As a journalist and documentary filmmaker, I witnessed ordinary people performing extraordinary feats on countless occasions. I documented individuals in moments of crisis and emergency going beyond limits they and society believed possible. Caught up in earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and accidents, I watched mild-mannered people become super-heroes.

When extreme circumstances demand action, paranormal abilities arise from normal folks. Women lift two-ton trucks and hold them aloft until their child or husband is freed from beneath vehicle. Young boys perform successful medical procedures as if they were trained professionals. Men lead victims to safety through burning buildings, pitch-black forests and raging floods. Teenagers bend steel and rip open closed elevator doors to liberate loved ones. Scared people jump ten feet over a chasm to safety. Given a death sentence by doctors, people heal themselves spontaneously.

"Where do human beings get power and knowledge to perform such implausible feats?" I wondered. I observed that when life offers people a choice between their beliefs in what is possible and necessity to save another from harm, people often scrap their perceived limitations and choose to do whatever needs to be done. Every day people choose life, caring and rescue over restrictions of their belief systems.

"If we can break out of our belief box when life has us up against wall, why can't we release our limiting beliefs at will when we are not in a crisis?" I inquired within myself.

A Shift List is simply a list of activities and attitudes that have power to shift you from feeling blue to feeling new. Your Shift List is any way you devise to remind yourself of actions that have power to transform your mood and put you back on a roll. Your reminders might be a formal written list or journal, a set of well-placed post-its or notes, pictures or photos, cartoons or symbols, poems or songs-or a phone or email "shift" partner. When your aliveness begins to fade, you can consult your "list" to trigger actions that will get you back on track and into Zone!

Here are some possibilities for your Shift List:

Shift Your Attitude

On average, a person has 60,000 separate thoughts a day. Every thought you have either makes you stronger or weaker. Thoughts of kindness, forgiveness and peace are strengthening. Focusing on anger, anxiety, and worry weakens you. If you keep your creating attention on outlook that universe is plentiful and providing, you'll attract abundance and support. If you dwell on view that you're being short-changed and nothing ever goes right, you'll experience a world of scarcity and struggle. Focus on what's right about you or other people, instead of what's wrong. See what's working in your life rather than what's messed up.

Shift Your Activity

Devote your free time to ventures that enrich your enjoyment of life. Pursue activities that make you feel fantastic and blissed out. Begin each day with projects that are most exciting to you, not chores you think you should get done. Schedule "personal aliveness time" in your calendar. Treat yourself to a full day at spa or a relaxing ride in country. Explore a new part of town. Indulge in your favorite food. Eat some new delight. Go on a fun date with yourself. The rest of your life will get a big boost and you'll find that you are effortlessly getting necessary tasks accomplished.

Shift Your Approach

Life is too short to work so hard at pursuits that aren't really fulfilling! You can either live your life regretting all roads left unexplored, or you can start living life you really want. Write your dreams down on paper to give them concrete form and power. You now have an energized blueprint of what you want and this gives your subconscious a clear signal for what to attract. To add even more voltage to your goals, visualize how you would like each day to go. Shift from thinking of yourself as a victim to realizing you can be source, cause, creator, of what happens to you.

Shift Your Focus

Put your Self first. Choose to live life on your terms, not someone else's. Define success for yourself. What would it look like and feel like? Write down what success means for you. Use these answers as your barometer. Make your priority whatever is most important to you-God, family, friends, passion, art, your life purpose. You'll find that decisions come more easily, and you'll activate more support, love, money and magic in your life.