Happiness

                          Happiness

Happiness is just something we feel isn’t it?  …And we can’t help how we feel… can we? Well this might not sit well with everyone, but happiness is actually a choice.

In fact, how we feel everyday is a choice.

Taking full responsibility for our feelings is some of the hardest work we will ever do.

Challenges will continue to face us.

People will always do things we don’t like, or don’t agree with.

We may even be hurt.

It is not what happens, but how we see it that counts.

There is no point in blaming the table when you stub your toe on it. We probably put the table where it is, and chose to walk past it in bare feet.

This is not a case of painting on a fake smile and pretending the challenges are not there, rather riding through them, learning the lesson, taking the appropriate action and moving on.

So why would we hang on to our hurt or anger?

Firstly I believe it’s a way of trying to control someone and holding, them accountable for what “they’ve done to us”.

Holding on to grudges like this hurts us far more than them.

Secondly I think we believe there is some kind of ‘payoff’, an emotional need we may not even be aware of. We often get more attention for being sad, angry, or aggressive or even telling sad stories. (Just have a look at the news)

A large part of peoples’ identity can be tied up with anger (do you have any aggressive friends) disappointment (we’ve all experienced the complainer) and sad feelings in general. To let this all go and move into happiness is a mighty shift in consciousness.

So what steps can we take to live a happier life everyday?

1 Choose to recognize and receive your good.

Good things happen everyday, we just have to see them and accept them (just as writing this my baby boy comes and gives me the best cuddle…. now that is good)

Someone smiles at you… do you smile back?

A friend offers to buy you coffee… do you accept?

This will be cumulative. The more you see, the more you will see!

2 Be Thankful – Start your day in a space of gratitude.

Do you look the Shopkeeper in the eye and say a heart felt Thank You for providing a service to you?

If you are struggling, and finding it hard to be thankful, feel the sun on your face, listen to your (or others) children’s laughter. The more you are thankful for happy moments in your life, the more happy moments the universe will bring to you.

3 Talk the Talk

When someone asks how you are, what do you say Try this

BEST DAY OF MY LIFE (thanks JJ)

What are you saying in your everyday conversation? If you find you are complaining, even just sometimes, check yourself and find something positive to talk about.

4 Thought for the day

What are you saying to yourself? Check in regularly to see if your self-talk is lifting you up or bringing you down. What you think about, you attract into your life, so think happy thoughts and create a happy life!

5 Random acts of kindness

Enter your day with a generous heart. Helping others will inevitably make you feel good about yourself.

As my friend from CarbonCopyPro John Jackson says ‘Do something good for someone in the knowing they can never repay you, this will start to change this world

6 Who is your Influence?

What do your friends, family or work colleagues have you doing, watching and talking about? Do they bring you up or down? Decrease the influence you allow them to have, become the positive influence in their lives. And if you can surround yourself with happy, positive people.

7 Never Feel Guilty

Live with integrity, speak from your heart and run an honest business. Realize that everyone else’s thoughts feelings and circumstances are the result of their own choices.

8  Never Fear-This Too Shall Pass

In the face of all your challenges realize this.

Change your mind and change your life …. Today.

The Secret

Have You Filled a Bucket Today: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids

Getting Started in Online Marketing:

Getting Started in Online Marketing:

While it is important to have a well balanced marketing campaign including both free and paid advertising methods, we often start a new home business in response to a lack of funds.
So how do you ‘hit the ground running’ when you have more time than money?
The short answer is social media marketing, but in our haste to get our ‘message’ or ‘pitch’ across we often miss some important steps required for business longevity.
1) Create YOUR brand.
Establish an image that is an honest portrayal of you and a picture of how you want your business to look. (Check out MikesLife for some excellent methods in self-branding)
2) Create a blog reflecting your brand.
Spend some time on this. Remember, on the Internet, your blog is your house. You want people to get a ‘feel’ for you, so as well as relevant articles, add ‘your story’, personal thoughts and some photos. Build your blog off line if you can and publish it when completed.
Free blog hosts include
WordPress.com
Blogger.com
Yola.com
3) Social Networking
Set up accounts in social networking sites basing the look and feel of these sites around your brand. (Do this while you are setting up your blog.) Start building followers at a steady pace and regularly add valuable content to these sites, share yourself and encourage others to do the same.
Social Media Sites include
Facebook.
Twitter
Myspace
There are many of these, have as many as you can maintain.

4) Launch your Blog
This is where it all comes together. Use your social media sites to attract traffic to your blog, put a link to it in your email signature, write a press release send tweets about your valuable content. Do whatever it takes to invite everyone over!
5) Market It
Your Blog is your platform from which to market yourself and your business, so you need to attract visitors. Regularly use your social networking sites to invite people over (remember to have excellent content so they will want to keep coming back!) You can also place free classifieds and submit your articles to other places such as Ezine Articles or GoArticles (there are many of these).

6) Maintain it
Now you have your platform from which you can market yourself and your business, you want people coming back, so add new and valuable content regularly. From now on all your marketing campaigns should point to your blog.
These are the first few steps involved in creating a solid online business on a tight budget.
More information can be found in my free resources section on my blog.
You can also try Building on a Budget by Mike Dillard

Wondering why your online business opportunity is not working for you?

Let me first set the scene…..
You have just joined a business opportunity, excited at the prospect of finally finding financial freedom (all the testimonials tell you so).

You follow all the ‘step by step’ instructions, order your inventory, make a list, and practice your scripts, blah blah. You print off tonnes of flyers (or pay to have them printed) and walk for miles handing them around your local area.
You attend meetings, calls and feel inspired by other people’s stories and how ‘easily’ they sell your products and sponsor new distributors.
But there is a niggling feeling
“I’m doing the actions they told me, why is it not working for me?”

There are a number of reasons why this could be happening.
Firstly, your leaders are probably not telling you the whole truth about two major things.
1) They probably struggled at the start as well.
All the success stories can make you feel behind the ’8 ball’, like you should have had over night success. Remember this is your business and your success lies completely in your hands. Keep your eye fixed on your goal and do what it takes to get the job done. Of course you will have challenges, embrace them, learn from them and move on.

2) They are probably taking different ‘action’.
True leaders will be thinking ‘outside the box’ on lead generation, and marketing techniques and they possibly have a few secrets! There are some excellent free lead generation websites and affiliate programs available. you can join to not only generate free leads but also potentially profit from them.
3) You are probably one of us many who jumped into MLM or even ‘internet marketing’ with little or no marketing or copywriting skills and the marketing training in your business opportunity is probably scarce and outdated. (The marketing world has changed)
The key to overcoming this one is simple. READ. There is a world of information on the World Wide Web, go forth and educate yourself. Read Adds and sales pages, do an Internet marketing course, whatever it takes.
4) And finally, are you feeling the love? Do you have confidence in your industry? In your product? In your self? If you said yes to all three then you probably won’t be reading this article!
Attitude is everything, if you truly believe in your product/bizop and can’t wait to talk to everybody about it (there’s a whole other story there) then keep your eye on that goal, be positive and you will make it.
If you’re feeling shy, embarrassed, or just unable to talk to people about your business then you need to take an honest look at yourself. Are you in the right business for you? Do you truly believe in the products?
If you do then GREAT
You will need to work out a way to talk to people though. Fully automated’ online businesses/ lead generation systems will create a ‘warm’ market for you but you will still have to talk to people.
Don’t worry if you find you’re in the wrong business, do some research and change. Find a business model and product you can be proud of and a system and team that provide open and honest training.
And finally, believe in yourself, visualize massive goals and remind yourself of them every day.

Make this your best day ever
Oh and Have Fun
All the best
Emma

PS Magnetic Sponsoring is one example of a ‘free lead’ generation system.
Details through the link in my Blogroll

Personal Responsibility: Happiness

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Personal Responsibility: Happiness
Happiness is just something we feel isn’t it? …And we can’t help how we feel… can we? Well this might not sit well with everyone, but happiness is actually a choice.
In fact, how we feel everyday is a choice.
Taking full responsibility for our feelings is some of the hardest work we will ever do.
Challenges will continue to face us.
People will always do things we don’t like, or don’t agree with.
We may even be hurt.
It is not what happens, but how we see it that counts.
There is no point in blaming the table when you stub your toe on it. We probably put the table where it is, and chose to walk past it in bare feet.
This is not a case of painting on a fake smile and pretending the challenges are not there, rather riding through them, learning the lesson, taking the appropriate action and moving on.
So why would we hang on to our hurt or anger?
Firstly I believe it’s a way of trying to control someone and holding, them accountable for what “they’ve done to us”.
Holding on to grudges like this hurts us far more than anyone else.
Secondly I think we believe there is some kind of ‘payoff’, an emotional need we may not even be aware of. We often get more attention for being sad, angry, or aggressive or even telling sad stories. (Just look at the news)
A large part of peoples’ identity can be tied up with anger (do you have any aggressive friends) disappointment (we’ve all experienced the complainer) and sad feelings in general. To let this all go and move into happiness is a mighty shift in consciousness.
So what steps can we take to live a happier life everyday?

1 Choose to recognize and receive your good.
Good things happen everyday, we just have to see them and accept them (just as I’m writing this my baby boy comes and gives me the best cuddle…. now that is good)
Someone smiles at you… do you smile back?
A friend offers to buy you coffee… do you accept?
This will be cumulative. The more you see, the more you WILL see!

2 Be Thankful – Start your day in a space of gratitude.
Do you look the Shopkeeper in the eye and say a heart felt Thank You for providing a service to you?
If you are struggling, and finding it hard to be thankful, feel the sun on your face, listen to children’s laughter. The more you are thankful for happy moments in your life, the more happy moments the universe will bring to you.

3 Talk the Talk
When someone asks how you are, what do you say?
Try this BEST DAY OF MY LIFE (thanks JJ)
What are you saying in your everyday conversation? If you find you are complaining, even just sometimes, check yourself and find something positive to talk about.

4 Thought for the day
What are you saying to yourself? Check in regularly to see if your self-talk is lifting you up or bringing you down. What you think about, you attract into your life, so think happy thoughts and create a happy life!

5 Random acts of kindness
Enter your day with a generous heart. Helping others will inevitably make you feel good about yourself.
As my good friend always says ‘Do something good for someone in the knowing they can never repay you, this will start to change this world.

6 Who is your Influence?
What do your friends, family or work colleagues have you doing, watching and talking about? Do they bring you up or down? Decrease the influence you allow them to have on you and become the positive influence in their lives. It is essential to surround yourself with happy, positive people.

7 Never Feel Guilty
Live with integrity, speak from your heart and run an honest business. Realize that everyone else’s thoughts feelings and circumstances are the result of their own choices.

8 Never Fear-This Too Shall Pass
In the face of all your challenges realize this.

Change your mind and change your life …. Today.

Personal Responsibility: Health

Image by FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Taking Responsibility for Your Health
Sitting in Biology class at the end of our session, our lecturer said to us “So who wants to know the secret to weight loss?” And most of us went quiet of course, an experts’ secret was about to be told…… “There isn’t one” she said “eat less and exercise more”
But first, what exactly is Personal Responsibility?
Well, personal responsibility is a mindset. It is the complete knowledge that you are the owner of your life; that you are responsible for every single thought, action, and circumstance occurring in your life. It is taking conscious actions and knowing the consequences of those actions.
And exactly how does it relate to our health?
Our Health is directly related to our Diet, and our diet is our responsibility. The risk of diseases such as Cardio- vascular disease and Diabetes can be reduced through healthy eating. You know at the moment more than one third of U.S. adults-more than 72 million people-and 16% of U.S. children are obese.1 We choose what to put in our mouths (and our children’s mouths) every day and what to put in our shopping basket each week. We also choose how often, or even whether or not we exercise.
It is actually very easy for us to sit in our comfy chairs, watching sports (add in own preferred program) on TV, blaming our genes, (I’m ‘big boned’ because my mum/dad is), our metabolism, fast food outlets, our finances and even the government for our health problems. But is it really easier than a health diet and exercise? A colleague of mine Jay Kubassek has said in his article ‘The urgency of importance’ “taking care of your own body now is important because it may help you to avoid a future consumed by illness and urgent visits to the doctor”. What would you prefer?
So how can we change?
The hardest and most important thing is to Change Your Mind.
This is where the decision takes place to change your life. It is a ‘shift’ and once you’ve made it the actions required will be easy. (By easy I mean you will be motivated by your decision to work through any challenges)
Next thing is Education
Education will help you make better food choices. This can be as simple as reading the labels at the supermarket and choosing the ‘jar’ with no preservatives, or becoming aware that choosing sushi is a much healthier choice than hamburgers and chips. There are heaps of good books on the market, choose books based on nutrition for life rather than quick fix fad diets.
Eat Consciously and Enjoy your Food
This ties in with Education and knowing exactly what it is you are eating but also involves being present and aware while you are eating. For example when you are watching TV eating, you’re not really aware that you are eating and are more likely to get hungry again sooner. On the other hand, sitting down to a healthy meal with family and friends, being involved in the cooking, and experiencing the smell, look and taste of the food is far more satisfying. And you are likely to feel full for longer.
Take Action
They key to your health is you, you are responsible, so choose well, eat well, drink water, exercise and rest.
And in the words of Nutritionist Deanna Latson . ‘Be conscious of what you put from hand to mouth and your body will thank you for it…. Eat To Live 90% of the time and you will avoid the illnesses that affect the masses’.
Change your life today, Only you can do that.

Personal Responsibility: Wealth

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Todays Society is in an era of irresponsibility. People would rather blame someone else for their lack than take responsibility for their own actions. This is verging on the ridiculous as we associate monetary reward for finding and proving someone else is to blame for our circumstances.
So what is personal responsibility?
In a nutshell, personal responsibility is a mindset. It is knowing that you are the owner of your life; that you are responsible for every single thought, action, and circumstance occurring in your life.
It is therefore true that personal wealth is our own creation. We either take right action (learn the mindset and skills to attract and create wealth into our lives), or we don’t (thus handing complete control over to….. who?).
Recently due to the ‘global economic times’ the Media have had a field day blaming the government for our lack. The only purpose this serves is too instil fear and belittle our confidence. The truth is, the media are powerful, and can almost dictate our feelings about “the economy”. When you take a closer look, it becomes apparent that there really is no ‘the economy’, only ‘your economy’. Only you or I decide to go and spend more than we earn, to rack up credit card debts, or strip the equity from our homes, all for a few extra things. OR we can decide to educate ourselves and learn to use our money wisely (no that doesn’t mean putting it under the mattress either!).
Taking responsibility for our own finances means taking an honest look at how you manage every day. Do you set goals and work towards them? What decisions did you make (or not make) today that took you closer to (or further from) your goals? Honestly answering these questions will open the channels for positive personal change.
Neither “The economy” nor the government are responsible for our personal actions. We are. Taking responsibility for our wealth allows us to take control of our money, while blaming others for our financial circumstances effectively hands over control, and any chance we have of changing. Make a positive change towards wealth creation today.

Why the words “I’ve just started” can hold you back

It is almost a reflex answer to that dreaded question “Have YOU made any money yet?” “Well no but” …here it comes “I’ve just started”.

So why would 3 seemingly innocent words hold you back in business?

1) It’s an excuse:

Sorry for being blunt, but you’re making a blatant excuse for your lack of results and therefore your lack of action. In your opportunity there are probably many people who “just started” who are already taking massive action and getting good results.

Possibly the best way to keep away from having to stumble through this conversation is to avoid the need to pitch your family and friends. An automated business system that generates its own qualified leads can solve this problem. If you are already in a business that is not automated there are also excellent generic lead generation programs out there.

2) Prospects will see you as inexperienced.

How would you feel if your dentist said, “I’ve only just started” now lets tackle that root canal? You’d be out of that chair in a flash. Your prospects are considering parting with money (a lot harder than parting with teeth for some), and they want to know that you know what you are talking about.

Honestly… Would you sign up to you?

 

3) Sounds clumsy and lacking in confidence.

Prospects will not trust you. People will not buy your product or join your opportunity if they feel they cannot trust you. They are not really buying your products at all, they are investing in YOU.

 

4) There is only so long you can say it before its just not true.

How long do you want to be a “Noobie”? Position yourself as an expert or a leader as soon as you can. Be creative. Make a list of things you are good at now and position yourself as a leader in those areas; don’t lie though, you will be found out. Also educate yourself and become an expert then share your experience with others.

Share yourself and your story, not your opportunity, people become defensive if they think they’re being ‘sold’ and will ask ‘how much have you made?’

So don’t say them, don’t even think them, it can hold you in the noobie rut.

Move it, shake it, take action and create your own success!