Ideas: For a Successful, Less Complicated Life!

The Law of Saving!

Financial freedom comes to the person who saves ten percent or more of his income throughout his lifetime.

One of the smartest things that you can ever do for yourself is to develop the habit of saving part of your salary, every single paycheck. Individuals, families and even societies are stable and prosperous to the degree to which they have high savings rates. Savings today are what guarantee the security and the possibilities of tomorrow.

Start With Yourself

The first corollary of the Law of Saving comes from the book The Richest Man in Babylon by George Classon. It is to “Pay yourself first.”

Begin today to save ten percent of your earnings, off the top, and never touch it. This is your fund for long-term financial accumulation and you never use it for any other reason except to assure your financial future.

Develop New Habits Regarding Money

The remarkable thing is that when you pay yourself first, and force yourself to live on the other ninety percent, you will soon become accustomed to it. You are a creature of habit. When you regularly put away ten percent of your earnings, you soon become comfortable living on the other ninety percent. Many people start by saving ten percent of their income and then graduate to saving fifteen percent, twenty percent, and even more. And their financial lives change dramatically as a result. So will yours.

Take Every Advantage

The second corollary of the Law of Saving says, “Take advantage of tax deferred savings and investment plans.” Because of high and even multiple tax rates, money that is saved or invested without being taxed accumulates at a rate of 30% to 40% faster than money that is subject to taxation. Self-made millionaires, according to Dr Thomas Stanley’s book The Millionaire Next Door, are almost obsessive about accumulating their funds in assets such as real estate, self owned businesses and equities that increase in value without triggering tax liabilities.

Invest in company pension and retirement plans, 401(k) plans, IRA’s, Keough Plans, Roth IRA’s, Education Investment Accounts, stock option programs and whatever else has been approved by the IRS for long term financial accumulation. Make every dollar count!

Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do to apply this law immediately:

First, begin today to put away ten percent of your earnings. Set up a special account for this purpose and treat your contributions to this account with the same respect that you do your rent or mortgage payments each month.

Second, become a lifelong student of money. Read the best books, take courses and subscribe to the most helpful magazines. Know what you are doing so you can always make intelligent decisions when you invest your funds.

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

5 Ways to Live in the Moment!

One of my ongoing practices is to live in the moment. This is a challenge for many people because we are constantly bombarded with messages such as "planning for the future" or "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Many of us are also playing scenes of the past in our head over and over, having regrets and thinking, If only I had done this....

What I have learned these past few years is that when you live consciously in the present moment, you're free from the stresses of life. It enables you to feel calm and to think with an astounding clarity.

Living in the moment is easier said that done. After all, with so much going on around us, it's easy to get distracted by fears, worries, frustrations, and stress. However, once you get into the groove of living in the moment, you'll wonder how you could have lived any other way!

So, what can you do to make living in the moment your way of life?

Here are some tips to gain present-moment thinking:

1. Meditate. The very point of meditation is to live in the present moment and accept things just as they are. It's a practice that you'll get better at the more you do it. To help quiet your mind, the best thing you can do is focus on your breathing and keep striving to release your thoughts with each breath you take.

2. Accept the past. You'll feel better about yourself once you learn to accept past situations. There's nothing you can do to change the past. Bringing the past into your present only clouds your present thinking and makes it harder for you to concentrate on the present moment.

Of course, thoughts of the past will still arise, but when you learn to accept it for what it is, you'll be able to return to the present moment without regret or grief.

3. Accept the future. On the other side of the coin, you also need to accept the future. How much time do you waste in a day by sitting around thinking about what you're going to do? When you stop thinking, you have more time to actually do it!

I know that many people are constantly worrying about money, so make sure to read my past post, "How to Stop Worrying About Money".

What Is Your Purpose?

On November 1, 2009, I found this thought provoking article posted on: The Naked Soul  (Blog).

There are many, many people among us who are questioning what their purpose is. People from all walks of life question what their purpose is. As we delve into spiritual teachings we often here about “purpose”. Again we question, “What is my purpose?”, “why am I here?”, “How do I find my purpose?”  We hear people saying that they are seeking their purpose, that the feel lost and without purpose. “What is my purpose” is a prolific question in our culture.

We look at people like Mother Theresa, Albert Einstein, the Dali Lama, Louis Pasteur and others and we say that they have found and lived their purpose. We then ask “so what is my purpose and how will I know when I have found my purpose”

I suggest to you that you are living your purpose right now. We all are living our purpose! We don’t need to seek our purpose for we are living our purpose. Our purpose is to experience life in this form. This is our ultimate purpose. Each of us is experiencing life in this form therefore each of us is living our purpose. Your purpose is to live, to experience this life in all of its splendor. If by experiencing this thing we call life, you develop a cure for AIDs or you develop a no cost, pollution free fuel then that is wonderful and this will be part of your purpose, however your purpose is not limited to your achievements.

I believe many get caught up in believing that “our purpose” is going to be some grandiose thing and that we will have some sort of epiphany when we discover our true purpose. I say to you that this is your purpose, and it is a grandiose thing! This part of our journey in human form that we so often take for granted is a minute by minute miracle and is grander that we believe. When you stop to think about what we are and the miracle of life you then become aware and have to ask yourself what greater purpose is there but to simply be, to be and experience this part of our journey!

You may be or know someone who is in what you perceive as a bad situation, maybe that person is in jail, battling a terminal disease, living a life of violence, hooked on drugs and you ask, how can this be their purpose? Is this their purpose? I say to you, yes, their purpose is to experience life, to experience this journey and though it may not be what we perceive to be a good experience it is experiencing life none the less, therefore even someone in this type of situation is living on purpose.

We may not always understand why we are experiencing the things that we experience, however there is always purpose, even if it is beyond are awareness at the moment. Consider the drug addict who hits rock bottom, rehabilitates and becomes a youth a counselor, consider the young criminal who gets caught, sees another path and becomes a protector of his/her community. Consider your experiences; consider the ones that at the time you perceived as negative, wondering why that particular experience was happening in your life. Can you now look back and understand how those experiences brought you to where you are today? I would bet there are some experiences that you can now see the purpose of and still others which have yet been understood.

Know that your purpose is to experience this life, to experience this leg of your journey. Live and do not worry that you are not living on purpose for you are. Live and experience life for that is your purpose!

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Intuition and Discipline [ah] [es]

When working with our intuition, there are two kinds of discipline that come into play.  One is the discipline of taking action on our intuitive nudges.  The other is the discipline of allowing guidance to unfold, one step at a time, without allowing our mind to come up with a plan!

Intuitive nudges are so gentle and non-compelling that it's easy to ignore them.  So when a thought whispers through our mind out of nowhere, it's important to act on that impulse as soon as possible.  This is the first kind of discipline - to take action readily, without needing life to kick us into gear through dire circumstances.  If we cultivate a willingness to take action, even if it takes us out of comfort zone, then we are truly allowing our intuition to change our experience for the better.

The other kind of discipline is especially important for the highly motivated worker bees among us! Intuition only ever gives us the next step of our journey - because it's the only step that is available to us. When we take that step, the next will be revealed and so forth.

It's so easy for the mind to jump in, grab that next step, and spin it into a clever plan!  The mind so desperately wants to "know" its path, wants to control its future and be sure of the outcome of our actions.  It's tempting to take an intuitive impulse - a nudge to reconnect with a friend, a business idea, a creative urge - and create an elaborate step-by-step action plan.  The mind tends to leap ahead of the next step and create logical, reasonable extensions of the original intuitive impulse. 

If we turn an intuitive nudge into a plan, we may be very disappointed with the outcome. We may even begin believing that our intuition isn't to be trusted.  In reality, our mind began running the show while our intuition was left by the side of the road.

It takes discipline to remain in a state of "I don't know" when we take one single step as guided ... and then wait for the next step to be revealed.

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This guest post was written by: Andrea Hess, the creator of the Empowered Soul (Blog).

Overcoming Fear!

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by fear – so much so that it prevented you from doing something you wanted to do?  Believe it or not, this is a common problem faced by many people daily.

Fear has the power to hold you back from taking risks, following your dreams, or becoming successful at anything you attempt to do.  If you allow it to control you for long enough, it can eventually erode your quality of life and keep you locked in a prison of inactivity.

What many people fail to realize is that fear is nothing more than a conditioned response.  It’s a natural reaction to a frightening or unfamiliar situation.  While it is usually automatic, there are things you can do to overcome it.

1)  Check your expectations.

One major contributor of fear is the prevalence of negative expectations.  Do you usually find yourself expecting the worst in every situation?  Do you worry obsessively about what could go wrong, rather than focusing on your strengths and capabilities?

If you make a conscious effort to expect the best, see the positive side of each situation and keep reminding yourself that you can handle more than you often think, you’ll find yourself with much less fear to deal with.  Even if feelings of fear do manage to creep into your consciousness, you’ll still be able to keep them in perspective and balance them against an underlying sense of confidence.

2)  Discredit your fears.

Experts will tell you that the majority of things you fear will never come to pass anyway.  While this may be true, it sure doesn’t feel that way when fear has a chokehold on you!  However, if you look a little more closely at your fears when they arise, you may be able to dismiss at least a few.

For example, if you have a fear of public speaking and your boss wants you to give a presentation at work, you might feel like your life (and perhaps your livelihood) is on the line.  You may fear getting fired, or worry that your colleagues will lose respect for you if you don’t do a good job.

But is any of this likely to happen?  In most cases, no.  Rather than worrying about what “might” happen if you don’t give a solid presentation, you might brainstorm ways to help improve your performance, such as being well prepared, practicing your delivery on friends and family members, writing notes to yourself and so on.

3)  Do the very thing you fear.

When you remember that fear is simply a feeling, it loses much of its power.  It can’t harm you and except in truly threatening situations you can choose to ignore it and move forward anyway.

If you weigh the pros and cons in any situation, you may decide that the possibility of negative consequences is minimal so there’s nothing to stop you from ignoring your fear and going for it!  This will be determined by you on a case by case basis, of course.  The point isn’t to become reckless with your decision-making but rather to empower yourself to know when a fear is groundless and easily overcome.

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This guest post was written by: Robin Skeen, the creator of: Robin's Reflections (Blog).

Keeping a Buffer Zone!

Back in the old days, the rudders of huge transoceanic ships were attached with cast-steel necks. The reasoning was that by making them from one of the strongest materials known to man, they would last longer.

But whenever the rudder hit a rock, the neck would break because it was so rigid.

Nowadays, the rudders are attached with flexible rubber hosings, because although it’s nowhere near as strong as cast iron, it’s more flexible and ultimately lasts longer.

And flexibility is what I want to talk to you today. How you can increase your flexibility so that adverse circumstances don’t break you, and make full use of life opportunities!

The buffer zone – what stands between you and utter despair

Nod along with me if you ever ran out of toilet paper while on the toilet. Yes? Then nod again, if you thought something like “Oh, s***! Why didn’t I buy more toilet paper? I’ve seen it running out ages ago! Damn, damn, damn…”

Hopefully, your story had the same happy end as mine – I found a pack of tissues in my pocket.

Anyway, my point is… the time to buy toilet paper isn’t when the last roll is just about to run out. You naturally create a buffer zone. If you go buy new toilet paper when your second-to-last roll runs out, you’ve got a buffer zone of one toilet paper roll (or an average 241 sheets, claims my toilet paper packaging). If an unexpectedly demanding… umm, you know… turns up, you’ve still got 241 sheets of toilet paper between you and utter despair.

Why keep a buffer zone

So you don’t think I’m completely obsessed with toilet paper (see Understanding (or why some people put the toilet paper roll in the holder facing the wrong way)), I’ll switch to a different example.

Savings.

Let’s say you’re working at a job you’re reasonably happy with. But a unique chance to earn a living doing something you absolutely love turns up. Your dream job… but you’ll first need to quit your old job and live off your savings for 3 months.

If you have 6 months’ salary in the bank, you’ll say to yourself “Hell, yeah!” (or “Helheim, yarrrr!” if you’re a viking), and go for it. Even if it doesn’t work out, you’ll have another 3 months’ savings left to find another temporary good-but-not-fantastic job.

But what if you’re living paycheck to paycheck? What if you can’t even afford to get ill, let alone quit, or your mortgage, student loan, car payments, and all the other bills will run you over better than an 18-wheeler truck?

What Does a Rose, a Lamp and a Tree Have in Common?

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

“Is it possible for the rose to say, “I will give my fragrance to the good people who smell me, but I will withhold it from the bad?” Or is it possible for the lamp to say, “I will give my light to the good people in this room, but I will withhold it from the evil people”? Or can a tree say, “I’ll give my shade to the good people who rest under me, but I will withhold it from the bad”? These are images of what love is about”  ~ Anthony de Mello

The above quote speaks great wisdom. Love does not discern between good or evil; love does not judge who is to be loved and who is to be hated. Love does not hold back its energy to punish another.

Our core essence is love, we are love, we are from source which is love. We do not need to learn how to be love for that is what we are, we simply must remember what we are, we must remember that we are love!

There come many opportunities in our life where we may gravitate to make a judgment of another and the result of that judgment may be to withhold our love or to dole it out in rations. There may even be times where we fear loving others fully and unconditionally because we may get hurt or our love may not be reciprocated. We may even fear loving another because in some perverse way we feel that the other person cannot handle our love or that our love may somehow make them feel bad about themselves. I suggest to you that pure love is never hurtful even if in the short run the other person seems in some way to be hurt or diminished by our love know that this is only a response of their ego and that your love will penetrate beyond the fragile ego and created healing and good.

Where in your life are you withholding the love that you are? Who and what in your life are you avoiding because you believe that your love will not be accepted for what it is?

Today I strive to be the tree and provide shade to all, be the lamp or the Sun and provide light and warmth to all and to be the rose and share my fragrance with all.

Who among us has not benefited from the unconditional giving of the tree, the lamp, the rose?

May we all to remember to be the love that we are!

Good Luck, Bad Luck? Or, Divine Redirection?

Have you heard the phrase, “Life happens when you’ve made other plans?”

You might have a great new idea you want to develop, a new relationship that seems to be blossoming, a business project that excites you, a healthy lifestyle change you’re implementing, a new book you’re inspired to write…..

You say YES and feel poised to take that next step with gusto and excitement. You might even be along the way in your YES experience and then something unexpected happens that changes the picture you originally envisioned – a business idea doesn’t go as well as you hoped, a relationship falls apart, someone you love is diagnosed with a serious illness, clients cancel and your income drops, you get sick or suffer a injury… Things seem to go awry and might even seem to come to a crashing halt.

All of your positive expectations and intentions come into question. You had felt a healthy balance between your head and your heart, tapped into your inner guidance and you wonder what went wrong especially when things appeared to be going along just fine. You thought you had a clear path to success and you were doing everything right. Even though you tried not to attach to a specific outcome, you realize you did which is why you have feelings swirling – anger, frustration, confusion, disappointment, sadness,….Your mind searches for plausible reasons to make sense of what happened and where you are.

You come up with lots of possible answers that might sound logical. Whether your conclusions are accurate is another story.

Good luck, bad luck or Divine re-direction?

Consider these two stories:

I partnered with a dear friend of mine to commit to a healthy lifestyle. We had both put on unwanted weight and were feeling sedentary with all of our online activity. We decided to initiate making better food choices, regular exercises, and prioritize our self-care habits. We agreed to twice daily accountability to raise the bar on our commitments and we were doing great.

While training for a 26.2 mile marathon, my buddy had a collision with a biker high on drugs one night and the following day had a second fall that resulted in breaking her ankle. Usually operating at full throttle in marketing her business, she was forced to slow waaaaay down and prioritize her healing. What else could she do?

A few weeks later her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She wrote about her healing process and father’s illness, invested in a studying a new course to revolutionize her business, made time for contemplation, reading, and self-reflection. Her injury allowed her to be at her parent’s side and family in the final days of his life. She says that the blessings that have come from her ankle injury, her father’s illness, her study and inner work have been transformative for herself, her relationships, and her business.

Fifteen Things More Important Than Money

Three and a half years ago, I was in a desperate debt situation. My lifestyle was tied desperately to spending far more than I was bringing in – and I was finally paying the consequences.

I had let money become the most important thing in my life. It drove all of my choices and decisions. It chose my career for me. It chose my specific job for me. It chose how I spent my free time – I did expensive things to escape from the debts and the pressure-filled work, usually with a device on my hip that chained me to that job.

I was desperate and unhappy. I was in a prison made of money – and I knew I had to escape it.

Today, I realize something much more compelling. Money is not the most important thing in life. In fact, in a healthy life, money often follows behind many other elements in your life. If you put your energy and time into other things more important than money, money will follow. It will find a way to work.

Here are fifteen things I’ve found that are more important than money.

Experiences Hug someone. Kiss someone. Write someone a letter telling them how you feel. Run (or walk) a marathon. Spend all day making an exquisite meal and eat it by candlelight. Make love to someone. Face the thing you most fear right in the face. The rush you get from experiencing something amazing is one of the best parts of being human, and most of the time the financial cost is minimal.

Wisdom If you think you know the answer, you’re far from wise. Keep learning. Wisdom comes from knowing how little you actually know. Spend some time learning something new, perhaps even becoming skilled at something. You’ll surprise yourself at what you gain, often far beyond the mere knowledge you hoped to attain.

Marriage Accepting another person wholly and intimately into your life is utterly life-changing. Opening up every part of yourself to another person is constantly challenging, but constantly powerful in how it changes you and makes you strive to be a better person.

Friendships The regular companionship and camaraderie of people you care about and share interests with is continually life-affirming. Friendships don’t revolve around the things you have or the activities you can afford – they revolve around people.and shared experiences.

Physical health Health can’t be bought, but it can be helped by the personal choices we make. Exercise. Eating better. Making choices that are less sedentary. Getting involved with activities that get us moving. Practicing proper hygiene. Money pales in comparison to the value of the physical health needed to enjoy life.

How to Make Tough Decision Making Less Confusing!

There will come a point in our lives where we have to make those tough decisions - the ones we turn over and over in our minds on whether or not to go through on. The ones we mull over for weeds and months on end. The ones that give us severe analysis paralysis.

It’s as if we can’t seem to get a firm grip of the whole situation. It all seems so jumbled up that we can’t take a clear COMPLETE analytical look at it. There seems to be too many different moving parts and gears going on.

So how to we make sense of all this and make this whole process of tough decision making way less confusing?

It’s like how we make all things less confusing:

WE SYSTEMIZE.

There’s 5 steps to this process and 3 of them, I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of.

The first step is to CLEARLY state the decision so that it’s a yes/no question.

Should I do x?

It shouldn’t be something like a brainstorm question.

It can’t be something like: “What’s a great career to get into?”

It should be something like: “Should I get a career in nursing?”

Then you would assume the next step is to list the pros and cons, but we have to back up here and lay down the facts of the situation FIRST.

Get some background info on your decision. Research all you can on the pertinent information relating to your decision and once you have all that info, THEN you can go to the pros and cons because having that information will come in handy in developing your pros and cons list.

Moreover, without doing your due diligence, you risk “polluting” the pros and cons list with information that isn’t even true.

Really block out everything and try to do the best you can in EACH step of the process.

Really do your due diligence.

When it comes to writing the pro list, really do your best. Think of every pro you can. Don’t hold back.

The same thing with the cons list.

The beauty in all this is SEPARATION.

Before, you’re trying to do this all at once, and that’s why it gets really confusing.

Here, you can give yourself permission to look at the decision from just ONE ANGLE AT A TIME to the fullest of your capabilities.