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The journey from where we are to where we want to be does not have to be arduous or riddled with stress. In fact it can be a gentle expansion into more of everything we want for ourselves and even more that we haven’t even thought about yet.

Are you ready to move rapidly forward in your life? Are you ready to reach for your dreams with conviction and commitment so that they really happen for you? Are you ready to be, do and have those things you have always hoped for but often wondered if they were really possible for you?

We all talk a good game. Many of us take actions that we believe will indeed move us closer to what we say we want. But I’ve noticed something interesting in my own life and in the lives of my clients. When moving closer to our most heartfelt dreams requires us to stretch beyond our comfort zone or make a significant change in our own attitudes we are not so quick to persist.

If you have read this far and you are still here, you probably recognize yourself and your tendency to gravitate toward what feels comfortable and safe even when you know change is required for reaching your dreams. Here are a few tips I use to strengthen my creative muscles. They help me remember how to steer my course toward the manifestation of my real dreams.

First:

Tell yourself the truth. What do you really, really, REALLY, want?
There is no sense focusing your energy and attention toward those things that don’t really matter. Creating a life that works does require energy and so we might as well use our energy for our real passions and desires.

Next:

Choose one thing to focus upon. Why only one? Choose one topic because it takes singular focus to get the job done. Most of us attempt to take on too many things at once. It doesn’t mean our other dreams get lost. It just means that for a certain period of time - an hour, week or month one primary focus gets our full attention. Manifesting big dreams requires that from us.

Most likely what you want, if you really tell yourself the truth, will fall into one of the following three areas of life:

To improve the quality of your relationships

To establish financial freedom

To attain ongoing vibrant health

Now:

Maintain your focus, manage your own thoughts and feelings so that they are positive and hopeful and enjoy your life. This sounds easy, and yet it can be the most difficult part. They key here is to know that the creative process happens in the invisible world before it becomes visible. Consider a seed planted in the ground. Before it ever breaks the surface of the soil and shows its first leaves much has happened to move it in the direction of its potential. Our dreams are similar. Much happens in our own hearts and minds before the outward manifestation of our dreams is visible. Staying the course requires us to tend to our own inner attitudes and to trust the process of creation is naturally at work within us.

Let it be easy. Know what you want, choose your dreams fully and clearly, maintain your focus with enthusiasm and then relax and enjoy your life.

Peri Coeurtney Enkin is the founder of The Turnaround

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A portion of the following was excerpted from “The Abundance Principle: Five Keys to Extraordinary Living,” (www.TheAbundancePrinciple.com). Please forward or distribute this encouraging message freely to anyone you believe would benefit from it.

Have you ever moved to a new house and had to pack up everything you owned? Did it amaze you how quickly you accumulated all of that “stuff?” Many of us even trade our stuff with other people’s stuff. Jeff once traded a guitar he never learned to play for an automatic bread-making machine. His friend wanted to learn to play the guitar and Jeff wanted fresh, homemade bread. It was a match made in heaven.

Some people make a living traveling around on Saturday mornings from yard sale to yard sale, buying other people’s stuff and selling it in their own flea markets and garage sales! It certainly validates the saying, “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.”

But seriously, have you ever stopped to think about how much stuff you actually do have? We have more phones than we have televisions. We have more televisions than we have Bibles. We often throw away more food than we eat. We spend money on things we never wear. Face it we have an abundance of stuff. Some might even say we live “abundant” lives that is, on the outside.

Our hearts, however, tell a different story. Emotional disorders and depression are at an all-time high. One out of every two marriages ends in divorce. Seventy percent of marriages report significant financial difficulties. Our friendships are shallow. We break promises to ourselves and to others. Sometimes we feel trapped in the “rat-race” of life, running from place to place, doing the same thing day after day, wondering if life will ever improve, or worse yet, if it will ever end.

Currently, the population of the world stands at almost six and one-half billion people. We are told approximately 32% are categorized as Christians - that’s more than 2 billion people. It is our conviction that if 2 billion of the world’s population were completely committed to Extraordinary Living, the world as we know it would be a radically different place.

We hear about better ways of living in countless numbers of sermons and motivational speeches and we read about it in books day after day; we assent with our minds and declare agreement with our lips. Yet a vast number of us drive away from churches every Sunday in expensive SUVs to elaborate homes, totally devoid of the personal fulfillment that ought to be ours - that can be ours.

According to research firm The Barna Group, when comparing social issues, Christians mirror non-Christians in divorce, addictions, domestic abuse, and financial difficulties, among a host of other things. Christians struggle with addiction. Christian marriages are in trouble. Christians spend themselves deeply into debt. Christians take a host of medication for ailments and illnesses brought about by excessive stress, anxiety and depression, all of which the Bible says we can have victory over through Christ. Somewhere there is a “disconnect” between what God’s Word says is ours, and what we actually experience. The fact is most of us have more than any other generation in terms of material goods. Yet statistics, current events, and daily headlines reveal a less fulfilled people today than ever before.

We have some good news to share with you. We can experience life as abundantly on the inside as we appear to be experiencing it on the outside. We can live extraordinary lives. This is what the Abundant Life ProjectTM (www.AbundantLifeProject.com) is all about. It’s about reclaiming a privilege belonging to every person on the face of the planet: The right and freedom to live an extraordinary life. We want to spread the word: Extraordinary Living can be the experience of everyone.

Our mission is to help people put arms and legs on their faith. We introduce our readers to five simple concepts we call the Five Keys to Extraordinary Living. As you’ll see, Extraordinary Living is the kind of living from which abundance flows - but not just in terms of material things. We’re talking about abundance in every major area of our lives.

We believe we do not decide our future. We decide our habits and our habits determine our future. From this point forward, your future is full of hope, fulfillment, and unlimited possibilities. You only have to develop the right habits.

We’re very careful when we say Five Keys to Extraordinary. We purposely don’t say THE Five Keys to Extraordinary Living. That’s because there are likely many more keys out there. However, we believe that if one could start by mastering these five important areas of ones life, life itself would take on a whole new meaning. Famed speaker Les Brown is fond of saying, “You don’t have to be great to get started, but you’ve got to get started to be great.” If we fail to take action, we’re left with the same debilitating habits that restrict us to lives of weakness, insignificance, and sometimes despair.

Now before proceeding, as the authors and founders of The Abundant Life Project, let us be the first to say we have NOT arrived at our final destinations personally. We too remain completely susceptible to the ups and downs of life. We’re still “works in progress” ourselves. However, we try to wake up every day and pursue extraordinary living with vigilance. And as we consciously and persistently pursue this type of living, we’re finding it a little less elusive along the way. We’re convinced you’ll find the same.

Remember: An Abundant Life has been God’s plan for you from the very beginning. Start focusing on five simple keys to Extraordinary Living and see if your life won’t change for the better.

1. Master your thoughts and change your life.

2. Plan your life and live your passion.

3. Build and maintain strong relationships.

4. No matter how much you earn, spend less.

5. Give more and you’ll live more.

Go ahead, what’s stopping you? You can do it. Go for it!

Have a great week.

Dr. Jeff D. Standridge and Rev.TimKellerman are co-founders of The Abundant Life Project (http://www.AbundantLifeProject.com) and co-authors of “The Abundance Principle: Five Keys to Extraordinary Living” (http://www.TheAbundancePrinciple.com). They can be reached by email at Info@AbundantLifeProject.com.

The Abundant Life Project
http://www.AbundantLifeProject.com

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Every week for years and years you get up in the morning, go to work, come home, pay the bills, get up again, go to work, come home, pay the bills. Sound familiar? You’re on what I call “the treadmill of life.”

Unless you are happy with this existence you had better start doing something to change it. Because, if you don’t, in ten years time, and with a few more wrinkles and some more gray hair, you will still be getting up, going to work, coming home and paying the bills.

You see, most of us get into this routine. Pretty much we fall into it, obliviously. Everybody else is doing it. It’s just the done thing. Or is it?

Well, who wrote the script?

If this is “normal” for you then I can almost guarantee that after years and years of doing it you will one day wake up and wonder why you keep doing it.

Maybe it will be next year, maybe in a few years, maybe it will take another ten or twenty or thirty years. Hey, maybe you are wondering about it right now! Are you?

What are you going to do about it? What is the defining event that will allow you to jump off the treadmill? To answer that, you need to know why you are on the treadmill in the first place. I can categorically state that 100% of people who are on the treadmill do it to pay those darn bills that seem to appear almost magically every day in our letter boxes.

Let me put you to the test. If you had no bills to pay and could exist comfortably without money would you still you get up every morning and tootle off to work? Well, would you? Do you have something else that you would rather do with your time? Do you enjoy battling the highways and the subways with hundreds of thousands of other commuters?

What are you going to do about it? To replace your income will open up your life to a whole new spectrum of options. Think about it.

But how can you achieve such a thing? How can you replace your income? How can you get off the treadmill that will command your life until you retire?

Just think - when you “retire” with that nice little super-annuation and retirement benefit - then you can REALLY enjoy yourself. Heck, maybe you can even take that ski trip that you have spent all your youth waiting for.

Have I got you thinking? I hope so! Don’t wait until all your youth and health has been spent in the system before you realize that there could have been so much more to life.

This article comes with reprint rights providing no changes are made and the resource box below accompanies it.

To learn how you can get off the treadmill click here.

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