very much for this morn­ing “Dear Burt”.?About the way you were dressed, you looked won­der­ful. It was good to see you up and moving,you are very agile. I have never seen you mov­ing before because I only see you on U-tube. well I have a class to do this week­end and I am going to try what you taught. I will let you know how well I did. I want to get the Mind­Box but funds are not there as yet. Pat

Dear Burt,

Thank you for your blogs I now look for­ward to them. My ques­tion deals with pain real or not. When I had a defibrillator/pacemaker put in in 2005 I expe­ri­enced strange undu­lat­ing pain across my chest and the docs claimed it was “psy­chic pain”. If my hus­band had not inter­vened on my part I would have this pain today. He spoke to them and they tested the leads that go from the device to my heart. Well they found a defec­tive lead and had to go back in and change it. I still expe­ri­ence ten­der­ness in that area today but not like that. Is there a way to deal with the pain? Thanks? Karen Carder, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii
Dear Burt,

Today, I really really want to thank you. I fol­low your blog for some time now, and I remem­ber that I once read your “think big” sen­tence: if you want some­thing, it should excite you, and be as huge that it scares you a lit­tle .?well, I made a world record in the longest piano con­cert by an indi­vid­ual, and played for 40 hours!! hossa!!!?I imag­ined myself into the sit­u­a­tion, I chose the place and date and I made it there, and, in the end, I played 40 hours with a smile on my face. a won­der­ful star travel (we made planet-passports for the audi­ence, and changed the ‘imag­i­nary’ loca­tion every 4 hours).?once again, thank you for shar­ing your tools.?love, Laure

Dear Burt,
I was won­der­ing –if I had the quan­tum jump­ing material?Would I really need any­thing else like the Mind­Box, I would think on this level,the here and now ‚going into the infi­nite uni­verses would give me all the infor­ma­tion I would want on any sub­ject –so why would I also need the “Mind­Box “or the “heal­ing tri­an­gle” ?I like your dogs mustach.Bruce

I sin­cerely hope that this blog post helped you in one way or another.

Please don’t for­get to leave your com­ments or ques­tions for next week.

Sin­cerely,

Burt

P.S: By the way, for those of you who are fol­low­ing my blog, I’m a lit­tle bit curi­ous to know where are you from. If you could please put your State/Country that in your com­ments, that would be great! Thank you.

Hi Friends,

It’s time for another Dear Burt.

I hope you didn’t miss my edi­tion last week, but I had some­thing some­thing spe­cial I wanted to share with you instead. I’m glad to hear that you liked my affir­ma­tion toolkit. I hope you have already started recit­ing them daily. Thanks for again for your pos­i­tive com­ments and feedback.

Today, I wanted to share another one of my mon­tages with you. I call it “Street in Paris.” You may have seen it before but I must say, It’s one of my favorites. I would love to hear what you think.

Also, today I have a spe­cial guest with me…

Some of you have been ask­ing for a while “when can we see your bark­ing dog?”  Well, today is the day.

Meet, Baby.

Ok, now onto the ques­tions for this week. Today, I’m address­ing two very inter­est­ing topics:

1. The power of words
2. How to learn a new lan­guage quickly and easily

As I received some inter­est­ing com­ments last week about my affir­ma­tion video, I wanted to take some time to offer some words of wis­dom because it’s such an impor­tant topic.

Affir­ma­tions are won­der­ful things, but what makes them effec­tive is the ‘power words’ used in them.

You all know that your phys­i­ol­ogy affects your psy­chol­ogy… and vice versa. Affir­ma­tions are pow­er­ful tools to change your phys­i­cal AND men­tal state. If you con­stantly think “weak” in your mind and then shift to think­ing “strong,” you will see a change in your atti­tude and phys­i­ol­ogy  (body lan­guage). This is what affir­ma­tions do. They change your thoughts, which change your phys­i­ol­ogy, which then rein­forces the pos­i­tive thoughts. Try this exper­i­ment at home at let me know how you feel.

Some of you also asked me how to quickly learn a new lan­guage. Today, I will take some time to address how this is done. Here’s a quick hint: it’s all about men­tal vol­ume.

Here are the ques­tions I’m address­ing this week:

Dear Burt,

Thank you Burt! Affir­ma­tions changed my life — even though repeat­ing sim­ple words would seem to not make a dif­fer­ence, they really do!

After lis­ten­ing to myself talk (things my brain would repeat through­out the day), I real­ized how many other peo­ple were actu­ally con­trol­ling my thoughts! Chang­ing those neg­a­tives into pos­i­tives has cre­ated last­ing pos­i­tive change in my life. I’m still liv­ing through the stuff I called into exis­tence before I knew how pow­er­ful thoughts were, but know all this is temporary.

Two of the affir­ma­tions that I use are: I am grate­ful for help­ful peo­ple. I am grate­ful for free stuff. So, you are the result of two years of pos­i­tive affir­ma­tions and proof of the power of thought!

Have a fab­u­lous day,
Marilyn

Dear Burt,

How can I become a fast learner whether it is a new sub­ject mat­ter or a new language?

Thanks,
Ikisha

Dear Burt,

I´m so happy to met you and so glad to be your dis­ci­ple. I find a lot of love in your words, paints, pho­tos, and all that you rep­re­sent. I admire you, and def­i­nitely we need to be more and more enlight­ened in order to make a bet­ter world day by day, and work­ing on our­selves. Recently, I started to apply for a job. I have been passed on a lot of oppor­tu­ni­ties because I want to be hired by this par­tic­u­lar com­pany but, I didn´t pass the eng­lish or math tests. I know I should be bet­ter, but I won­der if there is a faster way to learn lan­guages through my Dop­pel­ganger. I try so hard to have good Eng­lish, but I don´t know what hap­pened to me. I always fail. Maybe it’s my fears, or because I do not believe in me. Same thing hap­pens with Math. This is strange because I am an Indus­trial Engi­neer, but dur­ing the tests I took with dif­fer­ent com­pa­nies, I got ner­vous and have had very bad results. That´s why I can not get the job that I want. What would you advise me to do? Thank you very much Burt. Have a won­der­ful week and I send you a lot of love, light and peace.
Liz

Dear Burt,

I love your work. I have been study­ing and fol­low­ing you for a few years now. This may be a “strange” ques­tion, and I hope you can clarify/guide/enlighten me. About Quan­tum Jump­ing… is it pos­si­ble that you are dif­fer­ent in a par­al­lel uni­verse? I mean look com­pletely dif­fer­ent, and every­thing else is the same/or almost the same — but you some­how know it is still you? What then??Thanks for you help. A friend and I have been debat­ing this for a while now and I would like your opin­ion (I thought about this before I heard about you or Quan­tum Jump­ing).
Greg

Here’s my video response:

I hope you enjoyed this week’s “Dear Burt.” I look for­ward to hear­ing from you!

Sin­cerely,

Burt

Hi Friends,

It’s time to stare down the third and final enemy of New Year Res­o­lu­tions.

Are you ready to put it down for good? Let’s begin…

This is the third enemy:

3. You don’t have the right tools to get you started

Stay­ing focused on your goals can some­times be chal­leng­ing. There are count­less dis­trac­tions and temp­ta­tions in life, all of which can put you on a detour, and leave you miles away from where you want to be.

Are you try­ing to lose weight?

“Hey that pecan pie in the fridge looks pretty tempting…”

Are you plan­ning to start a new hobby?

“My favorite show’s on tv, I’ll do i tomorrow…”

Are you deter­mined to give up drinking?

“It’s Happy Hour at the bar tonight, maybe I should treat myself one more time…”

*You need a set of tools or tech­niques to keep you focused, dis­ci­plined and determined.*

Some peo­ple use vision boards. Some write down their progress in jour­nals. Some form a pact with friends so they can check up on each other.

One of my favorite tools that I have now made into a daily rit­ual is affir­ma­tions.

Every morn­ing, with­out fail, I recite a list of affir­ma­tions out loud to myself.

It gives me a great start to my day, and it’s a con­stant reminder of the com­mit­ments I have made to myself.

Why don’t you give it a try?

I’ve put together a lit­tle affir­ma­tion toolkit for you. Below you’ll find a video and a PDF that I highly rec­om­mend you start using every day.

Watch the video first:

Now, save and print out this PDF document:

Down­load It Here

Once you’ve printed it out, add your own affir­ma­tions to it–the ones you com­mit­ted to doing yesterday.

Don’t for­get the com­mit­ment you made to yourself!

As long as you stay focused and deter­mined, you’ll be achiev­ing your goals in no time.

Remem­ber to start work­ing on your daily, weekly or monthly goals right away.

I’d love to hear from you. Send me a mes­sage in the com­ments sec­tion below, and tell me how you’re doing with your resolutions.

Remem­ber, just as you are com­mit­ted to your res­o­lu­tions, I’m com­mit­ted to help­ing you achieve them.

Lets take on 2010 together and make it the best year yet!

Sin­cerely,

Burt

Hi Friends,

After pub­lish­ing yesterday’s blog post, I’ve received quite a num­ber of New Year Res­o­lu­tion com­mit­ments from my dear readers…

Some of you want to lose weight. Some of you want to take your hob­bies to the next level. Some of you want to become bet­ter peo­ple. Some of you want to develop new good habits.

I’ve gone through all of your com­mit­ments, and I know that each and every one of them is 100% pos­si­ble — as long as you believe in your­self as much as I believe in you.

Now before we go even one step fur­ther, let me make this very clear:

I take these com­mit­ments very seri­ously, and I expect you to do no less than take mas­sive action towards your res­o­lu­tions. And since we have both made a com­mit­ment, we’re now in this together.

Remem­ber the 3 Ene­mies of New Year Res­o­lu­tions I talked about yesterday?

We’ve already dealt with the first, which was the commitment.

Today, we’re going to deal with the sec­ond enemy:

2. You don’t know where to start

Know­ing where to start may seem daunt­ing at first. Let me give you an example.

Weight loss is a very pop­u­lar New Year Res­o­lu­tion, so let’s use that as a case study.

Let’s say you want to lose 30 pounds in 2010. You know more or less how to get there — you’re going to have to lose weight, exer­cise more, and change your eat­ing habits.

But the fact is, none of this can hap­pen overnight. You’re not going to lose 30 pounds in a week, a month, or even 2 months. Try­ing to do so wouldn’t just be unre­al­is­tic — it may even be unhealthy!

And what hap­pens if you try to do it any­way? You get demo­ti­vated. You begin to think your goal is unre­al­is­tic. You lose hope, and slowly but surely move back to your com­fort zone.

Instead, you should start by mak­ing small and grad­ual lifestyle changes. The idea here is to move towards your goal in a sus­tain­able man­ner, so you remain moti­vated, and don’t get scared by how big and scary your goal may be.

How do you do this? You break down your one big res­o­lu­tion down into a col­lec­tion of mini res­o­lu­tions that give you small but con­stant reminders that you’re mov­ing towards your goal.

So if you want to lose 30 pounds, you could start in Jan­u­ary by cut­ting out snacks like potato chips, and mak­ing sure you take a brisk walk at least once a week.

Once you’ve spent a month or two get­ting used to this rou­tine, you could sign up at your local gym.

After that, you could com­mit to exer­cis­ing at least 3 times a week. You could buy your­self a bicy­cle and take up long dis­tance bik­ing. Maybe even take up mar­tial arts, or yoga.

…And because you com­mit­ted to a set grad­ual yet con­sis­tent steps, you’ll sud­denly real­ize you’ve lost that 30 pounds with­out ever hav­ing to stress about it!

My key mes­sage to you here is, big changes don’t hap­pen overnight — they hap­pen through small but con­sis­tent steps that add up over time to give you the results you want.

This doesn’t just apply to los­ing weight, it applies to any­thing you want to achieve in life.

Now, let’s apply this con­cept to your resolutions.

Take the res­o­lu­tions you com­mit­ted to yes­ter­day, and break them down into daily, weekly and monthly goals. You can choose your own pace, as long as you’re con­fi­dent that you can reach your goal by Dec 31st 2010.

Next, turn these mini goals into affir­ma­tions. For exam­ple, if you’re com­mit­ting to take a brisk walk at least once a week, write it down like this:

“I will take at least 1 brisk walk a week until Decem­ber 31st 2010″

This makes your big goal seem more man­age­able, doesn’t it?

The good news is, daily, weekly and monthly goals only get eas­ier the longer you stay com­mit­ted to them — which means after a while, you’ll actu­ally be look­ing for­ward to those weekly walks!

Tomor­row, we’re going to con­front the third and final Enemy of New Year Res­o­lu­tions. Stay tuned

Sin­cerely,

Burt