Resisting Temptation To Spend Your Money

One of the most persistently acclaimed personal virtues is frugality; save, don’t waste your money. We have all heard Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote: “A penny saved is a penny earned.” Franklin was actually understating the case for saving. Actually, a penny saved can be many pennies earned.

Like most advice that lasts for generations, there is wisdom in the advice to be frugal and save. Saving a certain percentage of your income is an important part of taking control of your life, paying yourself first, and improving your psychological and financial well-being in the process. But frugality clearly requires some sacrifice. The money you save obviously cannot be currently spent on things you are tempted to buy.

Everything we do in life requires some kind of trade off, and saving is certainly no exception to this elementary fact. The key is to sacrifice those things of lower value and to do so in such a way as to acquire the most value. Most people can save more than they do, far more in many cases, by resisting temptations to buy things that add little satisfaction to their lives. And the payoff for resisting these temptations can be very large. The key to resisting temptation is in recognizing:

1. That there are plenty of things we can easily do without, or with less of.

2. That tremendous benefits can be achieved from being frugal.

Most people believe that they are just getting by on what they are now spending, when only a little thought would reveal that there is plenty they could eliminate and hardly miss. Do you really need that new CD, or the new cell phone just because it’s a little smaller than the one you have? And most people are unaware of just how much they could realize over the long haul by cutting back on things that are largely superfluous to their well-being.

Certainly we are in no position to determine what trade offs you should make. The costs and benefits of doing anything are, at their core, subjective, and so only you can really know the costs and benefits of saving. But we can recommend some temptations that most people can resist, and point out the impressive returns that can be realized as a reward for resisting them.

Resisting temptation also creates more than just financial gains. Resisting temptation establishes a sense of self-control that is an integral part of any satisfying life. It is summoning the strength to take control of your choices and choosing wisely and deliberately, rather than responding to things like a feather in the wind. It also helps to establish, in your own mind, a hierarchy of importance, enabling you to realize just what matters in your life.

Popularity: 11% [?]

How to make more money by concentrating on Solutions, not problems!

Ask yourself this question and be honest with yourself: “Do I think more about the problems in my life or do I fix my mind on solutions instead?” The answer to this question can explain great amounts of information as to whether you are getting what you want out of life or not.

An important element for attaining high performance and peak optimism is to be “solution oriented”. This means that you are thinking about the solutions to life’s obstacles most of the time instead of seeing only problems. In other words, you think about what can be done about a situation to make it better by solving it, instead of what has happened, and who is to blame.

Did you know that everyone who is unsuccessful in their life is constantly talking about their problems? They are constantly blaming other people for their shortcomings. Think about it, the more you talk about and think about your problems, the more angry and negative you get. It happens all the time and most people are clueless as to the self infliction they are causing themselves.

On the other hand, when you spend your time thinking and talking about the solutions, you tend to become more optimistic and positive about yourself and everyone around you. Life will always be flowing with a continuous succession of “problems” and unfortunately it never ends. But for those of you who develop the master mind to see these not as problems, but as tools given to you as gifts for a better life, you will be rewarded immensely.

This holds true especially if we are seeking more success at work and higher income levels. In fact, your ability to solve problems will greatly determine how much money you will make. Regardless of your job title or your business niche, your self-label should be called “problem solver”.

All day long, during both work and your personal life, you should always be viewing yourself as a problem solver, eagerly awaiting the next challenge in life to come your way so that you can make things better. Everything you see or experience is no longer a burden, but rather a challenge that you have been given to help better yourself or another person’s life. And if you continue to master this art of being a problem solver, ironically you will find that as time goes on, you will experience less and less problems in your life.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Letting Fear Get In The Way Of Success

There is nothing greater that comes in the way of success then fear does. It literally can paralyze people from making those decisions to live a greater existence. We all know what fear feels like. It is probably the most common limiting emotion and, for many people, the most common emotion, period. Not only do we fear new things, we also feel fear in addition to other negative emotions. We feel guilt, and we’re afraid to feel the guilt. We feel pain, and we’re afraid to feel the pain. Even when we feel fear, we’re often afraid to feel the fear. That’s known as “worrying about your worries,” “an anxiety attack.”

Because it’s so common, fear has many other names: apprehension, misgiving, trepidation, dread, horror, phobia, terror, alarm, consternation, foreboding, qualm, suspicion, trepidation, fret, alarm, uneasiness, distress, panic, etc. Physically, we feel fear in the area we generally call the stomach. In its more intense forms, the feeling of fear is accompanied by a quickening of the pulse, a widening of the eyes, and a sharpening of the senses.

Someone once described fear in an acronym: “False Expectations Appearing Real.” For the most part, what we fear is not real - it is merely our mind imagining something awful that has not yet happened. Seldom do we do the thing we fear, so we never discover if our projection of disaster was accurate. In fact, when we don’t do the thing we are afraid of, we breathe a sigh of relief as though it actually would have taken place. “That was a close one!” we say, even though we never actually got close to anything but a string of our own negative thoughts.

Fear breeds lack of experience, lack of experience breeds ignorance, ignorance breeds more fear. It is a vicious circle. As Lucretius described it more than two centuries ago, “For as children tremble and fear everything in the blind darkness, so we in the light sometimes fear what is no more to be feared than the things children in the dark hold in terror and imagine will come true.” Put another way, fear is interest paid on a debt you may not owe.

When we begin to feel fear, we look around for something to fear. Considering all there is to look at (the media, the environment, our body, our memory, our imagination), we have little trouble finding something. Thus the fear grows, our perception of the world darkens and it becomes an increasingly terrible place.

Eventually, we begin to avoid all things and thoughts that even might produce fear, or that might produce the fear of fear, or that might produce the fear of fear of fear. It becomes a many-layered fortress - fear defending fear defending fear defending fear - and inside: nothing.

Anytime we let unreal fears (and that includes untested fears) keep us from moving toward our dreams, it is a form of madness. Do not let this madness get in the way of your success, whatever that may be for you.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Low Blood Sugar Reduces Brain Power

Low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia, is an often overlooked but important metabolic culprit in poor brain function. It can cause a wide range of mental symptoms, including mental fogginess, lack of concentration, short-term memory loss, mental fatigue, depression, mood swings, physical and mental exhaustion, and the inability to learn or comprehend new information.

Hypoglycemia is epidemic because of the sugary diets we eat today. Your brain needs glucose to form the energy that fuels its processes. It gets glucose from the food you eat - mainly carbohydrates, which the digestion process breaks down into sugar. Researchers have found that too little sugar in the form of glucose hampers memory and learning. But before you reach for that candy bar, you should know that too much sugar does the same thing.

Hypoglycemia is one of the most undiagnosed conditions in America. Many people who suffer from it are totally unaware that they have this problem, and even their doctors confuse their symptoms with those of other conditions. Eating too much sugar and other simple carbohydrates is not a good idea for your overall health, but it is especially bad for memory. Sugar overload can cause hypoglycemia or “insulin resistance,” in which your cells do not recognize insulin and thus sugar cannot enter them. According to the Merck Manual of Medical Information, prolonged hypoglycemia can permanently damage your brain cells.

Because the brain runs on energy derived mostly from carbohydrates, it is important to have the right kind of fuel available to promote optimum brain functioning. A healthy program will help you replace simple carbohydrates with healthy complex carbohydrates, such as vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, which can bring about remarkable improvement in your thinking and overall health.

One of my friends, Mandy, was a patient that went to her doctor with a host of health problems, but what bothered her most was that she had been fainting frequently, and, although she had been mentally sharp all her life, was now “losing it.” She had been to many specialists and none of them could explain these symptoms. She found out she was addicted to sugar and often would have a piece of cake or a candy bar for breakfast. Her blood sugar would then roller coaster all day. When she switched her breakfast to oatmeal with a small amount of tofu or other protein food, not only did her cognition improve, but, much to the surprise of her physician, her fainting problem completely vanished.

Popularity: 10% [?]

How Can Couples Who Are So Well-Matched End Up Unhappy?

The answer is that there are lots of ways that people can be unhappy. Sometimes life throws the couple a huge challenge, and it can overwhelm their ability to cope. Sometimes one of the partners, or both, can have an individual problem that causes problems in the marriage, no matter how compatible they are. And every once in a while, a well-matched couple can find themselves totally hung up on just one or two narrowly focused conflicts, namely kids and work. Allow me to give you an example.

Jack and Jennifer got married together in their late thirties and were worried about having fertility problems, so they didn’t waste time trying to have kids. And to their great joy, they had no trouble conceiving their first child, which turned out to be a girl. A couple of years later they figured it was time for their daughter to have a little brother or sister, and to their delight they had no trouble conceiving a little sister for her. And then, within just a few months of her birth, they had another little sister for her on the way. Now this last time of having their third child, they were not exactly delighted, because they had planned on having only two children.

By the time Jack and Jennifer came to see their counselor, their children were ages one through four. It quickly became very clear that the problems they were having were due to the children having crowded out their own interpersonal relationship. It was not just that the kids required a lot of work; as a matter of fact, Jack and Jennifer handled their part quite well. The problem was that they had allowed the kids to intrude on their personal “couple” relationship in ways that could of been prevented. Bedtimes were often an issue, and all too often either Jack or Jennifer would fall asleep with the children. And as you can guess, their sex life suffered as a result. But that is not all; they had not cleared a space for their relationship in other ways. They hardly ever went out together at night, and they had never taken a weekend off for some time to be alone and have dates together, like they used to before the children.

Jack and Jennifer’s counselor also discovered that the kids were not the only thing that they had let in the way of staying close to one another, it was their jobs as well, especially since they were both high-powered jobs. Jack was in a fast-track corporate job, and Jennifer was working long ours at home pulling legal work. They both worked all of the time, while juggling the kids.

Sometimes people overwhelm themselves to an amazing degree. Once the situations are taken to marriage counselors the problems are often found out to be a direct result of not handling the situations correctly. You are always responsible for your actions. If the kids are eating into your “romantic time” then make time. If your job is too much for the relationship to handle, then get another job. I realize it may sound hard to do, but it is not, and you only have this one lifetime to love and cherish your spouse and children. Make time for whatever it takes to be happy together.

Popularity: 28% [?]

How Lack Of Forgiveness & Blame Wreaks Havoc On Your Nervous System

You may have considered that the ideas of seeking revenge or avoiding harm are carefully thought out responses. Not so. They are the product of a biologically designed system of protection. Your nervous system offers these responses when you perceive danger. What is unfortunate is that your nervous system cannot tell whether the danger you are seeing is occurring now or ten years ago.

Your nervous system does not know if your mother is yelling at you today or in 1981. Your nervous system does not know whether your husband had an affair today or in 1993. Your nervous system responds the only way it knows how whether you have thought about a problem once or twelve hundred times.

To make matters worse, the fight-or-flight response alters our ability to think. The stress chemicals do part of their work of protecting us from danger by limiting the amount of electrical activity available to the thinking part of the brain. The stress chemicals also play a part in diverting blood flow from the brain’s thinking center toward more primitive parts of the brain.

The body is so exquisitely designed to protect us from danger that it won’t allow us to waste our precious resources planning things out or thinking of new ideas. Our biology says survival is most important. Our body is willing to stand guard each of the 100 times we remember the horrible way our boss yelled at us or the 200 times we describe in bitter detail the day our mother walked out on the family.

Think About This…

How else could our bodies limit us to only two choices? Our bodies are trying to save our life by diverting some electrical energy from the thinking part of the brain to the more primitive and reactive parts. Your body will try to save your life when you face a saber-toothed tiger. Your body will try to save your life if the car in front of you swerves and you have to jam on your brakes. You will need every ounce of concentration on the task at hand to survive these challenges.

Your body has no need to save your life when you are remembering how unkind your mother was ten years ago. You do not need fight or flight when you tell your spouse that your best friend yelled at you. You do not need sympathetic nervous system arousal to explain for the thirty-fifth time how unfair it was that your father loved your sister more than you. You must learn to distinguish real from imagined danger to function effectively. You cannot learn this critical life lesson when you are busy blaming others for how bad you feel or how poorly your life has unfolded. Playing the blame game, you are trapped in a vicious cycle of hurt and physical discomfort.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Your 1st Step To Financial Freedom: Putting All Of Your Debts In Writing

Today you’re going to write down everything you owe your creditors. That’s right, everything— from your student loans, to mortgages, to credit card debt, medical bills, auto loans, etc. On a piece of paper, make a complete list of your obligations and here’s what you should write or type out on the sheet: Include the name and phone number of each creditor, your account number, the interest rate you pay, the total balance due, and the minimum monthly payment.

Why Torture Yourself Listing All Your Bills? You need this information in black and white to get a realistic picture of where you are. This info will also help you later when it’s time to negotiate with creditors or collection agencies. Again, write down everything that you owe, even including credit cards that might have only $100 on them. Don’t make the mistake of leaving those “small” bills out because “Oh, I’m going to pay that one off this month anyway.” Just write down everything you actually owe as of today.

Many people have a rough idea about how much they owe their creditors. But there’s no substitute for having true, accurate numbers - not guesstimates. To fill in the proper figures on your written sheet, or your computer spreadsheet, you’ll have to go find your most recent statements and invoices from your creditors. Take as much time as you need today to collect all this data. It’s a crucial step in you getting your finances together.

It’s also a good idea to call the companies you owe and ask for the latest information about your debt, especially if you’re looking at statements that are more than a month old. Even if the statements are current, you should call your creditors because some of the information on those statements may have changed. For instance, you may have charged additional items since the closing date on your credit card statement, so now your debt is actually greater than your current statement indicates. Also, you may have had a teaser rate or a lower interest rate in the past, and maybe that interest rate has now jumped. Whatever the case, you need to have the most accurate information that is currently available.

A Wake-Up Call: How Much Do You Owe? The next step is for you to add up all your debts. For some of you, seeing your total debt in black and white may be a scary thing: a wake up call to how deeply you are in financial bondage. For others, seeing your total debt may offer relief: perhaps you don’t owe as much as you feared. Whatever the situation, don’t panic. Remember, you’re on the path to financial freedom now and if your goal is to get to “Zero Debt” status, keep plugging along - it will happen, and sooner than you think!

Popularity: 10% [?]

Do You Have A Mindset Of Abundance?

A very important part of the whole creative process is developing a sense of prosperity. This means having the understanding, or consciously taking the point of view that the universe is abundant, that life is actually trying to bring us what our hearts and souls truly desire - spiritually, mentally, emotionally - as well as physically. Everything you truly need or want is here for the asking; you only need to believe that it is so, to truly desire it, and to be willing to accept it.

One of the most common causes of failure when seeking what you want is “scarcity programming.” This is an attitude or set of beliefs about life that goes something like this: “Life is suffering… It is immoral or selfish to have enough when others don’t… Life is hard, difficult, a vale of tears… You must work hard and sacrifice for everything you gain… It’s more noble and spiritual to be poor…”

These are all false beliefs. They are based on a lack of understanding of how the universe works, or a misunderstanding of some important spiritual principles. These beliefs are not of service to you or anyone else; they simply limit all of us horn realizing our natural state of prosperity and plenty on all levels.

At the present time there is a reality in this world of starvation and poverty for many people, but we do not need to keep creating and perpetuating that reality. The fact is that there is more than enough to go around for every being on earth, if we are willing to open our minds to that possibility, and change our ways of using and distributing the world’s resources. The universe is a place of great abundance and we are all meant to be naturally prosperous, both in material and spiritual wealth, in a way that is balanced and harmonious with one another and with the earth that nourishes us.

In modern times, humankind has lost touch with its natural state of prosperity. Together, we are creating a world vastly out of balance, in which a relative few have far more than they need and are using up our natural resources at an alarming rate, while the majority suffer from serious lack. We are all responsible for creating this reality, and we can change it by changing both our way of thinking and our way of living.

We need to reclaim our ability to appreciate and enjoy the simple pleasures in life. Many of us in the industrialized world need to cultivate a simpler, more natural lifestyle. We need to realize that after our basic needs are met, the experience of abundance has more to do with expressing our creative gifts in satisfying ways, and learning to give and receive in a balanced way, than it does with extravagant consumerism.

Popularity: 28% [?]

4 Tips to help you deal with an angry child

Are your kids always angry and easily disturbed? Parents all over the world are having the same experience that you are going through with trying to raise an angry adolescent. The most important thing for you to keep in mind here is that angry children need love, and lots of it.

However, I can tell you from experience that it is not easy to love an angry violent child who seems to enjoy giving his or her parents nothing but grief in return for the love that they are receiving. The older and angrier a child becomes, the harder they are to love like this.

Here are some free tips to help you if you have an angry child in your home, extended family, or even within your community:

1. Do everything that you can in order to get to know the child. Work to try to reach them on a level that is deeper than surface. Most, if not all of the time, an angry child or an angry teenager is just using a bad attitude to cover up being vulnerable.

In time, if you get them to trust you by becoming their friend, then it will be much easier to reach them and to help with whatever problems they may be facing in life.

2. Most angry children stay frustrated because everyone is always telling them what to do, how to act, or to stop being mad. Instead, take a different approach. Ask them questions about themselves. Ask them what they are interested in. Get them talking about things in life that they like.

Before you know it he or she will open up and start sharing this information. And that is a good sign that the child has the ability to be reached.

3. Become a steady presence in their lives, but only if you have dealt with and can manage not to choose anger in your own life. Yes, getting mad is a choice, not something that is forced upon us.

We choose to feel the way we do and if you are choosing anger in your life then what kind of example is that for the angry youngster whom you are trying to lead to happiness? Be sure that you are not having anger issues before trying to work out another person’s anger issues, especially youngsters.

4. Consult with other parents and adults who have dealt with the same kind of situations. Sometimes the best advice can come from another person who has experience in turning around the attitudes of angry children.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Discomfort Is Necessary Your For Success

Most people don’t know much about the process actually committing to their life dreams and goals, because most people don’t keep most of their agreements. Most people add a silent, unconscious modifying phrase to all their commitments: “…as long as it’s not uncomfortable.”

What they don’t realize is that discomfort is one of the values of commitments, one of the reasons for making a commitment in the first place. Within us is an automatic goal-fulfillment mechanism. When we commit to something, we are telling the goal-fulfillment mechanism, “I want this.” The goal-fulfillment mechanism says, “Fine, I’ll arrange for that.” And it does. Among the things it uses - individually or collectively are:

• It looks to see what the lessons are we must learn in order to have our goal then it arranges for those lessons. Sometimes, these lessons come in pleasant ways (we notice an article on what we need to know in a magazine; a conversation with a friend reveals something to us; a song on the radio has a line that tells us something important). At other times, the lessons are unpleasant (someone we must listen to - a boss, for example - tells us “in no uncertain terms” what we need to know; or we get sick, and the doctor tells us what we need to do “or else”).

• The goal-fulfillment mechanism sees what is in the way of us having what we want, and removes it. Again, sometimes this can be pleasant (if the goal is a new car, someone offers us a great price for our old car), or unpleasant (our car is stolen, totaled or breaks down altogether).

In order to have something new, our comfort zone must be expanded to include that new thing. The bigger the new thing, the greater the comfort zone must expand. And comfort zones are most often expanded through discomfort.

When people don’t understand that being uncomfortable is part of the process, they use the discomfort as a reason not to do. Then they don’t get what they want. We must learn to tolerate discomfort in order to grow.

This process of growth is known as “grist for the mill.” When making flour in an old stone mill, it is necessary to add gravel to the wheat before grinding it. This gravel is known as grist. The small stones that make up the grist rub against the grain as the mill wheel passes over them. The friction causes the wheat to be ground into a fine powder. If it wasn’t for the grist, the wheat would only be crushed. To grind wheat fine enough for flour requires grist. After the grinding, the grist is sifted out, and only the flour remains.

Popularity: 8% [?]

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