Top 5 Ways to Build a Wonderful Life

1. Live Below Your Means

There will always be temptation to forsake the future for immediate gratification. We all want to buy that new piece of technology, treat ourselves to an expensive night on the town, or take out a loan for the flashy car we can’t afford. It might feel great at the time but rash spending hurts a lot later on.

Enjoy life’s simple pleasures and save as much as you can. Expensive things don’t create lasting happiness and security. Careful spending will bring you greater leisure and enjoyment in the long run.

2. Put Your Money to Work

Saving is great, but to make the most of your money you need to put it to work. Good investments can be the difference between retiring in your 40′s or in your 60′s.

A post today at The Simple Dollar really got me thinking. According to Trent’s projections, if a person in their early 20′s invests 20% of their income in an S&P index fund, the interest they earn will equal their current salary when they reach their early 40′s. They could retire without a drop in income!

Wise investing is the surest path to financial independence and it’s something everyone can work on. It’s definitely an area I’ll be devoting more attention to in my personal life and on this blog.

3. Educate Yourself

To be happy we need continuous growth. The best way to grow is life long education. This doesn’t mean you need to pursue a doctorate or spend 2 hours reading every day. Self education can be anything that takes you out of your comfort zone. The important part is keeping an open mind and searching for fresh ideas and perspectives.

Education builds over time. It might feel like the bits of wisdom you acquire don’t mean much, but over the years they add up to form a wiser, kinder, more interesting person.

4. Develop Lasting Personal Relationships

Suppose you had everything you wanted. Would you be happy without anyone to share it with? The personal relationships we develop with friends and family members are the greatest source of happiness in our lives. Don’t forget about them.

Taking the time to cultivate and enjoy personal relationships is essential to longterm happiness. Without the people you care about you’ll probably be miserable, no matter how successful you become.

5. Work Towards a Dream You’re Passionate About

Even if your life isn’t perfect, you can always build towards a goal you’re passionate about. If you aren’t building towards something, you’re probably stagnating. When this happens to me I start to feel like a victim trapped by my own life. The best way to reverse this is working towards a goal.

We can’t control everything about our lives, but working towards a goal gives us something positive to focus on and lays the foundation for future success. No matter what your passion is, get out there and start doing something. As Lao Tzu said, even a journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step.

Bonus: 6. Stay in Shape

You only get one body. Once it’s been ruined there isn’t much you can do about it. Exercise to keep the rust off. Avoid excessive consumption of damaging substances and unhealthy foods. It may feel like terrible self denial at the time but enjoying good health in your later years is worth the sacrifice.

Transforming Fear Into Courage Is Your Choice

Have you ever allowed fear to sap your motivation? If so, you are probably familiar with the heavy sense of frustration that inevitably results in the abandonment of goals and dreams – no matter how badly you may want to achieve them.

However, you don’t have to allow fear to hinder your actions and destroy your goals! With a simple shift in perspective, you can transform fear into courage and optimism and use them to your advantage.

If you’re like most people, you’re probably used to seeing the negative side of situations. Not only do you tend to focus more on the challenges instead of the benefits in each situation, you may also hesitate to take action because of the potential negative risks involved. Wanting to move forward may not provide enough incentive to overcome these fears, so you continuously hold yourself back and accomplish far less than you’re capable of.

However, if you learn to shift your focus from what you stand to lose in each situation and instead focus on what you might gain, you’ll probably find yourself feeling more courageous and eager to take action!

You may find it helpful to make a list of any specific fears you have and get them out in the open. In each situation that makes you feel fearful, consider exactly what is holding you back. What do you fear happening and why? Are those things likely to happen, or is there only a slight chance?

Then use a separate sheet of paper and create a list of benefits you stand to gain by moving forward. Be as specific – and optimistic - as you can. Remember that dread and fear often seem to amplify the negative possibilities, which can make the positive benefits seem smaller or less important, so you may need to work a little harder to emphasize the positive.

Looking over these two lists should give you a more balanced view of your options and provide the clarity you need to decide whether to move forward or not. You may decide that you have valid reasons to hang back a bit longer, and it’s okay to do that! If you see that the possible negative consequences are more than you’re willing to accept at this time, you can either come up with less risky steps to take, or simply hold off and reevaluate at a later time.

If you do decide that the time to take action is now, you may need to work on building up your courage a bit before you do. Remember that the only one with the power to hold you back is YOU. At its core, motivation is largely the determination to conquer any fear, hesitation or excuse that threatens to hold you back.

Most importantly of all, don’t trick yourself into believing that you have to be completely fearless before moving toward your goals! The most successful people in the world would probably tell you that they eventually had to resolve to move forward despite their fear and uncertainty!

Courage is absolutely a choice, and fear does not have the power to sap your motivation and strength unless you decide to let it.

How to Tell Her You Love Her

Telling her "I love you" is an important step in building intimacy in a relationship. There are different ways of going about it, but you should always make sure that you mean it before you say it to your girlfriend. Never say it just because you think it's what she wants to hear, say it only if you mean it.

Instructions

1 ¬ Think about when and where you want to tell her. Is there a special place you want to be? A certain day? For example, you might want to tell her at the restaurant where you went on your first date, or on the two-month or nine-month anniversary of your first date.

2 ¬ Set the mood and be romantic. Buy her flowers or a romantic gift.

3 ¬ Look at her directly, take her hand and tell her how positive you feel about her. Give her examples of things you really like about her. Be sincere.

4 ¬ Tell her how you feel being with her, and how much you enjoy your time together. Be specific about what you value and appreciate about being with her.

5 ¬ Follow these positive statements with telling her you love her in whatever way feels best for you. For example: "I feel I've come to love you," "I realize I love you," "I feel so much love for you," "I've fallen in love with you," or simply, "I love you."

How To Motivate Yourself

Staying motivated is a struggle — our drive is constantly assaulted by negative thoughts and anxiety about the future. Everyone faces doubt and depression. What separates the highly successful is the ability to keep moving forward.

There is no simple solution for a lack of motivation. Even after beating it, the problem reappears at the first sign of failure. The key is understanding your thoughts and how they drive your emotions. By learning how to nurture motivating thoughts, neutralize negative ones, and focus on the task at hand, you can pull yourself out of a slump before it gains momentum.

Reasons We Lose Motivation

There are 3 primary reasons we lose motivation.

1. Lack of confidence – If you don’t believe you can succeed, what’s the point in trying?
2. Lack of focus – If you don’t know what you want, do you really want anything?
3. Lack of direction – If you don’t know what to do, how can you be motivated to do it?

How to Boost Confidence

The first motivation killer is a lack of confidence. When this happens to me, it’s usually because I’m focusing entirely on what I want and neglecting what I already have. When you only think about what you want, your mind creates explanations for why you aren’t getting it. This creates negative thoughts. Past failures, bad breaks, and personal weaknesses dominate your mind. You become jealous of your competitors and start making excuses for why you can’t succeed. In this state, you tend to make a bad impression, assume the worst about others, and lose self confidence.

The way to get out of this thought pattern is to focus on gratitude. Set aside time to focus on everything positive in your life. Make a mental list of your strengths, past successes, and current advantages. We tend to take our strengths for granted and dwell on our failures. By making an effort to feel grateful, you’ll realize how competent and successful you already are. This will rejuvenate your confidence and get you motivated to build on your current success.

It might sound strange that repeating things you already know can improve your mindset, but it’s amazingly effective. The mind distorts reality to confirm what it wants to believe. The more negatively you think, the more examples your mind will discover to confirm that belief. When you truly believe that you deserve success, your mind will generate ways to achieve it. The best way to bring success to yourself is to genuinely desire to create value for the rest of the world.

Developing Tangible Focus

The second motivation killer is a lack of focus. How often do you focus on what you don’t want, rather than on a concrete goal? We normally think in terms of fear. I’m afraid of being poor. I’m afraid no one will respect me. I’m afraid of being alone. The problem with this type of thinking is that fear alone isn’t actionable. Instead of doing something about our fear, it feeds on itself and drains our motivation.

If you’re caught up in fear based thinking, the first step is focusing that energy on a well defined goal. By defining a goal, you automatically define a set of actions. If you have a fear of poverty, create a plan to increase your income. It could be going back to school, obtaining a higher paying job, or developing a profitable website. The key is moving from an intangible desire to concrete, measurable steps.

By focusing your mind on a positive goal instead of an ambiguous fear, you put your brain to work. It instantly begins devising a plan for success. Instead of worrying about the future you start to do something about it. This is the first step in motivating yourself to take action. When know what you want, you become motivated to take action.

Developing Direction

The final piece in the motivational puzzle is direction. If focus means having an ultimate goal, direction is having a day-to-day strategy to achieve it. A lack of direction kills motivation because without an obvious next action we succumb to procrastination. An example of this is a person who wants to have a popular blog, but who spends more time reading posts about blogging than actually writing articles.

The key to finding direction is identifying the activities that lead to success. For every goal, there are activities that pay off and those that don’t. Make a list of all your activities and arrange them based on results. Then make a make an action plan that focuses on the activities that lead to big returns. To continue the example from above, a blogger’s list would look something like this:

1. Write content
2. Research relevant topics
3. Network with other bloggers
4. Optimize design and ad placements
5. Answer comments and email
6. Read other blogs

Keeping track of your most important tasks will direct your energy towards success. Without a constant reminder, it’s easy to waste entire days on filler activities like reading RSS feeds, email, and random web surfing.

When my motivation starts to wane, I regain direction by creating a plan that contains two positive actions. The first one should be a small task you’ve been meaning to do, while the second should be a long-term goal. I immediately do the smaller task. This creates positive momentum. After that I take the first step towards achieving the long-term goal. Doing this periodically is great for getting out of a slump, creating positive reinforcement, and getting long-term plans moving.

It’s inevitable that you’ll encounter periods of low energy, bad luck, and even the occasional failure. If you don’t discipline your mind, these minor speed bumps can turn into mental monsters. By being on guard against the top 3 motivation killers you can preserve your motivation and propel yourself to success.

So stop strugling and start motivate yourself with these points! Good luck!

Pappa Püllï out!

Motivational Quotes to Keep You Going

Quotes can be one of life’s greatest sources of inspiration. They encourage you to live your dreams and become the person you always hoped to be.


Here are some quotes worth remembering.


“You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”
~ Zig Ziglar


“Life is either a daring adventure, or it is nothing.”
~ Helen Keller


“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
~ Albert Einstein

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”
~ Henry Ford


“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in everydirection, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than youever dreamed yourself to be.”
~ Patanjali – the author of Yoga Sutra


“I think I can, I think I can.”
~ The Little Engine That Could


“I know for sure that what we dwell on is who we become.”
~ Oprah Winfrey


“The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you’re willing to work.”
~ Oprah Winfrey


“Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life.”
~ Leo Buscaglia


“The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.”
~ Helen Keller”


“I love you, not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.”
~ Roy Croft


A friend is a gift you give yourself.
~ Robert Louis Stevenson

“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.”
~ Napoleon Hill


“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”
~ Zig Ziglar


“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
~ Michael Jordan


“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dance as though no one is watching you.
Love as though you have never been hurt before.
Sing as though no one can hear you.
Live as though heaven is on earth.
~Souza


Do you have some favorite quotes of your own? Please feel free to share them in the comments section.

14 Ways to change your life

This time, my fellow followers, i keep it quite simple. Words can't sometimes describe, that's why i got this video for you!

If you like it, please reply on this post!

Something i wanna share with you

Sometimes you have those days that you don't wanna write or not gonna say so many. Well guys, i have one of those days. Therefor i got some music what i found on a dutch website called je-moeder.nl.
What you can find are some good oldies, i especially like them.. Share your thoughs in a comment and let me know if you like it aswell!




Papa Püllï out, have a great weekend!

Positive Thinking Quotes To Help You Win

This is a collection of positive thinking quotes that I feel really convey the essence and importance of positive thinking. Whether good or bad, our lives are shaped by our thoughts.

The mind is a powerful tool. Unfortunately, it is one that few have mastered how to use. Sadly, it has caused untold grief for countless millions. On the other hand, any success that any person has ever enjoyed is a direct result of their thoughts. This is so whether they used this power knowingly or unknowingly.

YOU have the advantage over many. You know the power that you possess in the form of your mind. You know the power of thought. Use it. Create your destiny.

These positive thinking quotes will help you in your quest. You can also see these additional positive quotes and if you really want a boost why not also read this positive thinking quote compilation.

For money quotations please visit Financial Freedom Informant`s Money Quotations page.

For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

Proverbs 23:7 Bible

“A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.”

Mahatma Gandhi

“You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.”

James Allen

Beyond Motivational Quotes
Beyond the Quote contains a hand picked selection of the verybest motivational and inspirational quotes. What sets their quotes apart from the rest are theunique and enlightening meanings that accompany each quote.

“Like the wind that carries one ship east and another west, the law of autosuggestion will lift you up or pull you down according to the way that you set your sails of thought.”

Napoleon Hill

“Fortunes gravitate to men whose minds have been prepared to attract them just as surely as water gravitates to the ocean.”

Napoleon Hill.

”Change your thoughts and you change your world.”

Norman Vincent Peale

“A man is literally what he thinks.”

James Allen

“Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.”

Zig Ziglar

"If we think happy thoughts, we will be happy. If we think miserable thoughts, we will be miserable."

Dale Carnegie

“I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”

Henley

“There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.”

Napoleon Hill

“You are capable of much more than you are presently thinking, imagining, doing or being.”

Myles Munroe

“The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.”

William James

“Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right.”

Henry Ford

Affirmations transform your thinking, your attitudes, and your behavior and help to build the needed internal confidence and determination to overcome obstacles, accomplish goals and improve your self-image.

<--- "Great Succes!"