“Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what your gonna get” – Forrest Gump

(editors note: orginally published on 2/01/2009)

Life is Like a Box of Chocolates

One of my favorite movies of all time is “Forrest Gump”, not because it’s a great story and very well made film, but because it teaches us a lot as well. Tom Hank’s character Forrest I feel displays some of the attitudes that would allow us to accomplish a whole lot and lead a fulfilling life.

If you have not watched the movie, “Forrest Gump” tells the story of a man and his epic journey through life. Along the way Forrest gets to mingle with historical figures, influences popular culture, and experiences first-hand historic events while being largely unaware of their significance, due to his borderline mental retardation.

Because of Forrest’s mental retardation and his mom’s sage advice, Forrest approaches life without being aware of his limitations, he simply takes action and figures it out along the way.

“My momma always said that Miracles happen everyday, some people don’t think so, but they do” – Forrest Gump

Some of Forrest’s Accomplishments:

1. All American football Player (Even though he started his life with leg braces)
2. Graduated College
3. Joined The Army and Got A Medal of Honor
4. Ping Pong Champion
5. Started a Successful Shrimp Company
6. Ran Across America for Three Years

“Make sure you do your best Forrest, I sure will momma”

What we can learn from Forrest Gump:

1. Being Grateful: Forrest did not concern himself with the past or dream about the future, he was fully present in his life, and therefore was able to be grateful for whatever he had going on.
2. Learning To Let Go: Life is a roller coaster with many up’s and downs, when things got tough Forrest always chose to see the brighter side of things, he made opportunities where others only saw defeat or failure. Forrest would put all his energy into one goal at a time, taking it to completion then moving with life to the next destination.
3. Impeccable with his Word: He kept his promises. Forrest made a promise to his friend Bubba from the army, that he would help him start his shrimp company when the war was over. Bubba did not make it back home, but Forrest still kept his promise and went 50/50 and gave Bubba’s share to his family.
4. Accepted Others: Forrest did not judge people he loved, he accepted them for who they are, complete with strengths and weaknesses.
5. Was not greedy: Forrest only used what he needed then gave away the rest. Because of his generosity the more Forrest gave the more he got in return.
6. Taking Action: Forrest did not really think about things too much, an opportunity would present itself and he would take action putting wholehearted effort into what ever he has doing.

How To Be like Forrest Gump:
There’s no doubt that we can all accomplish many great things like Forrest Gump, but we must be able to have a plan in place to accomplish our goals. We need to learn how to manage our activities (tasks) and stress along the way to get the most return from the actions we take.

Procrastination:
The reality is that most people routinely put off doing things they hate to do. A lot of the time these activities are also the ones that must be done if they are to progress and grow in their lives. The flipside is that because of our modern day society we also put off things that we love to do. The mantra is usually that there is not enough time in the day.

Today the challenge is how we make time for the things we enjoy when you are overworked, over scheduled, and overwhelmed.

With so many things competing for our attention like our job, cell phone, email, kids, TV, Internet, Twitter, Facebook, etc. our goal should be to be productive and efficient without burning out. We need to have the energy to pursue the things that will add value and meaning to our lives.

It’s not really about time management more than its managing meaningful activities. If you are not able to manage all the activities you want to complete, you will get stressed out and have your mind zooming in a million different directions.

When you observe our modern society you will notice that we get caught up in being productive, efficient, and stressed out that we slowly accept burnout as a normal way of life.

Manage Your Stress:
Being Busy all the time with out making room for the things you enjoy like yoga, cooking, reading, writing, and spending time with the family will lead to overwhelming stress. Not being able to manage your stress can lead to many health risks because of the overwhelming stress hormones that your body secretes like cortisol.

Balance is Key:
We just have to realize that we don’t have enough time in the day to do everything we would like to get done. We need to indentify the most critical things and work until they are complete, then move on to less important tasks.

Learning To Let Go:
We only become stressed about the things we respond to. How you respond and react to all the things that demand your attention is how you will learn to control your stress.

Typical modern day demands:

• Being able to manage: email, internet, text messages, PDA’s, facebook, myspace, twitter.
• Fear of loosing job
• Insecurity
• Multi Tasking several demanding activities
• Taking supplements for sleeping, energy, and mood
• Lack of boundaries

“My mom always said theres an awful lot you can tell about a person by their shoes, where they go, where they’ve been, I’ve worn lot’s of shoes” – Forrest Gump

Activities to help you cope with stress:

• Exercising
• Joining a sport or club
• Good nutrition
• Outdoor activities
• Meditation
• Meeting up with old friends for good conversation and coffee.

Think of your energy like being a bank, you need to manage your credit (activities that give you energy) and debits (demands that take away energy). If you are making to0 many debits you won’t have enough money (energy) in your account and will only burn yourself out.

Make a list of all the things that take away energy and the things that you are doing to add energy. If there is not a good balance start figuring out how you can achieve that balance by taking on activities that will add energy.

Whenever you feel the stress building up become aware of it, face it and think about the best way to respond to it. When you get rid of things that you did just to stay busy what will you do with the extra time?

Making Things Happen:

1. Valuable: Identify the things that are truly valuable in your life.
2. Acceptance: Love and accept who you are right now, and use as stepping stone to next level of growth.
3. Realistic: Make sure you pursue things that with proper effort and planning will be a reality. Try and take on goals that will take 3-12 months, anything longer than that and it will be difficult in finding the motivation to keep doing. Start in baby steps accomplishing things that are manageable and will give you confidence.
4. Trivial: Identity all the things that are not adding value to your life and eliminate them.
5. Define: Define a structure or daily routine that will with one step and a time get you close to the big picture goal.
6. Growth: Make the time to evaluate key areas of your life like your finances, relationships, health, and spiritual health and make time to do activities that focus on your growth.

“We either make ourselves miserable or make ourselves strong, either way; the amount of work is the same” Carlos Castaneda

Where Does Your Stress Stem From: Physically, intellectually, emotionally, or spiritually. Identify where there stress is coming from and respond with an activity that counteracts it.

Integration:
When you identify what’s valuable think of ways to integrate it into your daily life.

· Join a common interest group
· Sign up for a class
· Read a new book
· Start a project
· Start a new hobby

Taking action:

1. Put the situation into proper perspective
2. Decide what you are going to do
3. Start small
4. Set Deadlines
5. Do to most important tasks first than reward yourself

Hope you found this article helpful, I really believe that once we begin to strip away our self imposed limitations,we to can accomplish many worthwhile things like Forrest Gump.

I wish you best, keep growing, keep evolving, and keep shining my friend- Ivan Campuzano

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“Run Forrest Run…..from that day forward if I was going anywhere I was running” – Forrest Gump

“Even if you have not awakened, if you realize that your perceptions and activities are all like dreams and you view them with detachment,not giving rise to grasping and rejecting discrimination, then this is virtually tantamount to awakening from the dream.” Muso Kokushi

Yes you can shape your daily reality, there I said it, and if you join me on this journey you may even start to bend it like Neo in the Matrix. In this post I just want to present a few ideas for you to chew on and contemplate on your adventure to a better life.

To change your world you need to change your self, to change your self you need to gain a deep understanding of yourself. To understand yourself, you need to understand the structure of thought, of memory, of ego, and your thought processes.

“All that we see or seem,Is but a dream within a dream.”~ Edgar Allan Poe

We are incredibly complex, and if you are serious about going on an inner journey you will come to find how divided we are within ourselves. It’s not just one little voice that lives inside you, in reality most of us have a crowd of independent personalities that live inside us.

We never become aware of them because they are extremely clever at pretending and protecting each other as if they are one. Having so many personalities causes you much inner conflict because they all have different wants and desires, causing contradicting thoughts.

Having contradicting thoughts leads to confusion and immense energy dissipation of the mind. Having a mind that lives in comparison, confusion, and conflict is having a mind that is never in reality. It is not able to see something clearly, it can’t see “what is” it only projects your imagination to what you think it should be. Therefore there is always conflict between fact and fiction.

As an example, there may be a part of you that says that “you never gossip about other people”, and you really want to believe this so you create a personality that will keep this belief intact. Now having this belief working below your conscious awareness you can gossip all you want, and never even notice it. If someone points it out to you, you wont believe them or will quickly rationalize it with another belief.

So one of your goals in learning about your inner mechanisms is learning how to become more integrated, more grounded, and less divided within yourself. Integration leads to clarity, focus, understanding of your true wants, and elimination of false personalities that where only imagined.

Meditation is your way to become integrated, true mediation will help your mind become unconditioned from all that is false.When you learn to become aware of your own awareness you will be able to see how incredibly cunning your mind is.

If you are interested in learning about disciplining your mind here are a few intro posts: How To Master Your Mind , The Power of Discipline: Cultivating Will Power.

Your Common Thought

When you are unaware of your common thought, you are completely unaware of your enemy within. Reality reflects back to you what you think commonly. Many people are not aware of their common thought because they think that, that is who they are. You are not your mind and thoughts, only a certain aspect of you. You have been deeply conditioned to associate your thoughts with your identity and sense of self. To see who you really are is to transcend this association and observe your mind and thinking processes.

Thinking without awareness is how many people become slaves to their mind. Their mind takes on its own imagination leading you helplessly in infinite directions. Therefore, your identity also follows because you are only experiencing the world by believing that who you are is your thoughts and mind.

Each day you have thousands of thoughts and you become emotionally consumed by them. The only way you will ever be at peace is to disassociate your self-image and identity from them. This requires a shift in your consciousness that will allow you to be the witness and observer of your thoughts and ego. This is the consciousness and perspective of the real you. The more this becomes a habit, the more you will become liberated from incessant thinking.

How To Make Life Better by Shaping Your Daily Reality

Through out your day, you need to be conscious and aware of your thoughts. You need to learn to witness your mind passively. You will see that throughout the course of your day, that when you pause and contemplate, your mind is in a extremely quite space of where your thoughts will be directly sent to your subconscious mind.

Our conscious mind cannot help but analyze and judge all of our thoughts. Depending on the sum of all your knowledge and your beliefs, those thoughts will be modified and eventually sent and carried to your subconscious mind.

These thoughts, whether they are true or not, will influence your attitude and how you respond to the outside world, ultimately shaping your reality. Your subconscious mind does not think it simply receives and sends data without any judgment. This is why I mentioned that it is important to become a more integrated being, so that you have thoughts that are in harmony and not contradicting each other, causing you inner conflict.

So the key in learning to shape your day is to become a passive unattached witness to your thought process. To create the space to observe your thoughts so that you can change your thought pattern to one that is more conducive to your growth and fulfillment. Learning to watch automatically creates inner space, the more you watch, the more space you create.

At first it is helpful to write down any thoughts or general themes that you keep recycling in your internal dialogue. What does this say about your daily life? It is also important to be always conscious of what your main aim is. If your main aim is to be happy and have happy thoughts, how good a job are you doing?

“Above all, a person is his will. As he wills in this life, so he becomes when he departs from it. Therefore let your will be fixed on attaining Brahman.”~ Chandogya Upanishad

As you become a more alert and conscious person you will develop true will power. Then you can really focus and take inspired actions on the things that you truly want to achieve. I just want to thank you for reading my short article, I hope it inspires you to take control of your self and your life. Wishing you the best – Ivan Campuzano

If you enjoyed this article please take a moment to share it with your friends or anyone you think would find it useful.

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“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.” Albert Einstein

Psychological Time Management

Time is invariably and indescribably an integral part of how we experience life, but beyond its utility value, should we care about it in terms of how we choose to live our day to day lives? Should I waste my valuable time constantly worried about events in my distant future? Or should I use my time to live as intensely as possible in the now, and take the necessary actions that will set in motion the conditions of my future reality?

So what creates our psychological relationship and therefore attachment to time? The answer is that our thoughts are what create our time. If you have ever reached a place of “no mind” where your thoughts cease, either through meditation or an intense experience, you will understand what it means to have a “timeless” mind. No thoughts, no time. As soon as thoughts enter, time enters.

With that in mind, I would like you to take the time to examine your common thought and internal dialogue. What does it say about your relationship to time and how that impacts your life? Are you constantly on the run and feel like you don’t have enough time? Do you feel anxious and stressed all the time? Is it really that you don’t have enough time, or can it be attributed to incessant or disorderly thinking?

Therefore to change your relationship with time and your life, you need to come to a deep understanding of your mind and the nature of your thoughts.

Your thoughts are essentially your self image (ego), which is where much of the population derives their sense of self from. You will need to transcend your thoughts and mind to be able to observe your true nature. This is a journey that I cannot show you, it is one that you simply can’t understand logically but will have to arise as your own understanding.

Hopefully you will see that this is the only journey worth making. If you take a good look at humanity you will see that most people are asleep and mechanical. Take the plunge into becoming more awake and conscious, the world needs you to be awake.

Your thoughts come from your memory, that which already happened. Thoughts are therefore always old, yet life is always new and we react with old thoughts and ideas. Just take a look at how the world continues to cling to old ideas that are only hindering our progress.

Improving Your Time Management To Change Your Life

If you want to change a habit, why do you say it will take some time? Observe who is saying this, why do you need 6 months to change or any time for that matter? If you look deep enough, you might see that all your conditioning from society that has shaped your self image is the one who believes you need time to change.

What if you can transcend this false sense of self, and see things for what they really are, will you need time to change? The answer is no, when you are no longer in psychological bondage to your thoughts, you now have the energy to take inspired actions not dependent on your past or future. Your memory is essential for your daily life but the problem lies in when we continue to carry all the emotional baggage by becoming attached to our memories.

Getting to a deep understanding of your inner self is an arduous journey. Self study and mediation will be your keys to understanding and discovering all the subtle aspects of your mind. You will need to become the witness of your inner world, to be able to see the observer (your ego) without judgment and attachment, to be able to learn from it. You will see that whenever you see the world strictly through the filters of your thoughts you become identified and attached to whatever is being observed.

The observer becomes lost with what is being observed, in these moments you will see that you are not able to remember your self, your sense of “I am”. Unknowingly through your imagination you have now become bonded with an external circumstance. This is where much of your pain comes from, because when you give your power to something outside of yourself, eventually when it is taken away or changes you will feel the pain.

You can see that this is a common situation with a couple’s relationship. You only see the other person as a projection of the image you create through the thoughts you have accumulated, but once they change and don’t conform to your image of them, pain arises. To see a person as they truly are you need to learn to step outside your mind and see through fresh eyes, to be objective as possible. This is the only way you will ever truly love someone, a love that is free of your conditions and expectations.

How Does Your Attitude Affect Your Sense of Time

My attitude towards time is one that has become more detached and passive. The way and feeling, in which the events in my life have played out, reflected the implication of this “mindset”. As I mentioned above our thoughts create our sense of time.

I try to be in a space of being a passively detached observer of my mind. My experience is that I am able to feel more the ebb and flow to my life and respond accordingly. I am able to see how seemingly trivial decisions and actions played a pivotal role in outcomes that where days and weeks into the future.

It became evident to me that it is of the upmost importance to become conscious of all my actions and it what context they where being made, keeping in mind things such as: thoughts, feelings, attitudes, expectations. How I respond to life has become more joyful because I am not carrying as much emotional baggage and I am able to become open to life.

Beginning and end are two aspects of the same coin; the experience we observe between the two is time. How fast we change our lives depends on our understanding of our true selves, how we use time and our attitude towards it.

Example To Think About: How would your attitude, mindset, and actions differ between a project you had 1 week to accomplish vs. 4 weeks to accomplish the same task?

• How would things play out in those two scenarios?
• How would your attitude affect the final outcome?
• What is the one thing that remained constant amid the apparent external changes?
• Did life just happen to you and you reacted? Or did you allow for things to unfold on their own and you responded with the most conscious approach?
• Did you notice or feel any correlation between the events in your life in relation to your attitude towards time and change?
• Can you remember a time where if you had a different attitude towards time would have changed the final outcome?

I just want to thank you for reading my article, I hope you take a good look at your relationship to time and discover some new insights for your journey. I would love to hear your comments how your attitude and relationship towards time affected your life.

This is your life, let’s share and learn from each other but don’t let anyone tell you how to live it. If you find my site valuable please pass it along to your friends and family. I really appreciate you helping me in my personal mission to self empower as many people as I can.

“How we spend our day’s is of course, how we spend our lives” Annie Dillard

Enjoy Life More by Slowing Down

I have been in Costa Rica over a week and I have already heard the phrase “Pura Vida” (Pure Life) several hundred times. Putting yourself in a new foreign environment allows you to see your social conditioning’s; if you stay alert you will see them come up to the surface.

When I wrote this I was having a cup of coffee at a corner café in down town San Jose. One of the waiters approached me and asks if I need anything else, I say “no thank you, coffee is just fine, could I actually get the bill please”.

He looks at me with a great big smile “Pura Vida, tranquilo amigo tome su tiempo” (Pure life, calm down my friend take your time). I think to myself “he’s right”, I have no where to go, so I end up hanging out and people watch for 45 minutes.

Modern day society is so fast paced, that many of us after some time quit questioning many aspects of our lives, as soon as we quit questioning we are like robots on autopilot. Any issues that we may have are related to our level of awareness, when we don’t question things our awareness is non existent, we just operate from old habits (memory).

If you are constantly questioning and watching your internal dialogue, you become more alert, and when you become aware of something you drop it. It simply exists because you are not aware, just an old reaction from past experiences. But life is always new, never old, you need to be alert to respond and not just simply react. Life is new and needs new answers even if the situation is very similar.

Meditation is vital because it creates space between your consciousness and your thought process, the more you meditate the better you are able to see your thoughts and therefore question them.

As soon as I became aware that I was trying to race around like back home, I dropped it and enjoyed my coffee. Poverty is pretty prevalent down here, but I can’t help to notice that because the pace of life is so much slower, they actually take the time to appreciate the little things. People are very lively, music is everywhere, and every corner is an opportunity to socialize with friends.

If you constantly find your self racing around with out questioning why you are doing it, slow down, you are either living in your past or imagining your future. Is what you’re doing still beneficial for you? If not quit doing it, do something new. Your time is precious, slow down and live your life today. Today is all you got and all you will ever have. No need to wait until certain future conditions are met, for you to start living your life, if you do you might never start.

All we have is the present moment so the only way to shape your future is by the actions you take daily. The secret to your success is going to be determined by your daily agenda. If you learn to make a few key decisions in your daily agenda, you will accomplish what you set out to do. Just remember that you will never change your life until you change something you do daily, just make sure you slow down to enjoy life more and learn from the ride.

If you would like to find out “How To Work and Live Anywhere”, check out my buddie Karol Gajda’s awesome guide that helps you achieve it.

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“How we spend our day’s is of course, how we spend our lives” Annie Dillard

It’s Time To Examine Your Priorities In Life

When you take a good look at your life, are you happy where you are at? Are you achieving all the things you set out to accomplish? If I where to follow you for a whole week could I tell which direction in life you are headed? All we have is the present moment, so reaching your goals is going to be determined by the actions you take daily.

The secret to your success is going to be determined by your daily agenda. If you learn to make a few key decisions in your daily agenda, you will accomplish what you set out to do. Just remember that you will never change your life until you change something you do daily.

Whatever you choose to do today is preparation for your future. The question than is what type of future are you preparing for? What decisions are you making that are setting you up for success or failure?

Reaching Your Goals : Two Things You Need to Focus On Daily

1. Your Decisions: You need to set goals by your decisions.
2. Discipline: You accomplish your goals by being disciplined with the decisions you have made until you get your desired result.

So what type of decisions will you be making to have the life you have always wanted? Below is a list of things you should consider when making the decisions that will shape your life.

1. Attitude: Learn to become responsible for every facet of your being including your attitude. Think about the daily attitudes that you predominately display. Decide today to change your bad attitudes. Think about how you would need to think, act, and talk to become the person you would like to be. Develop a high appreciation for life, with the right attitude you can find beauty anywhere.
• Remember that your attitude needs to be constantly evaluated and adjusted.
• Learn to say something positive in any interaction you have with others.
• Go from saying I can’t to I will, with the right attitude situations you may see as impossible can be overcome with the right type of thinking.
• By constantly shaping your attitude to being more positive until it’s your common way of living, you will see that things become conducive to your vision.

2. Priorities: When you think of your ideal life, what are the things you need to focus your time and energy on the most to get the highest return and accomplish your dreams?
• What is required of you? What tasks can you outsource to make the most of your time without wasting it on the things you can delegate to others.
• What gives you the greatest return?
• What gives you the greatest reward?
• Learn to identify your strengths and weaknesses, and focus on your strengths and find others to help you with your weaknesses.

Tips to stay on top of your priorities

• Evaluate your priorities Daily
• Plan your time carefully; use a daily planner to stay organized. How To Make The Most of Your Daily Time
• Follow Your Plan: You will not reap the rewards if you don’t stick to your plan.
• Invest and train in the right people and outsource whenever possible.

3. Health: Without your health you will not be able to take action, good health is a must if you are ever going to enjoy and accomplish much in your life.

• Learn to eat right based on a diet that works for you. Top 10 Super Brain Food
• Exercise: Incorporate a daily exercise routine that you enjoy and keeps you in good physical shape.
• Handle Stress: learn to manage your stress, identify any issue you may be having and address it. Incorporate meditation into your daily life, meditation is a great way of developing a calm and tranquil mind.

4. Family and Relationships: We are social beings; learn to make your relationships an important and meaningful part of your life.
• Constantly find ways of spending meaningful time together.
• Communicate clearly and effectively
•How To Improve Your Likability To Make Quick Connections
• No one can accomplish much on their own, express appreciation for all the people who contribute and add value to your life.
• Invest time in understanding others and placing a high value on the people you spend time with.
• Give: encouragement, confidence, sincere compliments, listen to them, hope, help them succeed.

5. Finances: If you are not happy where you are at financially, get out there and do something about it. There are plenty of resources on how to start a business, investing, how money works, improving your career, finding a new career, getting a new job, and adding new streams of extra income.

6. Commitment: If you are truly going to be disciplined and stick to your commitments you need to make sure you identify things that are going to be worth doing. If something is really not worth doing you will not be committed and give up as soon as you have encountered any obstacles.
• Determine that you will put the proper amount of energy and stay committed to reach your goal.
• Commit to your own personal excellence.
• Your talent alone wont get your there, you need to develop your strengths and continue to put an earnest effort.
• Focus on the choices you need to make not the current conditions you may be experiencing.
• Do what you know you need to do even when you don’t feel like it.
• When you become truly committed to your vision you no longer accept excuses and only care about the results.

7. Thinking (Mind Sets): Learn to recognize that there are many kinds of thinking that will each produce and cause you to experience life differently. When confronted with a situation become aware of what type of thinking is needed.
• Types of thinking: Unselfish thinking, reflective thinking, strategic thinking, realistic thinking, possibility thinking, creative thinking, focused thinking, short term thinking, long term thinking, detail oriented thinking, and big picture thinking.

8. Faith and Values: Faith can only be grown through direct personal experiences. To have faith you will need to develop trust in your self. To reach your dreams you will need to go into the unknown, the only way to go into the unknown is with courage; courage belongs to your heart. Trust is personal and beliefs are social, that’s why your beliefs can change very easily they are not really yours but societies. To trust and really know something you will need to have the experience of it. Learn to embrace and value faith; take the leap into exploring and deepening your faith.

• How To Make The Leap Into The Unknown

9. Generosity: The more you give the more you get. Learn to give your time, money, and ideas freely to worthwhile causes. Find a reason to give everyday even if you consider it minor. Your idea or time to others can be of great value even if from your perspective you see it as insignificant.

• Common Courtesy Isn’t So Common

10. Growth: Just understand that you and your life is a dynamic process. Strive to constantly grow and learn something new everyday.

Tips for Growth:
• Set Growth Goals: Read 4 books a month.
• Learn to enjoy your journey; the growth is in the journey not the destination.
• Put your self in an environment conducive to your growth.
• Apply and put into action what you learn. Document your findings.

Just want to thank you for reading my article, I hope it assits you in reaching your goals. Use the above list to come up with the right decisions you need to make and than work daily on staying committed and disciplined with those decisions.

If you get clear on what you want and who you want to be and make a whole hearted effort, I am sure you will surprise your self with the inner potential you will be unleashing. Good luck my friends, wish you the best on your journey.

If you find my site valuable please pass it along to your friends and family. I really appreciate you helping me in my personal mission to empower as many people as I can.

If you enjoyed this post check out:

How To Create a New Day and a New You

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How To Develop Your 6th Sense: Intuition

Down The Rabbit Hole : How To Get Out of Wonderland

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I would also love to hear your feedback, please leave your comments below. I really appreciate your support - Ivan

“How we spend our day’s is of course, how we spend our lives” Annie Dillard

Its Time To Improve Time Management

All we have is the present moment, yet our minds spend tremendous amounts of time thinking about everything that we carry from the past, and everything we can imagine for the future.

Time is all we have and if we use the present moment to only think about doing things, much will not be accomplished. We have to learn to let go of any belief or idea that is paralyzing us in the present. We need to get clear of what we want in the future but be focused on what we need to do today, to put us one step closer to what we want.

Making The Most of Your Daily Time

1. Improve time management by setting limitations: When you have some activities or tasks planned out, make sure you set up time limitations. If your going to the library have a goal as to what you want to get accomplished for the two hours you gave yourself.

2. Improve time management choosing the essential: When you have identified the major pieces to your personal fulfillment puzzle, make a list of the most essential parts and focus on getting them done. Eliminate anything trivial that does not contribute to your vision, if the show on TV is not adding anything of value to you, turn it off. In Choosing the essential, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Valuable: Identify the things that are truly valuable in your life.

• Acceptance: Love and accept who you are right now, and use it as a stepping stone to next level of growth.

• Realistic: Make sure you pursue things that with proper effort and planning will be a reality. Try and take on goals that will take 3-12 months, anything longer than that and it will be difficult in finding the motivation to keep going. Start in baby steps accomplishing things that are manageable and will give you confidence.

• Trivial: Identity all the things that are not adding value to your life and eliminate them.

• Growth: Make the time to evaluate key areas of your life like your finances, relationships, health, and spiritual health and make time to do activities that focus on your growth.

3. Improve time management by learning to simplify: When we learn to look at things critically we can learn to look at things in the most efficient way, and than learn to simplify our actions to get the desired result.

4. Improve time management by focusing: Whatever we place our attention on grows. Learn to become aware of where your mind is placing its attention. When it starts to deviate bring it back to the essential things you have identified. When you begin to lose motivation remember that each moment you procrastinate, the more distance you put between the things you want.

5. Improve time management by creating habits: When you learn to stick to your time limitations, choosing  the essential, simplifying your actions, and focusing your attention, you need to incorporate all of them into daily habits. We are creatures of habits, and if we create efficient habits that have within them the seeds of the things we want, it’s only a matter of time before we get them.

6. Improve time management starting small: Start in any way you can, pick up a book, call a friend, and write an email. Any action that puts you one step closer to your desires. If you learn to do many small things, over time they contribute to bigger actions and opportunities that where only possible because of the baby steps.

Our time is precious, don’t wait waiting is a waste of time, identify the things you want and use your time wisely to live a life of personal fulfillment and joy.

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“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe” – Anatole France

Achieving Your Goals 101

If you are ever to have your dreams come true, you are going to have to come up with a plan that takes you from where you are at to where you want to be. To bridge the gap you need to have inner mastery of your self, have a clear vision of what you want, and take the necessary actions to get you there. How fast you get there depends on your own growth of learning to let go and not be attached to anything outside of yourself. You have to be able to leave the known and comfortable, for the new and unknown to change your situation.

Achieving Your Goals Check List

1.Goals should be clearly stated: You have to be able to define and articulate what it is you want to accomplish. If I say my goal is to travel more, this is too vague and will not stimulate me to go further. It is more powerful if I state that my goal is to spend 2 months traveling the Italian country side on a bicycle. Now I can begin to formulate a plan on how much money, and the details I need to look into to make it happen.

2.Goal should be inspiring: If your goal is something that is foreign to you, you need it to inspire you, or else you will not have the energy to take action. Your goal should cause you to have a feeling of excitement, joy, and enthusiasm.

3.Goals should be measurable: If you get clear on what you want and think about the possible ways on how you can make it happen, take action than measure the results. Keep taking action, learn along the way, fine tune and adjust your actions for maximum return.

4.Goals should be action based: When you take action make sure you are fully present in whatever you are doing. Complete actions will yield the necessary results to move you along to your desire. Complete and total actions are mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual in nature.

5.Goals should be written down: It’s not real until you write it down. Get specific and put your goals where you will be able to reference them regularly.

6.Goals should be shared with another person: Make your self accountable; you are more likely to take action if you put your self out there and let people you care about know about your goals. If possible create a master mind group; this can be your group of like minded people who serve as a support group and resource for your goals.

7.Goals should be Flexible: Life is not linear it’s dynamic, things are going to change. You will find out many things on your journey, have the flexibility to change. You might find out the things you thought you wanted, did not really serve your higher purpose, or they might lead to something completely new.

Your life can be a journey of constant joy if you get out there and make it happen. Start achieving your goals in baby steps, internalize everything you learn along the way. As your judgment grows with experience you will go from taking baby steps to making leaps in your progression. Don’t wait, waiting is a waste of your time, and after all time is all we got, so make the most of it.

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If you enjoyed this post check out:

How To Create a New Day and a New You

Whats Your Creative Purpose

How To Increase Your Awareness and Expand Your Consciousness

How To Develop Your 6th Sense: Intuition

Down The Rabbit Hole : How To Get Out of Wonderland

I would also love to hear your feedback (suggestions), please leave your comments. I really appreciate your support - Ivan