Self investment

Stocks, bonds, mutual funds, RO(Return On Investment) , 401k, and IRA’s, these are great things to consider when planning your financial future. But all of these financial things is not what I’m talking about.

I want to know what you are doing for yourself? Are you reading books? Are you meditating? Are you taking a break every once in a while just to enjoy the sunshine? What could you be doing to maximize the ROI of your life?

You can always start by focusing on yourself and being happy. Rid your life of negative thoughts, negative people, and any type of things in your life that are not bringing you a benefit.

Negative thoughts are toxic to your well being and your well being is your investment. You need to keep your investment in mind in everything that you do.

The biggest investment you can make is in yourself. You are a long term investment that you want to get the most out of. You cannot sell this one short. You have one life, one investment, and the good thing is that you will get whatever you put into it. You are the manager of your investment portfolio and you need to nurture it and develop it for the long term.

Decide to be happy

When you wake up tomorrow think about the kind of day you want to have and you will find out that, that kind of day happens. Even if the day you would want to happen doesn’t, you need to act as if it did. Ghandi said it best, ” Be the change you want to see in the world.” Act as if. Play the role. Be happy in the face of adversity. 

What are the things you would do if you were happy? I can tell you with absolute certainty that you would not want to waste your time being in a state of unhappiness. You may go out with friends, be outside enjoying the weather, you could be doing any number of things. This is you. Be the type of person you want to be even if you currently are not. Happiness is a choice and you can decide whether or not you are going to be happy with every decision you make.  Stop making the decision to be unhappy. 

How to build habits

Everyone has habits. Some we know of and other we may have no idea that we have.  Building a good habit is quite easy and you can also use the act of building a good habit to replace older habit that no longer serve you. There are only three steps to building a new habit: Head, Heart, and Hands.

The Head part of this is probably the easiest. This only consist of determining the habit in which you want to create. Think about the end result you want to accomplish. Do you want to wake up earlier? Do you want to start exercising more often? Whatever you want to do, you just need to think it up. This is the first step to creating your new habit. Head.

Heart is the second step and it is a bit more complicated. Complicated in the way of truly understanding not in the way of being difficult. The Heart step is looking at the habit you want to create and deciding why you want to create it. What is it about the habit that makes it so important to you. No matter the habit you wish you create there will be something, or maybe someone, that is the driving reason for it. Even if it is the same habit, it is assured that the reason for it will vary by person. The reason for the habit has to linger inside you even when you don’t think about it. The reason you want to build this habit will be so personal that you can not even consider the idea of not being able to do it. This is the Heart.

The last step of building a habit is the Hands. This is the final step of building a habit.  Hands is the action step. It is time to start doing the habit. You have had the idea(Head), you have the reason(Heart), and it is now time to act(Hands).  Start doing the habit which you want to build. Whatever habit you want to build, start doing it.

This is all it takes to build a habit.

When you choose to change a habit you already have it is simple.  Follow the same previous steps and start with the opposite of the habit you are trying to rid yourself of. If you don’t wake up early enough because you stay up watching TV. The the new habit may be to shut the TV off at an early time.  This is the Head, now just determine the Heart and put it into action with the Hands.

Good luck with changing your life for the better.

Be different

We are all different in different ways but it’s the similarities that cause us the most problems. We want the same materialistic items, this causes competition in almost all we do. We all fight for the same jobs. Once we get these jobs we are still fighting. We are in competition for the next promotion. It’s Christmas time and we are all shopping for the same “got to have toy.”once we realize that our similarities are the reason we aren’t happy we can change. 

Go against the grain. Do the opposite of what you would normally do. Do the opposite of what others are doing. I’m not saying that competition is bad or that wanting the same things as other is bad. What I’m saying is go about them in a different way. If two people are competing for a promotion and the masses are all coming in early and staying late just to do job. Why do you want to do that? Find a way to be more efficient. Do the work without staying late or going in early. Get the promotion by creating a new process or making an existing process better. Do the opposite. 

I read a quote saying that the rich stay rich by acting as if they are broke. This is the exact opposite of what you would think happens. If you are rich why not act as if you are rich. Then again, we see those people who win the lottery and immediately start going out and buying house, boats, and whatever they want and what happens to them? They were rich and acting rich and they end up broke. By doing the opposite you can keep your money instead of throwing it all away. 

When people are at work, they complain about work. When they are at home, they complain about not having anything to do. Do the opposite, don’t complain. Enjoy your job because it gives you something to do and it pays you. Enjoy being at home because it’s relaxing and it gives you time to do whatever your heart desires. 

Growing up my mother always told me this ridiculous thing and to this day I cannot forgetit ,” If your friends all jumped off the bridge, would you do it to?” In a sense my mom was just telling me to do the opposite without me knowing it. Granted in this case this was just my mom’s way of telling me no. It was very good advise not to do what everyone else was doing. 

I stopped complaing, I stopped trying to act rich, and I could not be happier. Just do the opposite. 

Change

Are you happy in your life? Are you happy with the amount of money you make? Are you happy at your job? Are you happy with the car you drive? Are you happy with the area you live in? These are the only a few questions we have about our own life. The thing that they all have in common is the solution. Change. 

If you are unhappy about the answer to any of those questions the answer is simple, change.  Einstein said that ,”Insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different outcomes.” If you are unhappy quite doing the same thing over again. It’s time for change. 

Get a new job. Save money for a new car. Look for a new place to live. Go back to school and build your education so you can make more money. Everything you need to do means you have yo change. Change takes time and you have to put the time in to achieve it. Think about what you want. Make the necessary changes in you life and then be happy. Be happy with your car, your job, the amount of money you make. You deserve to be happy and if you are not, it is time to change. 

Law of Attraction

This world is governed by laws. There is a law for everything we know and everything we do. We grow up and our parents are the first people to tell us what we can and cannot do. As we start getting older and attend school we start to learn other laws. We learn about laws that the government have imposed for the safety of the community and ourselves. Mathematics have there own set of laws. Then there is the law of attraction. 

The law of attraction states that you attracted the same things that you put out. The main difference to this is that you actually get more of the same that you put out. When you are out and about try to frown. Do not smile at anyone and see what happens. Everyone you encounter will scowl back at you or just look at you with confusion or empathy. These people do not know you, do not know anything about you but instinctually return the emotions that you are putting out. 

This time go out and smile. Smile at everyone you see and watch the immense difference. People will now greet you with excitement and happiness. Just as the law of attraction states you will get more then you put out. Strangers will see you as being more approachable and will see you as someone they want to be around. 

Be happy. Smile. Even if you are having a bad day do whatever you can put a smile on your face. Surround yourself with other happy people and it will be contagious. You can have a bad day and still be happy. 

Dreaming and Complaining

A great nights sleep with lots of dreams is a wonderful thing. If you are lucky enough is remember your dreams you have a small insight into your subconscience. Your dreams are an extension of your conscious mind. You wake up and feel great, remembering all that your dream had to show you. These glimpses you have are showing you your true potential. Dreams show you what you can achieve and all that you can become. 

We wake up and begin our day and we forget our dreams ever so quickly. We clomp about our day and encounter different things. This is when we start to complain. Sometimes we complain out loud and sometimes we keep it inside. We bury our complaints and pretend they are not there or we find those like minded and let our complaints be heard. 

Amazingly enough dreaming and complaing are extremely similar. They both lead to nothing, achieve nothing, and will soon fade away into your mind. Don’t be this type of person. Rather then complain or to let your dreams fade away, do something. 

Your complaints will disappear when you start doing something about them. Complain, figure out how to fix it, and then work to remedy this problem. Sounds easy but this takes time and work. It takes you doing something about it. Work on the things you don’t  like in you life and soon you will have nothing to complain about. 

Dreams only fade when you wake up because you choose to do nothing. Just like fixing complaints in your life, it takes work. Remember you dreams and work to achieve them. If you dream about a better  job, then start looking. If you dream about a partner then start dating. Whatever your dream is it will take work to accomplish. 

Complaining and dreaming are completely different actions. Yet they are quite similar and will be achieved in the same way. Once started your life will begin changing in ways that you will not be able to explain. Your complaints will fade and your dreams will become a reality. 

Meditation

Simply described is thinking or focusing deeply. Most people do not meditate or meditate is very small burst. We have all been studying for school or at work and we tell ourselves, “Come on, we need to focus.” This is usually due to our scattered mind wandering while we are set at a singular task. This lack of focus, on whatever we are doing, causes self doubt and most of the time negative self talk. 

Everyday we should set time aside alone to just reflect on our day. Disregard all the issues that are happening, all the things we need to get done, and just silence our thougbts. Moat of us cannit compketely silence our thoughts so we should at least focus them. 

Sit alone and slow your breath. Focus on your breathing. In through your nose and out through your mouth. Do this slowly and calmly. Try to not think about anything that is going on currently or anything that will have to be done once you finish. Listen to your breath, feel your heart beat slow as you relax. Continue this for as long as it takes for you to remember that you were trying to forget everything.  Sounds odd, I know. Once you have forgotten that you were trying to forget things you have completed your meditation. 

Some people continue with their meditation beyond this point because they start to enjoy this clarity. It is a cleansing of the thoughts. You know longer have “a thousands” things on your mind. You have , in essence, reset your brain. Once you stop meditating you will be able to focus on the task at hand better. You mind will have a single goal and be able yo perform at it peak potential. 

As you get better at .meditating you will be able to achieve this clarity at a faster and more efficient pace. At first thing could take you 30 minutes or more, to achieve this clarity. No doubt that with practice you will be able to obtain this type of focus in a matter of a few minutes. You will be able to stop whatever you are doing, take a few breathes and refocus on whatever you are doing. A clarity of thought will allow you to be in the moment and really focus on being happy. 

Bad Days

We have all had bad days and we will all have bad days in the future. No matter what we do things will not always go as we plan. The only choice we have is how these occurrences will change the course of the day. We can make the choice to either let our day continue to fall prey to the negativety or rise above it. 

There will be days that no matter what you do or try you will not be able to shake this bad day. Things will seem hopeless and you will feel like this day will never end. All days end. The bad day that you are having is like all other days. It will come and go and you will move on. If you stop and think, can you even remember your last real bad day? I know that I can’t. During the day you need to try and focus on the good things in your life no matter how small or insignificant they may be. The good things may be as simple as I ate a good breakfast or I have a day off coming in the near future. These little things need all of your attention on your bad days. If you focus on the aspects of life that are discouraging you and sapping your happiness, you are just giving those things power over you. You need to take that power back and focus on only good things. Focus on your own happiness. Focus on that great breakfast you had, on all the things you can accomplish on your day off, and take the power back from the bad day. You are stronger then any bad day. The day will come and go and you will persevere. 

Mindfulness

Lao Tzu said it best “If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.” 

Being mindful means to be fully aware and conscious of something. Make that something, yourself. Take a moment to think about how you feel, what is going on in your life, and how it is affecting you. 

If something happened to you in the past and it is on your mind it is okay to acknowledge it, but dont let it controls your attitude for the day. Take time to think about it, contemplate what steps to take because it happened, and then move on. You are the sum of your experiences and they have helped to shape you into the person that you are today. Be happy with who you have become because no one else has gone through exactly what you have. 

But what if you are busy worrying about the future and the things that may happen? The best advise that I can give you is that the future is always changing. You cannot control the future, you can only help it to take shape. You shape the future with the things that you do today. Rather then living in the future you should focus on the present. The things that you do today will become your future. The quote that was originally used for farmers says it best, ” You reap what you sow.” It literally means what you do now will lead to what you have in the future. 

Throughout the day you need to stop a moment and take a moment to be mindful. Look around you. Take in the sights, smells the aromas that surround you, and ask yourself “How am I doing right now?” This little step done throughout the day will assist you in being mindful. This keeps you from living in the past with depression, living in the future with anxiety, and will keep you in the present, at peace.