Is it really worth it to buy retirement planning software? Many people want to know the answer to this question. In today’s day and age many people are not reaching their retirement goals, simply from a lack of planning, especially at a younger age. By simply starting to invest your money a young age, you can achieve great wealth upon retirement. Retirement planning software will help you get there. Of course, the question still remains: is it really necessary to buy retirement planning software? There are many free retirement planning software programs offered on the Internet today, which makes this makes this a valid question. The honest reality is this: you can generally obtain all the information needed with free retirement planning software. Generally speaking, paid retirement planning software isn’t really necessary; all you really need, in fact, is start a Microsoft Word document keep track of your income and expenses they are. Microsoft excel also is a valid way to track expenses. Remember the most important part of your retirement planning is to simply keep track of your income and expenses. This is really all you need to do when tracking your money. As long as you’re raking in more money than you are giving out, you are doing fine. You can set up your income and expense tracking in the form of a balance sheet, income statement etc. As long as you’re keeping track of this in some way, that’s the most important part. Unfortunate, countless people do a lousy job of keeping track of their finances, and therefore wonder why they haven’t achieved enough money to retire on when they reach the end of their career. Remember this: the most important part in your retirement planning process is to simply have a plan for what you want to achieve upon retiring. Unfortunately, most people never bother to do this seemingly obvious step. Once you know this, figure out how money you’ll need to achieve those goals, and invest in the most appropriate investment to help you get there. Follow these important tips, and it’s not even necessary to buy retirement planning software. Either way, you will achieve your retirement planning goals.

How long did it take to break your New Year’s resolution this year? You haven’t yet? You are one of the rare few. Why so rare? Because many resolutions are made as a cultural custom—it’s what we “do” every year at this time. And for the majority, the custom of breaking a resolution is as strong a part of the tradition as making it. In their hearts, most people expect it to happen. As a hypnotherapist, the post-New Year’s crowds are already breaking down my doors. But must we behave the same way every new year? No. How to prevent it or repair it? Read on. Mistakes We Make The reasons we often fail at keeping our resolution—though we’re experts at making them!—are the following. Notice which of these common reasons are yours, and then choose to make a positive change in the resolutions you select, how you construct them, and how you share them. Here’s the scoop on what can go wrong and how to avoid it. Mistake 1: The Resolution Is Too Complicated or Severe “I’ll never eat another candy bar again, never-ever!” is too severe (unless you’ve been strongly advised by your doctor). Here’s what too-complicated sounds like: “I’ll work out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, unless Monday is a holiday, or I walk to work three times or more that week, or I go out drinking and can’t get up early enough.” The logic may be sound, but rather than including all those ifs, ands, and buts in creating the resolution, go with the flow as life happens. Figure you’ll work out three times a week. If you wake up late one morning, get up early another day and work out then instead. It’s common sense, but many people miss it. Overall learning: if the resolution isn’t working, re-think it. Mistake 2: It’s All About What You Won’t Do—Nothing About What You Will Do People need a good mixture of do’s and don’ts, will’s and won’ts to get the job done right. Instead of just a list of what you won’t eat so as to lose weight, also include your new preferred menu. For some of us the preferred items alone will do the job. But knowing only what you’re cutting out, and nothing about what you’re including in, makes Jane a sad, confused girl. So if you want to lose that extra weight, say something: “I will emphasize fruit, vegetables and sugar-free drinks as snacks, and move away from sugary, fatty snacks.” If you’re like many of my clients, thinking only of the first half (what you CHOOSE to eat) is sufficient. That way you need not concentrate on what you’re “losing out on.” Know yourself and experiment. Side note: Just declaring what you will do isn’t sufficient; you’ll also need to make that trip down the fruit and veggie aisle. Overall learning: Turn a ‘won’t do’ resolution into something that will give you direction—a ‘will do’ resolution! Mistake 3: You’re Denying An Important Need or Desire If you overeat, over-drink, or have sex with people you don’t really want to be having sex with, there’s probably something you’re missing. A need that is going unfulfilled. Have an honest talk with yourself, a smart and loyal friend, or a counselor, therapist or hypnotist, and find that thing, and get it fulfilled in some healthy way. You may need time to work through it, but that’s okay; the rewards will be great. Ignore it and that undesirable behavior will keep returning, sometimes more fiercely. Overall learning: Figure out what’s been left unfulfilled and work on getting it satisfied or restructured positively. Mistake 4: You Expect to Fail An old friend of mine used to make a resolution every new year to lose 15 pounds and keep them off. Sometimes she lost them, and sometimes she didn’t, but the new body never lasted. Now that I’ve been a hypnotist for around 10 years, the reason is obvious. She always said something like this: “I’m going to lose that 15 pounds this year, I hope” or “I’m going to try to lose those 15 pounds” or ”I’m going to take off the 15 pounds—at least for a while.” Notice how she built failure into every one of those resolutions. Frankly, resolutions are the closest thing to hypnotic suggestions. Build in failure and you’ve practically hypnotized yourself to fail. Overall learning: Ask yourself what kind of support, help, or learning you need to succeed; then proceed to get them. Mistake 5: You’re Not Getting Support – Or You’re Getting Negative Support Whether your quest this year is to lose weight, run a triathalon, get a great new job, or find a life partner, tell only people who will support you. If the friend or relative is unsupportive, envious, or spiteful regarding your endeavor, don’t use him or her as a sounding board. In fact, don’t even tell him/her about your goal or decision until it’s a done deal. It’s really okay to share only with supporters or cheerleaders and avoid the naysayers who don’t have helpful, valid objections. If you have close relatives you “should” tell but are afraid they’ll disrupt your momentum, disclose only when you’re so in-the-flow that you’re bulletproof. Overall learning: Your best defense is to watch and listen, and then do what you need to do to protect your goal. For more on this, read Part 2, “Notes From A Hypnotist: Creating A New Year That’s Way Better Than Last Year.” ©2008 by Wendy Lapidus-Saltz. All rights reserved.

We all feel a little off balance at times. Maybe we’re having difficulty sleeping or we’re stressed or getting emotionally sensitive and finding there is drama in some or all of our relationships. Often during these times our life is focused area too much in one or more areas. Dividing our attention between different activities and finding routines helps us to restore balance. Here are some tips that may help you to restore a feeling of balance: 1. Limit your online time (emails, forums, instant messaging) to two hours a day. 2. Leave the house every day in the morning, even if you don’t need to be somewhere. You can go to a coffee shop and read the paper, visit a library or a museum, or go for a long walk or bicycle ride. 3. Keep regular sleeping hours. If you are having difficulty sleeping, at least assign certain hours for sleeping, resting, reading, or quiet television (if that makes you drowsy). 4. Save the last hour of the day for quiet and reading books or television – no phone, no computer, no work. 5. Step away from people who are pulling you off balance with drama or their own negativity. Usually you only need to do this until you feel balanced again. 6. Occupy your thoughts and time mostly with positive ideas and activities. 7. Have an assortment of healthy friends in different niches of life. “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” or all your social time into one friend or one group of friends. This way when there are problems, and there almost always are occasionally even in good relationships, you will be able to have some enjoyable time or get emotional support from other friends. 8. If you have been watching a lot of television, limit your television to no more than 3 hours a day, at least for a week. 9. Balance the time in your day between different activities and efforts, even at work or college. Too much of one type of activity can make you feel more stressed or dissatisfied. Pace yourself with deadlines so that you won’t have to do marathon sessions to catch up. 10. Don’t work on personal healing or self improvement too much. It gets too intense and ultimately does not help. 11. LIGHTEN UP! Don’t take things too seriously… practice laughter, and ESPECIALLY laughing at yourself!

I used to visit a support forum online for people recovering from various types of trauma. It felt like a wonderful place, and I know it does a lot of good for people. But after I was there for a while I started to wonder, “why don’t I see anyone getting well here?” Out of all the people there, you would see lots of people having “insights,” but the insights didn’t seem to translate into anything but small improvements in their actual lives. The more time you spent there, the more you saw people repeating the same patterns. Once in a while people would suddenly quit coming and I’d wonder, “what happened to them?” I really wanted people to get well and to feel better myself so I kept thinking what to do next, what was the next step? …and then suddenly one day it occurred to me: You can’t become happy and healthy without doing the things happy and healthy people do. And happy, healthy, people didn’t spend hours every day reliving the most tragic and painful moments of their lives! Instead they were out playing with their kids, taking a class, going to the movies, working, whatever. They were going on with life. It taught me that there is a subtle, but very important distinction between “healing” and “healed.” We need sometimes to reflect and discuss, but we should never lose sight of our goal. The goal is not the healing process, but rather to feel good again. Focusing on healing is akin to someone pointing to the moon but you stare at the end of their finger. Too often leads you into your pain and limitations and not to where you wish to be. Since then I often think of my personal growth as one big matching game. If, for example, my dream life includes being very healthy and feeling youthful, well then today I might try to match. A healthy person has healthy eating and exercise habits. Or, say I wish to be confident. Today I might try to speak better of myself and hesitate less. Self-help is like a middle step that sometimes we need and use, sometimes we don’t need but we worry ourselves into thinking we do, or sometimes we discuss the self help but fail to apply it. Anger is not a very enjoyable emotion and it can cause many problems. We often feel helpless in our anger, but there are some simple techniques we can learn to help us reduce or eliminate our anger and direct it in more healthy ways. Anger often is born out of a build up of stress, so the first thing you can do is learn relaxation techniques that you can use when you are feeling stressed. One technique is simply taking a break and breathing deeply and letting go of the tension held in your body. It is our exaggerated and dramatic way of thinking that makes our anger escalate, so it is important to start breaking the habit of this distorted way of thinking. When we are angry, we might be imagining that people are deliberately trying to hurt us or that we are powerless or that things beyond our control matters more than it actually does. Control issues especially come up with anger. We need to learn that we can’t control others but also that we don’t need to control others to be happy and safe. We only need to be able to direct our own thoughts and behavior, and more consciously choose to take positive things from situations and life. Blame is another issue that comes up frequently with anger. Blame is very dis-empowering, and it is sometimes sneaks its way into our psyche in disguise. Make a conscious decision to let go of blame just as you would let go of holding onto something that burns you. Expression is the last key to managing your anger. Trying to suppress anger you feel only makes it fester until it boils over or causes damage to you. Anger often can be unraveled by using the techniques just mentioned, but when it can’t, it is important to express it in ways that do not harm you or others. Sometimes it is enough to communicate to someone, “I am angry because I feel like…” At other times it is not helpful or possible to talk to the person with whom you are feeling anger. General anger can also be expressed in painting (even if you are not an artist), in poetry or music, in a journal, or some other safe manner. Just be careful that when you are expressing your anger, you are letting go of it and not increasing your anger. Managing anger should always make you feel more empowered.

The power of visualization in the law of attraction, or what is famously known now as The Secret, is not a new experiment. It is not something that is untried. For centuries, sages have been studying and utilizing the power of visualization to get what they wanted. It is a proven fact that whatever we visualize, we will most certainly get. We know it as the law of attraction and it works on magnetic energy. In order to attract what you are after, you have to visualize, visualize, and visualize with specific details. If it is a new Mercedes that you want, you need to be clear about the model, the color, the interior, etc and have that picture registered clearly in your mind. You also need to specify when you want it because the universe needs to know the time frame in which to deliver your request. But be sensible when you play with time. You cannot request it to be delivered tomorrow because your intellect would say that is impossible. You may wonder how the universe is going to deliver your new Mercedes with the current salary you are getting. But other factors come into play. You may suddenly earn a windfall, get promoted, or your business suddenly flourishes. Leave it to the law of attraction to work that out for you. All you need to do is to visualize the Mercedes parking in your driveway, or you driving it with the person you love sitting right next to you. To work the power of visualization, you need to hold the picture clearly in your mind with every detail. Get a scrap book and paste a picture of the car on the first page and look at it when you make your visualizations. To make the visualization more powerful, buy something for the new car however small it is, like an ornament, a car decal, that you would place in the car once you get it. Giving your visualization real feelings is a powerful way to send the message to the universe. Your thoughts and the words that you use in your visualizations is powerful, but the greatest pulling factor is feelings or emotions. Put all three into force and you will certainly attain what you desire with great clarity. Visualize at night before retiring as you lie in bed. Ensure that your body is aligned with the earth’s magnetic poles with the head of the bed pointing North, as this will magnetize your body and your thoughts. Be clear about the things that you want, or refer to your scrap book if you cannot picture it clearly. Ask the subconscious to deliver it to you and give it a timeline that is reasonable. Repeat this practice every night like a ritual. You have to repeat and repeat. Over the next few days or weeks, you may come across coincidences that would led you to believe your request is materializing. These are Alpha reflections, the universe’s way of affirming that what you had requested for, is being manifested. In time, you will notice that you are being guided to take a certain form of action to attain the Mercedes. You must not hesitate or become pessimistic. Follow the hints and take action. These are the logical line of events that will lead you to the attainment of your goal. And before you know it, the gleaming new Mercedes is right in front of you.