So how do we address this situation? 

First of all I would like to say that there isn’t one thing that will allow all of us to become happy and follow our destiny with ease.  I think that the biggest thing we have to realize is that in order for us to find our real purpose in life; we first have to start looking!  I think intention, is the key element in actually achieving our goals.

Next, after we have decided that we want to find our ultimate mission in life, we have to look at what are the things that really make us happy.  I think that it could be most difficult undertaking, because in order for us to find the meaning in our life, we first have to get to know our selves.  Although this process can be difficult, it also can be very rewarding.  For example some people are very good communicators.  So good, as the matter a fact, that people always make fun of them, because they talk too much.  Their personality will work well in the activities that require them to communicate effectively with other people.  So they would probably enjoy profession such as a journalist or a sales person.  Then there are others who are more analytical in everything they do.  They might want to try something like being an engineer.  These seemingly little personality descriptions, can be very important indicators in our search to discover our destiny.

Here is what I did when I was trying to figure out what to do with my life.  First I wrote down all of the things I enjoyed doing (writing, teaching, personal development, trading on the stock market etc.).  Then I looked at that list and prioritized in order of what I would want to try and do first.  You see out of all of the things I enjoyed or wanted to do, I first and foremost wanted to have my own business.  So anything I would do would have to become a business, in order for me to be completely satisfied.  That is exactly how I started BurstCreativity.com.  This site allows me to teach, write, communicate, help people, but also it is an online business that allows me the freedom that I want - perfect compromise between my desires.  

It doesn’t mean that this is going to be the only thing I could be doing.  I could come up with some other activities that would allow me to fulfill the very same needs.  I also want to build businesses for example, so I am also involved in several other ventures. 

The most important part however is the fact that I try to choose what I do based on what I want.  My inner desires dictate what I do – and this is probably the key formula here.  Find out what you want and do it.

Technorati Tags: Career, Destiny, Path in life, Happiness

Here is a bit of background on me. When I was younger, I had a highly idealistic and almost snobbish point of view about money. I believed that money represented materialism. I, being a “highly evolved” spiritual being should not be concerned with finances. I believed that being poor or struggling financially meant that I am evolving even more. This just reinforced my conviction about being spiritual and my already inflated ego. In my opinion it did not help me be any more evolved then I am now. It did land me in debt however. So badly that I wasn’t able to pay it off for years. Constantly worrying about finances brought me more stress and nothing else but that.

I think the only great thing about struggling financially, is realizing that you have to do something about it in order for it to stop, or it never will. I also think that we learn spiritually much more from doing something to improve our present situation (or our selves) rather then simply accepting our fate, and wanting for the change to come.

When I realized that I might have been wrong about how I view money, changes began to happen in my life. I changed what I do for a living. I changed how I look at finances. I began studying what it takes to be financially successful. These changes improved the quality of my life more then two fold, and I do not think I am more materialistic then I was before.

Here are a few things I learned through out this journey:

- You must know where you want to end up financially. In other words - have a goal.

- You must have a plan of getting there. Make a strategy that will allow you to achieve your goal.

- A budget must be a part of your plan. A bookkeeping and budgeting is like a window into what is happening in your financial life. How much you are spending, where, and how much of it you can actually afford. If you do not follow a budget you can look at it as driving blindfolded in a snow storm. You can do it, but you might get in trouble.

- Have a plan where you are going to divide your money as soon as it comes in. So as soon as you get a pay check (of any sort), separate it into categories (long term investment, short term savings, budget, charity, spending money. You can use how ever many categories your plan will require.) This way you will know where every single cent is at all times.

- Learn about investing your money. This is probably the best advice I can give. Learn as much as possible. If you don’t have money to pay the “best” to do investing for you, you must take matters into your own hands and learn how to do it. Nobody will care about your money as much as you do. Learning different investment strategies will always give you a better result, then simply giving it to someone to do it for you.

Money can be compared to breathing. We don’t think about it when it comes to us easily, but it sure is a problem if it doesn’t. So, as it is important to learn how to breathe when we are born, it is also important to learn how to manage our finances. And the beauty of it all is the fact that there is a lot to learn. So let’s get started.

Here is the recipe on how to get rich:
Find something you love to do. Find a system of making money with it. Do it until you will be successful.

Sounds over simplistic? It is. Knowing HOW to get rich is easy, it is doing everything you need to do to get rich that’s hard. There is a chapter in Donald Trumps book “How to Get Rich” where we follow Trump with his 24/7 schedule for one week. You think you work hard to earn a living? Try being “on” all the time like most business people are.

Let’s look at some of the areas where people make a lot of money.

Business

You can definitely make your self rich by developing a successful business. Relatively speaking that method can be very quick. Ultimately whatever way of getting rich you would choose, be it real estate investing or online trading or marketing, it will boil down to developing a business. All successful businesses have systems that they follow to make money, and those systems are the key behind their success.

There is two ways of developing a business system. One you can do it your self. This way is long and painful most of the time and is the reason why 3 out of 4 businesses fail in the first 3 years of operation. Two you can buy a system from someone who “cracked the code” for you. In other words get someone who is already successful to teach you what they know. This way is faster and increases you chances of success dramatically. To put it simply, you will not be able to succeed unless you educate your self.

Investing

Just like in business, in the area of investing most people loose money. The reason most investing is so risky is as simple as lack of knowledge and sophistication on the part of the investor. There is definitely a way to make it big in investing. The success just like in business depends on the systems you employ in your investment strategy. And here again you can either develop the systems your self, or find someone who is already successful and get them to teach you what they know. The difference between investing and business is that you can’t build a successful investment strategy with sweat equity like in business. You can loose a lot of money in learning how to invest, so I suggest the “leaning from someone who knows what they are doing” route.

Winning a lottery

You can. But let’s face it, what’s a bigger chance – you winning a lottery or building a successful business with hard work?

Working hard for someone else

… is not a way to become financially wealthy. People might disagree. But to become truly wealthy, where all your financial needs are met for the rest of your and your children’s life, is pretty much impossible while working for someone else. This method of saving pennies has to be combined with some form of investing or business to attain true wealth.

So should we forget about getting rich quick? No not at all, as long as we also keep in mind that becoming a millionaire is a process, unless of course, you are born a Paris Hilton. Most of us, however, do not have that privilege and have to make sacrifices on the road to success. Hard work and education are two keys that will ensure success in both finances and personal development.

So what exactly do I mean by self discipline?

It is the ability to follow a schedule. It is also the ability to do things we need to do, when we do not want to.

The hard part is sticking to being self disciplined.

I always found that it works very well once you established a habit. When you establish a pattern of accomplishing one thing after another, it creates a sort of a flow. This momentum makes it extremely easy to be self disciplined. In my experience it is very important not to break that momentum. If we do, it becomes extremely hard getting back into the groove.

So how do we establish that habit of being self disciplined?

There are several ways of achieving great self discipline. Sports in general and martial arts specifically are a great way to develop this ability. I have done various forms of martial arts for many years and can tell you, from personal experience, how effective this method is. Self discipline within martial arts is achieved through following traditions that emphasize the reverence the disciple feels towards his master. That kind of relationship forces the disciple to follow his master without question, based solely on the respect for the teacher. This kind of relationship puts immediate personal desires of the student in the background, while the master guides him to achieve his goal. Essentially what that does is distract us from the inherit laziness we all have, and provides us with motivation to achieve our goals. When it develops into a habit, it carries over to other areas of our life, and can greatly enhance other experiences.

It is probably not healthy to be too strict when it comes to discipline. Some discipline is a must, but in all aspects of our personality we require a balance. If we are too strict it could eventually result in abandoning of the self discipline all together, as we would develop a negative association with whatever we are trying to be disciplined about. Let’s take jogging in the mornings as an example. Most people do not enjoy this activity. They have to force them selves to do it, because they know that it is good for them. They have to do it until they develop a habit of jogging, and then it becomes easy. Just think about it. What would be easier to get used to? Jogging in the morning in a snow storm or jogging while enjoying a beautiful sunrise. Our mind develops habits by repetition. So the more negativity it associates with an activity, the harder it will be to develop the self discipline to perform it.

Another very important area where it is imperative to be self disciplined is financial management. This part of our life can become devastating to us if we do not bring it under control.

The best part of any form of discipline training is that it is fairly easy to accomplish if you put your mind to it. It can be compared to training a muscle. When you exercise it on a regular basis, it becomes strong and healthy. Inversely if it is left unused, it will atrophy.

To sum up, self discipline is a must in our lives. We must practice it on a regular basis, but we shouldn’t forget that balance in everything we do is very important, so being over disciplined can be as bad as not having any discipline at all.

We can however put some broad definitions to the term success that would apply to most people.

One of such definitions would be financial success. I define it as the ability to live a financially worry free life. For some people this might mean that they would be happy to make enough money to survive and others might want to have an extravagant life style. There isn’t really a right or wrong answer. It all depends on what is important to us.

I think that even a better definition of success would be living as close to your true destiny as possible. Here are a few tips for discovering what your true destiny is.

1. Know your dreams.
It isn’t enough to just have goals in life. We often know the direction we want to go to, but do not know where exactly that direction will bring us. Knowing exactly what you want is a key component in designing our destiny.

2. Live your dreams.
Living your dreams is a must. All our happiness depends on how close we come to living our true desires. Think about it. Do you think you would be happier if you were to experience what you truly desire in your day to day life?

3. Take responsibility for your life.

Part of being truly successful is being responsible for the way we act. We all know that things do not always workout the way we want them to. Sometimes we make mistakes. Admitting when we did make a mistake can do great things for us. This ability is crucial when learning anything. When we admit to a mistake we learn from it and are able to move on without hindering our progress. It is being stubborn that prevents us from learning the lessons we need to learn.

4. Let go of any hurt you might have experienced in the past.

If there is one thing that holds us back in life, it is when we hold on to the past. We all experience terrible injustices at one time or another. There are times when we get hurt and go through what seems like incredible difficulties. The sooner we will develop the ability to let go of anything that happened in the past, the more our life will seem successful to us. The easier it will become.
5. Make a plan and stick with it.

Goals are important, but so is action. We must have a plan and follow it to reach a desired destination. Action is of paramount importance. Without acting we will never be able to get anywhere. So make a plan, and follow it with abandon.

Success will come to those who are able to act fearlessly in the face of adversities life troughs at us every day.

1. Only special talented people are creative.

While it is true that it seems like people like Mozart or Picasso are more creative then others, if looked at closer, their creative genius will reveal a lot of very hard work, rather then innate talent. Usually people, who demonstrate higher then average creative abilities, also work much harder then the average person.

2. Being creative is hard.

Yes it is. Actually it isn’t being creative that is hard, it is working on developing that ability. Once we learn how to easily channel creativity, it becomes second nature to us, as easy as breathing.

3. Problems are in our life to make it more difficult.

Problems of any kind are the key to learning. No matter how unpleasant they might be, we learn from every problem we encounter in our life. By using creative problem solving, we not only find the solutions to the dilemma we are facing, but also develop our creativity in the process. Without problems in our life, we would not advance as a society. Problems force us to find solutions and improve our life as a result.

4. I am not creative.

There is no such thing as people who are not creative. If you feel that creativity comes to you with a lot of effort, it is more likely that your creative ability is in a dormant state. Creativity works similarly to muscles in our body. When we use them all the time, the muscles are toned and fit. As soon as we stop exercising, the muscles become flabby and our body accumulates fat around them for protection. To have creativity easily accessible to us, we should use it on a regular basis. The more we use it in our daily life the easier it will flow.

5. Innovation is the domain of geniuses.

It is true that many of people whom we call geniuses are highly creative as well. It seems that because it comes so easily to them, they are almost blessed with special abilities. Behind every great innovation however, are many years of hard work. We often do not see this, but if you talk to anybody who truly succeeded, you will find out that they did so after many hardships and struggles.

6. I have to have brand new ideas in order for me to be considered creative.

This is the greatest secret that no creative professional talks about. “There are no new ideas!” Most great ideas are a combination of old concepts presented in a fresh, new package that provides us with a sense of novelty. There are exceptions when an idea is truly unique. Those do happen, but majority of creative endeavors are improving upon concepts that already exist or putting several old concepts into a new combination.

7. Brainstorming is hard work.

Yes, brainstorming can be, but it also can be a lot of fun. If one brainstorming technique isn’t working, all we have to do is try another one. As a matter a fact there are as many techniques to spark creativity as there are people who use them. For some people structured techniques work better and others perform best in a free flow atmosphere. The trick is to find one that works for you.

8. Only artists need to be creative.

I am an artist by background, and I was trained to think in creative terms. But I use creativity in almost all aspects of my life. I use it in cooking. I use it when I can’t figure out how a new high tech gadget that I purchased works. I use it to try and keep the relationship with my significant other fresh and inventive. I use it to come up with new business ideas, dealing with people, exercising … Oh yeah I also use it when I do art.

9. Writers block is a greatest obstacle in the creative process.

It is one of the obstacles, but not the biggest one. The biggest obstacle is when we deny this part of us totally. When we pay no attention at all to our creative ability, we literarily put it to sleep. It becomes extremely difficult for us to be creative. Inaction is a far bigger obstacle in the creative process and a more difficult one to overcome. As soon as we kick start our creativity, the more we use it the easier it comes to us.

10. Using structured creative techniques will hinder my ability to be creative.

Some brainstorming techniques are pretty complex. If this isn’t what you are comfortable with, and it isn’t giving you the results that you are looking for, do not use it. Find some other technique that you respond better to. And if you do like using more structured techniques, go ahead and continue using them. Since everybody is different, you have to find what works for you. There is no difference in the quality of one technique over another, only in the personality of the person who is using it. All brainstorming techniques do the same thing - spark your creativity.

My job consisted of picking up dirty dishes from the service stations, bringing them to the kitchen, washing them and bringing them out to the buffet. If you ever had a crappy job, you can relate to my experience there. I stayed at that restaurant for over two years. Here are some tips about how to survive working in a “crappy” job, or at least how I used my creativity to do so:

1. The time passes really slowly when you do not like your job. To make it more bearable, I tried to concentrate on what I was doing, rather then thinking about how much I did not like doing what I was doing. By concentrating on the task at hand, we stop the seemingly never-ending thought process in our mind. It allows us to relax and elevates some stress. Many meditation practices teach exactly that principal.

2. I started thinking about washing dishes as a game. I tried to improve how fast I was putting the dishes through the machine. How efficient I was at picking up dirty dish containers - any aspect of my job that I could improve. I didn’t do it because I wanted to be the best dishwasher, or because I really liked what I was doing, but because it gave me a way to challenge my self. It was that challenge that kept my interest up and made it more bearable for me to go to work everyday. It sounds stupid, but it works. In personal development circles this is called “Goal Setting”.

Sometime having a boring job isn’t our choice. Success doesn’t come instantly, sometimes we have to have a “crappy job” to be able to survive. I hope that these couple of tips I just shared with you, will elevate some of the pain. Our creativity can be a great resource at times when “we have to do what we have to do”. I always think of Mcguyver (a reference to a TV show from another era) when I think of creativity. What would he do to get out of this one?

I am by no means a psychologist or a therapist of any sorts, by in my efforts of personal development I have picked up a couple of psychological “tricks” that helped me tremendously. Give them a try and see if it will make a difference for you.

1. Get your feelings out. Sit down, get a piece of paper and write about how you feel right now. If you feel sad, write “I feel sad about …” Go in as much detail as possible in describing how you feel. Get it all out on paper. Describe why you think, you feel that way, make a guess about what you can do to fix the situation. Have a conversation with your self on paper.

2. A variation on that technique can be this: - write down how you feel now. All the negatively charged feelings (anger, sadness, jealousy etc.) - now write down the way you want to feel instead. “I feel sad about …” Then “I want to feel happy and fulfilled!”

Journaling can be a great tool to get your feelings out and release them, so you can be free from those emotions. Try these techniques and let me know if they helped you to get over a difficult emotional time in your life.

When we spend time only planning or dreaming about things that didn’t happen yet, we often forget things that are extremely important right now. For example:

Let’s say that you are always thinking on how you are going on a vacation, and how wonderful it will be, and all the adventures you are going to have. In a mean while, in the present, you work 7 days a week and are extremely stressed. You are so stressed, as a matter a fact, that you do not see how you can take a vacation at all. In your head the thoughts of vacation become a dream that is fading further and further away. It becomes a sort of an escape from your grim reality. At the end the stress causes you severe health problems and you have to quit your job to recover.

Past can be just as dangerous, if we spend most of our time there instead of living in the present. Here is an example of that:

You just went through a break up of a long term relationship, but you can’t let go. It hunts you. You find your self constantly thinking of your ex., analyzing what could have been, thinking about the reasons why the relationship ended. This makes you very unhappy. You can’t start a new relationship. Friends that have successful relationships irritate you. You are miserable.

Many different spiritual practices teach us this ability to be in the now. And I would lie if said that it was an easy skill to develop. But it is so crucial that developing only that one skill that propel your life to unbelievable heights of success. In order for us to be able to do everything we need to in our day to day activities, we need to feel good. Nothing makes us feel good as not being preoccupied by the thoughts and emotions of things that passed or did not even happen yet. This skill is invaluable in the success toolbox of our self improvement

Writer’s block, or in other words when creativity simply doesn’t flow, is very frustrating thing to deal with. Some of the traditional methods of getting your self unblocked basically boil down to engaging your mind. When you stop thinking, you allow the flow of information to release. We can use doodling to engage our mind. When we doodle we open the flood gates of our subconscious and whatever is inside flows out. At the same time as soon as that movement happens, we also no longer feel stuck and can continue using that creativity to complete our work.

Sometime the simplest solutions to our problems are the ones that work best. Next time you feel stuck you can try getting a pen and paper and start doodling. See if that method will work to spark your creativity.