Life Could Be So Much Simpler!

Are you at a critical point in your life, where you are at a crossroad? Wondering which decision to make, because the next step you take could very well determine the next phase of your life?

If you’re on the path of personal growth and development, you’ll eventually reach a point where you need to make a choice. It’s easier to read about personal growth concepts than it is to apply them, isn’t it?

Small Decisions

While we make many decisions in our daily life, the majority of them aren’t very critical. For example, making a choice about where to eat, what clothes to wear, where to go next, and so on. The impact that these decisions have don’t show up immediately.

However, the cumulative effect of such decisions eventually show up weeks, months, and sometimes years down the road of your life. It’s easy to dismiss the impact of such decisions because the results don’t show up immediately.

For example, if you’ve started on a healthier diet because you want to lose weight, and you tell yourself it’s “okay” to have that chocolate bar when you’re not supposed to. After all, it’s only “one chocolate bar”… it can’t do that much harm, right?

But take that act, and multiply it over the years, combined with other less than desirable lifestyle choices, and the effect is exponential. The hard part of handling small decisions is exactly because they are small, and we don’t see their effects immediately.

So how do would one break these little bad habits, other than having iron will and unrelenting discipline?

Big Decisions

On the other hand, big decisions are those that can cause our hearts to pump, hands to sweat, and our lips to dry. We know for sure they will affect our life path. Decisions like marriage, changing jobs, putting aside what we assume to be the safe path to follow our “life purpose”, which could run contrary to what our social circle believes to be the norm.

Which decision should we make? The one that allows us to continue puttering along in our safe lives, never venturing outside of what we’ve been told to be true and the norm? Or the one that causes our knees to shake, our voice to quaver, and fear that makes us paralyzed?

How do we know “for sure” that the choice we make will be the right one? We will never truly know, until one day we look back to see the path that we have walked. And with the right perspective, we will see that every choice that we have made has always prepared us for better things in life to come… only if we choose to see it.

But what does this have to do with “Taking the Upward Path”?

Eventually, every choice we make will take us either higher, or lower. There isn’t truly any “sideways” decision. The fact is, that any “no decision” choice will eventually lead to stagnation, and from stagnation, decay. You really only have two choices…

1. Take the Upward Path, or
2. Take the Downward Spiral

Either you choose to develop into a better person, fulfill your potential and destiny, or you will eventually fall back into the mire that seems to hold people in fear, doubt and uncertainty.

There is an inner guidance within all of us, only if we seek to acknowledge that it is possible for us to have it. We all want more love, more light, more laughter and joy in our lives. We all tend to lean towards that which is bright, alive, and makes our lives better.

It takes a while to learn how to listen to that guidance, that inner nudging. But by learning to trust that inner intuition, and always keeping the higher good in mind, the Higher Path becomes clearer. It doesn’t necessarily become easier, but it becomes clearer.

In making these choices, we may have to leave the things that we cherish behind us to make space for the new and better things to come. By leaving behind that which binds us, and holds us down, we are lightened of our burdens that we have become comfortable clinging on to.

With the Higher Path in mind, all we can really do is to take one step at a time.

Because our life is lived one breath at a time.

I’ve recently completed a series of articles that are related to creating a plan for your life.

What exactly is a life plan?

It’s something like a road map, where you look ahead, find the steps and set your goals that will allow you to create the life that you desire.

What Are The Benefits of Having A Road Map For Your Life?

Having a life plan helps you to know what to expect further down your life’s journey. It creates a focus for your time, energy and personal development actions because your actions either take you closer towards the fulfillment of your desired life, or they are taking you further away.

With each action that brings you closer to the fulfillment of your life plan, the likelihood of realizing your dream life becomes more of a reality.

With each action that takes you away from the fulfillment of your life plan, the likelihood of you having what you really want decreases in probability. It’s still possible, but you’re getting “colder“, not “warmer“.
I’ve gone through the details, thinking and some of the principles related to creating a life plan of your own through previous articles, so I won’t be repeating them here in this post. What I will do instead is to give you the links to the posts, in the order in which to read them, plus whatever additional resources that can add value to the creation of your life plan.

Why Am I Creating This Summary of Articles?

Over the course of time, you might come across another post that is one in the series of many. By creating this, it’ll be easier for you to find the related articles, and have them organized in a manner that makes the most sense when you read them.

I’ll be adding other resources and links that are valuable in creating clarity as I come across them. The reason is the manner in which I share ideas and concepts may resonate with some but not with others. Some people also find it easier to grasp what I share, while others want to study further into creating their own life plan in ways that I’ve not shared through my posts.

Besides,there are only so many blog posts that I can write about life plans before I want to move on to other topics and subjects.

Creating Focus and Direction For Your Life Through A Life Plan

The articles are arranged according to the best way of reading them. They are:

1. Create A Powerful Life Plan
2. Defining Your Vision
3. How To Start Setting Your Goals
4. Your Road Map for Life: Planning Your Goals

Over time, as and when I do come across valuable resources that can help you in understanding, planning and executing your life plan, I’ll update this post as necessary.

If there’s anything that has been the source of success for people past and present, it’s the ability to see in their mind’s eye what they want in life. This is a reason why it’s such an important, foundational piece in your life to create focus and direction for yourself.

Clarity Leads To Power.

If you create fuzziness in your mind, you create fuzziness in your life. When you create Clarity, Strength and Purpose in your mind, you create Clarity, Strength and Purpose in your life.

And Clarity Leads to Power. The power for you to create your own life, take control of your potential, and live the life that you were always meant to live.

What does success have to do with my burnt finger?

I was toasting bread the other day, and my mind started wandering off thinking about Singapore, life and other unrelated thoughts. You know, basically day-dreaming.

Before the timer on the toaster went off, the smell of freshly toasted bread was already floating in the air, and I was already anticipating the crisp crunch and the slightly burnt flavor of freshly toasted bread in my mouth.

The toaster I’m using is the kind where you can toast anything, from slices of bread to pizza, and it opens from the front like a small oven. It’s nothing fancy, just a simple toaster that can be used to toast almost anything.

When the timer went off, I opened the toaster to take out the bread. It’s not the first time I’ve toasted bread. In fact, I’ve toasted bread on numerous occasions! But this time as I reached in, my finger touched the hot metal grill.

Yup, you know it. “Ouch!” is the word.

I spent the next minute or two with my burnt finger under running water.

So what does my burnt finger have anything to do with success?

You see, at the time, I was distracted and thinking about something else when I should have been focusing on taking the toasted bread out safely. We can’t concentrate and focus all the time. That’s crazy, of course. But at the crucial moments, we need to be able to focus.

The same thing goes for our work. It’s really tough to continually be mentally focused and on the edge all the time, so that’s why we need to have down-time away from work. But during work, at the crucial moments, like taking toasted bread out of a hot metal oven, we have to be mentally present and focused.

Little mistakes in our work can affect the quality, and that’s not something that you’d want. It’s like me spelling toasted bread as taosted bread.

When it’s time to work, the ability to focus on the task at hand is important. Otherwise, it might mean more than just a burnt finger when you’re “taosting” bread.

One of the most important things that anyone could do would be to create a road map for their life. Why?

In many cases, people tend to be pushed and pulled around by external forces of today’s modern society. Very few have a clear idea of what they want for their lives. Without a set course and map, a ship at sea could easily run aground, or end up being lost.

A road map for your life, based on what’s important to you, helps you to navigate the cross-currents of life and move steadily towards your desired outcome. While you may be pulled off-course during times in your life, having a clear and purposeful image of what you want will act as a magnet to pull you back on course.

Setting The Foundation For Building Your Road Map

The simplest way I’ve found to create a solid, balanced and robust Road Map for Life is to base it on fundamental principles and Truths that stand the test of time and experience.

In order to set your goals in the Road Map for Your Life, you’ll need to understand a couple of basic principles.

1. There is a Law of Cause and Effect
2. The Be (Know) - Do - Have Paradigm

The Law of Cause and Effect

What is this Law of Cause and Effect?

The Law of Cause and Effect is a timeless principle that simply states that for every thing (effect) that happens, there is something that causes it to happen. If you want the effect of boiling water, the cause is applying heat to the water. If the pen falls from your table to the floor instead of floating up to the ceiling, the cause of the pen falling to the floor is gravity.

“For Every Effect, There is a Cause.
For Every Cause, There is an Effect.”

The same applies to your life. For every effect in your life, there is a cause. Sometimes, you are the creator of the cause, and sometimes, you are just an unknowing participant in the chain of reaction (cause and effect) started by someone else.

Even then, you have the ability to move out of that chain of action and reaction, or cause something to change. In order to do so, you first have to be “aware” that something is happening. And to be aware that something is happening requires you to be Consciously Aware.

“For Every Action,
There Is A Reaction.”

When you understand the Law of Cause and Effect, you have understood probably the most powerful of all the Natural Laws of the Universe. When you understand the Law of Cause and Effect, you will start to see life in a different perspective, and you will realize you are truly the creator of your life.

The “Be (Know) - Do - Have” Paradigm

In setting your goals, how do you know what to put in front of the other? Which goal should come first, and out of the so many that you have, how do you prioritize them?

This is where the Be (Know) - Do - Have paradigm comes in handy.

Being (Knowing) is about what kind of person you are “being”. And the kind of person you are being is usually the result of what you know, or “believe” about life.

Doing refers to the actions that result from acting on what you know.

Having is the end result of this chain of events. Having refers to the creation or manifestation of the end result that you want, which in this case is the Vision you have created.

In short, to Have your end result, you must always Do something, either mental, emotional or physical. In order to deliberately DO something, you must always KNOW something at some level of consciousness.

The Example of Health and Fitness

Let’s take being Fit and Healthy as the desired end result.

Using the “Be - Do - Have” paradigm, you get the following:

• The Having: Fitness and Health
• The Doing: Exercise, Diet, Lifestyle, etc
• The Knowing: What kind of exercise, How to exercise, what to eat, when to eat, what sort of lifestyle, etc

In order to HAVE Fitness and Health, what you would DO is exercise on a regular basis, eat good food, and live a healthy lifestyle.

In order to exercise, eat and live in the appropriate way for you, you have to KNOW what is suitable for you.

The interesting thing is that in order to know what exercises are suitable for you, you will have to take the first step of action to finding out more about what you want.

Three Types of Goals

From the example illustrated, you can see that there are three types of goals:

1. Learning Goals
2. Doing Goals
3. Having Goals

When you have learnt what you need to do, your goal is to start doing what you have learnt. When you start doing what you have learnt, you’ll start HAVING your end result of Health and Fitness.

So if you’re not getting the results you want, then somewhere along this line of Cause and Effect, something is off. And if you’re not getting your desired end result, then find out the Truth!

How To Apply This To Your Goal-Setting

Take the Vision that you’ve created, and break it down into the various things that you have to KNOW and DO in order to HAVE. These form your Learning and Doing goals.

Once you’ve done this, obviously the learning comes before the doing. Unless, of course, you already know how to do it. The idea is to take action on what you know, so that you can create the end result that you want.

From the learning and doing goals, you have your timeline on which comes first, and which comes after. Arrange them in sequence, and then give yourself an appropriate deadline (depending on your situation) to accomplish what you set out to do.

Drawing your Road Map Timeline

1. Take a piece of paper, turn it on the side (landscape style) so you have more space, and draw a line from the left to right.
2. The starting point is the left, which is where you are now.
3. The ending point is the right, which is the complete realization of your Vision.
4. Take the steps and goals you have come up with, and place them in chronological sequence from the left to right.
5. Once you have the steps on paper, you write the date when you expect to complete them under the horizontal line.
6. You now have your short, medium and long term goals on the Road Map for Your Life.

Of course, a picture says a thousand words. So I did up a draft of what I’m referring to. It’s not as “knock-your-socks-off wow!” as I would like it to be, but you should be able to get the idea. Click on the thumbnail below, and the picture should float up on your screen:

If your goal is a little more complex, then instead of being able to accomplish it at one go, you may have to break it down into stages:

• Daily
• Weekly
• Monthly
• Quarterly
• Annual
• 3 - 5 year goals
• Or Longer

Your Life Vision will always be the final result that you want, and all the short, medium and long term goals are to support the creation of your Vision into reality.

Tip:
From your vision, you will be able to identify which are the goals that can be accomplished almost immediately. These, of course, can be placed in the short term category and be worked on immediately to get the whole thing moving.

Using the Be - Do - Have paradigm:

The Be - Do - Have paradigm can be used in two ways. You can work backwards from your End In Mind, or you can work forward from where you are right now.

Working Backwards from your Vision:

• If you want to have (…what you want…), what can you do?
• In order to do what needs to be done, what should you know?
• In order for you to know, what should you learn?
• In order for you to learn, what should you do now?

Working Forward from where you are Now:

• With what you already know, what can you do?
• With what you do, what can you have?
• If what you end up with isn’t what you want, can you tweak or do something different with what you know to come out with the result that you want?
• If not, then what can you do/learn differently to create your end result?

In Summary…

Once you understand the Law of Cause and Effect you can start breaking down your Life Vision into smaller steps using the Be (Know) - Do - Have paradigm. With the Be - Do - Have paradigm, you then create your Road Map working backwards from your Vision to where you are.

All you have to do next is just follow the map you have created, by taking the next step in front of you right now.

“Take Care of Today, and
Let Tomorrow Take Care of Itself.”

And if there are knowledge holes that have to be filled now, then take the action of finding out what needs to be learnt. If there are knowledge holes to be filled later, leave them until you reach them. When you approach that gap, you will learn what you need to know. And sometimes, before you even reach there, you may have already learnt what you need to know.

Does it work?

Well, this whole website is a testament to this Truth. When I first started building Darbright.com, I knew next to nothing about WordPress and blogging. Even then, my Vision for this site was more vague than clear. If I had to say one thing I had going for me, it would be:

• I started with a few very specific end results in my mind
• I wrote them down, and
• I continually developed Clarity in my Vision.

And as I continue developing articles to publish, I continue to gain more knowledge and skill in the development of this site. I learnt things about blogging, writing and communicating via the World Wide Web that I didn’t know 6 months ago.

“A Body In Motion Tends To Stay In Motion,
A Body At Rest Tends To Stay At Rest.”

The first step is always the hardest, because you’re beginning from the point of inertia. As you start moving, momentum will start building up and eventually it will be harder to stop your forward movement than it is to accelerate it.

What I realized is, “The more you do, the more you learn. The more you learn, the more you are able to do. The more you are able to do, the greater your ability and the faster you create your vision into reality.”

And naturally, everything begins with knowing what you want.

My Experiences

When I first started employing the idea of creating a road map for my life, the hardest thing that I had to do was find out what I wanted. At the same time, I was beset by thoughts of doubt, fear and uncertainty. I faced issues that you might be facing if you’re just beginning to create your own direction in life.

Doubts like:

• Do I really want this?
• Who am I to share what I know and learnt?
• What if people I don’t know, and who don’t know me, start making critical comments and judgements about what I write, and about me?
• How would I react? What values and basis would I respond from?
• I don’t know how to do all this, and it’s so technically demanding and overwhelming to learn blogging, RSS, writing good articles, marketing Darbright.com, finding my passion, purpose, etc. It’s so damn frustrating and challenging just trying to understand how to use WordPress as the Content Management Platform… what about learning the rest of the stuff that are even more complicated later on..??
• Can I really succeed? Am I just kidding myself in a world where there are so many people who probably are better than I at all this technology stuff??

While the fact is starting a new direction in life isn’t easy, the concepts and principles remain the same. They are simple, sound and timeless, and will continue to work regardless of whether you or I believe them to work.

“And This Too Shall Pass…”

When a life is built on the eternal, the temporary becomes fluff, and will pass away over the course of time.

The hardest part of personal growth will be clearing yourself of false beliefs and ideas about yourself, your life and the people around you. Alignment with timeless, eternal principles of life will give you an unshakeable foundation on which to build your life, because while you or I may make “mistakes” every so often, there are none with Universal Truths and Consciousness.

Personal Development and Growth is only the beginning of the journey. The destination of personal growth will ultimately be spiritual and inner fulfillment, clarity of thought, and enlightenment from falsehoods about yourself, your life, and moving into the Truth of Living.

Having your Life Plan, based on the Vision of what you want, will be the template on which you can deliberately exercise your inherent power and ability, through deliberate practice, to create a life that is worth living.

Do you find difficulty in planning and setting your goals? Ever wondered how, or where to start? Do the various categories and planning styles confuse you?

I can understand your pain, because I’ve been there. So if you do want to know a way of planning and goal-setting, continue reading the rest of this article.

Two Ways To Reach Your Goals

Once you’ve created your Life Plan, Defined your Vision, it’s time to start drawing up the “How” you’re going to get there.

There are a few ways in which this could happen:

1. Just do it, and hope for the best that somehow you’ll stumble, fumble and crawl your way to the realization of your vision. When your Vision is strong and clear, you will reach there sooner or later. Or…
2. Do a little planning ahead, and create a road map so you at least have some idea of what to expect, and what you have to accomplish in order to realize your dream. It’s like creating smaller mental images that support the creation of your bigger Vision.

While I’m quite sure that if you have a strong enough desire and clear enough vision, you’ll eventually manifest what you want into reality, I prefer to at least have a handle on what to expect and knowing what has to be done.

The Planning Trap

In the planning and goal-setting process, there’s one thing that I’ve learnt about plans. No matter how much you plan, or how detailed you get, there always has to be room to account for changes both in yourself and in your environment. Businesses which have succeeded rarely have reality turn out the way they planned. They had to adapt in order to succeed as new information about changes came to them.

And in the process of planning, remember, eventually you will have to take action. Otherwise, you’ll be caught in the “planning trap” and never get out of the starting blocks! So while you plan, keep your eye on your Vision so that when the way forward becomes clear to you, you can take action as necessary.

Why It Makes Sense To Stay Nimble and Flexible

We all start with imperfect knowledge because our understanding of ourselves and the environment usually has gaps in it. Sometimes the gaps in knowledge can be huge, sometimes it can be small. But no one begins knowing everything, and it’s highly unlikely that anyone will ever know everything.

• Having Loads of Experience

The advantage of having experience and exposure in a certain industry or area helps you in having smaller knowledge gaps, but the disadvantage is that when one has too much experience, the “I know it all” attitude can set in and create a rigid, closed mind that can’t see changes that are happening.

• Not Having Any

On the other hand, the advantage of not having loads of experience and exposure is that you get to learn everything without a biased perspective of “It’s always been done this way!” attitude. Of course, the disadvantage is that you have a lot more ground to cover in terms of knowledge acquisition and gaining the right experience.

“The One Constant In Life Is Change.”

People who have accomplished their goals know what worked for them, and can share their experience. While there can be and usually are similarities, no two people’s journey through life will be exactly the same. So while you read and learn from others, remember that you are unique and special.

“Timeless Principles and Truths Provide You A Rock-Solid Foundation for Success.”

What you do have to know are the timeless principles and truths on which all success, accomplishment and abundant life are based on. These will form your foundation and guide for navigating your journey, and lead you to where you want to be.

Naturally, the best position to be in is to have sufficient knowledge (which can be gained), and maintain an open, flexible and creative mind. But no matter where or who you are, success is possible when you are fully committed towards the realization of your vision.

The Importance of Having Your Vision

Having your Vision is crucial for your success, because not only is it the template on which all your goals and activities are based, it also helps when …

• You are “lost”: Reviewing and Developing Clarity in your Vision will bring you back on track.
• You are low on energy and in need of self-motivation: Reviewing your Vision renews your vigor and refreshes the reasons why you started in the first place.
• You don’t know how to do something: Reviewing your Vision allows you to create and come up with different solutions to creating the same end result that you want.

When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, he had to go through a thousand ways or more before finding the final solution. The key thing is that he had the idea of what he wanted in his mind, and he stuck to it until he finally got it.

How To Start The Goal Setting Process

My experience of the goal-setting process is that it starts off being disorganized and messy. The setting of Long, Medium and Short Term goals don’t flow out nicely and ordered in the way I would want them to, which means that I have to organize them into something that makes sense.

Have You Ever Wished For A Simple Perspective To Understand Planning and Goal-Setting?

I know that I did. I couldn’t find a holistic and robust paradigm to approach planning that was simple yet clear in helping me plan intelligently.

But as I’ve said before, relax.

“Simplicity is The Maturity of Complexity.”

I’ll provide you a way of viewing and understanding the goal-setting process that can help make things as simple as possible, while helping you understand the main concepts and principles.

But first, you can start the goal planning process by:

1. Take out blank pieces of paper.
   (preferably recycled or scrap paper, since you’re using it for rough work)
2. Write down your life vision in terms of the end result of what you want.
3. Select a category from the six in “Create A Powerful Life Plan” that you want to work on.
4. Write down the details related to that category that you’ve selected.
• The clearer and more specific the end result you want, the easier it will be to create your road map for success.
• If it’s not as clear as you want it to be yet, use the Defining and Feeling Questions in “Defining Your Vision”.

In the next article, I’ll share how I approach the goal-setting and planning process that makes it simpler and easier. You might want to start on setting the groundwork for your planning and goal-setting before I publish the next article.

The details mentioned in this article can be found in:

• Create A Powerful Life Plan
• Defining Your Vision

What? You’re still here?

This post is more about my experience when you’re faced with “one of those days” where you just don’t feel like doing what you’re supposed to be doing.

A Current Challenge

One of the hardest things for me to do in maintaining this Personal Development blog isn’t in coming up with ideas for articles.

It’s motivating myself to sit down, take the huge mass of ideas, facts, understanding and experiences and simplifying it into something that is easy to read, and practical to apply.

Developing My Vision

At this point, I’m investing huge amounts of energy and time to create details in my vision, what I want to accomplish, and getting in touch with the emotions that the vision generates. Each time I craft more detail into my vision, the end result gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Each even more audacious than the previous version (This is something interesting that I’m experiencing).

Setting Big Hairy Audacious Goals!

It’s getting to a point where I’m beginning to imagine what is going to happen after I establish Darbright.com as one of the top Personal Growth and Development sites in the world based on Timeless Truths while keeping things as simple and practical as possible.

But while I’m contemplating and creating the details into my Vision, it’s still all up there in thought. It’s not yet made real into physical, tangible reality. Only taking action in the certain way will manifest it around me.

The Challenge of Self-Motivation

I’ve done everything that I have learnt, thought of, and been proven effective. Yet, there are days when I get up, I don’t feel like organizing the ideas and principles into simple, easy to understand articles. It takes energy to get the juices going, and some days I just feel like not doing anything at all!

I’ve done the work in setting up the vision, the interim goals along the way, aligned that with my self-chosen purpose, and yet I still have these “down” days.

I’ve understood the motivation behind my vision, the benefits I will receive when I finally create my vision into reality, the “penalties” or what will happen if I don’t accomplish my goals, I’ve done everything that I could have thought of to motivate myself.

Yet, I still don’t feel motivated!

Have you ever had days like these? When you just go, “Arghhh….!”?

What’s The Solution?

On days like these, the only solution that I’ve come up with is simply DO IT whether I “feel” like it or not. At the onset of forcing myself to do what I’m supposed to do, I feel sluggish, lethargic, and generally quite upset with myself for forcing myself to do something that I don’t “feel” like doing.

Yet, the longer I sit down and force myself to work at what I’m supposed to do, I get “warmed up” after awhile. The momentum starts to build, and it’s up to me to sustain that momentum until I’ve finished what I’ve set out to do.

“Knowing The Truth Will Set You Free.”

So while this isn’t a very intelligently and elegantly crafted article, simplifying steps and concepts into easy to understand points, it’s a very real thing to know.

It’s crucial to know the reality of the creation process, especially when you’re just starting out and building your vision. Knowing the truth sets you free from having the illusion that you’re doing something “wrong” when you experience days like these.

“You’ve Got To Do
What You’ve Got To Do.”

It’s about just getting down to doing what needs to be done, regardless of whether you “feel” like doing it or not. When you’ve set up your life vision and the goals that are to be accomplished along the way, you know these are the times when you’re building the Habit of Consistency and the Character of Perseverance.

What’s The Point of This Article?

The reality is, we all face these type of days. Of course, the fewer the better, but ups and downs are a part of life. On days when you don’t “feel” like doing what you know you’re supposed to be doing, do it anyway.

When you’ve done what you’re supposed to have done, you’ll feel much better and be one step closer to your goal.

I didn’t really elaborate how to define your Life Vision in the earlier post on Creating A Powerful Life Plan. It was already such a long post with so many different concepts that I felt it was better to break it down into smaller, more digestible sections.

If you’re having trouble making your Life Vision as clear as you want it to be, cheer up. I’m going to share how to do it in a systematic, step-by-step manner in this post.

What Is A Life Vision?

A Life Vision is the mental creation of your life in your mind where you engage all your senses even before it becomes a physical, tangible reality around you. The mental creation is similar to a 3 dimensional movie that is filled with:

• Movement
• Emotions
• People
• Places and
• Color

where it involves your senses of Sight, Sound, Taste, Touch and Smell.

A vision is something that you have every intention, purpose and desire to make real in your life. If you don’t, then it’s not a vision. It’s a day dream.

So how clear should your Vision be?

It has to be clear enough that if I plucked your vision out of your head right now and manifested it into reality, all that is needed to make the picture complete is for you to step into it.

However, such clarity of your vision doesn’t usually come immediately. It’s better to think of it as a continual process where you are steadily refining and recreating it as you move along in your life.

The clearer and more engaged you are in your Life Vision, the simpler and faster it is to take the necessary action to create it into reality around you.

How To Define Your Vision

Just imagine this, a raw diamond that comes out of the mines isn’t yet that beautiful piece of refractive stone that glitters under the light. It’s rough, uncut, and looks like some raw chunk of broken glass. It has to be measured, cut and polished until it catches the light just right so that it sparkles with brilliance.

It’s the same with your Vision. The first time you come up with a Vision, it’s going to be rough, uncut and raw. You need to cut it down to a certain size, whittle away the parts you don’t want, keep the parts that you do want and polish it till it shines.

The tools that you can use to further define your vision are questions using the following six words. They are just a guide to help clarify your mental picture. The six words are:

1. Who
2. What
3. When
4. Where
5. Why
6. How

The way to define your vision is through the process of asking questions in the RIGHT way. The answers to your questions have to be in the positive, not the negative. What do I mean?

Positive: I want to be financially free.
Negative: I don’t want to be poor.

Let’s use an example, and I’ll bring you through it step-by-step so you have a better understanding.

Example of a Raw Vision: I Want A Life of Financial Freedom

Now that’s a goal that I think almost everyone can resonate with. But remember, what I’m sharing is the process which you can then apply to your own vision to make it clearer.

There are two categories of questions, each with a specific purpose. They are:

1. Defining Questions ~ To Create Specifics and Details
2. Feeling Questions ~ To Check if You Really Want It

Using Defining Questions

Defining questions are questions that you use to clarify your mental picture. You use the six tools to create specific details in your mental picture. Questions like:

• If I were financially free, what would my life be like?
• What does being financially free mean to me?
• If I were already financially free, what would I be doing now?
• What clothes would I be wearing?
• What house would I be staying in?
• What car would I be driving?
• What would I be doing in my life of financial freedom?
• How would I spend my free time?
• Would I be working?
  (OK, so technically it’s not one of the six. But it does help clarify your life vision.)
• If yes, what would I be working as? If not, what would I be doing?
• Where do I go for my vacations?
• Who would I be socializing with?
• What time (when) do I wake up in the morning?
• What time (when) do I sleep at night?
• And other similar type questions

The use of such questions is to create detail and cut away the fluff in your mind, until you are left with a clear, definite picture of what you want for your life.

Using Feeling Questions

As you sharpen your vision and focus in on your mental picture, check your feelings. Your feelings will help guide you to check if the picture is really what you want. If it isn’t, then continue tweaking and refining your picture until you feel that it’s just right for you.

• How do you feel in the picture that you created?
• Do you like it?
• If it’s not exactly right, what would you change in order for it to feel right?

It’s a simple, two-step process of:

1. Creating what you want through defining questions, and then
2. Checking your feelings to see if that’s what you really want.

All of us will come up with something different, even if it’s only slightly. That’s because all of us have a different definition of the same basic idea, and all of us like different material things. Some want a Ferarri, others want a BMW, and others still want to drive a Mercedes Sports. No one wants exactly the same thing, so if your life of financial freedom is different from someone else, it’s normal and to be expected.

What Your Mind Can Conceive, You Can Achieve.

As you refine your Life Vision, you might want to test out multiple scenarios in your mind and imagine as if you were already living them. You have the power of imagination, so use it. The more you practice your ability to create mental pictures, the more you practice your ability to create out of thoughts.

If you’re having difficulty, and don’t really have a mental scenario that you really, really like yet, relax. It just means that your exposure isn’t wide enough to find what resonates with you.

The simple solution would be to go to the nearest bookstore, and check out vacation magazines, car magazines, houses, etc. Find pictures of a possible house, or location that you might want to enjoy.

If you want to be doing specific work, go find out how people who are already doing your type of work live. You’re basically looking for existing materials to help you in defining your vision.

You can just take what you find wholesale, or tweak them until you feel a certain resonance with it. You should start to feel good as you imagine yourself living it, almost as if you’ve finally reached your real home.

Tools You Can Use To Remind Yourself

Once you have created that picture, you can use certain tools to help you remember it. These are just tools, and if you feel good about using them, then use them. If you don’t, you don’t have to. There is no hard and fast rule here.

1. Vision Statement

A vision statement is a short paragraph that describes your mental picture. When you read it, it triggers off the picture in your head and its associated feelings. You can write it on a card, in your diary, planner, PDA or whatever it is that you use. You then carry this around with you during the day, and continue working on refining it during your spare time.

2. Vision Board

A Vision Board is a notice board where you pin up pictures of the things that you want in your life. They serve as visual reminders in pictorial form to further reinforce that picture in your mind.

It just has to be somewhere in your working area, or somewhere in your house where you’ll at least see it once a day. Over time, your conscious awareness of it will diminish, but your sub-conscious will be aware of it each time you are near it, triggering off that mental picture and associated feelings below the surface of your consciousness.

What to Expect

You’ll find that over time, you will start tweaking that mental picture as you have new experiences. The core theme and vision will remain the same, but some of the details will change as you move along your journey in life. Your vision is something that helps give your life direction, so just as life changes, your vision will change along with you.

During your spare time, continue to contemplate and develop your mental picture of your life as you want it to be. As your life vision starts to become clearer, you’ll find that you can do certain things that make part of your vision real. Once you know what actions you can take, take them if they bring you closer to the realization of your vision.

The closer you move towards your vision, the clearer it becomes. The clearer it becomes, the simpler it is to take congruent action to make your vision real. As you focus on your vision, you’ll start to notice opportunity, people and events around you almost conspiring to help you create your vision into reality.

They may have always been there, or they may just entered into your field of awareness as if attracted to you. Whatever it is you choose to believe, when you see the opportunity and you feel that it’s the right thing to do, take action.

Remember, your life vision is the end result of what you want your life to be. Don’t concern yourself with the “How”. Not yet. When you know what you want, then it makes sense to find out the how.

But if you don’t know what you want, knowing all the different “How’s” in the world won’t make a darn difference to your life. You’ll have no idea of what to use them for. So concentrate of clarifying what it is that you want first, create that mental picture in your mind, and then once you know what you want, start looking around for the “How“.

Being grateful in your life doesn’t mean you are to be grateful for the bad things that happen.

How can anyone be grateful that something bad happened and their life has become worse?

The right understanding of being grateful is required to activate that power for creating possibility and abundance in your life.

There is a Living Consciousness and Power that is IN all things and that IS all things.

When you know how to be grateful, you are drawn nearer to the Creative Power and the Creative Power draws nearer to you. And as you move closer to the Universal Source, you are bathed in the power of Creation and Abundance that is Life. And the more you are immersed in this creative energy, the more you begin to attract the good things that you desire into your life.

How Does Being Grateful Bring You Closer To Creative Living Power?

When you give a precious gift to someone you care about and they accept it with true gratitude and joy, how do you feel? Do you want to take it back and give them something bad? Or instead, you feel a sense of joy which makes you want to give even more and better gifts?

The joy and gratitude in their eyes makes you feel good and lights that inner spark within you with a corresponding joy and happiness that they appreciate your gift. And the more they are appreciative of what you have given, the more you want to give to them even better things.

Gratitude connects you to the Living Divine Power that is the Source of Everything.

But when you give a gift and the person responds by looking down on it, chucking it carelessly away into a corner and even curses you for it, what do you feel? Would you want to joyfully give another gift to that person?

That emotion of disdain, disrespect and anger stops you from wanting to give them even better things.

In the same way, when an experience or lesson of life is sent your way to prepare you for the next step, and you disdain it, spit on it in anger, or complain about it, you have missed the pearl inside the oyster. You have thrown away the gift of life and the treasure within that will develop you and help you grow.

You would have stopped the flow of even better things into your life.

When the Student is Ready, the Teacher will Appear.

Nothing in life happens by chance. There is a gift in every moment, every experience and every person. When we are ready, we see the lesson. When we aren’t, we miss it. The lessons and gifts are always there. It is us who are not ready, or willing, to see them.

When you are grateful to Life for everything that you have, it draws Creative Consciousness nearer to you and opens the channel for increasing abundance and blessings into your life.

Being Grateful For Something Bad

The question is, how do you be grateful for something bad happening in your life?

You don’t.

You’re not grateful that something bad happened in your life. You are grateful for the good that comes out of the bad.

• You can be grateful for something that has made you stronger.
• You can be grateful for something that you have learnt about yourself that you didn’t know before, that puts you in a better position to create something good in your life.
• You can be grateful how whatever “bad” that happened opened your eyes to see your current situation isn’t what you want. It has awakened you to realize what you really do want.
• You can be grateful for being “awakened” and born into the realization that you have always had everything you needed to create a better life for yourself.

How Does Gratitude Create Possibility and Happiness?

When you are grateful, you are focused on the good things in your life. You see the good things in your life that have always been there.

As you focus on the good things in your life, your mind is infused with good pictures and your soul is bathed in good feelings. And as within, so it is on the outside. You will begin to create better things in your life, and you will begin to attract better experiences into your life because you have created those very ideas in your mind.

When you are grateful:

• You focus on the positive and good things, which create mental images of good things, which create the energy and attraction for good things into your life.
• You feel good, and vibrate with positive energy.
• Your mind is cleared of doubt, confusion, worry, anger and all the negative emotions that cloud your thinking and your judgment. You clear up your mind, and in turn, clear up your inner being.

As you become grateful for the people, abilities and things that you already have, you start to realize the possibilities available to you if you tap into these existing resources. And you always have the resources you need at this point in time.

You have the resources to move forward to the next step, and when you reach the next step, you will have the resources to take the next step, and the next and so on. In fact most of the time, the greatest resources that you have are within you.

They can be your talents, your courage to break out into a new direction, or your ability to pick yourself up when you are down. It can also be your simple ability to recognize what you already have around you that can help you achieve what it is that you want.

When you are grateful, you focus on the good things in your life, which starts the cycle and creation of better things. It only requires you to make that choice to see the other side of the coin to begin the flow of abundance and joy.

When you are Grateful, Who are you grateful to?

When you are grateful, you are grateful to Life that it has brought you lessons and gifts for your growth. And because Life brings you gifts through people and experiences, you become grateful for the flow of people and experiences in your life.

And as you grow in your awareness of the flow of life around you, you start being grateful that you have the inner resources to work with what you have to create what you want. And as you become kinder to yourself, and aligned with your true nature of creative power, you become more grateful that Life has given you everything you’ll ever need to grow to the next stage.

And when you realize this, you begin to realize that truly all things work for your growth, and you start to see how everything in your life is brought to you so that you can move into the abundance that is your natural birthright.

What Are You Grateful For?

You are grateful for two things:

1. The gifts and experiences that you already have in your life. (Your Present Life)
2. The gifts and experiences that you will receive in your life. (Your Desired Life)

Exercise To Practice Gratitude:

Look around you and at your life. What are the things that would make your life worse if you didn’t have them?

Be grateful for them.

What are the things that can make your life better because you have them?

Be grateful for them.

Write them down into your “Gratitude List“. You can start by writing at the top of the page “I am so happy and grateful that I…(have, am or do)…”

For example:

I am so happy and grateful that:

1. I have the ability to write and share what I have learnt with others.
2. I have a computer to create this blog with.
3. I have the ability to walk around.
4. I have food to eat when I am hungry.
5. I have a place to rest comfortably and securely at night.
6. I have the ability to learn new knowledge and skills.
7. I have written an article about the power of gratitude so that if you benefit from it, you might recommend it to others to read.
8. I have ….
9. I am able to ….
10. And so on

The more you write this list, the more you realize that there are truly many things in your life that you can be grateful for.

Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in your life. Good and bad are simply two sides of the same coin of your life. You have the ability to be thankful and grateful, and you have the ability to be angry and bitter. The choice has always been yours, to create more abundance and joy into your life, or the opposite.

When You Are Grateful

When you are grateful and create a place of joy and gratitude within, you are already experiencing what it means to be happy. It is something that people would pay handsomely for, but the truth is no matter how much money they can pay, they cannot buy true joy, because it exists within.

And as you practice gratitude, not only will you be happy, but you start to attract the good things that you desire in your life towards you.

“When you know that what you want comes from the invisible supply, and you focus on creating from abundance, material things will come to you”

Gratitude creates possibility because when you are focused on what is already good and what you want in your life, you are constantly creating the mental pictures of what is good and what you want. And as you focus on the resources you already have, you start seeing the possibilities of how what you already have can bring you closer to what you want.

And the more constant and steady your mental picture is, the more sure and steady you will create what it is that you want. It is impossible to focus on the negative when you are grateful, and it is what keeps you connected to the Creative Source of Thought that is Abundance.

Be Grateful You Have The Ability To Read This Article.

One of the best ways to create focus and direction in your life is by creating your life plan. A life plan is simply a blue-print for what you want in your life, taking the big picture of your complete life and breaking it down into simpler, easy to accomplish goals.

While it can be as big and complex as you want it to be, I personally find the simpler your life plan is, the easier and faster it is to realize it. So a big tip is while you are creating the blueprint for your life, keep it as simple and defined as possible.

Two elements of your life plan will be:

1. Your Vision for your life
2. Your Goals for fulfilling your vision

Sometimes, it’s difficult to understand the fundamental difference that separates a vision and a goal. But here’s a way of defining visions and goals that make the most sense and flows with the creative process of life.

The Importance of Having A Vision and Goals

Before we embark on the journey to create our life vision and goals, it helps to understand why we should even have them in the first place.

Why are Visions and Goals so important in the creative process?

Having a Life Vision is important because:

• It provides the template, the mold of what we are going to create and manifest into physical, tangible reality.
• It is in line with the creative process that all things are first created in the invisible before they are manifested into the visible.
• It creates the experience of having the life you want even before you have it.

Having goals are important because:

• They give us stepping stones, milestones in our journey towards the creation of our life vision.
• They give us specific targets to aim for and keep us on track.
• Each goal accomplished is another brick in the creation of your mental image of your life, and when all the bricks are in place, you have effectively created your Life Vision and manifested it into reality.
• Goals give us something to organize our work activities around, a focus for our attention, energy and skills. They serve as a center for our creative energies and power to be expressed.

Diffused light gives us the ability to see objects and people around us. But when light is concentrated into a focused laser beam, it can cut through steel like a hot knife through butter.

Clear, Specific Focus is Like a Hot Knife Cutting through Butter

Having clear, specific goals aligned with your life vision create that same energy and focus to cut through the obstacles in your life. It accelerates your speed at which you manifest what you want into physical reality.

Defining Your Vision and Goals

Understanding the difference between your Vision and your goals will help simplify the process of creating your life plan. In short, your Vision is the big picture of what you imagine your ultimate life to be and goals are specific targets along the way to the creation of your life Vision.

I’ll explain them in further detail.

What is a Vision?

Imagination is the Preview of Life’s Coming Attractions ~ Albert Einstein

A vision is the mental creation of your life in your mind where you engage all your senses even before it becomes a physical, tangible reality around you. The mental creation is similar to a 3 dimensional movie that is filled with:

• Movement
• Emotions
• People
• Places and
• Color

where it involves our senses of Sight, Sound, Taste, Touch and Smell. The more senses you can engage in your vision, the more real it becomes to you, the faster the speed at which you realize it.

You can use physical objects and things to trigger off those senses, like pictures of the house or car you want. You can use music to trigger off emotions you want to experience, like joy, excitement or peace.

Objects and external stimuli can help make your mental experience more real and vivid.

A vision is something that you have every intention, purpose and desire to make real in your life. If you don’t, then it’s not a vision. It’s a day dream.

What is a Goal?

A goal is a stepping stone to the fulfillment of your vision. It can be a specific end result that forms part of your big picture, or it can be a milestone on the way to the specific end result. Your goals are the how you are going to realize your vision.

For example, your vision to live a financially free life could be broken down into the following specifics:

1. You have an income of $10,000 a month
2. You maintain your expenses below $5,000 a month
3. You are investing 20% of your income on a regular basis
4. Your targeted retirement fund is $4.5 million dollars in 25 years time
5. You have set up an automatic repayment plan to fully pay off each and every debt that you owe within the next 5-10 years
6. You fully own your own home
7. You drive a reliable, dependable and quality car
8. You take 2 holidays a year
9. You have 5 streams of multiple income that generate $5,000 and more a month on a continuous and growing basis
10. And any other goals you want.

Putting Your Life Plan Together

One way to make sure you’ve covered the major areas in your life is by defining the categories in which you can create specific goals. Having a full and complete life involves these basic 6 areas:

1. Financial
2. Relational
3. Intellectual
4. Spiritual
5. Physical
6. Work / Purpose

I’ve included generic, positive-oriented examples of how a life vision might look like.

A life of financial freedom could mean that you own all your assets, have more than enough money coming in each month with surplus cash left over. You have a roof over your head, a car to drive, money for food on the table and for your children’s education. You can buy anything that is required for a healthy, balanced lifestyle for your loved ones and you.

A life of relational joy could mean that you have emotionally rich relationships with your family and friends. You enjoy good relationships with the important people in your life.

A life of intellectual satisfaction and growth could mean that you continue to expand your knowledge bank of ideas, concepts and practical steps to improving yourself and developing your skill sets. You continue to learn and grow on a continual and regular basis to become better each day.

A life of spirituality could mean that you feel a sense of connection to the divine energy and life that is in everything and everyone. You enjoy a sense of inner peace, radiant joy and a contentment with who you are and where you are right now in your life. At the same time, you know and understand that you will continue to evolve and grow as a soul and as a person through your journey in life.

A life of physical completeness would mean that you are strong, healthy and fit. You have a strong body that allows you to engage in sports and activities that you want. At the same time, you are healthy which goes beyond having just a strong body, but one that will serve you well for your lifetime.

A life of purpose would mean the expression of your talents in and abilities in the area of your passion. You use the knowledge, skills and processes that you’ve learnt and developed to create a better life for your loved ones and you.

All these 6 elements combine with each other to create the vision of your life. The clearer and more vivid you are able to see the vision of your life in your mind, the more powerful it is.

It can be so real until it feels like you are already living it! Which, of course, is the whole idea.

Creating your Life Plan is a process of defining the specific elements that go together to build the vision you have in your mind. As you complete each goal, you build another brick into the foundation of the life that you have created in your mind.

Exercises for Creating Your Life Plan

Your life plan will consist of the two elements of your vision and your goals. To help you develop your life plan, you can use the following exercises.

Exercise to Create your Vision:

Imagine what your Perfect life is like in each of the specific areas:

1. Financial
2. Relational
3. Physical
4. Intellectual
5. Spiritual
6. Work / Purpose

It’s not the words that the universe recognizes. It’s the pictures and emotional energy you create in your mind.

Write it down on paper, in point form, using words that you can relate to and understand. More important than the process of writing is the:

• Clarity of your mental 3D “movie” and
• Emotions that you feel

when you create your vision.

Create something that you really want to have, with the full intention and purpose of actually having it. Otherwise, you’re just a day-dreamer who will only ever enjoy your life vision in your mind. So whatever you create, it must come with the intention and purpose to actually have it.

If you feel that you can’t have what you really want:
There are two reasons why you feel you can’t have what you really want:

1. You don’t really want it
2. You don’t think it’s possible for you

If it’s something that you don’t really want, then don’t waste energy “wanting” it just because people tell you that you should “want” it.

Find out what you really want through your process of journaling and self-understanding. Then when you know what you really want, the energy, desire and motivation will automatically flow for you.

If it’s something that you really want, but you feel that it’s not possible for you. This is very likely due to internal beliefs and conclusions about past experiences in your life. The unconscious beliefs that you have are the invisible barriers in your mind that hinder your action, cause you doubt and make you unsure of yourself.

It simply means that you have some work to do on your internal environment to align it with the true reality of life, nature and abundance. This is where it might help you to keep a journal to understand what’s blocking you, and how you can re-create that belief into something constructive and allows the possibility of what you want to happen in your life.

But for now, you can start the process by asking yourself:

“If I could have anything, be anything, or do anything, I would…(fill in the blanks)…”

Exercise to Create Your Goals:

Once you have your life vision, determine which is the most important aspect of your life vision that you want to work on first. For illustration, the generic example I used was:

“A life of financial freedom could mean that you own all your assets, have more than enough money coming in each month with surplus cash left over. You have a roof over your head, a car to drive, money for food on the table and for your children’s education. You can buy anything that is required for a healthy, balanced lifestyle for your loved ones and you.”

Break it down into specifics like:

1. Exactly how much income a month
2. What kind of house
3. Car
4. Holidays
5. Bank Accounts
6. Investment Accounts
7. Investment Properties, businesses, etc

Deadlines serve as a tool to create the energy and motivation to focus right here right now to take action.

These specifics become your goals. When you’ve accomplished them, you know that you’ve accomplished them. There aren’t any ambiguities or “maybe’s” associated to goals. They are clear, definite and specific. If it helps, you can set dates by which you want these goals to be accomplished.

It’s more important to focus on goals that have the most impact on the creation of your vision. Initially, you might want to write down as many goals as you can think of, but once you have cleared your mind on paper, you have to be brutally ruthless to trash goals which aren’t what you really want.

Go for the cake first, not the icing. Once you have the cake, you have something to put the icing on.

The simpler and shorter the list, the easier it will be to focus your energy and actions.

If the goal is something you want, but it’s not an important or crucial goal, then have a specific place where you can stash that goal away for a time when you can look at it. It’ll help clear your mind when you know you have written it down in a place where you can find it.

Once you’ve completed your exercise of mental creation and writing it down on paper, the next step would be to prioritize your goals in terms of importance and urgency so you can take action to make them real.

What caused your life to be the way it is today? Do you really have any say in how your life turns out? What if you have the power, but don’t know how to use it? And if you have the power, how would you use that power to change your life?

How you created your present situation is a result of the decisions that you have made over the years. And the decisions you made over the years are a result of your experiences that you’ve had, be it in terms of education, friends or the type of environment you lived in.

Most of us grow up being influenced by our external environment, but very few people are able to reach the point where they can exercise control and deliberately “re-create” their internal environment. But being able to “re-create” your internal environment is vital to creating the life you want.

How Your External Environment Created Your Internal Environment

Whatever you experienced growing up created mental images, beliefs, concepts and practices in your memory bank. Your external environment imprinted itself onto your mind, and your mind (left to its own devices) will continue to replay existing data over and over again. So whatever you see in your mind will cause you to think about life in a certain way, feel a certain way, talk and take action in a certain way.

You’re constantly “re-creating” your inner world again and again into physical, tangible reality.

Without “You” (your Conscious Awareness) present, you will continue to experience the same storyline over and again in your life. Unless you are able to change what goes on inside your mind to what it is that you want, you’ll be stuck in the perpetual cycle of re-creating your life and living your story… (sounds a lot like karma and “fate”, doesn’t it?)

Let’s take a look at this illustration of how your external environment can affect you:

A child from Africa, if he or she were born in USA, the UK, Singapore, or any other country in the world and given the access to better education, facilities and family environment would grow up differently. Without having to explain in detail, you know that this is true.

Without the presence of your conscious awareness, the person you are is shaped through the information that you receive through your five basic senses of:

1. Sight
2. Sound
3. Taste
4. Touch
5. Smell

Here’s a test for you to try out:

Go watch an action-packed movie, with lots of explosions, kung-fu moves and a central action figure. Maybe a Bruce Lee martial arts movie or Rambo. Something that most guys would love watching for the action.

After the movie, look around. You might realize the guys coming out of the movie walk with a certain swagger, reenacting the moves and scenes from the movie. Sometimes, it’s the women who are doing it!

If not, you see a whole bunch of zombie-like creatures walking around in their own world.

The emotional high that you get from watching the movie, coupled together with the images from the movie, create a corresponding image in your mind. And if it hits a chord with you, you naturally want to experience those emotions again.

Your Life Is Influenced By The People You Meet and the Books You Read

In the same way, the books that you read and the people that you meet influence your thoughts, and thus influence the life that you live.

If something that you don’t believe is real could influence your life, what about information that you believe IS real?

Deliberately Changing Your Thoughts

While there are a few ways in which you can change your thoughts, these are some of the easiest and simplest ways:

• Reading Good Books
• TV programs that are educational and mind-expanding
  (not all programs are bad…)
• Meeting New People

By reading good books, watching good programs, and meeting a different group of people you change the type of information and ideas that you get. But while you read good books, memorizing and being able to spew out facts and figures won’t make a difference in your life if you don’t understand what they really mean. Understand the idea behind those words, distill the essence of the principles and understand how they apply to you and your life.

In most cases, the best place to start is by reading good books that help influence your mind the way you want to create your life.

Why Start With Reading?

While you could begin with any method, in most cases it’s easier to start by reading a good book. Or good articles (like this one ). If you already know some people you could learn from, then meet up with them on a regular basis instead. To be brief, productive people are usually busy doing their things and time is a premium resource for them.

Re-Creating Your Life

Your life is the way it is because of your thoughts. And your thoughts are influenced by the information you receive and accept to be real. The things that you take to be important to you are usually dictated by your environment and the values of the people you mix with. And all these things influence the creation of the world that exists inside your mind.

Yet, you can change your life by changing what goes on inside your mind. You can re-create your inner world, and in the process re-create your external world. That’s a power that everybody has, yet very few exercise this god-given power.

However, now that you’ve read this article, you know that you can change your life by changing your pre-existing beliefs and concepts about life. And one way you can change your existing beliefs and concepts is by changing the type of information you receive.

But remember, changing your thoughts is only the starting point in changing your life. Thoughts eventually have to be followed by congruent actions.