This is a discussion and topic that has been coming up a lot lately…at least it seems that way anyway. So what’s the difference between an intention and a goal? Aren’t they one in the same?

Not really, but they are related and intertwined with one another. I like to think of an intention as the bigger picture…the whole enchilada, if you will. With measurable goals as the filling of that enchilada (keeping with the analogy ) that makes that enchilada complete. Basically, with every intention there are goals that serve as our stepping stones to fulfilling that intention.

Let me give you a personal example…

My intention is to help change the world in a positive way one person at a time. Some of my goals to achieving that intention are:

1) Reaching out to as many people as I can as often as I can.
2) Continuing to build a loving and supportive coaching practice.
3) Broadening my knowledge and experience.

Now, comes the really fun part, creating measurable action items for each goal… the things that I can and will do in order to accomplish my goals. Let’s take #3 as an example… in order to achieve this goal (which is one that is continuous) I entered into a Masters program, I am continuing to expand my coach training, hired my own coach, I read all sorts of books, as well as listen and learn from others. I am always seeking opportunities to enhance and improve my coaching skills, which in turn helps me with goals 1 & 2.

If this sounds like a lot of work, I won’t lie…it is, but I have truly found that anything that is REALLY worth it is worth all the work and effort…especially when it comes to intentions.

So, what are some of your intentions and the goals you will use to fulfill those intentions?

© 2006 – What’s Within U. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of content allowed, but must contain a link to What’s Within U (http://www.whatswithinu.com), copyright notice, and author’s name.

Pam Thomas is a personal and business development coach who supports individuals that are stuck or in transition in creating their best life. Her passion and purpose is to help others find the resources and wondrous assets within them and around them to excel, overcome obstacles and discover the amazing opportunities available. Pam understands what it takes to reach deep inside to overcome fears and anxieties in order to truly achieve the goals, dreams and desire that rests within all of us. For more information about Pam’s work, please visit; http://www.whatswithinu.com

Do you ever daydream about going on a great vacation? It’s fun to think of all of the great sights and things to do once you get to the destination. But usually there’s lots of planning involved, such as planning around schedules, getting tickets and placing reservations. It can be quite an ordeal. But once you’re on your dream vacation, boy is it worth it.

Oddly enough, creating fundraising goals is itself a little like going on a trip.

Here’s how…

The Destination: Long Term & Yearly Goals

What’s the first thing you do when you decide to go on a trip? Yes, that’s right – choose the destination. Is it Disneyworld or New York City? Will you camp at the local state park or Yellowstone? Starting a fundraising program without a predefined goal is like getting in your car at the beginning of a vacation and saying, “I don’t know where we’re going, but I hope we get there!” (Doesn’t make much sense, does it?)

Your yearly goal is the final destination that your group should be striving for all year long. Whether your organization follows the calendar year, school year, fiscal year, or whatever the case may be, you still need to set this long term destination goal.

Budgetary requirements generally guide the financial goals that are needed for your organization. What are the total expenses for the year, and how much of those expenses need to be covered by fundraising efforts? Write down this “big target” number that needs to be reached by the end of the year.

The Roadmap: Project Goals

Now that you’ve decided on a fundraising destination, the next step is to break down that number into smaller, more manageable goals.

Imagine your organization’s individual fundraisers such as events, raffles, or candy sales as the highways you will take to get to your final destination. Therefore, each individual campaign or event has its own fundraising goals. The combined goal amount should equal or be greater than the yearly goal.

Having too many fundraisers that appeal to the same audience can become burdensome and reduces the effectiveness of your efforts. By forecasting the amount of funds needed, you’ll be able to plan the right amount of individual fundraisers.

The Pit-Stops: Fine Tuning Your Fundraising Goals

During the course of the year, periodically review your fundraising goals. Have your fundraisers met their individual targets? If not, the “pit-stops” are times when you can do some fine tuning to your list of goals and objectives.

Consider ways that you can earn more on the remaining fundraisers

1. Increase attendance at your event by adding something unusual, like a door prize drawing, a contest or a “celebrity” appearance

2. Place calls or send letters to get more prizes donated for your raffle or auction

3. Add an additional source of revenue to already planned

4. Add an easy fundraiser that doesn’t require much time from volunteers, such as an online magazine fundraiser

Reaching Your Destination

Your group has worked hard to raise funds for your cause. Be sure to celebrate along the way, thanking donors and volunteers. Each year evaluate what programs worked best, how you can improve upon them, and ways that you can become more efficient in planning the fundraising programs.

About the Author: Sandra Sims has been raising money for non profit organizations for over 10 years. She is the publisher of Step By Step Fundraising e-zine and website, which will help you get maximum results from your fundraising campaigns. Get a free copy of the special report The 5 Keys to Successful Fundraising.

With spring approaching, we often start reassessing our New Year’s resolutions and goals for the year. I am always looking for inspiration to make sure I achieve my goals and I came across a great quote: “good parents are the ones who learn more from their kids than they can teach them.” Can you think of something a child has taught you? As a mother of a 20 month old, one of the lessons I see every day is how lots of little accomplishments (like baby steps) can lead to a big accomplishment (like walking and running).

So how do baby steps apply to us as adults, whether or not you are a parent? Like so many parents, I mark my calendar for every milestone my baby makes - the day he first took a step on his own, the day he fed himself, the day he could crawl up and more importantly, down the stairs, the first day he said Dada (why did that have to come first?) and the first day he said Mama. At 20 months, he is now walking, running, babbling and eating with a spoon. But he didn’t start at that way, before he learned to walk he crawled, then he walked holding on to things, and when he first started walking he lurched one time and hit his head on the table requiring 12 stitches, but that did not stop him. His goal was to walk on his own and eventually run. He did not think he was a failure if he could not run right away. He did not judge his actions or his ability; he just focused on his goal.

His accomplishments made me start to wonder, why we as adults don’t congratulate ourselves on our “first steps”. Instead we judge ourselves and focus on our failures. Everything seems to be all or nothing. So many of my coaching clients are so hard on themselves and focus all their energy on the process instead of the end result. One client wants to lose five pounds a week and when she doesn’t, she feels like she has failed so she forgets about eating right altogether. I challenged her to think about her goal in another way. Instead of focusing on the pounds, focus on the ultimate goal (like my son wanting to walk – he didn’t care how it happened).

So maybe if she concentrated on her ultimate goal of looking and feeling healthy and the lifestyle that would bring, the process would be easier and she would not beat herself up if she had a dessert one day. Every small step in the direction on your goal is an accomplishment. Another client wants to exercise every day, and when she does not, she gives up and does not exercise at all. She focuses on the process of exercising instead of the ultimate goal or being healthy so when she does not meet her expectations she has set herself up for failure.

My question is why can’t we approach our goals as little accomplishments? If you want to exercise every day to be healthy, congratulate yourself on every time you exercise and move towards your goal of being healthy. Any step in the direction of your goal is an accomplishment. It’s the baby step approach – you sit up, you crawl, you walk and then you run.

We all have our “to do” lists crammed with every conceivable task. What would happen if instead of focusing on the “to do” lists, we made “lists of accomplishments”? And if we started making lists of accomplishments, what would that tell us about ourselves? My bet is that we would feel better about ourselves; we would feel powerful and energized and feel closer to accomplishing our ultimate goal.

Turning your own baby steps into accomplishments

So I challenge you to make time to celebrate your accomplishments and put away the “to do” lists. You already know what you need to do. Every baby step you take towards something you value is an accomplishment and lots of baby steps can lead to an even bigger accomplishment. With time, you’ll see that your list of accomplishments will become longer than your “to do” list.

Wayfinder Coach, Robin Schepper, leads Wise Walking Retreats and is a personal coach to individuals and groups. Contact http://www.wayfinderinc.com

What does it mean when they say "look inside you to find the way to success?"

There was once a hunter called Juan who came from a little tribe, deep in the great Amazon forest, a tribe that was famous for its hunting skills. In his village, there were about twenty hunters just like Juan.

At some point in his life, Juan was finding it difficult to find game. He would go into the forest at dawn and return at dusk with nothing. This went on for about a month. He would try all sorts of different tricks with each new day, hoping that this new effort would bring him a trophy, finally. But nothing worked. So one day, he sat by the river and pondered what he could do to change his fortune. He decided to go see the nagual, the spiritual leader of the tribe.

He said to him, "Great Seer, everyday for a month I have gone to the forest and found nothing to hunt, returning empty handed. I see my fellow hunters returning with game, yet I return with nothing. At first I thought there was a shortage of animals, but I soon realized that in the great Amazon, there can be no shortage of animals. We live in abundance, we are surrounded by abundance. Besides, everyone else seems to be successful on most of their hunts."

"Then I thought that it must be my hunting technique, that I was applying the wrong one. I tried everything our tribe uses, but with no success. Now I am at an end and I don’t know what to do. Can you help me?"

The Nagual said, "It is obvious, if only you were to accept full responsibility for your results. Accept full responsibility, and it will become clear to you. At first you blamed the forest, but then you realized that the forest was full of animals and all the other hunters were successful in most of their hunts. Next you blamed the technique. But when you tested everything that is known to us, nothing worked for you, even though they were working for others. Now, take full responsibility and see where you have not yet looked."

Juan thought about it for a moment and said, "Ah, I see now. It is I. Something in me is causing the animals to run away from me, or me to walk only where they are not presently available."

The nagual looked at him, smiled and waved him off. Juan went back home and searched himself. He looked for everything inside him that was not in harmony with the results he wanted. He examined his thoughts and emotions and found many that were just not supportive of his goal. When he resolved them, he found that he too would find success on most of his hunting trips. In fact, as long as he woke up, got out of bed and went into the forest, applied any proven hunting technique, he would effortlessly find game and catch it most of the time. When his inner world was in harmony with his goal, all he had to do, then, was show up and apply a technique. Life was sweet again.

David Cameron Gikandi is the author of wealth and self development books such as A Happy Pocket Full of Money, showing many how to create the lives of their dreams and beyond. Download free trial ebooks, software, courses. http://www.imagesofone.com/?c=a

"Concentration — that is, the courage to impose on time and events his own decision as to what really matters and comes first — is the executive’s only hope of becoming the master of time and events." — Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive

• Your management team must identify its three or four strategic imperatives for the next twelve months. A laundry list of urgent goals diffuses focus, spawns unproductive "busywork," and provides enough bureaucratic cover to justify any pet project or protect turf.

• Set specific improvement targets for each strategic imperative. The clearer the target, the surer the aim. "Improving customer satisfaction," "reengineering key processes," or "changing the culture" show up on every organization’s wish list today. Setting concrete measurable goals for improvement turns the rhetoric into reality.

• Improvement goals should be absolute targets (for example, actual number of dissatisfied customers), never as percentages. Percentages allow you to turn problems into impersonal statistics. They also release the constant improvement pressure since anything over 90 - 95% sounds pretty good ("after all, perfection is impossible"). Real numbers force you to think about the actual number of dissatisfied customers, defects, etc. and their costs to the organization.

• Each member of your team then sets three or four personal or team goals or objectives that flow directly out of your strategic imperatives for their area of responsibility. They also establish measurements for each of their goals or objectives along with the level of improvement they are shooting for in the next twelve months.

• Every member of you team now meets with individuals or teams reporting to them to repeat the process based on your team members’ goals or objectives. This continues throughout the organization until everyone is included.

• This process can be driven in a traditional top-down way or be quite participative and interactive. In a top-down approach, each level of management essentially decides and commits to (with perhaps some discussion) what the targets will be for everyone they’re leading. A participative approach is much more difficult to manage and takes a few years to get it rolling smoothly.

Using this method, goals, objectives, measurements, and improvement goals are set by the teams that will make them happen. They do this in negotiation with the manager or director they report to. The manager or director than takes these commitments to peer meetings who pull everything together and coordinate whether the commitments and planned activities will be enough to help them reach their goals and objectives. This "rolls up" the organization until everything is consolidated and reviewed by the senior team responsible for the original strategic imperatives. I prefer this much messier, clumsy, and participative process.

• A key part of this cascading goals and objectives process is the learning, coordination, and communication that happens in regular (often quarterly) reviews. Each team meets with the teams or individuals reporting to them. They review progress on the goals and objectives. This should not become a "snoopervision" exercise. The purpose of the meetings is early, joint problem solving and learning. After the review with the people and teams reporting to them, each team and/or person then meets with the team they report to for a similar problem solving and learning session.

• Focus all organizational systems and key processes on your strategic imperatives. Training, measurements, information systems, improvement teams, human resource systems, and other resource-intensive activities must pass the value-add test; does this work help or hinder movement toward our strategic imperatives?

• Ensure that all your improvement and project teams’ activities are ultimately linked to strategic imperatives. Intensify and concentrate your improvement process by connecting it to the important and urgent organization issues that are keeping you and your management teams awake at night. Far too many department and process improvement teams are wasting valuable time and resources making improvements that don’t really matter. Concentrate precious resources on key leverage points.

• Push yourself and others to set breakthrough objectives and stretch goals. An increase of 10 or 20 percent doesn’t excite imaginations. We can keep doing things the same old way. Targets of ten times improvement force people to break out of their old patterns, habits, and ways of thinking. Big, stretch goals inflame creativity and innovation. Help people fulfill their deep craving to be on a winning team. Help them become "the best" at what ever you’re aiming for.

Jim Clemmer is a bestselling author and internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, workshop/retreat leader, and management team developer on leadership, change, customer focus, culture, teams, and personal growth. During the last 25 years he has delivered over two thousand customized keynote presentations, workshops, and retreats. Jim’s five international bestselling books include The VIP Strategy, Firing on All Cylinders, Pathways to Performance, Growing the Distance, and The Leader’s Digest. His web site is http://www.clemmer.net/articles.

I have a confession to make. Once upon a time, I had a bad case of procrastination. I could find all sorts of excuses for putting off any activity which I just didn’t feel like doing!

Big ideas - I had them. But the follow-through was not there. So I wasted years not working on my ideas. I’d see other people come up with the same ideas and even make a career of them or write a book, and I’d think - hey, I had the same idea several years ago…but never did anything about it.

But this is the worst part: procrastination can drive you crazy. When you have a big assignment that must be done, a presentation, a project, a goal - yes, you want to get it done, but you might be dreading the hard work involved!

It’s not that you’re lazy - in fact, once you get going, you might charge along like a house afire - but you just might not be able to GET STARTED! And if you don’t get started - if you aren’t working on your project or goal - then you aren’t getting anywhere.

I spent more time dreading something than I would finally spend actually getting it done. That was the ironic part! If I had just worked for the same amount of time I spent dreading the task in my mind - I’d have been done a long time ago! I started to realize just how ridiculous this was.

But then I discovered a secret that is unlocking many, many doors for me. And it’s so simple you will be amazed. Oddly, I have not read this elsewhere - but it works for me. Doing this, I am learning another language, attacking my projects, and am teaching a teenage girl to play the piano - a girl who did not think she wanted to learn the piano but who is willing to do this under these circumstances, and is showing remarkable talent and progress - painlessly.

Now I’m going to share this secret with you. I promise that this will stick with you and you won’t be able to forget it because it’s so incredibly simple. Not only that, but you won’t be able to resist trying it out! You will definitely get something done this week and make progress on something - even if it’s cleaning out that closet. Yes, doing that will make you feel much, much better every time you look at it.

What’s the secret? Here it is:

I call it the Five Minute Solution. Here is how it works: Do you have one of those little wind-up timers? Get one. They’re at the grocery store and don’t need batteries. I’ve been using the same one for years. That little thing is saving my life.

Decide what you want to accomplish - whether it’s improving a room, cleaning, exercising, writing a letter, working on a project, or whatever your own goal is. Set the timer or just look at the clock.

You are going to work on this for FIVE MINUTES. Yes, that’s all. Just five minutes. Set the timer and GO.

Five minutes later, you are done. You have just improved one room in your house significantly. You have just written that thank-you letter that you needed to write - or maybe you just located the stationery and stamps! The point is - you made progress toward your goal.

Tomorrow - guess what? You are going to work for five minutes again. It wasn’t hard, was it? You might have even wanted to continue working longer - but you don’t have to.

If you do this every day - a miracle will happen. You will finish that project. You will get your taxes done painlessly. You will see and feel results if you exercise or stretch for five minutes. You will learn that other language. Your home will start to look better than ever. You will read that book you didn’t think you could get through.

I do this every single day now! There are about four things I use this for - so this takes a whole twenty minutes of my day. One thing I do is pick the room in my home that needs the most improvement. (I’m talking about the junk repository that most of us have somewhere - in a closet, room, garage, drawer, or storage place.)

That’s something that tends to overwhelm me and get very frustrating. When a task gets unpleasant, I use the Five Minute Solution. After only five minutes, I see an improvement and I’m done!

You can adapt the Five-Minute Solution in a number of ways that will work for you - for many projects, or for just one at a time.

Have you ever purchased something online, then never really used it? If so, you’re not alone. In fact, online "gurus" often feel frustrated that so many people do exactly that - buy their products, then never put them to use to make more money. The Five-Minute Solution is useful here.

I broke down and bought one legendary program that costs four figures - I kid you not. I spent several hours a day at first listening to this program and watching the videos. But after a few days, the newness wore off, and I could see where this was headed - other projects were calling me, and this expensive program which promised so much was at risk of sitting on my shelf - postponed indefinitely!

What did I do? I made this a special Twenty-Minute Solution. No matter what happens, I spend at least twenty minutes a day studying this program and putting it into action. I also purchased a notebook to write down the new things I am learning. This is working for me.

I hope you find success with this technique. It can produce amazing results, and the encouragement you will get produces even more motivation and builds on itself.

Yes, you can make it ten or twenty minutes if you wish - it’s entirely up to you.

But start with five! It will show you a lot about self-discipline in the process. You will see what I mean.

Sarah Tanner writes about relationships and charm. Visit her websites http://www.howtohavecharm.com, http://www.stopyourbreakupnow.com, and http://www.marriageandwealth.com. Sign up for her unique emails and receive free ebooks!

There are actions that will move you directly to your intended target and those actions that will give the appearance of producing results.

Do you even know the results produced by the actions you take? Do you have a clear sense of moving closer to the target? Do you feel empowered by the activities that you undertake each day? Are you left feeling exhausted from much activity yet feel like they’re a drop in the bucket compared to what you know is possible?

Once during a personal development program in which I was participating, the head coach asked me to sit down with her at breakfast on one of our training weekends.

I was asked how everything was going and if I was producing great results in the area to which I was committed. I was nowhere near my intended target!

My coach then asked me to move a vase of flowers in the middle of the table. After I did this, she replied. “See how easy and simple that was? However, that’s not what you do, Thea. You spend a lot of time shuffling the cutlery, moving the plates and cups and rearranging placemats on the table. Then you watch and hope like crazy, that the vase of flowers will move!"

That conversation was a wake up call and it’s one that I’ve never forgotten.

Today, when I see that not much is moving or the results that I want are not being produced, I take a look at the activities that fill my days and then get honest with myself.

This is what integrity is all about. Declare one thing and align everything in your environment to match it. Actions is just one of those to align; structures, systems, people, conversations, thoughts and habits are a few of the others.

If things are not going quite the way that you intended, stop and check in with yourself. Go for the straight line from point A to point B. The squiggly path is so costly and painful. Or else - drop the goal. Perhaps it’s not one for which you personally have an interest in pursuing. It may simply be that you’ve included it in your life because someone else thinks it’d be a good idea for you.

©Thea Westra is an international life coach who resides in Perth, Western Australia. She is editor and publisher of a free, monthly newsletter at http://www.forwardsteps.com.au Thea also publishes a few blogs, visit here http://inspiration-daily.blogspot.com/ for directional links to each.

It is natural to be satisfied with the way things are; but the moment we settle for how things are, we give up the opportunity to experience how things could be. Life is evolutionary, but only if we allow it to be. If we choose to, we can get stuck in the comfort of the status quo and miss the real opportunities that require us to step into a bigger life.

Many people in business are comfortable with things being the way they are. People will even say, "It has always been that way." Just because it’s always been "that way" doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. Things must change in order to grow. We must change. To stay the same means to never grow and develop, and never reach our full potential.

Life is about change. Nothing ever stays the same. There are times when people resist change and become comfortable and attached to the status quo. The key is to always be discontented with the status quo and search for new opportunities.

Are you discontented with the status quo? If so, you are right where you need to be. Becoming contented means that you stop looking for opportunities and are not open to new possibilities. The status quo will lull you into thinking things are fine, but that isn’t true. The true nature of life is change, so if you are not changing, you are not fully experiencing life. This doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy the moment you are in. Most certainly you should enjoy where you are, and be excited about where you are going.

Coach Rachelle Disbennett-Lee, PhD, is a Certified Master Coach specializing in working with business owners and professionals in being more profitable and productive while staying sane and balanced. Coach Lee is the publisher of the award winning e-zine, 365 Days of Coaching. Her first book, 365 Days of Coaching – Because Life Happens Every Day (Universal Publisher, 2004) was named a finalist for Best Book 2004 by Publish.com and has a five star rating on Amazon.com.

Visit Coach Lee at her websites http://www.coachlee.com and http://www.365daysofcoaching.com

True Direction, Inc. Copyright
>>>This article along with byline attached may be freely republished<<<

6 steps to ensure this is your best year ever!

At the start of every year, many of us have great ambitions for our careers, business and personal life for the year ahead. We know about setting goals but why is it we often fail to achieve what we truly desire or deserve in terms of business results or in our career?

Let’s explore some strategies to help us create and deliver against our goals, so we give ourselves every opportunity to make sure this is our best year ever.

Create a compelling vision

Goals in the absence of a vision are unlikely to realise results. If our goals don’t help us get to where we want to be in our business or career we won’t be inspired to achieve them. Remember, if you don’t know where you are going, how will you know when you have got there?

Visualise yourself in a years time what goals would you like to have achieved? Capture your thoughts in writing – if you have a list of 20 things you want to achieve, you’ll need to prioritise your aspirations. Consider which would make the biggest difference to your business or career and focus on them – perhaps they are goals related to your business or personal finances, your career, winning new clients, increasing your reputation, learning a new skill or hobby.

Build on last year’s success

All too often we move from one year to the next or one project to the next without taking stock of the circumstances and factors that contributed to our previous success.

What went really well for you last year? Did you meet or beat some of your objectives? What can you learn, adopt and apply that will support you in your plans for the year ahead?

Create clear and inspiring goals

Often we have too many goals so we’re not able to apply enough time and energy to truly achieving them. How many times have you started new projects or new hobbies without seeing things through to completion? It’s highly probably that if you worked out the time you need to invest to achieve all your aspirations for the year ahead, there would not be enough hours or resources available to you.

It’s vital to prioritise your goals and focus on the ones that are the most inspiring, relevant and critical for you to attain. You’ll have more energy and commitment to achieving your goals if you’re truly energised by them.

Make sure they are documented and are SMART (specific so you are really clear about what you want to attain, measurable so you know how to chart your progress, achievable and stretching but realistic so the goal motivates and inspires you and time bound so you know when you need to complete them by) and allocate the resources you will need to achieve your goals – be that financial, your own time or the support of others.

Document your goals

Be sure to document your goals – this will make the goals more than an aspiration. The actual process of writing your goals moves them from being an idea to a decision and something you can commit to.

Each day we are surrounded by choices of how we spend our time and energy. If you have your goals firmly in mind as you face into these decisions you can then make informed choices. Only then can you decide if that enticing activity or project will actually help you move towards achieving your goals.

Set 90 day goals

It’s often daunting to consider what it will take to achieve your goals over 12 months. It’s far more manageable and motivating to break your goals into smaller projects and focus on what you need to achieve in the next 90 days.

This also allows you to manage changes during the year, be that changes in the competitive landscape, changes in your team or new opportunities that come along. Consider it like sailing a yacht where you have to keep charting the landscape and correcting your direction to keep on track – getting from A to Z is rarely a straight line!

Recruit a success team

Many of us find it easier to stay accountable to ourselves in achieving our goals if we share our goals with others.

In an organisational context then, share your goals with your team members – you are sure to have interdependent goals that will need to be completed to ensure your own and your team’s success.

For your personal goals or if you have your own business, you may find it helpful to establish a “mastermind group” where you meet regularly to share your objectives.

A final thought

Did you know most email tools allow you to delay the delivery of an email to yourself?

Why not send yourself an email to arrive in a year’s time, detailing your aspirations for the year ahead? Won’t it be fun to open it up to find you’ve exceeded your goals and that this year truly was your best year ever!

About the author: Krishna De is co-founder and Managing Director of Oneocean Ltd. Networking and Referral strategies are one of the foundations of their leading Biz Growth Academy programme where owners of professional services firms realise more profit and greater success with less stress.

Join Krishna at Biz Growth Live (http://www.bizgrowthlive.com), a free weekly tele-conference series where she is in conversation with experts on how to build your brand, grow your business and leave your competition on the starting blocks!

TERMS OF REPRINT: You are welcome to publish this article in it’s entirety as long as you leave it unedited and you include the copyright notice. Please forward a copy of the publication that contains the article to us at publications@oneoceangroup.com

One of the greatest challenges in life is understanding just how powerful our thoughts are. Many of us learn this the hard way — myself included. After spending most of my early life caught up in negative thought patterns, it occurred to me that I had created exactly what I had been thinking about all those years.

I worked at a stressful, unfulfilling job. I had an extremely low income, and no matter how hard I tried to improve my financial situation, I was always broke. I struggled with various addictions. I was alone, and felt I deserved to be alone for the rest of my life. Obviously, I had no self-esteem. It took me many years to realize that I was creating ALL of it. Why would a person want to create such frustration and hardship? I didn’t want to, I just didn’t know how NOT to. I didn’t realize I had a choice in the matter.

While I do believe that there is such a thing as fate or destiny, there are far fewer instances of that in our lives than we think. More often than not, our thoughts work against us and we can live our entire lives being completely unaware of it. The good news is that we can consciously choose to have our thoughts work for us, rather than against us. All it takes is the willingness to believe it’s possible, and of course, the willingness to do the work required.

Okay, so how do we change our thoughts? By purposely feeding our minds more positive material. Remember that your life as it exists today is the direct result of your past and present beliefs about yourself. You may or may not be aware of these beliefs on a conscious level, but that doesn’t matter. The most important thing is to begin changing those beliefs NOW. This will eventually override the negative messages, and your life will change. Whether you want to lose a few pounds, make more money, meet your soulmate or write a best-selling novel, know that you DO have the power to do it.

The first step is to convince yourself that you deserve it. That is probably the most difficult thing to change for most of us. Know that the universe wants you to be happy, fulfilled and prosperous. Why? Simply because you can effect more positive growth for the rest of the planet also. Think about that for a moment. If you are constantly struggling to make ends meet, or feeling drained and stressed by your job, or overwhelmed by personal struggles, how much are you able to help others who are in even worse situations? Probably not much. If things are going very well for you and you have plenty of resources at your disposal, you can then use those resources to help others and make a real difference in this world. This works on two levels. First, you are able to help others by donating time and/or money. Secondly, and even more importantly, you serve as an example to others that they can also become happy, fulfilled and prosperous — if they will only change their thoughts.

The second step is to take some time to figure out exactly what you want to create next. Be creative with it, and don’t limit yourself. Dare to dream big. Even if your dream seems impossible, write it out in full detail. You can choose to work only on one aspect of your life, or several at the same time.

The third step is then to begin visualizing this dream of yours as often as you can. Don’t just "see" it in your mind, really LIVE it. Feel how you will feel when it becomes reality. Know that this dream of yours is very possible. This will generate positive energy that will actually attract the opportunities and circumstances you need to help this reality form in the physical world.

Finally, begin taking action on your dream. It doesn’t matter how large or small the steps you take. The most important thing is that you do what you can to create more openings in your life for the new circumstances to enter. If your goal is to increase your income, you may need to apply for a better job or start your own business. If you are seeking to meet someone, you may need to become more active socially. Again, do something to help this reality manifest.

Our thoughts create an irresistible magnetism around us that attracts certain energies, which then causes the formation of certain circumstances. By replacing old, negative thought patterns with positive, faith-filled energy, our lives will change for the better. Once again, we will have created exactly what we’ve been thinking about. Mind Over Matter

Wendy Betterini is an inspirational writer who strives to motivate, uplift, and inspire you to make your dreams a reality. Visit her website, http://www.WingsForTheHeart.com for more positive thoughts to help you on your journey.