Ideas: For a Successful, Less Complicated Life!

The Power of You!

It really IS all about you. The world DOES revolve around you. At least YOUR world does.

If you do not pay attention to your own needs, desires, and inner feelings, then you will be unable to meet the needs of anyone else. How can you possibly give to someone else that which you don't possess for yourself?

You are unique. There is no one else exactly like you. That, in itself, makes you a special person. Within you lies the potential to become and create whatever kind of world you desire; of course, it works conversely, too. You have also created things that you DON"T want, just by focusing on them. Until you learn how to tap into this power and control your own world, you cannot be very helpful to others. It has to start with you.

This is not a selfish point of view, but a very practical and logical one. When we give to others and ignore our selves, we end up adding extra baggage to our loads in the form of resentments, anger, hurt, lack of confidence, and generally causing ourselves unnecessary pain.

It's never too late to begin to care about yourself, no matter what has happened in your life. Esteem is an inside job, and you have total and exclusive access to what you have inside of you. No one can change those innermost feelings, emotions, and beliefs except you. What power that can turn out to be!

Anytime you need to reinforce your sense of personal power, do this:

Close your eyes and breathe naturally. If it helps, play some soothing music in the background. Get comfortable.

Visualize all tension flowing out of your body. See it moving down from the top of your head, down your face, neck and shoulders. Imagine that it flows down your arms and out your fingertips. See it moving down your chest, hips, and into your legs. Visualize it flowing down your legs, into your feet, and out the ends of your toes.

Now, allow your mind to bring forward a memory of a time when you were feeling very confident, very powerful, in full control of your life. Once that memory is present, step into it and feel the strength of those emotions as if it were happening right now. Notice how great you feel. Once you can feel that sense of confidence and personal power very strongly, press your thumb and index finger together.

Begin to slowly return to normal awareness, knowing that anytime you need a confidence boost, all you have to do is press your thumb and index finger together, and you will be instantly flooded with those powerful feelings.

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This guest post was written by:  Rita Ballard, as was previously posted on: Creating a Better Life  (Blog).

Brian Tracy on: Becoming Wealthy!

There are basically five ways that you can become wealthy starting with nothing in America based on over 25 years of research into American millionaires.

The Five Roads to Financial Success in America and How to Choose Your Own

There are basically five ways that you can become wealthy starting with nothing in America based on over 25 years of research into American millionaires. Number one, you can inherit it. Less than 10 percent of wealthy Americans inherited any of their money, and it's less and less every single year.

The Second Way

The second way that you can become wealthy is you can achieve it professionally. You can become a doctor or a lawyer or an architect or an accountant. You can become extremely good at what you do, be paid very well, and hold on to the money.

The Third Way

The third way you can achieve it is you can become a senior executive of a large corporation. You can be highly paid; you can have stock options and bonuses. And if you stay with the company long enough, for enough years, you can be paid enough to become wealthy.

The Fourth Way

You can win it. But only a tiny fraction of one percent of wealthy Americans got that way by winning their money some way or another. As a matter of fact, the odds against you winning the lottery are the equivalent of lightning striking twice in the same place. They're millions and millions to one. But if you really believe you can win money, you don't think about the odds.

The Best Way

The fifth way that you can become wealthy is you can start your own business and earn it all by yourself. Starting your own business has been and will always be the high road to becoming wealthy for most self-made millionaires. Entrepreneurship in America offers more opportunities and opens more doors than all other possibilities put together. This is why it has been said that if you have the ability to start your own business and you don't do it, you are a fool. I'll repeat that. If you have the ability to start your own business and you don't do it, you're a fool.

Where do you start?

You start by getting your finances under control. The very first thing you do is you make a decision to get your finances under control. Some years ago, a man named George Classon wrote a book called The Richest Man in Babylon. It's a classic on financial success and what Classon said in that book was that the key to becoming wealthy is to pay yourself first. Take ten percent off your earnings, off your gross income every month and put it aside. Learn to live on ninety percent or less of your gross income. So the very first thing that you do is you begin to save your money.

Action Exercises

Now, here are two things you can do immediately to put yourself onto the high road to personal wealth:

First, resolve today to begin saving your money a little bit at a time. Set a goal to save 10% of your earnings, to put it away and to never touch it. This will change your life.

Second, immediately register your own business or sole proprietorship. Open a bank account, get business cards and letterhead and create the corporate entity under which you can do business. Your business opportunities will appear far sooner than you think. If you build it, they will come.

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This guest post was written by: Brian Tracy, as was previously posted on: The Good Life  (Blog).

Do You Put Yourself First In Your Thoughts?

What your thinking involves is what your actions soon become.  How much of what you think about is based on not letting others down, or making sure you fit in with the group, or not going beyond a social boldness limit?  When you pick a book to read at the bookstore, is it based on your interest in the topic and author of the book, or is it based on wanting to tell others you read that specific book, because it is currently popular and will make you look more intelligent?

Satisfaction Comes From Satisfying Your Interests As Well

The amount of satisfaction you will get out of an action is proportional to how much of the action is based on your own interests.  You get negligible satisfaction, if any, from the responses of others.  Due to this, it is worth taking a minute to see who the last few thoughts you had were about.  It can be eye-opening to find out that a large portion of your cognitive time is wasted trying to please others, when in fact it doesn’t even end up pleasing them.

Your Presence Is Relevant, Too

Where is the room for your own life and routine if 75% of your thoughts are about adjusting to what others have done, or limiting the loudness of your voice so you are not labeled as “overbearing”, or pleasing others so that they are more lenient with you pursuing your actual interest?  If you are having a high proportion of these types of thoughts, think about how there are others who are much more focused on satisfying their own goals than pleasing others.  These more successful people are thinking about the action they want to take, regardless of others.

Reserve Your Thought Energy For Completion Of Your Goal Steps

Whereas you might get to step #2 of a decision-making process about purchasing a large bookshelf to place in your room, before giving up thinking it would bother your significant other or roommate, a power thinker will go through all the steps of looking at various bookshelves, checking prices, seeing which one would fit best and have the appropriate color, and would lastly confirm with the person who they were living with if it would be okay with them.  Focusing on your own interests in your thoughts takes you near the final steps, where you can then consider others and still be almost ready to implement.

There Are Some Things That You Are Best Suited For

Seeing as how there is only one person in your position, it doesn’t even make sense to place worry and anxiety about others highly in your thoughts.  You are not responsible for the happiness of others, and not only that, it is not fair to your value as a person to be worried about theirs.  Go through these thinking steps at times:

1. take note of your strengths
2. realize that some others don’t have the same strengths
3. think about how others view the strengths you have as features they would want
4. understand that the majority of your focus has to be on usage of your skills if you want to implement them
5. use that knowledge to make use of the skills and advantageous thinking you possess while the opportunity is there

Self-Directed Individuals Are Wonderful To Be Around

A perfect example of the way you want to act just showed up as I was writing this.  A person I know who is very direct and self-oriented came in and checked his stock price on the office computer I am on.  He didn’t worry about bothering me or looking bad or anything of that nature.  Due to his calmness and direct action, it makes me feel relaxed and more glad as well.  This is the type of person you want to emulate.  When your thoughts are about your own actions, as you would see them unfiltered by expectations you think others have of you, you act more smoothly, and others will appreciate that.  It makes others happy when you don’t try to please them, because it doesn’t put any pressure on them to respond in some polite or desired way.

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This guest post was written by: Armen Shirvanian, as was previously posted on: Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life  (Blog).

Giving Without Expectations!

On August 31st, 2009, I found this thought provoking article on: Make The Leap of Faith, Don’t Look Down, Don’t Look Back!, as was posted on: The Naked Soul  (Blog).

I recently read that some people who beg for money on the street will often bypass a person who is alone and instead ask for money from a person who is with one or more people. The rationale for this is that the beggar knows that a person who is with someone else is more likely to give because they want to look good in front of who they are with by giving rather than look cheap or selfish for not giving. Now, I don’t know how true this is, however there is something about this that rings true and that is many people give not simply to give, not simply to share their abundance however they give because they get something out of it.

There are many times each day in which we have an opportunity to be giving. We can give of our material wealth, such as to someone in need on the street, to a charity, etc. We give of our time to people who need our time, be that family, co-workers, charities or the person standing in line with us at the local coffee shop. We can give of our energy and our love.

In any given day, people are frequently giving of themselves. The real question is when you give, are you giving with or without conditions? When you give, is there a price tag attached to your gift, that is, do you expect something in return? When you give are you giving because of ulterior motives? Many people give with expectations, often the expectations are manipulative and self serving.

Many people give because they want something, they may want someone to notice them, to like them more, and they may give to seduce someone into sex or into making some type of deal.

Some people give because they have come to believe that by giving they will pave their way to heaven, that they will somehow win favors with and be more loved by God and therefore gain entrée into what they perceive to be heaven in the afterlife. As you can see, this motivation of giving is still giving with expectations. There is still and expectation associated with the gift that we give, even though that expectation is an expectation of God.

Often times we become frustrated because we feel that our gift was not appreciated or because the gift was not reciprocated. We have grown into a culture that expects reciprocation for the gifts we give. There are many people who when giving a gift of money, time, energy or love are tuned into their favorite radio station WIIFM (What’s In It For Me). These WIIFM fans are often focusing on what they are going to get out of giving a gift before they even give it.

Like the scenario of the beggar on the street, if there is no one to notice that I gave to the beggar, then what is my motivation to give?  Many people who give want at the very least receive acknowledgment from their friends, their co-workers or society at large that they dug into their pockets and gave away their loose change.

When we give from our core being, when we give from love there are no expectations tied to the gift. Love doesn’t require an audience to acknowledge that we gave of our self. Love does not expect a gift in return. Love does not give of itself because we believe that it will gain us favors with God. Love does not keep score of what it is giving or how much it is giving. Love does not give to be manipulative. Love does not give with conditions attached to the gift.

Giving is a natural trait of love and that is the bottom line.  When we truly give from love, it is as natural as breathing that is it becomes an unconscious part of how we live.

Think today of the many gifts that you give, are they given freely without conditions and without underlying motives or are there price tags on your gifts, are there conditions on your gifts, are your gifts given to manipulate another’s behavior. A good way to measure your attachment to the expectations that you have on giving of your gifts is to note the frustration that you feel when your gift is not appreciated or your gift is not reciprocated.

Giving of our gifts is one of the most beautiful things we can do. I encourage each and everyone of us to give. I encourage that you give from love and as of today you become more aware of why you are giving for it is never about the gift as much as it is about the intention behind the gift. May you find that the only intention behind your gifts is love.

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We all have fears, worries, anxieties, and memories from our past that still haunt us. They are like books stored in a library on the back shelf of our mind. Just like a library our thoughts, and fears are stored in separate sections and we access the books in each of the sections everyday to help us deal with new experiences in our life.

It might be time to rewrite the books that you have stored. Just like in a library there are books that are timeless and can be read again and again and never be outdated, I am thinking of a particular book that I love, rather cliched but I love it ‘Think and Grow Rich’ by Napoleon Hill. It was written in the 1930’s but most of the principles still apply today and it is one I often refer to and have several copies lying about the house. So it is with the books in our minds, some will never be outdated but a lot of them are outdated and hold irrelevant information about our fears, and our beliefs.

The book of memories

The book of memories is a large book in which all our memories are stored and retrieved whenever required. Sometimes the pages of the book become distorted over time and sometimes the pages get ripped out altogether.

A lot of the time we keep this book on the very front shelf of our library and access it every single day when we re-live traumatic experiences. Reliving past experiences is debilitating and can literally stunt our mental growth. Painful memories that are still raw i.e. a few years old need to be talked about in an open way, preferably with a trained counselor. However talking about the event 10 years on is counterproductive and it’s time to stop reading the book. Mentally put the memory in your book and get it stored on the back shelf only to opened on rare occasions. This is in no way discounting the traumatic event you are simply saying to yourself ‘It’s time to move on’, reliving your past everyday will only halt your mental growth and you will be stuck for as long as you keep reliving old events.

New, more happier, memories should be stored in the book as often as possible and I think it’s important to push yourself to get out, meet new people, puish beyond your comfort zone or get back in touch with family and good friends to start depositing happier memories in your book.

The book of beliefs

Beliefs shape our lives and make us the person we are today and it’s important to revisit our beliefs regularly and keep them up to date. How do we do this?

As you walk along the path of life you will come across experiences that don’t quite sit right with you and this can be a time to question and reposition your beliefs. For example when I was younger I used to go out with a group of friends every weekend (that was when the weekend started on a Thursday night) and our main goal was to have a good time, have a drink, and try and pick up a woman (Sorry, that was my mentality when I was younger). The experiences of the weekend were then spoken about with each other and I went along with the crowd at first and after a few times it didn’t sit right with me. I questioned my belief about privacy and respect and made a new belief to respect myself and anybody I was involved with. From then on I always kept my experiences with the girls to myself as I didn’t feel it was right to discuss intimate details with everyone, I always took a lot of heat for that but I stuck to my guns.

To question your own beliefs it’s important to question others beliefs as well and then make your own decisions and find out where you stand on certain topics. Most people believe it is not right to kill another human being that is why we can live in relative peace and harmony. Yes, it’s true there are a lot of people out there who kill but they are few and far between and the media sensationalize the people who do, therefore leading us to believe the world is a bad place to live, but is it really a bad place to live? we have to question the media’s motives for printing stories of people who murder others, simply because it sells just like the thousands of books about crime they are bestsellers. I believe the media can help to fuel a murderers motivation to kill, I honestly do and I have taken a lot of stick for this viewpoint.

Question everything and look at your beliefs about everything. You start by asking the question: What are my beliefs about this subject? if you don’t really have a belief and it’s not important then leave it, if it’s something important to you then form a belief around it but have reasons for it.

Continue reading "The Books on The Back Shelf of Your Mind!" »

On August 28th, 2009, I found this thought provoking article posted on: The Naked Soul  (Blog).

What makes a person attractive to other people? If one scans the magazine rack or many sites on the web one would believe that a person’s attractiveness is based on how their physical appearance correlates to the cultural standard of beauty. Many of our cultures base being attractive on physical appearance, however the reality is that although we may at first notice someone because of their physical appearance it is rarely the physical appearance which attracts us to another person.

So if physical appearance is not what is truly attracting us to another person, what is it? We are attracted to each other most often because of the energy that we are emitting. At a core level we are attracted or not attracted to another because of the energy that we feel from the other person.

Being our authentic self, being in alignment with who we truly are is attractive! When we are in alignment, we FEEL good about our self. When we feel good about our self we become confident, we raise our vibrations and in doing so we become attractive to other people, that is we become attractive to people who feel our vibrations and our aligned with our vibrations.

Conversely when we are out of alignment with our authentic self, our energy is low or the energy that we emit is a “bad vibe” and we repel people whom we would want to attract and we tend to attract people who are equally out of alignment with their true selves and therefore we perpetuate and grow the feeling of being out of alignment and unconsciously create a circle where as we are not attracting the people into our life that we desire to attract.

Most of us have heard the old adage that “misery loves company” and it is true, when we are miserable we attract other people who can relate to our misery and in doing so we often substantiate and perpetuate each others misery. Most people who are in a miserable state don’t react well to being around a person who is in a state of bliss. As a matter of fact people who are in a state of misery will often poke fun at a happy person, saying that their happiness most be fake or that they are only happy because they are not smart enough to be miserable. Seems ludicrous, however when we are in a state of misery, which by the way is an ego state, we tend to think, say and do things that don’t make sense however that do justify our state of misery.

As you can see in a way we are always attractive, it is really a matter of who we are attractive to and why? Being attractive in a way that will attract the people into our life whom we desire to attract is completely an inside job. Through our thoughts, through our choice to align with our authentic self we become attractive in the way that we desire.

We must use our In-Sight to see our true beauty, and it is through our In-Sight that we will also see the beauty in others.

All of the make-up, right clothes, exercise and plastic surgery in world may change your physical forms appearance however it will not make you any more attractive. As a matter of fact many who chase the illusion of physical beauty in the end become less attractive by virtue of their inability to turn inward and know their true beauty which is always within us.

We are love and there is no greater beauty then love, there is no greater aphrodisiac then being the love that we truly are and there is no greater attraction then love!

Who are you attracting or not attracting into your life? Why? What changes can you make within yourself to be attractive in a way that you desire?

Note, the more aligned you become with your authentic self, the more you become the “love” whom you truly are, the less concerned you will become with who you attract into your life, for your attractiveness on all levels will not be of a concern to you as your attractiveness will be a natural state of your being. As you continue on this journey, often much to your amazement, you will find that you will attract into your life exactly who you need and when you need them. I know that I am truly amazed by this on a daily basis.

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Taking responsibility makes it possible for you to experience the total pleasure of the success you achieve. What? Read that again. I have a feeling that you didn’t give that thought time to sink in.

To fully be responsible, you must take responsibility for the good and the seemingly bad in your life—for your positive habits as well as your negative habits.

It reminds me of how parents will jokingly or not so jokingly say when a child does something good, “That’s my boy.” And when he does something wrong, “He’s your son.”

Taking responsibility comes with big benefits. You assess the situation and then take steps to change what doesn’t contribute to your personal success. When you take responsibility you experience the accomplishment of your personal success goals at a much higher level than if you only take credit for the good that comes into your life and blame someone else for the rest.

I admit that it took me quite a while to come to terms with cutting off the excess baggage I was carrying around. I seemed quite comfortable accepting responsibility in all areas of my life except for one.

I spent almost 10 years in an abusive relationship. I thought I was well along my path of personal success and spiritual growth at that time. I only read motivational and self-help books. I listened to personal growth tapes in my car. I lived and breathed the personal development principles I learned, or so I thought.

Despite all that positive reinforcement, I was wearing blinders to this horrible situation. But it wasn’t my fault, or so I told myself confidently. Obviously it had to be his fault because look at all the evidence of how empowered I was.

And yet, there I stayed. Being beaten up physically and verbally on a regular basis. If I had told anyone, they would have been shocked.

Looking back all these years later, I have a completely different perspective. I wasn’t so innocent in all this. I played some part or it couldn’t have happened.

If I were going to take responsibility, which means having the ability to respond and adapt rather than react to situations, I would have to give myself a serious reality check.

As painful as it may be to let go of the convenience of blaming someone else for what happens in your life, it’s necessary for you to move forward and be successful.

Because while you are still blaming or holding a grudge, like I was in that situation, a lot of energy that could be used for personal development is fueling anger, resentment and fear.

Think of this excess baggage from your past as a virus on your computer. On the surface everything looks like it’s running normally, but behind the scenes something is using up energy that slows down the progress of what you’re trying to create.

You have to look deep inside your computer to find that virus. You may have to engage the services of an expert to help you work it out. It’s inconvenient, but once done, you feel much better, your computer is back to full potential and you can work quickly with results showing up faster than before.

I recently mentioned that I used to have a win/lose approach to my goals in life. I’d decide what I want. If I achieved it I won. If I didn’t achieve it, I lost. I now realize that this is one of the worst attitudes you can have, despite being promoted frequently as a motivation tactic.

Instead of a win/lose focus, I believe it’s far more useful to emphasize staying in the game. Instead of worrying about whether you’re going to meet your weight loss goal, focus on continuing to exercise, regardless of the outcome. Because the best chances come from playing long enough that you eventually win.

Setting Goals Without Deadlines

A common piece of goal-setting advice (so common, I’ve even written it previously on this blog) is to set deadlines whenever you make a goal. Otherwise, the reasoning goes, you won’t have any pressure to start working. Unless you set a firm deadline for yourself, nothing will get started.

I’ve now realized that for many of my personal goals this advice is garbage. It promotes a win/lose mindset instead of the more important attitude of patience and persistence. I still set deadlines for projects (more on the distinction later) but I don’t use deadlines for big goals for any more than planning purposes.

Once I detail out a plan of action for a particular goal within a timeframe, what’s the point of stressing over it? The energy spent stressing over whether you’ll win or lose is better spent working. If your plan didn’t meet your goal on time, then just adjust the plan and go again.

Imaginary Finishing Lines

There are hard finishing lines. There may be a point in your schooling where student loans or faculty requirements force you to meet your grades withing a time limit. There may be a point in your career where if you don’t reach a critical threshold you’re stuck. But the genuine finishing lines are outnumbered by the imaginary ones we create for ourselves.

The imaginary finishing lines are all the deadlines you set for yourself. But for many of them, if you continued to work after that point the goal is still reachable. If you don’t double your income this year, you can continue working at it in the next year. If you don’t lose 15 lbs this month, you can continue exercising next month.

The problem is while these imaginary finishing lines might motivate you, they also encourage you to quit when you fail. And for many pursuits, it’s more important to keep running than it is to capture every sprint. You may lose the first race, but if you keep running, you’ll eventually reach your destination.

I know many bloggers who quit when they weren’t successful soon. That’s fine. Perhaps they simply found other interests that were more rewarding. However, I suspect some of them had big expectations and quit when they didn’t cross their imaginary finishing line in time. If you expect to be earning six figures after six months, you may quit out of frustration when you failed to earn $100.

Instead, I take the stay-in-the-game approach. I work hard and I use deadlines to plan my efforts, but I don’t worry about whether I meet my goals on time. I know, as long as I was working hard, that staying in the game is what matters most. Few things can physically stop me from writing, so if I keep pushing I can eventually become successful.

I take the same approach when learning a new skill. When I started to learn how to dance, I was frustrated because I was born a clumsy person. But, by focusing on staying in the classes (not reaching some milestone by a particular date) I managed to learn the basics.

Projects Need Deadlines, Goals Don’t

A project is a lot of tasks organized together. Writing a book is a project, because it involves hundreds of discrete tasks, most of which are entirely under my control. Having a deadline for a project helps because there is little chance that my efforts will be completely unrewarded. I may not write a best-selling book, but if I focus hard, I can write a book.

A goal is something you want, but may require more than just sheer effort. Going to the gym every day for a month is a project. Increasing lean muscle mass is a goal. The first is entirely under your control, the latter depends on your fitness knowledge, metabolism and dieting strategy. With the latter, many things could go wrong and you could fail, even if it wasn’t your fault.

With a goal, the only thing I need to ask myself is if I worked hard enough. If I worked hard enough and failed, that was just bad luck or a bad strategy. In either case, it means I need to stay in the game and try again. Only if I didn’t work hard enough is there any point in putting more pressure on myself.

Win/Neutral Scenarios

Most of life isn’t a win/lose scenario. Instead, most pursuits are either a win or completely neutral. If I reach my income target over the next two years, that is a personal win. If I don’t, I’m no worse off than I was before and I can continue to stay in the game.

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This guest post was written by: Scott H. Young.

We all know the situation with today’s economy. In fact, we are constantly bombarded by the situation whenever we turn on the television or pick up a newspaper. Hype, hype, hype … it’s everywhere.

So how do you keep a positive attitude with regards to your business, your job, or your life in general? Here are a few things you can do to combat the overall negative outlook:

1. Focus on what you need to do right now, today. Thinking about what lies ahead is all right to a certain extent, but can lead to depression if you let it take hold on you in a negative way, or if you start to over-think a negative financial or other situation. Focusing on your business, job, family, planning your weekend, errands, etc., can get your mind off the negative economical situation. Start living day to day.
   
   
2. Plan fun activities with family and friends. Get out of the house and have some fun! You don’t have to go far or spend a lot. Just getting outside for a fall hike with a picnic lunch can do wonders for your soul. Pick some apples, see a movie you really want to see, watch a comedy show. The point is, adding some fun to your life will help in ways you cannot imagine.
   
   
3. Stop watching the news. Yes, you heard me right. It can be downright depressing to watch the news these days. To catch up on what’s going on, read the newspaper or go online to get the news. At least you’ll be catching up on news that’s important to you, at your own pace, and you won’t have to listen to all the reporters’ hype. You can also pick and choose what you want to read about.
   
   
4. Count your blessings. You have a job or business, your health, your loved ones, and a roof over your head. You are not starving. Add to this list the things that are most important in your life.
   
   
5. Laugh … a lot! I believe that laughter really is the best medicine, and I try to practice it daily. I look for the humor in everyday situations. It helps to keep me grounded, and to realize that life doesn’t always need to be taken so seriously. Try it!

These are, of course just a handful of ideas to help you stay positive, not only during tough times, but in general. Keep a list of others you happen to come across or experience, and reference the list whenever you feel negativity start to hone in on you. You’ll most likely start to feel better, and maybe even adopt a permanent positive outlook.

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This guest post was written by: Cynthia Morse, CAP, as was previously posted on: The Wealthy Attitude Blog

As you may or may not know I am an addiction worker working with people with alcohol and drug issues.  There are a lot of people addicted to non alcoholic and what they see as non-drug based substances such as Coffee, tea and juice.  However, caffeine which is in coffee, tea and many fizzy juices is a drug and can be addictive, more of a psychological addiction than a physical one. I used to drink around 12 – 15 cups of coffee a day a few years ago and have managed to control it to around 3 cups per day and can now take it or leave it.

I don’t want to go into addiction too much because it’s a huge subject.  Needless to say a lot of alcohol and drug addicts don’t want to stop their addiction they just want to control it and that is great.  I would rather someone drink or take drugs when they are in control of it.  Aside from the from the fact that most drugs (A lot of people are addicted to prescribed medication) are illegal it’s better to help someone control their drug intake rather than lecture to them that they must stop drugs because it is bad for them; that never works.

Coffee addiction is mainly psychological and you may have formed a habit of drinking coffee over time but at the end of the day it’s can still be addictive.

Here are 5 steps to breaking your coffee addiction

1. Admit you’re addicted

This is obviously the most important step with any addiction.  If you don’t admit it and don’t recognize that you have an addiction then in your head you are not addicted.  It’s only when other people start to say things like ‘You drink a lot of coffee don’t you?’ or when your work colleagues start calling you ‘mr coffee’( I wonder if that’s how ‘Mr T’ got his name.) that you start thinking that you might be addicated.  When you recognise the addiction it’s time to start taking action.

2. Recognise the pattern of your addiction

Most coffee addicts have a routine.  For example the first thing they do is have a cup of coffee when they get up in the morning, then again after they have had a shower and put their clothes on and then again before they leave for work.  That’s three cups of coffee within the space of an hour or so and the pattern continues at work and when they get back home from work and before they go to bed.

I always find it helps to have a visual representation of your habit and you can see at a glance just how much you are drinking.

As such I have made a PDF to record your coffee drinking routine throughout the day.

You can download it here

3. Breaking the pattern

As I said before your aim is to control the habit rather than have the habit control you, so we are not going for giving up coffee we are looking to cut down and be in control.

You can break the pattern by swapping coffee with water.  For example if you have 3 cups of coffee before leaving for work, replace your second cup of coffee with a glass of water.  This has two benefits; you are breaking the pattern of your coffee habit and you are re-hydrating your body (too much coffee can dehydrate you, this is why a lot of heavy coffee drinkers get headaches).

The Books on The Back Shelf of Your Mind!

We all have fears, worries, anxieties, and memories from our past that still haunt us. They are like books stored in a library on the back shelf of our mind. Just like a library our thoughts, and fears are stored in separate sections and we access the books in each of the sections everyday to help us deal with new experiences in our life.

It might be time to rewrite the books that you have stored. Just like in a library there are books that are timeless and can be read again and again and never be outdated, I am thinking of a particular book that I love, rather cliched but I love it ‘Think and Grow Rich’ by Napoleon Hill. It was written in the 1930’s but most of the principles still apply today and it is one I often refer to and have several copies lying about the house. So it is with the books in our minds, some will never be outdated but a lot of them are outdated and hold irrelevant information about our fears, and our beliefs.

The book of memories

The book of memories is a large book in which all our memories are stored and retrieved whenever required. Sometimes the pages of the book become distorted over time and sometimes the pages get ripped out altogether.

A lot of the time we keep this book on the very front shelf of our library and access it every single day when we re-live traumatic experiences. Reliving past experiences is debilitating and can literally stunt our mental growth. Painful memories that are still raw i.e. a few years old need to be talked about in an open way, preferably with a trained counselor. However talking about the event 10 years on is counterproductive and it’s time to stop reading the book. Mentally put the memory in your book and get it stored on the back shelf only to opened on rare occasions. This is in no way discounting the traumatic event you are simply saying to yourself ‘It’s time to move on’, reliving your past everyday will only halt your mental growth and you will be stuck for as long as you keep reliving old events.

New, more happier, memories should be stored in the book as often as possible and I think it’s important to push yourself to get out, meet new people, puish beyond your comfort zone or get back in touch with family and good friends to start depositing happier memories in your book.

The book of beliefs

Beliefs shape our lives and make us the person we are today and it’s important to revisit our beliefs regularly and keep them up to date. How do we do this?

As you walk along the path of life you will come across experiences that don’t quite sit right with you and this can be a time to question and reposition your beliefs. For example when I was younger I used to go out with a group of friends every weekend (that was when the weekend started on a Thursday night) and our main goal was to have a good time, have a drink, and try and pick up a woman (Sorry, that was my mentality when I was younger). The experiences of the weekend were then spoken about with each other and I went along with the crowd at first and after a few times it didn’t sit right with me. I questioned my belief about privacy and respect and made a new belief to respect myself and anybody I was involved with. From then on I always kept my experiences with the girls to myself as I didn’t feel it was right to discuss intimate details with everyone, I always took a lot of heat for that but I stuck to my guns.

To question your own beliefs it’s important to question others beliefs as well and then make your own decisions and find out where you stand on certain topics. Most people believe it is not right to kill another human being that is why we can live in relative peace and harmony. Yes, it’s true there are a lot of people out there who kill but they are few and far between and the media sensationalize the people who do, therefore leading us to believe the world is a bad place to live, but is it really a bad place to live? we have to question the media’s motives for printing stories of people who murder others, simply because it sells just like the thousands of books about crime they are bestsellers. I believe the media can help to fuel a murderers motivation to kill, I honestly do and I have taken a lot of stick for this viewpoint.

Question everything and look at your beliefs about everything. You start by asking the question: What are my beliefs about this subject? if you don’t really have a belief and it’s not important then leave it, if it’s something important to you then form a belief around it but have reasons for it.

Continue reading "The Books on The Back Shelf of Your Mind!" »

On August 28th, 2009, I found this thought provoking article posted on: The Naked Soul  (Blog).

What makes a person attractive to other people? If one scans the magazine rack or many sites on the web one would believe that a person’s attractiveness is based on how their physical appearance correlates to the cultural standard of beauty. Many of our cultures base being attractive on physical appearance, however the reality is that although we may at first notice someone because of their physical appearance it is rarely the physical appearance which attracts us to another person.

So if physical appearance is not what is truly attracting us to another person, what is it? We are attracted to each other most often because of the energy that we are emitting. At a core level we are attracted or not attracted to another because of the energy that we feel from the other person.

Being our authentic self, being in alignment with who we truly are is attractive! When we are in alignment, we FEEL good about our self. When we feel good about our self we become confident, we raise our vibrations and in doing so we become attractive to other people, that is we become attractive to people who feel our vibrations and our aligned with our vibrations.

Conversely when we are out of alignment with our authentic self, our energy is low or the energy that we emit is a “bad vibe” and we repel people whom we would want to attract and we tend to attract people who are equally out of alignment with their true selves and therefore we perpetuate and grow the feeling of being out of alignment and unconsciously create a circle where as we are not attracting the people into our life that we desire to attract.

Most of us have heard the old adage that “misery loves company” and it is true, when we are miserable we attract other people who can relate to our misery and in doing so we often substantiate and perpetuate each others misery. Most people who are in a miserable state don’t react well to being around a person who is in a state of bliss. As a matter of fact people who are in a state of misery will often poke fun at a happy person, saying that their happiness most be fake or that they are only happy because they are not smart enough to be miserable. Seems ludicrous, however when we are in a state of misery, which by the way is an ego state, we tend to think, say and do things that don’t make sense however that do justify our state of misery.

As you can see in a way we are always attractive, it is really a matter of who we are attractive to and why? Being attractive in a way that will attract the people into our life whom we desire to attract is completely an inside job. Through our thoughts, through our choice to align with our authentic self we become attractive in the way that we desire.

We must use our In-Sight to see our true beauty, and it is through our In-Sight that we will also see the beauty in others.

All of the make-up, right clothes, exercise and plastic surgery in world may change your physical forms appearance however it will not make you any more attractive. As a matter of fact many who chase the illusion of physical beauty in the end become less attractive by virtue of their inability to turn inward and know their true beauty which is always within us.

We are love and there is no greater beauty then love, there is no greater aphrodisiac then being the love that we truly are and there is no greater attraction then love!

Who are you attracting or not attracting into your life? Why? What changes can you make within yourself to be attractive in a way that you desire?

Note, the more aligned you become with your authentic self, the more you become the “love” whom you truly are, the less concerned you will become with who you attract into your life, for your attractiveness on all levels will not be of a concern to you as your attractiveness will be a natural state of your being. As you continue on this journey, often much to your amazement, you will find that you will attract into your life exactly who you need and when you need them. I know that I am truly amazed by this on a daily basis.

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Taking responsibility makes it possible for you to experience the total pleasure of the success you achieve. What? Read that again. I have a feeling that you didn’t give that thought time to sink in.

To fully be responsible, you must take responsibility for the good and the seemingly bad in your life—for your positive habits as well as your negative habits.

It reminds me of how parents will jokingly or not so jokingly say when a child does something good, “That’s my boy.” And when he does something wrong, “He’s your son.”

Taking responsibility comes with big benefits. You assess the situation and then take steps to change what doesn’t contribute to your personal success. When you take responsibility you experience the accomplishment of your personal success goals at a much higher level than if you only take credit for the good that comes into your life and blame someone else for the rest.

I admit that it took me quite a while to come to terms with cutting off the excess baggage I was carrying around. I seemed quite comfortable accepting responsibility in all areas of my life except for one.

I spent almost 10 years in an abusive relationship. I thought I was well along my path of personal success and spiritual growth at that time. I only read motivational and self-help books. I listened to personal growth tapes in my car. I lived and breathed the personal development principles I learned, or so I thought.

Despite all that positive reinforcement, I was wearing blinders to this horrible situation. But it wasn’t my fault, or so I told myself confidently. Obviously it had to be his fault because look at all the evidence of how empowered I was.

And yet, there I stayed. Being beaten up physically and verbally on a regular basis. If I had told anyone, they would have been shocked.

Looking back all these years later, I have a completely different perspective. I wasn’t so innocent in all this. I played some part or it couldn’t have happened.

If I were going to take responsibility, which means having the ability to respond and adapt rather than react to situations, I would have to give myself a serious reality check.

As painful as it may be to let go of the convenience of blaming someone else for what happens in your life, it’s necessary for you to move forward and be successful.

Because while you are still blaming or holding a grudge, like I was in that situation, a lot of energy that could be used for personal development is fueling anger, resentment and fear.

Think of this excess baggage from your past as a virus on your computer. On the surface everything looks like it’s running normally, but behind the scenes something is using up energy that slows down the progress of what you’re trying to create.

You have to look deep inside your computer to find that virus. You may have to engage the services of an expert to help you work it out. It’s inconvenient, but once done, you feel much better, your computer is back to full potential and you can work quickly with results showing up faster than before.

I recently mentioned that I used to have a win/lose approach to my goals in life. I’d decide what I want. If I achieved it I won. If I didn’t achieve it, I lost. I now realize that this is one of the worst attitudes you can have, despite being promoted frequently as a motivation tactic.

Instead of a win/lose focus, I believe it’s far more useful to emphasize staying in the game. Instead of worrying about whether you’re going to meet your weight loss goal, focus on continuing to exercise, regardless of the outcome. Because the best chances come from playing long enough that you eventually win.

Setting Goals Without Deadlines

A common piece of goal-setting advice (so common, I’ve even written it previously on this blog) is to set deadlines whenever you make a goal. Otherwise, the reasoning goes, you won’t have any pressure to start working. Unless you set a firm deadline for yourself, nothing will get started.

I’ve now realized that for many of my personal goals this advice is garbage. It promotes a win/lose mindset instead of the more important attitude of patience and persistence. I still set deadlines for projects (more on the distinction later) but I don’t use deadlines for big goals for any more than planning purposes.

Once I detail out a plan of action for a particular goal within a timeframe, what’s the point of stressing over it? The energy spent stressing over whether you’ll win or lose is better spent working. If your plan didn’t meet your goal on time, then just adjust the plan and go again.

Imaginary Finishing Lines

There are hard finishing lines. There may be a point in your schooling where student loans or faculty requirements force you to meet your grades withing a time limit. There may be a point in your career where if you don’t reach a critical threshold you’re stuck. But the genuine finishing lines are outnumbered by the imaginary ones we create for ourselves.

The imaginary finishing lines are all the deadlines you set for yourself. But for many of them, if you continued to work after that point the goal is still reachable. If you don’t double your income this year, you can continue working at it in the next year. If you don’t lose 15 lbs this month, you can continue exercising next month.

The problem is while these imaginary finishing lines might motivate you, they also encourage you to quit when you fail. And for many pursuits, it’s more important to keep running than it is to capture every sprint. You may lose the first race, but if you keep running, you’ll eventually reach your destination.

I know many bloggers who quit when they weren’t successful soon. That’s fine. Perhaps they simply found other interests that were more rewarding. However, I suspect some of them had big expectations and quit when they didn’t cross their imaginary finishing line in time. If you expect to be earning six figures after six months, you may quit out of frustration when you failed to earn $100.

Instead, I take the stay-in-the-game approach. I work hard and I use deadlines to plan my efforts, but I don’t worry about whether I meet my goals on time. I know, as long as I was working hard, that staying in the game is what matters most. Few things can physically stop me from writing, so if I keep pushing I can eventually become successful.

I take the same approach when learning a new skill. When I started to learn how to dance, I was frustrated because I was born a clumsy person. But, by focusing on staying in the classes (not reaching some milestone by a particular date) I managed to learn the basics.

Projects Need Deadlines, Goals Don’t

A project is a lot of tasks organized together. Writing a book is a project, because it involves hundreds of discrete tasks, most of which are entirely under my control. Having a deadline for a project helps because there is little chance that my efforts will be completely unrewarded. I may not write a best-selling book, but if I focus hard, I can write a book.

A goal is something you want, but may require more than just sheer effort. Going to the gym every day for a month is a project. Increasing lean muscle mass is a goal. The first is entirely under your control, the latter depends on your fitness knowledge, metabolism and dieting strategy. With the latter, many things could go wrong and you could fail, even if it wasn’t your fault.

With a goal, the only thing I need to ask myself is if I worked hard enough. If I worked hard enough and failed, that was just bad luck or a bad strategy. In either case, it means I need to stay in the game and try again. Only if I didn’t work hard enough is there any point in putting more pressure on myself.

Win/Neutral Scenarios

Most of life isn’t a win/lose scenario. Instead, most pursuits are either a win or completely neutral. If I reach my income target over the next two years, that is a personal win. If I don’t, I’m no worse off than I was before and I can continue to stay in the game.

---

This guest post was written by: Scott H. Young.

We all know the situation with today’s economy. In fact, we are constantly bombarded by the situation whenever we turn on the television or pick up a newspaper. Hype, hype, hype … it’s everywhere.

So how do you keep a positive attitude with regards to your business, your job, or your life in general? Here are a few things you can do to combat the overall negative outlook:

1. Focus on what you need to do right now, today. Thinking about what lies ahead is all right to a certain extent, but can lead to depression if you let it take hold on you in a negative way, or if you start to over-think a negative financial or other situation. Focusing on your business, job, family, planning your weekend, errands, etc., can get your mind off the negative economical situation. Start living day to day.
   
   
2. Plan fun activities with family and friends. Get out of the house and have some fun! You don’t have to go far or spend a lot. Just getting outside for a fall hike with a picnic lunch can do wonders for your soul. Pick some apples, see a movie you really want to see, watch a comedy show. The point is, adding some fun to your life will help in ways you cannot imagine.
   
   
3. Stop watching the news. Yes, you heard me right. It can be downright depressing to watch the news these days. To catch up on what’s going on, read the newspaper or go online to get the news. At least you’ll be catching up on news that’s important to you, at your own pace, and you won’t have to listen to all the reporters’ hype. You can also pick and choose what you want to read about.
   
   
4. Count your blessings. You have a job or business, your health, your loved ones, and a roof over your head. You are not starving. Add to this list the things that are most important in your life.
   
   
5. Laugh … a lot! I believe that laughter really is the best medicine, and I try to practice it daily. I look for the humor in everyday situations. It helps to keep me grounded, and to realize that life doesn’t always need to be taken so seriously. Try it!

These are, of course just a handful of ideas to help you stay positive, not only during tough times, but in general. Keep a list of others you happen to come across or experience, and reference the list whenever you feel negativity start to hone in on you. You’ll most likely start to feel better, and maybe even adopt a permanent positive outlook.

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This guest post was written by: Cynthia Morse, CAP, as was previously posted on: The Wealthy Attitude Blog

As you may or may not know I am an addiction worker working with people with alcohol and drug issues.  There are a lot of people addicted to non alcoholic and what they see as non-drug based substances such as Coffee, tea and juice.  However, caffeine which is in coffee, tea and many fizzy juices is a drug and can be addictive, more of a psychological addiction than a physical one. I used to drink around 12 – 15 cups of coffee a day a few years ago and have managed to control it to around 3 cups per day and can now take it or leave it.

I don’t want to go into addiction too much because it’s a huge subject.  Needless to say a lot of alcohol and drug addicts don’t want to stop their addiction they just want to control it and that is great.  I would rather someone drink or take drugs when they are in control of it.  Aside from the from the fact that most drugs (A lot of people are addicted to prescribed medication) are illegal it’s better to help someone control their drug intake rather than lecture to them that they must stop drugs because it is bad for them; that never works.

Coffee addiction is mainly psychological and you may have formed a habit of drinking coffee over time but at the end of the day it’s can still be addictive.

Here are 5 steps to breaking your coffee addiction

1. Admit you’re addicted

This is obviously the most important step with any addiction.  If you don’t admit it and don’t recognize that you have an addiction then in your head you are not addicted.  It’s only when other people start to say things like ‘You drink a lot of coffee don’t you?’ or when your work colleagues start calling you ‘mr coffee’( I wonder if that’s how ‘Mr T’ got his name.) that you start thinking that you might be addicated.  When you recognise the addiction it’s time to start taking action.

2. Recognise the pattern of your addiction

Most coffee addicts have a routine.  For example the first thing they do is have a cup of coffee when they get up in the morning, then again after they have had a shower and put their clothes on and then again before they leave for work.  That’s three cups of coffee within the space of an hour or so and the pattern continues at work and when they get back home from work and before they go to bed.

I always find it helps to have a visual representation of your habit and you can see at a glance just how much you are drinking.

As such I have made a PDF to record your coffee drinking routine throughout the day.

You can download it here

3. Breaking the pattern

As I said before your aim is to control the habit rather than have the habit control you, so we are not going for giving up coffee we are looking to cut down and be in control.

You can break the pattern by swapping coffee with water.  For example if you have 3 cups of coffee before leaving for work, replace your second cup of coffee with a glass of water.  This has two benefits; you are breaking the pattern of your coffee habit and you are re-hydrating your body (too much coffee can dehydrate you, this is why a lot of heavy coffee drinkers get headaches).

Being Attractive by Being You!

On August 28th, 2009, I found this thought provoking article posted on: The Naked Soul  (Blog).

What makes a person attractive to other people? If one scans the magazine rack or many sites on the web one would believe that a person’s attractiveness is based on how their physical appearance correlates to the cultural standard of beauty. Many of our cultures base being attractive on physical appearance, however the reality is that although we may at first notice someone because of their physical appearance it is rarely the physical appearance which attracts us to another person.

So if physical appearance is not what is truly attracting us to another person, what is it? We are attracted to each other most often because of the energy that we are emitting. At a core level we are attracted or not attracted to another because of the energy that we feel from the other person.

Being our authentic self, being in alignment with who we truly are is attractive! When we are in alignment, we FEEL good about our self. When we feel good about our self we become confident, we raise our vibrations and in doing so we become attractive to other people, that is we become attractive to people who feel our vibrations and our aligned with our vibrations.

Conversely when we are out of alignment with our authentic self, our energy is low or the energy that we emit is a “bad vibe” and we repel people whom we would want to attract and we tend to attract people who are equally out of alignment with their true selves and therefore we perpetuate and grow the feeling of being out of alignment and unconsciously create a circle where as we are not attracting the people into our life that we desire to attract.

Most of us have heard the old adage that “misery loves company” and it is true, when we are miserable we attract other people who can relate to our misery and in doing so we often substantiate and perpetuate each others misery. Most people who are in a miserable state don’t react well to being around a person who is in a state of bliss. As a matter of fact people who are in a state of misery will often poke fun at a happy person, saying that their happiness most be fake or that they are only happy because they are not smart enough to be miserable. Seems ludicrous, however when we are in a state of misery, which by the way is an ego state, we tend to think, say and do things that don’t make sense however that do justify our state of misery.

As you can see in a way we are always attractive, it is really a matter of who we are attractive to and why? Being attractive in a way that will attract the people into our life whom we desire to attract is completely an inside job. Through our thoughts, through our choice to align with our authentic self we become attractive in the way that we desire.

We must use our In-Sight to see our true beauty, and it is through our In-Sight that we will also see the beauty in others.

All of the make-up, right clothes, exercise and plastic surgery in world may change your physical forms appearance however it will not make you any more attractive. As a matter of fact many who chase the illusion of physical beauty in the end become less attractive by virtue of their inability to turn inward and know their true beauty which is always within us.

We are love and there is no greater beauty then love, there is no greater aphrodisiac then being the love that we truly are and there is no greater attraction then love!

Who are you attracting or not attracting into your life? Why? What changes can you make within yourself to be attractive in a way that you desire?

Note, the more aligned you become with your authentic self, the more you become the “love” whom you truly are, the less concerned you will become with who you attract into your life, for your attractiveness on all levels will not be of a concern to you as your attractiveness will be a natural state of your being. As you continue on this journey, often much to your amazement, you will find that you will attract into your life exactly who you need and when you need them. I know that I am truly amazed by this on a daily basis.

---

Personal Development Key: Take Responsibility for Your Life!

Taking responsibility makes it possible for you to experience the total pleasure of the success you achieve. What? Read that again. I have a feeling that you didn’t give that thought time to sink in.

To fully be responsible, you must take responsibility for the good and the seemingly bad in your life—for your positive habits as well as your negative habits.

It reminds me of how parents will jokingly or not so jokingly say when a child does something good, “That’s my boy.” And when he does something wrong, “He’s your son.”

Taking responsibility comes with big benefits. You assess the situation and then take steps to change what doesn’t contribute to your personal success. When you take responsibility you experience the accomplishment of your personal success goals at a much higher level than if you only take credit for the good that comes into your life and blame someone else for the rest.

I admit that it took me quite a while to come to terms with cutting off the excess baggage I was carrying around. I seemed quite comfortable accepting responsibility in all areas of my life except for one.

I spent almost 10 years in an abusive relationship. I thought I was well along my path of personal success and spiritual growth at that time. I only read motivational and self-help books. I listened to personal growth tapes in my car. I lived and breathed the personal development principles I learned, or so I thought.

Despite all that positive reinforcement, I was wearing blinders to this horrible situation. But it wasn’t my fault, or so I told myself confidently. Obviously it had to be his fault because look at all the evidence of how empowered I was.

And yet, there I stayed. Being beaten up physically and verbally on a regular basis. If I had told anyone, they would have been shocked.

Looking back all these years later, I have a completely different perspective. I wasn’t so innocent in all this. I played some part or it couldn’t have happened.

If I were going to take responsibility, which means having the ability to respond and adapt rather than react to situations, I would have to give myself a serious reality check.

As painful as it may be to let go of the convenience of blaming someone else for what happens in your life, it’s necessary for you to move forward and be successful.

Because while you are still blaming or holding a grudge, like I was in that situation, a lot of energy that could be used for personal development is fueling anger, resentment and fear.

Think of this excess baggage from your past as a virus on your computer. On the surface everything looks like it’s running normally, but behind the scenes something is using up energy that slows down the progress of what you’re trying to create.

You have to look deep inside your computer to find that virus. You may have to engage the services of an expert to help you work it out. It’s inconvenient, but once done, you feel much better, your computer is back to full potential and you can work quickly with results showing up faster than before.

Staying in the Game!

I recently mentioned that I used to have a win/lose approach to my goals in life. I’d decide what I want. If I achieved it I won. If I didn’t achieve it, I lost. I now realize that this is one of the worst attitudes you can have, despite being promoted frequently as a motivation tactic.

Instead of a win/lose focus, I believe it’s far more useful to emphasize staying in the game. Instead of worrying about whether you’re going to meet your weight loss goal, focus on continuing to exercise, regardless of the outcome. Because the best chances come from playing long enough that you eventually win.

Setting Goals Without Deadlines

A common piece of goal-setting advice (so common, I’ve even written it previously on this blog) is to set deadlines whenever you make a goal. Otherwise, the reasoning goes, you won’t have any pressure to start working. Unless you set a firm deadline for yourself, nothing will get started.

I’ve now realized that for many of my personal goals this advice is garbage. It promotes a win/lose mindset instead of the more important attitude of patience and persistence. I still set deadlines for projects (more on the distinction later) but I don’t use deadlines for big goals for any more than planning purposes.

Once I detail out a plan of action for a particular goal within a timeframe, what’s the point of stressing over it? The energy spent stressing over whether you’ll win or lose is better spent working. If your plan didn’t meet your goal on time, then just adjust the plan and go again.

Imaginary Finishing Lines

There are hard finishing lines. There may be a point in your schooling where student loans or faculty requirements force you to meet your grades withing a time limit. There may be a point in your career where if you don’t reach a critical threshold you’re stuck. But the genuine finishing lines are outnumbered by the imaginary ones we create for ourselves.

The imaginary finishing lines are all the deadlines you set for yourself. But for many of them, if you continued to work after that point the goal is still reachable. If you don’t double your income this year, you can continue working at it in the next year. If you don’t lose 15 lbs this month, you can continue exercising next month.

The problem is while these imaginary finishing lines might motivate you, they also encourage you to quit when you fail. And for many pursuits, it’s more important to keep running than it is to capture every sprint. You may lose the first race, but if you keep running, you’ll eventually reach your destination.

I know many bloggers who quit when they weren’t successful soon. That’s fine. Perhaps they simply found other interests that were more rewarding. However, I suspect some of them had big expectations and quit when they didn’t cross their imaginary finishing line in time. If you expect to be earning six figures after six months, you may quit out of frustration when you failed to earn $100.

Instead, I take the stay-in-the-game approach. I work hard and I use deadlines to plan my efforts, but I don’t worry about whether I meet my goals on time. I know, as long as I was working hard, that staying in the game is what matters most. Few things can physically stop me from writing, so if I keep pushing I can eventually become successful.

I take the same approach when learning a new skill. When I started to learn how to dance, I was frustrated because I was born a clumsy person. But, by focusing on staying in the classes (not reaching some milestone by a particular date) I managed to learn the basics.

Projects Need Deadlines, Goals Don’t

A project is a lot of tasks organized together. Writing a book is a project, because it involves hundreds of discrete tasks, most of which are entirely under my control. Having a deadline for a project helps because there is little chance that my efforts will be completely unrewarded. I may not write a best-selling book, but if I focus hard, I can write a book.

A goal is something you want, but may require more than just sheer effort. Going to the gym every day for a month is a project. Increasing lean muscle mass is a goal. The first is entirely under your control, the latter depends on your fitness knowledge, metabolism and dieting strategy. With the latter, many things could go wrong and you could fail, even if it wasn’t your fault.

With a goal, the only thing I need to ask myself is if I worked hard enough. If I worked hard enough and failed, that was just bad luck or a bad strategy. In either case, it means I need to stay in the game and try again. Only if I didn’t work hard enough is there any point in putting more pressure on myself.

Win/Neutral Scenarios

Most of life isn’t a win/lose scenario. Instead, most pursuits are either a win or completely neutral. If I reach my income target over the next two years, that is a personal win. If I don’t, I’m no worse off than I was before and I can continue to stay in the game.

---

This guest post was written by: Scott H. Young.

5 Ways to Stay Positive in Tough Times!

We all know the situation with today’s economy. In fact, we are constantly bombarded by the situation whenever we turn on the television or pick up a newspaper. Hype, hype, hype … it’s everywhere.

So how do you keep a positive attitude with regards to your business, your job, or your life in general? Here are a few things you can do to combat the overall negative outlook:

1. Focus on what you need to do right now, today. Thinking about what lies ahead is all right to a certain extent, but can lead to depression if you let it take hold on you in a negative way, or if you start to over-think a negative financial or other situation. Focusing on your business, job, family, planning your weekend, errands, etc., can get your mind off the negative economical situation. Start living day to day.
   
   
2. Plan fun activities with family and friends. Get out of the house and have some fun! You don’t have to go far or spend a lot. Just getting outside for a fall hike with a picnic lunch can do wonders for your soul. Pick some apples, see a movie you really want to see, watch a comedy show. The point is, adding some fun to your life will help in ways you cannot imagine.
   
   
3. Stop watching the news. Yes, you heard me right. It can be downright depressing to watch the news these days. To catch up on what’s going on, read the newspaper or go online to get the news. At least you’ll be catching up on news that’s important to you, at your own pace, and you won’t have to listen to all the reporters’ hype. You can also pick and choose what you want to read about.
   
   
4. Count your blessings. You have a job or business, your health, your loved ones, and a roof over your head. You are not starving. Add to this list the things that are most important in your life.
   
   
5. Laugh … a lot! I believe that laughter really is the best medicine, and I try to practice it daily. I look for the humor in everyday situations. It helps to keep me grounded, and to realize that life doesn’t always need to be taken so seriously. Try it!

These are, of course just a handful of ideas to help you stay positive, not only during tough times, but in general. Keep a list of others you happen to come across or experience, and reference the list whenever you feel negativity start to hone in on you. You’ll most likely start to feel better, and maybe even adopt a permanent positive outlook.

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This guest post was written by: Cynthia Morse, CAP, as was previously posted on: The Wealthy Attitude Blog

5 Steps to controlling your coffee addiction!

As you may or may not know I am an addiction worker working with people with alcohol and drug issues.  There are a lot of people addicted to non alcoholic and what they see as non-drug based substances such as Coffee, tea and juice.  However, caffeine which is in coffee, tea and many fizzy juices is a drug and can be addictive, more of a psychological addiction than a physical one. I used to drink around 12 – 15 cups of coffee a day a few years ago and have managed to control it to around 3 cups per day and can now take it or leave it.

I don’t want to go into addiction too much because it’s a huge subject.  Needless to say a lot of alcohol and drug addicts don’t want to stop their addiction they just want to control it and that is great.  I would rather someone drink or take drugs when they are in control of it.  Aside from the from the fact that most drugs (A lot of people are addicted to prescribed medication) are illegal it’s better to help someone control their drug intake rather than lecture to them that they must stop drugs because it is bad for them; that never works.

Coffee addiction is mainly psychological and you may have formed a habit of drinking coffee over time but at the end of the day it’s can still be addictive.

Here are 5 steps to breaking your coffee addiction

1. Admit you’re addicted

This is obviously the most important step with any addiction.  If you don’t admit it and don’t recognize that you have an addiction then in your head you are not addicted.  It’s only when other people start to say things like ‘You drink a lot of coffee don’t you?’ or when your work colleagues start calling you ‘mr coffee’( I wonder if that’s how ‘Mr T’ got his name.) that you start thinking that you might be addicated.  When you recognise the addiction it’s time to start taking action.

2. Recognise the pattern of your addiction

Most coffee addicts have a routine.  For example the first thing they do is have a cup of coffee when they get up in the morning, then again after they have had a shower and put their clothes on and then again before they leave for work.  That’s three cups of coffee within the space of an hour or so and the pattern continues at work and when they get back home from work and before they go to bed.

I always find it helps to have a visual representation of your habit and you can see at a glance just how much you are drinking.

As such I have made a PDF to record your coffee drinking routine throughout the day.

You can download it here

3. Breaking the pattern

As I said before your aim is to control the habit rather than have the habit control you, so we are not going for giving up coffee we are looking to cut down and be in control.

You can break the pattern by swapping coffee with water.  For example if you have 3 cups of coffee before leaving for work, replace your second cup of coffee with a glass of water.  This has two benefits; you are breaking the pattern of your coffee habit and you are re-hydrating your body (too much coffee can dehydrate you, this is why a lot of heavy coffee drinkers get headaches).