6 Questions to Help you Find your Purpose

What are you passionate about? Did you know simply discovering your passions can help lead you to your life purpose?

Your life purpose is an incredibly powerful force that will direct your life and determine your legacy. Find a successful person who is content and fulfilled, and you’ll likely find a life guided by an inspired purpose or mission, and a person who has applied his or her natural talents to a worthy cause.

In fact, without a strong sense of life purpose,

even the most successful accomplishments can seem empty.

Knowing your life purpose – what makes you tick, what motivates you, what you are alive on earth to do – is what ignites passion. Passion inspires initiative and creativity. It builds momentum and creates enthusiasm. It also sustains hope and perseverance in difficult times, and provides a reason (and enthusiasm!) for getting out of bed every morning.

Life purposes can be cause-driven (e.g., curing a disease, educating disadvantaged youth, sheltering the homeless, cleaning the planet, protecting our country) or skill-driven (e.g., athletes, artists, mathematicians, designers).

How can you discover your life purpose? Here are some questions to consider:

What causes (e.g., global or community needs, people, situations, organizations) am I most passionate about? What problems would I most like to solve? What needs or people tug at my heart?
What inspires me the most?
What brings me the greatest joy and sense of fulfillment?
Whose lives would I most like to emulate and why?
What are my special gifts and talents?
Where can my skills have the greatest potential impact?

Once you ponder these questions, see if a picture emerges about what inspires and motivates you. Then, as that picture solidifies into an identifiable sense of purpose, calling, and passion, start thinking about how you can live it out.

Whatever you do, don’t set your life purpose on a shelf and forget about it. You are a unique individual with gifts, talents, and perspective only YOU can give to the world. No amount of money, fame, or accomplishment can ever compete with that.

Someday, you’ll want to be able to look back on your life and say, “Mission accomplished!” What’s your mission? Are you living it out with purpose and passion? Please share your comments; we’d love to hear from you!

5 Surprising Benefits of Gratefulness

Posted by lifesmartblog

Are you a grateful person? Most of us would like to think we are–but how often are we really?

Gratitude is the simple attitude (and act) of showing appreciation and thankfulness. It doesn’t take a lot of our time or effort to be thankful, but it holds incredible benefits both for the one expressing it and the person (or people) receiving it. There are many benefits of a grateful heart; here are some that might surprise you:

1. Just 15 minutes a day focusing on the things you’re grateful for will boost your body’s antibodies and contribute to a strengthened immune system. This means that a more thankful, appreciative heart and mind make for a healthier body. Wow!

2. Grateful people are more focused mentally and therefore measurably less vulnerable to clinical depression.

3. Gratitude induces a physiological state of mind called “resonance,” often associated with healthier blood pressure and heart rate. Recent studies have shown that people who participate in “gratitude practices” (see more about these below) go to the doctor less often.

4. Gratitude can help you relax. Gratitude and other positive emotions are some of the strongest relaxants there are. If you are feeling stressed or overwhelmed, take some time to focus on the things you’re grateful for. It could help minimize the stressors in your life and cause you to be an all around less-stressed person.

5. Gratitude can help your relationships. Being grateful can create more positive interactions with your spouse or partner. Expressing your appreciation for them will most likely make them happy, which will in turn create yet another positive interaction between the two of you. When positive interactions (compliments, encouragement, affirmations) greatly outweigh the negative ones (sarcasm, disagreements, criticism), a relationship becomes strong and fulfilling.

When you’re grateful, you focus your mind on pleasant, positive thoughts (“gratitude practices”). A gratitude practice that many find helpful is keeping a gratitude journal. Consider taking five to ten minutes out of your daily routine to write down in a journal the things you are grateful for. This helps you appreciate the things that are happening around you and the people surrounding you. It prevents you from developing an “entitlement” mindset (the feeling that everyone owes you something). It also raises your happiness quotient!

Thankful people make the people around them happier, too, and ultimately attract more friends and opportunities as a result. Have you taken on any “gratitude practices?” How has it affected you and others?

Financial Literacy: Keep It Simple!

Posted by lifesmartblog

As a nation, we have been witnessing a tragedy of epic proportions. Debt, deficit spending, and credit card use have taken control of the lives of millions. The result has been skyrocketing bankruptcies and enormous stress on individuals and their families. How can we avoid this situation? One way is to AVOID the credit card trap altogether!

I grew up in a family with a very modest income. However, we were never financially strapped. My parents’ method of managing their finances was a simple one, but it worked. They stuffed with cash for key expenses and lived on what was inside. No credit cards, no loans, no overspending. No more money in the envelopes meant no more spending. Simple. I have adapted my parents’ conservative, simple approach through budgeting and banking and we’ve always lived financially stress-free.

The same is not true for the majority of Americans. The credit crisis is enormous on both a national and an individual level. Bankruptcies are at a record high and most families would say that they are experiencing at least some level of financial stress. How did this happen? A couple of things have caused it:

· The widespread availability of credit cards, coupled with a lack of discipline to use them responsibly (studies show spending via credit cards is substantially greater than cash only)

· Financial literacy is not a priority in many education institutions, despite the importance of budgeting and investing in daily life

· The rise in consumerism and the strong focus on buying “things” in our culture

The long and short of it is that easy access to credit cards and loans has given consumers a false sense of financial security. This lures them into spending more than their income can support. The debt builds and accrues interest, making the monthly payment grow every month. Today’s average family has several credit cards with monthly balances well into the thousands? Eventually, there has to be a day of reckoning and these large balances and interest charges MUST be tackled.

Fortunately, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to live debt free. It’s easy—just be disciplined and abide by this basic principle: Use credit wisely and sparingly and resist making purchases if you can’t pay with cash. Keep it simple—avoid the credit trap and you’ll relieve your financial stress.

“Credit buying is much like being drunk.

The buzz happens immediately and gives you a lift. The hangover comes the day after.”

Joyce Brothers

Do you have some good strategies for (or questions about) avoiding or overcoming credit card spending and debt? Do you keep it simple? What’s YOUR method? Jump into the conversation on my website and leave your comments. Then keep the conversation going: please forward this to friends and encourage them to sign up for our weekly email at www.dennistrittin.com/newsletter.aspx..