Change your spending habits - I did!

Want to cut your spending and/or get out of debt? Fortunately, there's a lot you can do to change your good intentions into good behavior. First, I'd suggest you and your significant other play a game together. Let's call the game Name That Influence! The object of the game is to identify all the different sources of influence that are undermining your good intentions. You'll be shocked at how long the list is. Here are three questions to help you generate some specific answers: 1. What visual images in your home get you thinking about spending rather than saving? (Hint: Do you longingly browse shopping pages on the internet? Do you have a Library of Congress-sized stack of catalogs by a comfortable reading chair?) 2. How do your interactions and conversations with friends or family affect your thoughts, plans, and actions toward spending? (Hint: Is shopping a social event?) 3. What sources of influence keep you from immediately counting the cost of your spending choices? (Hint: Do you buy with cash? Checks? Credit cards? Do you have "one-click" purchasing enabled on favorite Web sites?) Set a goal with your significant other to come up with at least a dozen different influences that both motivate and enable you to spend more than you should. Be honest with yourself and recognize your role in your current situation. As you do this, something very important will happen. You'll realize the problem is not that the two of you are weak. The problem is that you are blind and outnumbered. You're blind to the many sources of influence that are shaping your choices. And the one source working for you (your willpower) is hopelessly outnumbered by the sources working against you. (You'll find you're outnumbered 5 to 1. Not good odds!) When you finish creating this list, your job is to change as many sources of influence as you can to support your good intentions. Dismantle those sources you know are encouraging your indulgence. Create positive influences that will keep saving top of mind, make it easier, and help you feel rewarded for following through. For example, you could: 1. Make it a game. Create a progress chart for your savings goal. Keep it visible. Make a ritual of posting progress as a couple and generating the "completion endorphins" that come when you color in the next progress bar. 2. Banish temptation. Change your home page, delete tempting web pages, toss out magazines and catalogs or other "triggers" of spending impulses. Make no mistake—shopping generates dopamine in the same pleasure centers of the brain that cocaine does. You're fighting a pleasure-driven habit and your best defense will be to minimize the temptations. 3. Make spending harder. Eliminate any structural enablers of mindless spending. For example, research shows people spend far less if they have to fork over cash than if they can simply slide a credit card through a slot. You might try carrying nothing but cash with you for six months. You'll find this one physical change will profoundly affect your choices. You may also choose to undergo "plastic surgery" by cutting up your credit cards. 4. Change an accomplice into a friend. If shopping and spending are social activities, you'll need to identify your accomplices. For example, if you and a girlfriend enjoy a regular outing at a mall, you'll need to change that relationship. Eat some humble pie and let her know you are in desperate need of change. Ask for her help. If your husband is the accomplice, find a substitute activity you can do together. You won't succeed by simply eliminating social activities; you'll need to generate new ones. Our research shows that changing habits almost always involves engaging the help of at least two trusted friends. These ideas may or may not be the right ones for you. But one thing I can promise you is that if you'll examine your situation carefully, you'll realize the problem is out there. There are myriad sources of influence working against you—and until you recognize and reverse them, you'll continue behaving in a way you don't want. Joseph Grenny,coauthor of 'Change Anything"

Ethics is not for wimps

It's not easy being a good person. It's not easy to be honest when it might be costly, to play fair when others cheat, or to keep inconvenient promises. It's not easy to stand up for our beliefs and still respect differing viewpoints. It's not easy to control powerful impulses, to be accountable for our attitudes and actions, to tackle unpleasant tasks, or to sacrifice the now for later. It's not easy to bear criticism and learn from it without getting angry, to take advice, or to admit error. It's not easy to feel genuine remorse and apologize sincerely, or to accept apologies graciously and truly forgive. It's not easy to stop feeling like a victim, to resist cynicism, or to make the best of every situation. It's not easy to be consistently kind, to think of others first, to judge generously, or to give the benefit of the doubt. It's not easy to be grateful or to give without concern for reward or gratitude. It's not easy to fail and still keep trying, to learn from failure, to risk failing again, to start over, to lose with grace, or to be glad of another's success. It's not easy to look at ourselves honestly and be accountable, to avoid excuses and rationalizations, or to resist temptations. No, being a person of character isn't easy. That's why it's such a lofty goal and an admirable achievement. I admire Michael Josephson, who created Character Counts - a program to teach children.

Goal Achiever

From Bob Proctor ...

"Set a goal to achieve something so big - so exhilarating - that it scares and excites you at the same time. It must be a goal that is so appealing ... so much in harmony with your spiritual core ... that you cannot get it out of your mind.

This big goal is the one that dominates your thinking all your waking hours. It will be an idea so spectacular that you will relate to the renowned psychologist, Alfred Adler, when he said, 'I am grateful to the idea that has used me.'

Set a goal for which you will willingly trade the days of your life, then commit to it."

What are you trading the days of your life for now? Is it exciting and WORTH your life?

Wabi-Sabi

I have always been intrinsically drawn to the Japanese aesthetic of asymmetry, asperity, simplicity, modesty, intimacy and nature. I don't know why - it certainly makes me tend toward belief in reincarnation.

Wabi-Sabi is the antithesis of what western civilization has been teaching me to pursue -- perfection and excellence. What I have learned from study of this eastern concept is that what I need to do is my very best, then accept imperfection - that nothing in the material dimension is perfect. Perfection can only be found in Universal Mind, in our Soul - our inner essence. The very essence of our human personality; of our life on earth, of the outer world/nature - is free of right angles and chaos reigns supreme. I've come to understand that is why it is easier for me to be fully present in nature, when I am not "thinking" - when I am just "appreciating".

"Wabi sabi is an intuitive appreciation of transient beauty in the physical world that reflects the irreversible flow of life in the spiritual world. It is an understated beauty that exists in the modest, rustic, imperfect, or even decayed, an aesthetic sensibility that finds a melancholic beauty in the impermanence of all things." - Andrew Juniper in "The Japanese Art of Impermanence"

The book "Wabi Sabis for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers" by Leonard Koren is good, but I felt it was a little light and perhaps mistitled - it is a great book on how to better appreciate Wabi Sabi that is already there. A cracked pot, for example, has an essence that a perfectly round pot is lacking. Beauty is in the cracks, the worn spots, the imperfect lines.

"Living Wabi Sabi - The True Beauty of Your Life" by Tara Gold: What is Wabi Sabi? A universal ideal of beauty, Wabi Sabi celebrates the basic, the unique, and the imperfect parts of our lives. Wabi Sabi is the comfortable joy you felt as a child, happily singing off key, creatively coloring outside the lines, and mispronouncing words with gusto. On a deeper level, Wabi Sabi is the profound awareness of our oneness with all life and the environment. It includes a deep awareness of the choices we make each day, the power we have to accept or reject each moment of our lives, and to find value in every experience. "Appreciate this and every moment, no matter how imperfect, for this moment is your life. When you reject this moment, you reject your life. You don't have to "settle" for your current outer environment, you are free to steer a different course, but for now, this moment is yours, so be mindful to make the most of it."

The Power of Love and Gratitude

The Power of Love and Gratitude will dissolve all negativity in our lives, no matter what form it has taken