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How to Jump Into the Cold Water

Have you ever gone into cold water, so cold that from the first step you start rethinking your desire to be there?  How do you handle that situation?  Are you one of those people that will simply jump in?  Or do you torture yourself by taking one painful step at a time? 

I went to personal development seminar once, and one of the concepts that they taught us was: “How you do anything, is how you do everything”.  Basically what they were trying to say was that if you are a person that will simply jump into the cold water, you will also carry that trait into other areas of your life.  If we take starting a business as an example, you would simply go at it 100%, as opposed to doing endless preparation before you actually do anything productive.

The “Simply jump in” attitude has both advantages and drawbacks.  One of the great things about this outlook on life is the fact that it initiates action.  Inaction is the greatest peril in the way of accomplishing absolutely anything.  Unfortunately we are all susceptible to it to some degree.  The flipside of this concept is that sometimes we can act too fast, and that bears a whole new set of consequences.

So what is the best solution to this problem of making our selves take action, but acting at the “right time”? 

I often bring this up in my articles, but balance is very important in anything that we do.   To apply this concept to what we are discussing – we should “simply jump in”, but at the same time we should also be able to stop out selves long enough to do some necessary due diligence. 

The other solution to inaction is a simple piece of advice – “Get over your-self”.  It might be a bit harsh, as a statement, but I believe that it is a vital thing to do in our life in general.  People tend to over analyze a lot of what they do.  Often we simply need to push ourselves to jump into the cold water, so that we can feel less cold after we do.

Last but not least, we should talk about having motivation to be able to “jump”.  It is easy to say that we should “just jump”.  The simple fact is that if we are not motivated to do so, if the reward at the end of the “jump” isn’t big enough to get us to do it, we simply are not going to jump.  This is a very crucial point.  Imagine that you are standing on the shore of a very cold ocean.  Would you be able to force yourself to jump into it if you didn’t really want to swim?  Probably not!  

People, who are exceedingly successful in life, all have one thing in common.  They all live their passion.  What would be a better motivator then being passionate about what you do?  So the very first thing you have to do before taking any action is to ask yourself a question – is what I am about to do what I really want?  And if it is, or it will give you something that you really want, or bring you to that place where your passion lives – don’t think, even if it is unpleasant at first, simply jump!

Technorati Tags: Personal Development, Success, Fear, Self Discipline

Money Management 101 and How It Can Improve You Life

Money is a very important topic in our life. I would go so far as to say that anybody who says that it isn’t, are lying to them selves. The reality of our life is that over 70% of transactions in our life are monetary. If we do not learn how to properly manage this part of our being, we are going to be bound to life of lack and need – and nobody wants to have that kind of stress in their life. The only way to avoid this kind of existence is to become a monk and withdraw from society completely. But I do not think that a life of a monk is for everybody.

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.

Balance Your Life With a Feng Shui Cleanse

Feng Shui is an old Asian tradition that was originated somewhere around 256 BC. I am not going to go very deep into the definition of what Feng Shui is, apart from just saying that it is an ancient art of creating environments around us for every day living, business and family. It examines how the placement of objects around us affects our life in positive or negative ways and how interaction with these objects can improve or impede the level of happiness and success we experience in life.

Feng Shui is quite a complicated art, and in order to understand it we first need to clarify a few principals that come into play.

First of all we need to know about Chi. Basic definition of Chi (or Ki) is that it is a universal energy (an energy that is present in all objects at all time). Some scientific explanation for such energy lies in the unified field theory of quantum physics. I am not going to try to explain that, but if you need a further info you can refer to that term in your research.

So in Feng Shui, placement of objects either impedes or promotes the flow of this energy. So in other words, if Chi flows freely in our environment, this also will mean that our life will be happier, healthier and more successful. If the Chi is blocked, we will experience all sorts of difficulties in our life.

How would any lay person benefit from this ancient art? One of the basic tenets of Feng Shui is that we need to balance our life in anyway that we can. A simple way to do that from the Feng Shui point of view would be to un-clutter your life from both objects and emotional clutter.

According to Feng Shui clutter stagnates our life. In stead of flowing smoothly and easily, the Chi that surrounds us and the objects we use in our daily life is obstructed. So when we have a lot of clutter in our life, it will feel as if we are stuck in some or all areas of the daily living. We also might have bad “luck” in our career. Our relationships might feel like they are not going anywhere. This concept can also be applied to the emotional baggage in our life. Too much of it can significantly impede the way our life flows.

What can we do about the clutter in our life? It is very simple. Do a Feng Shui cleanse! Follow these simple guide lines to free your self of clutter:

1. If you haven’t used it in a year you don’t need it.

2. When you are getting rid of clutter, you are in fact making more space to receive new objects - so learn how to let go of things (and emotions)

3. Do it. Don’t put it off. Act and don’t give it a second thought.

Once you uncluttered your self, you will gain a brand new outlook on life. Things will seem fresher. It will almost feel like a weight has been lifted from your chest. And you just might also feel the difference in other areas of your life as well.

Try it, it’s going to be well worth the effort.