Posts Tagged ‘way’

December5

5 Ways to Recharge Yourself

By: Ririan

Admit it or not, at some point you have suffered from the disease to please doing things for everybody and never saying “no.” The problem is you may be neglecting the one person who needs you the most — YOU!

Here are 5 ways to recharge yourself:

1. Lighten up the burden of imposing high standards on yourself. Most often than not, these self-imposed high standard makes us cringe with guilt whenever we commit a self-nurturing act.

We create high expectations that are too difficult to meet, and when things don’t work out the way we planned it, we blame ourselves in the end. The fact is no one is capable of doing everything. We need no one’s

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Posted in: Self Improvement3 comments

November10

What I Have Learned in these Economic Times

By: Ririan

learnedeconomy
We hit an economic recession, a near depression was in view in September of last year, we have had government bailouts, a burst of the real estate bubble, a stock market crash, devaluation of the dollar and over 10% unemployment, these are the headlines of the last year. Hardly a day goes by when these headlines are not hitting us in the face, and while all of those are very real, the question is what really hits home for the average person? There is the old saying that when your neighbor loses his job you are in a recession, when you lose your job it is a depression, and I believe that. When someone has lost their job any economic advice is easy, cut back on everything you can and try like hell to get a job. It’s easy advice, and not always so easy to do. But the question is for those of us who still have jobs but are dealing with some very real consequences of this economic slide, how do we deal with it? I am not her to give economic advice, lets leave that up to the professionals, if you can even find one anymore. I am just here to share my thoughts on the issues, how I have dealt with some of the things I have been faced with.

The first thing that i have done is cut back, and that is the obvious place to start. Last fall and winter, during the economic melt down I was petrified, I had seen my retirement accounts fall by north of forty percent with no end in sight, I didn’t know if my job was safe or anyone’s job for that matter. So I would say from October through January I spent on nothing except my children and even that was kept to a minimal. But around February I realized living scared was no way to live at all, so we began to do things again. My wife and I went out to dinner, even to some of our favorite restaurants, but we scaled back, our dinners were less expensive and less frequent. For spring break we decided to take our kids away, but we went somewhere that was driving distance, and found incredible deals on the internet. This year the lease on my car was up, so I go a less expensive car to save more. My wife’s lease is up this year and we will do the same thing. I am very concsious of saving more money than i have in the past, I think for the first time in my life I was scared into believing that things will not always be good, and while I have always been a saver, I probably was not as careful as I should have been.

One of the big issues we have faced is our home, we our one of the one’s that is “underwater” in our house. The truth is the financing was so cheap and interests were so low we may have like many others bought more home than we could afford. Now, we didn’t do any 100% financing but I did only put down 10% on my home, the truth is we should have bought less and put down more. Also, we bought in 2006 near the top of the real estat market, and we did a seven year interest only loan. The good news is we have four more years of these payments before our loan becomes an adjustable mortgage. it was a big mistake, we should have bought with a 30 year mortgage at a payment we knew we could afford forever, but we fell into the trap of finding our dream home and over extended ourselves. Hopefully home values will go back up, and we our trying to save so that we can put more down if we need too, or that the banks will work with us. I don’t want to lose my home for several reasons. First, I believe most people want to make good on their debt, I gave a commitment to pay for something and if I can I will honor it. Second, although I was stupid in the way I financed the home my intention is to live here until my kids are grown and we retire, so we had a long term plan of twenty years or longer. Third, we love our house, it is our home, and I believe most people feel this way, they did not buy it as an investment first and a home second, quite the contrary, most people did it the other way. This is our home and we intend to keep it.

These are some of the issues that we have faced. Fortunately, although we lost a lot in our retirement plan it has come back quite away. We will be more prudent with it in the future, probably less stocks and more fixed income investments. We like many others hoped maybe our retirement fund would grow and maybe make us rich, we saw great returns for a while. Now, our goal is what it always should have been, to keep it safe and let us retire with it. Again, we our concentrating on saving more money, to get us through those so called “rainy days.” And finally, we are dealing with the issue of our home, that is our main concern but I believe that we can work our way through it. I have learned a lot the last two years, nothing lasts forever, when things are too good to be true they probably our. And most important, live within your means, not what is inflated, not by what you think you will be able to afford, but by what you know you will be able to afford.

Posted in: Featured, Money & Finance5 comments

October7

Burning Your Ships – How to Move On and Mean It

By: Ririan

Sometimes, we get stuck in a rut and carry on with our lives when we are unhappy. The goals and dreams of childhood have been set aside. They do get worn down with the daily grind. Everyday falls into a routine and we do not even have time to sit and think, let alone plan or remember anything that we were supposed to be doing. This happens especially when you have a family. The everyday tasks of looking after their needs take over – and probably rightly, take priority in your life while your own hopes and ambitions lie forgotten.

But what if you yearn to break free? It may be that when you first started your job you had a very different role or different surroundings and now you have become bogged down with administrative tasks and the job is nothing like it was when you started. Or it could be that you have just lost interest in what was once a fascinating subject and now you have extreme problems dragging yourself out of bed in the morning to go and face the awfulness of the day ahead. Or, it could be that you want to break free and work for yourself. Maybe you have had an idea, or your skills have now developed enough and you think you can face it alone. You can no longer get yourself satisfied and don’t need to keep others happy all the time.

Whatever the cause, one very good way to accomplish this – let’s face it – terrifying decision is to cut off your means of retreat. There is a famous historical precedent in that Cortez, the famous conquistador, burned his ships upon landing in Mexico to make sure that his men fought as hard as they could and had no way of returning to Spain until they had either won or died trying. In the same way, once you have made that decision, if there is absolutely no way of going back then you will not have any choice but to keep moving forward.

This, by its very nature, can not be a spur of the moment impulsive decision. It must be done with careful planning and lots of forethought. You must ask yourself some serious questions before burning any ships! If you quit your job today, how will you pay your bills? How will you and your family eat? Will you still be able to have a roof over head? Can you cut back and still live the same life or will you all have to tighten your belts for a while? These are highly individual and personal decisions and only you and your family know the answers here. But, if it all falls into place, then the next step is to brace yourself and just do it!

There are so many ways that this is the best policy. If you have a bad habit for example, having the policy to ‘just do it’ can break you of that habit for good. Just stop! Don’t even think about it any more. Burn those ships! You may find that it is the best thing you ever did!

Posted in: Self Improvement2 comments

September17

Busting Stress through Breathing Techniques and Meditation

By: Ririan

Busting Stress through Breathing Techniques and MeditationThe problem of stress has been around for as long as humanity’s existence and has been the culprit to most health issues – both minor and fatal. Incidentally, one very effective way to combat stress has always been around and handy, and this comes in the form of breathing.

Breathing techniques help calm both mind and body providing for total peace and relaxation, and these techniques make up the core of the stress-busting system we all know as meditation. Devoid of any religious or spiritual bias, meditation gets rid of both stress and fits of anxiety in a most natural manner and results in a perfectly balanced state of mind, body and spirit.

The initial step in going through the process of meditation is to make sure you get yourself a quiet place that is free from distractions. Next among your concerns will have to do with how you position yourself when meditating. Most practitioners have gotten used to the lotus position where you have your legs crossed while seated, with back straightened and shoulders even. If this works for you, then by all means use it.

Any alternative positions would be fine for as long as you keep your spine straight for the entire duration of your meditation. This way, internal circulation is made possible and deep and slow breathing comes easier. Relaxation is encouraged as a result.

As for getting to a relaxed state, you may tweak both your breathing and flow of thoughts to achieve this. For instance, while eyes closed you may focus on parts of your body one at a time, relaxing them until they feel totally limp before proceeding to the next body part. This method works even better when accompanied with slow, effortless deep breathing, at counts of four when you inhale and counts of eight when exhaling. Sticking to this rhythm helps facilitate getting to a relaxed, meditative state.

What’s good about meditation is that there’s no such thing as overdoing it. Because you wouldn’t need any gear, equipment or medicine for it, you can always meditate as often as you need or wish to. You can start handling your stress while not having to worry about side effects and similar things you could otherwise get when you pop pills. Stress and anxiety are usually gone with just 60 seconds of meditation, although going through it for about half an hour should be most beneficial.

Meditation as a potent and natural form of stress relief has been thoroughly studied and much have been documented about its effectiveness. It is not uncommon to hear of all those harmful biochemical byproducts of stress hitting low levels, if not altogether vanishing, through meditation. With brain waves getting fine-tuned to optimally relaxed levels, both heart rate and blood pressure are reduced and stabilized. No artificial stress-busting medication anywhere can produce positive results like meditation does without causing long-standing damage to the body.

Given all the favorable research results and testimonials on both breathing techniques and meditation, it is not surprising to hear of more and more people employing these methods to make their daily lives always relaxed and stress-free.

Posted in: Self Improvement3 comments

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