Spirituality and Self Help » Money

The Three E’s to Finding the Career You Love

shimon — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:08:29 +0000

This is a guest post by Michele Wahlder. Michele is a Life & Career Coach, the founder of Life Possibilities, LLC and author of Alphatudes: The Alphabet of Gratitude—26 Solutions for Life’s Little Challenges.
You might fall into a career that you love by chance or you may have known since you were a child what you wanted to do when you grew up and ended up loving your chosen profession. For many of us, though, finding a career we love is not so easy.

Most of us have gone through the trial and error process, but it’s not a very strategic method for the activity you’ll be doing for forty hours a week until you retire. Considering the amount of time we spend comparing brands at the supermarket or researching vacations, shouldn’t we put a little more time and research into our career choice too?

If you’re contemplating a career move, reassessing your mid-life career choice or just entering the job market, consider working through the Three E’s to Finding the Career You Love: Exploration, Evaluation, Execution.

EXPLORATION

Before you start your job search, the first thing you’ll want to do is assess your work values. Ask yourself what you need in order to be happy in your work environment. Prepare a standard set of questions to ask on an interview based on the values you are not willing to set aside. These values provide a template for what any career you pursue should look like.

Then, assess your strengths. Once you have defined what you are naturally talented at, focus on how you can optimize those strengths and write a competitive edge statement that explains what makes you unique, different and valuable.

The final step in the Exploration stage is to find the common “golden” threads that run through your interests and brainstorm careers that would incorporate them. For example, you may find that most of your interests tend to be individual activities that allow your mind to go somewhere else, such as reading, cycling, and playing computer games.

If you thrive working alone and enjoy the “escape” of everyday life, then think of careers that might let you use those interests. Perhaps, you’d enjoy being a writer, a truck driver, or a computer programmer. Write down all the potential careers based on your interests. Don’t edit or censor at this point, jot it all down, everything from a vague interest or silly idea to a dream job.

EVALUATION

Once you’ve explored and discovered your work values, your strengths, your interests, and brainstormed career options, it’s time to evaluate what jobs may actually be suitable for you.

Take your list of jobs and compare and contrast it with your work values and your strengths. You may find that even though being a truck driver aligns with your interests, one of your values is to have the option to work from home. Or, you may not be a very good driver. Narrow your list down to the jobs that fit with your values, use your strengths, and include some of your interests.

Once you’ve narrowed down your options, do a little “on the road” evaluating for your top three job choices—job shadowing, internships, web-research, and informational interviews.

EXECUTION

Now that you’ve learned about your options, pick the one that is the best fit for you. Then find out as much about the industry and the opportunities within that career field as you can. Re-write your resume to position yourself for this career or begin building the foundational components of the new business you would like to start.

Connect with professional organizations in your industry, take any training or educational courses you need to be competitive, and get out there and submit your resume or start that business.

Congratulations, you have arrived at a career choice that will utilize your talents, skills, and passions!

Here is a bonus video to help you get the job of your dreams.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh3VV90v5po

8 Obstacles To Using The Law Of Attraction Successfully

shimon — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:38:17 +0000

Have you ever tried to use the law of attraction to achieve something in your life? Have you ever failed?

Some people when they fail decide that “it is all just a big scam” or that they just weren’t “positive” enough. In this post I want to share eight impediments to using the law of attraction successfully.

By knowing the obstacles we can avoid them and deal with them if needed, it also provides another reason for the failure.

1 Negative thoughts- these are all the thoughts that negate the idea of the achievement. Let’s say you want a promotion at work or a better paying job , negative thoughts would be thinking about all the reasons why you won’t achieve it: The economy is in recession, your coworkers have a better connection with the boss, you don’t always succeed at your job and so on.

Clearly this way of thinking is the exact opposite of what you should be doing- thinking about all the reasons why you will succeed. It doesn’t matter what you think the “reality” is.

For example let’s take the last argument- you don’t always succeed at your job, think about all the managers you (If it didn’t happen to you it probably happened to one of your friends.) had who were less qualified then you. The “reality” is fluid it constantly changes according to your point of view. When you know you deserve it you’ll achieve it.

2 You’re not motivated enough- If I tell you that you have one year to make a million dollar or else I’ll kill you or your family and you can’t go to the cops will you achieve it? This is a radical example yet it shows that with the right amount of motivation you can achieve anything.

Find what motivates you, if for instance you want a luxury car go to the dealership and ask them to test drive it. Feel what it will be like when you’ll own such a car. Collect pictures of it and anything that will make you feel that you own it. Remind yourself why you want it. There are countless resources for motivation: books, seminars ,audio cassettes use them daily.

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing -- that’s why we recommend it daily. — Zig Ziglar

3Patience- Although you create your reality with your thoughts and emotions, it takes time. How much time? That depends on the ratio between beneficial and negative thoughts and upon your skills. It’s a simple math, the more positive thoughts believing that it is possible for you the quicker it will be achieved.

Another example is if you are working on changing your personality (e.g. become braver or more assertive) then you have to give yourself time to change.

4 Attachment- The word attachment means that you fear you’ll fail. You’re attached to the outcome rather than release it to the universe. The attachment doesn’t have to be a word or a phrase you say to yourself, sometimes it is just a feeling, a fear that you won’t achieve your desired outcome.

To release it remember that it is your job to decide what it is you want and do whatever you can to achieve it, after that the universe will do the rest.

5Doing nothing- It is not enough to visualize your desired outcome or to repeat affirmations. You have to help god help you. If you want to lose weight and you don’t eat less or exercise you’ll probably won’t lose weight. All the techniques should supplement they aren’t the main course of action. If it is difficult try a mentor or a coach someone that achieved it already or someone that will motivate you and give you tools to succeed.

In this video Will Smith talks about the law of attraction and about the importance of work.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pke9gEZfJXk

6Beliefs- Sometimes your believes get in the way of your outcome. For instance if you want to be rich but you believe that all rich people are greedy or that “money doesn’t grow on trees” and so on then even if you’ll make a lot of money you’ll find ways to get rid of it even quicker, after all you don’t want to be greedy right? You’ll need to work on those believes before you’ll see progress.

You can work on your beliefs on your own or use a professional.

7Asking god- Believe it or not asking god isn’t a good idea because:
a) He/she already knows what you want.
b) By asking you’re declaring that you don’t create your reality after all if you did you wouldn’t ask god for help right?
c) You implant the idea that you don’t have the things you ask for now.

What you can do is to feel and think as if the things you want are already present in your life. Don’t try to lie to yourself, if you’re trying to lose weight and you can’t say to yourself that you’re thin then at least you can say that you’re becoming thinner every day. Say it with emotion, really feel it and believe it.

8 Not wanting it enough- All the aforementioned impediments really come down to this one. All the obstacles are really excuses. If right now you’ll decide that you’re going to dedicate your life to become rich and really focus solely on this: you will go to seminars to get a financial education, you’ll find a mentor, you’ll work on your people skills etc, You will become rich without a doubt.

Yes it requires a sacrifice, you’ll probably have to watch less TV and maybe see your friends less often. So is it worth it? Your answer will determine your success.

The Seven Beliefs of Highly Happy People

shimon — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 19:28:30 +0000

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. — Buddha

A friend of mine (who I’ll call John) recently told me an interesting story. He told me that he has a friend (who I’ll call Adam) that isn’t smart and is ugly. John and Adam would go out and Adam showed him gorgeous women and told him that he would date them. Sure enough by the end of the evening he did.

Once John asked him how does he do it. Adam said that he doesn’t have a specific technique and that the reason he is doing so well is that he is smart and handsome. This story illustrates the power of beliefs. Beliefs are really our opinions about the reality. I wrote a lot about beliefs in one of my previous posts called Mastering your beliefs- Empowering yourself . In that post I described how beliefs influence us and a few ways to change them.

When you know how to change your beliefs, what’s left is to find worthwhile beliefs. In this post I want to share seven beneficial beliefs that will make you happier.

1The first believe is quite simple and self explanatory, it’s the aforementioned quote. The first belief recognizes you as the ultimate authority in your life and as such you shouldn’t accept beliefs that you don’t agree with, even if they come form a person who you consider as an authority figure.

2 The reality as we see it doesn’t exist. We think that we see with our eyes when in fact we see with our brain. Our brain constructs an image from the input it gets from the eyes. That is the reason why the brain can’t differentiate between something that you vividly imagined for a long enough period of time and something that actually happened.

This means that you can fake it until you make it.
Another example is the ultraviolet and infrared rays that exist beyond the visible light spectrum. These examples demonstrate that there is a lot more happening then we can see, hear, taste, smell or touch.

According to quantum physics the observer affects the observed reality, moreover all the possibilities exist until they are observed. Therefore we create our reality by using our intentions and thoughts. This short video explains more about quantum physics and it’s relevance.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_tNzeouHC4

3 We are all one literally it’s not just a figure of speech. Our soul doesn’t reside in the body, The body resides in the soul. The soul is much bigger than the body. There isn’t a place where one soul ends and another begins. Just like there is only one air in a house but the air can seem different, the air in the kitchen can smell differently than the air in the bedroom.

When you’ll truly believe that:
You will no longer want to harm anyone because you will know that if you harm another person you are really hurting yourself.
You will share more because what you give others you are really giving yourself.

It isn’t a coincidence that we all want the same: love, happiness, freedom, health, etc. We just believe that a different path will take us there.

4 Money comes from having a good idea and following it. You don’t need a lot of money to make money. There are opportunities that require very little sums of money, like the stock market or building a successful website. It doesn’t matter which path you’ll take as long as you persevere.

5 There is enough, enough food, water, love, jobs, prosperity etc. We just need to share what we have. If everyone will share no one will feel that he lacks something. The crime rate will plunge because people will no longer be forced to steal in order to exist. When the condition of the poor will get better so will the condition of the rich, because they will have more people to trade with.

However in order for this to happen people need to believe that there is enough and they need to know that they can create more of everything with their thoughts. You can’t give to another if you don’t think that you have enough, nor should you. If you genuinely give to another person you’re conveying to your subconscious that you have enough and therefore you will have even more.
6
This too shall pass. Truly happy people know that no matter what will happen they can withstand it. They don’t ascribe excessive meaning to events. A good question to ask yourself about a situation is how will you feel about it in one year, 5 years, 10,50 years? If the answer is you won’t care chances are that it doesn’t really matter. Too many people focus on the unimportant things in life. Focusing on what matters will save you a lot of concern and probably will improve your health.
7
There is always something you can do, sometimes it’s to change your attitude. Have you ever heard someone complaining that they are just that type of person? and always have been? Thoughts like I’m always late or I’m just not smart, handsome, rich, assertive, confident enough aren’t constructive and they are wrong! If the reality as we see it doesn’t exist and we create our reality with our thoughts then we can change everything. Note that some changes may require a professional help.

However sometimes we are born with handicaps, usually we decide to be born like this in order to teach ourselves a higher lesson like self acceptance and to inspire others. In these cases it’s best to change our attitude. In other words to change how we perceive our handicap. There are a lot of examples of famous people that achieved a lot despite of their disabilities.

It’s OK To Be Rich – Get Wealthier Beyond Your Wildest Dreams

shimon — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:04:35 +0000

Why are some people rich while others can’t even sustain themselves? What is the key factor that determines who will be wealthy and who is destined to be poor?

The answer lies in the reason, more specifically the reason that drives the person to wealth. For instance if I want to have more money because it will be more fun that way and my friend wants to have more money because she can’t live anymore with her parents and her brother in a two bedroom apartment and she wants to buy herself a new apartment, who do you think will become richer faster? That’s right it would be my friend because her reason is stronger.

So often if you ask someone do you want to be rich? He will answer yes, however he means that it would be nice if he will somehow become rich without lifting a finger. Some people mistakenly understand the secret as something merely spiritual; hence they don’t need to do anything besides visualizing a lot of money and feeling good about it. The truth is that it’s only the beginning and it’s something that will accelerate your success yet it won’t help if it’s the only thing you do.

Some people have conflicting beliefs. On the one hand they want more money but on the other hand they have beliefs like: money is the root of all evil, money doesn’t grow on trees or rich people are greedy and miserly. The universe wants to help you. It wants to give you what you want for yourself, but if you keep changing your mind about what you want the universe can’t help you.

Another impediment to success is bad habits. So often we know what to do yet we choose not to do it (not choosing is a choice). A good coach can help. Someone that will drive you forward, someone experienced that won’t let you loiter.

There are a few steps to achieve financial success:
The first thing to do is to write down all of your reasons for wanting more money. Make them as compelling as you can. Take the time and really think why do you want to be rich? When the reason is strong enough all the obstacles will disappear. Write all the negative reasons too, e.g if I don’t get rich then… Write how it will affect all aspects of your life.

After that write money on a piece of paper and write all of your associations to the word money. Write whatever comes to mind without lifting the pen for at least a minute. That exercise should reveal all your negative and positive beliefs regarding money. After you know your beliefs there are a few ways of changing them.

There are limited ways of making money: the stock market, business, real estate, the internet and very rarely working for someone else maybe as a CEO. Choose an area or a few of them that seem interesting to you and study them. The best source is a mentor but if you don’t know one there are a lot of alternative ways: books, seminars, friends, financial magazines etc.

Make a plan and follow it. Make sure you do something each day.

Money is an energy and it flows to people that appreciate it. Be thankful for the money you have because there are people that live on a dollar a day. Remember it’s OK to be rich it’s what you do with the money that counts.

Money is always present in your life in direct proportion to the amount of self acceptance and love. That is a universal law.

Here is another great EFT video to achieve financial success.