BLOG ENTRIES

Money, luck, talent, and time are the usual scapegoats but is that really what keeps people from their dream?

It’s not them its you.

It’s convenient to blame the economy or your parents or the industry but if you want to achieve your goal you have to let go of that. The only way to create anything, impact anything is if you take responsibility for your results. If you don’t achieve your goal its because you gave up before you got there. Thinking this way makes you invincible!

It’s going to be hard work.

People expect it to be easy and then when its not they make up ridiculous excuses like “It just didn’t work out!”.

People think that if its hard its not the right goal. If it were really your purpose, and God’s will and in alignment with the universal flow it would fall into my lap… Not true.

Goals are for the purpose of expanding yourself. That is what you are actually craving. Growing, learning and strengthening is what will give you fulfillment.

Thinking and Doing

There is a natural rhythm to the lives of successful people it goes Think… Do …. Think … Do. The rest of us get caught in the trap of over thinking things and never taking action or taking action without consideration. Either way the result is being exhausted without achieving anything.

Is it Possible?

I am not going to say that anything is possible but I will say that if it has been done before it is possible and just because it hasn’t been done before doesn’t make it impossible. When people consider how realistic their dream is they are usually asking themselves “will I actually follow through” not is this possible.

Really, just stop worrying about what is possible or not. Choose your goal and then go for it. If you fail you will be closer to that dream than you are now.

Sinking Ships

Sometimes its not worth it. Your goal isn’t inspiring enough for the work. That’s fine jump ship and create a new goal. This is different from giving up, which is a way of being a victim to your failure. Instead way your options and choose to get out as the more joyful and powerful path.

Do This and Reach Your Goal:

• Do what you know to do. Sounds simple but it is the biggest obstacle for most people. You could probably sit down and write 50 different actions that would get you closer to your goal but how many of them have you done?
• Be Strategic. You will get burned out and frustrated if you waste your time and energy, of course! Consider how much each action is worth and how much time/money/ energy is costs you. Start doing the easiest actions with the biggest impact.
• Be a copy cat. Who has already achieved the goal that you are going after. How did they do it?
• Be persistent and creative. These to go hand in hand because its no use trying the same thing over and over again. Think of new paths that will get you to your goal. Keep inventing new ways and trying them. If something doesn’t work instead of feeling like a loser, wonder why. What could you do different next time?

Photo credits from flickr in order: four leaf clover by mrVJTod, weight lifting by Greatist, sunken ship by skibler

Set some goals for yourself. This article will show you how.

A goal will help you to orient your life around what is really important to you. When you have a goal you can wake up in the morning knowing exactly what to do and why you are doing it. It can also help you know what not to do.

There are many different kinds of goals to work towards and by setting a goal in each category you can clarify what you should be putting your energy into and what doesn’t deserve your time. When you are unsure of your next step you can ask yourself “Will this bring me closer to any of my goals?”

Below are the different kinds of goals to set and my goals!

Your change the world Goal -

This goal is your Utopia. What is the problem that breaks your heart that you want to solve. How do you want the world or life to be better or different?

To stop whaling worldwide. To end hunger. For every child to have a safe place to grow up.

Of course we all want all of these things but there is likely one problem that you want a hand in solving. That you feel is more important or critical than the others.

I have the Change the World Goal of liberating the human spirit. For all people to be free from mental and emotional anguish and living lives that inspire and expand them.

Big Dream Goal -

This goal is your shining moment. The experience of a lifetime that makes it all worth it.

Seeing a lion in the wild. Being on Oprah. Going to the Olympics

My Big Dream Goal is to lead a workshop on stage for 1000 + people.

Life Accomplishment Goal 

This goal is something that you create or is different in your life because of the work you have done. This goal is focused on the results you can produce.

Building a successful company. Writing a  book. To raise a family

My Life Accomplishment Goal is to create a program that addresses PTSD in conflict areas with Energy healing.

Life Style Goal

This is the goal of how you want to live. What do you want your day to day and month to month life to be like?

Travel 1 month a year. Be a stay at home mom. To live without a car.

My Lifestyle goal is to live in Hawaii, Austin and New York in perfect rotation!

Personal Accomplishment Goal

Your Personal Accomplishment Goal is the goal you set to find your own talent, strength and limits… just for fun.

To learn French. To run an 8 minute mile. To build a house.

My personal accomplishment Goal is to be a professional level freediver (that is like scuba diving but you just hold your breath).

Emotional Goals

Emotional goals are based on how you want to feel and as far as I am concerned they are the law to live by.

Relaxed. Loved. Rich

My emotional goal is to feel peaceful and radiant.

This isn’t a goal

Financial goals aren’t on the list because typically the reason you want the money is because of a lifestyle goal. Knowing what your real goal is will help you to know the right action to take.

For example: if you want to live in Hawaii, you might set a financial goal instead of a lifestyle goal. If you set a financial goal then you might choose a job that has you work 70 hours a week at a job in New York that where your mortgage is through the roof. You aren’t actually any closer to moving to Hawaii. If you set the Lifestyle goal of living in Hawaii then you may choose a job that makes less money but allows you to move around.

A few tips for setting your own goal:

• Your goal should be based on results, not a process. You want to speak french rather than start learning french.
• Your goal should give you an shot of good feeling.
• Your goal should be a positive statement. You want to be relaxed rather than stop being stressed.
• Set goals that you feel like are possible even if they are unlikely.
• Don’t worry about whether you will achieve these goals. Yet.

Now set your own goals and share them below.

When you are unsure of your next step you can ask yourself “Will this bring me closer to any of my goals?”

This is a guest post by Patti Hale.

Turning 60 must have triggered something in me to lead me to do what I did. I do not recall having any feelings at the time that would have foretold what was going to happen less than two months later.

I did not believe turning sixty had affected me. I did not feel like sixty, at least the sixty I knew from my youth when women in their sixties wore their grey hair in buns, wore frumpy clothing and ugly sensible shoes.

My daughter and daughter-in-law liked picking out stylish clothing for me to wear so my clothing was up to date; my hair was highlighted and cut in a modern style. I was not stuck in time wearing the same hairstyle from high school. I just did not fit my picture of what 60 looked like.

Physically, I felt good, too. I could still roll around in the floor with my grandson whose mother referred to me as her son’s “surprisingly agile Gigi” on Facebook.

Really, it was no big deal. My children made a big deal out of my birthday and treated me to an out of town family outing. Really, it was fun!

Then, as I said, less than two months later, reality must have set in because something just snapped.  One day I just up and quit my corporate job. I told my supervisor I had had enough and walked right out giving no notice, explanation, or exit interview the way one usually has to do when leaving a job the right way.

When I got home, I did not answer phone calls from co-workers or human resource managers who wanted to cover themselves with documentation.

My family, to say the least, was stunned.

Sixty, of course, is too young to start drawing Social Security or get Medicare. My plan had always been to keep on working past the time for retirement since I thought I could not bear the thought of staying at home all of the time.

The economy was in bad shape and I knew anyone who had a job, especially with the health and retirement benefits I had, was just plain lucky. There were not many opportunities for anyone and virtually none at all for women my age. I knew, because I had been looking for the last five years, the entire time that I worked at the job I had just left.

I was miserable there. This job literally caused me to be diagnosed with depression, sent me to the emergency room from a stress induced anxiety attack I mistook for a heart attack and gave me nightmares that I still have today.  I knew when I took the job that it was like putting a round peg into a square hole but I thought I could reinvent myself and make myself fit. Financial constraints were such that I thought I had to turn myself inside out and keep plugging away at a job that gave me no satisfaction and worse, left me feeling empty and depleted.

For most of my career, I had been lucky enough to work in a creative field of my choosing for bosses who appreciated my talents and co-workers who respected me. This did not prepare me for the corporate world I stepped into in an office of a large corporate factory.

For the first time, I learned the meaning behind the blank stares the factory workers had on their faces as they ate their lunch. When I turned sixty, I decided I did not want to be like them anymore. So I quit.

I started freelance writing on the internet. Previously I had been a writer for newspaper, radio and television so it was just a natural progression for me to start writing again, when I found myself without a job.

I did not look for another job. I knew that unless I moved I would not find one I liked in my area where my husband’s family obligations kept him.

I did cut down. I didn’t buy the stylish clothes, get my hair highlighted, or spend money on gas or lunches and somehow we have made it. I have managed to cobble together a living doing something I love.And, oh, did I mention how happy I am?

I am about to turn 61, and it’s no big deal. Really. I’m wearing frumpy sweats and sensible tennis shoes but I can live with it because it allows me to do what I want to do and be who I want to be.

Patti Hale is a freelance writer who loves what she’s doing. She writes for many different websites including Careertrainingbase.com where one of her most popular articles is Apprenticeship Programs in Arizona.

Is it more important to change your habits and how you behave or is it more important to change your attitude.

Just Change Your Behavior

Many life coaches and self help experts say that all you need to do is change your behavior. Even if you are resisting the change and you have to force yourself to do it eventually you will feel better and you will form a new habit.

Obviously, if you change how you behave your life will change but most of us give up too soon. Long before we form a new habit or get results that we want we lose motivation. Sometimes we can’t even motivate ourselves to start. That is because there is another part of you working against your efforts for change and that is your attitude.

Let’s use an example of having a hot body. Of course if you exercise more and eat healthier you will get into shape so why can’t you just force yourself to change your habits? Its because of your attitude.

Your attitude is the combined affect of you thoughts and feelings. Thoughts like:
- Its useless I am going to be fat and lazy my whole life.
- Its going to take too long. I don’t have enough discipline.
- Its in my genes to be fat so I can’t do any thing about it.
- I can’t eat what everyone else eats and so on…

and your feelings like:
- Worthlessness
- Fear of change or fear of failure,
- Depressed or emotionally depleted
- Shame or embarrassment about how your body looks now or what people will think about you if you go on a diet
- Resenting yourself for getting out of shape.

This attitude makes it incredibly difficult to stay motivated and keep doing the action that will give you the hot body.Eventually you will give up because its just too hard to carry the weight of your negative attitude.

This is just one example. For every problem in your life that you haven’t been able to move past there are a list of thoughts and feelings you have about it that keep you from taking consistent action.

Just Change Your Attitude

Then there are the healers, and Law of Attraction teachers that say simply changing your thoughts and feelings i.e. your vibration will change your life. That you get back what you put in. The universe reflects your thoughts and feelings back to you. It is true when you are in a good mood you are more likely to notice positive aspects of your life and environment. When you have a positive attitude you get into the flow of life and things seem to start happening easily. Things are just clicking

…But who can look in the mirror at their fat butt and think “I am grateful for my ideal and healthy body”? You can say nice things to yourself and try and change your attitude but you can’t lie to yourself.

When you change your attitude and you take action simultaneously magic happens. The actions you take give a foundation for your change in attitude and your positive attitude makes it easier and easier to keep taking the actions. Then you start getting results.

This positive feedback doesn’t happen by focusing only on one. You must create practices and strategies for both actions and attitude. If you get both of these aspects of yourself growing then your life will change rapidly.

Want to change your life?

Get help changing both your habits and your attitude.

You are stuck in a place of confusion, self doubt and lack of motivation just waiting for your life to change. Waiting for the life that would mean something.

If this is you then I hope you take a look at my new coaching opportunity. I have created several options for you to get personalized support and finally be living your purpose.

Click Here to Find Out More

In this video I interview Lori Deschene, from tinybuddha.com. She talks about how she got out of a really dark place in her life even though she didn’t think she had a purpose. Enjoy!

Get Lori’s new book, Tiny Buddha. It’s awesome.

Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? How can we feel happy and free? The answers to these and other life questions are gathered in Tiny Buddha, Simple Wisdom for Life’s Hard Questions.

It’s a combination of the amazing responses that she received along with her own insightful essays, and insights from wise teachers around the world and throughout time. Deschene explores how these issues have played out in her own life and offers action-oriented suggestions to help people empower themselves, even in a world with so much uncertainty. The result is a guide that helps readers discover the endless possibilities for a life lived mindfully in the present, and connected to others.

See the book on Amazon

If something really good or really bad happened to you, how much difference would it make to how happy you are?

Is being happy just something you’re born with?

These are some of the questions that happiness researchers (yes, really) have set out to answer. And probably the most famous image in happiness research is the pie graph that summarizes the answers:

Researchers studied identical and non-identical twins to work out how much influence genetics has on happiness. They followed up people at intervals after lottery wins and disabling accidents, and they asked people about their activities and how happy they were.

And they concluded that about half of your happiness is down to your genes, only ten percent comes from your circumstances – and the remaining 40% is pretty much up to you.

This is one of those scientific findings that just doesn’t seem right at first. Surely having a wonderful or terrible event in your life accounts for more than 10% of your happiness? Listen to the contestants on any reality show. “If I get sent home I’ll be devastated.” “If I won it would be the greatest thing in the world.”

Well, of course when big things happen to you, good or bad, they transform your emotional world. But only for a short time. Negative events seem to last longer than positive events – most people get over a major loss in a year or two, usually, versus about six months to get used to something that makes them happy and return to their normal happiness level. (Each case is different, and some people’s grief or happiness will last longer or shorter than this, but those are the averages.)

If you’re talking about long-term happiness, there are two big influences: the capacity for happiness that you were born with, and what you do in order to become happier.

You can’t do a thing about your genetics. But what about that last 40%? How do you become happier?

Here are three ways with good research to back them up.

1. Experience life

Having fun experiences, researchers have found, easily beats buying things in terms of how much happiness you get.

Extra points for:

• Experiences shared with other people
• Physical activity and movement
• Natural surroundings, including green spaces and, ideally, water
• Trying new and challenging things
• Engaging all your senses.

Looks like sport might have a few things going for it after all.

2. Pay attention

We’re not often encouraged to reflect on our lives or pay attention to what we’re doing. Possibly this is because we’d buy less stuff and question authority more if we did. But we’d also be happier.

Especially helpful for happiness are reflections on:

• Things you’re grateful for
• What’s important to you (your values)
• What your strengths are
• What you enjoy doing
• What’s worked well for you and given you a sense of achievement in the past.
• Keeping a journal is a great way to become more aware of your own life process and get to know yourself better.

3. Do things that mean something

We’re happiest when we’re doing something meaningful – for ourselves and for other people.

Of course, self-reflection is really the only way to figure out what will be meaningful to you. But these are the sort of things I mean:

• Creating something – whether an artwork or a computer program
• Learning a skill you can use
• Passing on something you’ve learned or discovered to someone else
• Supporting a cause you care about with time or money
• Helping someone less fortunate than yourself.
• Eating the happiness pie

Half of the happiness pie belongs to your genetics. A tenth is down to things that just happen. But you can totally own the rest of it by choosing to experience life fully, pay attention with a positive mindset, and take meaningful action.<

Go!

Mike Reeves-McMillan writes more about how to be happy on his website How to Be Amazing, where he trains ordinary people to be heroes by teaching the things you didn’t learn at school.

When I first stumbled upon Jacob Sokol at  Sensophy.com I immediately thought “what kinds of drugs is this guy on? What is he so excited about?” Since then I learned that his enthusiasm and joy was actually completely authentic and hard earned. In this interview he talks about what is absolutely necessary for living an extraordinary life  + what he was willing to sacrificed to live his dream.

Find Jacob here!

Jacob Sokol from Sensophy.com knows first hand about living your life purpose. Last year he saw a shrink, fell in love, quit his job, and walked on clouds…. Here are his tools for handling fear and living an adventurous life.

At some point, you’re gonna get scared – I can guarantee it!
But you know what? IT’S OKAY! We all get scared. The best of the best go through the same exact emotions as you and I do. The difference is that they keep going anyway!
For a long period of my life, I was petrified of a plethora of things.
I was afraid of stuff like public speaking, high-status people and even my own mind. But the scariest thing of all was what would happen if people actually found out that I WAS SCARED.

The public perception that I persistently worked to project was:

“Who, me? Scared? PFFFF… NEVER THAT!”

But underneath that rock-hard image I swore by, I was secretly scared of a TON of things.

I was afraid of what my family would think of me if I did something outta THEIR norm. (Not that they’re a normal bunch to begin with… love you guys!!)

I was also afraid of what my friends would say about me. I was afraid that I wasn’t good enough. And underneath it all, I was afraid I wouldn’t do anything with my life.

Fears can take form in many weird ways. We can repress them in ourselves, or project hatred onto other people who have the qualities that scare us.

Ultimately, if we don’t own our fears, they end up owning us.

Here are 3 Ways that you can handle your fear!

Some recent studies show that as many as 80% of people in the workforce don’t enjoy their work and nearly 75% don’t know their passion.

This is not a coincidence.

Since when did it become acceptable to listen to others’ dreams instead of our own? When did it become not only accepted but encouraged to take jobs ‘we’re ‘supposed’ to have’ instead of ones we’re actually good at and enjoy?

Are you one of them?

I have good news. Thanks to a good friend of mine, Scott Dinsmore, you don’t have to be. For the past few years Scott has studied, interviewed and done case studies on hundreds of folks around the world making a living off their passion.

As a result he’s discovered a process that not only helps people find their passion but also gives them the vital steps to make a career out of it.

Check it out right now:

Live Off Your Passion: An Unconventional Guide to Finding Passion and Getting Paid to Do Work You Love.