Tag Archives: #Personal Empowerment

How to Change Your Life – part 1

How to change your life

The time is now!                     Image from Wikihow

“What you’re missing is that the path itself changes you.” ― Julien Smith, The Flinch

How to Change Your Life

If you look at an old photo, you know you have changed. Some major changes, others more subtle, but you will have changed. Change will continue – that is part of being alive.

Consciously choosing major life change is different. Moving from what you know and are comfortable with, to something totally or markedly different can be daunting. However, a number of times in the life of every person, this happens.

There are three ways Life Change happens.

1. You can just let life drag you along and accept wherever you end up.

2. You can wait until life’s events force you into taking action, because you cannot remain where you are.

3. The third option, and the best, is to take charge of the change, guide and direct it to achieve exactly what you want from life. When you accept that life change will happen a number of times through life, you think differently about how important this change process is!

What are these Life Change events?

1. Starting school
2. Changing school
3. Graduating from school and entering the workforce
4. Entering and graduating university
5. Each significant relationship beginning (and possibly ending)
6. Marriage
7. Birth of children
8. Changes in residence, either from one home to another, or to a new town, state or country.
9. Health changes
10. Financial changes
11. Career changes
12. Starting a business
13. Retirement
14. Interests and personal goals taking prominence in your life
15. Setting new major goals

These are some of the events that precipitate life changes. We are all in there, a number of times.

How to change your life

Starting school!        Image from Huffington Post

Some changes we have little control over, such as starting or leaving school or university to enter the workforce, health or financial challenges, career changes when employers make decisions for you.

However, there are many changes we CAN take control and ownership of.  Many will pre-empt forced changes that might otherwise occur. For example, if your employer is in trouble financially, deciding to seek a new career early before you are laid off is a better option and one which gives you more time and control over the change, rather than waiting to be given notice! That only provides a fortnight and some severance pay to speed you on your way.

This blog is the first in a series on #HOW TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE and will provide a Step-By-Step guide to making life changes. Each new blog in the series will deal with and guide you through another part of the process. This first blog in the “How To Change Your Life” series is all about the decision to make the change, and your motivation for it.

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

The motivation to change.

The first step is the realisation you have to make changes. This can be as a result of imposed change, or because you desire better and choose to change.

Your motivation for change is important, in the longer term results you achieve from the change process. If you desire something new or better from your life, that will attract the result of the change towards you far more than something which is just pushing you off your previous path.

If your employer is actually in trouble, you could see it as being forced to change, and go look for another similar job. That is called “AWAY” motivation, just getting away from something you don‘t like, or fear – unemployment in this case.

If you change your attitude towards it, you begin your job search early to look for a new career opportunity of your choosing, seeking the stability, financial rewards, personal challenge and satisfaction that actually makes going to work a pleasure! That is a much more attractive, powerful and inspirational motivator than just looking for any old job that is available.

Knowing what you want.

The next part of the process is in knowing exactly what you want. Without clarity, you can search aimlessly and perhaps miss the perfect opportunity, because you didn’t recognise it.

How do you know what you want?

When you are choosing a new life direction, choose one you are passionate about.

If you don’t know what your passion is, invest in the Business Profits Program.

This PDF download is a simple, powerful and effective planning tool that begins with finding your passion. From there you can build a career, your job, life or even a business if you choose, around that passion.

How to change your life

Passion! Image from “What a Feeling” by Irene Cara

First, find your passion.

“There is no passion to be found playing small–in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”  – Nelson Mandela

The tools in the Business Profits Program will identify what you love about your life, what you are good at, and where you can focus to create a life that you love, doing what you are great at, and where you will be rewarded for it!

If you know someone else who is motivated and wants to learn how to change your life, please tell them about this powerful series. Any period of change is a time when we can use all the support available.

Til next time, fair winds and full sails.
Ray Jamieson

Next time: Acting on your decision to change

“Success is a decision, not a gift.” ― Steve Backley

Related Posts:

Passion

Self Development – Why Bother

 

Pandoras Box – can we close it?

Pandoras Box

Image from chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china; Guiyu, Guangdong province, (广东省贵屿镇) rivers and reservoirs have been contaminated, the villager is washing in a seriously polluted pond.

Pandoras Box

Prawns feed in seagrass,
Bream take the prawns,
Snapper takes the bream,
then to the dolphin they fall.
But hiding away is an insidious evil,
Mercury is lurking, killing them all.

A dolphin goes belly up and floats in the surf,
“Too much mercury” says one expert.
“Didn’t happen here,” says another,
Who cares where it happened, brother?
Just know that it did!
“It’s not our problem!”
Who are we trying to kid?

The dolphin told us the time is at hand,
To take a step back and look at our land.
Look at the stuff we pour down our drains,
Then we wonder, “Why all these pains?”

It’s really not hard to see why it is,
If we look to our fishes, our oceans and seas.
A solitary can lies in sand amidst coral,
Testimony to man, visiting Great Keppel.
Take him and flog him for this heinous crime,
For sullying God’s paradise with filth and grime.

His laziness is littered all over our shores,
Like pus, oozing from festering sores.
What’s the medicine, the cure, be quick,
“Get off your ass, clean up the grass,
Give the fishes something clean to drink!”

Who’ll put the lid back on Pandoras Box,
And seal it up tight with great big locks?
Is it too late for the fish in the sea?
Maybe for that dolphin,
but what about you and me?
Was our dolphin the messenger, a martyr for us,
To wake us, to clean up our mess?

If we could start again and rewrite the pact
With Mother Earth, our planet, an agreement to enact
To honour the fishes, the birds and the sand,
Would she still let us be custodians of this land?

© Ray Jamieson 1996

Pandoras Box

Image from chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china; In the Yellow Sea coastline, countless sewage pipes buried in the beach and even extending into the deep sea.

I wrote this poem after a holiday on Great Keppel, in the mid 1990s. The pollution around the amazing island of Great Keppel off the Queensland Coast infuriated me. However, more recently, something else raised my ire. It shouted that Pandoras Box is still wide open!

Pandoras Box

Image from teachoceanscience.net; drink can in a coral reef, just as I saw while diving off Great Keppel Island, on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef!

A scientist was warning of the threat of sea levels rising due to ‘global warming’. By the end of the century, sea levels may rise by 200 millimetres and threaten vast areas of coastal settlements. That’s true; if it happens it would be an issue for low-lying areas of settlements. However, it seems that in the 2 decades since I wrote this poem, little has happened to deal with the much greater threat of the poisons we are pouring into our waterways and oceans and polluting the great planet we call home! So what if sea levels rise, if all the fish in the oceans are dead or mutated?

Science seems to be evenly divided on whether the planet is warming or not. There is little genuine scientific evidence either way, as temperatures do not seem to have risen appreciably over this time, and for everywhere that claims to have had a rise in temperatures, somewhere else claims a fall. There are as many scientists expecting a mini ice age as there are a global warming outcome and frankly, history suggests it will cool before it warms again! After the Hockey Stick Fraud, the Himalayan Glacial Fraud and the Forged Email fraud, the IPCC credibility as far as global warming goes has been left in tatters. Neither has the anti-global warming side been able to conclusively prove scientifically that there is no threat! But it doesn’t matter!

Nothing matters while our oceans and rivers are still polluted! Pandoras Box is wide open!

In 2011 I wrote a blog The Hypocrisy of the Greens on this topic and specifically pointed out the pollution levels of rivers and marine ecosystems across China and South East Asia, because of the billions of people affected by this pollution. It has now got to the stage where 40% of the Asian seafood available in Australian supermarkets is tainted with pollutants that were outlawed decades ago, and with the levels of these pollutants making the seafood unfit for human consumption! However, for those living on the rivers and their floodplains and relying on them for their daily meals, 100% of their daily intake is of toxic food.

Outside of Asia, we have industrial areas all over the planet pumping chemicals into great rivers such as the Rhine, Danube, Thames, Mississippi and many more, each with a vast floodplain, and each supporting millions of people and massive ecosystems, either directly or indirectly.

Pandoras Box

Image from encyclopediadubuque.org; MISSISSIPPI RIVER BASIN WITH FLOODPLAIN AREAS IN RED

It’s up to the local people in every ecosystem, every catchment area, to clean up their own local waterway. Pandoras Box is wide open – can we get it closed again? Can we solve the problems we created through pollution of the planet, without getting side-tracked by petty arguments about whether the temperate will rise or fall a degree, or whether sea levels will rise or fall a few millimetres over the next few decades?

Pandoras Box

Image from lplmc.com.au; Clean Up Australia Day on the waterways

This takes discipline from everyone involved, people, communities and nations, over long periods of time. The problem didn’t occur overnight and won’t be solved by next week, if ever this Pandoras Box can be closed again.

If you want to develop your personal self-discipline, look at the program Life Change 90. On a daily basis, it will prompt you to take another step forward towards being all you can be, and if healing this planet is part of it, then more power to you. If this is you, download Life Change 90 and start making a difference today.

If you have a business that works towards healing the planet or any business at all, then you need all the support you can get. The Business Profits Program might be for you. Unless your heart is in your business, and your business is profitable for you, then you are probably part of the problem, not the solution. Download the Business Profits Program and empower your business and your life and make your efforts count towards the contribution that is needed.

If you know other people who care about the planet and wish to contribute to healing it, then please pass this message on. The world needs as many of its residents as possible on the task!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails.

Ray Jamieson

Recent Life Change 90 Blogs:

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Google Teenage Problems.

teenage problems

            Looking like the weight of the world is on her shoulders.                                                                                Image from visual photos                                                             

I AM SHOCKED!

Teenagers only have to focus on themselves – it’s not until we get older that we realize that other people exist.   Jennifer Lawrence

I was originally going to write about the most influential and positive role models of my early life, and did a little research on it. I looked for how many searches people did on the topic, and found that there were only 30 searches (globally) for that exact search and around 3,000 for that topic in general.

However, in the same search program, which brings up “related topic searches”, I also found:

Search topic                                        Exact match                     Broad match

positive role models for teens                   10                                   100
positive role models for teenagers           30                                   270
positive role models                                   720                                 18720
positive role models for girls                    70                                    630

However, the search also found:

troubled teens                                              4400                            171600
teen depression                                           9900                             386100
teen pregnancy                                            49500                          1930500
teen pregnancy help                                   590                               14750
teenage problems                                       6600                             257400
teen issues                                                   2900                             113100
teenage depression                                    8100                              307800
teen suicide                                                 18100                            705900

teenage problems

Not necessarily a good role model either! Image from belfasttimes.co

What is this saying about what is really going on with teenage problems?

There are more searches each month globally for “Teen Suicide” than there are for all the positive searches for good teen role models! There are so many more people seeking solutions to the teenage problems, than there are seeking positive ways to prevent the problems!

That lifts the scab on the huge issue of teenage problems. I confess, until I saw this, I didn’t realise the incredible depth of the teenage problems issue, even though I have written about the topic in general previously in my blog on “Empowerment for Teens”.

What is needed, obviously, are many more positive influences and role models for children and teenagers, to influence the growth and development of our youth so that these teenage problems are prevented – rather than becoming teenage problems needing treatment!

We can all play a role in this – literally! Are you a good role model for youth? Do you lead with an example that you would be happy your children could follow? Or would you be concerned if your children did as you demonstrated, but not as you said?

Children learn by example and follow the leads given by their most powerful influences in those formative years. Those potentially positive influential people are firstly, their parents, family friends and especially friends of their parents who they see regularly, and their teachers. They are also greatly influenced by what their own friends and peers do and say – mostly learning their habits – good or bad, because in the early stages of learning at least, they still don’t know the difference!

teenage problems

                                                  Peer groups – they can make or break a teenager!                                                   Image from tagesthemen24.de

How can we break this cycle of teenage problems?

Who were the most influential people in your early years? What did you learn from them? What can you still learn from them, on reflection?

Let me tell you of a few influences of my early years, to explain what I mean.

Aside from my parents’ influence, we had a family friend called Dennis. He was an amazing guy and a lot of fun to be with. He met my Dad when I was around 4 or 5 years old, when we were having some construction work done on the farm. He was a friend of the builder, and Dad and Dennis hit it off. He often came up to do a bit of spotlight shooting after this, and that was when we met his wife, Norma.

Norma was a paraplegic. She had been wheelchair bound since around age 18, when a car accident changed her life. She and Dennis were sweethearts at the time and he never left her side. They married and were fortunate to have a child. Dennis was a man’s man, worked as an electrician in the steel mills at Port Kembla, but was also a devoted husband and father, with strict personal disciplines and moral standards that he lived by. He set an example that has stayed with me for all of my life.

When Norma died, I was about 16. She and Dennis had become part of our family, even though they lived 200 miles away. It hit us hard, but Dennis was our strength through it all. He is still strong and courageous, well into his eighties now. He remarried and shared a wonderful relationship with his second wife until recently when she also passed away, again leaving him alone. I spoke to him about his loss and he was shaken, although still his wonderful, compassionate self. I thanked him for the example he had set me for my life to aim for, and he was most humble. He said it was just a day at a time and his aim was to make each day count. Dennis, you certainly did – your days and mine also. Thank you.

Teachers can have a huge influence on the enthusiasm and appetite of youth for all things exciting and perhaps forbidden. No one knew this better than the other major influence in my early years, that of John Stanley Gabb, the wool classing teacher and registrar of the Cootamundra Technical College. He was only a small man, and his uniform seemed to be a white dustcoat and shiny black shoes, over a shirt and tie. He was always well-groomed, probably around 40 years of age when we met, and I was 15.

His class was about a dozen unruly farm teenagers who were ostensibly there to learn to class wool, so they could handle the shearing season on their own farms. However, living miles from town and company meant these guys were also out for a day off the farm, to play up and create merry hell wherever they went before, during and after the class. John Gabb was equal to the task.

Big John Clark was a great example of the students. He would stand up near the front of the room, one foot on the chair seat, elbow on his knee and told jokes non-stop for as long as he was allowed, never cracking a smile, never pausing and knowing that the rest of the room was unable to draw breath for the laughter. But John Gabb was able to judge exactly when was the right time to intervene and say “OK, Guys, let’s give that a break and work on what we are supposed to be doing.” Always firm, but never authoritarian, and always respected.

Respected so much that when these boisterous teens had trouble, he was also the one they went to for advice. No, he wasn’t their agony aunt, but he was a great first step in the process, usually before the boys told their parents the problems they were having. Over the four years I knew him, these informal chats prevented probably half a dozen major episodes of teenage problems that I knew about. He also had other classes and there were a few hundred students at the college, whom I never met. However, he made it his business to know them all, and be available to them.

Twenty years later, I went back to Cootamundra to find John Gabb, and he had retired. As it happened, he retired to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, only an hour’s drive north of where I lived. I was running my seminars at the time and made it my business to call in to his home, to thank him personally for the influence he had in my life. I did not realise during my time at college how powerful he was. It was only a decade later when I faced certain challenges that his lessons, teachings and examples were the ones I used to pull me through. As I began writing my seminars, teaching and lecturing from the stage to quite large groups of people, I realised how much of his influence was still coming through.

That’s the thing about solid foundations and good principles, they are right and correct, down through the ages. John Stanley Gabb was influencing young people still, all around Australia, through my work, twenty and thirty years later, as he sat in his lounge room up on the Sunshine Coast. When I met him again, his welcome was warm. When I told him what I was doing, and thanked him for the powerful influence he had been in my life, his eyes teared over and he thanked me for telling him.

People such as these are the ones who really make a difference. I know that I could have had serious teenage problems if not for their influence. I was as wild and strong-minded as any other teen, perhaps more than most, but I had great role models in these people, as well as the examples set by my parents. I was fortunate. It seems so many more kids are not, or there would not be so many searches for teenage problems on Google!

Again, I ask you, are you a suitable role model for your children, and those of your neighbours and friends? Or will those children be searching for “teenage problems” on Google as well?

teenage problems

       Are you a good role model for her to follow? Image From strategylab.ca

If you are happy that you are being all you can be, as a role model for today’s youth, then I congratulate you. If you feel you could do more, then may I recommend a look at Life Change 90?

You already know you CANNOT TELL children and teenagers how to act and behave. That’s just an invitation to rebel against you and everything you stand for.

Rather, demonstrate in your life what they aspire to, with the love and satisfaction they also desire, through knowing and using the tools available to them also and which you will not only learn, but develop as habits through Life Change 90. Show them what they want to see and let them know it is available to them also. Join me in Life Change 90.

Few things are more satisfying than seeing your children have teenagers of their own.    Doug Larson

Til next time, fair winds and full sails,

Ray Jamieson

You have teenagers thinking they’re going to make millions as NBA stars when that’s not realistic for even 1 percent of them. Becoming a scientist or engineer is.     Dean Kamen

Related Blogs

Empowerment for Teens

Empowerment for Children

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for Women

Success Habits

RISK

#Risk

Hanging on with…..?
Image from timsstrategy.com

Risk

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.”  ― William G.T. Shedd

Many years ago, I owned a farm in Southern Queensland, Australia and ran an earth moving business from it.  One of my team was Tracey, a great guy who rode a Triumph motorcycle, had long hair down to the middle of his back, and absolutely adored his wife Rhonda and their two little girls.  He was a real wag and I loved working with him.  And he could drive bulldozers! Very important in our game.

The first Tuesday in November in Australia we are plagued with the Melbourne Cup, a horse race run in Melbourne where the prize money for the winners is obscene but it’s still just a horse race.  The whole country virtually stops for the day, to let the horses race – it’s an institution!

Tracey said to me: “Having a bet today?”

I replied “No, not today.”

He asked: “Don’t you have a bet sometimes?”

I answered him, “I just bet $50,000 on buying us a new bulldozer; does that count?”

“Never thought of it that way” he said and we went back to work.

#Risk

My new  Earth Mover!
Image from olm-macchine.it

“A bend in the road is not the end of the road…Unless you fail to make the turn.” ― Helen Keller

What is risk?

Risk is when you stick your neck (or wallet) out for something you think you can win, but it is not guaranteed.  Like my bulldozer bet.  My business needed a new, more powerful and versatile machine so I chose what I thought would handle the work I had coming in, and the risks I took were that it was the right machine for the work, and that there was enough work to make the investment worthwhile.

Recently I was sent an email with the dubious title “Just wondering…are you a risk taker?”

The email went on to dare me to invest $25 (not much, really) to get an unspecified gift worth $1,000 plus a supposed money-making blogging platform.  After all, it’s only $25.  How could I go wrong?

When I invested/took a risk of $50,000 on my bulldozer, it was the equivalent value of five new family cars at the time.  That was a risk, but not a gamble.  I’d calculated the odds, weighed up the work I had and the amount of enquiry I was getting and took that risk.  The risk was worthwhile.

If I invest any money at all on what someone else has calculated to have a value, it was THEIR value they used to invite me to take MY risk, then I risk wasting 100% of my money.  The possibility is that their $1000 value is not worth a cracker to me, if I don’t need or want the unspecified item they are ‘giving’ away.  The blogging platform may be a scam or just plain worthless.  Since then, I have been bombarded with more and more emails, up to 3 times daily, trying all sorts of ways to entice me to part with that $25.  If that is what the blogging platform requires, then it’s a safe bet I’d waste my money.  That is called discernment – or assessing the risk/reward potential. This $25 ‘risk’ I had been dared to was nothing more than a bet, a gamble I was almost sure to lose on!

#Risk

Risk Vs Reward – Calculate the risk and prepare for it!
Image from 1000lifelessons.com

To live is to risk!

People and in fact all living creatures have an inbuilt survival instinct – in other words, they fear for their lives and have this survival program running to protect it.  We jump out of the way of moving cars, avoid heights, wild animals, spiders and snakes and so on, because of this anti risk program we have running.  Rather than risk death, we aim to stay alive.

“The only safe thing is to take a chance.”   ― Elaine May

To love is to risk!

Is this the right person for me?  Am I worthy of this person?  Can I handle a relationship?  Will I be hurt?  Will it last?  These are all the questions our risk monitors race through our minds when we fall in love, or there is even the chance of it.  Is this worth the risk?

“There is no intensity of love or feeling that does not involve the risk of crippling hurt. It is a duty to take this risk, to love and feel without defense or reserve.”   ― William S. Burroughs

#Risk

Is it worth it? Absolutely!
Image from pessimistincarnate.blogspot.com

Being yourself is a risk!

Will I be liked?  Will I be accepted?  Will I ‘fit in’ with the group?  Perhaps this is the risk that people are most frightened of, and why fashion and fads are so powerful in societies.  We are conditioned to believe that we are not quite right – perhaps the “Original Sin” conditioning, and that we need to be something else in order to be accepted by everyone else.  People are so anxious to ‘conform’ to someone else’s idea of what is ‘right’ or ‘in’, that they are frightened of just being themselves, yet it is what and who we are most qualified to be.  No other person on the planet can be YOU as perfectly as you can be!  Being outstanding is the key to success, yet it is what terrifies most people the most!

#Risk

Being yourself is different enough!
Image from rachelslookbook.com

“So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?”   ― Hunter S. Thompson

Why do we fear these risks?

Low self-confidence – the fear that we will not perform to the desired standard, and low self esteem – the fear that others will not like or value us, are the two beliefs that anchor us in fear of being ourselves.  We fear taking the #risk because we feel we may not perform or may not be liked for trying to perform.  Our need to be accepted and liked overrides our desire to succeed, or even try to succeed.

The antidote to this fear of taking a risk is a #personal empowerment program that delivers #self-confidence and #self esteem to you, in small doses, daily, continually, building your confidence and self esteem to the levels where you can walk confidently out into the world, just being you.  And proud of it!  Knowing that whatever risks you choose to take on you will succeed at. And feel great about!

“Happiness is a risk. If you’re not a little scared, then you’re not doing it right.”   ― Sarah Addison Allen, The Peach Keeper

Does such a self confidence and self esteem program exist?

Yes, absolutely, and it delivers much more than self-confidence and self esteem.  Confidence is built on repeated experiences of success.  The Life Change 90 program teaches goal setting and how to set small goals each day, as part of a larger goal getting program.  Each little goal you achieve is a confidence boost.  More than that, you learn to harvest the lessons from the day, find where your shortfalls are and work on improving any that matter to your success.  Communication skills, financial management skills, unlearning bad habits and installing new habits, all ticked off at the end of the day, to give you that feeling of “I DID IT!!!”  Daily tutorials hone in on specific areas and build from month to month to enhance your education in life skills, stress management, health, and personal empowerment generally in all areas of your life!

#Risk

What she said!
Image from bpw-lakegeneva.ch

How do I receive this new personal empowerment?

Small, daily inputs, a few minutes each morning and evening.  Reading the tutorial each morning will take a couple of minutes, reviewing your goals and To-Do list, checking off your gratitude list and setting your affirmation a few minutes more, and you are ready for the day!

In the evening, check off your goal achievements, lesson for the day, expenses and income and a few minutes on your journal, and your program is complete!  This is your personal empowerment program in full.  For investing these few minutes a day, you receive a very healthy boost of self-confidence and self esteem, wisdom and experiences consolidated by your reviews, elimination of bad habits and installation of new desirable habits, and your goals and dreams are delivered to you, a step at a time, day after day!

“Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others … Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.” ― Katherine Mansfield, Journal of Katherine Mansfield

What is the risk?

The risk is that you will get the program and do nothing with it.  That’s why you will receive these blogs, week after week after week, a little pep talk, some further education in specific areas and a reminder of how powerful you could be, by living this program as though it was your life.  The truth is, it can change your life and in the next 90 days, your life could be incredibly enhanced by it!

Take a look at the program HERE and start right now!  The change you could make is the one you were searching for when you began reading this article!

If you feel this article has boosted your belief that you can become all you were meant to be, all you ever dreamed of being, and feel good about being YOU, then there are others who need to know this feeling too!  Please share it, email the link or reblog it to your friends and anyone else who you think may benefit from reading it.  They will thank you too!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails!

Ray Jamieson

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”   ― Theodore Roosevelt, Strenuous Life

Please also refer to my other posts on #Empowerment, to assist you with your specific challenge.

Integrity, Spirituality and Empowerment

Financial Empowerment

#Risk

Being yourself
Image from inspirationalquotesb.blogspot.com

An Angel Without Wings

#Angel

A whole city of Angels!
Image from swotti.com

“If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels.”
― Tennessee Williams, Conversations with Tennessee Williams

An Angel Without Wings.

God is forever creating new Angels.

One day some time ago, he finished another Angel – but was having a bad day and forgot to give her wings.

“Darn it!” he thought.  “Well, I won’t put her back.  I’ll give her extra serves of love and courage, a radiant smile and she can go to earth and be an Angel down there, where she won’t need wings.”  So he put her on earth, as a baby.

Earth was a harsh environment for the Angel baby.  Life kept putting obstacles in her way, challenges to solve and the burdens of other people to weigh on her also.  There always seemed to be something else to do, someone else to heal, to care for or to help.

“My Angels have a lot of work to do,” he told Saint Peter.

But with the extra love and courage in her heart, the Little Angel’s smile shone like a beacon through all her trials and tribulations.  She became an inspiration to those around her.

God said, “I will give her more to do.”  He sent more needy people her way.

Life’s ordeals and unscrupulous people took away all she had, her health, her marriage, her money and he thought, “Surely this will try her out!”

Her courage never faltered, still her smile shone and her love inspired those who knew her.

St Peter looked down and wept at what he saw!

“God!!” he cried.  “You can’t keep this up!  She has already done more by her example than many of your other Angels and raised her children to be like herself.  Her example inspires all in the world that see her.  Please ease her burden, so that she may freely work for you!”

“Perhaps, Peter, you are right.  I will think on it.”  God was pensive.  He stroked a whiskered chin with his thumb.  “I’ll tell you what I will do, Peter.  I will give her the love of a wonderful man, surround her with true friends and shower her with peace of mind and satisfaction for what she does.

Maybe in the future her burdens will ease – but right now, My Little Angel Without Wings has much to do.”

#Angel

WWII Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel in Papua New Guinea, assisting an injured Australian soldier. Angels come disguised in so many ways!
Image from en.wikipedia.org

“For truly we are all angels temporarily hiding as humans.”
― Brian L. Weiss

There are many angels without wings, just like this one.  You know who you are, Dear Angel.  You know when you are an angel to someone who needs you, someone whose challenges need some extra attention and you can give it to them, even though your own troubles and challenges almost overwhelm you.  You know so many people count on you and you just have to be there for them.  Take a bow – you are not alone!

#Angel

An Angel at work!
Image from humanrights.gov.au

But you feel alone, Dear Angel, so much of the time.  You feel like the pain you bear will overpower you.  You feel like the isolation your situation causes will bury you in loneliness.  You feel like no-one else would understand your situation, even if you knew how to explain it to them.  And yet you keep on. And you keep praying.  Because that’s what an Angel will do.

More power to you.

This world has need of an angel like you.  We need more of you, many more of you.  If I could create the “Angel without Wings Network”, you’d be in there, with all those other special angels without wings, helping each other and helping heal the world.

There is an Angel Network.  However, it doesn’t cater for angels like this one, or perhaps an #Angel like you.  You are an Angel in hiding, a secret Angel that only a few people know about and appreciate, unfortunately.

#Angel

Even Angels have bad days!
Image from fanpop.com

What I do know is that you, our Dear Angel, need help.  You need to give yourself the best possible chance of making it through this, and out to the bright spot on the other side.  And to do that, you need a loving and supportive environment around you.  You need encouragement, morning and evening, to keep going.  You need to see your achievements each evening, so you know your day has been worthwhile, valuable to someone and satisfying to you.  You need your own goals to aim for and to achieve, and you need to be taught how to rise to all the challenges that life is and will continue to throw at you.

Maybe we can help with that.  Everything you need is in a program created to empower people and Angels facing challenges, just like you may be.  The support, the positive encouragement, the education, motivation and inspiration each day, right here with you, every day.

Need a hand getting through life? CLICK HERE FOR ASSISTANCE!  Let us empower you to make it, no matter what life throws at you.  After all, an Angel without wings still should feel what it’s like to fly!

If you feel that this post has empowered an Angel, or made an Angel feel she could fly again, please share it, reblog it and pass it on to other Angels without Wings.  You know who they are.  Every angel should feel like they have another Angel to share with, and to fly to at times.  This could be your time to fly!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails, Angels!

Ray

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”
― Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version

Prayer for change

#prayer for change

Prayers count, no matter who prays!
Image from www.atotheword.com

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

A Prayer for Change

While looking at my blog today, I chanced upon a section of the dashboard I hadn’t noticed before.  It showed the search terms people had used most to find my blog online.  It shocked me to realise what it meant.

The two top terms were:

  1. Prayer for change in my life

  2. Empowered Person

If ever there was a cry for help, both these terms are screaming it from the rooftops! Prayer for change and seeking empowerment!

For two decades I have delivered life changing workshops and seminars all over my country on exactly these topics, and the cry has been the same:

“I expected more out of life than this, by now!”

#prayer for change

I expected more out of life than this, by now!
Image from www.sott.net

I have heard it from teenagers, from young disillusioned couples, from parents with teenage kids, and from retirees, who were struggling still, after a lifetime of struggle.  A #prayer for change, if ever there was one!

When we were in school, we were told, and probably you were too:  “Study hard, get good grades, get a good job and have a good life!”  Well, these people all followed those directions and by the time they came to my workshops, that is how they felt – ripped off!  It was a lie, and they had fallen for it!  And now, they have this prayer for change!

There’s nothing wrong with having a good education and getting a good job.  However, that’s not it – that’s just the start!  Your education continues and it’s a lifelong program you are enrolled in!  The school of life is never on holidays – it always has something to teach you!  The question is – are you ready, willing and able to learn?

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

For those people truly desiring change and empowerment, we have provided the Life Change 90 Program. Click here to learn more about Life Change 90.

For those people searching for a prayer for change, here is mine – click on this link for the whole blog:

Today, My Perfect Day

A day that I could begin by being of service to another, to start their day also with inspiration and love.

A day when I could plan and begin projects – dreams that could take all of my tomorrows to complete.

A day I would live as though it was my last, as though there would be no tomorrow.

A day when I would play the games I play to the limit,

To laugh as hard as I can,

To love as passionately as I am able,

To work and achieve to my capacity,

yet with time to rest and relax with my loved ones

until we are full of the love we have for one another.

A day when there is time to reflect,

To consider those whose fortunes have not yet been realised, as mine have,

To pray that they may be realised – soon.

A day which closes with a Prayer of Thanks to the Great Spirit and all the guides I have,

for watching over me through this day,

and to ask them to guide me through the next,

so that again someone might say:

“I’m glad that you came by!”

© Ray Jamieson 1993

#prayer for change

A pot of gold, after all?
Image from wordlesstech.com

For those searching for Empowerment, there is a whole series of empowerment blogs for you, everything from Financial Empowerment, to Empowerment for Men, Women, Children and Teens, and explanations on what Empowerment means and how to gain it!  The full list is below.

Thank you for your searches, and thank you for looking to Life Change 90 and our program for the answers to your prayer for change, and for your personal empowerment, in whatever form you desire it.  I hope we have helped you and you know that we will continue with our aims to empower many more people, in times to come.

If you feel this article has empowered and benefited you and you feel it could benefit the personal empowerment of other folks you know, please reblog it, share it with your friends and associates.  It might be the day you changed someone’s life for the better!  If that was that special person in your life, then congrats: you just changed your own life too!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails, and I hope your prayer for change is answered!

Ray Jamieson

Please also refer to my other posts on Empowerment:

Empowerment through Emotional Intelligence

Financial Empowerment

Empowerment

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for Women

Empowerment for Teens

Empowerment for Children

Personal Empowerment

What would an empowered man do?

Empowered by love

Personal Empowerment

#Personal Empowerment

Personal Empowerment – starting young!
Image from www.huffingtonpost.com

Personal Empowerment.

asinha97
You are responsible for your life. So why expect something to happen for motivation. Self motivation is biggest drive for self empowerment. Anil Sinha

 

I recently sat with a man who had asked me to write his biography, his journey from weighing 350 pounds (160 kilograms) back to 200 pounds (90 kg).  After he told me his story, I had a question for him.  First, here is his story, briefly.

He had told me that as he grew fatter, just from being a glutton and careless, he grew too big to do his ceiling insulation batt business – he couldn’t fit through the manholes into the ceiling cavity, so he sold that business and bought a security patrol business.  Then he couldn’t get in and out of the patrol cars because of his rapidly expanding girth, so he sold that business too.  Eventually he began selling real estate in a city office because all he had to do was stand (or sit) near the front door where people would walk by, and he could talk to them.

#Personal Empowerment

Something wrong with this picture
Image from nypost.com

However, the life changing chain of events for him began with the bicycle shop next door.  Sometimes he’d stand at his front door and chat to the owner of the bicycle shop, a former triathlete champion, and one day he asked him if he could try riding a bike, as he thought he might like to lose some weight.  Just making conversation.  The reply was that he didn’t stock a bike that would hold his weight!

Then he needed to run to the back of his shop again to the toilet, for the fifth time that hour, and the bicycle shop owner told him he needed to get ‘that’ checked out.  He already knew what his problem was.  The doctor told him after a few short minutes “You have chronic diabetes caused by your eating habits.  If you don’t lose 100 pounds this year, you won’t see next year!”  It scared him; he said those words felt like machine gun fire into his chest!

My question to him was: “If that doctor had not threatened you with your own death, at what point would you have decided you were overweight and needed to do something about it?”

His answer?  “I don’t know.  I never considered it!  I don’t know what it would have taken to have that amount of personal empowerment, to recognise my problem and deal with it!”

Personal empowerment is not a big deal.

#Personal Empowerment

A whale of a time!
Image from selfimprovementdevelopment.com

My definition for #personal empowerment is the willingness to honestly see yourself as you are, and to commit to making any changes you feel are necessary for your wellbeing, on any level, physical, mental, emotional or spiritual.

That just means that if you know you are not fit, you decide to change that and you do what you need to do, to become more fit.  If you have bad breath, you brush your teeth.  If someone tells you that your breath is bad, you don’t abuse them for being rude to you; you thank them for being honest with you and then you brush your teeth.

Being less than you can be, less than your human potential is a crime against yourself.  That doesn’t mean that you need to be training to be fit enough to run the next marathon.  It doesn’t mean you need to immediately begin to diet, or take any other radical steps.  It has nothing to do with vanity, and everything to do with your personal pride.  Look honestly at yourself. Ask yourself if you are the person you always wanted to be. If you can see how you can become closer to that ideal, then you need the strength to commit to making the changes that will get you there.

OK, I hear some howls of protest!  Personal empowerment?  I’m suffering from a chronic illness, I can’t do that!  I was in a car accident and my injuries won’t allow that!  I am overweight because I have a medical condition and the drugs affect me!

Relax.  The question is; are you being all you can be?  If you are ill, then you are ill and that will place limitations on you physically.  But how is your heart?  How is your spirit?  How is your mind?

Personal empowerment will take you from where you are in your life, to where you could be.  It’s not about being fitter, faster, smarter or better than anyone else, just being the best YOU that you could be.  Sometimes, personal empowerment is just being the best parent you can be, so that you can be an empowered parent for your children.  What this world needs probably most of all, is empowered people, who can be empowered parents, so that the next generation who are our children now can take over this world and continue to make it better and fix the mistakes we have made in getting it to them.

Personal empowerment is worth it.

But how do you get personal empowerment?

#Personal Empowerment

It’s the little things that count!
Image from mylifeismymessage.org

It’s easy.  Baby steps each day.  It’s not a massive shift, it’s just a few little success habits to get into each day, and then continue to do them every day!  Not hard at all.  You already have a number of habits right now, perhaps some that don’t serve you that you could replace, others that you definitely want to maintain.  Like brushing your teeth.  But add some affirmations and goalsetting to that.  Perhaps doing a few minutes reading of something positive each morning and evening – just a few minutes.  Perhaps setting priorities for your day, specific things that will actually advance you a little closer to your goals.  Perhaps at the end of the day, doing a review and seeing what you achieved, what you learned, what you felt, and checking off what you actually did.  If you started a new habit, check off that you did it, or didn’t – make yourself accountable.

Get into success habits.  Start feeling a sense of achievement for the little things, so that when the big things come up and real personal empowerment is needed to face those challenges, you have already been practising, you have the success habits in place, all you are doing is changing the goal……!  See?  Simple.

That is personal empowerment.  A program with all of this exists now for you to slip into your daily routine; you can get it here.  A few minutes morning and evening and it is done.

The bonus is that it teaches you lots of other cool strategies as well, such as communication skills, financial success tips, stress management and health tips, mental strategies, conflict resolution, goal setting and a whole heap more over the 90 days of the program.  That’s the few minutes of positive and empowered reading material, a couple of hundred words a day to get you on track with life changing strategies in every area of your life.  Personal empowerment was never so easy!  Start your personal empowerment program now! Click here to begin!

If you feel this article has empowered and benefited you and you feel it could benefit the personal empowerment of other folks you know, please reblog it, share it with your friends and associates.  It might be the day you changed someone’s life for the better!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails,

Ray Jamieson

Be ambitious towards your own personal enhancement.  Steve Mariboli

Please also refer to other posts on Empowerment:

Financial Empowerment

Empowerment

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for Women

Empowerment for Teens

Empowerment for Children

What would an empowered man do?

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