Thursday, November 27, 2008

Your Success: Obtainable or Sustainable?

Your Success: Obtainable or Sustainable?
By Deon Du Plessis

The desire to consistently improve your life is one of your most fundamental needs. That feeling that comes from knowing that everyday you are becoming more is part of your nature. Knowing that you are affecting and improving your environment through your own influence is immensely satisfying. It is a key ingredient in living a happy and fulfilled life. At some level we are al pursuing success of some sort. We are constantly looking for ways to have more, to be more and to gain more, thinking that once we have it all we will be happy and life will be perfect. Then, we can take it easy and relax and just enjoy life.

This way of thinking, this mindset, acts like a virus that can kill you. If not emotionally then spiritually. Our modern culture is filled with numerous examples of top achievers who seemingly have everything but they are deeply unhappy and constantly have to battle with the challenges within their own character. They fail to grasp the true purpose of success. From it's latin origin, the word success actually means o advance or o progress which implies that success is not something you get at the end but a process that has very little to do with the end result. From this point of view success is what will improve your life as it is what moves you forward to a better experience of life.

In their pursuit of a greater quality of life most people loose sight of the real reason why they actually want to be successful in the first place. It is never the hings but rather the way you believe these things will make you feel once you've got them. Your success will be either obtainable or sustainable. Most of your desires will be obtainable within your lifetime but this no guarantee that you will be happy and fulfilled. When you strive for collecting and accumulating hings you will experience very little fulfilment as you will always rely on something external to give you the feelings that you want to experience inside you; feelings that you believe will come from having what you pursue.

The real purpose of a goal is never to obtain something of material value but rather the qualities that you will gain as a person in your pursuit of the goal. For you to have success that is sustainable you must develop a new mindset; a mindset that focuses not on what you must do to get what you want, but on what you must become to attract that which you want. What you become is what you get to keep. When you shift your focus to developing your character, you can start to use goals and success as a means to an end instead of it being the end-all and be-all of life. You start to distance yourself from the need to have stuff in order to feel that sense of joy and fulfilment.

Knowing that you can be successful is not enough. You want the experience of success. You that feeling of success as a part of who you are as a person; as part of your character. When your success is obtainable, when you are able to collect the things, then your experience of success rarely lasts very long. There is no consistency in the experience. So often we see amazing success stories of young achievers that reach their all their goals in a short period of time, only to break down emotionally soon after. The reason is that they haven't learned the key to lasting success which is the ability to create success in your life that is sustainable. Sustainable success is inexhaustible. It is consistent and takes care of itself. With the qualities and attributes that you learned through the experience of pursuing your goal you are able to re-create any achievement as you are the source.

The concept of obtainable and sustainable success is best illustrated with Aesop's fable of the Goose and the Golden Egg. The goose as the source of the gold could consistently produce the gold, but the farmer out of his impatience and ignorance wanted it all and he wanted it now. So, he cut open the goose only to find out that there is nothing. The moral of the story is that you should nurture and develop yourself in order to sustain your happiness and success. If your focus is just on obtaining goals you will not get any more golden eggs as the real value is in what you become and how that makes you feel.

You can either obtain success or you can become it. The objective is the same but the mindset is very different. You can either get the hings that will make you feel successful or you can become the source of your own success and fulfilment. You want lasting results and this will only come from your ability to create and re-create, on demand, that what you whish to experience during your time on earth. Adopting the mentality of creating lasting success, of becoming sustainable, starts with realizing that true success comes from giving and not getting. In the giving lies the getting in that what you give away is what you get to experience and your experience is what you get to keep forever. Ultimately, to sustain anything you must give and receive for this is the very nature of growth and life itself. Success is a feeling and in making that feeling part of who you are, you will never be without success and you will never be left wanting anything outside of you.

Let go of your need to obtain stuff and focus on the experience of life and the emotional content of your life. Improve yourself by pursuing goals that will make of you the kind of person that manifest that which you want most. That which you obtain will eventually disappear and loose its value. That which you sustain will grow and expand and continue to increase the quality of your magnificent life. Obtainable success is static and like anything in nature that does not grow it will eventually die.

This article is published with the permission of the author, Deon Du Plessis. He is the founder of The Self Improvement Gym, and author (in)action, a groundbreaking new action guide on eliminating procrastination. For more of his in-depth insights into personal development and access to his free self improvement library visit http://www.The Self Improvement Gym.com

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Wardrobe Planning: Organized Style Saves You Time and Money

Wardrobe Planning: Organized Style Saves You Time and Money
By Stephanie Dray

Do you have a closet full of clothes and nothing to wear? Do you shop without really knowing what your wardrobe needs? Do you buy gorgeous separates and never wear them because you don't know how to work them into a stylish outfit?

Impulse clothing shopping can cost you hundreds of dollars a year in wasted spending. And that doesn't even count the time wasted trying to find something to wear to business meetings or other events. But how can you put an end to it without buying an expensive closet organizer or hiring a personal stylist? Here are some steps to get you started.

1. Plan Your Outfits In Advance. Use plain old paper and pencil, or a free clothing planner, and start jotting down outfits for events you're likely to attend this year. Your list isn't going to be complete overnight. It'll take some time, but this is a starting point. It will help you determine what you need to buy and what you already own too many of. Once you're done, it will help you dress on auto-pilot and save you time every time you need to get dressed.

2. Try Everything On. Approach this mission in baby-steps. Dedicate just fifteen minutes a night. Trying things on is the only way to give them an honest appraisal. Each item in your closet has its own quirks. Maybe it doesn't look as good as it did a few years ago. Maybe the shoulder pads are no longer in style. Perhaps it needs to be tailored. A good tailor can shorten sleeves, lengthen hems, or otherwise add flattering darts to give your garments a better shape. The point here is to give each item in your closet a chance to justify itself. And don't get discouraged. It's the clothes auditioning here, not you.

3. Declutter Your Closet. It's hard to find outfits to wear when you can't see what you own. When clothing is so tightly packed that you can't take it off the hanger without knocking three other garments on the floor, it costs you time and money. Time, because it takes you longer to assemble an outfit. Money because you probably keep buying the same pair of pants over and over again, not realizing you have three new ones already tucked away in the back of your closet. It's time to purge. If a garment needs to go to the tailor, put it in a bag and deliver it to your car right now. Don't let it sit in your closet for another year. If a garment needs to be mended, put it in a basket by your sewing machine. If you're not going to mend it, throw it in the rag bag and be done with it. Also, keep your junk clothes to a minimum. Everybody needs an outfit to paint, to garden, or to clean the house. But if you were to stack up all the stained and threadbare clothing you've been hanging onto, it's probably a larger collection than the rest of your clothing combined. Pick out your favorite comfy, just-for-home, outfits and send the rest to the rag bag. These items are robbing you of space and self-image. Out they go.

4. Take Inventory. Using your list or clothing planner, you can now identify gaps in your wardrobe. Business women typically lack sufficient casual wear for weekend outings. Stay-at-home moms tend not to have formal or business attire. Young women often forget to buy clothes for weddings or formal events. Planning allows you to see what holes need to be filled when you go shopping, and take advantage of the sales. It will also let you see if you have items that can be sold or donated. Many women do a thriving business on Ebay selling clothes that are lightly used, or have never been worn at all. You too can turn your fashion mistakes into cash.

We've all seen those women who dress as if style comes to them effortlessly. Well, maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. But following these steps, you can look like they do, natural or not. Remember, planning ahead will save you money and give you time to devote to the other passions in your life. Because fashion is important, but it's not everything!

Stephanie Dray is the author of Curvalicious and Living Large, a resource for plus sized women.

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http://EzineArticles.com/?Wardrobe-Planning:-Organized-Style-Saves-You-Time-and-Money&id=248018

Where Employee Training Fails Spontaneous Coaching for SelfDevelopment Can Help Your Company

Where Employee Training Fails, Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development Can Help Your Company
By Tayo Solagbade

The Need To Be Versatile

Anyone wishing to remain competitive, and relevant at work/in life must become what I like to call a Practical Learner. That is someone who continually seeks/adopts new (and appropriate) knowledge, attitudes and skills, so as to become more useful/valuable to herself and others.

Lets consider an analogy based on a popular sport - Soccer. Some players learn to use both feet equally well so they can play on either side of the pitch. Some learn how to play defensive, attacking (even goal keeping!) roles. They are often called Utility players.

Coaches love to have them in their teams because when tricky match situations occur, such individuals give the coach more options to consider in terms of substitutions to be made. For those individuals, you will notice that except when injured, they not only command a place in any team, but also often get into the starting line up! The reason: they fit in easily i.e. there is always a role they can play.

Now relate this to the workplace. Imagine a company having an individual with proven versatility in managing various processes, coupled with an ability to quickly settle into - and function efficiently in - virtually any role, even when it is in a higher capacity.

Add to all these a genuine interest in developing others around her to be equally as competent, if not better than she is. You get what could be called the Ideal Employee! Her boss is likely to consider her a most valuable asset, and will often readily recommend her for secondments, and promotions (she would have trained others to do her job, making it easy to be replaced)!

But how does one become like the kind of person described above? Is it in fact possible for one person to be like that? To both questions, the answer is yes. I am convinced that diligent application of Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development (SCfSD) techniques is all that is required. My conviction derives from over 7 years of successfully employing those same techniques.

Why Employee Training (Sometimes) Does NOT Work

You might wonder why I didnt mention Employee Training as a requirement for producing the Ideal Employee. Its because evidence abounds that sending people on routine training courses does not guarantee their workplace performances will improve.

Why? Among other reasons, it is because the decision to attend a course is often made for them and not by them. So they might not feel that course will equip them with the specific skills set they believe will help them improve. Consequently, theyll pay little attention during the course. Ultimately, the money invested is wasted!

To avoid this, decision makers in progressive minded companies now involve employees in deciding courses to attend. However, I believe even better results can be achieved by creating an enabling environment for people to want to develop themselves.

When people take responsibility for their own development, it means they are already motivated to deliver better results. You therefore have less worrying to do about getting them to do their jobs - to the required standard!

This not only costs less in the medium/long term, but also yields more sustainable results in terms of improvements in employee competencies.

Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development(SCfSD) : A Complementary Alternative

If you could learn how to help others around you grow and develop in such a way that you not only get their undiluted goodwill, but also consolidate YOUR own development, in a way that equips you to achieve accelerated career advancement, how fulfilled would you be? Very, is likely to be the answer of most career persons.

Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development(SCfSD) has two aspects:

A). Spontaneous Coaching

Spontaneous Coaching is a unique approach to coaching that is informal, often subtle and based on the coach's sincere desire to help others grow and develop to their full potential (regardless of who they are or what they do), in a way that benefits the organisation - and him/herself.

One major aspect of Spontaneous Coaching, that makes it different from traditional coaching is the use of what I call Multi-Dimensional Peer Pressure(MDPP) to effect positive changes in work-related behaviour in a person(s) being coached over time.

Another unique feature, is that a Spontaneous Coach will often be found willing to help a coachee resolve non-work related problems, as a means to stimulating improved work-related behaviour/performance subsequently in the coachee.

A summary of key features of Spontaneous Coaching is as follows:

i. Requires coach to have an innate desire to help others regardless of who they are/what they do.

ii. Typified by coachs willingness to help even if coachee is not aware, or does not express gratitude.

iii. Depends mostly on influencing by example from the coach or other adherents (re: MDPP).

iv. To successfully practice Spontaneous Coaching, you must LOVE (or develop LOVE for) empowering people to be their best without feeling threatened by their progress, EVEN when it means they could advance AHEAD of you!!

v. Most importantly, a Spontaneous Coach will engage constantly, as a matter of habit, in self-education relevant to achievement of his/her valued goal(s). S/he will actively seek to use his/her(and other people's) failures and successes as learning platforms on which to develop him/herself - and also use achieved learning to coach others. It is this quality that will ensure s/he remains capable of functioning successfully as a Coach to others.

B). Self-Development

.. the process by which an individual continually and intelligently - uses her own efforts, resources, knowledge and experiences (as well as those of others, voluntarily supplied), to improve her ability to achieve repeated personal or workplace successes - Tayo Solagbade

Peter Drucker, as far back as 1955, wrote in his book The Practice of Management, that development cannot be anything other than Self-Development. Among other things, he explained that for any organisation to take on the responsibility of developing her people would effectively be a waste of time because, that responsibility is the individual employees and no development would happen if the individual does not take up the responsibility to make it happen.

Read my article titled How to make yourself UNRETRENCHABLE! to learn more about other recognised and qualified authorities in the field of Human Resources/People Development who have acknowledged that Self-Development is the most reliable way to achieve significant and lasting employee development.

The concept of Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development(SCfSD) was developed by combining certain tested and proven Spontaneous Coaching and Self-Development techniques, based on their successful application in real-life workplaces.

SCfSD Will Benefit Forward Looking Organisations

It is my strong conviction that organisations of the future will be those in which the need for formal, deliberate training, and education through direct interventions by the organisation, for employees will drop significantly. Instead, concepts like Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development(SCfSD) which make it easy for employees to take control of their own development, in a way that ultimately benefits the organisation they work for, will be preferred.

Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development(SCfSD) can be independently applied by individual career persons to achieve dramatically improved workplace performances.

More importantly, decision makers in an organisation can learn how to use it to establish an alternative, cost-saving/self-sustaining system that perpetually empowers their team members to perform optimally in the workplace.

You can email a four page Acrobat PDF e-flyer on Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development(SCfSD) to yourself using the File Mailer web form on the Free Resouces page of my website.

Self-Development/Performance Enhancement Specialist Tayo Solagbade - works as a Multipreneur, helping individuals/businesses develop and implement strategies to achieve their goals, faster and more profitably. Download your copy of his 25 Articles Ebook from http://www.lulu.com/content/268555. You get full reprint rights for each article.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=TayoSolagbade
http://EzineArticles.com/?Where-Employee-Training-Fails,-Spontaneous-Coaching-for-Self-Development-Can-Help-Your-Company&id=178163

Where Employee Training Fails Spontaneous Coaching for SelfDevelopment Can Help Your Company

Where Employee Training Fails, Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development Can Help Your Company
By Tayo Solagbade

The Need To Be Versatile

Anyone wishing to remain competitive, and relevant at work/in life must become what I like to call a Practical Learner. That is someone who continually seeks/adopts new (and appropriate) knowledge, attitudes and skills, so as to become more useful/valuable to herself and others.

Lets consider an analogy based on a popular sport - Soccer. Some players learn to use both feet equally well so they can play on either side of the pitch. Some learn how to play defensive, attacking (even goal keeping!) roles. They are often called Utility players.

Coaches love to have them in their teams because when tricky match situations occur, such individuals give the coach more options to consider in terms of substitutions to be made. For those individuals, you will notice that except when injured, they not only command a place in any team, but also often get into the starting line up! The reason: they fit in easily i.e. there is always a role they can play.

Now relate this to the workplace. Imagine a company having an individual with proven versatility in managing various processes, coupled with an ability to quickly settle into - and function efficiently in - virtually any role, even when it is in a higher capacity.

Add to all these a genuine interest in developing others around her to be equally as competent, if not better than she is. You get what could be called the Ideal Employee! Her boss is likely to consider her a most valuable asset, and will often readily recommend her for secondments, and promotions (she would have trained others to do her job, making it easy to be replaced)!

But how does one become like the kind of person described above? Is it in fact possible for one person to be like that? To both questions, the answer is yes. I am convinced that diligent application of Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development (SCfSD) techniques is all that is required. My conviction derives from over 7 years of successfully employing those same techniques.

Why Employee Training (Sometimes) Does NOT Work

You might wonder why I didnt mention Employee Training as a requirement for producing the Ideal Employee. Its because evidence abounds that sending people on routine training courses does not guarantee their workplace performances will improve.

Why? Among other reasons, it is because the decision to attend a course is often made for them and not by them. So they might not feel that course will equip them with the specific skills set they believe will help them improve. Consequently, theyll pay little attention during the course. Ultimately, the money invested is wasted!

To avoid this, decision makers in progressive minded companies now involve employees in deciding courses to attend. However, I believe even better results can be achieved by creating an enabling environment for people to want to develop themselves.

When people take responsibility for their own development, it means they are already motivated to deliver better results. You therefore have less worrying to do about getting them to do their jobs - to the required standard!

This not only costs less in the medium/long term, but also yields more sustainable results in terms of improvements in employee competencies.

Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development(SCfSD) : A Complementary Alternative

If you could learn how to help others around you grow and develop in such a way that you not only get their undiluted goodwill, but also consolidate YOUR own development, in a way that equips you to achieve accelerated career advancement, how fulfilled would you be? Very, is likely to be the answer of most career persons.

Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development(SCfSD) has two aspects:

A). Spontaneous Coaching

Spontaneous Coaching is a unique approach to coaching that is informal, often subtle and based on the coach's sincere desire to help others grow and develop to their full potential (regardless of who they are or what they do), in a way that benefits the organisation - and him/herself.

One major aspect of Spontaneous Coaching, that makes it different from traditional coaching is the use of what I call Multi-Dimensional Peer Pressure(MDPP) to effect positive changes in work-related behaviour in a person(s) being coached over time.

Another unique feature, is that a Spontaneous Coach will often be found willing to help a coachee resolve non-work related problems, as a means to stimulating improved work-related behaviour/performance subsequently in the coachee.

A summary of key features of Spontaneous Coaching is as follows:

i. Requires coach to have an innate desire to help others regardless of who they are/what they do.

ii. Typified by coachs willingness to help even if coachee is not aware, or does not express gratitude.

iii. Depends mostly on influencing by example from the coach or other adherents (re: MDPP).

iv. To successfully practice Spontaneous Coaching, you must LOVE (or develop LOVE for) empowering people to be their best without feeling threatened by their progress, EVEN when it means they could advance AHEAD of you!!

v. Most importantly, a Spontaneous Coach will engage constantly, as a matter of habit, in self-education relevant to achievement of his/her valued goal(s). S/he will actively seek to use his/her(and other people's) failures and successes as learning platforms on which to develop him/herself - and also use achieved learning to coach others. It is this quality that will ensure s/he remains capable of functioning successfully as a Coach to others.

B). Self-Development

.. the process by which an individual continually and intelligently - uses her own efforts, resources, knowledge and experiences (as well as those of others, voluntarily supplied), to improve her ability to achieve repeated personal or workplace successes - Tayo Solagbade

Peter Drucker, as far back as 1955, wrote in his book The Practice of Management, that development cannot be anything other than Self-Development. Among other things, he explained that for any organisation to take on the responsibility of developing her people would effectively be a waste of time because, that responsibility is the individual employees and no development would happen if the individual does not take up the responsibility to make it happen.

Read my article titled How to make yourself UNRETRENCHABLE! to learn more about other recognised and qualified authorities in the field of Human Resources/People Development who have acknowledged that Self-Development is the most reliable way to achieve significant and lasting employee development.

The concept of Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development(SCfSD) was developed by combining certain tested and proven Spontaneous Coaching and Self-Development techniques, based on their successful application in real-life workplaces.

SCfSD Will Benefit Forward Looking Organisations

It is my strong conviction that organisations of the future will be those in which the need for formal, deliberate training, and education through direct interventions by the organisation, for employees will drop significantly. Instead, concepts like Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development(SCfSD) which make it easy for employees to take control of their own development, in a way that ultimately benefits the organisation they work for, will be preferred.

Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development(SCfSD) can be independently applied by individual career persons to achieve dramatically improved workplace performances.

More importantly, decision makers in an organisation can learn how to use it to establish an alternative, cost-saving/self-sustaining system that perpetually empowers their team members to perform optimally in the workplace.

You can email a four page Acrobat PDF e-flyer on Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development(SCfSD) to yourself using the File Mailer web form on the Free Resouces page of my website.

Self-Development/Performance Enhancement Specialist Tayo Solagbade - works as a Multipreneur, helping individuals/businesses develop and implement strategies to achieve their goals, faster and more profitably. Download your copy of his 25 Articles Ebook from http://www.lulu.com/content/268555. You get full reprint rights for each article.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=TayoSolagbade
http://EzineArticles.com/?Where-Employee-Training-Fails,-Spontaneous-Coaching-for-Self-Development-Can-Help-Your-Company&id=178163

Monday, November 24, 2008

Managing Time: Say No to Demands

Managing Time: Say No to Demands
By Yara Nielsenshultz

Persistent Demands

Everyone faces demands on their time. Some of those are legitimate. We all have responsibilities to fulfill. The problem starts when we begin to value other people's responsibilities more than our own time.

How does this happen? First, many people, particularly women, let their desire to be helpful outweigh their own priorities and needs. Second, people often fear they won't be liked or they'll be viewed as selfish or lazy if they say No. Third, some people fear that saying No will lead to confrontation, and they don't want to disappoint their colleagues/friends/family.

The Guilt Complex

When people do say 'No to demands on their time, the Guilt Complex can rear up, leaving them feeling unsure, selfish, and depressed. Unfortunately, many people play on this guilt complex to passively influence you to say Yes to demands on your time. As a result, you can become conditioned to say Yes until you find that you have no time left for yourself.

Value Your Time

No one is going to value your time until YOU do. Agreeing to other people's requests for your time devalues your time and emphasizes theirs. When faced with a request, ask yourself:

  • Will fulfilling this request energize me or deplete me?
  • Is the time I give to this request more important than the time I can give to myself?
  • Is fear (or guilt or another negative emotion) influencing my decision to accept this request?
  • How many other requests for my time have I accepted this week or month?
  • How much time do I have for myself this week or month? Will accepting this request take that time from me (or other, more important, people)?

3 Steps to Get Started Today

  • Stop saying Yes automatically. Pay attention to what you're feeling when faced with a request for your time and honor those feelings.
  • Take time to consider whether each request forces you to sacrifice time better spent elsewhere. YOU control your time -- make your choices wisely.
  • Stop feeling guilty. You have every right to control your time -- it's YOUR time and it's valuable.
  • If you practice these steps consistently, you'll start to escape feeling overwhelmed and stressed. And as you begin to honor your feelings and value your time, you'll begin to feel a renewed energy.

    Yara Nielsenshultz of Living Forward Coaching helps working moms find guilt-free time for themselves by helping them create, nurture, and implement an inspiring vision for who they want to be. Yara brings a unique perspective to coaching, encouraging clients to foster a Deliberate Imbalance(TM). Learn more at http://www.livingforwardcoaching.com/deliberate.html

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    http://EzineArticles.com/?Managing-Time:-Say-No-to-Demands&id=220007

    Sunday, November 23, 2008

    10 Time Management Tips for Busy Professionals

    10 Time Management Tips for Busy Professionals
    By Stephanie Chandler

    If you feel like your life moves faster than a Nascar race, youre not alone. We are living in a time where dual income families and single parent homes are the norm, a sharp contrast to the happy sitcom families we grew up watching on TV.

    So how do you get everything accomplished when there are only 24 hours in a day? The first step is to reprioritize. Does it really matter if youre house is immaculate? Does your family really need a 7-course meal on the table every night? Instead of spending time preparing an elaborate meal, wouldnt you rather use that time with your family or to catch up on some R&R for yourself?

    Regardless of how your priorities are defined, we could all use some extra time in the day. The following are some time management ideas that can help increase your productivity and improve the quality of your life. Try incorporating just a few of these ideas and see how it affects your life. You will be glad you did!

    1. Turn your email off. It may be hard to break away from your constant communication with the world, but if you check email twice per day instead, you will be amazed by how much time you save. Specify specific time frames during the day that you will devote to email and stick to your schedule.

    One Silicon Valley company recently implemented a No Email rule on Fridays. If you need a question answered, you have to pick up the phone or walk over to the person with the answer. While this may not always be the most productive solution, it drives home the point that we rely too heavily on email for our communication. When you stop letting it rule your life, your productivity will ultimately increase.

    2. Create email filters to send junk mail directly to the trash bin. With the latest version of Microsoft Outlook, you can right click on a junk message and add the sender to your Blocked Senders list, preventing any future messages from that sender from landing in your Inbox.

    3. Hire a Virtual Assistant to handle administrative tasks. VAs are remote office administrators who can handle tasks including large mailings, contact management and other office duties. They can be hired for a simple project or on an ongoing basis. To find a VA, visit the International Virtual Assistants Association.

    4. Get in the habit of using a To Do list every day. At the end of each day, make a list of items to complete the following day. This helps you put closure on the day so you dont leave worried about forgetting the tasks that await you tomorrow.

    5. Manage your meetings. Set expectations when beginning a meeting by announcing a cut-off time. You could say something like, I know youre busy too and I have another meeting at 3:00 so lets plan to wrap this up by 2:45. This not only keeps your schedule on track, but busy attendees will appreciate it as well. Keep an eye on the clock and stick to the time you have allotted.

    6. Get your filing system in order. Do you waste time looking for invoices or receipts? Create a file folder for receipts each month and simply drop your papers into each corresponding folder. This can also be useful later on when you have a question about a credit card expense from January. Simply pull out your January folder and voila- you have your information at your fingertips!

    7. Use pre-printed lists for supplies, groceries, etc. Make a list of the office supplies that you use regularly and post one on a bulletin board near your desk. Simply check off the supplies you need when you run low so you remember what you need to reorder. This system works well for groceries and household supplies too. Get your family in the habit of checking off items that are running low so you never again forget to pick something up at the grocery store.

    8. Use templates for repeat projects. Do you have a daily, weekly or monthly report to write? Do you spend time calculating figures manually that could be done easily in a spreadsheet? Create templates to reuse over and over again and minimize your prep time.

    9. Freeze leftovers. If you have a serving or two left of tonights dinner and you know nobody will want it tomorrow, put it in a freezer safe container and save it for lunch or a quick dinner option in the upcoming weeks.

    10. Designate a daily chore to everyone in your family. In previous generations, most kids worked for a living! Break your kids away from the video games for twenty minutes to help with garbage duty, dishes, vacuuming or taking care of the pets. Delegating one chore to everyone daily will lighten your load and keep your home organized and clean. You can even make a list or spreadsheet and rotate the chores or make it fun by offering a reward after everyone finishes.

    Dont forget the most important time management tip- make time for yourself. Youre no good to anyone if youre sleep deprived and miserable. We all deserve a little downtime, even if that means you have to schedule some time for yourself into your calendar each day. Your business, family and relationships will all benefit when your priorities are in order and you have balance in your life.

    ***This is an excerpt from 100+ Time Management Tips for Busy Professionals by Stephanie Chandler. For more information, visit: http://www.BusinessInfoGuide.com/timemanagement.htm

    Stephanie Chandler is the author of The Business Startup Checklist and Planning Guide: Seize Your Entrepreneurial Dreams! and the founder of http://www.BusinessInfoGuide.com, a directory of free resources for entrepreneurs. Sign up for the BusinessInfoGuide newsletter to receive hot resources and tips every month.

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    http://EzineArticles.com/?10-Time-Management-Tips-for-Busy-Professionals&id=11339

    Escaping the Illusion's Web Why You're Trapped in Your Current Life and How to Change It

    Escaping the Illusion's Web - Why You're Trapped in Your Current Life and How to Change It
    By Jean-Claude Koven

    If a genie suddenly popped out of a bottle and offered to answer to any question that has been troubling you, what would you ask? That was pretty much the situation posed to thousands of metaphysically oriented people recently when they were given the opportunity to solicit the aid of higher consciousness.

    Not surprisingly, the majority of the questions concerned personal predicaments. Here's a fairly representative example: I have been on a spiritual path for fifteen years. I am a vegetarian. I meditate and do yoga. I am a healer and am always offering myself in service to others. Why can't I have the perfect relationship? Please help me. Thank you, Mary.

    Mary is typical of the many Light Workers who responded. She feels stuck, disempowered, and more than a little frustrated by the condition of her life, and she wants (almost desperately) to find a way out. This presents a curious dilemma, for in the perception of higher consciousness, Mary's problem has already been surmounted - only she hasn't yet realized this, so she herself continues to perpetuate it.

    Within the laws of the illusion created by the Veil of Forgetting (the energetic barrier that separates each human incarnating on Earth from knowing who he or she truly is), problems arise purely out of preference. When you find yourself in a less than optimum situation, it is because the condition as you perceive it clashes with how you would like things to be. If you could look from a higher perspective, you would recognize the perfection of your circumstance, the great care and intent expended in its creation, and the lesson it offers for your growth. And you would realize that the answers you seek are already with you. But while this may be lovely theory, it has little value unless you can do it.

    It's always tempting to ask an expanded intelligence to intervene and fix the problem for you, but this also means giving your power away. Given the choice, wouldn't you prefer to learn how to resolve problems by yourself? There is a wonderful saying attributed to the Chinese: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. It is in this spirit that we offer the following information.

    The key to the solution is embedded right in Mary's question, hidden so cleverly in plain view that the questioner rarely sees it. Her question, like almost all the others we received, is centered on the pronouns I, myself, and me. Of course, you might think. After all, who else but I is experiencing the problem, and who else but I wishes to know the fix? Beware, however, of truths that seem self-evident. They often turn out to be glib but false axioms that you-like most humans experiencing the world behind the Veil - assume are immutable.

    As Albert Einstein delighted in reminding his associates, it is impossible to solve problems at the level of their creation. What this refers to is not the need for more intelligence and information but rather an increased awareness, or consciousness. It is simply another way of expressing one of the universal truths of Creation: What you see depends on where you're looking from. A problem persists only as long as the person experiencing it clings to his or her existing viewpoint.

    There is no area of conflict on your planet today - personal, national, or global - that is not rooted in this simple principle. One faction wages war against another only because of differences in the points from which they view. There is no objective right or wrong; there is only perception. The solution is not compromise, for compromise can cripple the spirit and most often results in mutual dissatisfaction and covert resentment. Resolving the issue requires that both parties let go of their personality viewpoints (expressed as belief systems) and rise above the level of conflict to meet in a new field where both are seeing in a new way.

    It is the same with an individual's problems. Therapy and processing only help you adjust to what is an unpleasant circumstance. The real solution is to let go of the viewpoint that keeps you stuck and expand into a greater level of consciousness.

    So, you might ask, can I become more conscious? The response is Yes and no. Why such an evasive answer? Because the question holds the very glossed-over, self-evident assumption that lies at the heart of your difficulties. Which I are you speaking about? If you think there is only one, then there is much to reconsider.

    Despite what you think, the I that you know yourself to be is not a limited, fixed entity. Rather, it extends from your lower egoic self (the part that identifies with your day-to-day experiences) through your soul self to God. In all Creation, there is in fact only the One manifesting itself in infinite expression, of which your little I is a wondrously significant part. Imagine that the total you is an infinite continuum of I's - similar to the way the light spectrum emerges from infrared at its lowest portion and extends through the seven visible colors until it disappears once again into ultraviolet. When you use any first-person pronoun (I, me, my, we, our) to refer to the totality of yourself (or yourself plus another), you unconsciously limit your focus to the red (lowest) portion of the continuum, dismissing all the other colors. This is precisely the part of you that created the problem and now has fallen victim to it. The higher aspects of your being - the points of view from which your dilemma would resolve in the twinkling of an eye - are out of the equation.

    What you experience when you perceive yourself in the throes of a problem is simply radical separation-disconnection from the knowledge of who you really are. To resolve the issue, all you need to do is reconnect with who you really are. Paradoxically, however, in order to intentionally connect or unify you must first intentionally disconnect or separate.

    The first lesson: Objectifying I

    The first lesson of this message, then, is creating intentional separation. This lesson consists of three simple exercises. The first is relatively easy: simply rephrase your question, substituting your given (first) name for the pronoun I or me. For example, you might be asking: I am a caring person who loves to serve others; why am I unable to attract the perfect man into my life? Rephrase this as: Why is Mary (to use our earlier example), who is a caring person and world server, unable to attract the perfect man into her life? This instantly creates parallax, a second point from which you can simultaneously view. Incidentally, that is how your eyes - separated by a mere 2 1/4 inches - create the illusion of depth.

    By re-asking your question in the third person, you not only create a first level of separation from the I that appears enmeshed in the problem, but you invite in a host of other parts of you (different lower subpersonalities and higher aspects of your I-continuum) to comment or offer suggestions. Your many other I's place at your disposal both different perspectives and varying amounts of awareness or consciousness, depending on their roles in your life and their place on the spectrum.

    Are you any of them? Again, yes and no - depending on which aspect is asking the question. Each of them is a part of you, but you are far more than the sum of these parts. In fact, the essential you is none of them, just as the orchestra conductor - though indispensable for unifying the performance of a seventy-piece orchestra - doesn't play a single note.

    Unless you disengage from the dominant subpersonalities that have run your life since you were a toddler - that is, until you see that they are a part of you but the essential you is none of them - you can't create a sturdy and reliable enough foundation to carry out the mission you came to Earth to perform. Too often, people take up lives of service who cannot successfully tie their own metaphoric shoelaces. That's like an artist seeking extraordinary new ways of expression before being thoroughly grounded in traditional technique. Consider Picasso, for instance, who began his artistic life painting in the classical style before departing into the fanciful worlds of cubism and other innovative abstract interpretations.

    The second exercise in this lesson is about exploring why you are facing this particular problem. What if this situation was created specifically for you? What are you supposed to learn from it? Is it part of a recurring pattern? But as you contemplate these questions, use your name rather than I. For example: Why is the universe going to such great lengths to deny Mary the perfect man in her life? Is there something Mary isn't seeing or is unwilling to look at? Has this happened to Mary before, in other ways?

    Do not rush this exercise by accepting the first convenient answer that pops into your mind. Instead, hold the inquiry in your mind as you go through the day. It will work as a filtering lens that attracts and sorts information in a most extraordinary manner. Synchronous events will occur that provide important insights, expanding your Awareness in unforeseen ways. You may also begin receiving powerful dream messages that will shed further light on what you are coming to understand.

    After completing the first two exercises in this lesson, move on to the third: linking your problem to the realm of archetypal patterns. This works like a cosmic trampoline, propelling you out of the level of the perceived problem into the universal arena of archetypes. Restate your problem on a universal scale. For example: Why are so many world servers like Mary blocked from attracting their perfect mates? This removes the little I from the equation entirely. Now you can revisit the drama of your problem and observe its energetic patterns from a universal perspective. The profit of this exercise is nothing short of magnificent. Not only does it allow you to move past your own blockages, but you'll also appreciate how you, and so many others like you, got ensnared by this particular part of the illusion.

    These exercises are to be done quietly in your mind - they are not about referring to yourself in the third person as you speak to others. It is best to set aside a sacred place and time to meditate and use conscious breath work to focus on your three exercises, moving to the next only after the previous one has borne fruit. This will set up the process that allows answers to percolate.

    The second lesson: You and the universe from a higher perspective

    The second lesson of this message is more of a challenge for us to deliver. We are bound by the Law of Free Will to not give you definitive information that would cause you to change your thinking or take action based solely on our words. Yet you have offered such a collective plea to know why so many humans - especially the Light Workers, Starseeds, and Wanderers who came to serve - are experiencing major challenges right now that we would be refusing the expression of your Free Will if we did not respond.

    Let us simply say: You are not who you think you are, nor are your planet and its solar system what you think they are. You see yourself as biochemical entities, possessing minds and varying degrees of consciousness. By and large, you still act by the herd instinct, seeking consensus and the comfort of like-minded viewpoints. This has further separated you from each other by dividing you into collective identities such as religion, nationality, sex, race, profession, social and financial status, and scores of additional markers.

    You also perceive yourself as masters of an inanimate planetary sphere over which you, by sanction of divine decree, have the right of ownership and exploitation. The Earth's sister planets appear to be merely inert pieces of rock, ice, and gas with only remote possibilities of harboring rudimentary life. And space is nothing more than a near-empty vacuum through which solar systems and their mother-ship galaxies hurtle away from each other at blinding speeds as a result of a big bang that occurred some 13.7 - 20 billion years ago.

    You believe all this because you cling to a reality that you can observe and measure. The visible dimensions of your world prove that objects and people are separate from each other and that they exist in a linear, cause-and-effect world within discernable fields of space and time. This is the universe as observed through the distortive filters of your illusion and from behind the Veil of Forgetting. It is not the universe we perceive.

    For us, time collapses into the infinite instant, and space is merely the implicate of separation, which dissolves with the realization of the Law of One. But presenting information to you in such terms is like a theoretical physicist delivering a lecture on advanced quantum mechanics to a nursery school playroom. We say this not in condescension but to underscore the difficulty of using the linear reality of words to describe phenomena that lie outside their realm. The best we can achieve is an approximation close enough to trigger a dormant memory. You will know if this message is meant for you. If it is not, feel free to ignore our words entirely.

    From our perspective, all Creation is conscious. It is not that God (to use that term in the broadest sense of All That Is) is in all things. God is all things. There is nothing manifest or potential which is not God. When you perceive an object or formulate a thought, you are encountering or producing a point of Creation where the Love/Light energy has been sufficiently slowed or focused to assume manifest expression.

    If you extend this concept to embrace the entire vastness of the universe, then galaxies and solar systems, comets and asteroid belts become simply portions of space in which the consciousness of spiraling Love/Light has become manifest. There is no such thing as empty space - all of creation is infused with consciousness. It does not have to be made manifest in order to exist. In fact, the areas where the concentration of consciousness is greatest, at the center of every galaxy, are invisible. (Your scientists call these black holes and mistakenly attempt to explain them solely in physical terms.) Nor is space homogeneous. That is to say, it is not the same throughout. There are vast fields of concentrated energies radiating from the central sun (the black hole) at each galactic center that extend out into space like gigantic spokes. Taking your Milky Way galaxy as an example, all 100 billion stars that make up this particular cluster, together with their attendant planets, sweep through these energetic beams at predetermined intervals.

    Your solar system is no exception. When you move through one of these fields, extraordinary events always occur. This is precisely what has caused all of the unexplained sudden evolutionary shifts on Earth. Your scientists will never find the so-called missing link between ape and man because there isn't one. The shift occurred suddenly as the DNA of a lesser species jumped to a higher configuration. There are many little-reported experiments by your scientists that can replicate this feat in the laboratory.

    This not an argument for creationists over evolutionists, because both of them are equally right and wrong. What neither of them has appreciated is that God is all things. There is no part of Creation that is not conscious - no matter how inanimate or insignificant it may appear to human perception. And any portion of Creation as it moves through and interacts with one of these fields of concentrated consciousness has the opportunity to evolve significantly.

    The entire solar system is shifting

    Your entire solar system has recently entered one of these concentrated fields of consciousness and will remain within its influence for the next several years. This is challenging all life forms, the environment, and human concepts and beliefs on your planet to the limit. What you are about to learn is by no means secret. Each of these facts can be corroborated with minimal effort on the Internet. However, your leaders resist sharing the analyses by the various think tanks that have been examining the data. When you discover what your governments are being told, you will understand why.

    What links the following facts together is a simple Law of Creation: Whenever any form of consciousness interacts with any other form of consciousness, both are irrevocable changed. This law - a practical extension of the Law of One - speaks of the vast entanglement that takes place within the cosmic hologram. It is the essential meaning of that passage in your scriptures: God knows if even a sparrow falls to the ground. Nothing happens anywhere in Creation that does not ripple throughout the whole of it.

    In gross terms, this means that every person you have ever met has to some extent become a part of you, and you of them. You are the product of every relationship, as well as every sunset and symphony, nightmare, and horror movie, you've experienced. But entanglement's effect on you is even more far-reaching, for you are also the product of every event in history and bear the energetic imprint of every person that ever lived on the face of the Earth - just as the essence of a large pot of stew reflects the minerals of the soil in which the carrots grew as well as the imperceptible change brought about by the addition of a single granule of salt. The more subtle effects of entanglement give rise to the teachings of astrology in which the relative positions of the unique energetic bodies you refer to as planets influence you. In fact, because of the Oneness of Creation, nothing can take place anywhere within its infinite scope that does not impinge, in some small or large way, upon you. This is particularly true with respect to those concentrated energies you are now moving through.

    Consider this partial list of what has been happening in your solar system in the past few years: there has been a visible growth of dark spots on Pluto; Saturn has developed auroras; both Uranus and Neptune have undergone polar shifts, accompanied, in the case of Uranus, by an abrupt and significant increase in the intensity of the magnetosphere; Neptune is displaying a shift of light intensity as well as new dark spot activity; the magnetic field intensity of Jupiter has doubled, and extensive auroral activity and a visible change in the energy field between Jupiter and one of its 62 moons, Io, can now be observed; Mars is undergoing an atmospheric transformation as indicated by a cloudy growth along its equator and an increase in ozone concentration; and there is a notable chemical change on Venus, marked by a sharp decrease in the sulfur-containing gases in its atmosphere and an unexpected inversion of its dark and light spots. Your scientists have recently observed extraordinary lightshows emanating from Venus, Jupiter's north polar region, and Io, the most volcanically active space body in the solar system. Meanwhile, the Earth's own moon has manifested a growing natrium (sodium) atmosphere that reaches 9,000 km in height.

    Possibly the most dramatic changes are taking place on the sun - the source of biological life on your planet but also the main transducer of the in-streaming spiraling energies that emanate from your galaxy's central sun. Your sun's magnetic field is more than 230 percent stronger now than it was at the beginning of the last century. It is unleashing a display of sunspots, coronal mass ejections, and other activities unprecedented in recorded history.

    The sun emits an extraordinary spiraling, egg-shaped energy band called the heliosphere. This is made up of solar winds, or coronal energy bursts, that stream away from the sun's surface in all directions at approximately one million miles per hour. The front of this energy bubble extends well beyond the orbit of the outermost planet in your solar system to meet all oncoming regions of space head-on. Not surprisingly, there is a measurable plasmic glow emanating from the leading edge of the bubble. When first measured by your scientists less than forty years ago, the depth of the glow was three to four astronomical units (an astronomical unit is 149,597,870.691 km, the average distance between the Earth and the sun). It is now estimated somewhere between sixty-five to seventy astronomical units - an increase of more than 1,500 percent.

    Now let's focus on the changes taking place on Earth. The concentration of cosmic consciousness that the solar system is currently passing through is the greatest encountered since humans first populated your planet. The effects of these energies first became visible as you entered this field of consciousness in the middle of the last century. Take the Antarctic magnetic pole as an example. Since the slight drifting of the pole was first noticed in 1885, it has migrated almost 900 kilometers into the Indian Ocean - that's an average of 9 km per year. The Arctic magnetic pole is also drifting at an ever-accelerating pace. Just before the turn of the millennium, the rate of shift was approximately 15 km per year; it will soon increase its drift toward Eastern Siberia to a rate of 200 km per year - an increase of 1,300 percent. Your world governments are completely aware of these happenings. For instance, the various aeronautical agencies, such as the FAA, have required several airports to update the numbering of their runways (which represent magnetic compass readings to the nearest ten degrees) to keep up with the significant shift of the magnetic poles.

    This accelerating magnetic migration will soon manifest as a dramatic pole shift, similar to those on Uranus and Neptune. There has also been a gradual increase in the average size of your planet's polar cusp angles (slots or openings in the northern and southern magnetospheres near the poles), making the Earth increasingly vulnerable to solar winds and in-streaming galactic energies. As a result, you will be experiencing a warming in the Earth's crust and oceans, and a corresponding melting of the polar icecaps.

    There will be significant climate changes, but not for the reasons you might think. The widely publicized greenhouse effect is among the smaller contributors to global warming. In fact, the constant increase of carbon dioxide has leveled off, and the methane content in your atmosphere has actually begun to decrease. However, now the Earth's temperature regime is becoming increasingly vulnerable to external influences. The effect may be similar to the relatively rapid period of temperature instability that took place 10,000 years ago, recently discovered by your scientists when they analyzed ice-core drilling samples from Greenland.

    Your aeronomists (scientist who study the upper atmospheres of planets) are rightfully concerned about the sudden proliferation of HO2, the hydroperoxyl or perhydroxyl radical in your atmosphere. This has a direct effect on the distribution of your planet's ozone layer and signals a period of rapidly growing concentration imbalances. The corresponding divergences in the temperature gradients at various levels of the atmosphere can directly affect the movement of air masses, causing major irregularities in moisture circulation patterns. In simple terms, your weather patterns will become increasingly anomalous and severe.

    We have described only a fraction of the physical shifts taking place in your sector of the galaxy. There is much more. Yet the passage of your solar system through the concentrated band of cosmic consciousness is not serendipitous. As Einstein so rightly pointed out, God does not play dice with the universe. What is happening is preplanned and exactly on schedule. It could not be otherwise.

    Every expression of consciousness within the heliosphere, from the sun itself to the planetary bodies and the beings that live on or within them, is being invited to participate in an immanent jump in evolution. For all forms of consciousness except one, this process is preprogrammed and automatic. Humans are the only form that has been given the choice of whether to move into the next paradigm - sometimes called the rapture or the golden age of peace - or remain mired in the illusion of duality and separation. Unfortunately, the decision whether to shift or not is not one you can make intellectually. There are lessons to be mastered and new areas of awareness to be explored. You need to learn how to make your DNA receptive to the new energies.

    Your geneticists have recently begun to unravel a small part of the role DNA plays in human evolution. However, their inquiry has been limited to less than 5 percent of the total DNA structure. The remaining portions appear to be meaningless, random segments, dismissed with the somewhat derogatory term junk DNA. Suppositions about the function of these enigmatic bits range from dubbing them trash heaps of defunct genes, or pseudogenes, cast aside and fragmented during evolution, to proposing they are no more than the accumulated debris of failed viruses.

    These speculations suggest that the unspeakably vast and purposeful intelligence with which Creation unfolds has made an uncharacteristic error. We hardly think so. In fact, this extra pool of DNA provides a reservoir of sequences from which new genes can emerge that can propel you into your next evolutionary advancement. However, most humans are choosing to render their DNA inaccessible to the in-streaming energies, and so they will completely miss the opportunity being offered.

    Here's why so many of you are unwittingly making this decision: The same in-streaming energies that trigger massive weather changes and tectonic plate disturbances on your planet also impact each human being residing on its surface. As they reverberate through the imprints within your chakras (the energy centers that house the imprints of your beliefs and preincarnational programming), they create interference patterns that manifest as spontaneous thoughts and emotions. As the cosmic energies grow more intense, so do the human responses. They ignite antisocial activities such as terrorism, crime, and other expressions of extreme dogma. They also prompt the reactions to those activities: resentment, fear, anger, and - the most corrosive emotion of all - righteous indignation. All of these responses come at an enormous price, as any highly imbalanced emotion causes your DNA to constrict, shorten, and ultimately turn off. Notice that we deliberately chose the word any. This is because, from the perspective of balance, extreme joy is just as far off center as extreme anger. Everything in Creation ultimately seeks equilibrium. When you experience a spike of any emotion in the manifest moment, its unexpressed shadow counterpart is always lurking in the wings. By acknowledging the presence of the opposite emotion, you balance yourself again, like a teeter-totter returning to horizontal.

    Preparing yourself for the shift

    Have you ever wondered about the thousands of documented cases in which large malignant tumors have disappeared within a few hours, or less? These are prime examples of the corrective power of DNA. However, they can only occur in the gap of nonjudgment, the open space between your belief systems where you are simply the observer, embracing without preference events as they unfold. The common thread linking these unexplainable miracles of spontaneous remission is that each of the cancer patients somehow arrived at a point of total surrender and acceptance - neither fearing death nor being resigned to it.

    Now, you might ask, How do I achieve a state of nonjudgmental awareness? This brings us full circle to the first lesson discussed earlier. Which of your infinite I's are you referring to? Certainly the I having the emotional experience cannot be the same I that holds the position of dispassionate observer. Again we offer the same advice: eschew the use of pronouns when speaking of the self. As soon as you interpose your own name, you create the intentional separation that provides another perspective. You can see the entire teeter-totter - not just the side slamming you into the ground.

    Here's an interesting image that might help tie all these thoughts together. Today's Navy SEALS owe their origin to a special World War II unit called Underwater Demolition Teams, or more affectionately, frogmen. Among their duties was the mining of enemy ships, piers, and various strategic harbor facilities. Armed with the requisite ordinance, frogmen would be deposited in enemy waters from an offshore vessel, swim underwater to the target site, rig their mines, set their timers, and swim back to a predetermined rendezvous point. At the agreed time, a lone Zodiac boat (often called a rubber duck), with a single outboard engine, would swoop by in a large circle with an extended hook-like apparatus that each frogman would grasp and use to swing himself into the boat.

    Each man knew he had only one chance to grab the hook, since the waters were filled with enemy presence and a second pass might well get everyone killed. As you can imagine, not only had each man been extensively trained and prepared, but his focus and concentration on the boat as it approached must have been exquisite. Under no circumstance could he allow his concentration to be distracted by the explosions of the mines he had planted, enemy fire, or imagined sharks or mermaids in the water.

    You are that frogman. The approaching rescue vessel is the vast segment of concentrated cosmic conscious through which the entire solar system is passing. You are barely recovering from the conk on the head by the two-by-four beam that constitutes the Veil of Forgetting. If you miss the boat, you will be left in enemy waters to fend for yourself.

    In fact, you are facing the most important decision of your life.

    # # #

    The effect you ultimately have on those around youis derived not so much from what you do as by who you allow yourself to be.True smiles come from the heart, not from muscles around the mouth.

    Based on the teachings in the book Going Deeper: How to Make Sense of Your Life When Your Life Makes No Sense

    You are free to use this article to reprint in your publication, provided you include the entire tag line appearing at the bottom. If you are reproducing the article in electronic format, please activate the http://www.goingdeeper.org hyperlink. Please let us know when you use this article either by sending us an email with the appropriate link or mailing us a tear sheet from your publication. Thank you.

    2005 Jean-Claude Koven is a writer and speaker based in Rancho Mirage, CA. He is the author of Going Deeper: How to Make Sense of Your Life When Your Life Makes No Sense, the Allbooks Reviews editor's choice for the best metaphysical book of 2004. For more information, please visit: http://www.goingdeeper.org

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