If you always do what youve always done, youll always get what youve always got.

Its critical that we realize our lives can change at any moment. Realistically, there will come a time when our everyday life will suddenly be altered; the only question is when. It could happen when you least expect it. You might get a dreaded phone call, come up with a brilliant idea, loose your job, meet a new friend, discover a new career direction, or fall in love. You just never know, and this is one of the reasons why life is so exciting and mysterious.

I know its not easy to shift out of what we do and how we do it, nor is it easy to shift our views in order to see new things in place of the old. It is often frightening and confusing to make a shift away from the familiar in order to embrace the unknown. Yet it is necessary energy we must apply in order to grow. No matter how challenging, difficult, or hard it may seem, shifts are necessary to free ourselves from the confinement of our unnecessary self-made mental, emotional, or physical limitations. All shifts create a vibration which in turn affects everything around it. If you shift a piece of chalk in a box, all the other pieces of chalks will move. Sometimes moving a single piece of chalk will cause a slight shift. Under other circumstances, moving a single piece may mean the others fall, crack, and crumble. This is why sometimes in fear of the effects our changes will create, we delay making a much-needed shift in our minds and behaviors. As a result, our lives and everything around us remain stuck. Being stuck can lead our spirits to develop negative emotions -- such as frustration, depression, confusion, doubt or even anger -- that we dont truly understand.

Nevertheless when the time comes to move (and youll know when that time is, just as long as you choose to acknowledge it), all I can say is, you must move! However, there are important factors that you must also take into account when making changes in your life -- that is, to consider all the different kinds of income you need to produce. Aside from monetary income there are also psychological, spiritual, and physical income. You have to consider the balance in all your accounts because a high figure in one and nothing in the others adds up to a very low average. Realize when you choose a certain kind of behavior, you also choose the consequences of the balance in each account. So lets say you choose to invest 90 percent of your energy in your job and 10 percent in your personal relationship -- it doesnt matter whether you can justify the demands at work -- essentially what matters is that youve chosen to allow your personal relationship to loose a vital connection.

Be truthful about what isnt working in your life. Honestly assess where you stand with your beliefs in self-management -- mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. You cannot afford to be fearful, defensive or to be in denial; this can truly harm you. It diminishes what might have been a real chance to overcome a problem had the solution just been pursued in time. So you have to have the strength and courage to ask yourself the hard questions, and give yourself realistic answers. Remember -- you cant change what you dont acknowledge. If you refuse to acknowledge the changes that occur or need to occur in your life, your own self-destructive behaviors will not only continue, they will actually gain momentum, become more deeply entrenched in the habitual patterns of your life, and grow more and more resistance to change. And let me remind you, nothing glorious can come out of this!

Copyright 2005 Penny Phang Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.