“We have 50,000 ideas run through our minds daily. Ideas are like wet slippery fish. You got to get ‘em when they show up or they will slip away never to be seen again.” – Earl Nightingale

One of your best business tools will be the journal you keep. Ideas come at us all the time and from everywhere. Where are you going to keep them?

I keep my journal with me in my purse. If I have so much as a moment waiting for someone my journal is out and I am writing or reviewing what I have written in the past. Any idea that floats through my mind I stop to record. If I listen to an inspiring or educational tape my journal is out taking notes.

Keep everything in that journal:

- Lecture notes go there
- Goals go there
- Lists of the people I would someday like to meet go there
- Speculating on the success of my business
- Marketing ideas go there
- Quotes and sayings (Like the Nightingale quote I used to start this mail)

I write it all in my Idea Journal. Why? So I know where to go when I am ready to sit down and write, plan and dream. If I have a glimmer of an insight I capture it for later use.

Part of the pleasure of a journal is choosing one that you love. I personally love Moleskine Journals. I like my pages to be unlined as I prefer to be unconstrained. How about you? Do you have a favorite color? Do you like lined pages or unlined pages? What size will work best? Maybe you like pictures on yours… Go to the bookstore and find a great journal.

Once you have one, take it with you everywhere. You never know when inspiration strikes. And if someone you are talking to says something profound, whip out your journal and take notes. In factFree Articles, I often just bring it out and keep it next to me when I am having lunch with a friend. I never know when I want to refer to a fact or record a new idea.

One of the things that will happen internally is that your subconscious will begin to recognize that you are listening. And you will find more and more of your thoughts and insights coming to the surface to be recorded. By consistently recording all those stray thoughts and great ideas you will find that you have supercharged your access to your own creativity!
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About the Author:  Robin M. Powers

Robin M Powers makes it easy to get started making money on the Internet. For more information and to claim your free 7 day eCourse, Learn the 7 Critical Steps to Your Internet Marketing Success, go to: Business Recipes.com

2. Stress relief. People today are leading busier lives than ever before. The demands of work and family can take a toll on your body, and you need a way to relieve some of the stress. Taking the time to write about problems or issues that occurred throughout the day can be therapeutic. It also gives you time to be alone with your thoughts. After writing about your problems, you will often feel better about them, and you may even think of a solution to an issue that’s been bothering you.

3. Ease emotional burdens. Everyone has emotional baggage. The death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, or job loss can cause some overwhelming feelings. If you can’t deal with your feelings and are having difficulty coping with the situation, it may be helpful to just write about it. Grief is a very strong emotion, and writing may be what you need to express the feelings you are afraid to talk about.

4. Keep memories close. The memories you make with your family are some of the best things to write about. When you go back to read them later on, it will make you feel good. If you have young children, this can be a great way to share some experiences with them when they are old enough to appreciate it.

5. Track progress. Everyone has both short-term and long-term goals. Keeping a journal can help you keep track of your goals and allow you to discover the steps you need to take to achieve these goals. It can also show you areas you need to improve on in order to stay on track.

Although writing isn’t for everyone, it can be a great way to improve many skills and help you grow as a person. If you’re not sure, start slowly. You may find it to be an enjoyable experience.
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About the Author: Lexi Davis

Lexi Davis is a writer who enjoys writing on a number of different verticals. For more on jounaling, From the Ash Tree Meadow offers readers information on using journaling to encourage creativity.

As all things, it begins by purchasing a journal for that specific purpose. This is the perfect time of the year to buy that such journal. Book and gift stores provide a stack of choices this time of year. When I sat down and opened my new love journal, the cover, with its typical red cover and hearts, changed my voice but the pages were still stark white. For days, I sat staring at those blank pages every evening and occasionally a few mornings. This was a strange sensation since it’s harder for me to end than to begin.

My original thought, why I purchased this teenage-like journal, was to honor my mother’s memories. She passed, at the time ten years earlier, and our memories were waning. Many times it took pictures to see her face again. Hereare some ways that I learned over the years to fill my love journals. What once started with a cautionary purchase turned into a regular yearly purchase. Of course, this time of year because of the wide selection in the stores.

Let Me Count the Ways

Lists are a great way to begin when the sentences or thought seems vague. Lists suggest expansiveness and release the pressure of saying it just right. Focus on one person and make a list of a particular moment. It doesn’t matter whether it is recent or somewhere in the past. Memory triggering is a trained skill and takes practice.

Love Letters

“Love letters fulfill a need to confide, to testify and to articulate what is ordinarily left unspoken,” says Cathy Davidson in “The Book of Love: Writers and Their LoveLetters.” Expressing your love, whether shared or not, fulfills an internal need, a desire of a deep connection. Whether the love is only one way, a fantasy, or just a dream. Memorable writing, whether it is a list, letter ,poem, story or essay, comes deeply from the soul of the writer. It is their way of having their say.

Writing a love letter doesn’t always need to be to or about someone else. When we are working on our self-esteem and self-worth, it is important to write love letters to us. This may seem selfish or uncomfortable at the start but the experience blossoms into a deeper learning about who we are, what we want, what we need, and what we can give. For those of us who have difficulty knowing our own needs or putting our health first, writing love letters can be a valuable bridge that expands into a deeper understanding and knowledge about us or about our path.

Possible Memorable Items to Include

Here are a few items that can help expand your love writing. Of course, these items will transition with your intention, style, and voice.

1. Start by acknowledging the event. The place, day and time.

2. What was your emotional state at the time? Did you feel sad, say so. Angry, shocked, or confused, say so. Even love letters and journals have more than one emotion. Were you grieving at the time?

3. Describe any qualities — physical, emotional, professional or social. Tell what you admired about them (or yourself). Is there something you miss? Are they or were they a great teacher, storyteller, devoted father, mother, aunt, uncle?

4. Remember the little things. The small stuff does count. Was there a particular smell you remember? What were they wearing, or not.

5. Have you had this experience before. If so, when? How are they different? How are they the same?

6. Did a book, quote, musical piece, photograph, or song lyrics provide comfort or expand the experience?

7. Who else was involved? Did they build with the experience or take from it?

8. What makes this love different? Or the same? And if the same, the same to what?

9. Was this an everyday event that turned extraordinary? Why?

Whether a love letter is your intention or to begin with a list, don’t forget to love yourself and to add yourself to the menu of a love-writing experience. Most of the time we look for love in other places when it truly needs to be recognized from within first. Take the time, find the magic you hold inside you, find the love that you hold for relationships, for what you have accomplished, or desire to accomplish, or what type of love affair you want to have with the world while you are still in it.

Love is a gift, whether presented only in a journal or expanded into something wrapped and bowed. The expense is only that of pen and paper but its cost is time and thought. Place love on your calendar this week. It is as much a gift to you as it is for everyone else in your life, past or present.
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© Copyright Health Fitness Articles, Catherine Franz. All rights reserved.

About the Author – Catherine Franz

Catherine Franz, 20 year international journaling instructor, including several US Presidents and First Ladies, and author of two booklets on hundreds of tips and techniques. Visit the store at: http://www.AbundanceCenter.com

For anyone creative, ideas are our lifeblood, they’re the starting point for everything we ever create. Without ideas, we have nowhere to go, nothing to develop, we’re completely redundant.

A creative writing journal is a fantastic way of capturing, generating, storing and developing your creative ideas. In fact, as a creative writer, you should never leave home without it.

Here are 7 reasons why:

1. You capture ideas when they happen. The biggest reason you don’t have more creative ideas, isn’t that you don’t HAVE enough ideas. It’s simply that you don’t capture them and they disappear forever. With a creative writing journal, you can capture these ideas as they happen, then return to develop them at a later date.

2. You strengthen the belief that you find it easy to have new ideas. Once you start using your writing journal to capture ideas, you’ll realise how many you actually have. The more you realise how many ideas you have, the more confident you’ll be about having more.

3. You can write when you feel like writing. A common excuse for not writing is “I’m not in the right mood”. If you keep your creative writing journal with you at all times, when that mood is right, you can get straight into writing without delay.

4. You can organise ideas more easily. When you start a new journal, you can divide it into a few sections. Depending on what you write, you may have a section for character ideas, a section for scene ideas, another for plot ideas and another for phrases that just come to you. When you have a new idea, jot it in the right section and you organise as you go.

5. You help your ideas to breed. There’s something about having ideas collected together. They breed much in the same way as young rabbits! By keeping all your ideas in one journal, it focuses your creativity and allows related ideas to form more quickly and easily.

6. You give yourself permission to be more creative. By having your creative writing journal with you at all times, you’re sending your subconscious a strong message: “I’m a writer, I’m ready and prepared to write at any time.” Your subconscious responds by feeding you more ideas.

7. You inspire others to write. If you were sitting in a café and saw someone take out their journal and start writing, what would you think? As a writer yourself, no doubt you’d admire them, and start thinking about what you could write about the scene around you. The same positive effect happens for others when they see you using your journal.

These are just 7 of the many reasons why as a creative writer you should never leave home without you creative writing journal.

If you don’t have a journal, get one and start using it as soon as possible. The impact it will make to your creative writing will amaze you.
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About the Author: Dan Goodwin

Creativity Coach and keen creative writer Dan Goodwin helps people who are struggling to be as creative as they know they can be. See more at his website: http://www.CoachCreative.com

Get your creative writing kick started right now with the FREE 5 part creative writing ecourse at www.YouAreACreativeWriter.Com

1. Using an idea journal is fast, easy, and convenient.

It will take you less than 15 minutes each day to record your ideas, goals, and dreams into your idea journal.

2. Motivates you to take action on your most valuable and promising ideas.

Use the idea journal to track your ideas. These ideas may be the launch pad to your desired future; you must have a system to record each idea in order to capitalize on it in the future.

3. Maintain laser-focus on your goals, dreams, and ideas – you must stay disciplined and persistent.

The idea journal helps you to keep your goals, dreams, and ideas in front of you on a daily basis. The more you review your goals, dreams and ideas the quicker they will manifest into reality.

4. Use the idea journal as a tool to express your creativity.

The idea journal is your tool to be who you have always dreamed of being. Think of your idea journal as a tool that will help you to unleash your urge to create. The words and pictures in your journal are uniquely yours. Do not be afraid to express yourself.

5. Capture your brilliant ideas in one location.

Having a central location to store your ideas is efficient as well as good common sense. When you want to find an idea from one day ago or one month ago, you can find it.

6. Compare and combine your current ideas with your past ideas.

Use your past ideas to help you develop new ideas by combining elements of past ideas with your new ideas.

7. The idea journal is a planning tool that moves you toward your goals at a faster rate.

Use the idea journal as a planning tool – conduct brainstorming, develop mind maps and create word associations in your idea journal.

8. The idea journal helps you to stimulate new ideas when you review your past ideas.

Develop your creative abilities by reviewing your past creative endeavors and learning something new each and every time you engage in a creative project.

9. You gain greater self awareness into your passions, interests, and desires.

The more you write and review your goals, dreams and ideas, the more you will understand what it is you desire out of this life.

10. The idea journal serves as a valuable resource for future projects.

Refer back to your idea journal to help you get started on new projects.

11. The idea journal serves as your recorded time of invention, if notarized.

If ever there is a dispute related to when an idea originated, a notarized page in your journal may be the difference between you receiving credit for being first to conceive an idea or receiving no recognition at all.

12. A valuable tool to help you grow and develop in your desired direction

The idea journal is not just a place to record ideas, it is a tool that will help you grow every time that you use it.
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Copyright (c) 2006, all rights reserved.

About the Author:  Vernon Myers

Vernon Myers is the founder of IdeaMERGE.NET  – Where Ideas and People Unite! – An online networking site devoted to connecting people who have ideas to people who have experience and advice to share.

Vernon is the author of The Idea Journal – visit http://www.ideamerge.net/products to find out how to unleash your urge to create.

Visit Vernon?s blog, The Idea Pipeline, at http://www.ideapipeline.blogspot.com to discuss your ideas, dreams, and goals or to leave your comments.

You may copy, forward or distribute this article if this copyright notice and full information for contacting Vernon Myers are included. Contact him at: http://www.ideamerge.net or email: info@ideamerge.net

Help Control Your Spending with a Daily Journal Entry

Do you have trouble keeping track of your finances? Maybe your savings is a lot lower than you will need for your future. If you are having personal finance issues, it can be very easy to get back on track by using your journal.

Find Out Where the Problem Lies

People are usually more honest with themselves when writing in a journal than they are when they talk to the people who are closest to them. While talking to someone about these issues may help, you might find that writing honestly about your situation will open your eyes to the root of the issue. There are lots of reasons why people spend too much. Some people have spent their entire lives buying material items to make them feel better, while others simply don’t want to cook so they go out to eat too often. Whatever the symptom (over-spending on cloths, food, or other unnecessary items), you will need to figure out why you do it if you want to control your spending. Once you have tackled that problem, you can start using your journal to fix it and manage your money wisely.

Create a Strict Budget

One of the most important steps to proper spending habits is a budget. Write down all of your living expenses for the month. Create a column for fixed expenses (i.e. rent, cable/phone bill, etc.) and one for variable expenses (i.e. electric, water, groceries, etc.), and then write down the amount of money you expect to spend on each item every month. Be as reasonable as possible with your variable expenses. Remember that it is important to try to save as much money as possible on these items, but you shouldn’t choose a number so low that it is unattainable.

You should also remember to include an amount of money you would like to save every month. Those who put money away before they spend the rest of their paycheck are much more likely to be successful with saving than those who save the money they have left at the end of the month. If you put a specific amount of money away and then budget what you have left from your paycheck, you will find that saving can be quite easy. This money could go toward your retirement, a savings account for emergencies, or even for a special occasion. A little bit of money each month will add up over the years, and some extra money set aside will give you more financial stability.

Follow Through and Stick to It

The hardest part of a budget is actually sticking to it. It is very easy to let yourself slip “just this once” until this excuse becomes a common occurrence. Write about every single thing you buy every day. When you see on paper where you money is going, you will hold yourself responsible for those purchases. If money came out of your account or if you made a payment it should be written down.

You should also write reminders for when you will need to make your payments. One of the worst things you can do for your financial future is forget when to pay your bills. It could ruin your credit, which could in turn make it difficult for you to get a loan, a house/apartment, or a job in the future. If you stay on top of your personal finances now, you can avoid financial troubles later and have a lot less to worry about.

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About the Author: Elise Brown

Elise Brown is an author who writes guest posts on the topics of business, marketing, credit cards, and personal finance. Additionally, she works for a website that focuses on educating readers about no fax payday loans.

There may be times, though, when your journaling seems bogged down in too much You. You realize you’re in a rut and you’re starting to dislike yourself.

This sort of thing happens often in relationships with lovers, family members, and friends. Now and then we need to get away by ourselves, even though we may love these people with all our hearts.

It’s the same with your journal. You need a way to refresh your outlook, from time to time. Often, the best thing may be to walk away: go see a movie or clean the house.

But you can also refresh the process through journaling itself, and by doing so you inject lasting fascination into your practice.

• If you’re tired of the same old-same old in your journal, become a journalist! Instead of talking about your personal reactions, write about your surroundings: the people, environment, and what’s going on.

• If your writing is full of “I wish…” or “If only…” or other sorts of heavy sighs all the time, try having a dialog with a mentor. Write out your conversation with a beloved teacher from your past, or an admired person in your present. Find out what the Dalai Lama or Saint Francis or Oprah has to say to you. Just as importantly, find out what you have to say to them.

• If you feel as though you’ve discovered all there is to discover, and you’ve reached rock bottom, start dreaming! It is patently untrue that your well of inspiration has dried up. All you have to do is distract yourself a bit. Instead of your usual journaling, fill up the pages with fantasies of whatever kind you wish. Be outrageous, take it way over the top. Tell lies, tell stories, create other worlds. Keep journaling this way until you’re ready to get back to “real life.”

Note that each of these exercises rejuvenates you by forcing you to focus outside your accustomed thought patterns. The key element is the introduction of an “Other,” another person or thing with which you interact.

Here is a bonus exercise, though it is not for the faint-hearted. Since the jump-start to lift you from journaling doldrums is the presence of the “Other,” all you really need is your own reflection! The “Other” that is always with you is your own soul.

• Take a long hard look in a mirror. Stay gazing at your face past the time when you think you’ve seen everything. Concentrate particularly on the eyes. Then take up your journal and write about what you saw.

Using the toxin to kill the disease – that is, using journaling to conquer your journaling ennui – will not only restore your joy but it will also bring epiphanies that will sustain your practice into the future.
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About the Author: Mari L. McCarthy

Mari L. McCarthy – The Journaling Therapy Specialist, founder of Journaling for the Health of It?. Mari offers counseling and encouragement to writers through her many online journaling resources as well as private consultations. Please see http://www.createwritenow.com/journaling/ for further information. Mari’s latest publication is titled, <i>Get A Job! Journal Your Way to Your Most Rewarding Career</i>. Go to http://www.createwritenow.com/jobs-journaling-ebook/ for details.

2. Letter Journal – After you’ve written a letter, make a copy and keep it in its own file or binder.

3. Memory Journal – Think back, and journal one memory a day.

4. Gratitude Journal – Journal one thing in your life that you are grateful for that day.

5. Prayer Journal – Journal a prayer a day. Your prayer, a friend’s, the prayer from the paper, etc.

6. Good Thoughts Journal – Journal at least one good thought each day.

7. Books/Movies Journal – Journal the books you have read or the movies you have seen. What were your experiences? Who suggested the book or movie? Who did you see the movie with?

8. Couples Journal – Take time every day to write something to each other. Journal about each other, an experience of the day, a dream for the future, even an, “I’m sorry.”

9. Dream Journal – Upon waking, journal your dreams.

10. Friendship Journal – Journal your experiences and feelings about the lunch you just had with a friend, your visit with your sister, what you are looking forward to with a co-worker and the new work project.

11. Birthday Journal – Have your friends pick a date and journal why they picked that date, and ask them to retell a funny story, journal how you met, or say why they care for you as they do.

12. Recipe Journal – Journal past and present recipes. Include where you got the recipe, where and when you served it, who was there, and what they thought. You can keep a journal for salads, dinners, and a third for desserts.

13. Sports Journal – Journal your experiences with your favorite team.

14. Health Journal – Journal how you feel physically and what you are going thru health wise.

15. Diet/Exercise Journal – Journal what you eat, and your current times, distances, repetitions, weights, and other capabilities, tracking your progress.

16. Finance Journal – Daily you can journal all expenses, certain expenses, or have a place to keep this journal for family or employees to enter their expenses. You can also use this journal idea to track your present financial situation, or reflect on what you want to change or keep the same.

17. Collection/Hobby Journal – Journal your experiences and feelings about what you collect or your hobby, your stamps, coins, furniture, scrapbooking, dolls, etc. Besides journaling about the actual collection, you can record your feelings, what you saw, what you heard, who you met.

18. Focus Journal – Journal what you want to focus on tomorrow, or what you did focus on today.

19. Joke Journal – Journal a joke a day. Make one up or record a good one that you heard.

20. Travel Journal – Journal your travels, all those adventures and experiences.
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About the Author:  Doreene Clemen

Doreene Clement, a cancer victor and author of The 5 Year Journal, is currently writing a new book, Blessed, about her life and her cancer experience. For more information www.the5yearjournal.com 480.423.8095  doreene@the5yearjournal.com
Copyright 2005 OMDC, LLC All Rights Reserved

Journaling provides us with a necessary outlet for our thoughts and feelings. It reminds us to validate and acknowledge them as being important enough to write down and examine. In putting them on paper, we have allowed ourselves to catalog and process them and then to release them, freeing ourselves for more opportunities.

What they think of you is none of your business.

A journal’s purpose is best served when it is written for you and you alone. The most effective way to journal is to write freely, knowing that no one else will ever see it unless you invite them to. Often times we write for a perceived audience. We consider our words too carefully, lest they be judged by others or for fear of hurting someone’s feelings. If we are to truly know ourselves, we should write candidly, openly and without fear of reprisal. Here are 100 journaling prompts that should help you on your path to writing your truth. No excuses! So, pick up a pen and get to work. Start writing and don’t stop until there is nothing left. Your life story -as you see it-is waiting to be told.

1. Define your personal style.

2. Describe a time when you were brave.

3. What does being a friend means to you?

4. I wish everyone had___…

5. Your idea of a perfect day.

6. In what ways do you consider yourself to be quirky?

7. How do you feel about loneliness?

8. Your favorite childhood memory.

9. Someone whose life is better because they knew you? Why?

10. Ten things you hold most dear.

11. Describe LOVE using all five senses.

12. Someone that you are keeping in your life for their sake, not yours.

13. Something you have been avoiding.

14. A goal you’ve been putting off.

15. Who is someone you admire? Why?

16. Someone who profoundly affected you.

17. I secretly wish I ___…

18. Your biggest fear & how to conquer it.

19. Who do you need to forgive? Why?

20. Your bucket list.

21. Something about yourself that you’re most proud of.

22. What role do you play in your family?

23. Something seemingly out of your reach.

24. How do you feel you are perceived by others?

25. What’s your favorite color and why?

‘Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others is one of the most difficult challenges I face.’ ~Carol Mosely-Braun

26. The three things you are most grateful for today.

27. Write a letter to your parents, spouse, children.

28. Describe what feeling safe means to you.

29. Three words to describe your life.

30. Something you have always felt was missing in your life.

31. Do you feel lovable?

32. Some things that you’d like to hear right now.

33. If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be and why?

34. What lessons did you take from your regrets?

35. Describe your dream home.

36. Your most embarrassing moment.

37. Your proudest moment.

38. Describe a failure that turned out to be a blessing.

39. Your interpretation of a recent dream.

40. Something you want people to know about you.

41. Something you don’t want people to know about you.

42. What’s your favorite song and why?

43. Someone who is not in your life as often as you would wish and why.

44. What characteristics do you judge the most harshly in others?

45. What characteristics do you judge the most harshly in yourself?

46. Describe a time you felt courageous.

47. Your most satisfying victory.

48. Your most agonizing defeat.

49. Write a letter to someone who hurt you that you will never send. Just to get it out of your heart & mind.

50. How do you want to be remembered after you die?

‘It is a pathetic moment in the history of the human condition when the outside world tells us who and what we are-and we start to believe it ourselves. Then, bent over from the weight of the negativity, we begin to wither on the outside.’ ~Joan Chittiser

51. How would your life be different if you felt comfortable being yourself at all times?

52. Describe ‘a beginning’ that impacted you.

53. Describe a situation in which it was ‘the end’ of something for you.

54. What do you believe is your life purpose?

55. Describe the kindest thing you have ever done for someone.

56. Something you did to someone that you have trouble forgiving yourself for.

57. Describe how you felt when you visited your grandparent’s house as a child.

58. A gift you gave someone that you were most proud of.

59. Write a letter you would like read at your funeral.

60. What does forgiveness mean to you?

61. What type of person makes you feel inferior?

62. Three characteristics you would like to possess.

63. What are some things you can do this week that you can be proud of?

64. Describe a time when you made someone’s day.

65. I wish people would___…

66. Some things you take for granted and why?

67. What would the title of your biography be and why?

68. Some things you noticed today that you had been missing all along?

69. What room in your home best reflects who you are and why?

70. When you give do you eventually expect something in return?

71. Is your destiny formed by choice or chance? Explain.

72. If you could go back and do it again, at what age would you like to begin from?

73. List five non-materialistic things you would like to have right now.

74. What area of your life needs the most growth and how are you working on that?

75. Something you could invent to make the world a better place.

‘Self-confidence is so relaxing. There is no strain or stress when one is self-confident. Our lack of self-confidence comes from trying to be someone we aren’t.’ ~Anne Wilson Schaef

76. What things about yourself do you feel that someone who just met you would like?

77. Something you have been meaning to do and have been putting off. Why?

78. What era do you feel you would have most comfortably belonged living in?

79. Who is your hero and why?

80. If money were no object what gifts would you give to three people in your life?

81. Describe your sense of humor.

82. Describe the process you go through when you are planning to buy something expensive for yourself.

83. Write a letter to God.

84. What’s your definition of family?

85. What do you feel most guilty about? Why haven’t you been able to forgive yourself?

86. Write a letter to your past.

87. What emotion dominates you life lately?

88. If you could change one thing about your life what would it be and why?

89. What positive, life-affirming aspects do you carry with you every day?

90. Take a crack at writing a poem!

91. Write a fairytale starring you.

92. A time you acted without thinking and it’s impact on you and others.

93. What if you were granted three wishes?

94. A goal you’re working towards and your progress so far.

95. What things in your life do you truly enjoy vs. tolerate?

96. What are your three largest priorities?

97. Something in your past that needs letting go of.

98. Some things you do daily that you don’t enjoy and why? Can they be re-evaluated, delegated or eliminated?

99. How do you feel about commitment in general?

100. Write a sincere letter to someone you need to forgive. Even if it’s yourself.

‘Accept everything about yourself.I mean everything. You are you and that is the beginning and the end. No apologies. No regrets.’ ~Carl Moustakas
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About the Author: Melissa Bolton

Melissa Bolton, freelance copywriter and Internet marketing strategist, is the owner & proprietress of Designher Brands, an online marketing and branding company specializing in women in small business. You can learn more about her services on her website, http://designherbrands.com and email her at:  melissa@designherbrands.com

This really frightened Marilyn. She was a stay at home mom. How could she justify her “job” if her children were gone? As well, she would miss them terribly. She wanted a family vacation instead.

Her husband thought the family needed extra income. He wanted her to go back to work.

She, on the other hand, felt all children needed to have at least one parent home with them for proper nurturing, care and support. As well, her secret life long dream was to be a “stay at home mom.”

One of Marilyn’s favorite ways to solve problems was to go to the book store, meander around the isles until a “special” book fell off the shelf into her hands. The book that found her today was about creating her own abundance book in the form of a journal.

She began her abundance journal right away. The journal was to be based on her deepest feelings and desires. The abundance book said to exactly express what she really wanted as if it had already happened.

The journal was not to concern itself with the toil and trouble of “how” her desires would be delivered. It was to simply express her life exactly as she wanted it without bringing any harm or negative outcome to others in the process.

She began by describing her “stay at home mom” lifestyle. In her abundance book journal the family had an increase in income without her going back to work. She did not worry how their income issues were settled. She simply made it so. When she was through she felt light, happy and content.

In addition to this, the book said to create an affirmation for the day based on that day’s journal entry. Her affirmation for that day was, “My ideas are perfectly honored by everyone, every day in every way.”

She was to repeat that affirmation to herself during the day at every chance she got. She could repeat it silently in her mind or out loud, depending on her circumstances. Repeating it out loud was the most effective way to do this.

She saw results quickly.

Within a week her husband received an unexpected raise at work. It came from the way the company matched his 401K contribution, increasing their match into the plan by a wide amount. This increase would ensure a larger savings rate for their future.

That evening at dinner, he suggested of his own volition, the family go on a vacation to the Grand Canyon instead of sending the children to camp for the entire summer. He thought two weeks at camp would be more than enough time for the children to learn some independence.

Everyone was ecstatic with this plan.

Marilyn realized the power of creating her own abundance book in the form of a journal. She decided this would be a great project to teach the children during the summer.
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About the Author: Laura Bartolini Medelsohn

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