Taking control: Does your perception of ideal life matches your goals?

You are a highly knowledgeable being counting the three forms of education you have been exposed to – informal, non-formal and formal education.  Your challenge could be matching your perception of ideal life to what you have achieved to this point.

Is your perception of an ideal life clear to you?

The Medical Dictionary defines perception as “the conscious recognition and interpretation of sensory stimuli that serve as a basis for understanding, learning and knowing or motivating action or reaction”.

Interpretation and matching of the ideal life is a very significant phase of a long-term relationship. Regardless of the holistic accumulation of knowledge, it is important to review your own interpretation of an ideal life because without this you cannot really have clear personal goals; and without goals you have no purpose for life nor motivation to do or seek any additional knowledge. Often you may catch yourself running in a lane that has low relevance to what you want in life. You may wonder why I bring marriage into perspective! The reason is; many women compromise their career for their husbands – to be a working career mother or take a pause for a period of baby-making phase.  My point is, think and decide about this before you tie the knot because it is highly possible for the matter to become a point of departure if it has not been discussed and agreed to.

Are you afraid to evaluate your perception of an ideal life?

If you are not yet married, I would say you need to engage in the evaluation of your perception of your ideal life so that it becomes a measuring tool when you look for the life mate.   In other words, your definition of who qualifies to be your life partner should articulate and match key expectations and their perception to you.  This way you will be able to place the subject high on the list of things that describe an ideal life and would be the basis for getting-to-know-you phase of dating. Delaying to get to this important subjects that describe your ideal life is not wise. To understand this, you need to consider the scenario which comes as a shock after you have invested your deep emotions in a relationship. I would say you better get this done and go out there to find a suitable mate!

What if you like a person who has a different perception of your ideal life?  

Two actions are necessary: First review whether you understand your perception of an ideal life. Is it what has been inferred to you or this is what your really want and would make you happy?  Secondly, listen to your partner’s goals and their motivation.  It could be that he or she has a false perception due to traumatic experiences.  This then calls for an objective empathy that seeks to help to clear those emotional blockages and not place any form of pressure for selfish reasons.  

Remember that there is a lot of earth moving before a foundation is dug and built.  Engaging in evaluation of your perception of an ideal life is removing the clutter of other people’s influence embedded in your unconscious mind. It is a serious exercise which signifies your starting-over your life according to how you perceive it.  It is a necessary step for all of us.

Taking control: Quit blaming circumstances for lack of your financial success!

Blaming is a common weakness which people engage in for not applying necessary effort to achieve a planned activity.  It is disrobing oneself of responsibility to rise above circumstances that curtail momentum of actions towards success through the conscious adjustments that accommodate internal and external opposing factors.

Blaming is disempowering self from choosing to stay afloat when negative forces derail you from chosen course.  The guiding principle is your sole determination to create you life as you see fit and to avoid modification by others so that you can make things happen without any excuses. What does this mean? It simply says; do not allow anybody to have a say on your goal.  If for an instance you are a mother and you intended to do your master degree on line, do not let anyone tell you that you will deprive your children attention they need. Rather find how you can refine your time management skills to be a good mother and a scholar at the same time.  All it takes is switching off television and other time consuming activities.  This is achievable. Here are the tips on working towards financial success:

1.   Address personal stagnation such as inability to identify important things such as continuous empowerment through reading relevant books or watching educational videos instead of television entertainment programs.

2.   Are you a people-pleaser? This is a form of low self esteem in which you seek approval through doing things for people at the expense of your resources such as time.  Help people as a part of your planned activity towards loving others with your resources.  Tune up your discerning spirit to recognize when to give matters that concern others a priority.

3.   Research on how your emotional health could curtail your progress.  Here are a few you need to know and understand:

a)   Clear all negativity.  This requires objective searching of your mind for unresolved issues.

b)   How do you view money? Do you ever give out money? Are you jealous of those who possess money?

c)    What is your motivation to have financial success? If for an example, you want money to boast or compete with your estranged espouse or partner, the universe would not allow that.  As much as you have a right to seek so that it can be given you freely, your negative motivation would not qualify you to have financial success.  You would have contravened the universal law of creating wealth.  

4.   Include excellence in the list of values that will shape who you want to become.  Have you noticed how good wealth is when it is permeated by positive energy?     

Each person is empowered to create wealth through the given talents that make it possible to earn a living. The challenge is recognizing what you are good at and drawing up a strategic plan.  There is no excuse for not going back to your drawing board and choosing to find and focus on accessing available resources for a financial success!  I encourage you to take a control of your life now; at any level or circumstances you are at, to find the launching pad for your financial success!  

Taking control: Learn why the negative emotions repel wealth!

 A negative emotion is a result of mental processes that lack love.  It is being in the lowest level of your being which is detached from your highest form and therefore not complaint with the nature of your Creator to whom you are a part.

Most of us are starting over something everyday; so whatever it is that you are attempting to perfect converges to three things we all seek – wealth, health and relationships.  If you are a student, you goals require all three.  If you are a married adult, you seek increased access to money so that you can have things that you and your partner or spouse thinks will perfect your relationship.  If you are relatively comfortable with your current income but you have health issues, you are looking for means to improve that condition.  If you are a single lady recuperating from emotional wounds, you need a lot of information to correct whatever contributed to your present state of hurt; and most importantly, to access wealth so that you can experience you independence.

Why negative emotions hinder you to access wealth?

Almost all of us have experienced negative emotions.  You probably went to church to address the battle within you, and were instructed to love unconditionally. That could really sent you into a corner you rather not be; because when you are hurt, loving all people including the one who have just inflicted the most pain is hard.  You see, most of the teachers of the Scriptures are not able to explain the law of love and its relationship to the law of wealth. Some may even contribute to derailing you from the road that leads to wealth.  The Creator has a menu for wealth and in it, love is the main ingredient. It is not surprising therefore that if you are in a prolonged state of negative emotions, you will have challenges toward maintaining or creating wealth.  The key is learning the universal principles contained in the Law of Attraction:

1. The Law of Attraction simply teaches us to understand love and its impact in our environment.  The challenge is to create positive environment by limiting and eventually controlling what you hear, think and talk about!
2. The second principle relate to shifting from blaming anything to anybody because you are a creator of your life.  In other words you must first restore your own love to be able to minister to yourself, thus healing your emotions and your physical body. 
3. When you understand that you are a co-creator of everything that happens to your life, you will overcome the tendency to wallow in your self-pity of how somebody pushed you to the negative emotional state and move towards empowering yourself to access wealth. 
4. Fall in love with yourself, research this principle and see evidence of the power of love in healing life-threatening diseases like cancer.  You will be amazed how easy it is to switch off from negative into positive when you know the benefits of holistic wellness contained in the law of love. 
5. Search the internet to access work at home jobs; that will surely restore your financial muscles!

If you belong to the old school that says money is the root of all evil, you need to move from that position through guided meditations freely available in YOUTUBE.  Take control of your life and reconfigure your mind to access wealth and holistic wellness. You cannot give what you to not have.  The starting point is seeking God and developing faith in His ability to transform you to restore your love.  Remember you are made in His likeness; this is why you have creative ability like Him.  Listen to your inner self; that is where you will experience ability to live in joy and peace; both are products of love which is a key to accessing wealth!    

Taking control: Why you have to activate your unconscious mind!

 A normal person has goals that motivate consistency in undertaking short-term and long-term planned activities.  These are synchronized in three levels in the mind to converge at a point of achievement.  When these efforts do not come to fruition, you tend to wonder what you have done wrong!

You get to the point of realizing that you are not succeeding to undertake your articulate plan through your conscious mind which is responsible for logic and reasoning.  Today I am pointing to other two important partners who could be sabotaging your hard work; the sub-conscious and unconscious mind.

The subconscious mind ensures that all your organs and other processes are functioning well while the unconscious mind is far deeper and have restored all that has ever occurred in your life – good and bad.  The most intriguing and relevant in this context are the memory, affection and motivation from which good and bad habits are derived.  You may be one of many people who know very little about the conscious mind; yet it is the most important driver of your actions, hurdles, and affects the rate at which you achieve our goals.  Let me briefly highlight the process: The brain is one organ that starts developing during the first trimester. When you were born, you were rather passive because the brain had not developed myelin cells whose function is to control and coordinate movement. As you developed to be a great person you are, it is due to many activities going on which either support your conscious mind or resist without you being aware of it all; yet these directly affect your good plans towards your destination.  So, I hope you agree with me that you cannot ignore the existence and activities of your subconscious and unconscious mind.  

You can only change things you are aware of.  This fact empowers you to know that you cannot change information in your subconscious and unconscious level.  Imagine a quarter full bottle of red colored water.  You can dilute the liquid by pouring clean water and continue doing so until it overflows.  The continuous pouring of clean water will eventually replace the colored water.  This is how you can transform your undesirable habits and actions derived from your unconscious mind with conscious positive thinking through staying in the present.  You can only do good things now.  This means when you continuously refuse your mind to drift in the past, you re depriving your past of any negative thoughts and unproductive habits which are its food.  You are progressively overwhelming your conscious mind with so much positive energy that any challenges that might push you to flip into unconscious behavior will leave you with a positive balance. 

The proactive things you can change to support this transformation is to do the following:

1. Switch off your television. If there is any program that empowers you, watch that only. This is exercising self-control; the last of the nine fruit of the Spirit.
2. Write down your goals and read them at least twice a day – first thing in the morning and the last thing before you go to sleep.
3. Be grateful for achieving them throughout the day and night. Say “thank you for my goal… (Name your goal in short sentence) as you turn or go to the bathroom. You will be amazed of how this makes you smile as you drift back into your sleep!
4. Withdraw from negative talk. Life and death is in the power of your tongue! Remember your aim is to starve your negative self to death!
5. Replace the radio listening with YOUTUBE programs that support replacement of your negative thoughts through guided meditations.   This is how you transform and feed your consciousness and activate supportive resources that will surely propel you into a new and powerful person; thus enabling you to affect your life positively.

Remember that you are not a victim; you are a co-creator of your life through saturating your thoughts, feeling and speech with life-giving information. Let you be a driver of things you want in your life.  Walk away from anything that is contrary to what you want. Rub shoulders with those who have already achieved what you want. That is taking control of your life!   

Taking control: Looking for positive distraction from emotional pain?

Positive distraction is a useful short or long-term task that helps you to engage your mind in useful activities to continue to build a better you.  It is proactive mechanism in maintaining a healthy attitude when you encounter challenges.

The function of the mind is to think and when there is nothing new to think about, you mind will continue its job of thinking which means re-thinking on the subject that is high on your personal agenda.  We regard rewinding on hot issues as normal, yet it is being absent.  You get emotional pain from another source now and if you are still rehearsing how the pain occurred, it means you are inflicting pain yourself.  As you learn to control your mind to stay conscious, the best steps to engage in positive distraction are as follows:

1. Review your resume: Going through your resume will help you to remember the road you traveled and your achievements.  It is common to put your personal goals on hold when you get into a long-term relationship and tend to make skewed compromises that seek to build it. Your resume will reflect your academic achievements you have not researched on in terms of professional career open for you.  Often when you love someone, you make a mistake of consulting and looking for approval and get trapped in agreeing to pursue what is suggested.  So, go back to your history of what you have achieved and see what you need to build on to meet your updated goals.

2. Re-visit your personal goals: This step is very important because you need to decide where you want to be and how to get there on your own without inputs from anybody who is not a professional career guidance authority. I know of a friend whose partner encouraged her to do masters in psychology when she wanted to do dentistry.  The boyfriend got interested in another girl and they separated.  The lady had double pain of wasted two years in the professional field she really did not want; and a broken heart from the trusted friend. This may mean nothing to you, but I learned to not involve another person on matters as serious like career.  I therefore suggest you remember to define your destiny in a manner that will include long-term relationship but not divert or exclusively disregard your road to attain your upward mobility.

3. Further your studies: Education changes a person and its validity transcends the grave.   It is a best distraction which will help you to maintain your mental health and boost your economic condition after separation or divorce.  Studies indicates common decline of financial capacity following separation or divorce.  This situation could have a long-term negative impact on the children education plans, health and level of lifestyle.

Nature hates gaps.  Opting to pursue further studies on your preferred profession is the best distraction which will help you to spend your time profitably.  Education will sustain your negatively affected self-worth due to failed relationship.  When you get that good grade, you will feel much better and ready to move to higher level alone or with your children! You would have learned how to take control of your life! 

Taking control: Are you dealing with procrastination?

Procrastination is putting off a planned activity or responding to urgent matter for no apparent reasons.  It is a form of behavior, which reveals a true attitude toward a particular chore or assignment.  It reveals self esteem issues which could be major set-back for staff audits and manpower development.

Procrastination causes stress because it leads to accumulation of tasks which become urgent. It is undesirable and should be address as an emotional issue.  There are two distinct types of procrastination - behavioral and decisional:

Behavioral: Procrastination is a learnt behavior and denotes habitual shifting of daily tasks forward, which results in general delay or failure to meet daily planned activities.  It has a negative impact on health, happiness and productivity. Doing anything at the last minute requires greater accumulation of energy which is accompanied by accelerated heartbeat due to the presence of adrenal enzymes in the blood.  For an example, weekly checking of clothes that need dry cleaning will help you keep your clothes tidy and available when you want to wear them.  Imaging how it would feel when you are unable to wear appropriate jacket just because it is dirty because you postponed taking it for dry-cleaners.   Behavioral procrastination leads to reduced level of quality lifestyle because you also tend to eat badly not because you have financial challenges.  You postponed going to buy groceries and ended up eating eggs for breakfast the whole week.  Other behavior traits include the following:

1.   Depression and anxiety contribute to skewed decisions.  A depressed person would stay in bed and wake up with low motivation to perform any task.  Anxious person tends to bend rules to accommodate favoritism; thus avoiding ownership of making unpopular decisions.  

2.   Poor self-control to balance and manage time to address easy and challenging matters.  For an example, a student may end up getting poor grades because of failure to draw a time-table to revise all subjects or adjust time to focus on challenging subjects more than favorite ones.

3.   Self-deception. In most cases officers would make an error of allocating insufficient time for given assignments and end up submitting a harried and unprofessional work, which eventually would  earn them poor job evaluation grades.

4.   Non-competitiveness denotes a relaxed attitude associated with inability to apply necessary effort hence negatively impact on personal growth and professional maturity.  Failure to demonstrate efficiency means lack of desire to build a positive upward mobility for career advancement.

Decisional: Pertains to unnecessary delay in making decisions because of uncertainty.   This is a case in executive positions where delay is cause be exhaustive fact-finding before arriving at decisions. The following are evident:

1.   Low self esteem could contribute towards not wanting to be decisive therefore not accountable for unpopular decision or judgement. For an example, an executive who calls a departmental meeting to address a problem done by one staff member instead of applying a policy to correct the behavior of one person. 

2.   Perfectionism tends to want all or none.  They tend to be poor in empowering people because they would rather work with proven skilled person rather than recognize skill and work to perfect mistakes of those under training.

Procrastination is a negative behavior, which could significantly slow down your attempt to move forward especially with regard to challenging situations.  You need to address it if you intend to take control of your life and discover a progressive attitude to your professional and personal goals.  

 

     

Taking control: How to maintain your cool in relationships!

Attaining a peaceful attitude is a virtue we all seek and must learn to maintain when we find it. We fall back because we do not have basic skills  and tend to react to our environment which in most cases consist of absent minded people who are not aware when they create negative energy around others.

Relationships in this context refer to how you interact with your parents and friends. Managing relationships is a challenge that could become a hurdle and curtails your speed towards your goals.  Let me highlight common challenges in life:

1.           Nagging parents.  If you are born into challenging family it means you are in danger of adopting their way of life or developing undesirable defense mechanisms.  If you have a noisy family you will not appreciate the importance of quite environment and its benefits of enabling you to hear when people speak with normal volume.  Nagging and controlling are cousins.  It is a tendency to constantly breaths down somebody’s neck, dishing out instructions of how to do everything.

When you feel the anger rise within you for being mistaken for a mentally disable person, the best way to ward-off such intrusion is to politely request your mum or dad to comment after you have completed the task at hand.  This will send the message that you will request assistance when you need it and that they are not empowering you to become you.

2.           Suspicious parents:  Parenting is a challenge to many parents and they approach it through trial and error because they too are the products of poor parenting.  Instilling trust in a child is a very important milestone.  For an example, when parents do not trust you  that you do have a study group after classes it could damage your relationship with them and lower your self-esteem in the eyes of your friends.  How do you handle that?

If they are approachable, ask them politely why they do not trust you? Find out what you have done that might have cause the mistrust and do your best to be a person of integrity – behaving well all the time especially when you are alone or away from them.

3.           Over-zealous partner: How do you handle a relationship partner who wants to know minute details of what you want to do daily? If you are a lady and you have this overwhelming attention how would you handle it? Would you be happy to be monitored that way? 

It is normal for love partners to want to do activities together. Should there be exceptions if for instance you are a lady going out with a girl friend for shopping then a hair salon? Be honest about needing your private time to be alone and being you; because if you are like me, I do need my time and space to read my spiritual books, listen to empowerment videos and simply enjoying being quite. I need this!

We could walk away from friends, but we do not choose parents.  Although in most case parents mean well when they demand compliance to their way of dong things, they need to be made aware that their beliefs and values have been adjusted and that you have new ones which they must respect as you exit into adulthood or other social stages of development.  You take control of your life when you do not tip-toe around your dislikes. Let your parents and friends know who you are.  They will like you for being honest about maintaining your cool.

Taking control: The present versus the ideal self!

The task of building self is your responsibility which you cannot leave to others who contributed to your socialization. Taking control of your life denotes a decisive stepping out of undesirable learned behavior and continuously replacing them with beneficial ideal ones that builds towards your ideal future.

The Present Self:

The present self is the result of parents’ design which conforms to the culture, their biological traits, social and spiritual values and beliefs.  If you sincerely regard yourself as well bred and fitting what you perceive as ideal human being to be copied as a blue print of humanity, you are very lucky indeed and we commend the designers of the master piece.  Most of us have identified behavioral traits we dislike about ourselves.  Should we judge the parents and others who socialize us? No! Remember, they too are the products of the families and the environment they were born and raised into.

Ideal Self:

The ideal self is the edited version of you which has uprooted the socialization blemishes. Socialization blemishes includes less ideal things you were taught by your parents, uncles, community, schools, churches and other social institutions that influenced how you think and carry yourself privately and publicly.  It is for this reason relationships challenge most of us.  It is because you regard yourself as well bred kind of a person and judge any behavior that do not fit in your world.  Let us consider the following perceptions:

1.           I am obedient. While being obedient is a virtue, it could also mean your parents raised you to be a robot. It could mean that you were never allowed to be part of discussion, but have received commands and rules with no room for your comments. In that scenario, what type of parenting are you capable of executing to raise your own child who would be a leader in his/her profession?

Another version of obedience is a result of fear and fixation.  When parents conduct a family as a military barracks, a child learns obedience from negative response and not a positive influence of love.  When you grew up under such forceful environment, you are likely not to know the difference between guiding and controlling behavior.

2.           I view my wife as a partner whom I love unconditionally.  You validated this view because you experienced parents who discussed family plans and challenges; and reached compromises that were not skewed. Alternatively you have internalized what an ideal marriage should be and designed your version that would build self-worth in your children.  It is a joint exercise out of which only agreed principles will apply in your household. Loving your spouse unconditionally is an ideal attitude because you can only control you and nobody else.  Expecting your spouse to do your will is the source of the conflict.  To avoid this it is ideal to agree on rules that will be operational; hence binding to all family members.

It is a reasonable expectation that ideal parenting could yield a new disciplined generation.  I commend those who are in the discipline of shaping behavior to continue to advocate for behavioral change communication strategies that seek to empower parents to adopt positive approach to parenting. 

  

Taking control: Checking on your process of transformation!

Transformation in this context denotes conscious effort to explore and discover attributes of your holistic self – spirit, soul and body. This important activity takes place in your heart – the spiritual domain – and is devoid of egoistic tendencies that willfully overlooks blemishes.  The idea is to pick your strong points and build your future and note your weaknesses so that you will handle situations that may bring them to the light. 

Holistic transformation starts with knowing the truths: That your parents focused on the physical growth and developing your mind.  Very few of us could claim that our parents specifically brought the spirituality to the first position of priority.  This is why the spiritual power is almost weird and brings so much confusion to many people.  The norm is that this subject is addressed in spiritual institutions and visited once every seven days.  When you think of transformation, you are correcting the order of importance.  You are a spirit being with a soul –mind will and emotions – living in a body.

At spiritual realm you are very intelligent and require very little external source to understand your spiritual environment.  This is so because your spirit is a realm at which you are connected to your Creator whom you came from and whose nature is love and is all knowing.  Your spiritual self is where you experience true peace and the joy of connecting with nature; thus enabling you to understand why you are an authority over all the creation.  At this realm you understand why there is only one law of love which is meant to enable you to stay connected to the higher source for you to carry out your mandate of dominion over all the creation. 

The ideal part is when you start your college education: It is the first time you are exclusively managing yourself without daily parental monitoring.  Before you lose your head, let this article be an awakening bell that calls your attention to address issues of your spirituality.   Seek counsel about mankind and his collective role in this life; then find your part.  Ask yourself, why am I here? You will need an introductory learning regarding the nine spiritual gifts: The gift of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healings, miraculous powers, prophecy, discerning of spirits, different tongues and interpretation of tongues.   Every person has one or several of these and they are keys to finding your comfort and fulfillment.

It is prudent to seek your spiritual ministry as mentioned in the Bible, Ephesians 4:11 and referred to as five-fold ministry: Apostles, those who are send into the world and visionaries who plant churches globally. They have capacity to act on all of the ministries that follows. Secondly, prophets who monitor and address issues that are not in line with the will of the Creator. Thirdly evangelists, who continue the ministry of Jesus, and speak out the word of God with signs and wonders.  Fourthly the shepherds; the pastors who readily address our spiritual needs. Lastly the teachers of the word of God, who unpack spiritual information and assist us to make sense of the purpose of God’s salvation.  Lastly, there are ministries of helps which offers time and professional assistance in order for a church to minister to the congregation.  This is a starting point when you have decided to serve in the spiritual institution of your choice.

Checking your transformation progress is systematically going through all these and establishing the category you fall under and then engaging in hands-on spiritual journey.  This is what taking control of your life is; stepping out of your comfort zone to seek your own purpose of life.