To harness power of our deeds and actions, we must first take time to focus on what it is that we would like to accomplish. We must ask important questions that will allow us to discipline ourselves to acting with purpose and not impulse. Questions like: "What do we want our life to be like and about?" and "What is important and what needs to be illuminated?" will help to answer primary question of "why?"

Why are we doing these things? What, if anything, are we working toward, or is this just another distraction or another attempt to avoid unpleasant? The following is a list of "why" questions that can be used to determine whether an action is worth doing in scheme of things:

• Why am I doing this?

• Why is that important?

• Why is that important? (This is not a duplication but a clarification of last answer!)

• Why do I give in to avoid unpleasant responses from others even when I don't think this is beneficial or productive?

• Why don't I act when I know it is right thing to do or is something that must be done to produce results I need?

• Why do I fill my days with activities that do not contribute to accomplishment of goals, conditions and results that I say and believe are important?

• Why do I choose inactivity (laziness and procrastination) when there are things that should be done to bring me closer to accomplishing my goals?

This is a partial list and I'm sure that you can, and have thought (and possibly asked yourself) of many others like them. The point here is not to discuss acting out of mindset that says, "when you're unsure of what to do, do something." But, to maintain a constant focus on purpose for acting. In fact, if you were to refer to your life purpose process and lists you created to establish "why" for acting, you will see difference. Remember, anything done that is in alignment with our life purpose is what Ninja - Enlightened Warrior engaging with his or her world - sees as an Enlightened Action. And, anything that does not contribute to our life purpose - to creating life we want to be living - is a distraction.

Period.

We must remember that, if we are to change who we are and what we are capable of doing, we must first convince ourselves and no one else that it is possible. For many of us, this task is not an easy one as years of habit-based actions and preprogrammed conditioning have taken it's toll on who and what we think we are. We must remember that we are today, sum result of all that we have learned, experienced and, yes, believed in past.

The reciting of Student Creed is a tool for reminding ourselves - for reprogramming our subconscious, habitual thought processes - in a way that creates new habits conducive to producing results we are after.

As stated by John Mills, "One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests." The question is, are we merely 'interested' in changing to become person we say we want to be, or do we desire benefits of having attained our goal - we feel it in our very heart and soul - we believe in ourselves, our plan of accomplishment and our willingness to do what must be done - so much, that it literally moves us at our very core?

The true test of gaining results we seek is in our response to statements themselves. We may be able to convince others - for a while - that we speak from truth, but we will never be able to lie to ourselves. Eventually, we will drop our guard or conveniently 'forget' path we're on and promises we made to ourself and revert back to same lazy, sleep-walk' living that was 'us' before we began training.

Ask yourself these questions:

A. "When I recite Student Creed, does it move me?" (Do you get chills, a welling in your chest or an empowered feeling or do you feel like you're reciting Pledge of Allegiance from school?)

B. Do I have to think about Creed when reciting it or is it so natural to me that I have feeling, "of course this is true?"

Through power of belief, true, heartfelt drive to become words we are speaking, Student Creed takes on a life and power capable of transforming you into confident, successful, disciplined, respectful and proactive person you were meant to be.

Go for it!