Do you need a little peace in your life?

A hectic, busy and noisy life takes it toll on us.  It is draining and stressful.

Why do we continue to push ourselves so hard?  What’s the payoff we hope to get?  These are important questions to stop and ponder.

You’ve traded your peace for something.  What is it that you are getting that is worth giving up so much?  Maybe it is time to reconsider this bargain and reclaim a life of peace.

Admitting Enough is Enough

“Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind.”

~ Ecclesiastes 4:6

Do you suffer from always wanting what you don’t have?  I mean are you sacrificing yourself on the altar of having all the right stuff?  Let’s face it, most of us have well beyond what we need.  In fact, we don’t need a lot of what we already have.

We have two handfuls, but this surplus comes with a price.

It costs you your peace and tranquility.  You have to work at a frantic pace to pay the bills and keep up with all of it.  Is it really worth it?

What if you simplified your lifestyle? 

What if you lowered your cost of living?

What if you had one handful with tranquility instead of two with so much toil?

Making this adjustment might sound attractive to you, but it might also seem impossible.  After all, you have a lot of entanglements that keep you stuck right where you are.  There are things like mortgages, car payments, contracts, commitments and responsibilities.

Here’s the deal.  These are all just excuses.  Yes, your life might be messy.  In fact, it might be incredibly complicated, but it can be untangled.  The knots that have you in a stranglehold can be loosened.  You can break free.  You just have to make the choice.  It really is up to you.

Reclaiming Your Peace

Okay, I said it is possible so, how do you go about reclaiming some peace in your life?  Well, first, let me say that when it is done right, it takes some time.  If you do this too quickly, then you are likely going to burn some bridges and you don’t want to do that.  You could also damage some relationships.  Therefore, you want to make a plan, slowly work your way through it and gradually reclaim your peace.

Here is some food for thought to help you start to simplify your life:

1.  Evaluate Your Lifestyle

You need to take a hard look at your lifestyle in three crucial areas.  They are your finances, your career and your activities.  In which of these three areas are you overcommitted?  All three?  That would explain why you want to reclaim some peace in your life.

Take a moment and imagine what your ideal lifestyle in each of these three key areas would look like.  What would you do with your time?  What would your stress level be like?  Who would you spend time with?  How would things be different?  How would you feel?  Write some of this down in a notebook to help you organize your thoughts.  This process will define what’s most important to you.

You might not be able to achieve your ideal lifestyle, but once you define the target, then you can at least start to move the pendulum in the right direction.

2.  Start Making Gradual Cuts

Once you know where you are overcommitted and you know ideally how you’d prefer to live, then you can start to gradually make some cuts.  You want to slowly cut out the things that stress you the most.  Let me be clear.  You are going to have to cut some “good” things to get to what is “great”.  This will not necessarily be an easy process.  However, it will be life-giving.

Cut in the area that is costing you the most peace.  For example, if you are stressed out about money, then start reducing your monthly expenses.  Ask yourself, “Which will give me more happiness, keeping cable television or knowing I can make ends meet every month?”  Again, sometimes you have to cut what is “good” to get to what is “great”.

Occasionally, you can’t cutback in one area until you’ve made changes in another.  For example, you might want to move to a less stressful job, but your personal finances won’t allow you to make this change.  You’ll need to work on your finances first and then look at changing jobs.

3.  Get Control of Your Finances

I made finances a topic all its own in this discussion because this is often where we get out of control and cost ourselves all our peace.  Have you raised your lifestyle so high that it is killing you to maintain it now?  This may be the root cause of all your trouble.  Stress from trying to make ends meet will drain your peace so fast it will make your head spin.

I am fully qualified to talk about this because I’ve been there, done that.  A few years ago, I finally got tired of it and so I put myself through a personal economic makeover.  Trust me, it was worth every sacrifice I had to make.  I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

If money causes you a lot of stress, then you need to get control of your finances.  This is often the one best thing you can do to reclaim your peace.  In fact, I’d challenge you to think about paying off everything you owe.  It will bring a new sense of tranquility to your life.  You can read some of my observations about living a debt free life to decide if it is for you.

4.  Make Bigger Adjustments

In the beginning, you need to take baby steps toward your goal.  I can’t emphasize that enough.  However, at some point, you have to learn to walk like an adult.  You have to put on grown-up pants and adopt a grown-up attitude and make some BIG adjustments.  It will be scary.  I won’t deny that, but you’ll get through it if you just press on.  Scary things generally work out much better than what we imagine.

Plan your big adjustments carefully.  Seek the counsel of smart people that you trust and that have a personal track record of success in the area in which you are making your adjustment.  What I’m saying is don’t rely on the advice of your broke brother-in-law when you are making financial decisions.  And don’t listen to your unemployed neighbor when it comes to adjusting your career.

Get some good advice and then do what needs to be done.  You’ll be happy you did.  These big adjustments, done correctly, will take you a long way down the path to reclaiming your peace.

5.  Learn to Enjoy Your Peace

Finally, I want to let you know that you’ll likely have to learn to enjoy your peace once you get it.  I know that sounds strange, but most of us have lived with stress, anxiety and fear for so long that we have forgotten what it is like to live in peace.  Therefore, we have to retrain ourselves to relax and enjoy a more tranquil existence.

You will likely feel a bit nervous and awkward at first when you don’t have as much to worry about.  You might feel like you are missing something or that a problem is going to sneak up and surprise you.  This is natural.  Only time will help you to learn that you don’t have to be so anxious anymore.  You can relax and soak up the peace.  It is a wonderful place to be.

What do you need to do to reclaim your peace?  Have you taken steps in the right direction?  If so, tell us what you’ve done so we can all learn from it.  Leave a comment to share your experiences.

Photo: Copyright PhotoXpress.com

Do you recognize your own happiness?

Many people go through life never really appreciating their happiness.  They never stop and relish in enjoyable moments.  This is really tragic.

We hurry to the next thing.  We press on towards higher achievement.  We continually seek more, but when do we just stop and celebrate our happiness?

This lack of recognizing our own well-being and contentment is one of the reasons that we often feel so empty and unfulfilled.  We simply don’t take the time to appreciate the simple, but meaningful moments in our lives.

Do You Know If You Are Happy?

Being happy is something you have to learn. I often surprise myself by saying "Wow, this is it. I guess I’m happy.”  ~ Harrison Ford

Have you stopped to evaluate your own happiness lately? When was the last time that you nodded in the affirmative, smiled to yourself and said, “I’m doing okay and I’m really happy.”?

As a kid, did you ever sing the song “If You’re Happy and You Know It”?  It goes like this:

If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.

If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.

If you’re happy and you know it,

And you really want to show it,

If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.

A common variation of the 4th line is "Then your face will surely show it.”
source: Wikipedia 

As adults, I think we can learn a thing or two from this song.  We can learn to stop and take a moment to recognize our own happiness.  We can also learn to physically express and celebrate it.

As I’ve I already warned, Life Is Too Short.  We cannot let precious moments of happiness simply slip away from us without relishing in them.

Sources of Happiness to Recognize and Celebrate

Real happiness does not come from possessions, wealth or power.  Hollywood is littered with examples of the truth in this statement.  Here are some of the places where I think we are most likely to find happiness to celebrate:

1.  Clarity

No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth. 
~ Francis Bacon

You will likely feel happy when you have clarity about yourself, your life direction and your surroundings.  In other words, when you can honestly and openly see and accept the truth.  A lot of misery is the result of just the opposite.  Struggling against the truth rarely, if ever, works out in a positive manner.  Celebrate your happiness when you have clarity.

2.  Hope

Hope is itself a species of happiness, and perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.  ~ Samuel Johnson

Hope is the feeling that you have something to look forward to with reasonable confidence.  Generally, when we have hope, we have happiness.  Hope often comes when we start taking positive action in the right direction.  Therefore, work toward a desired goal can make us happy.  We should acknowledge our hope and be glad in it.

3.  Personal Freedom

The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

No matter where you are or what you’re circumstances, no one can take away the freedom you have in your heart.  Victor Frankl, a holocaust survivor, wrote, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”  Be happy for the inner freedom you have to be you and to choose your responses to life.

4.  Inner Peace

The basic thing is that everyone wants happiness, no one wants suffering. And happiness mainly comes from our own attitude, rather than from external factors. If your own mental attitude is correct, even if you remain in a hostile atmosphere, you feel happy.  ~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Do you choose to be happy?  Are you at peace with yourself and your choices?  As the quote above states, happiness comes from our attitude and not the external circumstances of our lives.  Attitude is the way we choose to view our life and circumstances.  The inner peace that results from adopting the right attitudes leads to happiness worth celebrating!

If You’re Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands

If you are happy and you know it, then I applaud you.  You have mastered some very difficult mental obstacles.  You should clap your hands and applaud yourself.  It is likely a result of clarity, hope, freedom and inner peace.

If you aren’t sure about your happiness, then maybe this article has prompted you to think about it.  I encourage you to choose to be happy.  We only have one life and it goes fast.  Life is too short to be unhappy!

Photo by e³°°°

It is easy to just go through the motions hurrying through our day without drinking in all that life has to offer.  We miss so much this way.

I’ve always wanted to get the very most out of life and in a way it seems that rushing from one thing to the next is the answer, but I don’t think it is.

When you are constantly focused on the “next thing” you miss so much of what is right before you.  This moment is all that really exists for us.  Who knows what the future holds?  We need to find ways to slow down, focus ourselves and really enjoy the present.

The Importance of Mindfulness

We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step

Mindfulness to me is the art of being fully aware and living in the present moment.  It is an art because it is different for everyone and something that we strive for, but probably never really perfect.

As Thich Nhat Hanh points out in the quote above, we are often good at setting goals, planning, receiving feedback, adjusting strategy and continual improvement, but are we good at enjoying the fruits of our labor?

In our hurried world, it is easy to miss the victories, the beauty, the love, the peace and the joy of living.  We rush right past the moments that make life rich.  We fail to stop and smell the roses because we didn’t even notice there were any.

The Enemies of Mindfulness

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.
~ Buddha

I don’t think we even realize how much of the time we aren’t really present in the moment before us.  We are too often caught up in other things to be fully mindful.

There are all kinds of things that rob us of our mindfulness.  A great example is our Blackberry or iPhone.  How many times a day do we check those things???  The next time you are in a public place, look around and see how many people are fiddling with their device.  They are certainly not mindful of what’s going on around them.  They are absorbed in a virtual world.

This kind of distraction robs us of so much of what life has to offer.  We fail to notice a beautiful scene.  We fail to meet someone new.  We fail to fully engage with our kids or spouse.  We fail to just enjoy a peaceful moment.

Another example that I think is less often considered is anger.  When we are angry, we are caught up in the past.  We are not mindful in the present moment.  Anger is prevalent in our society.  We are in a hurry and all kinds of things get in our way.  This frustrates us and makes us angry.  It also steals from us any joy that we might be able to experience in the present.

I challenge you to test yourself on mindfulness.  Do the following:

• Set a reminder on your phone so it will beep you once an hour
• When you hear the beep, ask yourself where your mind is at.  Are you calm, peaceful and fully present in the moment or thinking of something else? 

I know for me, that I’m usually off in another world mentally.  I’m thinking about the “next thing” or what I need to do tomorrow or how someone might react to the email I just sent or whatever.  The point is I’m not present in the moment where I’m at.  This detracts from living life to the fullest.

How to Become More Mindful

Every morning, when we wake up, we have twenty-four brand-new hours to live.  What a precious gift!
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

It is truly a struggle to keep yourself present, but with just a little awareness and intentional effort, we can become more mindful.  This will improve our day and our life.

I’ve been practicing a technique from Peace Is Every Step that is very useful.  It is called conscious breathing.  It is extremely easy, doesn’t cost anything and works amazingly well.

It is as simple as this:

• Pause whatever you are doing and become consciously aware of your breathing.
• When you breathe in say “In” and when you breathe out say “Out”.  You don’t even have to speak the words verbally, you can just say them in your head.
• Repeat this for 5 to 10 breaths.

Conscious breathing can be practiced anywhere and it really is an effective way to bring yourself back to the present.  It is also very calming.

You can use the conscious breathing technique along with the one-hour reminder you set on your phone to bring yourself back to the moment.  After you practice this for awhile, you’ll become much more aware of your current state.

I know it has made me more aware.  I catch myself now when I’ve drifted off into other realities and I use conscious breathing to bring myself back to the moment.

Another technique you might use when your hourly timer goes off is to find an object and focus on it for a few moments.  Really look at the object.  It could be something on your desk, out the window or across the room.  Observe the object’s shape, color and lighting.  Think about how it came into existence.  Appreciate its beauty.  Really see it.  This will also bring you back to the moment.

You can even combine these two techniques.  Breathe consciously for a few breaths and then fully observe an object.  This can really give you a sense of peace and focus your mind back on the moment.  In all, it will only take you 2 to 3 minutes.

Living in the Present Is Rewarding

Really making ourselves aware of the present and drinking in deeply all it has to offer is a better way of life.  It certainly is an improvement compared to hurrying and rushing from one thing to the next without ever appreciating any of it.

Your food tastes better, your relationships improve and you are happier when you intentionally bring yourself back to the reality in which you are living.  Practice the techniques above and you’ll enjoy a richer, more vibrant life.

How do you keep yourself present in the moment?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Photo by Engle & Smith

If so, I commend you for your financial effort.  I am a firm believer in debt-free living.

My wife and I have been debt-free except for the mortgage for over a year now.  We used the debt snowball technique popularized most recently by Dave Ramsey to pay off everything.

The debt snowball works!  It really does.  I’ll share some of my experience and the experience of others in using it successfully to break free from the slavery of debt.

The advantages experienced from getting debt-free

Paying off all our debt has given us a sense of financial peace and security.  We aren’t as afraid of the recession because we aren’t strapped for cash.  In fact, we continue to live below our means since we paid off our last debt and we have some cash in the bank just in case.

As J.D. over at Get Rich Slowly points out in Free at Last! Saying Good-Bye to 20 Years of Debt, paying off your debt opens up your options in life.  It gives you more freedom to pursue your desires.

After using the debt snowball technique to pay off all his debt, J.D. was able to quit his day job and become a full-time blogger!  How awesome is that?

A brief overview of the debt snowball technique

The debt snowball technique is amazingly simple.  It doesn’t take much time to explain, yet it is a powerful tool for taking charge of your financial situation and reducing your debt.

Here’s how the debt snowball works:

1. List your debts from smallest to largest, but exclude your mortgage.  Be thorough!
2. Make minimum payments on all but the smallest debt to stay current.
3. Pay the most you can on the smallest debt until it is paid off.
4. Roll the total amount you were paying on the smallest debt into the payment on the next smallest.  This builds your snowball as you move through the list.

For an example of how the snowball works and for more details, please see my article Back To Basics- Using The Debt Snowball To Pay Off Debt.

Problems you may encounter with your debt snowball

Anytime you try something new, you are going to encounter unfamiliar situations that you aren’t sure how to solve.  Things may happen as you are paying off your debt that mess up your snowball.

Here are three common debt snowball issues and how to solve them:

1.  Giving up and incurring more debt.

As I said earlier, the debt snowball is amazingly simple, yet it is not easy.  It takes time, commitment and discipline.  The snowball, when done correctly, is designed to maximum your chance of success, but there are a couple of things you need to do to help.

First, you have to stop the bleeding in order to heal the patient.  You must stop incurring more debt!  If you don’t, then you’ll lose traction, become demoralized and quit.

Second, be sure you stick to the debt snowball technique exactly.  The debts are listed smallest to largest and attacked in that order because this method will ensure you have some early wins.  Getting a few small bills paid off will give you the confidence that freedom from debt is possible.  This is 80% mental and 20% method.

2.  Letting an unexpected expense get you off track.

This happens to almost everyone that is trying to get out of debt.  The key is to prepare properly.  Dave Ramsey and many others suggest creating a baby emergency fund of at least $1,000 prior to starting the snowball.

The baby emergency fund will allow you to handle a lot of smaller emergencies or unexpected expenses without going into more debt.  You simply use your emergency fund to pay the expense, temporarily suspend your snowball to replenish your emergency fund and then resume the snowball once you have $1,000 or more in the bank again.

3.  The temptation to try a shortcut.

I won’t lie to you.  Paying off debt sucks.  Once it is paid off it is wonderful, but the process kind of stinks.  You have to give up some things in the short-run in order to gain long-term financial success.  For most, it takes 18 to 24 months to pay off all their debt except the mortgage.

Along the way, you are going to be tempted to take some shortcuts.  You are going to see ads for places that will suggest they can help you reduce your debts to get them paid off faster.  You are going to hear about debt consolidation loans that suggest they can solve your problem instantly.

Do not fall victim to these persuasive peddlers of instant gratification.  Most of them will cost you more money and will not do anything for you that you can’t do for yourself!  Stick to the debt snowball plan and you will succeed.

Getting debt-free is worth all the effort, trust me!

You will not be disappointed in becoming debt-free.  It is a wonderful feeling of peace and security.  This is one of the best things that you can do for your kids and family.  They will learn from you and this will become part of your legacy.  How great will it be to know that you changed the financial destiny of a large chunk of your family tree?  Awesome!

Where are you at in your journey to becoming debt-free?

Photo by kamshots

You and I are very fortunate right now.  We are blessed beyond belief.  However, it is easy to lose sight of this in our day-to-day lives.  We get busy and focused on the nuisances and anxieties of work, raising families, and traffic.  We lose focus on what is really important and stop being grateful.  Instead, we start feeling sorry for ourselves and get mildly depressed about the boring routine of life.  We get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner and go to bed.  It is comfortable, but boring.  Oh, how we take it all for granted!  We really need to remind ourselves of all we have to be grateful for.

The trap of ungratefulness with everyday living.

I’m guilty of this way of thinking.  It happens to me all the time.  It is one of the perils of living in a country where we enjoy so much peace, security, and abundance.  However, there are others out there in our world, even in our own country, that aren’t enjoying all that we are right now.  They are dealing with disaster, hunger, war, drought, and famine.  They are struggling just to get by.  I’ve been there in a small way when I lost my home to a tornado so I can relate, but I have so much to be grateful for now.

Let’s take the time to review why we should be grateful.

I don’t want to bring you down.  In fact, I hope to do just the opposite.  I want to help you realize just how fortunate we are.  I want to highlight some of the plight going on in the world so you can stop and realize just how great your life is right now.

Be grateful that we have food to feed our children.

Last Friday, ABCNews reported that there are 10 million Afghan people that are hungry.  The report showed the fresh grave of a three-year old girl that died from starvation.  I have two young daughters and the thought of not being able to feed them is very disturbing to say the least.  I cannot imagine the horror of watching my child wither away.  I am so grateful that I live in a place where access to food is not an issue.

Be grateful that we live in a peaceful place.

The website Iraq Body Count reports that possibly as many as 92,000 civilians have died from the violence in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.  I know that this is gruesome to hear, but it is reality.  To put this in perspective, according to the 2000 Census, this was equivalent to the population of Santa Barbara, California.  I think it is hard for us to imagine this kind of violence in the United States.  We don’t have to worry when we take a trip to Wal-Mart that we might be killed by a suicide bomber.  I am grateful that I live in a peaceful country.

Be grateful that we have the money to pay our mortgages.

Foreclosures were up in May about 48% over last year.  Over 250,000 families received notices that they would be losing their homes.  I know that many of these people couldn’t afford to buy a home in the first place and that they should never have done so.  However, this doesn’t change the fact that they are losing their homes now.  Where will they go?  Their credit is in shambles and they are obviously broke.  As a father and husband, I would hate the feeling that I couldn’t afford to pay for our home.  I am very grateful that I have the money to pay my mortgage!

Be grateful that we aren’t paying over $9.00 per gallon for gas (yet!).

In France, they are paying as much as $9.66 for a gallon of gasoline!  That’s over double the average price here in the United States.  So, while it’s true that gas prices have soared over 144% since May 2003, we are still enjoying lower prices than what many people are paying.  How would you like to pay over $200 for a tank of gas in your mid-sized car?  This is what they are experiencing in Turkey where prices are over $11.00 per gallon!  I am grateful that I filled up my car last night for $3.71 per gallon.

Be grateful that your home is not underwater.

The Cedar River in Iowa has forced over 20,000 people from their homes.  According to the story from MSNBC, at least 438 blocks were underwater in Cedar Rapids.  What a mess!  I think back to the pictures I saw from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.  Floods like this leave a massive mess and often homeowners are not insured against water damage like this.  Some of these people have lost everything and their insurance won’t help.  My heart goes out to these people.  I am grateful that my home is not underwater.

Be grateful that you are here to live another day.

Tim Russert, the moderator of Meet The Press, died last week at the age of 58.  He was at work and had just returned from a family vacation when he suffered a heart attack that took his life.  We often take for granted that we will wake up each morning.  Mr. Russert was enjoying fabulous success in his career and was unaware of any life-threatening health issues.  Life is short and we never know when our time is up.  I am very grateful that I have another day to live, be happy, and enjoy my life.

We really do have plenty to be grateful about.

As you can see from the recent news, we have plenty to be thankful for in our lives.  I am grateful that I am not dealing with any of these situations and I know that this is just the tip of the iceberg.  There is so much more tragedy going on in the world.  It all makes my sometimes boring, routine life very desirable.  I am grateful that I have the life that I do.  I hope you are grateful too!

Photo by SuziJane