How do rich prepare for the year to come

Well, we know that we are at the end of the second month of this year. But it is still not too late to prepare for this year. I have watched a movie - a series of interviews with wealthy people on the way how they analyze the past year and prepare for a new one.

1. Reflect on the past year
It is not easy to reflect on the past year if you don't keep notes about it. It can be a diary, a notebook of gratitude, notes of significant events or anything similar. Reading it, you can see all that was going on, even though you may forget so many things.

2. Stay positive
This is always good advice, rich or not rich. Regrets and negativity can kill our imagination, creativity and particularly, our drive. If we are building on weaknesses, we won't come too far. But if we build on strengths, we can go far. As Abraham says: If you have 4 strengths and one weakness, and you focus on the weakness, all strengths will diminish. But if you have one strength and 4 weaknesses, and you focus on that one strength, all weaknesses will improve and become neutral or even strengths.
For this reason, many rich do daily forgiveness sessions - they forgive others and most importantly, they forgive themselves.

3. Express gratitude
    

Of happyness 2

But at the same time, you have very poor kids that are so truly happy. How can this be? How can someone be happy without a new gadget, mobile, car? It is impossible, many people will say, you can't be happy without money!

Yet millions of kids are. They get a toy only for a birthday or for Christmas, but they are happy. They don't wear branded clothes or snickers, actually, most of them have no shoes at all, they don't have watches, smartphones, consoles, computers, no TV, streaming services, no bottled water from the south pole, no fancy food. They are happy if the water is not too smelly or too dirty/polluted; if they have three meals a day (no snacks or sweets whatsoever). And still, unbelievably, they are so happy.

And they are not on drugs, they don't have masseurs, personal coaches, psychotherapists, or similar. They have to work long and hard. And they are happy! They don't have money, don't have a future, nothing. And still, they are happy. This is a grand but simple mystery - if you are not happy from inside of you, no wealth can make you happy. No matter that you have sex every day with a different person, a fact that you have to search for a different partner every day says how unhappy you are. As saying goes: "No matter if you have twenty cars, you can only drive one at the time." A fact that you have to have twenty cars shows that you are not happy, as your craving is not satisfied. You have so many people that have only one car and old one, but they are so happy and love that one car above all.     

Of happiness

You can be full of money, incredibly rich, drive the most expensive cars, have yachts, houses, lovers, get high or drunk every day and be ultimately miserable. Well, if you think, this is not true, look at all those people, from Kurt Cobain to Amy Winehouse, so many musicians, singers, actors, top managers... They all were rich and ended their lives.

They all needed sex, alcohol, drugs and so many material things to make them happy. And the more money they have, the more addiction they needed. They don't have true and honest friends, often no such relatives as well. They live in a world where they believe everyone wants their money. Or they believe that people around them love only their money or things that money can buy. 

Have you seen kids that have all of the newest PC's, consoles, electric bikes, toys and games, branded clothes, and gadgets? Have you seen them really happy? The moment someone has newer mobile, they have to have it. If they see a new commercial for a toy, they have to have it. And so on. Until they don't have it, they are utmost unhappy. No matter that they have 100 toys (playing with each a day or two in total), they need that 101st toy. If they have 50 shoes, they are unhappy until shoe number 51 is not bought. They can't live without it. 

When you don't trust people around you and their motives, and you feel unhappy until you have something new, the only way to be in good vibe is to use substances - alcohol or drugs. You need to have followers, fans, trophies, or new things every day. The majority of the rich can only be happy through addictive substances. 

      

No responsibility or competencies

We are living in a broken society. Everyone is complaining about the fact that no one is willing to take responsibility for what (s)he does, but at the same time, one that complains doesn't want to take responsibility. Employers want their employees to be responsible, but they don't want to be responsible to their employees. 

It is hard to find a person who will say "Sorry, I have made a mistake and I'm willing to repair the damage caused". Such an honest person will be first to be fired, even though employers proclaim they want honesty. Everyone is looking for the justification so that they can blame others for mistakes they did, or so that they can complain endlessly. What employers don't understand is that taking responsibility doesn't only demand courage, but it also shows that the person has the following competencies: knowledge to improve, ability to correct a mistake, and behavior/attitude to make it happen. Instead of trying to make a company culture of it, employers mostly fire such a person.

So we teach others, particularly younger generations, that they can do whatever they want, but if they do make mistake, it is OK not to admit it, apologize, or try to make things right. 

Thus we have the global crisis of values and competencies. The best example was the recession in 2008. The crisis of values has caused the economic crisis because it was "normal" to be immoral in business and immoral doings in the banking sector caused global financial shock. A person without morality and, more importantly, competencies to work a certain job can't do anything else when the problem occurs than to blame others and complain, creating a vicious circle. 

Lack of competencies and morality is not a surprise in the culture where new morality is to lie in a job application or CV (as much I know from recruiters, more than 50% of people lie in it). And it is cool if you manage to cheat on your exam or get a job having zero competencies, but just being in right party, relationship, family to have a "right connection".      

Few more thoughts on complaining

We know that we are what we eat. Figuratively and literally. The food we eat becomes our body. But also goes with our thoughts. We are what we think and even more. As I already wrote, we attract in our life people and situations we think about dominantly. Energy flows towards what we think and creates there. So we can change our thoughts and change our lives. This is neither easy nor fast. We have to stop negative thoughts, but if we try to do it consciously, we will fail. We have to do it not by trying to deny negative but to change it to more positive thoughts.

Why do I mean? There are many scales of emotions. Some even have energy frequency attached to it.   

Complaining is also physically changing us. We become uglier, we make our blood acid and your positive motivation is weakened. Instead of expressing self-pity, condemning, accusing, complaining, frowning, or despairing, change it all by more using positive words like an opportunity, results, solutions, gratefulness, or manifesting.       

Complaining, Law of Attraction and Neuroplasticity

When you have a person complaining, let's say "This work is hard" or "Working with customers is dumbing", this person wants to make others do a job or things that her/him are supposed to do. Often, others can't cope with all that complaining, so they actually do it, instead of a person complaining. 

Yet, we have to know a basic fundament of the Law of Attraction, and that is that what you focus your attention on increases. People often don't get this. They will say, "Yes, but I do affirmation every day to have more money", so if I focus on that, shouldn't I have more money. You can affirm (this is a very good thing to do) something consciously but don't forget unconscious affirmations. When you say positive affirmation 5 times a day, but you think negative 50 times a day, then your positive affirmation will never come to the fruition.  You can not affirm "Money is easily flowing into my life" 5 times, and think or even say that you don't have money for this or that, or that you will never buy this, never have enough money, etc. Until number of your positive affirmations is not significantly higher than negative thoughts about the same thing, you will never manifest what you want. 

Instead, a person that complains hundred times a day will be given even more things to complain about. She/he will attract endless reasons for complaint. 

Many things we thought about our brain proved to be wrong. The brain can regenerate, can make new connections even in older age, brain cells are being created all the life, etc. Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to change itself. Self-help authors will say that our brain was created to be happy. But the reasons for mental diseases are in our negative thoughts that poison it and change it.  

Scientists have found out that if we are complaining or being forced to listen to the complaints for more than 30 minutes a day, this will cause real structural damage on the cerebral level. If we consciously chose to turn obstacles into opportunities, we are improving the quality of perception and ability to find solutions.       

Traps of complaining

Traps of complaining or our wrong beliefs about complaining are the following:

1. People say that inclination to complaining is in our character. 

No! It is only our habit. By changing our habits we are changing our character.

2. Complaining is useful. 

Hell, no! It is quite damaging belief. Why it is not useful? There are some facts about the effects of complaining:

• Our spirit is focused on a problem and can't focus on the solution,
• It prevents new views that would help us see the problem in a different way, 
• It keeps our thoughts tied to the past (often to the worst memories), stealing our energy from the present (I already wrote a bit about it),
• It makes us trapped in thinking, philosophizing, preventing us to act,
• It kills our belief that change is possible,
• and maybe the worst of all, complaining is convincing us to identify with our negative thoughts and beliefs, thinking we are "cosmic victims".

3. Complaining is the best way to rid us of negative emotions.

No, that is so wrong. Because complaining is a habit and a temporary action to "let out the steam" is not. When something negative happens to us, it is good to share it with the people that care. Or express it through emotions, either verbally, written, or by painting/drawing. When we don't "throw out" (express) that negative emotion, it can stay trapped inside of us and do us a lot of damage.

I always like to tell a story I love about a poisonous snake that bites us. We don't die because of the bite, we die because of poison. The negative emotion that we bottle inside of ourselves is a poison that will not kill a person we now hate or dislike or whatever, it will kill us. It's like drinking poison, expecting that other person will die. No, it won't. We will die. So to let out the steam is an excellent way for our health, but it is not complaining. Letting the steam is limited in time and it is orientated to find a solution to the problem. Complaining takes a long time, usually never stops but gets momentum and becomes an avalanche - a daily routine that we repeat but never seek for a solution.

If I just complain about how there is no work, I can peacefully sit in a local cafe or pub and spend all my days there. If I let steam for being refused for a job, but then make a deliberate action like finding a book or a course how to write a better CV or cover letter, take and implement the knowledge to make new CV and start looking for another job, then it is like saying "Excuses begone!"

No complain

There is a psychologist called Salvo Noe who wrote a book titled "Forbidden complain".

I want to point some of his observations in this post.

Some of the reasons why we live better than at any time in history but never have been so many unhappy people around us are because we forgot to use enthusiasm and gratitude in our lives. A huge problem is that people tend to accept less and less responsibility for anything. Particularly their lives. Showing gratitude is something every spiritual teacher urges us to do. Every time I get up from bed in the morning I listen to meditations by Louise Hay expressing gratitude for myriad things. And more I do it, more things come in my life to be grateful for. 

To activate enthusiasm, gratitude, and responsibility, we must activate new feelings and new views that will lead us to physical and mental wellbeing, lead us to the harmony between practical and emotional elements in our lives. This is the only way to avoid being a victim or feeling as being a victim. This is something Eckhart Tolle wrote a lot, warning us to take responsibility for our lives and not let us be victims.    

I very much like the quote "Complaining is the black hole in which we lose energy". 

The emotion of complaining and feeling as a victim is energetically draining our body energy, leaving us weak and angry or miserable. By complaining, we undermine and depreciate ourselves and prevent us to find a solution to a problem we are facing. We can't see a solution when we are in such vibration. 

We are creatures of habits, and habits often provide us with a sense of safety. But habits are very dangerous as more habits we have, harder for us is to change. Habits often prevent us from changing from misery to joy, from poverty thinking to abundance thinking. Why? When we have a habit than any wish to change is foreseen by our ego as a dangerous and negative thing. We tend to stay in the comfort zone, avoiding anything challenging. More we want to change more our ego resists. 

So when we have a limiting belief that we have turned into the habit (like complaining), we can't approach aggressively to change it. We have to find a pleasant replacement, something that will be useful and beneficial to us, something that will fulfill us on a personal level.  

So whenever we feel a tendency to complain, we have to stop ourselves and ask the question "How can I increase my abilities to overcome this situation?" This brings us to review our competencies. But that is another topic.