Soul First Living

Freeing Myself of Email Clutter

I have no idea how I managed to end up with so much advertiser email...okay, I have an idea of how is happened...probably has something to do with the sketchy sites I went to for the going away party I had for my boobs right before my double mastectomy. (They were the only places I could get things like "booby" lollipops and party favors)...and on a friend's recommendation, I tried those online surveys.

What a nightmare...and a HUGE waste of time!

I have two criteria now for whether or not I need to be doing a certain activity...

1. Do I enjoy it...put another way, does it make my heart sing?
2. Is it putting money in my pocket?

Make no mistake about it...those two things are related...and not just because I enjoy money, but we have a tendency to do well those things we like, and therefore, we have a tendency to attract rewards for those things.

Yesterday, I talked about paper clutter. In the process of writing that post, I jotted other places you could have clutter, and I mentioned email...I often write things I need to hear, too.

In case you were wondering about the connection between money and clutter...clutter takes up space and prevents other things - like money - from coming into your life. Clutter indicates a poverty mindset...which happens to be "dead dog dangerous" to prosperity and abundance. 

The email thing has been bugging me for a couple of years now, but I didn't want to mess with it. Yet, it'd irritate me every time I opened my email.

Today, I tackled it.

Did it take time? Yes.

Convention says I probably should have paid someone else to do it, but I enjoyed it, and it was a calm, quiet peaceful activity early, early this morning...and I'm still getting to the important stuff today - my writing.

AND...I feel good about having taken this step. I'll do it a little bit at at time.

Next bit of clutter...my cell phone. That's become a bane, too!

The more I "clean up", the freer and more empowered I feel!  "Woo hoo," as Miss Frizzle would say!

Are YOU Clinging to Poverty?

 I'm talking about CLUTTER!

I had a revelation about this the other day.

There is a connection between clutter and poverty (or a poverty mindset).

I've had a basket full of papers for a while - notes, ideas, business cards, clippings...it's a nice basket, the papers are stacked neatly in the basket, but it is something that I am tolerating - it nags at me. (That's a partial picture of the pile after I pulled it out of the basket.)

I've unstacked the pile several times, and I've tried to organize these papers on more than one occasion...on many occasions, actually. Still, I seemed to get nowhere with the pile.

Finally, the other day, I got fed up...I thought about what was there - after all, I'd pulled these papers out enough to have the contents practically memorized. (Hey, I'm being honest.)

Then I asked myself...WHY am I holding on to these papers?

Truth is...I hadn't had need of any of these papers for a year or longer. Yet, I was afraid to get rid of them.

The dialogue in my head sounded something like this:

What if I needed these papers?

What if there was some opportunity in there that I'd miss out on?

What if I wanted to write something next week and it turns out that I needed something I'd thrown out with the pile? What would I do?

I felt guilty about collecting the business cards and having done nothing with them...after all, I went to the conferences, met these great people...yet, here the cards sat. (All they did now was make me feel guilty.)

There were magazines I'd gotten on airlines, and I now couldn't remember what I found so fascinating at the time.

The real issue here for me with the papers was, "There may not be enough"...and really, underneath that, is a concern that "I may not be enough".

I was shocked to see a "poverty mindset" - and a pretty pervasive one - behind the clutter.

In other words, the clutter was just a symptom of this mindset that was telling me, "There's not enough". And if you look at it carefully, in order to paralyze action, all this thought process had to do was merely suggest that there "may not be enough".

Where's the clutter in your life?

Clothes...paper...people...relationships, objects, seminars (learning's great but can belie a poverty mindset that you don't know enough), mimentos, shoes, bags, gift wrapping - be honest....do you save it to reuse?

Clutter is anything in your life that you are tolerating, that nags at you, that's holding you back.

It's not the objects or items that are the problem. It's the thoughts that may be causing you to hold onto them...take a good look.

A poverty mindset is anything that tells you "there's not enough", "the world is not abundant".

AND...by the way, I threw out the ENTIRE pile (except the info about adopting Tylos, the cat), and I haven't needed one single thing from that pile.

Besides, if I did...it's not like I couldn't find the information somewhere else.

AND...by the by, it felt GREAT to throw out all that clutter and be FREE!

(I'd argue that there's a direct connection between this action of releasing these papers - and the accompanying povery thoughts - and the turnaround I've seen in my finances.)

Money and Action

"Implementation is everything. Money follows action."
- from Powerful New Strategies for Sales Success (multiple authors)

Counterintuitive Response to Current Economy

Bill Gates recently released mosquitoes into an audience to make a point about malaria. (You can read the article here.)

In one of the mosquito articles, it said that the Gates Foundation plans to increase spending to $3.8 million "despite its investment portfolio's value sinking".

You may say, "Well, Bill Gates can afford to increase spending...he's got plenty to spend."

You'd be missing the point.

Whether he understands it or not, Gates is following a very old principle: He's sowing even in hard times, and his money continues to grow. It continues to come to him.

If you want to reap, you must first plant.

If you want money, you must plant money...even in hard times.

You don't grow or gain by limiting yourself or contracting.

People complaining about the fact that Gates has so much money, but they never bother to wonder why he has so much.

There are things he's doing that cause the financial wealth he has. Here are some basics:

• First, he meets consumer desires and wants...not needs.

(The perceived "need" for computers didn't exist until the industry was created - largely by him.)

• Second, he's doing something he loves.

• Third, he understands that business is about making money.(That is the goal of business, folks...if you are trying to do anything else with your business, you are probably seeing troubles somewhere in your business...perhaps poor profits.)

• Fourth, he gives his money away.

"To him who has much much will be given. To him who has little, even that will be taken away."

Seems unfair, but that's how the world is set up...and it's not unfair when you understand why one person has much and another has little...and it's not about God's favor or being punished. When it comes to having much or having little, it's up to me and you. Each of us is responsible for ourselves.

Remember: If you want to get money, you have to give it away. (Religions call it tithing.)

Blocks and Beliefs

Blocks are based in beliefs.

Your current circumstances are based in your beliefs.

You get what you believe, not what you need.

Here's the conundrum: Progress, growth and moving forward  - and yes, making money - depends on your being aware of the beliefs you hold.

Yet, that is often the area of our greatest blindness - we don't understand why we seem to be in the same situation over and over again, facing the same obstacles. Certain problems keep showing up like a bad penny.

See if any of these sound familiar:

• You have the same balance in your checking account...no matter how much money comes in. (The bills seem to go up in proportion to the money coming in.)

• You struggle to get clients.

• You sweat over moving your business forward...laying awake at night wondering if you'll meet payroll.

• You live paycheck to paycheck.

• You buy things to make yourself feel better.

...And no matter what you do, you seem to always end up in the same or similar situation.

But Why?

It's because we aren't aware of the beliefs that are driving our actions.

What's frustrating is when we change our actions - and  we get the same result! - That one is especially frustrating.

What's surprised me most in studying money and abundance is that the situations, like the ones above, have little to do with money itself...those situations are merely symptoms of something else.

Wallace Wattles in his book, The Science of Getting Rich, says that the acquiring of riches isn't about doing certain things, it's about doing things in a certain way.

That "certain way" -  and success or failure - is based in your beliefs.

You can be doing all the right things and even working your tail off - and still be getting mediocre results or worse!

But how do you see your beliefs - look at your circumstances. The situations that bother you, that you don't like...have something in common, some thread.

Find that and you find the driving belief. (I call them Shadow Beliefs.)

Then you can decide whether it's serving you or not.

P.S. If you want to get a handle on money and understand how you can make it come to you, you'll want to be on a call I'm doing in March. I've been working with Linda Hunt of Sum Solutions www.sumsolutions.com on income goals and understanding the structure of money. Linda is an amazing money eductaor and has run a successful, 6-figure bookkeeping firm. I've asked her if she'd be willing to be interviewed so that all of you can benefit from what she's shared with me. She agreed. Mark your calendars for Wednesday, March 11th at 8:00 pm. More information to come...

Money in the Bible - Discovering the Truth

I was actually getting ready to write about a different quote from Thoreau. I thought of Thoreasu this weekend as I continued work with Linda on Income Goals and the structure of money. (I'll include that one in the next post- it's a great one by which to check yourself.)

Then I saw this quote - one I don't recall having read in my English classes in high school or college. It could have been because I had always preferred Emerson although I've come to appreciate Thoreau more as an adult.

Money and Religion

This quote interested me because I've done a lot of thinking and studying in the last couple of years about Jesus, the Bible and God...and I guess it's no surprise that a good deal of my curiosity and interest has been in the area of money and abundance. (Money is a wonderful spiritual teacher.)

A lot of what I believed about money and the acquisition of money was in opposition to my desire for money, and I knew if I were to be successful in building businesses and acquiring wealth, then I'd have to get to the root of these money blocks - many of which centered around what I thought God, through religion, had said about money.

It's interesting that people have such a vehement reaction to Jesus, and that Jesus is associated with material poverty. When I was growing up, I got the impression that poverty was holy, that work should be difficult, and that Christians weren't supposed to be wealthy...that somehow money was corrupt or evil - and at the least, it was somehow not Christian to pursue money or be prosperous.

We underestimate how powerful such acquired beliefs can be - especially if associated with God.

Who wants to willfully defy God?

I certainly didn't. 

In actually going to the source on Jesus, the Bible, I discovered that no where...no where...in the Bible does it preach poverty or lack. In fact, just the opposite is true.

The Bible is not only a text for abundance, it talks about money specifically. You could use it as an instruction manual for becoming prosperous!

I was shocked!

It was definitely not what I had learned in church or from other Christians.

That's where this quote from Thoreau comes in...he talks about how hard it can be " to get the commentaries (that you've learned) out of one's head". He's saying that it can be difficult to discover the truth and make up your own mind.

I agree.

Do you know where your beliefs come from - or in what your beliefs are based? Are you even aware of what they are or are they operating "under the radar"?

Are your beliefs based in fear and lack?

A lot of mine were.

There is freedom in understanding.

Here's the quote:

"The New Testament is an invaluable book, though I confess to having been slightly prejudiced against it in my very early days by the church and the Sabbath school, so that it seemed, before I read it, to be the yellowest book in the catalogue. Yet I early escaped from their meshes. It was hard to get the commentaries out of one's head and taste its true flavor. — I think that Pilgrim's Progress is the best sermon which has been preached from this text; almost all other sermons that I have heard, or heard of, have been but poor imitations of this. — It would be a poor story to be prejudiced against the Life of Christ because the book has been edited by Christians."

- Thoreau from "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"

 

 

"Where Most People Fail" - Understanding Obstacles

Here's the note and article from last week's ezine...and some information on obstacles and setting income goals.

Soul & Success Guide
Vol. 2, Issue 5
January 29, 2009

My friend - Linda Hunt - owns a bookkeeping business, Sum Solutions www.sumsolutions.com.

 

Sitting with her and planning the various "arms" of the business and making financial projections was enlightening...and will turn out to be very profitable, very quickly.

 

{!firstname}, if you have not planned your 2009 Income Goals, I highly encourage you to do so.

 

If you'd like some easy pointers on "how to", just email me at info@soulfirstliving.com. I'm happy to share because...

 

I can guarantee you that if you've been working hard or missing the mark financially, this is part of the reason why, and I don't want you to be frustrated - financially or otherwise.

 

Did you know that according to the Center for Disease Control, at least 85% of all illness is due to stress?

 

I'd bet that a lot of that stress is due to financial worries and strain.

 

The other bonus I've seen already from setting Income Goals is that I'm not having to work as hard. In fact, I would estimate that setting income goals has cut my work load by as much as 75%!!

 

This happened INSTANTLY because I was able to see clearly what was profitable and what wasn't.

 

You need to remember that the goal of your business or work is to make money. If you set an income goal, you can easily decide what's profitable and what's not...and how you can get to your income goal easier and faster.

 

Those of you who are healers, wellness professionals, or in any "helping" profesion may argue and say, "But I'm in the business to help people"....not true. Your service or product may help people - and I'm sure it does, but you are in business to make money.

 

If you are not making money, then you won't be able to help people for very long. Think about it.

 

There will be more to come - and a lot of easy how-to information - in my upcoming course and on the blog. My dream is for everyone to be financially *FREE* of financial worries and strain....for everyone to live in abundance - whatever that may mean to you.

 

I live a life that's abundant in every way...I want to share with you how you can do this, too...and most importantly, how you can do this EASILY.

 

I'm going to be sharing a lot of "behind the scenes" information - a little scary to do, but so necessary if everyone is to get out of the financial rat race...and have both health and wealth.

 

Since the beginnng of the year, I've been writing articles that take you step by step through getting what you want. Today's  article is an answer to a question that inevitably comes up when talking about dreams, desires, and decision...how to deal with obstacles

 

ARTICLE:

"Where Most People Fail"

 

Don't let Obstacles Steer You Off Your Path
Understand Obstacles for What They Are

After last week, you should be clear that desire is all the permission you need to move forward with your dreams.

 

All that's required is for you to say "yes" to the desire, and in essence, by doing so, you are agreeing with God or your inner Divinity.

 

That "yes" is your decision, and honestly, it is at that point of decision that the outcome is decided...you can know that you will have your desire.

 

You are assured success, and...

 

That's when the obstacles may start to show up.

 

That's when we become discouraged.

 

That's when we start thinking that perhaps the obstacles are "signs" trying to tell us that we aren't supposed to have what we desire after all.

 

This is a misunderstanding of what obstacles are.

 

Here's a "step by step" on obstacles:

1. You have a desire.
2. You make a decision.
3. Obstacles show up

What you do next and how you see the obstacle determines whether you will have success and also how long it takes you to reach your goal.

 

Once you understand obstacles, you may even find yourself being grateful - yes, grateful - that the obstacles showed up.

 

Here's the purpose of obstacles:

 

The obstacles show you where you are not "in line" with your desire.

 

The obstacles teach you something you need to learn so that you can obtain your desire.

 

The obstacles are a "call for a remedy" - a "soulution". 

 

Obstacles are part of getting you to where you said you wanted to go when you said "yes" to the desire.

 

Nine times out of ten, an obstacle is simply a way for you to release some fear you have and to live more in love and faith...to trust.

 

And all this can be scary - simply because we get comfortable with the old way of doing things...even if that old way has us living in fear.

 

If I hadn't had cancer, I wouldn't have learned what I learned, and I wouldn't be helping as many people as I have helped - and will help in the future.

 

If I hadn't had the financial troubles and worries, I wouldn't be able to share the information that I'm going to share with you on multiple streams of income and understanding money.

 

What was my original desire that led to these lessons?

 

My desire from the time I was a little girl was to stay home and make a lot of money. (People used to tease me if they found out.) I do believe I'm going to get the last laugh on this one.

 

They said I was being unrealistic, a dreamer.

 

The desire behind this dream was to be *free*.  I wanted to be able to do what I wanted, when I wanted, and how I wanted. (Doesn't that sound wonderful? To me, that's freedom!)

 

Now, it is my dream to see everyone be *free* of financial worries. It is possible. (The key is understanding, and that's why I'll be offering the course.)

 

The point is...I wouldn't have learned what I've learned and be able to share all of this with you,

{!firstname}, and others if I had not faced many obstacles - some of them pretty scary - and seen the key to getting around those obstacles.

 

I finally got it...and it's simple.

 

Obstacles give you tools you need to get to your desire.

 

When you understand that, you can be grateful - yes, grateful - when you encounter obstacles or adversity.

 

Obstacles assist you in your growth.

 

Get the lesson and move on...and be grateful for the obstacle because it helped you move onward and upward.

 

 

Best,

 

 

P.S. Remember...if you want some simple "how to" on setting Income Goals and cutting your work load by at least 50%, just email me at info@soulfirstliving.com

 

P.S.S. I can't wait to share with you a simple, step-by-step system to being free of financial worries and struggle!

 

P.S.S.S. If you know anyone that that this information could help, please forward this email to them. Thanks.

 

The Roots: How Cancer Led to my Money Obsession

In Napoleon Hill's book, Think and Grow Rich , he talks about the necessity of having a burning desire for money...that without that kind of desire for money, money wouldn't come to you.

I always thought that his advocating "a burning desire for money" was a bit crass and rude.

I thought that pursuing money like that, with that kind of desire, was wrong - immoral, a sin.

Yet, as I mentioned before, I had this dream of staying home and making a lot of money.

So, I came up with all these plans to make the money, most of which involved working really hard

because I thought that this was how you earned a lot of money - through hard work. This is proof positive that I didn't know what I didn't know about how money works. (Money Tip: Working hard does not equal making lots of money.)

Then that burning desire hit me, and I became obsessed with understanding money...and with having it.

My desire to "stay home and make lots of money" was renewed thanks to cancer.

Cancer was the match that lit my burning desire for money.

This is why...

When I got cancer, I realized what a precarious position I was in - what a precarious situation we are all in - if we rely on a job or on our presence at work activities in order to make money.

Certainly, it dawned on me how fortunate I was...I was in a position where I didn't have to work. Yet I knew that so many people, when struck by a serious illness, end up financially ruined.

(Illness is actually a large cause of bankruptcy.)

I'm grateful I had my husband to rely on. Other people aren't so fortunate...and don't understand that it could be different, that their relationship with money could exist in a form other than one that requires them to exchange time for money.

I didn't understand that either. In my quest, I had read about method of making money in books, but I didn't quite get it. It's kind of like reading about flying in an airplane versus actually taking a ride in the plane.

I had depended on a regular job to make money. I didn't know any other way to make money, and even if I had had a business that worked, my presence would probably still have been required.

(I had also done some freelancing, and while that is considered "owning a business". I still had to be there in order to provide the service and make the money. No me = no money, and in that case, do you own a business or does the business own you?)

I had talked to many other young women and knew of others who were having to decide between dental care and cancer treatment, between getting their car fixed or getting groceries.

I knew there had to be a better way, an easier way, and I became obsessed - literally - with finding it. (My daddy gave me a stuffed bulldog when I was little because of this tenacity...I'm pretty sure it occasionally got rather exasperating for my parents. I could be stubborn when I set my mind to something.)

Cancer cause me to redefine what was or was not possible.

Throughout the cancer ordeal, I saw things happen in my body that weren't supposed to be possible...calcifications disappeared, my 4 hour surgery took less than two, very little bruising, ports were removed 24 hours after surgery instead of 5 days later, I got my implants right away.

After seeing these things, I started questioning what was going on with money in my life.

Here's my reasoning: If the physical "impossibilities" were happening in my body so easily - all I did was visualize and try to keep my focus on health --- then what was so terribly difficult about money.

I figured that there was something I wasn't understanding.

I worked hard, put forth effort, but I wasn't seeing the financial return that I should be seeing...and I knew there were people who were making a lot of money, but who were not "tied down" to a job or service.

They obviously knew something I didn't know...and after my cancer scare and seeing how vulnerable I was, I became determined to understand money.

I vowed that I would never be in that precarious situation again. I vowed that I would understand money and how to earn it easily. I vowed that I would help as many other people as possible find the same freedom.

That's how I became obsessed - in the best way - with money.

I invite you to join me on this journey...you can be free of money worries - even in this economy.

(And if you keep following me, I'll explain - in very simple terms - why what you hear in the media about the economy isn't quite accurate...and why unemplyment and layoffs can be the FIRST sign of real, true economic growth. It may not sound sexy...but I promise you that once you understand these things...you will experience freedom around money that you have never experienced before!)

Click the links on this page to follow me on Twitter and Facebook...you can also put your name and email in the box above and get my popular weekly ezine "Soul and Success Guide".

Childhood Dreams of Making Money - lots of it. Join me.

My dream as a kid was to stay home and make a lot of money

...ridiculous thought, perhaps, when you consider that this was pre-Internet...actually, it was pre-computer. (Computers didn't start to become ubiquitous until I was about out of college.)

From a very young age, I had a vision of what I wanted my life to look like...international travel, strolling through markets, cooking, eating at amazing restaurants, private jets...yep, private jets...I wanted to see the world, experience other cultures, and own a business empire. (I also spent a period of time in about 5th grade researching the medical profession.)

Now, I have to share with you that I don't come from money - far from it, and my parents don't come from money. (The closest we come to money is on my mom's side,,,and that's a few hundred years removed from the current day. Mom's relatives were Huegenots and came in the late 1600s to America. They were wealthy, lost it in the Civil War, and never regained it.)

...And no one in my family is an entrepreneur.

So, where did this dream come from?

Where do any of our dreams come from?

More importantly, where do these dreams go? Most times, they seem to fade away. They go dormant, and we feel like we're "missing something."

And if not revived  - sometimes by a seeming miracle - then the dream dies.

Yet, in looking back, I can see that these dreams were not just dreams, they really were previews of coming events. (I don't have the private jet or the business empire - yet, but both are coming. Hubs and I have started browsing private planes, and I just re-keyed my dreams in terms of income goals rather than business goals - a subtle but important distinction that I'll cover in later posts.)

Looking back, I can now see that those childhood "fantasies" were meant to serve as a   compass, a treasure map.

Yet, for years, I tried to do what was responsible or "normal". I went to college, and then I "wandered" for years through dead end jobs or jobs beneath my skill level and education...I no longer seemed to know what I wanted to do...the dream had faded or stuck in the mud.

I still had ideas for businesses - but I never followed through, and they died a quick death. 

It felt like I had lost the "juice" of those childhood dreams, and I had no one to look to, to model for the lifestyle I wanted. The kind of life I dreamt of didn't exist anywhere in my reality, and I didn't possess the awareness necessary to make it happen.

Once you get in the habit of giving up on your dreams or thinking that that's all they are - fairy tales - a kind of numbness seeps in, and rots away our ability to even recognize what we want, what gives us joy.

We get into a stuck place, a place where we shuffle our feet through life.

Most times, this is our approach to dreams. We "let them go" to die a slow death - akin to a permanent catatonic state.

I never let mine go completely - most people don't...yet we may not know what to do with them, and if we muster the courage to actually pursue them, we lose heart at the first sight of obstacles thinking these are a "sign" that our dream simply wasn't meant to be.

I now see all these years as a journey where I've picked up tools, experience and knowledge that I'd need to ultimately "take" and "own" my ultimate dream - like a hero's journey - or the Isrealites' 40 years in the desert. (My perspective often depended on how discouraged I was on any given day.)

I've had numerous false starts...more than I care to remember - so many that I'm sure I seemed flaky, and I even started to think that I was.

I would get tired of trying, of hoping.

I have tried and failed at many ventures - succeeded at others, and interestingly, I succeeded mostly at those things that were "familiar" to me - working in education.

I now have the lifestyle I dreamt of - I travel all over the world, experience other cultures - the family joke is that I base my travel agenda largely on where I'm going to eat. (Mmmmm....tasteee.)

Now, I'm going for the business empire...and the "lots of money" part of the earlier vision.

I'm inviting you, through this blog, to join me. Revive those faded dreams. Make your life what you know it can be...what you've been shown it can be.

Don't miss out!

The core of my dream is "Freedom" - financial freedom, physical freedom (i.e. good health)...fI've always craved the freedom to do what I want, when I want, how I want.

What's your secret dream? Your wish?

Follow along with me as I take you step-by-step to Money and Multiple Streams of Income (MSIs).

I'm going to be sharing stories, tools, resources, tips and paths that I took - the ones that worked and the ones that didn't - stories, tools, tips, and resources that you can easily use to get where you want to go easily without the inherent stress and headaches.

One of the headaches and stressors we're going to talk about is *MONEY*. 

And, we're going to talk very frankly about money. You must understand it to have it and keep it.

It's my dream for you to get exactly the life you dream of...a life of abundance. (That's part of my dream as well...a world where everyone follows their fantasies to the fullest life possible.)

Get the feed for this blog...or follow me on Twitter/Facebook - see the links on the side.

Let me know if the Feedburner doesn't work. I need to get someone to check the HTML code for me. I did some of it custom...

Ditch the Resolutions

I recently posted that I'd share some of my ezine articles here on the blog.

Makes sense to me to share here as well.

So here you go...

From Volume II, Issue 1, January 1, 2009

Ditch The RESOLUTIONS…

Seek Understanding, Make Decisions, and Set yourself free from the cycle of failure

Are there areas in your life where you’d like to see improvement?

Instead of making resolutions this New Year, seek understanding.

Solomon – yes, the one from the Bible – is known as one of the wisest men of all time. He said, “In all your getting, get understanding.”

Wise man, indeed.

This is the time of year where we are supposed to spout the numerous ways we are going to change our lives, our weight, our careers, our money situation… for the better.

And this is the time of year, where many are – shortly thereafter – disappointed.

The thing is…We are supposed to be successful. In fact, we are designed to be so.

After all, why would any creator – a parent, an inventor, a teacher, a chef, and least of all a Divine creator, deliberately create something so they can watch it fail?

Doesn’t make sense, does it?

So, there has to be a misunderstanding…a miscommunication of some kind.

That’s why it’s wise to seek understanding.

When you understand an issue, then –and only then – are you in a position to create a solution.

Sometimes the problem is a matter of thinking that there is a problem.

Let your resolution this year be instead a decision to gain understanding.

The Bible says, He who seeks, finds." When you seek wisdom, you are GUARANTEED to find it…how many places in this day and time do you find GUARANTEES like that?

You cannot fail to find the answer.

You are guaranteed to be successful when you set your sights on understanding.

As you take your time to review your life and your previous year, instead of making a list of resolutions, make a list of areas or items about which you’d like more understanding.

Then, set yourself free from the pressures of “resolutions”. Simply decide to pursue understanding.

Seek understanding of the issues and areas you’d like to improve rather than trying to “force”, “fix”, or “struggle” against it.

Once you seek to understand the issue or obstacle, it is much likelier to dissipate of its own accord…even if the issue doesn’t go away – for example, a health problem – your struggle with it will.

When you stop fighting, you begin to “flow”. It’s a much easier way to be. It doesn’t mean there aren’t problems, but it’s surprising how much different the problem looks when the approach to it changes.

It’s an attitude that thinks every adversity is an asset, every obstacle is an opportunity…even if you can’t see it or don’t think that right away.

Don’t make resolutions this year. Simply make a decision to gain some understanding.

Happy New Year!

If you'd like to get the ezine, go to www.soulandsuccess.com. While there, you can also view the inspirational video "What If".