I iz coming for you!

One episode of the show really touched me. The owner of a mortuary was being tortured by his past. The man had fallen on hard times and when his furnace broke he was unable to get it fixed. To save his business, he told families that he cremated the bodies of their loved ones but in reality he dumped them into a pond in the woods. The ghosts of those people were trapped on Earth because of their anger over what he did to them.

When we meet the mortician in the show he is dying of cancer and is terrified. He can feel the presence of the ghosts waiting for him to die so they can punish him for what he did. Eventually, he does die and as he expected the ghosts start torturing him.

He makes his way to Melinda who doesn’t understand why he didn’t cross over. He informs her that some people told him he couldn’t and that they wanted him to join them. It sounds very mysterious and sinister until Melinda confronts the entities who blocked him and made them explain their actions.

In reality, they didn’t tell the man that he couldn’t cross over into the light. That was a decision he made on his own. They explained that every being who dies looks into the light and sees themselves reflected there. Sometimes all they can see are the bad things that they did in life which makes them feel they are not worthy enough to go into the light so they end up staying on Earth.

When the man looked into the light, all he could see was what he did to those ghosts in the pond. And when those ghosts who were dumped in the pond looked into the light, all they could see was shame about their circumstances. That shame led them all to hold back from crossing over and resting in peace.

This episode really resonated with me because I’ve manifested this exact type of situation in my own life. I am not perfect. I have done some crazy things in my life and I have had crazy things happen to me which have made me feel very ashamed. This shame has stumped my growth as a person which in turn made it difficult for me to bring about the success that I want in life.

Due to my involvement with the Christian religion, I came to believe that Source (or God in their terminology) was a judgmental, vengeful being with OCD. If you didn’t do what he said then you were toast. You would be eternally punished for disobeying the word of God.

The message got lodged in my subconscious and every failure that I experienced, every bad thing that happened to me, got filtered through the belief that because I was not doing what God wanted I was a bad person and instead of obtaining the success I wanted in life, I was being punished with failure.

Fast forward years later, I’m not a Christian anymore but I still carry around remnants of that belief system in my psyche. The morning after I watched that episode of Ghost Whisperer I felt the need to reflect on the things I was grateful for in my life. During my journaling, I realized that God/Source was not judging me. I was judging me. I was the one who said I was unworthy to go into the light. I was like that mortician in show. I looked into the light and only saw the bad things reflected there and ran away.

But this went beyond my spiritual life. Though I craved a better life, I still believed that I didn’t deserve one because of my past. And in hindsight I see where this belief has caused me to sabotage my own success. I felt I had to “pay” for the sins of my past before I became worthy of the future I wanted.

The problem with this thinking was I was never going to get out of jail. Every new “offense”, however slight, just added more time to my sentence. If I hadn’t gotten off this train when I did, I probably would have ridden it until the day I died.

So how did I manage to get off this train to nowhere? Well, I first had to divest myself of the bogus ideology about God/Source that that had been fed to me since I was child. I had to understand that the true nature of Source is supportive and loving not damning and spiteful. This was a big one for me because, as I said before, for a long time I believed God/Source was judgmental and vengeful and who was punishing me for everything I ever did wrong. Once I got past this insanity, everything else just kind of fell in place.

I also had to come to terms with the fact that I was human and thus subject to making lots and lots of mistakes and that it was OKAY to make lots and lots of mistakes. No matter how hard I try I can’t know everything. I have to do the best with what I’m working with at the time. Sometimes that leads me to making gigantic mistakes. There is really nothing I can do about that except learn from the experience.

Once I figured that out, I forgave myself for all the mistakes I had made and will ever make in my life and then gave myself permission to pursue my dreams.

Now I know I’m making this sound a lot easier than it really is. It took me weeks just to become comfortable with the idea that it was okay for me to not be in hell anymore. I still struggle with feelings of non-worthiness that cause me to trip and fall on my face. There are days when I have to actually remind myself that the universe is not out to get me like some relentless bounty hunter trying to drag me back to jail.

But one thing that has helped keep me on track was to realize that it’s a process. As Abraham-Hicks says, “A belief is just a thought you keep thinking.” When those crazy thoughts come up, I just exchange them for something more empowering.

If you find yourself getting in the way of your own success, examine your thoughts to see if maybe you have put yourself in jail. Then take steps to let yourself out. As I’ve noted before, life is supposed to feel good and it is much too short to spend suffering over a past you can’t change anyway.

(photo credit: thx icanhazcheezburger)

But a link to this video starring Tim Ferris was forwarded to me via email and I have to say that it convinced me to get off my tush and buy the book. The video is worth watching but if you are short on time, I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting the main points.

Tim starts off with a great point. “Income has no value without time.” He is absolutely right. A lot of people find themselves in a situation where they are making five, six and even seven figures but they are unable to enjoy their wealth because their lives are so consumed by work. Tim gives three tips to help us all get on the right track towards true financial freedom.

He begins by talking about Pareto’s Law. Pareto’s Law simply states that 20% of your activities will produce 80% of your outcome. For instance 80% of your business will likely come from 20% of your customer base. Therefore it is important to identify and focus on those necessary tasks that produce the majority of your outcome. Everything else should be delegated to trusted helpers.

The second point he makes is that we are doing ourselves a disservice by trying to keep up with the latest news. I currently find myself stuck in this trap. For the first time in my life I’m interested in politics. Crazy, I know. Every day I visit Google’s Blogsearch engine to see what else has happened in this soap opera called Election ‘08. Before I know it, two hours have passed and I’ve done nothing more than read ten blog postings about what she said about him and the rumors going around about her.

Tim emphasizes that when it comes to the “knowledge based economy”, performance is more important than presence. I can be “present” in front of my computer all day but if I’m not producing anything than that is time wasted. Tim stresses the importance of learning to let things wait and catch up when needed. Relearn the art of single tasking and focus on those things that are mission critical.

Finally Tim gives business owners a much needed wake up call. We often fall into the trap of thinking we can do it ourselves for free. This thought pattern is especially pervasive with new startups that don’t have a lot of cash to spend. In reality, that “free” project isn’t free at all. It actually cost us time, money and missed opportunities.

For example, say that you get paid $25 per hour and that it takes you four hours to clean your house. That’s a $100 and four hours of time gone down the drain (pun intended). If you hired a Merry Maid instead, even if the cost was $125, you’re really only out $25. Plus you’ve gained something more valuable than the money. Time. Money is a renewable resource. Time is not.

In order to make the most of your time and talents, outsource or delegate those tasks that contribute very little to the bottom line. Things like sifting through email or dealing with spam on your blog.

I highly recommend watching the video and for more great tips, visit his website.

Goal setting and achievement is a necessary part of living a fabulous life. Goals give us purpose and meaning. At the simplest level, goal setting gives us something to do. Without goals, we would wander, aimlessly, through life going wherever fate decided to take us. For some people, this is good enough. For the majority of us, though, this leads to an unsatisfactory life filled with work we hate and people who aggravate us.

But goal setting does more than lead us towards more fulfilling lives. Goal setting helps us filter out distractions and make better decisions. For example, you want to buy a house within two years. The desire to achieve this goal would inspire you to spend your money more wisely. Instead of splurging at a fast food joint, you would make the frugal choice of taking lunch to work and investing the money you saved into a high interest savings account.

Here are a few things that I’ve learned about goal setting that I think will help you in your quest to shine your light and live a fabulous life.

Set a goal

Goals come in all shapes, sizes and seriousness. Some goals are fun to pursue and others not so much. However, this should not be your primary criteria for the goals you commit to. I believe that the purpose of goal setting is to enrich your life and your goals should inspire you to work on them even when you don’t feel like it.

It’s important to not let the current condition of your life interfere with your goal setting. I’ve fallen into this trap myself. When I decided to learn how to design web sites, I didn’t even know what to type into the search engine to find the information I needed. I think I typed in something like, “Make a Web Page” and was lucky enough to have the first site I clicked on teach me the basics of web design.

Setting effective and worthwhile goals requires that you think outside of yourself. This is because you have preconceived notions about your strengths and weaknesses that will taint your results. Ignore your limitations, lack of knowledge or inexperience. Ask yourself, if time, money, education, experience or other excuse wasn’t an issue what would you do? Don’t worry about how you’ll do it, just write it down!

Draw up a map

The second step in goal setting involves detailing how you will get from where you are now to where you want to be. Just like it is ten times better to backpack across Europe using a map, outlining the steps you will take to achieve your goal will provide you with much needed direction.

On a piece of paper, write down your goal. Underneath, write down the things you will need to achieve it and how you will get them. For example, let’s say you want to design custom clothing. You might write down “get a sewing machine” and “borrow one from mother” next to it.

If you can, talk to someone who has already achieved the goal you have set. They can help you identify the skills and resources you need to be successful. The internet is a great place for meeting people who have accomplished similar goals.

Walk the road

Goal setting is easy. It’s the follow through that most people have trouble with. The secret to success is to work slow but steady; especially in the beginning. Working fast and furious to achieve your goal only sets the stage for burn out and procrastination. It is best to break up your goal into small steps you can take every day.

When you find yourself suffering from a lack of self motivation, you may find it helpful to pull together visual representations of your goal. Going back to the goal of design custom clothing, one idea would be to design the label that will go on your clothes. Another would be to create a fake magazine with pictures of your clothes on the cover.

I’ve found that keeping a journal is immensely helpful. I write down my goals and what I need to do to achieve them. I also write down any thoughts and feelings I have about the goal as well as the successes and setbacks I experience. This helps to clarify my thoughts, focus my efforts and keep me on track.

Another helpful thing to do is to take a few minutes every day to visualize achieving your goal. Work out every detail. Say your ultimate goal is to complete a novel. Imagine, among other things, the feeling of accomplishment you will have when you type the last word. Whenever you need a push to get going, think of this image and let the energy from the vision infuse and motivate you.

Last but not least, it is important that you limit your interaction with negative people. They will try to derail you by telling you that your dreams are stupid or some other foolishness. Instead, as mentioned before, find someone who is willing to mentor you to success.

You have arrived

When you achieve your goal, celebrate! Allow the feelings of victory to fill you. Then find another goal and start all over again.

In the article, the author wrote about how wonderful it is to have such great technology like the cell phone and the wonderful things you could do with it but speculated that there really was no guarantee that the infrastructure for these things will exist in the future and thus rendering them useless.

I was struck hard with the realization that we really don’t know what the future holds. It could be ten times better than it is now but equally it could be ten times worse. The threat of another world war or devastating climate changes is very real and technology has made us lazy. I believe very few of us know about growing food for human consumption or how to filter water for impurities or even basic first aid. I doubt many of us even have extra batteries for the flash lights.

I encourage everyone to really think about this and endeavor to learn a few survival skills starting with basic first aid. Learning how to deal with broken bones and cuts is information that will serve at any stage of life and human civilization.

It was an enlightening experience watching this video. Most people, including myself, take for granted the things that exist. Things are just automagically there when we want/need them. We fail to appreciate the time and effort it takes to “materialize” these things.

Everything begins with a thought. This artist had a thought, “I would like to create a picture of Aragorn and Arwen” and then proceeded to manifest a physical representation of that thought using the tools he had at his disposal. The video is set at a speed that compacts the time it took into a four minute video but I’m fairly certain it took a heck of a lot longer than that to create the digital picture.

When we have a thought it takes take time and effort to bring that thought into reality. Maybe the thought we have is to lose weight or start a business or clean up our computer. Between the first thought and the final product lies the act of creation. This is the process where we make our plans, acquire the tools we need and do the work that needs to be done.

Some people, such as myself, agonize over the fact that the process seems to take a long time. The fact that the process takes a long time is usually due to a lack of experience. The artist, JT Blevins-Singed Tentacles, is obviously well versed in digital artistry and knows how to use his tools. Thus this didn’t take him as long as it would for someone just starting out. It would probably take a novice months to recreate this artwork because they would need to learn the skills involved and the technology they are using. As their experience and knowledge grew, it wouldn’t take them as long to create other advanced artworks.

Similarly, if you try to lose weight and you have never done it before, it may take you a long time to manifest a thinner you. This is because, invariably, you’ll end up doing something wrong just because you didn’t know any better. You may go on a crash diet and lose the weight and scoff at the “expert advice” while on your shopping spree. But because you didn’t learn the proper way to eat for your body, you end up, three months later, giving away those new clothes to the Goodwill because you’ve put the weight back on. Maybe after that you decide to read some book on losing weight and take up walking around your neighborhood. As your knowledge and experience grows, so does your understanding of how weight loss works and finally you hit upon the magic formula that allows you to lose the weight and keep it off.

So the life lesson here is that the length of time the act of creation takes is equal to a complex mathematical formula involving the variables of your knowledge, experience and commitment to the goal. The main thought to take away from this is that while achieving the goal is great, it is the process towards that goal achievement that does us the most good. Take your time and enjoy.

By December of 2007, I began to wage war against my apathetic self and the first place I attacked was my poor sleeping habits. I imposed a maximum sleeping time restriction of eight hours. Afternoon naps were forbidden. I set a bed time and an awake time that had to be kept without exception.

It was really hard in the beginning. I drank a lot of coffee, growled at people and generally hated life. But then after about a week or so the fog that had constantly surrounded me like PigPen’s dust, lifted. I began to have more energy. Coupled with the extra time, I was finally able to get my internet business off the ground.

Despite their depraved nature, bad habits in their own way try to help make us better. I wanted to avoid the reality of how much my life sucked and oversleeping was my psyche’s way of helping me out with that. The trick to overcoming a bad habit is to find out why it exists in the first place. What is the need the habit is feeding? Afterwards we can rehabilitate them so that they benefit us and not turn us into raving lunatics.

You can start the process of ditching a bad habit quitting Cold Turkey or Stepping Down. Cold Turkey is where you stop doing the bad habit immediately. This is like ripping off a Band-Aid. You get the pain over with all at once. The day I decided to tackle my sleep problem I started that night with the new schedule. I made myself stay awake until my new bedtime and the next morning when the alarm went off I forced myself to get out of bed. While it took a tremendous amount of effort and self discipline to make it through the “withdrawal” period, once I got used to the new routine, I was done.

The drawback to this approach is that, depending on the habit, you could be setting yourself up for failure. Some addictions such as alcoholism can kill you if you stop suddenly. Other bad habits are so ingrained in us that it would take too much effort to stop all at once. The first week of withdrawals would overwhelm us and cause us to give up.

This is where the Step Down approach for breaking a bad habit comes in. With the Step Down method, you gradually reduce the number of times you do the bad habit until you don’t do it anymore. If I had used this method, I would have cut down the number of hours I slept each week until I had reached my goal. One week I would have slept only ten hours a day and then the next week only nine hours a day and so on and so forth.

The benefit of this method is that it doesn’t require as much effort and self discipline as it would if you were to stop Cold Turkey. The pain is spread over a period of time. The drawback is that it could take longer to get rid of the habit. It also presents a catch 22, where continuing the habit also reinforces the dependence on it. Instead of searching for alternatives that feed the cause of the habit a person using the Step Down method may resort to the habit as a coping mechanism.

But for those that have difficulty in the area of self discipline, this is the perfect alternative to trying to quit all at once. As a bonus, at any time during the step down process, you can go Cold Turkey.

Here are some tips to help you be successful in your quest of a bad habit free existence.

Find a Replacement

As mentioned earlier, your bad habits exist to fill a need whether that need is emotional, physical, psychological or all of the above. Taking that habit away will leave a void that needs to be consciously and deliberately filled by you or it will be filled with the first alternative that comes along. Worse you could end up falling back into the bad habit.

Think about what the habit does for you. Do you feel it relaxes you? Does it make you feel in control? Get to the heart of the matter. When you have figured out what it is that you get from that bad habit, find something to replace it that you will enjoy equally and that is better for you. Don’t be afraid to try different things.

In my case, I took up journaling. Instead of trying to run away from my life, I use my journal to confront the challenges in my life. Writing in it offers a sense of clarity. The very act of writing makes me feel as though I’m doing something to improve my life even if all I write that day is about how much my life sucks!

If you are doing the step down approach, swap out the instances of rhe bad habit with instances of a good habit. For example, if you are working to quit smoking, at the time when you would have had a cigarette, go for a walk instead. What you are doing is reconditioning your mind to do the good habit rather than the bad one.

Plan, Plan, Plan

Take the time to plan what you will do when you run up against the many opportunities to fall off the wagon. My “office” is in my bedroom so the temptation to take a nap is pretty great. There are times when I come home from work so tired that all I want to do is go straight to bed but it’s not my “bed time” yet. To handle this, I find something more interesting than sleeping to do. This may be working on a web template or writing a blog post. On really bad days, I start to clean my room. The goal is to divert my attention from the bad habit to something more productive.

Think of all the situations you will run into when you kick your bad habit to the curb. In fact, before you quit, log your actions in a journal. For instance, whenever you smoke write down what led you to take that action. Were you stressed? Did you have a craving? Was someone else smoking and you felt like you should too? Having a log will help you to identify triggers for the bad habit. With this information you can plan for what to do when you run into one.

Focus Only on the Present Day

If you are torturing yourself by imagining that it will take years for you to be free of your bad habit, stop right now. Just stop it. Don’t make me come over there. Quitting a bad habit is one of those times in your life when you should ignore the big picture and focus on making it through each day. Although it won’t seem like it at first, each day you go without engaging in your bad habit will make you stronger. Each day, the bad habit’s grip on you will loosen and as your self-discipline grows it will be easier to just say no.

Focus on the Benefits

Instead of constantly thinking about what you are losing turn your focus to what you are gaining. Make a list of all the positive things that will come from doing away with the bad habit. Post that list everywhere; on your refrigerator, in the car, at your desk. Memorize it. When negativity arises, switch your focus to the list of benefits. This will serve to raise your spirits and encourage you to continue rather than drag you down.

Get a Support Group

Having a support group accomplishes two things. One, it gives you someone to vent to when things get tough. Two, your support will help keep you accountable. This is why you want to make sure to get someone, or several someones, who will get on your case when they see you slipping.

Nowadays there is a support group for pretty much everything. Look in the yellow pages or search online. If you are unable to find one consider starting a group. If you don’t want to do that, then find a really good friend to help you out. If you have no friends, then consider this an opportunity to start making some.

Get Rid of Temptation

Get rid of all the things that tempt you into performing the bad habit. This includes doing away, or limiting your interaction, with people who encourage the bad habit. Spend time with people who don’t engage in the behavior or who have successful overcome the bad habit themselves.

Another thing to do is to change other habits that support the bad habit. For instance, if you always go to a particular store to pick up a pack of smokes, avoid going to that store. If you always smoke after lunch, go for a walk instead. The goal here is to get rid of all the things that encourage the bad habit.

To help combat the temptation to lie in bed after the alarm clock went off, I immediately start my morning routine of taking a shower, doing my hair and putting on makeup. This puts me into the mindset of starting the day and there is no way I’m going to mess up my hair after spending all that time on it by getting back into bed.

Breaking a bad habit is a challenge, no doubt about it. But believe me the exchanging of a bad habit for a good one is well worth it. Focus on success and it will come to you.

I didn’t know what to say to her. Unfortunately, I’m one of those people who only think of something good to say after the fact. This time, though, I was in luck. Our shifts overlapped and after about a half an hour of thinking about her situation, I presented her with my brilliant solution that would rekindle her self-motivation.

“You need to find something to inspire you,” I said and received a confused look in response. “You need something to hold onto that will help see you through these tough times when you just can’t go another step.”

She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know. I just don’t like it.”

I shrugged my shoulders because that was the best I had to offer. I told her that I would pray to the Source to help her with her goals which she seemed to appreciate. Thinking about it on my way home, though, I realized I had given her some good advice but that I communicated it poorly. I felt like she had lost her self-motivation because she was focusing too much on the effort it took to work two jobs and not enough on the benefits of doing so. What I should have said was that she needed to remember her goal and that working a second job was only a temporary step in the direction of that goal.

In fact, failing to remember the bigger picture is what destroys a lot of people’s self-motivation, mine included. We fail to understand that the road towards our goals is not neatly paved in gold. It is a dirt path, full of pot holes and overgrown bushes that block our view. Sometimes this path is easy to navigate but other times it is a pure fire walk that requires us to do things we don’t want to do in order to achieve the outcome we are striving for.

When I find my self-motivation flagging, the first thing I do is expand my vision. I try not to let the steps I need to take towards achieving my goal overshadow the goal itself. Working two jobs suck-I will be the first to admit that. But what my co-worker needed to do was remember that she would only be working the second job long enough to get those bills paid and not a day longer.

Another thing I do to keep my motivation high is take a few moments each day to think about what it is I am working to achieve. This involves using my imagination to visualize the moment when I have obtained what it is I’m going after. This helps to focus my attention on the task at hand as well as put the task in its proper perspective. To increase your self-motivation, try to do this before taking action to achieve your goal. For instance if you are working to lose weight, take a few moments before you hit the gym to visualize a lighter, thinner you.

You can also use reverse psychology to inspire self-motivation. Visualizing the consequences of failing to take action can serve as effective motivation indeed. If my friend quit the job then she would not be able to pay those bills, her credit rating would suffer and she would not get the mortgage rate she was going for.

Another way to increase self-motivation is to keep a symbol of your goal close to you. For example, on my computer monitor is a picture of a house I want to buy. It serves as the motivation I need to bypass playing computer games in favor of working on my business. Likewise whenever you don’t feel like working to achieve your goal or even get the urge to quit, look at the symbol to remind yourself of the bigger picture.

Unfortunately, my co-worker quit her job. I’m not sure what she is doing now but I hope she was able to rekindle her self-motivation and achieve her financial goals.

In all actuality, making, say a billion dollars is quite possibly the easiest thing you could do in life. It is so easy that you can do it one step and I won’t even charge you to share with you what that step is.

How to Make a Billion Dollars

Step One

Convince one billion people to give you one dollar each. Since there are approximately 6.5 billion people in the world, finding enough people shouldn’t be that hard.

Alternatively you can convince one person to give you one billion dollars and to make life even easier for you, here is a link to a list of the world’s billionaires.

Now I know you are probably thinking that I’m having a great laugh at your expense. You would be partly right. The fact is that there is a very basic and simple business lesson to be learned from this which is that when it comes right down to it all of the financial goals you have in life depend on the willingness of others to share their money with you.

It does not matter if you are providing a product or service or if you are looking for charity, the ideology is the same. Why do you think businesses spend so much money in advertising and so much time building their reputation? In a world where people have a multitude of options literally at their fingertips, they, the businesses, are trying to convince as many people as they can to give them a dollar.

If your financial goals seem overwhelming just break it down. I’ve even provided a cool chart that I made myself to give you a starting point. Now what you do to convince people to give you money is entirely up to you but know that making money really is that simple.