Your Budget Shouldn’t Control You

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Your budget shouldn’t control your life. This is another way in which contentment is a fundamental part of the utmost life. I’m sure that many of you know how money can seemingly steal the soul out of your life. The love of money is the root of all evil, the Bible says, and we sometimes take that to mean only that people commit crimes or neglect their family and friends in order to get money. But there’s another meaning to that phrase that we sometimes don’t appreciate.

Working just to make money is a unfulfilling goal that can suck the joy out of your life. You may have seen the bumper sticker that says, “I owe, I owe, it’s off to work I go”, meant to be sung to the tune of “Heigh-ho” from Snow White. As much as I like Walt Disney, that bumper sticker always make me mad, because if you are working just to pay off debts, then you’re working for the wrong reasons. Of course you need to pay off debts, but you can do that in a job that you find rewarding and enjoyable. Currently, the job market is more difficult than in years past, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be innovative and make a new job for yourself. Don’t go and quit your job today, but take a look at where you are at and if you are happy there. Develop a plan to get where you want to be.

 

The Joneses - ©Roadside Attractions

Adjust your budget to fit your needs, or just adjust your needs to fit your budget. Adjust your life to fit your paycheck. Don’t try to keep up with the Joneses…they are $200,000 under on their house and have $150,000 in credit card debt. Set a limit for your life that’s realistic. You’ll find that in time you might have spent shopping and browsing, buying and trying and returning, you could have been earning the money to actually burn your old bills. You will live more…really live…with less. The most destructive aspect of our obsession about money is that is takes our focus away from the real objective. It can limit how far your imagination can stretch, and make you unconsciously lower your vision.

 

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Do Something with Life

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One of the fun things about my life is I continually get to have great conversations with people who many times know more about certain things in life than I do.  For instance, sitting with Bjorn Borg and hearing him talk about playing tennis with John McEnroe at Wimbledon.  Or talking to Pharrell (the rapper and fashion icon) about how to make beats.  You see in life, success leaves clues.  And if you look, listen, and follow these clues it can many times lead you to your pot of gold.

I remember one night, I was invited to the home of Stevie Wonder.  I’ve loved Stevie Wonder since I was a kid; from songs, “Isn’t She Lovely” to “Superstition”…Stevie Wonder is truly an icon.  One night after a long, and beautiful conversation about what was right and wrong in the world, Stevie got inspired and decided to sit down on his piano bench.  With just me, him, and his bodyguard there, he went into a mini concert of slow ballads that lasted over an hour.  I admit it was a touch of heaven.

After he began to talk to me about success, and how important it is for someone to be willing to pay the price to be good at something.  He said to me that night, “Talent is not enough Tim.  You’ve got to be willing to go the extra mile.” He told me that’s why there’s so many ‘one hit wonders’.  The one hit record was easy, but the second one never comes because they aren’t willing to pay the price.

The word willing means: consenting, given to, to cooperate.  The opposite of willing is: to be unwilling, to not cooperate.  The question I have for you is, “are you willing to cooperate with the great plan that life has for you?”  There are three things you have to be willing to do to live your finest life.

You have to be willing to change direction.  When I say direction I mean your path, your road, your stream.  Sometimes the way we see life is not always correct.  Great people change their course of direction when they need to.

You have to be willing to submit to a higher plan.  The word submit means: to abide, agree, to flow with.  I believe there is a master plan for you, and if you look deep inside– your dreams will talk to you.  Make sure you are willing to agree with the great dreams that are inside you.

You have to be willing you go into foreign territory.  The word foreign means: unfamiliar, unknown, different.  A territory is a space or a block, like a new neighborhood.  Stevie Wonder, as a blind man could have said that he’ll never play piano because he’s blind, but he ventured off into foreign territory and was willing the pay the price.  And now with just one touch of the keys, we know it’s one of his songs.

It’s time for us to decide, determine, and be willing to live our finest life.  Don’t let life do something with you.  Go do something with life.

“Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there. “–Stevie Wonder

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Making Time For Your Destiny

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Your destiny is all around you. Be observant and be creative. As you work with the tools and techniques you are learning, you will be better able to take advantage of opportunities. And as you develop your confidence, more opportunities will come, and you will be able to take full advantage of them.

  • Plan for the consequences of success.
  • Beware of new comfort zones.
  • Keep readjusting your goals.
  • If something goes wrong, don’t just give up…see if you can adjust and refine.
  • Get out of your boxes.
  • Be flexible…inspect, respect, and select all the good opportunities that come your way, even when they’re unexpected.

Challenge:

Make yourself a dream board or a success scrapbook: cut out pictures and stories about people who are living the life you want to live. Keep it where you can look at it or will pass by it many times a day. If you use your computer/ipad/smartphone, make it your screen saver. Use words and pictures that remind you of the utmost life you want to live.

Start a personal record book. Every time you accomplish something…anything…that you haven’t been able to do before, write it down.

Dream bigger. Look at the list of things that you never thought you would be able to accomplish. Imagine what you will need to make those dreams come true.

Pick a teacher for the day or the week. Think about someone who has a characteristic you admire…a friend, a relative, a colleague, or someone you’ve heard or read about. Think about what you can learn from that person.

Pick someone to appreciate once a week. Drop that person a note about how much you enjoy their company or admire their work. If it’s someone you know, you’ll be amazed at the warmth it will give to your life. If it’s someone you don’t know, you may surprised at their gratitude. I find it especially rewarding to verbally appreciate those who go unnoticed (cleaning lady, drive-thru cashier, doorman, TSA agent, DMV clerk, kids everywhere, etc).

If you are going to ever see your dreams become reality…you are going to have to make time and space for those dreams.

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How to Succeed at Failing

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So when you’re going into a new situation, learning a new skill, you have to think and prepare. First you’ll prepare for your success – research and study, think and practice, tone up your mental or physical muscles for whatever activity you’ll be involved in. Then imagine what you will do if you don’t succeed – if you don’t wow the audience, if you don’t get the highest score, if you don’t get the job you’ve wanted. Think of it in terms of what you can learn. Decide then and there, before it happens, that you won’t let it stop you. Have faith in your future. Don’t expect perfection, but don’t plan for collapse either.

Suppose you’re trying to lose weight. You’ve planned your menus and calculated the nutritional values. You know when you’re going to eat, what, and how much. Terrific. Now imagine that just as you’re sitting down to dinner, you slip, bump into that cabinet, and break the new 50″ plasma  flat screen television you bought for yourself at Christmas and are still paying off from Best Buy. You see it cracked from corner to corner and a little smoke coming from the back of it. Its fried. It makes you want to pull out that container of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream you had hiding in the back of the freezer and grab the biggest spoon you can find…and devour the whole thing.

Now plan for the television breaking. You’ll definitely need…you definitely deserve…to reach back, relax and regain your focus. Envision yourself having three spoonfuls of ice cream. And yes, enjoy the ice cream. You’re not to going to feel guilty about it, or feel that you’ve failed, or that you’re weak. Having this ice cream is part of the plan – the plan for dealing with the pain. When you’re finished, you’ll pull out your diet chart and plan what will eat the next day, cut out a little here and there to make up the difference. Hey, it’s just three spoonfuls, so it’s not a big deal.

Then you envision putting the ice cream away and cleaning up the mess. Imagine how much better you will feel because not only did you have the ice cream, you enjoyed it enough that you don’t have to eat more. As I say, life is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. You won’t always succeed the first time, or the second, or the third – but that just means you will have more than one chance to succeed. In fact, you’ll have many. Each time you fail, you’ll have another clue about how to avoid failure the next time. The more you can learn to overcome obstacles, to reposition that opposition to your mission, the more you will enjoy doing it.

Prepare and envision. See yourself overcoming the problems, see yourself answering your critics. The next time you’re working on a presentation, imagine how to respond if your boss disparages your ideas. It could be as simple as being ready to ask your boss what was wrong – whether it was the way you presented your idea or the idea itself. You might find out that there was nothing wrong with the idea, but that you didn’t get it across adequately. You’re learned something.

If you add that you want to benefit from the boss’s experience, you may gain an ally in the bargain. Even if your boss still doesn’t accept your idea, you may get some support the next time.

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