From Underearning to Abundance

A new year is here and the question is are you still lost in the money fog?  It is absolutely amazing how many people just continue to stay in a money fog.  They resist stepping out of the fog.  This is hard to understand.  But the worst thing is that by staying there, they are making things worse form themselves. On top of it all, they know it.

You might think for yourself that this is not the case for you.  Maybe you are right.  But the money fog sneaks up on you and suddenly everything is dark.

One thing that comes with a new year is taxes.  We have to prepare our taxes, which means that we will have to look at our money.  Some people dread this time of the year.  They think it is too painful to look at their money situation.  To them, ignorance is bliss.  That reminds me of a woman I talked to last summer.  She hadn’t done her taxes, because she feared that she owed the IRS money.  When talking to her it was obvious that she was in a money fog.  She had no idea about her money, what she was earning and spending.  Her rationalization was that it was better not knowing, even after acknowledging all the fear and anxiety she was suffering from.  She was constantly saying that she couldn’t afford this and that, and there was anger in her voice as she was talking about her situation.

Finally she did her taxes, grudgingly.  When I talked to her afterwards, she told me she got money back from the IRS.  After all of these months of being afraid and suffering from anxiety, she got money back from the IRS.  She had been staying in the fog regarding her money, causing her to feel miserable for no reason at all.  When I asked her about that, she looked at me, as there was something wrong with me.  Her fog was so thick and dark that even after getting money back from the IRS, she still was staying in the fog.

When I thought about it afterwards it came to me that being in this fog and feeling afraid about her money situation was normal for her.  It didn’t even occur to her that things could be different.

How are you with money?  Are you lost in the fog and can’t find your way out of it?  What is it costing you to stay in the fog?  It is difficult to find your way to abundance when you are lost in the fog and don’t know where you are or where you are going.  Take this opportunity to get out of the fog and make this year the one when you know where you are and where you are going.  Put yourself on the path to a Life of Abundance.

Love and peace,

ElinAnna

If your New Year’s resolutions have failed in the past, then you are in the majority.  The fact is that most people who make New Year’s resolutions fail to keep them.  Well, we might have suspected that this would be the case.  Now a group of researchers at the University of Hertfordshire in England have shown that it is actually so.  The main reason they found is that most people focus on how awful it would be to fail.  In their attempt to keep their New Year’s resolution, people half heartedly try to fight their temptations and only dream of reaching the goal.  Then they look for someone who supposedly reached the goal, plaster their picture up for motivation.  plaster their picture up on their wall or refrigerator for motivation in the hope that this will help.  On top of everything else, people put their trust only in their own willpower to get them where they want to go and don’t make any plans for how to get there.  This a sure way to fail at your New Year’s resolution.

So now you know how to increase the probability of accomplishing your New Year’s resolution.  Do the opposite of the failure described above.  Follow what the researchers found by doing the following:

1. Make a plans for how to achieve your goal
2. Involve others (get support and accountability)
3. Focus on how positive it will be when each small step of your plan is reached
4. Keep a journal over the journey to help you understand your successes so you can do them again!

and you will drastically increase the probability of reach your new year’s resolution.

So good luck and have a great New Year!

Love and peace,

ElinAnna

Tags: failure, make plans, New Year, resolutions

Do you know the answer to this question?  Many women look to their role models for the answer.  We all have some role models that we look up to and try to imitate.  What makes them our role models is different for each and everyone.  For many women it is the quality of showing passion and being able to take care of others.  And also being taken care of by others.  This is the image of the great maternal figure that nurtures the family and is taken care of financially by the great paternal breadwinner.

As I have mentioned in my previous blogs this is what we have been taught to admire.  The story was that the women that are good at taking care of others are worth the most.  Centuries ago this was very important for women’s survival as their value was measured according to their care giving abilities.  It was said that no man would leave a good caregiver.

The old days are gone and the story was just that a story, even though it affected women directly.  In today’s world, women have to care of themselves.  People can be grateful for the things that you do for them.  But, and this is a big but, you still have to take care of yourself.  Unfortunately, the stories haven’t changed much since the old days.  What has changed really drastically is reality.  In this new reality you have to take care of yourself and to do so you have to know what you need and want.

To be able to realize what your needs and wants are you have to ignore all of those voices that keep on telling you that you shouldn’t ask for too much.  How will it serve you to ask for less for yourself?  The people that you feel will think less of you if you do ask for more will not be there to see the results.  These kinds of people are not good for you.  Other people will be pissed at you for not taking care of yourself.  People that really care for you will always want the best for you.

Now when you ask yourself what you need and want, what will your answer be? Think about how your answer will help you start living a Life of Abundance.  This is the life you want to live.  So, what is you answer to this question?

Love and peace,

ElinAnna

Tags: Life of abundance, needs, role model, wants, women

Eleven months ago the year 2009 was just about to start.  What were your intentions for 2009?  Did you have any New Year’s resolutions?  So many people make New Year’s resolutions and they start working on them in the New Year.  Unfortunately the New Year soon becomes old and those resolutions fall by they wayside.  If you did make resolutions or some kind of decision about changing things in your life, what were they and how has it been to accomplish them?

Even though quitting smoking and healthy living, like dieting and exercise, are the most popular resolutions or lifestyle decisions for the New Year, changing their money situation is something many underearners plan on doing.  They all have different ideas about how to accomplish that.  Often it has to do with keeping track of every cent they spend, not to overdraw their checking account and so on.  Then there are those who are not going to let money ruin any more years of their lives and simply ignore money all together, with the mindset that it will all work itself out somehow.

Tackling the money problem is not easy, especially if you don’t change the way you view money.  Having a love/hate relationship with money, where the hate is the dominating factor, is not going to be very helpful.  Having negative feelings towards someone never results in a good relationship.  I know that I would never like to stay with someone who had very negative feelings towards me.  So it is no wonder money doesn’t stay.  Would you?  The the important part in getting out of this vicious cycle of underearning is to change your view of money.  Then you can start moving toward a Life of Abundance in the New Year.

Love and peace,

ElinAnna

Tags: Abundance, money, New Year, relationship, resolution, underearner, underearning