Filed under: Confidence, Inspiration, Life, Mindful Living, Personal Connections, Simplify
In revisiting my simplicity reading, I’ve been inspired to suggest a movement. We’ve all heard the saying “keeping up with the Joneses” and we are all well aware of the trouble it has caused our society with unbelievable debt. My suggestion is a movement about “Keeping Up With The ‘OTHER’ Joneses.”
The Joneses I would like to compare notes with are the ones who believe in making deliberate choices and living a mindful life. Maybe this is what they “look” like:
- Making simple life choices in order to spend their money on what really means something to them.
- Having less debt because of their desire to live a life with a focus on personal connections with their loved ones rather than having to work as much as possible to try and keep ahead of their payments.
- The ones who move through life with confidence that they know exactly what they are working for and towards because they have spent the time with their own thoughts to figure it all out.
With our money woes playing such a large role in what our life ends up looking like, it is a basic starting point for simplifying our lives - to focus our energies on how we are spending our hard earned money. Anyone who is familiar with the idea of simplicity knows that it doesn’t mean depriving yourself of the things that you truly enjoy in life. Rather it means taking a very close look at what your goals are in this area of your life and making sure you are making it happen. You can say that one of your goals is to retire at the age of 55 however if you do not take the steps to make that happen, it won’t. Often times just wishing for something doesn’t make it happen …. there must be, at least, a little effort behind it.
I believe that if we each sat down and wrote down some basic thoughts about where we want life to take us and what we would like to achieve with the money we make throughout our lives, it will naturally make almost every other aspect of our lives more clear. I’m not suggesting that every person’s goal should be early retirement or even that their goal should be to live a debt-free life. What I am suggesting is that each person becomes aware of what their goals are and deliberately chooses what their life will look like. If nothing else, it will offer us peace of mind that what we are doing at the moment is perfectly aligned with our goals. Who doesn’t enjoy some peace of mind?
Filed under: Confidence, Gratitude, Inspiration, Life, Life Coach, Mindful Living, Simplify
It has been too long since I blogged. No excuses really, just caught up in our relocation to Nebraska and a little bit of laziness. With our relocation, I’ve had to consider what I am interested in doing as a career to help support my family. We were deliberate enough in our life changes that it is not an emergency for me to find just any old job. I have the luxury of being able to be just as deliberate about my career path.
As can be seen with my previous blogs, I have gone through training to be a life coach. I officially become a Certified Professional Coach as of tomorrow at 1 pm CST though I’ve been a coach for many years. This is one stream of income that I am passionate about pursuing and am working toward a game plan for that as we speak.
The other stream of income that I am passionate about has been “in me” since the 5th grade. In the 5th grade, I wrote a story about a farmer who had cows that gave orange juice rather than milk. While the story itself is not something that has stuck with me, the feeling it gave me to write it and the feedback I received has. Ever since then, I have dreamed of being a writer.
For the past few weeks I have been reading about becoming a freelance writer. I have signed up for various online discussion board groups about freelance writing. I have done all sorts of thinking and investigating around the topic however this morning it occurred to me …….. perhaps the real first step to becoming a writer is …….. TO START WRITING AGAIN!!!!!!!! Funny how the most obvious of answers can escape us for a period of time. And when we become more mindful of what we want and break it down into simpler, more manageable pieces it becomes crystal clear.
Here I am today in my first step of starting to write again. I am committed to blogging when the urge strikes me. I will begin journaling again. And when inspiration hits I’ll write about whatever is in my head at the time. There are many different avenues to share a person’s writing and I am beginning my discovery of what type of writing comes the most natural to me. I am grateful for this revelation and I know that the simple act of writing will build my confidence.
