You’re reading How To Flourish Financially with Forgiveness Practice, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

Many people are looking for ways to improve their finances. It’s a hot topic and there are a lot of great concepts out there. I’d like to share a soul-oriented perspective on your financial condition and how to improve it.

My spiritual teacher, Dr. and Master Zhi Gang Sha, teaches that the soul is the boss in life and that everything happens at the soul level first. Soul is information. You could imagine it as a blueprint for everyone and everything. The information can be both positive and negative. The information in the soul is received by the heart, processed by the mind and manifested through the body – the energy and matter.

When we encounter challenges, there may be negative information in the soul being manifested. This may be from many lifetimes and may also include information from our ancestors. Thus, negative information in the soul could be blocking us from what we want to achieve. But we can transform this information through techniques and lifestyle choices, such as forgiveness practice.

Forgiveness practice can transform negative information to positive information in the soul. For any aspect of life, such as finances, we can connect, heart to heart, soul to soul, with those associated with that negative information and humbly ask for and offer forgiveness. By sincerely acting on our negative information and bringing in love and light, we can transform the current blueprint. It may take time, but regular practice coupled with action to improve our finances can lead to significant shifts and transformation.

 Many people see beautiful shifts in a short time period when they combine the spiritual and physical actions together. If you keep practicing, you could experience genuine, lasting change. You can learn more about how to implement forgiveness practice and find empowering tools in the book: Greatest Forgiveness: Bring Joy and Peace to Your Life with the Power of Unconditional Forgiveness, by Dr. & Master Zhi Gang Sha, Master Cynthia Deveraux and David Lusch. Included is wisdom on a special area in the body where financial transformation can occur and a practice for Transforming Finances and Business.

Virtue and the Purpose of Flourishing

Two other key concepts are helpful to understand when seeking to transform our finances. One has to do with the nature of virtue, and the other regards the purpose of financial flourishing. Integrating the “take aways” of these two concepts with forgiveness practice can help anyone progress toward greater financial flourishing.

Virtue, known as “de” in ancient Chinese philosophies, can be described as positive information in the soul that is created from our positive thoughts, speech and actions and associated with qualities such as love, forgiveness, compassion, service and more. The condition of your finances is related to the status of your spiritual “virtue bank” – or the amount of accumulated positive information in your soul. In other words, spiritual virtue can translate into flourishing in your physical life. You can accumulate virtue by serving well and helping others to be happier and healthier. Those with flourishing finances have virtue flowing from their spiritual bank to the physical world in the form of good finances.

Note that there is not a one-to-one correspondence with current life inputs and our virtue bank or our financial condition. Both positive and negative information in the soul are accumulated over our entire soul journey and include ancestral information. Thus, people who offer a large amount of good service may also face financial hardship, and visa versa. Just remember that 1) you can implement forgiveness practice and other wisdom to improve your conditions and 2) you can prevent the deterioration of your virtue bank by understanding the purpose (and responsibilities) of financial flourishing and also practicing forgiveness.

So, what is the purpose of financial flourishing? Simply put, it is to enable one to serve or help others better. When our finances flourish, we need to be mindful and serve well, so as not to drain our virtue bank. By serving and helping others to improve their lives, you will continue to put positive information back into your soul and virtue bank.

Therefore, it’s beneficial to get our priorities straight. Some pertinent questions to ask yourself are:

1. Why do I want to make (more) money? (What goals will you accomplish?)
2. What will I do with the money? (Will you improve you and your loved one’s lives, improve your service and make a better contribution to others?)
3. How will I make the money? (Will you offer good service?)
4. How will I conduct my business? (Will you do so with integrity?)
5. How will I handle my finances? (Will you manage your finances well?)

These questions can help you clarify and prepare for financial flourishing. Of course, you can relax and enjoy the benefits of financial flourishing , but it is important to also understand the purpose for wealth and flourishing from a spiritual perspective.

In closing, it is my hope that in considering the key and vital components for financial flourishing presented in this article, that you may be able to clarify your priorities, offer your best service, and practice unconditional forgiveness to improve your financial conditions and flourish.

David Lusch – Co-Author of Greatest Forgiveness: Bring Joy and Peace to Your Life with the Power of Unconditional Forgiveness, with Dr. & Master Zhi Gang Sha and Cynthia Deveraux

You’ve read How To Flourish Financially with Forgiveness Practice, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

Help us help others. Please like this article. Share this article on your social media and with your tribe. And leave your comments below! ps: Download our free guided meditation self hypnosis MindPower Programs and Live Better On Purpose!

You’re reading I Did Not Quit My Mundane Job After Reading Robin Sharma’s Book, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

I don’t know if you can relate with me, but ever since I stepped into university, I have dreamt of changing the world (I think most people do). The naïve me thought that the world would be my playground as soon as I graduated from one of the best universities, and then I would be on the path of achieving great things (including working in a Fortune 500 company!)

Things, however, did not turn out to be as I expected. Once I was out of the cocoon, reality hit hard. Companies weren’t that eager to hire me, the job market was tough, there was a lot of competition and I could see my dreams shattering in front of my eyes.

It is difficult to stay motivated when things don’t go your way especially when you are unemployed and you have to pay the bills at the end of the month. So, I thought of just taking up any job that came my way regardless of whether or not it was a part of that Fortune list or related to the field I wanted to go to. (Bad idea. Don’t even think about it)

Thankfully though, after an excruciatingly long wait, I did get an offer from a well-reputed organization, and the work was also related to what I wanted to pursue (remotely, but something is better than nothing, right?). So I jumped at the opportunity.

I was pretty excited to start. However, my excitement couldn’t live for long. I am one of those people who live to tackle challenges because routine bores them. And soon after I started working, things started to seem mundane because of the small learning curve. I wanted to learn more and contribute more, and I kept feeling like I was underutilized.

To Quit Or Not To Quit?

When you don’t like your job, each day feels like a drag and you hate waking up in the morning to go through the same routine again. My first instinct was to quit and look for greener pastures, but this is one decision that you can’t just take spontaneously. Some people do that, but in my case, I still remembered that agonizing long wait and ever growing pile of bills.

So, I turned towards self-help books to dig some hope and motivation for continuing my job. I have always been a fan of Robin Sharma and his books. I have learned some great lessons from The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari and The 5 am Club.

I then came across this book, The Leader Who Had No Title and it completely changed my perspective towards my job.

Leadership Is Your Birthright

Contrary to the popular belief that leadership is meant for a few chosen people, this book pitches the idea: everyone is a leader, regardless of what their job role is in an organization. In this business fable, a retired veteran, who is trying to search for a purpose in his life and work; talks to four people, who are not considered to be in leadership positions as per the norm. But they are happy with their work and they believe that they play an important role in their respective organizations.  

This book challenged my perspective i.e. a mundane job is not meaningful. The four leaders that the veteran met, had ordinary jobs that of a librarian and a waitress. And our usual perspective is that the success of an organization doesn’t lie in such jobs, which are easy to replace. But the book breaks the stereotype and shine light towards a fresh perspective; which is, when people are good at their jobs, they automatically become a pivot of an organization and success flows through them.

“What I’ve learned about leadership is that leaders are those individuals, who do the things that failures aren’t willing to do—even though they might not like doing them either. They have the discipline to do what they know to be important—and right—versus what’s easy and fun.”

Patience Is Virtue

I will be honest, I have been told many times that I am not a patient person and perseverance is the key to success in life. I will admit that I need to work on that weakness of mine. After completing this book, I realized the fact that my job, no matter how mundane or boring it may seem to me, has a role to play in the organization. And that was the reason I was hired and all I have to do is to give it my 100 percent. Also, I need to be the best at it and prove that I am worthy of more responsibility.

“The farmer has patience and trusts the process. He just has the faith and deep understanding that through his daily efforts, the harvest will come. And then one day, almost out of nowhere, it does.”

Stop Comparing Yourself

One of the biggest reasons for my disappointment was, perhaps, seeing my batch mates in higher positions with fancy titles while I was stuck in a not-so-impressive place. Comparison is like a vortex that sucks you in and robs you out of joy. It is a natural reaction, considering that the availability of internet, smartphones and our constant use of social media makes us compare our lives with others. But you need to realize that your journey is different from others and not having a flashy title doesn’t mean that you will not be successful in the long run.

Hang in there!

The crux of my entire experience is that taking spontaneous decisions without giving them a second thought is not the answer to your problems. The answer is to be the best at what you do, persevere and then let success find you. 

You’ve read I Did Not Quit My Mundane Job After Reading Robin Sharma’s Book, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

Help us help others. Please like this article. Share this article on your social media and with your tribe. And leave your comments below! ps: Download our free guided meditation self hypnosis MindPower Programs and Live Better On Purpose!

You’re reading 11 Soothing Habits to Chill Out Your Kids, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

Kids are whirlwinds of energy, but even little ones need downtime. Plus, children aren’t immune to anxiety disorders. Today’s driven lifestyles with schedules chock-full of structured activities can leave tiny minds frazzled. 

How can you help your child to relax? It’s critical to teach them to self-soothe so that they develop healthy coping mechanisms as adults. As a parent, failing to teach your kids healthy ways to chill out can lead to behavioral issues and even addiction down the road. Instead, try these activities to help them calm down. 

1. Reward Downtime 

If you’re a Type A personality yourself, you may think you’re doing your child a favor by encouraging them to remain on the go always. You might even pat yourself on the back when they tumble into bed exhausted at day’s end. However, you could set them up for a lifetime of health woes. People with this assertive, driven personality type run a higher risk of heart disease than more sedate Type Bs. 

Start rewarding downtime by engaging in some yourself. Establish a rule to turn off all devices and put homework away at least 30 minutes before bed. Use this time to draw, read stories or participate in other quiet activities. Celebrate this quiet time as something to look forward to each day. 

2. Weigh Them Down 

You might know that weighted “thunder vests” can comfort your puppy during noisy storms. However, did you realize the same principle applies to your children? A weighted blanket creates deep sensory pressure on joints and muscles. The pressure can stimulate the release of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that increases positive feelings. It’s like giving them a full-body hug when they’re too old to sleep with you. 

3. Get Them Organized

Children can grow overwhelmed when they reach school age. Suddenly, they need to keep track of multiple assignments and deadlines. It’s a lot for little minds to handle, and if your child has perfectionist tendencies, they may stress over how to keep it all straight. Get them a planner and practice writing in it together. Each evening, help them to get their backpack prepared for the next school day. 

4. Use Doll or Puppet Play

Sometimes, younger children may struggle to communicate what is bothering them. You can use dolls or puppets to have them act out what’s weighing on their minds. Let them reenact the events that caused their stress, and brainstorm ways that the “characters” can solve their problem. 

5. Take a Walk 

You know as an adult that sometimes it’s better to walk away from a stressful situation than to escalate a conflict. Model this method of emotional regulation with your children. If your child threatens to meltdown, go for a walk around the block or to the local park. The physical exercise and outdoor air will eventually soothe them. 

6. Listen to Music 
As the cliché goes, music soothes the savage beast — and it can do the same for your little one. Put on your child’s favorite music and invite them to dance around the living room with you. You can even find kid-friendly dance videos on YouTube, often for free. 

7. Dial Back the Schedule 
If your child has soccer on Monday, piano on Tuesday and art club on Wednesday, is it any wonder that they’re exhausted? While it’s understandable that you want to keep your child supervised, kids need unstructured play to develop both mentally and emotionally. Plus, you risk making them feel like they have no say or control over their lives when you structure every moment of their day. Allow time in your child’s schedule to simply be. 

8. Read a Book 
Reading benefits your child’s brain development, but it’s also a potent self-soothing behavior. When your little one loses themselves in a story, they forget about their worries for a while. Encourage your child to read by taking them to the library and letting them select books that interest them. You can also suggest reads that reinforce healthy coping behaviors. 

9. Draw a Picture
Drawing and coloring can calm you down, and it can do the same for your children. If you’ve both had a stressful day, why not break out a stack of coloring books and a box of crayons? Sit down at your kitchen table, set a timer and color for 20-30 minutes. If your child prefers to draw, let them. Otherwise, the repetitive motion of coloring could inspire your little one to open up and discuss what’s on their mind. 

10. Stretch Little Bodies
Did you know that not only is yoga safe for children, but it’s also beneficial for developing bodies? When you present it in an age-appropriate way, it helps to counter the stress experienced in our hurry-up world. Using phrases like “stretch like a cat” engages their imagination and gets their bodies moving. 

11. Practice Guided Meditation

Children can benefit from meditation as much as adults. When 12 Thai boys became trapped in a cave with their football coach for 17 days, they survived the isolating darkness by using the practice. If you’re not sure where to start, consider taking an online class or signing up for one at your community recreation center. Some schools now use yoga and meditation instead of detention to modify the behavior of unruly students. 

---

 Jennifer Landis is a mom, wife, passionate freelance writer, and the blogger behind Mindfulness Mama. Follow her on Twitter @JenniferELandis.

You’ve read 11 Soothing Habits to Chill Out Your Kids, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

Help us help others. Please like this article. Share this article on your social media and with your tribe. And leave your comments below! ps: Download our free guided meditation self hypnosis MindPower Programs and Live Better On Purpose!

When things aren’t going your way, it’s hard to accept your own role in the situation. Often, it’s much easier to look externally – at other people, at the circumstances, or at just plain bad luck. However, while all of these things can be factors, failing to take personal responsibility can block you from becoming your best self.

Making excuses provides short term comfort, but it holds you back from growing and improving, and from avoiding similar mistakes in the future. But how do you know if you’re failing to take personal responsibility, and what can you do about it?

If you’re ready to empower yourself by taking responsibility and leaving excuses behind, this article is a perfect place to start. We’ll explore the key signs that you have difficulty accepting personal responsibility, explain the benefits of changing your approach, and provide concrete tips and reminders that can help you stay on track.

Ready To Start Accepting Responsibility?

Perhaps someone has pointed out that you have a habit of making excuses, or maybe you’re feeling stuck and are ready to try anything that might change your mindset and behavior.

However, if taking personal responsibility has been difficult for you in the past, know that this is perfectly understandable.

It can seem scary and negative to think about how we contribute to our own difficulties, and if you already suffer from low self-esteem then it makes sense that you’d want to protect yourself.

Thankfully, taking personal responsibility doesn’t have to be frightening or heavily self-critical. Instead, it can mark an empowering new phase of your life in which you take control of who you want to be and how you want to spend your time.

To see why and how, let’s delve further into the difference between taking and avoiding responsibility.

Signs You Might Be Avoiding Personal Responsibility

So, how do you know that you need to work on accepting responsibility? We’ve already gestured toward the kind of excuse-making mentality you might be tempted to adopt, but we’ll now consider the profile of a responsibility-avoider in more depth. Do any of the following signs sound familiar? If so, read on to see how you can start making changes.

Victim Mentality

If you have a victim mentality, this means that you view yourself as powerless. You’re someone who constantly asks questions like, why do bad things happen? Or why do I always seem to get treated badly at some point?

While it’s natural to feel bad when things go wrong, a victim mentality involves indulging in self-pity and feeling sorry for yourself at the exclusion of considering productive lessons you can draw from your current situation.

In contrast, when you stop feeling sorry for yourself then you’re able to focus on fostering a positive mentality that pushes you toward change and away from stagnation.

If you want to leave the victim mentality behind, start asking yourself “What can I do to make things better?”

This encourages you to see what your power is and how you might be contributing to the problem. Secondly, try emptying your negative thoughts and feelings of self-pity into a journal and then leaving them behind.

Blaming Others

Of course, others will sometimes play a role in negative situations in your life – sometimes by accident, and occasionally on purpose.

However, it’s important not to assume that others are entirely to blame for everything that goes wrong. Blame shifting keeps you trapped in the same cycle, making the same mistakes and avoiding the same responsibilities.

If you want to learn how to stop blaming others, it’s helpful to dig into the psychological reasons for blaming others.

In particular, as noted in the introduction of this article, we often do this sort of thing because we find it hard to accept our own flaws.

Work on embracing your flaws – you don’t have to be perfect to be good enough, and everyone makes mistakes! In addition, develop a practice of questioning your blaming practice. When you say “It’s all ____’s fault!”, take this as a prompt to stop and ask, “But what role did I play?’.

Making Excuses

Making excuses sometimes takes the form of blaming others, but there are further ways to avoid personal responsibility by making excuses.

In particular, you might start to take responsibility and then veer away into explaining to yourself that the situation wasn’t really under your control. For example, suppose you make a mistake on a work assignment.

You might acknowledge that this isn’t your boss’s fault, or the fault of any of your coworkers. However, you might say things like “Well, I was late to work that day because of bad traffic, and the wording of the assignment was quite complicated, so I couldn’t really have done anything differently.”

So, how to stop making excuses. It takes time and effort to stop making excuses, but the key is challenging your thinking.

Every time something goes wrong, ask yourself to find at least one thing you could do differently next time to help get a better result.

Complaining

Complaining takes up a lot of energy, but it’s an easy habit to fall into if you find it tough to take personal responsibility. In some ways, complaining is just a way of externally expressing some of the above signs – blaming others, viewing yourself as a victim, and making excuses.

You might do it in your journal or do it out loud to friends, but either way, it completely distracts you from any role you might have played in your own discontent.

One thing that can help you to stop complaining is to set a time limit.

Try to get it all out within five minutes, for example, viewing it as a cathartic kind of purge. Then, move on to being productive and proactive.

A second strategy that can be useful is to make yourself accountable. Tell your close friends that you’re working on complaining less, and let them remind you if you’re overdoing it as an accountability partner.

How Accepting Responsibility Can Change Your Life

Armed with a clear idea of what it means to have a habit of avoiding responsibility, let’s move on to think about why this all matters so much. As it turns out, accepting personal responsibility can completely transform your life. This should give you the inspiration that you need to start shifting your habits and holding yourself accountable.

Achieve Your Life Goals

Firstly, no matter what your life goals may be, taking personal responsibility goes a long way toward helping you meet those goals. Ask yourself: what’s your purpose, or your direction in life? What are the values and aims that undergird all the choices you make? Setting life goals has a huge amount to do with being disciplined in your actions.

In other words, by mindfully approaching each day with a plan for what you want to do, the habits you want to cultivate, and the place you want to direct your energy.

When you don’t take responsibility, you block yourself from your life goals by surrendering control. You say that whether you get to where you want to go is more about other people and about luck.

In contrast, when taking personal responsibility you see that all of this is fundamentally up to you – this opens up a whole new perspective on what you can achieve.

Increase Self-Awareness

When you accept and see that you have responsibility for yourself, your actions and your own life, you start to become self-aware.

What is self-awareness? This is when you learn to develop an ever-richer picture of who you and what you want, and doing so has knock-on effects on all sorts of other areas of your life.

Why is self-awareness important? Because it means understanding the reality of your own strengths and weaknesses and how to use all of those to your advantage. The benefits of self-awareness also include more mature relationships with better communication.

Your potential is closed off if you can’t accept that you could be contributing to the negatives in your life.
Deep down, you have a sense that there are things you could be working on.
However, you won’t allow yourself to look at those things or to do that work.

There’s a wonderful feedback link between self-awareness and taking responsibility for yourself – each of these traits continuously enhances the other. Consequently, you become increasingly empowered and increasingly knowledgeable.

Increase Happiness

At first, you might not see why taking more responsibility for yourself increases your happiness. For example, isn’t it uncomfortable and unpleasant to think about your weaknesses and the ways you could do better? Won’t that make you sadder rather than happier?

The answer is that it doesn’t have to – not if you take the attitude that we all have room for improvements and that making mistakes doesn’t undermine your value.

In addition, there’s something truly liberating about taking responsibility for your own happiness. In particular, you realize that to a large extent, when considering how to be happier, it’s already in your control.

It’s not up to your partner, your friends or your family to make you happy, and you can choose to be happier than you are.

So, instead of viewing yourself as being at the whims of fate every day, you can wake up and ask yourself “How do I want to feel today? And what can I do to make that happen?”.

Take Control Of Your Life

The sense of control discussed above with respect to happiness also extends beyond your emotions. Consider that when you take responsibility, you can take control of your life in all respects. As you begin to view yourself as being personally responsible for the life you live, you start to realize that you can decide what you want to pursue, and when you want to pursue it.

In a nutshell, a shift in mindset doesn’t happen to you but rather happen through you. It’s considered ‘growth mindset vs fixed mindset‘. You’re in command of what your future looks like, in every area – your dating, career, fitness and your family life.
In contrast, the old mentality involved thinking that others control your life, limiting your choices and keeping you stuck. When it finally dawns on you that this isn’t true, the relief can be truly incredible.

Become Self Accountable

Finally, a huge element of taking responsibility for yourself is a willingness to answer for what you do – to consider what happens as a result of your behaviors and choices, and to honestly evaluate those outcomes.

As suggested above, this adds up to doing something different in the future when things don’t work out. Consequently, the gap between you and your goals gets shorter and shorter at a faster rate.

As with many aspects of taking responsibility, self-accountability can sound like a heavyweight to carry at first. It can sound as though you’ll live a life of self-recrimination and self-doubt.

However, once you start to practice it, you’ll see that it frees you up to abandon the things that don’t work for you and to lean into the best parts of yourself.

What’s more, it makes your social life much better. Instead of blaming others, you apologize when appropriate and little things never get a chance to become chronic grudges.

6 Important Reminders For Taking Personal Responsibility

To take personal responsibility, the biggest step you have to take is deciding that you want to stop making excuses.
However, it’s helpful to have techniques on hand to keep you on track.
Having reminders you can refer to when it becomes hard to avoid the urge to blame others is especially good. These reminders will help to stick to your plan and stay consistently accountable to yourself.

Stop Blaming Others

When you catch yourself focusing all your resentment and anger on another person, stop and take a few deep breaths. Pull back from your urge to blame, and focus on yourself. How did you get here? What happened? If you could do the situation over, what would you change?

Stop The Constant Complaining

When you hear consistent moaning coming out of your mouth to friends, family or colleagues, catch yourself and change direction. It’s okay to say something like “I just realized I’m moaning about this – let me change track.” Ask yourself: what’s the positive in this situation, if there is any? If not, how can I move forward?

Be Mindful & Live In The Present Moment

Add a personal reflection period to every day to stop you from analyzing the past and stressing about the future. Whether it’s a guided meditation, mindfulness exercises, or just a walk, find time to zone into the present moment.

Get Clear & Set Intentions

Set your goals in clear, unambiguous language. Write them down (write an intention statement) and pin them up somewhere if it helps, and stick to them. Focus on these intentions throughout the day, and let your guiding question not be “Why me?” but “What can I do in order to turn my intentions into reality?”.

See Challenges Instead Of Problems

We all hit roadblocks, but when you do it’s important to view them as beatable challenges. How can you overcome them? What strategies can you use? These are not signs you’ll be permanently stuck or that you’re powerless. They’re not problems but rather prompts to grow beyond your present self.

Be Responsible For Yourself

Finally, don’t look to your partner, your friends, your children or anyone else to make sure you’re happy. Your happiness is up to you, which is both a great gift and a great responsibility. If you want to feel a certain way, explore how you can get there – don’t ask others to take you there.

Using The Law Of Attraction Effectively Is Your Personal Responsibility To Manifest Your Greatest Life

Now that you fully see why and how taking personal responsibility can change your life, why not take the next step into your empowerment? Whatever your goals and values, you can make these the center of your existence with the help of manifestation techniques. As the Law of Attraction teaches, our intentions and our desires shape what we receive from the universe – so if you’re taking responsibility, you’re deciding what you’ll get from the world around you.

Exercises like saying positive affirmations, doing creative visualizations and creating dream boards support the idea that you create your own future. When you use the Law of Attraction effectively, you get more and more evidence that taking responsibility works! Unlike making excuses, it provides you with a path to being the very best version of yourself.

The post How To Take Personal Responsibility And Stop Making Excuses appeared first on The Law Of Attraction.

Help us help others. Please like this article. Share this article on your social media and with your tribe. And leave your comments below!

ps: Download our free guided meditation self hypnosis MindPower Programs and Live Better On Purpose!