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Archive for January, 2009

The numbers are frightening – there are millions of people out of work or crossing their fingers they won’t find a pink slip in their next paycheck. More have watched their retirement funds slip away as the stock market plunged. More Americans than ever can’t make their mortgage payments and face foreclosure. Who wouldn’t be afraid in this economic climate?

Do you wish you could close your eyes and wake up on the other side of this mess? If you did, you’d miss one of the greatest opportunities of your life. Did you know that more millionaires were created per capita during the Great Depression than ever since? There is no better time than now to figure out your life purpose, set goals, and design a life blueprint. And the best part is that the process won’t cost you a dime.

How satisfied are you with your life? Think that ‘just getting by’ is the best you can hope for in this economy? That this is the worst time to make any major life changes? Nonsense. You may not have much control over the economy, but you do have control over your own life.

You should be happy with your job, your relationships, your health, and feel that you are fulfilling your life purpose, no matter what the economy. In fact, you’re more likely to ride out the bad times if you’re secure in the fact that your life is on the right track. The problem is that most people don’t know how to set short-and long-term life goals, and they wind up reacting to individual situations and they flounder. They have no life plan. No wonder they don’t feel secure and fulfilled.

Think of your life as a building project. No architect would attempt to build something without a blueprint, so why would you approach your life plan without one? The details may change over time but it will always remain the building block on which you can focus your energies and base your decisions.

The best way to start creating your own blueprint is to take stock of where you are right now. Begin by simply making a chart. Write down the ten most important categories in your life. They can be career, relationships, spirituality, health, or whatever is important to you.

Next, make two columns next to each category. In the first one, write down where you are right now in your life in that area. Be brutally honest in assessing your current situation. For the second column, close your eyes and think of where you’d like to be in three years if no obstacles were in your way. Think hard and big and write down everything you can think of. No idea is too big or impossible and the more uncomfortable or daunting the dream, the better. Each future vision should make you gasp.

Now review the list and rate how difficult it would be to achieve this goal. Use a scale of one to five. If all your scores are low, you’re probably not reaching far enough in your goals and should try the exercise again and this time, reach higher. Interestingly, you may find that some of your biggest dreams really aren’t that hard to attain. Some though, may seem impossible. Don’t worry about that, simply by thinking frequently about your visions, results will begin to appear, slowly but surely.

Congratulations, you’ve begun the process of creating your own life blueprint. You’ve started with visions and goals that are unique to you and your life. It’s the first step in taking control of your future and creating a purpose driven life. While it may not seem it, that’s the hardest part of creating the life of your dreams. Next comes the process of achieving your goals, keeping the promises you’ve made to yourself and staying motivated — and that is actually easier than you think.

About the Author:
For help with your goals, go to http://www.keepanypromise.com and sign up for a FREE 1-hour teleseminar. Karim H. Ismail’s 12-step process will kick-start your life blueprint and help you attain your dreams.

Keyword tags: Karim Ismail, goals, coaching, life coach, self help, attain your dreams, life blueprint

“A woman who I was dating and who I really liked ended our relationship and is dating someone else. I see her all the time at the market and I feel like yelling at her.”

“I keep vowing not to, but I keep getting really angry at my husband when he is distant.”

“I lost my temper with my assistant and now she is suing me. I just can’t seem to help getting furious when people mess up.”

If this is like you, do you know why you continue act this way, even when your angry behavior generally doesn’t work and may end up creating more problems for you? Do you know what is going on for you when you attack and blame? Below are some of the reasons. See if you identity with any of them:

1. You believe that you can have control over others with anger or blame, and that controlling them will get you what you really want.

While sometimes you might be able to intimidate or guilt a person into doing what you want, you can NEVER have control over how a person thinks and feels. At some point, even if a person complies out of fear or guilt, it may backfire on you.

2. You want to connect with someone, such as a partner, but you don’t want to connect through true openness, as you are fearful of being seen and rejected. Connecting through a fight or argument seems like a safe way to connect. If the other person engages in the argument or fight, then you get the connection you want, but if the other person disengages, then you may be left feeling even more lonely and helpless.

3. You have low self-esteem. You are terrified of rejection and engulfment. You fear being alone. You feel insecure and powerless and getting angry and blaming makes you feel more powerful.

The problem is that true power comes from power over self, not power over others. While having control over another might feel good in the moment, since true self-esteem comes from power within, controlling behavior over others never ultimately leads to feeling safe or secure. In fact, it leads to more fear and insecurity when others respond by distancing themselves from you, or resenting you, or resisting you, or rejecting you and leaving you.

4. You are terrified of your more vulnerable feelings of helplessness over others, loneliness, aloneness, emptiness, fear, insecurity, or anxiety. Anger and blame work to cover up these feelings. You have no idea how to manage your pain so you have learned to get angry and blame to avoid these feelings.

The problem is that getting angry and blaming are forms of self-abandonment. While you might believe that it is others, situations, events, or the past that are creating your pain, it is the fact that you are ignoring your feelings rather than taking responsibility for them that is actually causing your painful feelings. Until you learn how to take responsibility for your feelings, you might continue to cover them up with your anger and blame.

5. You really believe that your pain is caused by others rather than by your own self-abandonment, so you feel justified in blaming others for your feelings.

As long as you believe that your painful feelings of anger, fear, hurt, anxiety, depression, guilt or shame are caused by something outside yourself, rather than from your own thoughts and actions, you will see yourself as a victim and have a need to try to control others. As long as you avoid responsibility for learning your manage your feelings of loneliness, heartache, sorrow, grief and helplessness over others, you will try to cover these feelings up with your addiction to anger and blame.

Learning to take 100% responsibility for your own feelings is the key to moving beyond anger and blame. Learning and practicing the Inner Bonding process is a powerful way to learn responsibility for your feelings.

About the Author:
Margaret Paul, Ph.D., best-selling author of 8 books, co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding® healing process. Join thousands who have discovered real love and intimacy! Learn Inner Bonding now! FREE Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com/welcome/relationship_help.html. Phone Sessions.

Keyword tags: relationships,anger,blame,emotional pain,fear of rejection,fear of intimacy,conflict,self help,self improvement,Margaret Paul,Inner Bonding

We cannot fail to notice the credit crisis that is leading, or has lead, (depending on which newspaper you read) to a recession which is expected to go on until at least 2010. January sales started in November, as shops on the High Street struggle to sell their wares, and indeed we have seen a number of big High Street names fall by the wayside already. Car production is being cut, as new cars fail to be sold, and working hours are being reduced in order to save money, with the threat of redundancy never far away.

Times are hard – prices are going up, yet income is coming down, or at best staying pretty static. As an economy we don’t know whether we are coming or going!

This all leads to additional stress for everyone – whether we are looking for a new job, have the threat of redundancy looming, or are just struggling to make ends meet with the rising cost of food, fuel, and the like, an economic downturn is difficult to deal with.

But, there are things that we can do to help us focus on a way through – a survival plan if you like!

If you are needing to change job, because of redundancy etc, then it might be time to think about what you want to do next – do you want to stay in the same area of work or is it time for a complete change? Have the confidence to make the decisions that you really want to make, rather than just the ones you think you should make! Guided visualization can help with this, to help you access the inner strength that will get you moving in the direction you want to be. It might be time to brush up your CV and turn yourself into a very marketable product.

Set new goals – achievable goals. If you had been hoping to save up enough for a fortnights holiday or a new car, reassess realistically…. think about what you NEED against what you WANT. If that means having a shorter break away, or staying in the UK rather than holidaying abroad, then so be it. If you have been looking to change your car, set yourself a budget and stick to it…. get haggling in the showroom, you may be surprised at how much you can get knocked off the price!

Don’t allow yourself to go over your budgets, whether you are doing the weekly grocery shop, or booking a holiday. Spending money you cannot afford is not an option right now – you will regret it in due course.

Focus on the things you have already – do they really need replacing, or is it just that you fancy something new? The old fashioned way of “make do and mend” is very relevant now. Don’t buy new when you can repair old! If it is serviceable, then it will do!

Look at the free things in life and enjoy them! A walk outside in the crisp winter sunshine, or along a deserted beach is a fantastic way of clearing your head and taking some time out. Dig out the board games that are lurking in the back of the cupboard and delight your children with cluedo or scrabble! Invest in a pack of playing cards, and teach your children all those games you learn’t yourself as a child!

The next couple of years are not going to be easy, but the fact is that recessions come, and then they go. With a little effort and realism, coupled with positivity and an appreciation of what we have, not what we can’t have, will get us through, in a stronger position than we would otherwise have been in.

About the Author:
Kimberley Mercer is a partner at http://www.guided-imagery-downloads.com and has been using guided imagery to meditate and relax since a teenager. Kimberley is a member of the Association of Natural Medicine.

Keyword tags: guided imagery,relaxation,self help,relaxation techniques,advice,stress