Seasons Greetings 2011

     First I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, although a day late.  It is tough at times to find the time to do all the things we'd like.  So with that in mind I'd like to also wish everyone a Happy New Year as well.  As 2011 comes to a quick close, I have been giving the past year a quick review.  The start of 2011 was a rough one with great financial strains throughout the world.  I had proclaimed that 2011 would be the year to overcome many of my personal challenges.  Financially, 2011 was a roller-coaster ride from hell.  Many of us fell off the ride, while others barely hung on to what we had.  Here again, from personal experience, I too clung on for dear life.  Yes, that's right, I did anything and everything to keep what little I had.  January to March was a battle of keeping my home, job and car.  Congress was playing with the taxes and delayed my return but in the end I still have all three.  I had mentioned in my last blog that I learned many things from my Dale Carnegie training.  Getting stressed out over things that might happen can kill you or in the least, make you very ill.  Everything that I worried about never came to pass.

     March to June looked promising and did fare pretty well, but with summer rolling in the financial woes started again.  Robbing Peter to pay Paul seemed to become a way of life.  I will tell you from this repeating experience, it DOESN'T work long and only make things worse.  Lucky for me, things seem to turn out right, one way or another.  July and August brought family issues and concerns that made for a very emotional time.  The decisions made during this time governed September.  We had to send my oldest daughter to stay with some friends over 1000 miles away.  October was a settling month, trying to get things back into some kind of order.  November is to be a month of thanksgiving.  This is where the financial company for our car lowered the boom.  When the statement came, my chin hit the floor.  The loan hit it's maturity and I owed a balance of $6000.00 by the due date.  Normally I would have panicked, but instead, I analyzed the situation and decided to try for a refinance to the balance.  Although the vehicle is blue booked for twice what I owed, no one would refinance it.  So I stuck to my guns and kept sending the normal payment.  They haven't come for the car and the December statement only states the same as the last but with a lower balance.  Again, here is an excellent example of why not to worry about things such as this.  December is here and Christmas has come at last.  Only days remain of 2011 and now I look towards 2012 with great promise.

     So what's in store for me in 2012?  Well first, the financial outlook is way better this coming year then last.  The 2011 tax return will pay off the remaining balance on the car.  This will free up all that money that has been going towards it all these years.  With that we can follow some of the principals that I have learned through several financial books I have read this past year.  I have vowed not to make the same mistakes that I have made in the past.  This will mark a new success in my life and your invited to follow along.  Discover the true meaning of Success from within.

     Recently, sometime in October, I had traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico for a service call.  When returning, I picked up a few gift items at the airport for my family.  I did find an item that I had some time ago and thought I should pick it up.  It's called a worry stone.  I had one years ago, when worry consumed me and was taking a huge toll on my health.  It came from an Irish stand at a mall that explained it's use and why you shouldn't worry.  Since we moved several times over the years, my worry stone has disappeared.  This presented me with opportunity to revisit it's use.  Simpy put, I will use part of my Dale Carnegie training with the help of my new found worry stone.  I write my worries down on a piece of paper and place it under the worry stone.  If I have new worries I right them down and place them under the stone.  After some time passes, a few weeks or a month, I check my list of worries.  I have come to find that most of my worries are meaningless and come to pass with no real issues.  This is a big key to finding success from within.  If we burden ourselves with worries, we'll have no time to realize our successes.

    

Have a Happy and Wonderful Holiday Season!

What is your definition of success?

What is your definition of success?

          When I started this blog, I gave the definition that Websters Dictionary had for success.  As noted by them, the definition changed.  I know it has been a while since my last posting but on occasion, everyone needs time to reflect.  Society today, looks very differently at success then we did in the past.  The whole point of this blog is to show everyone that our perception of success is wrong.  After spending 8 weeks in Dale Carnegie training, I have learned many things about getting my point across and giving my readers a true visualization of what I'm talking about.  First off, how can anyone relate to what I'm trying to convey without proper examples?  Real life examples, to show that everyone has experienced success at some point in their life.  Stories of real people who found out that success is not just being wealthy or having that high paying career.  I have also been travelling much of this year and found a lot of time to read several books on debt elimination.  This subject can be tied into ones desire to discover success from within.

          Let's start with the basics shall we...  Success to me is setting a goal and seeing it through to it's conclusion.  Resolving a problem or issue can also be called success.  Why?  Simple, if John needs some money to replace his tires he could go to the bank but if he doesn't have enough in his account, he will need to get the money somewhere.  With this example, John has two goals.  First is to get the money needed for the tires and second is to take the money and get the tires he needs.  John can solve first situation in a few ways.  John can save up the money, putting a few dollars away each pay period until he has enough for the tires.  He can work more hours and use the extra money earned to get the tires.  He can borrow the money, this is not recommended seeing how the value of the tires decrease over time.  All of the debt management books I have read agree that using credit to buy such an item is finacial suicide.  John can sell something he no longer wants or needs to pay for the tires.  So you see John has many options to get the money.  Once John has collected enough money to cover the costs, we can say that John was "successful" at reaching this first goal.  Next is getting the tires.  John simply needs to find a tire dealer, make the appointment and purchase the tires.  John now has "succeeded" in replacing the tires he needed.  Society doesn't see this as a success but John was successful in getting the tires by being successful in getting the money needed to purchase them.  It is the little successes we have that lead us to greater success.

          All the experts and guru's tend to agree, that we need to take little steps to reach a big goal.  A hand written plan that lays out little goals that help advance us to our final goal.  If a goal is set too big, we tend to get frustrated and give up easily but, if we set smaller goals, not achieving one is just a minor set back.  I, myself, have been battling a finacial crisis for the last fee years.  Every time I think I'm getting close to surmounting the situation, something new pops up to knock me down a few pegs.  I use to worry about this constantly, causing many nights of lost sleep and stomach ailments.  While attending the Dale Carnegie training, I was assigned to read How To Stop Worring & Start Living by Dale Carnegie.  The information contained within this book was life changing.  Sir William Osler was quoted "Live in Day-tight Compartments."  Shut the doors on the past and the future, live the day and the day alone.  With this the past is the past and should not be relived and the future hasn't happened yet so why fret over it?  I also learned to write my worries down and stick them in a drawer.  In a month or so pull them out and see the results.  Most of our worries are for nothing, by writing them down and later seeing the outcome reassures us of that.  I worried about my job, home and vehicle, just to see that my worries never materialized.  Now I use what is called a worry stone.  I take the worries I have writen down and place them under the worry stone.  Now the worry stone can worry about them.

          The last thing for today would be another quote from Dale Carnegie's book How To Stop Worrying & Start Living is "Thy will be done".  All the books that I have read dealing with overcoming financial burden mentioned giving and accepting the will of God.  Following the belief that if it is God's will for this to happen to me, than so be it.  It is said in the Bible that God provides for our every need and rewards us when we are deserving.  The mistake that most people make is that we, myself included, believe things are owed us but in God's eyes we truely are not deserving.  I will leave the giving discussion for another day but want to point out that unless we are thankful for the things we have, the Lord may take them away.  It has taken me many years to realize that I should be thankful for even the smallest things.  By being thankful everyday, my life has greatly improved and brought me to greater accomplishments.  With that in mind, be sincere and truely appreciative of the things and people in your life.  This will bring great opportunity to your door.

          In closing "God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change... the Courage to change the things I can... and the Wisdom to know the difference."