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Building Wealth: It's an Inside Job
Written by: Chuck Cox
Whenever we read about building wealth or even attend a seminar for
that purpose, we usually begin by assessing our present financial
status. We’re asked to calculate our assets and liabilities followed
by a determination of where we’d like to be in a certain period of
time. Being armed with this data along with assessing our present
earning and saving power, we then set out to structure our financial
goals. Although we try to be realistic, we still want to stretch
ourselves a little bit – after all, that’s one of the purposes of
setting goals, isn’t it? To achieve more than we normally would if
we didn’t have goals in the first place. And also, goals are
supposed to give us direction.
So when actually seeking out these new financial goals, many of us
fall dreadfully short. What happened? Did we not work hard enough or
just plan poorly? Maybe, but it’s probably much deeper than that.
One tactic that many goal-setting gurus use to get more mileage out
of setting goals is to find out WHY we want a certain goal. This
certainly helps us get more leverage on achieving our goal, but to
many people money is much more complicated than that. Money
represents our upbringing and our culture. To some of us, money
represents bad memories of parents arguing or watching our families
suffer for the lack of it, while others may view money as only a
tool and seem to have no problem accumulating it in their bank
accounts. These financial memories have created mental roadblocks
for many of us when it comes to making money. Thus, if we want to
build wealth, we have to go one step further and determine our
personal level of prosperity consciousness.
If we’re curious about our present level of prosperity
consciousness, we need only take a critical look at our own lives.
Our homes, our jobs, our bank accounts will all quickly tell us
where we are in terms of prosperity - like it or not - our
surroundings are simply the results of our thoughts and actions. Our
level of satisfaction can be linked to the distance between where we
are and where we want to be. However, two people with identical
distances will almost always have different levels of satisfaction,
and these satisfaction levels are linked to their personal levels of
prosperity consciousness. Here’s something to ponder. What if
everyone in the world were to throw all their riches into one big
pile and then split all that wealth equally among everyone in the
world? In a few years, who would then emerge as being wealthy and
poor? Most people feel that very little would change – that the same
people would most likely become wealthy and poor again. This
assessment speaks volumes about prosperity consciousness.
So what if we’re unhappy with our present level of prosperity
consciousness, how do we change it? The answer is that we have to
start getting comfortable with more prosperity coming into our
lives. There are some simple things that we can start doing today
which will dramatically increase our levels of prosperity over time.
Bear in mind that these actions are not instantaneous – they’ll need
some time to yield results.
1) Use Written Affirmations
It sounds elementary, but this little trick actually works. Simply
write down your affirmation 20 times each morning and each evening.
We should choose an affirmation that suits our particular situation
and prosperity level. To find out where to begin, start with this
one: “I deserve to be wealthy”. Does it make you feel uncomfortable
when you write it down? If so, that’s a sign that you probably need
to use that one or something similar. You could also try this one:
“I am bringing more and more wealth into my life each day.” Play
around with words and see how they make you feel. If you’re too
outrageous, your subconscious will reject the idea, so you want
something that makes you feel slightly anxious or uncomfortable.
Continue using your affirmation for 30 days and then start using a
different affirmation. The next affirmation should be a natural
building block on the previous one. The key to affirmations is to be
persistent and not give up on them because they seem ineffective,
repetitive, and boring. The fact is that you NEED to be doing them
when they become repetitive and boring. Remember that you’re trying
to undo years of mental programming and repetition is required.
2) Visualize The Outcome
Put pictures of financial goals in your mind and view them
routinely. The best times for these visualizations are the first
thing in the morning and right before bedtime. And it is also
recommended that you add some exercises throughout the day as well.
As with the affirmations, these visualization exercises are a matter
of personal preference. We all visualize things in our minds
differently depending on our personalities, so you’ll want to
experiment with the pictures. Here are some things you can do with
those internal pictures: try blowing them up in size, make them more
colorful, give them noise, give them action, or increase the
brightness. Keep playing with these attributes until you find the
ones that excite you. Also, keep in mind that the content of these
pictures will change over time – in fact, they NEED to change over
time because you’re trying picture more prosperity in your life.
3) Be Aware of How You Receive Prosperity
Take inventory of your thoughts and feelings toward the way you
receive prosperity. For instance, how well do you receive
compliments? Do you tend to play them down or do you accept them
with grace? If someone offers to pay you for a task you’ve
performed, do you accept the payment or do you turn it down? If a
person tries to give you something, do you accept it? Do you
volunteer for tasks that you won’t be paid for? All of these are
indicators of your prosperity consciousness. Don’t be concerned
about making judgments at this point, simply become more aware of
what’s going on inside your mind. If you’re doing the affirmations
and visualizations, you’ll know what to do when the time comes.
Middle Eastern mystics say that increasing awareness is all that is
needed to gain knowledge.
4) Be Aware of How You Give Prosperity
Spiritual sages claim that in terms of prosperity, the universe
makes no distinction between giving and receiving. The important
thing is maintaining the flow of prosperity and allowing it to bless
more lives. Suppose you and two other people were in the same room
and you had a dollar. Let’s say that you buy a pencil from one of
them for that dollar who then uses it to purchase a notebook from
the third person. The third person then turns around and buys a
hairbrush from you. You could’ve kept the dollar in your pocket, but
instead that same dollar has blessed two other people with useful
products and is now in your pocket anyway. This is the basis of a
healthy economy – one in which there’s a healthy flow of products,
services, and currencies. It when the flow stops that we start to
have problems. Incidentally, this is the same principal on which
tithing to your church or donating a portion of your pay to charity
lies. These charitable acts allow people to participate in the flow
of prosperity and share it with others. There’s an old saying that
states “give what you want more of”, so if you want more prosperity
in your life, start giving more in return.
In order to build wealth successfully, we need to look inside
ourselves first. We’re taught to define and then go after our goals,
but it really doesn’t work quite that way. After we define our
goals, we then need to concentrate on removing all the obstacles
that block their path. So rather than going after these financial
goals, we simply attract them to us by preparing ourselves to
receive them through a strong sense of prosperity consciousness.
About the Author
Chuck Cox is a
Technical Writer and Industrial Scientist by professional
with a background in statistics. He has used mathematical
and statistical methods to invest and trade in the stock,
futures, and options markets. Chuck has owned various
businesses and presently operates several websites.
Visit Chuck's
website at
http://www.earncashathometoday.com. |
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