Do You Ever Loose Your Keys - Planning Advice

You obviously don't need to read this article if you rarely lose your car keys. However if you misplace your car keys often and have a pretty good relationship with your locksmith, it's time to change these bad habits into good ones.

One of my friends, recently lost their car keys. I would like you to listen to what I'm about to say and see if it makes sense to you. Most people get two keys when they buy a car. This means, if they lose one key, they now have a spare key. When they lose their first key, this should give them a pretty good clue that the second key is now the only key, if they wish to drive their car.

Does that make sense? If you lose your first key, you don't have a second or spare key anymore. Now is a good time to purchase a spare key or have one made. Don't wait until you lose the second one, unless you are planning to change your bad habit into a good one.

Now let me get back to my friends who recently lost their car's key. The car they were driving was a new Honda and you can't go to the locksmith to get another key made. You have to order one from the Honda dealer and this key cost them over $200. That's a lot of money for one key.

Now my friends lost both of their original keys and now have one key to operate the vehicle and this key cost them over $200. Now if I had to pay this amount of money, I would make sure that I never lost this key ever again. I would do whatever it to to change my old habits and create some new ones.

How hard is it to get in the habit of placing your keys inside of your purse. Placing your keys in your pockets and then only removing them when you are going to place them inside of a drawer, container, cup, bowl or on a shelf in your bedroom. If you place your keys in a drawer, this will keep them out of other people's temptation.

If you choose to lay your keys in a bowl, in the kitchen, there's a good chance someone will take them or another member of your family could lose them. Place your keys in a protected area, do not leave them out in the open ever.

If you want some tips to prevent you from losing your keys, simply talk to someone who rarely if ever loses their keys. Most of these people have simple and easy to follow tips. You can consciously create a habit that can save you money and frustration in the future.

Greg Vanden Berge is a published author, internet marketing expert, motivational inspiration to millions of people all over the world and is sharing some of his wisdom with experts in the fields of writing,marketing and personal development.

Greg is currently working on a spiritual video library filled with great movies on a wide array of topics, like religion, self help and spiritual changes in the world.

A College Party Changed My Life Forever

Excitement immediately exploded as one person after another was asked to the Toga party at the elite sorority house surrounding the pristine college campus. To be invited to this occasion was like finally arriving at the top! Now you would be forever associated with the 'in crowd' who set the highest bar to the most elaborate parties around.

I couldn't believe how lucky I felt! What was I going to wear to the Toga party? Quickly I text messaged my friend telling the news and together we planned my entrance. I wanted to be noticed and invited back again and again.

I arrived at the sorority house filled with anticipation. Entering the house, I walked through two Roman like columns with white cascading draperies across the top and long flowing white sheers on either side. My hostess handed me a beer. Looking around I saw a tent with more sheers and drapes and skimpily dressed girls standing by the entrance beckoning everyone to come in. There were pillows and mattresses spread all over the floor.

Music flooded my ears and the smell of tobacco and marijuana wafted through the air. There was a group of girls all wearing olive leaves in the shape of bikinis and they were dancing and enticing others to join them. One girl grabbed my hand and encouraged me to let go and have fun.

I was from a small town and I was raised by a very conservative family. This was the first time I had attended any kind of toga party with my friends. I had to admit I was a little shy about letting go and enjoying myself. I took a puff from a joint that a friend handed me and before long everything I was taught about faith and obedience to God was pushed aside.

I wanted to have fun. I didn't want to think about whether it was right or wrong. Before long the girls and guys began disrobing and it was no longer about drinking, but about hooking up with as many people as you desired. I was feeling so free and they were so enticing! Why shouldn't I join them?

Not many people understand that we live in a teaching world. It all began when Satan entered into the snake and tempted Adam and Eve to eating the apple from the tree of knowledge. In order to attain knowledge you must be presented with right and wrong choices. Now the once perfect world God created was instantly changed because Satan entered into the world bringing the full force of evil with him.

Satan became man's greatest adversary and he corrupted the souls of men by luring them away from the right teachings of God. Satan does this by attacking man's human desires. He uses sex and the feelings of desire that awaken within a man at the sight of a beautiful woman to lure him into giving into lust. He uses feelings of not being accepted to trap us into drinking until we are drunk and taking drugs so we can feel totally free. He knows just what to say even using our very friends to get us to think with our emotions and not with our heads.

This is the reason why there are orgies because young men and women become so filled with lust, they can't control there desires. This is the reason why there are rapes that lead men into taking sex by force. This is why, young people especially, fall prey to pornography that stimulates there desires to an explosive energy that makes them fall prey to giving into their desires without thinking about the consequences.

During the time of Moses, God separated the Israelites from evil by taking them into the Promised Land. But the people were so corrupted by the teachings of the Egyptians that they wandered in the desert for forty years until he could get them to understand the difference between following Him or Satan. He did this by teaching Laws that gave them the key to resisting evil.

The Ten Commandments taught them how important it was to believe in God. The Commandments taught them how to resist Satan by not committing adultery, murder, stealing, lying and many others that were meant to give them an upper hand against the very things that Satan would use to tempt them into doing evil.

Because Israel was the chosen people they also became the world's example of what happens when you give into sin. They wrote hundreds of stories of their experiences in the Bible so the entire world would understand the consequences for giving into sin and how it can ruin your life for an entire lifetime. One such story was when they were about to enter into the Promised land and they came into the country of Moab. Moab had an evil King named Balak. He found out through a corrupt evil soothsayer named Balaam how to defeat Israel and keep them from taking over their land.

Balaam had a donkey who spoke to him. The donkey saw an Angel of God standing in the road and he stopped Balaam from cursing Israel. As the story unfolds we find that Balaam blessed Israel instead and this made King Balak very mad. So Balaam manipulated the circumstance and encouraged the king to lure the men away and trap them by instructing beautiful Moab women to have sex with the Israelites. (Numbers 31: 16)

Once the Israelites gave into their lust then they would invite them to parties in order to get them to worship their god Baal. When they were no longer serving God then they would be under a curse and the Moabites would easily defeat Israel.

Numbers 25: 1-3a, "When the Israelites were camped at Acacia Valley, the men began to have sexual intercourse with the Moabite women who were there. These women invited them to sacrificial feasts, where the god of Moab was worshiped. The Israelites ate the food and worshiped the god Baal of Peor. So the Lord was angry with them."

In the Old Testament every sin had a sentence that had to be followed in order for God to bless them. This was a sin that could only be rectified with death. Immediately an epidemic spread through Israel killing 24,000 Israelites that committed a sexual sin and were led into worshiping Baal. Remember, this may have seemed like a very harsh punishment, but it had to be like this so we could see what happens when sin enters into a person's life.

The Old Testament clearly illustrates what happens when you give into sin. It tells stories of what happens when God isn't first in your life. It presents stories of real people who allowed Satan to come in and use the very weaknesses found in man to lead them away from God and trap them into living there lives for evil.

If you are not on God's side then you are on the side of Satan and evil. Satan uses lust to tempt the men into turning their backs on God. He uses parties as a means to corrupt your thinking through the use of alcohol and drugs. He uses the desire to fit in as a means to get us to let go of our moral values and give into sin.

2 Peter 2: 13-19, "Pleasure for them is to do anything in broad daylight that will satisfy their bodily appetites; they are a shame and a disgrace as they join you in your meals, all the while enjoying their deceitful ways? They want to look at nothing but immoral women; their appetite for sin is never satisfied. They lead weak people into a trap. Their hearts are trained to be greedy. They are under God's curse! They have left the straight path and have lost their way; they have followed the path taken by Balaam son of Beor, who loved the money he would get for doing wrong and was rebuked for his sin. His donkey spoke with a human voice and stopped the prophet's insane action.

These men are like dried-up springs, like clouds blown along by a storm; God has reserved a place for them in the deepest darkness. They make proud and stupid statements, and use immoral bodily lusts to trap those who are just beginning to escape from among people who live in error. They promise them freedom while they themselves are slaves of destructive habits-for a person is a slave of anything that has conquered him."

When you are in a huge multi-faceted world game of good versus evil you must understand the rules of engagement. Believing in God is the difference between winning and losing your game of life. Understanding sin and temptation is the difference between following God or giving into your desires.

The excitement of the toga party faded when the doctor told me that I had contracted Aids. I couldn't believe how stupid I was to have allowed the pressure of being accepted to lead me into having sex with someone I didn't even know. Now I was under a death sentence for the rest of my life. Who would want a person who could infect them and destroy their life too?

The Old Testament taught us about sin and the consequences. The New Testament tells us about the saving power of grace and how believing in Jesus Christ as your Savior can bring about forgiveness of sin. Jesus' can take a hopeless situation and turn it into good if you will give your life to Him!

Linda C Dipman author of THE GAME OF LIFE IT'S ALMOST OVER http://outskirtspress.com/gameoflife presents AND HIS LOVE SHONE DOWN my true life story! It describes all the persecutions I endured. It will put you on the edge of your seat as you read each vivid detail. You will feel terror and experience love like nothing you have ever read before. http://lovinghandsministry.com

Your Power Is Timeless Experience... Get Clear

I was flabbergasted after reading most of the books written by John Harricharan, Your Holiness the Dalai Lama, and Deepak Chopra. I also read many articles and watched TV shows about them.

I discovered our experience doesnt come only from this life we are living right now. You can have spent ten, twenty, thirty or forty years learning and guiding others in your field about things on which you are considered an expert.

However, sometimes an eight-, twelve- or fourteen-year-old child can express words of wisdom to which if we humbly pay attention, we can receive a big lesson in simple words to apply in our life and be successful.

Outstanding examples of evolved souls spreading their experience through words that confused and still confuse those adults who are not open-minded were the young Jesus of Nazareth and Siddhartha Gautama.

For the mainstream way of thinking, this could sound as though it were the remains of an old ideology. Even some modern spiritual Gurus trust in somebody who has a long resume of experience and big corporations recommending her or him.

These intuitive experts cant see the most important thing is your spiritual clearness.

Somebody with a couple of months or one or two years of experience in a certain field of knowledge and who has a clear mind can download a long-time experience from a past life.

As Joe Vitale suggests in his best-selling book Spiritual Marketing when he refers to a past experience with a woman ahead of him in line to attend a seminar,

If you are truly clear about your business, you dont even need business cards. Business just comes to you. Your inner spirit does your market.

He beautifully explains that sometimes, an event such as a seminar is already booked up before the publicity flyers are sent out.

As soon as a person is clear about what he really wants in life and it fits with her purpose for being here on earth, every kind of abundance comes into that life: health, wealth and happy relationships.

Wayne Dyer talks a lot about Satori in his writings, recordings and speeches. It is an instant awakening. Long years of training and meditation are not really necessary.

Dr. Dyers puts it this way, You are complete right now. You dont need anything else to succeed. Even a child is complete in the level he is right now.

Sonia Choquette in her workshops, especially the one called Trust your vibes, raises the spirit of the participants with a spiritual speech, music and songs, and by sharing her vibrating energy with them.

She very openly and clearly says, You dont need another seminar, another workshop, read another book. You are complete and perfect souls right now. Wake up. Do your job. Let your happiness out.

Jan Brogniez and Stacey Hall - authors of Attracting Perfect Customers and creators of the concept of Strategic Synchronicity are good examples as to the way clearness works to allow someone to become an overnight expert.

Jan explains, Its really not that we are in the magic business, its more that our process which is very strategic in nature, allows people to get very focused on what is perfect for them. And because of that clarity and focus they begin to attract things that seem to come with synchronicity. And they come with more frequency than when we are not clear and not focused.

Stacey continues:

Well, Ive got to share that the inspiration came from within ourselves. Yes it seems strange. Yes others have written about the Law of Attraction, which is the foundation that the strategic attraction process is built on. However, I have to admit I hadnt read anything about the Law of Attraction, and Jan only had a little bit of knowledge about it.

If we first go within, and are clear about what we want to provide, and stay true to that, then we will start to attract people, who want the same thing. That is the Law of Attraction.

It was only after that awareness that we would start to read what others were speaking about the same subject. People, like Wayne Dyer, Laura Day with Practical Intuition, Catherine Ponder in The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity.

Where it begins is by being clear about who you are and whats at your core first. Then youll know why youre doing what youre doing. And who it is you are meant to be serving.

This would be surprising even for some gurus, and sometimes hard for them to accept. As soon as an evolved soul starts serving and loving, a new expert appears to help the world.

Even if others senior gurus dont support her or him with their testimonials, the new guru will unstoppably share with humanity, collaterally creating abundance of health, wealth and happy relationships.

I am not scorning or denying gurus are helping us to grow spiritually. Many marketing gurus can help you increase your business.

The point is you cant give your power to them. When you are really clear about what you want in life, what you love to do, and what your purpose is for being on earth, just go ahead. Carol Tuttle, author of the best-selling book Remembering Wholeness: A Personal Handbook for Thriving in the 21st Century, says it beautifully, Let your life be the next miracle!

If your passion is to write a book, go for it. Even if gurus dont give you a testimonial, you will triumph. As Wayne Dyer suggests, dont be paralyzed by the way others evaluate your capacity.

Of course, this is not a message of rebellion. It is good to have a mentor. Many businesses have grown after hiring one or more consultants.

But if your learn to get clear about what you want and you feel really happy, go ahead without stopping, even if a modern guru evaluates you as going the wrong way. Its your passion, not theirs.

Take into consideration many modern gurus, even spiritual ones, give you only a beautiful testimonial and open support if you have been acting as a consultant to Coca-Cola for many years (more than ten at least.)

Never be disheartened by this. Send love out. Accept that everybody else acts according to the perfection synchronicity of the Universe and youll automatically attract everything and everybody you need to succeed.

Going back to Jan and Stacys case, early on when they stated her mission by including the phrase, generating communities in which millionaires are produced, neither one of them were millionaires.

However, because of their clearness that has become the normal outcome. As Stacey says, Many people came to play with us.

Joe Vitale says about these wonderful girls, When you lead from your heart, clients are attracted to you. Call it magnetic marketing, attraction marketing, or just easy marketing. It's pure wisdom. See what Dr. Vitale says, Pure wisdom. Beautiful!

Everything done, here there is a big lesson for all of us. If you learn to be happy, do what you love to do and whats your mission on earth, your true self will market for you.

Some gurus who doubted Jan and Staceys mission at the beginning now are willing to write testimonials for them.

Even Gurus still have some ego. Ego demands a very loaded background of marketing and data proofs to recommend somebody.

So, I advise you, the beginner, that you have just begun as a human being to discover your greatness. Your spirit is not a beginner. It already knew and knows everything about what happened, what is happening, and what is going to happen.

As gurus teach, lets remind ourselves that the only separate one is ego. All of us are the same sacred self. We are a universal mind and body, wholeness.

Lets support each other. Let us never be indifferent with others. Lets practice the Spiritual Marketing coined by Dr. Joe Vitale.

In this way, abundance will be manifested as a common trait for all human beings reflecting their spiritual beingness. Beingness is coexistence. Coexistence is timeless existence.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. - Henry David Thoreau. Yeah, learn to get clear. Love yourself and others.

There is one almighty awareness, thinking, compassionate awareness, of which you are from and of, infinitely kind, all knowing, all loving, distant as the furthest mote of dust in space, yet as near as the beating of your heart, here and there, before and after, always and forever. And when-so-ever you should call unto it, it answers you by name Michael Dooley.

You are a performer of miracles. http://www.tenpowerfulteachings.com

Copyright 2004 All Rights Reserved. By Pedro Avalos

Pedro Avalos, is a teacher by nature, is also writer and motivator. He has become very famous for his practical and revolutionary ecourse "How to Be Motivated for Success Every Moment of Your Life." This person has outstanding teaching credentials and many personal success stories-many people who contact him have had unbelievable results by applying these tips! Now he has summarized this course and all the experiences of more than 20 years helping people to be motivated every moment in his book TEN ENLIGHTENED TEACHINGS. http://www.tenpowerfulteachings.com.

A College Party Changed My Life Forever

Excitement immediately exploded as one person after another was asked to the Toga party at the elite sorority house surrounding the pristine college campus. To be invited to this occasion was like finally arriving at the top! Now you would be forever associated with the 'in crowd' who set the highest bar to the most elaborate parties around.

I couldn't believe how lucky I felt! What was I going to wear to the Toga party? Quickly I text messaged my friend telling the news and together we planned my entrance. I wanted to be noticed and invited back again and again.

I arrived at the sorority house filled with anticipation. Entering the house, I walked through two Roman like columns with white cascading draperies across the top and long flowing white sheers on either side. My hostess handed me a beer. Looking around I saw a tent with more sheers and drapes and skimpily dressed girls standing by the entrance beckoning everyone to come in. There were pillows and mattresses spread all over the floor.

Music flooded my ears and the smell of tobacco and marijuana wafted through the air. There was a group of girls all wearing olive leaves in the shape of bikinis and they were dancing and enticing others to join them. One girl grabbed my hand and encouraged me to let go and have fun.

I was from a small town and I was raised by a very conservative family. This was the first time I had attended any kind of toga party with my friends. I had to admit I was a little shy about letting go and enjoying myself. I took a puff from a joint that a friend handed me and before long everything I was taught about faith and obedience to God was pushed aside.

I wanted to have fun. I didn't want to think about whether it was right or wrong. Before long the girls and guys began disrobing and it was no longer about drinking, but about hooking up with as many people as you desired. I was feeling so free and they were so enticing! Why shouldn't I join them?

Not many people understand that we live in a teaching world. It all began when Satan entered into the snake and tempted Adam and Eve to eating the apple from the tree of knowledge. In order to attain knowledge you must be presented with right and wrong choices. Now the once perfect world God created was instantly changed because Satan entered into the world bringing the full force of evil with him.

Satan became man's greatest adversary and he corrupted the souls of men by luring them away from the right teachings of God. Satan does this by attacking man's human desires. He uses sex and the feelings of desire that awaken within a man at the sight of a beautiful woman to lure him into giving into lust. He uses feelings of not being accepted to trap us into drinking until we are drunk and taking drugs so we can feel totally free. He knows just what to say even using our very friends to get us to think with our emotions and not with our heads.

This is the reason why there are orgies because young men and women become so filled with lust, they can't control there desires. This is the reason why there are rapes that lead men into taking sex by force. This is why, young people especially, fall prey to pornography that stimulates there desires to an explosive energy that makes them fall prey to giving into their desires without thinking about the consequences.

During the time of Moses, God separated the Israelites from evil by taking them into the Promised Land. But the people were so corrupted by the teachings of the Egyptians that they wandered in the desert for forty years until he could get them to understand the difference between following Him or Satan. He did this by teaching Laws that gave them the key to resisting evil.

The Ten Commandments taught them how important it was to believe in God. The Commandments taught them how to resist Satan by not committing adultery, murder, stealing, lying and many others that were meant to give them an upper hand against the very things that Satan would use to tempt them into doing evil.

Because Israel was the chosen people they also became the world's example of what happens when you give into sin. They wrote hundreds of stories of their experiences in the Bible so the entire world would understand the consequences for giving into sin and how it can ruin your life for an entire lifetime. One such story was when they were about to enter into the Promised land and they came into the country of Moab. Moab had an evil King named Balak. He found out through a corrupt evil soothsayer named Balaam how to defeat Israel and keep them from taking over their land.

Balaam had a donkey who spoke to him. The donkey saw an Angel of God standing in the road and he stopped Balaam from cursing Israel. As the story unfolds we find that Balaam blessed Israel instead and this made King Balak very mad. So Balaam manipulated the circumstance and encouraged the king to lure the men away and trap them by instructing beautiful Moab women to have sex with the Israelites. (Numbers 31: 16)

Once the Israelites gave into their lust then they would invite them to parties in order to get them to worship their god Baal. When they were no longer serving God then they would be under a curse and the Moabites would easily defeat Israel.

Numbers 25: 1-3a, "When the Israelites were camped at Acacia Valley, the men began to have sexual intercourse with the Moabite women who were there. These women invited them to sacrificial feasts, where the god of Moab was worshiped. The Israelites ate the food and worshiped the god Baal of Peor. So the Lord was angry with them."

In the Old Testament every sin had a sentence that had to be followed in order for God to bless them. This was a sin that could only be rectified with death. Immediately an epidemic spread through Israel killing 24,000 Israelites that committed a sexual sin and were led into worshiping Baal. Remember, this may have seemed like a very harsh punishment, but it had to be like this so we could see what happens when sin enters into a person's life.

The Old Testament clearly illustrates what happens when you give into sin. It tells stories of what happens when God isn't first in your life. It presents stories of real people who allowed Satan to come in and use the very weaknesses found in man to lead them away from God and trap them into living there lives for evil.

If you are not on God's side then you are on the side of Satan and evil. Satan uses lust to tempt the men into turning their backs on God. He uses parties as a means to corrupt your thinking through the use of alcohol and drugs. He uses the desire to fit in as a means to get us to let go of our moral values and give into sin.

2 Peter 2: 13-19, "Pleasure for them is to do anything in broad daylight that will satisfy their bodily appetites; they are a shame and a disgrace as they join you in your meals, all the while enjoying their deceitful ways? They want to look at nothing but immoral women; their appetite for sin is never satisfied. They lead weak people into a trap. Their hearts are trained to be greedy. They are under God's curse! They have left the straight path and have lost their way; they have followed the path taken by Balaam son of Beor, who loved the money he would get for doing wrong and was rebuked for his sin. His donkey spoke with a human voice and stopped the prophet's insane action.

These men are like dried-up springs, like clouds blown along by a storm; God has reserved a place for them in the deepest darkness. They make proud and stupid statements, and use immoral bodily lusts to trap those who are just beginning to escape from among people who live in error. They promise them freedom while they themselves are slaves of destructive habits-for a person is a slave of anything that has conquered him."

When you are in a huge multi-faceted world game of good versus evil you must understand the rules of engagement. Believing in God is the difference between winning and losing your game of life. Understanding sin and temptation is the difference between following God or giving into your desires.

The excitement of the toga party faded when the doctor told me that I had contracted Aids. I couldn't believe how stupid I was to have allowed the pressure of being accepted to lead me into having sex with someone I didn't even know. Now I was under a death sentence for the rest of my life. Who would want a person who could infect them and destroy their life too?

The Old Testament taught us about sin and the consequences. The New Testament tells us about the saving power of grace and how believing in Jesus Christ as your Savior can bring about forgiveness of sin. Jesus' can take a hopeless situation and turn it into good if you will give your life to Him!

Linda C Dipman author of THE GAME OF LIFE IT'S ALMOST OVER http://outskirtspress.com/gameoflife presents AND HIS LOVE SHONE DOWN my true life story! It describes all the persecutions I endured. It will put you on the edge of your seat as you read each vivid detail. You will feel terror and experience love like nothing you have ever read before. http://lovinghandsministry.com

Believing in God

I was talking to a Muslim man who lives in another country through e-mail and we have been having a very pleasant conversation about why we believe, what we believe. This man seems very caring and someone I can actually have a educated conversation with. Some people that believe in their religion so strongly, are hard to communicate with and often start yelling and screaming at me. These conversations and very abruptly and sometimes painfully.

If believing in God makes you right and everything in your religious texts is true, then the least you could do is back it up with some factual information. Factual information is the key to proving any theory or belief. In a court of law, you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt,... but if my life's at stake here, this really doesn't apply. I won't bet my life on reasonable doubt, but only hard scientific facts and sometimes this doesn't even apply.

Sometimes scientific facts can be proven wrong over time.

Let's say for an instance, that we take the Bible into a court of law and are going to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that one verse is true from this book. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Now that we have our Bible verse, let's just say for the record, that our hypothetical court case was proven to be true, beyond a reasonable doubt. In other words this is now a factual statement.

Just because it's a factual statement based on something that was proven beyond a reasonable doubt doesn't really make it a truth. When someone tells you, for example your parents or a teacher, that something is true (factual information) and you start spreading this rumor as a truth, because you believe these people, without any evidence for factual information, you're spreading a rumor. If these rumors were to be spread for about 2000 years, we come up with a factual belief not a scientific fact.

Nobody wants to hear that their religious text don't make sense to an open-minded person, even beyond a reasonable doubt. The belief that God created the earth isn't a fact, but if enough people say it is, then in their minds it becomes a truth. This doesn't make them right but often makes them feel comfortable.

Life Changing Books

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Greg Vanden Berge is a published author, internet marketing expert, motivational inspiration to millions of people all over the world and is sharing some of his wisdom with experts in the fields of writing,marketing, and personal development. Check out one of his recommended books, You Can Have It All

Memories and Questions Can Uncover Purpose and Passion

By exploring the things you love to do, your strengths and skills, and what you'd do even if you weren't paid, you can discover your purpose in life.

You can begin a process of discovering your purpose in life, or rediscovering a purpose you previously held that has become neglected and forgotten, with two simple techniques. One is recalling times in the past when you had a strong sense of the direction you should go and followed it. The other technique is answering several questions you may not have thought to ask yourself.

Incidentally, you will probably get more from this process if you don't try to force the memories and answers but allow your responses to bubble up from your subconscious in whatever way feels most comfortable. You will gradually get a sense of the direction in which you want your life to flow, much as a caterpillar needs to go into a chrysalis before it can emerge as a butterfly.

Your memories can help define the purpose of your life. So recall a time when ...

People wanted you to do something and you chose very deliberately not to do it. This may have happened in childhood or later as an adult. As your memories of this event come back to you, experience as fully as you can how it felt to stand up for what you believed in, to choose your own way.

You were very excited about a goal, either large or small, because it was something you wanted to do very much. Remembering that event, experience what it is like to move with determination toward something you want, even if you don't accomplish it as well as you had hoped.

Fate, luck, God, or whatever you would call it, placed an opportunity in your path and, because you took that opportunity, the direction of your life was changed. Experience what it feels like to take advantage of circumstances and challenges you had not expected, but which offer you a chance to grow in some way you would not have been able to grow otherwise.

You were quiet and your mind was not chattering, as it often does, and out of seemingly nowhere came a flash of inspiration showing you just what you needed to do to resolve some problem you were having. Experience as clearly as you can what it feels like to listen to your intuition, to follow your own inner guide.

You achieved something important and others praised you for it. Experience what it felt like to have others acknowledge your achievements.

You accomplished something you wanted to do, but no one else knew you had done it. Experience what it is like to do something well, whether or not others know about it.

Questions can guide you in your quest to discover a deeper purpose in life.

• What do you love?
• What do you like doing so much that it recharges your batteries even when you're too tired to do anything else?
• What are your strengths and skills?
• Was there ever something in your life that was so important to you that you felt at the time you absolutely had to accomplish it in order for your life to have meaning? Did you do it? And if you didn't, what got in the way?
• Is there something you would like to do if money, time or energy were not a factor? And when you realize what that is, ask yourself how you might get the money, time or energy to do it.

One final question deals with the principles and values upon which you have built your life up to this point.

Like everyone else, you have chosen, out of the many possible religions and philosophies, one approach, or a combination of several, that resonates most clearly within you. Even if you follow the faith of your parents and accept their values, the question to ask yourself, in order to deepen your understanding of how you make decisions, and thus how you might discover your purpose, is:

What is it within you that caused you to choose your values, your beliefs and your philosophy of life?

All of these questions can guide you toward an overarching purpose for your life. When, in addition, you need to overcome some difficulty, there are seven questions you can ask every day that will remind you to live with purpose even when the going gets tough.

Arlene F. Harder, MA, MFT is Founder and Editor-in Chief of the websites Support4Change.com and ChildhoodAffirmations.com She has been a licensed psychotherapist for more than 20 years. Her specialties include healing imagery and reflective meditation techniques, and she is certified by the Academy for Guided Imagery. She is a co-founder of The Wellness Community-Foothills in Pasadena, California, and the author of the book Letting Go of Our Adult Children: When What We Do is Never Enough, and Questions to Ask Yourself When You Want Your Life to Change. She is currently developing her Better Tomorrows Program. Arlene can be contacted at arleneharder@support4change.com and can be found at her blog, support4change.squarespace.com

What Do Your Goals Say - Self Help Tips

Do you have goals? How to you set things in motion to accomplish your goals? What is your game plan of success? You can either focus on the results or you can focus on the activities you are doing. If you have the right steps in place, you will achieve your goal.

You should be attempting to link your daily steps to your weekly achievements and then to your monthly goals. So that your efforts are always working in your favor.

Set achievable steps - let them have a purpose to your overall goals. You don't want to fall into activity traps. Yes, you are expediting energy, but it is not helping you to reach your goals, You are busy, but to no end.

Use project management software or a system of your own design of checks and balances. You know where you are on your path to goal achievement. Be realistic and know that there will be days when you may not accomplish what you intended, but "get back on the horse" the next day.

Write your goals down and review them. That way you will know if you are making strides to achieve them. Change them where you need, if something isn't working or a new approach becomes known to you. Improve your tactics and make the necessary changes. Success is yours to carve out. Complete at least one goal step each day. Keep adding to your goals. There is always more to achieve. Keep asking yourself, "Is what I am working on leading to the my achieving my goals?" If it isn't, do not waste your time doing it! You are the Captain of Your ship of life.

Gloria-Jean Brown

http://www.CoachingbyGJ.com