First of all, WOW. What a community we have here, how amazing and exciting this whole is and how fast it’s growing! OMG!

 I'm Orestes (28) from Buenos Aires, Argentina. I’m Master Practitioner in Neuro-Linguistic Programming;  currently unemployed (for now) and just recently got back from a 1.5-year trip from Central and North America where I experienced many awesome things. This is my very first post of a series of posts related to the same topic and yes, believe it or not, I was what people usually call a "LOSER". 

MY #STEEMIT MISSION

Contribute to this flourishing community and share the NLP techniques that helped me gain confidence and tools to positively transform my life and prepared me for success. I want all of you Steamians to join me in this fascinating journey as we improve our lives together! This is our little corner of the world where everyone is welcome with no prejudice whether you’re a 13-year-old having troubles in school or a startup entrepreneur trying to make it in the app world. I assure I’ll share with you the best tools and resources to prepare you for success!

 Today’s post is divided into 3 parts:

•  a brief background story of how I was before I studied NLP
•  the moment I started turning my life around and the success I had 
•  and HOW TO POSITIVELY AND ALMOST UNCONCIOUSLY TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE

THE EMBARRASSING STORY OF ORESTES

Born into a lower-class family who moved from the hot and warm north of the country to the big city with big hopes and dreams of a better future... there he was… Orestes, First of His Name and Protector of the Realm.

I’ve spent my younger and teenage years in school not really learning anything useful or anything I found neither exciting nor anything I cared about. I was this little and incredibly shy kid with almost no friends. I was bullied at school, both primary and high school. I even SUCKED at playing soccer… our national sport, you know? I couldn’t really talk to girls. Everyone around me was getting lots of dates, I’ve heard ridiculously absurd sex stories and I lost my virginity at 16 almost by accident and trust me, it wasn’t satisfying at all. I was a hardcore gamer, so hardcore that I sneaked out of school to go to LAN cafes to play online games. And of course because I also hated school!

After many years of struggle not really fitting in the society, my 18-year-old brother died in a tragic accident in 2012. Back then my sister (from another father) was 6 years old, the whole family was really sad and my mom was down deep in depression. I was stuck in a place with a shitty paid job that demanded most of my time. The whole family was in tears. I went deeper into gaming, drugs and alcohol but they weren’t fun anymore or at least I was not enjoying them as I used to. And yeah, I haven’t had sex in a long time. LONG. EFFING. TIME.

LIFE TURNAROUND

I desperately searched the internet for help to acquire social skills and help cope with my loneliness, which I thought it was the cause of all the series of failures in my life. I came across many books and authors but two of them stood out from the crowd. @neilstrauss and David DeAngelo. Both very accomplished men who felt like mentors to me who introduced me to NLP but I still SUCKED with women.

I discovered that it wasn’t all about relating to women or just getting laid… I wanted to be the best me I could be. I had little-to-no idea about NLP but I knew it was the fundamental missing piece in this big and twisted puzzle I used to think as life. I signed up for NLP classes and it was mind-blowing. Every class I learned something new mostly about how our minds work. After 10 months of intense learning of life-changing techniques, tools, resources, reading and putting what I’ve learned into ACTION… I started to gain more confidence and started to be very SUCCESSFUL.
 

I decided to finally go outside of my boundaries and my comfort zone. I booked a one-way ticket to Panama to visit a friend who moved there after he graduated from high school. And I ended up working at a hostel and eventually meeting my girlfriend.

There she was. A stunning blue-eyed brunette Dutch girl that turned out to be the new volunteer. Not only she is gorgeous but she is a “cum laude” graduate and owns www.budgetbucketlist.com, a travel blog who’s also going to be joining #steemit soon too!

What started as something fun, became an on-going relationship since April 2015. Back then she told me she was traveling and that she would like me to join her. Obviously, I said yes. Our journey took us to all kinds of places from Panama to Mexico. We’ve hitch-hiked, Couchsurfed, hiked, in all kinds of places and met all kinds of people. Today I have many projects. I’m attending more NLP classes and studying a few other things related to self-improvement. And I can truly say I’m a happy person!

HOW TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE AND ALMOST UNCONCIOUSLY

At the beginning of the post I talked about how I was in the past. In case you missed it, I was a very shy guy with no friends and definitely no girlfriend at all… in other words, I was what people generally refers to as a “LOSER”. I knew there was something wrong with me when I saw everyone else getting dates and stuff. I lacked confidence and had no self-STEEM or whatsoever. So how did a guy with no self-eSTEEM and no money, transformed his life into a successful one?

1. IMPROVE YOUR LANGUAGE

So the first thing I’ve done was to change the way I talk by completely removing negative words from my vocabulary or re-phrasing negative sentences with positive words that could transform something “impossible” to something possible and ACHIEVABLE. This are the very basics of programming yourself for success!

“TRY”. Everyone knows Master Yoda. He was right in the money when he said “There is no try, only do.” The word try communicates a “maybe” attitude in a world where certainty is highly coveted. So eliminate the word “try” and use the word “DO” instead.
“HOPE”. Such a pleasant word. However, it refers to a lack of action. When someone says “I hope things get better” he or she is hoping for something to happen, which is being reactive. But when someone says “I’m going to make my situation better” it means someone who’s taking initiative by taking action and expecting a successful result, which is PROACTIVE.
“BUT”. This word has an amazing property which is to negate everything that precedes it in a sentence. “I want to eat pasta tonight BUT I don’t know how to cook.” In that case, the person is definitely not going to eat pasta tonight. Instead, use “and yet” and you’ll be communicating the same without the negative denotation the word “but” implies. “I want to eat pasta tonight and yet don’t know how to cook.” This indicates that in the future that person WILL learn to cook.
“SHOULD”, “WOULD”, “COULD”. With “should” being the worst of all because implies expectations and limited options, for example “I should be doing X”. Well, you "should" according to whom? Remember you’re the one who makes the decisions in your life. It also limits your perspective because whenever you have fewer choices, you have less control of your life. So, if you have a preconceived notion that you should always do a certain thing in any given circumstance, then you’re not going to explore alternative options or choices because you know what you “should” do.

Words like “Definitely”, “Of course”, “Guaranteed”, “Certainly”, “Naturally”, “Assuredly”, “Absolutely” are words that communicate confidence and certainty which will start generating changes at a subconscious level. Pay attention to what you say to yourself and to others and DO paraphrase negative sentences into positive ones even if you had already said it. It’ll take some time to get rid of them but you will succeed!

2. THE POSITIVE ROUTINE

In a society where more and more people look forward to have a break from it, this one will have a very positive impact in your life.

CELEBRATE YOURSELF AND LOVE YOURSELF. Yes. Do it. Yeah, I know there are 7.4 billion people in our planet and the numbers are only going up and still, you are a miracle! You’re the outcome of 2 little cells that got together and grew together to form the hundreds of trillions of cells you’re today. It’s an impressive feat to be alive and you should celebrate it! Be happy to wake up, tell yourself “what an amazing life and what a beautiful day awaiting me” even if it’s raining or snowing. Repeat it until you believe it. Then you’ll live it.

Most of the people spend between 15 to 30 minutes at the bathroom every morning to get ready for work. Either if you’re a man or a woman, you spend some time in front of the mirror doing your make-up or shaving yourself and then off you go. I want you to write at least 5 positive sentences of yourself in 1st person and LEARN them. So before you leave your house and while you’re still in the bathroom take 10 seconds and take a deep look in the mirror and repeat those sentences. Do it as often as you want and I recommend you to fill up that shower time with it too; it’s very good way to enter in a positive state of mind and get all that positive energy flowing!

“I’LL BELIEVE IT WHEN I SEE IT.”
One of the most commonly used phrases in history, right? Not a really true one because when people is given the information that contradicts their own beliefs, they’re more likely to reject the newly obtained information than reject their own beliefs. They usually see what they believe. NLP is about programming yourself for SUCCESS. Instead, we say “I BELIEVE IT then I’ll see it.” If you start believing it, I’ll guarantee you’ll (unconsciously or consciously) start making little adjustments in life to see it.

3. AVOID NEGATIVITY FROM EXTERNAL SOURCES

You should stop watching TV. I know there are some (ALOT) people out there who LOVE watching TV. And I’m not talking about you should stop watching Game of Thrones, OK? I mean that you should stop watching the "news". It's no secret that media is being manipulated and serves sometimes a political party or other kinds of parties. I love this phrase “There’s no truth in the news and no news on the truth.” The news are very negative. They say the world is going to sh*t, poverty increases, prices are going up, a crazy shooter killed X people, you get the idea. Whether true or false, there’s much negativity being fed to you 24/7 and your unconscious absorbs it as it comes with negative effects on your mental health or state of mind. Advertisements are really bad too. And remember, bad news travels fast.

MODERATE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA

A hard one, huh? I’m a computer geek. I like to know when there’s a new game or a new video card coming out. I’m really into that stuff! But I also moderate everything that’s going on in my Timeline. There’s much negativity on the social media since everyone can post, comment and reply on anything they want. Most of my timeline is either FUN or MOTIVATIONAL. Now, if you work as a Community Manager, Facebook is probably your main source of income so yeah, don’t turn it off! Also, there are endless debates on Facebook, I’ve been involved in quite a few in the past but really think about it before going into it. On the internet no one cares for whatever you stand for and there’s always someone against you that knows better. Why spend time and emotional energy on stuff that isn’t going to change your life at all?

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST, SMILE
I’ve been through a LOT and there are people who’ve been through a lot worse than me. I know it’s hard sometimes, I know it sounds stupid… but just SMILE and LAUGH. There are studies that prove Laughter can be the best pain medicine! All those endorphins and whatnots being released are also contagious to the people around you and I can assure you it’ll make you and everyone else feel just GREAT.

Have a good and loud one, until next post! =)