A FULL LIFE IS NOT NECESSARILY A LONG LIFE

Are you living your life appreciating what you DO have, or are you lamenting what still seems to be missing?
Three years ago the eight year old daughter of a friend died in a freak accident at school. My friend was devastated and I could not think of any wise words that might console him.
As the weeks rolled by my friend slipped into an ever deeper sense of despair, and nothing anyone said seemed to lift his spirit.

After a few months time he went out of town on a business trip, and on the train ride back he engaged in conversation with the woman sitting next to him. The woman sat there and nodded her head often as my friend talked about the death of his daughter. He reported to me that he had the sense of talking and talking and talking, until he finally felt like he had nothing more to say.
As my friend came to a natural state of rest, the woman nodded her head one more time as she took a deep breath, and then said the following,
"I can very much feel your pain, and I understand the loss of your child must be devastating."
"At the same time," she said, "I wonder if your pain would not be lessened if you celebrated the life your daughter did have."

"You told me about your daughter's sense of awe the first time you took her to the ocean, and how you carried her in your arms as you waded out into the water."
"You also spoke about the many times she sat on your lap and told you about the magical adventures she had during the course of her day."
"Perhaps the sweetest story you shared was how you told your daughter every night how much you loved her as you tucked her into bed."

"I’m wondering," the woman said, "What is it that leads you to believe you and your daughter did not live a full and glorious life together?"
"Is it because she died at eight years old and not at eighty? Certainly it would seem that the quality of one's life is not tied to the length of one's life."

"I would like to gently suggest that you and your daughter did live a full and complete life together. She just didn't live as long as you had hoped for and expected."

As the train neared the station the woman continued speaking.
"I am seventy two years old, and in looking back on my life I don't feel I have shared with anyone, the depth of experience and love you and your daughter had together."
"On one hand this makes me deeply sad. On the other hand, it wakes me up to the fact that my life is not yet finished. I can begin today to live the life I truly desire."
"This is the realization that your experience has helped me to understand, and for this wonderful gift I thank you deeply."

The woman smiled as she stood up, preparing to exit the train.
"None of us know how long we have to live. No one has control over the length of their life."
"The quality of our life on the other hand, is something you can ensure on a daily basis. An emotionally fulfilling life is a complete life, regardless of how many years you live. A life without love seems to take forever to end."
“We’ll do well to appreciate what we do have, rather than lamenting about what we don’t.”

To the readers of this article, I gently suggest you consider how you want to live your life, in order to ensure that your time on earth is fulfilling and complete.

3 SIMPLE TIPS TO LIVE A MORE ABUNDANT LIFE

People will think that being able to live an abundant life is something that only the "special" people can have.

However, anyone can live abundantly, just as long as you know what you are doing in life. Though life may not be at an ultimate high, this does not mean that you cannot be happy.

In order to live abundantly, you will need to start focusing more on yourself and enjoying your happiness.

Create small goals

When you make small goals in life, you will realize that they will work together to still achieve one big goal. This makes life seem easier and you are able to enjoy each day more.

Sometimes a really big goal can seem too overwhelming and so it is a better idea to simply just focus on making small goals on a daily basis.

Have Time For Friends

Sometimes working too hard may not be the answer to living abundantly. You will need to take a break and realize that there are other things in important in life besides work and money.

When you ensure that your relationships with the people you love are perfect, you will be able to focus more on your work.

This is something that a lot of workaholics forget and it leads to more problems in other areas of life.

Relax and Exercise

When you are feeling too stressed, sometimes all you need to do is let it out with some sort of activity.

Whether it is exercise or simply just going to sleep, doing things to help relax yourself will allow you to get back to work.

Living abundantly certainly does not mean that you will need to have all the money in the world but to simply make sure that you are happy, no matter what is going on in your life.

What will they think? - love and approval addiction?

When you were growing up, how often did you hear, "What will they think?"

Who are "they?" Unfortunately, "they" are everyone. Many of our parents and caregivers were love and approval addicted and geared their behavior to try to have control over getting love and approval and avoiding disapproval.

This was the role modeling for many of us. Our worth was determined by what "they" would think. Most of us did not see our parents or other role models defining their own worth and validating themselves.

What about now? Is you sense of worth determined by what others think of you, or have you learned how to define your own worth? Do you get your sense of inner fullness from others' love or do you know how to fill yourself with love?

Being love and approval addicted is a hard and tiring way to live. Being dependent upon others love, attention, and approval for your sense of safety, security, worth and lovability means that you have to constantly work to look right and perform right. You can never let up, because even if you get the love or approval that you are seeking from a person, he or she can always take it away. Or maybe they are not available and then you have to try to get it from someone else, anyone else - "they."

We all need love. We do not thrive without it, and many do not survive without it. However, problems occur when we are dependent on others as our primary source of love and attention.

As long as you are making others responsible for defining your worth and making you feel safe and loved, you will likely continue to feel alone and empty inside. There really is another way to live!

What if you were to decide to give yourself the love and approval that you keep seeking from others? What if you were to decide to stop focusing externally and instead start to focus internally?

We all have the power to define our own worth and bring love into ourselves. While you might think that the only love that feels really great is love from another person, this is a huge false belief. If you have ever experienced a moment of Grace, where you feel full and joyous for no external reason, you know that it is possible to feel incredibly wonderful without another's love and approval.

The only way this happens is when your heart is open to the Love that is Spirit.

We live in a sea of Love and wisdom. It is everywhere - within us and all around us. It is who we are - created in the image of God-that-is-love. When you shift your intention from trying to have control over getting love and approval, and instead move into an intent to learn about loving yourself, your heart opens to the incredible love and wisdom of your spiritual Guidance.

Try it right now. Move your focus out of your head and into your heart. Breathe into your heart. Make a decision that, for right now, you want responsibility for your own feelings of fullness and worth. Now ask one of these questions: "What is loving to me right now?" or "What is in my highest good right now?" Relax, let go, and listen for the answer. It might come in words, or images, or feelings. When you get a sense of what is loving to you right now, then do it. Take the loving action.

Now notice how you feel.

If you practice this all day, you will stop worrying about "What will they think?"

HOW TO LIVE YOUR DREAM LIFE!

We all have a dream life we wish to lead, but what’s sad is few of us reach our dreams or even attempt to reach for them. So many people think a dream life is not a possibility because their thoughts can’t take them far from their current reality. So what do you need so that you can reach for the stars and live your dream lifestyle?

Moving out of your current reality, is vitally important to have your dream life!

So how do you live your dream life? Let me explain.

Every Single one of us has huge greatness in us far beyond our own beliefs.

Our mind is not capable of seeing everything that is possible for us in our lives. Our mind can only think of the next ideas, dreams goals or thoughts. Once we take the steps to live your dream life, our belief in what’s possible expands. Each step we take builds upon itself, like a staircase or a ladder.

As you take the steps to live your dream life, your dreams continue to expand and your thoughts about what is possible for you continue to expand. It is reaching past what you are doing now that helps you to discover not only what you can do, but to continue to expand on how to live your dream life.

When we first started as entrepreneurs, we had dreams and ideas of how to live our dream life, but we also had tons of ideas of self-doubt lingering in our mind.

The problem, self-doubt is false and holds us in our current reality.

In thebeginningwe struggled with our own beliefs about our business success. Yet we felt in our hearts that being entrepreneurs gave us the freedom to live the dream life we felt was possible. We were getting “caught up” in details, and blocking ourselves.

What we learned was that, our self-limiting belief of what was possible made the first steps the hardest. Success builds confidence and belief.

We had no idea how to live our dream life. It was like being in the fog we couldn’t see past our immediate concerns to understand what doors would be available and open for us. As we continued to take the steps, one foot in front of the other, to become entrepreneurs and build a dream life, that our belief got stronger and our ideas of a dream life expanded.

It’s really been an awesome adventure! The best part, we continue to grow and expand on how to live our dream life!

What steps have you taken to help you live the life of your dreams? We would love to hear about them. Leave us a comment below and share the knowledge.

SUCCESS. DEFINE IT. POST IT. LIVE IT!

Success. Define It, Post It, Live It Are you successful? Will you be successful in the future? Do you have a time line and set goals to that end? Well, let's paint a different picture.

Let's say you were given a few days to live and you were lucky enough to be on your deathbed, surrounded by the people you love. Each of you could say the things you needed to say before you left this world. Would you be able to close your eyes and say, "I was successful in my life"? Well here's a question for you. Why in the world would you want to wait until the last hours of your life to realize you're a success?

I want you tonight when you close your eyes to say, "I'm a success". And tomorrow, live it. To make that a reality certain steps need to be taken.

Step One - Define It 

To be able to live it you've got to define it. How would you define success? That definition will be modified throughout your life but it needs to start somewhere. If you don't take the time to define it for yourself then you'll buy into other people's definitions and they will begin to maneuver and manipulate you to live their definitions.

Examples?

"You'll never be a success around here unless you put in a 60 hour work week"

"If you're serious about the job then you're expected to entertain clients in places you'd rather not be"

"It's simple. Don't let people around here know you have kids if you want to advance. It's your job or your family. You can't have both"

"You'll have your retirement to take all the vacations you won't be taking here."

These are real statements that have been said to real employees. Without having your own clear definition of success, guilt, "should" language and manipulation become powerful tools in the hands of others. When you KNOW what your definition of success is, it makes it easier for you to make better choices that will help in getting a life...balanced!

Remember I said your definition would be modified in life? If you asked my teenage son to define success he'd tell you "Success in driving a Porsche and living on the beach." A man friend once told me, "No, success is owning the Porsche, the house on the beach and have two years income in the bank so at anytime you can say "take this job and shove it". My Mother defines success as "If your children call you on Mother's day and remember to send you a Birthday card, then you're successful."

My definition is "Loving what you do so much you'd do it for free, ahhh but doing it so well you get paid handsomely for it."

Knowing my definition allows me to decline opportunities I'm offered for other jobs, etc. because I know I wouldn't LOVE it and after all tomorrow I would be trading my life, my time for something I didn't enjoy? Doesn't make sense - no matter what the price tag attached.

What's YOUR definition? Define it.

Now Post it!

Get a piece of paper and create a masterpiece with your definition as its' main theme. Post it up somewhere so that when others (even people who love you) try to define your success for you - you can give them a smile and visually remember how YOU have define your life.

And Live it!

Once you know what your definitions, you will make better choices in your life. You'll hang with the right people who support your dreams, you'll network with others who know where they are going in life, and soon you'll be rubbing shoulders (and minds) with likeminded, empowered people. Remember....

Success. Define it, post it and live it. It's YOUR life!