In the last 4 weeks we have been discussing about asking with the right mindset and the four elements of having the right mindset – positive outlook, being ready to receive, asking why not how and having no fear of success. Asking with the right mindset is only the first step and there are two more steps that you need to take before actually receiving from the Universe.

The first step after Asking with the right mindset is…Visualization. Why is just asking not enough? Why is it important to visualize achieving your goal? To understand the answer to these questions you need to understand what is visualization and the impact that it can bring into your life.

Visualization is acting out your dream as if you have already achieved it. You start to see how you will be, all things you will do, people you will meet, things you will buy after achieving your dream. Let your thoughts go far enough even to get the minutest detail in your world after having achieved your dream. Don’t just stop with thinking, feel every detail that your thoughts bring up. Emotions have such power that logic has a tough time understanding this.

Your conscious mind will be able to differentiate you acting out achieving your dream and actually having achieved your dream, however your subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between if you are acting out or if it is real. This is the reason why you need to do this visualization exercises. When you are acting out as if you have achieved your dream, your subconscious mind goes to work and sends out signals to make your thoughts real.

So how often do you need to follow this visualization exercise for success? There is no hard and fast rule for this, however just apply your common sense. Don’t keep doing it all day, and definitely don’t do it once and forget about it completely. It’s a fine balance between day dreaming and visualizing success. The key difference between visualization and day dreaming is that, in day dreaming you don’t go into such vivid details as you would when you visualize.

Go into all the vivid details when you visualize and let the happy feeling spread through your entire body. When you go through this experience when visualizing, you get past the desire of manifesting your dreams and start focusing on the all the good things that will become possible by manifesting your dreams. You separate yourself from the dream and start enjoying the process of getting to your dreams. Only when you attain this level of clarity and detachment you will be able to truly enjoy manifesting your dream.

Now that we know the power of visualization, the next and final step in achieving your dreams is…Align your actions. Next week we will discuss how aligning your actions will impact if you will achieve your dreams or not. Enjoy Every Moment of Your Life. Talk Soon.

All it takes to manifest your dream is simply asking for it, with the right state of mind. In the previous articles we covered some elements of the right state of mind - positive outlook, being ready to receive, asking why not how. In today’s article we will discuss the next element in having the right state of mind and that is….Having no fear of success.

It might seem absurd to say that someone could be fearful of success. Fear of success is very real, as much as it seems absurd. When everyone wants success in achieving their dreams, why would anyone in their right mind be fearful of success? Although this is a tough question, let’s first understand what fear of success is.

Success means change, change in your environment, change in your lifestyle, change in the way you do things and more. The key thing to notice here is Change. It is a natural human behavior to resist change. With success comes Freedom and Responsibility. If you have trouble being responsible when you have the freedom, that’s when fear of success creeps in.

When you are successful you are going to have lot more choices than what you have right now. When you have many choices you have to make decisions, some that people near and dear to you will approve of and some that they won’t approve. Though you may recognize these, the thoughts are real and could be lingering in your subconscious mind.

You have to sit down find your answers to these questions and be confident that you can handle success even at a subconscious level. Lot of times people think success as a destination and that is one of the reasons why they lose sense of further direction having reached the destination. To handle this you need to ask yourself what you will be doing after achieving your dream, what changes will you make to your lifestyle and more.

When you look inwards about the freedom that you will get with accomplishing your dreams, go a step further and think about all those that you will be able to do. Also understand the responsibilities that come along with achieving your dreams. Think through it if you really want to achieve your dreams in spite of all the additional responsibilities that come along with that. Only when you have that level of acceptance you will be able to eliminate the fear of success.

And when you go through this exercise you might get insights into what you really desire for. It might even turn out that what you really want is something else and not the one that you asked for. If you ask for something that you really didn’t want and realize that only after having achieved it, you will still not be truly happy. So this is a critical step in the process of manifesting your dreams. Confront your thoughts all the way until you are totally confident and have no fear of success.

We have been discussing about asking with the right mindset and the four elements of having the right mindset – positive outlook, being ready to receive, asking why not how and having no fear of success. Asking with the right mindset is only the first step and there are two more steps that you need to take before actually receiving from the Universe. The two steps after Asking with the right mindset are…Visualizing and taking action…which we will be discussing next week. Enjoy Every Moment of Your Life. Talk Soon.

All it takes to manifest your dream is simply asking for it, with the right state of mind. In the previous articles we covered how having a positive outlook and being ready to receive plays an important role in having the right state of mind. In today’s article we will discuss the next element in having the right state of mind and that is….Asking why, not how.

Asking why: When you dreaming for something big, it’s good to ask yourself the reason why you want to achieve your dream. Like we discussed earlier the universe isn’t bothered why you want achieve your dream. However having a strong reason why will help you stay motivated through the course of achieving your dream.

Asking why helps you inquire further into if this is what you really want or if it is just a temporary wish of yours. When you have a strong reason why, you can face any obstacle and pursue your dream. Your reason why will define how you will feel when you have achieved your dream. If you achieved your dream, and start wondering why you had set out to for this dream, then all your efforts become meaningless.

Not Asking How: It is equally important to not ask how, when you are asking why. Even though it is tempting to ask how you are going to manifest your dreams, when your dream is really big, you need put that aside. If you have a strong reason why, the how to manifest will fall in place automatically.

It might be difficult for you foresee every single resource that is required to manifest your dreams, however all you need is a positive outlook that you will get all the required resources, be ready to receive all the resources and have a strong belief in your reason why. Let me give you an example, if you can see things that are 10 feet away from you, then a person sitting on your shoulder can see farther than the 10 feet that you are able to see.

It’s the same with your dreams. Today with the resources that you have, you may be able to see only so far on how you will achieve it. However tomorrow with additional resources you will be to see farther than what you are able to see today. Day after you will be able to see farther than what you can see tomorrow. It all adds up.

So put aside the how and start asking why and the how will fall in place. Your reason why gives purpose and meaning to your pursuit and that is all you need to care about. The universe will bring the opportunities and resources to manifest your dreams. Next week we will discuss another important element in having the right state of mind and that is…Having no fear of success. Enjoy Every Moment of Your Life. Talk Soon.

Even though all it takes to manifest your dream is simply asking for it, you still need to ask for it the right state of mind. In the previous article we covered how having a positive outlook plays an important role in having the right state of mind. In today’s article we will discuss the next element in having the right state of mind and that is….Being Ready to Receive.

Being Ready to Receive: When we dream about something really big and ask for it, it is quite natural that we start asking ourselves, do I really deserve this? It is in fact a legitimate question and it comes up because you are trying to move out of your comfort zone.

Let’s say you are seeing a 100 storey building for the first time and it turns out that you want to go to the 100^th floor. You walk up to the receptionist and ask for directions, take the elevator and on your way up to the 100^th floor. All of a sudden there is power failure and you have to wait few minutes and then finally you reach the 100^th floor.

Life is very similar to this. You might be in level 1 of your life and your dream might be to reach level 100 in your life. When you look at it, it might seem like a humongous task, and you might have questions about your own capabilities. However look at it this way, the elevator in the building doesn’t care what your capabilities are, all you have to do is get in the elevator, and push the button that indicates the level that you want to reach.

Our universe is very much like the elevator, it will give you what you ask for. If you ask for level 1 it takes you there, if you ask for level 10 it takes you there, if you ask for level 100 it takes you there. There are some key lessons here, don’t underestimate your capabilities and definitely don’t underestimate the capabilities of the universe. Like the elevator you move one level at a time, however there is nothing that is stopping you to ask for reaching level 100.

One more aspect of being ready to receive is being patient. Even if you ask for level 100 you are taken through level 1, 2, 3 ….100. There could be obstacles like the power failure, however you need to understand that it’s only temporary and have your goal of reaching level 100 rather than worrying about the delay. Lot of times the delay is because you are not totally ready for it.

Although at a conscious level you might feel that you are ready, if you are not ready at the subconscious level, you will have to wait until you are both consciously and subconsciously ready to manifest your dreams. So how do you know if you are both consciously and subconsciously ready? If you have thoughts that keep going back and forth between manifesting and not manifesting your dreams it’s a clear sign that you aren’t ready. However don’t panic because only if you cross this stage of going back and forth, you will be truly ready to receive.

So let go of your doubts, start believing in your capabilities and cherish every small thing that you do. Now that we have covered being ready to receive, the next element in having the right state of mind is…Asking Why, not how. We will discuss this next week. Enjoy Every Moment of Your Life. Talk Soon.

When you have a big dream or want to achieve something really big, all you have to do is simply ASK and the universe will give it to you. Lot of times people fail to understand the profound impact of this law of attraction principle looking at the simplicity of the concept and discard the principle as bogus. I understand if you are skeptical about the principle. I will answer every question that you have to show you the truth.

If all that is required to manifest a dream is simply ask, why isn’t everyone achieving their dreams? This is the first question every one asks to challenge the simplicity of the principle. However there is a key element that is hidden in the principles like this and that is… you need to be in the “right state of mind” when you ask for something.

So what comprises the right state of mind? There are a number of key pieces that contribute the right state of mind and let’s tackle them one by one

Positive Attitude: Everything that happens around us, everything that we hear, everything that we experience has a significant impact on our outlook. You only see exceptions who develop a positive attitude in spite of growing in a negative environment. Again you only see exceptions who are able to maintain a positive attitude in spite of all the setbacks and failures they have gone through.

After growing in a negative environment, after going through negative experiences, after hearing negative things happening all around the world, it takes lot of perseverance to sport a positive mental attitude when a lot of negative things keep happening. You may not be 100% positive when you ask something the first time. Don’t be let down by the negativity. Ask again and again until you are asking with a 100% positive attitude.

This is one of the key reasons why some people get what they ask for immediately, some get it in weeks, some in months, and some in years. Every one of us is unique in our own way and each one of our experiences is unique. Don’t compare yourself with others and don’t get into a negative mindset that others get things sooner than you.

So it is essential that we make it a practice to have a positive mental attitude in everything we see, everything we do, everyone we meet and in every one of our experience. We have to get this into our daily routine until it becomes natural for us to see the positive aspect in everything.

The next piece in the “right state of mind” that will help you manifest your dreams is “Being Ready to Receive”. I don’t want you to be overwhelmed by a lot of information, so let the concept of having a positive attitude sink into your mind and we will discuss “Being Ready to Receive” in the next part of this article due next week. Meanwhile if you have further questions about having a positive attitude, leave me a comment and I will address them.

Live a Happy Life

Sometimes I think my wallet has a mind of it’s own. When I’m in a store or I’m surfing the Internet and I come across something I would really like to purchase it’s almost as if my wallet will jump out of my back pocket. Are you like this too? I’ll be the first to admit that I have always had a spending problem. Like a lot of other people I know, I have spent the majority of my life spending more than I actually make.

I always tell my friends that I’m on my third life. When they ask why, I say it’s because three times in my life I’ve went from everything to nothing. The sad fact is that each time I did it to myself. I’ve always been a person of little patience, so when I see something I want to buy I usually just buy it without regard as to how I will pay for it. Those little plastic cards make it very convenient for impulse buyers.

My compulsive behavior didn’t stop at regular everyday items either. When I started my Internet business I convinced myself to make purchased that I justified in my mind as being “For the business”. When in reality I was still being compulsive. I spent thousands of dollars on ebooks, tutorials, and training programs that were all not worth the time it took someone to write them in the first place. I guess now I could say it was all a learning experience but that would be a lie. Had I done the proper research before purchasing those items I would have seen through the scams and lies.

Today I try to live a different life when I am dealing with money. I have learned a couple very nice tricks that help to keep my wallet in my pants. Believe me I have been down and out more than once in my life. I have had thousands of dollars in credit card debt more than once in my life.

If you have ever been in this situation or maybe you are in that position currently I want to share two simple tricks that will help you learn to manage money better and then learn to attract more of it in your future.

The first concept may seem silly and it’s certainly not my idea but it works if you allow yourself to try it. If you have a checking account then you probably have an unused check register lying around somewhere. If you don’t then get yourself a piece of lined paper and use a pen and layout the paper so that it looks like a check register.

On your first entry you will deposit $1,000 dollars into the pretend account. The next thing you need to do is spend all of it. I don’t want you to save a single penny on the first day. Think of something you have been wanting and write it into the register as if you actually purchased it. Once you have spent the entire amount put your register away until tomorrow. On your second day you will make a deposit for $2,000 dollars. Again, go ahead and spend it. Maybe you want to buy new clothes or some new music cd’s. Buy whatever you like, it’s your pretend money! Each day you will deposit one thousand dollars more than the previous day. Try to spend it if you can. Don’t be hard on yourself if you eventually run out of things to buy.

Maybe you could pay off those credit card bills. Or pay off your car loan. The important thing is to try and spend as much as you can. Once you are about two weeks into this exercise you will notice how increasingly hard it becomes to spend the money. By day 14 you will be depositing $14,000 dollars into the account. How are you going to spend it in one day? Now it’s almost as if there is too much money! The idea behind this exercise is each time you write a check for something you want to buy, Think about how good it feels to own the thing you so wanted. It feels good to get new things. We all love it. You will notice that once you pretend to buy something and focus on the feelings of having it, your feelings of wanting it in the first place will subside. Maybe the item will become less important to you. If you follow the exercise you will be amazed. When I first did this I spent my money on new TV’s, gadgets, and trip to exotic places. It wasn’t until about one week into it that I had the feeling that I didn’t want to spend the money anymore. Instead, I wanted to save it!

So here’s were this game gets real fun. After my first week I started imagining that if I saved the money each day I would soon be able to pay off all of my bills, buy a new house, buy my wife her dream car. I was filled with excitement about saving money! That was the first time in my life that had happened. I hope you give this simple game a try. It really works. If you have a dream of being successful, your first step is to learn how to manage your money. You will soon see just how abundant money really is.

The second game I want to tell you about is even simpler than the first. Get yourself a one hundred dollar bill and place it in your wallet. This exercise works best with real money, no fake IOU’s here. Place the money in your wallet and as you go about your day if you see something you want, think about the money in your wallet. You know you could buy the item but don’t do it. Imagine yourself spending the money on that precious little gadget that you must have. But only pretend! Spend that same one hundred dollars over and over in your mind. If you run out and actually spend the money then you only get to feel the satisfaction of spending it once. But if you imagine spending it, you can spend it thousands of times and get the same feeling over and over again.

These two simple games will put you in a mindset to begin to allow more money into your life. You are no different than anyone else. Money does not play favorites; it does not care who holds it or who spends it. We all want money, we all feel like we must have it in order to be successful. The truth is that the money will come as soon as you allow it to come to you. If by doing these simple exercises you learn to manage money even the tiniest bit better, you will soon see that money is abundant and it will come to you if you let it.

As I have learned to know myself more and more I have come to the conclusion that I have always had a problem receiving what the universe is trying to give me. I know the law of attraction quite well but it’s not something that you can simply do without putting some work into it. I think the breakthrough came for me when I finally understood the “feeling” aspect of it. You cannot simply ask for something and expect it to manifest for you.

This is something I think a lot of other people have a hard time trying to grasp. If I say to myself “I want that new car” and I focus on it shouldn’t I get it? Shouldn’t the universe park it out in my driveway for me? That’s not at all how the law of attraction works. If you only ask and you have no real desire and no real passion for what you are asking then it will not manifest.

The key to receiving what the universe is offering is to not only focus on what you want but feel it as well. As a matter of fact you MUST feel it in order to receive it. If I want ten thousand dollars in the bank I must close my eyes and visualize the feelings of already having the money. It is through your feelings that you then align your vibrational self with what it is that you desire.

Visualization is key to manifesting all of your desires. It does not matter how big or small so long as you feel for it. When you put yourself in a true state of feeling desire you will then begin to allow it into your physical experience. Albert Einstein once said “Imagination is everything, it is the preview of lifes coming attractions”. Notice the last word is “Attractions” because that is what you are doing. You are attracting things into your experience through your desires.

So how do you begin to feel the things you want? You must have blind faith! You must trust that the universe will bring what you ask. If you doubt, the universe will not bring you anything more than more doubt. If you can close your eyes and picture in your mind the exact circumstances of your desire it will always manifest for you so long as you always believe it will.

Now of course we would all like a million dollars in the bank, we all desire to have that kind of money but most of us don’t. The reason why is because even if you ask the universe for a million dollars there are other daily distractions getting in your way. If only you could ask and believe and not worry about any other distractions then surely it will manifest. It might not be tomorrow or next week but if you allow it, it will come to you.

Most people stop being dreamers by their mid twenties. We get stuck in the day to day routine of life. We go to our jobs and do our work. We come home late and watch some TV and go to bed. We get up the next day and do it all over again. If only you could set aside fifteen minutes of your time each day to focus on your true desires.

For me I like to focus at night when I first go to bed. I don’t immediately try to go to sleep but instead I first reflect on my day and I think about what I am grateful for then I count my breathing and focus on my true desires. What would I do better tomorrow? We are all busy but if you want to learn to receive your desires you must find a way to allow them to happen for you. If you can do this, your life will be as fulfilling as you want it to be.

In 1996, I was an underpaid apartment painter, living in a dump - not living my dreams at all. I was learning about the laws of attraction back then, and started ‘doing my best’ to implement it in my own life.

Being the creative type, eager to help others, I set a couple of intentions:

1. Write a non-fiction bestselling book that helps others
2. Earn more than $100,000 a year

I daily took time to envision this happening in my life, and even went as far as creating a ‘mock’ book that I could hold in my hand. It had my name on the front cover and everything. At this point, I had no clue how this was going to manifest, or when. Well, life seemed to get in the way, and after about 2 weeks of enthusiastic practice, I quit doing my daily ‘vision’ routine. You’d think that a measly 2 weeks of doing this stuff would have no affect on my life -you be the judge.

Fast-foward to 1999 (a few years later)… Through various twists and turns in my life, guess what kind of year I had? Well, I was no longer a painter, but was an author, yes author, of a bestselling computer book on the subject of Macromedia Flash. That year I made almost $99,000!

Is that wild, or what?!?! I spent only 2 weeks on my dream back in 1996, but I spent it, defined it, envisioned it, and felt it. Even after putting it on the back-burner, and without me even trying, my dreams eventually became reality. It took a few years to achieve, but I think if I had stuck with it, had some faith, I would have achieved it much, much faster.

It wasn’t till recently that I even remembered my 2-week dream session, and the end result, but recent events (including watching The Secret) reminded me of how I experienced it in my own life. I have renewed vigor and appreciation for the power of our minds to acheive whatever it is that we want. Although I quit ‘practicing’ years ago, I have begun to implement it again. This time, its a lifelong habit.

The past couple of years have been an evolution journey for me, with this last year being the hardest. I started a business almost 10 years ago for the sole purpose of needing to support my four children. I was a single/newly divorced young mother at the time with no support of any kind, so I *had* to make things work, any way I could. Thus the years went by with me doing the same types of things Make lists, focus, don’t leave the office till your lists are complete, etc. etc.

But almost a year ago I came upon a drastic revelation about me. I had no clue what I actually wanted - or even liked - in life. I’d been so totally focused on making sure I could provide for my kids, there was no time or room for focusing on me. The fact that I was a teenage mom just enhanced this problem. I had my first child at 16, so I never had a chance to explore myself, my likes, my dislikes, my wants or anything else for that matter… before becoming a mom and wife.

Well last July my 2nd son went into the Navy. And that hit me hard. There are barely 3 years left now until I have no more children at home. And I had absolutely no clue what to do with myself. I’d been working my tail off for years, focusing completely on taking care of them. But once they’re out of the house that need is no longer there. Or at least it won’t be nearly as strong and not really the same as it has been all these years.

So I had to figure out what to do with myself. I’d already experienced having extra time on my hands just by having only two kids in the house… and that was so strange. I was honestly lost.

I’d also become frustrated with my daily routines. Constantly trying to do more, be more productive, get ahead faster… in short: Be a “success” as so many people define it. I tried making lists, making appointments with myself, mapping out projects, setting goals, all those things. And over time the lightbulb finally lit: My heart wasn’t in it. I wasn’t overly interested in most of the stuff I was doing and I wasn’t particularly enjoying it most of the time either. I was working for myself yes, but I was working a JOB. It was simply a way to pay the bills and feed the kids. And I was doing what everyone else expected… or said I should do to be “successful”.

It accomplished my main objective over the years yes. I’ve supported my family completely and comfortably, and I’m extremely proud of myself for how far I’ve come. But in just a few years that part won’t be overly important at all. Last July brought the message home loud and clear: I needed to discover me. I needed to know what makes me tick, what I enjoy, what interests I have and so on. Because when I get to the point of having 24 hours a day to devote to just myself, my husband and my dog… I strongly suspect I won’t want to be chained to the desk so much then.

My lightbulb lit fully at the beginning of this year: Lifestyle. That’s what’s important to me. I realized I wanted a certain kind of lifestyle, and I needed to start making choices and taking actions in line with that lifestyle. Once I finally discovered this little “secret”, life became so much easier and more enjoyable.

- So I stopped worrying much about lists, project steps, and productivity. The lifestyle I want doesn’t involve making lists of things I don’t want to do that will cause me to create more lists of more things I don’t want to do.

- I stopped paying attention to million dollar ideas, strategies and suggestions. The lifestyle I want doesn’t involve working my tail off for millions of dollars while never having the time or energy to enjoy those millions.

- I stopped watching “trends” in various industries. The lifestyle I want doesn’t involve trying to keep up with the latest and greatest anything.

There’s many other things I stopped doing and new things I’ve started but my basic point is this: If I get an idea, or see something cool that makes me want to jump around - I step back and ask… How does this fit with the lifestyle I want? Or does it fit at all? Nine times out of ten it doesn’t fit. It involves a lot more work than I’m willing to commit, or a lot more time, or a lot more stress and so on.

So if you’re struggling with idea and opportunity overload, try figuring out the lifestyle you want first. Or the goal if the destination is more important for you than the journey… then ask yourself if this new shiny wonderful thing fits. If it doesn’t, you’ll be suprised at how easy it’ll be to let it pass by.