Top Ten Tips to ride out the recession

Posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 and is filed under Comment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

It’s often hard to quantify the power of the now, especially when the ‘now’ is so big and real, and bad. Recent times have seen billions wiped off the face of the stock market, investments and savings as people’s confidence in the economy weakens by the day.

As this confidence is rocked further by negatively oriented press offerings, the situation reaches a critical mass and implodes into itself, rather like a negative black hole. For all the good will in the world it seems that the major contributing factor is the opinions of the masses, and if those are downward looking, the foundation of economy (perception of worth) disappears and the economic house of cards collapses.

Photo by Anders B

For now, we have economy 1.0, and while it will almost certainly evolve out of the current mess a leaner and meaner economy 2.0, until the fundamentals change considerably, we are going to be faced with boom and bust economics, regardless of what Mr Brown or his Darling may think.

It might be considered a cheap shot to lay all of the blame on the bankers, or even the UK press, but in times like these, we need the support of the press more than ever. I know they want to sell papers, but when are they going to realise that printing stories of depression, redundancies and economic disaster, is only making things worse?

So what to do in such a situation? Well, a wise teacher once said, "turn the other cheek". And I’m told what he meant by that was, "Don’t give your attention to things that you don’t want." An individual will live whatever he predominantly thinks about. If his mind is full of thoughts of illness, he will not have good health. If his mind is consumed with thoughts of poverty, he will never be prosperous. If a boy is convinced, when young, that he is stupid, unless he turns that belief on its head, he will struggle to learn.

We see this very simple but universal truth at work in the swings of the economic cycle. When things are going well they get better, and when things are going badly they get even worse. It would not be this way however, if people chose to focus on things other than the ‘reality’ of the situation, and focus instead on what they would prefer. So while people may continue to point fingers at bankers, and buy into the terrorism of the UK press, the situation will not improve for those who continue to look at the ‘facts’ of the situation and claim themselves powerless.

The good news is, it doesn’t matter to you what anyone else is doing, because you can have whatever you want, as long as you decide what that is, and focus upon it. With this in mind, here are HHHNews’s top ten tips for thriving in a recession:

1. Have a news amnesty

Put yourself on a strict press diet. No newspapers, no TV news, no topical programs based around the economy. You will start to feel better in a very short space of time. If you normally read the Metro, buy yourself a decent upbeat novel instead. There are some classics out there. Anything given away cannot be that good.

2. Visualise

"Imagination is more important than knowledge"- Albert Einstein

As a true visionary, Einstein understood the power of thought and imagination. All great men have had one thing in common, the ability to envision things other that they are, and thereby make the seemingly impossible, possible. The creation of anything physical starts with an idea, a thought, which is focussed upon long enough that it becomes a physical thing. Be less of an actionary, and more of a visionary, and use the power of your mind to create what you want. When all of the details are in place, make a decision about what you are going to do, and follow through with inspired action.

As your project unfolds, whether it be a relationship, a job, a hobby, a pet project, or even an invention, continue to visualise things the way you want them to be. See yourself as prosperous, see yourself doing extremely well in the face of the recession. Imagine people coming up to you and saying, "Wow, it’s amazing. How do you do it? You always have a smile on your face, you don’t seem to work very hard, you have a job that you love and a beautiful lover and you’ve loads of money, How do you do it?" You can tell them if you want.

3. Have more fun

Life is about fun, it is not? Perhaps your parents never told you that. We are force-fed a great deal of crap in our childhood by our well meaning parents who forgot long ago that life is supposed to be fun. Instead we are told that life is hard, that you don’t get what you want, that money doesn’t grow on trees, that life is a struggle with not enough to go round and that if you want it, someone else is going to have to go without. Parents, in order to justify having taken their unhappy journeys, ask their children to do the same, and gradually set them up with core beliefs (see above) which are not true. Money does grow on trees, ask any banker.

Children understand what life is about. They are inherently joyful, they seek activities that make them feel good, and rarely do things that don’t. Tidying your room just isn’t any fun. When you can see your world with childlike curiosity and enthusiasm, you are back on track. We enter our lives as babies understanding that life is good, that life is easy, and that we are supposed to do well and get everything that we want. We understand that there is enough for everybody, that we needn’t deprive ourselves in order for someone else to thrive, because everyone has access to the same success if they choose to focus their minds. We’re here for the fun of it.

4. Don’t worry

"If you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying? If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying?" Shantideva

Worrying is a gross misuse of the creative imagination, the reason it feels as lousy as it does. As with any train of thought, given enough attention and energy, a worrisome thought can build up momentum, and end in something unpleasant. Do whatever you need to do to distract yourself. Take a nap, read a book, watch a film or some comedy, or take the issue that is troubling you and talk about it in a way that soothes you.

Ask yourself what’s the worst that can happen? Put the situation into perspective, try to find a little humour in the situation if you can, and you’ll often find your mood lightens. If you can deliberately make yourself feel better, you’ve achieved your goal.

The most important thing you can do with troublesome thoughts is to ‘turn the other cheek’. As soon as the thought enters your mind, dismiss it immediately and think of something more pleasant. If you give it your attention it will grow and grow and will be far harder to ignore further down the line. If you are going to be creative with your thoughts, why not create something that pleases you, not something that doesn’t.

5. Don’t just do something, sit there

Action is all well and good, but if there is no thought behind it, then the action will be hard work. You can achieve substantially more if you first work out what you want, and where you want to get to. You needn’t understand how all the events will unfold, the path unfolds as it goes along. So before you rush out and act, consider what you really want and why you want it, and when you can take it no longer, when the impulse is so strong, and your enthusiasm powerful, then take action and it will yield far greater results.

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." Ralph Waldo Emerson

6. Make a list of three things that make you feel good, and make sure you do them every day

Write a list three things that you really enjoy, and make sure that you do them without fail every day. If you put yourself first, doing things that you really enjoy, you will feel good. When you feel good you will be more fun to be around, you will have a clearer mind and better poise, you’ll be funnier, come up with better ideas, in fact all aspects of your life will go better, the better you feel. Put on your own oxygen mask first before assisting others.

7. Laugh more

Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine. Lord Byron (1788 - 1824)

Laughter has healed many a case of supposedly terminal cancer. The combination of a refusal to believe that the end is coming, and a distraction from the ‘reality’ of the situation allowing the body to heal itself. If you want to feel good, make light of life, find people who make you laugh, don’t take yourself or anyone else too seriously. Life is fun when you can see the funny side of it.

There is a great deal of wonderful comedy out there, in films and on the TV, and of course in the private humour shared between friends which is surely the funniest humour of all. Laughter will lift you up and make you feel better about the world. And when you achieve that, you are living in a better world, and those around you will benefit too. You cannot uplift someone who is not feeling good unless you are in a good feeling place yourself.

8. Appreciate

There is nothing better to lift the spirit than appreciation. Practiced on a daily basis, it can transform your life. As you look for things that you like about life around you, not only do you tune into a mode of appreciation, where you tend to see the best in people situations and the world around you, but you also get more things to appreciate as the mirror of the world matches your vibe.

Do anything and everything that you can to appreciate your life; friends, work colleagues, lovers, spouses, your house, the roads, the water supply, it doesn’t matter what (but it’s easier if you start with easy things, i.e. not the government). Talk about and write down things that you appreciate about the important subjects in your life, and complain about them never. Tune your radio dial to the "appreciation station" and watch your life change before you eyes.

9. Mind your own business

So much of the world is bent on trying to get people to perform in particular ways, principally because they believe that others’ behaviour can somehow threaten their happiness. The only problem is, they don’t know what is good for anyone else, only know what is good for themselves, individually.

So we get endless laws, which come about because people don’t like some aspect of behaviour of the population, and feel the need to control their behaviour. The laws are created out of fear to try and stop people from doing things that they don’t like. They are effectively saying, "Don’t do what makes you feel good, do what makes me feel good, instead". Selfish but understandable. The only problem is you cannot push against something you don’t want and make it go away.

Life is a game and the name of that game is inclusion. Everything that you give you attention to, you include in your life in some way. Do you want to include recession, or maybe sickness, or perhaps failed relationships? Go ahead, read the papers and watch the news and talk about these past situations with your friends, feel sick to your stomach, and watch these things show up again and again and again in your life. You know that friend of yours who continues to bemoan their awful lovers; get them to change the subject.

See how laws against terrorism do nothing to stop it, but instead makes it grow bigger. Make laws and protest against things that you don’t like and watch how much bigger they get as you give them power and weight. You cannot exclude things from your life. If you give your attention to it, you are thinking about it, and if you are thinking about it, you are asking for it.

It doesn’t matter where you currently stand. Your age, weight, skin colour, education, qualifications, financial situation, relationship status. If you want to get somewhere and you give enough attention to achieving it, you will get there. But leave out what anyone else thinks about what you’re doing. They don’t understand what you want. Respectfully leave them and their beliefs to one side, and go and do what makes you feel happy.

You are only responsible for your life. Make yourself happy, not your parents. Live your life and let other people live theirs. Only tell them what you think if they really want to know, or most likely they will not appreciate your words, however well meaning they may be (yours truly included).

10. Study and master the Law of Attraction

This one should perhaps be up at number one on the list. If you’ve got this far then this basic understanding will clarify many of the points above above. This simple universal law is really worth contemplating in detail. As with all things simple, it is sometimes a bit difficult to get your head around, but it is worth it in the long run.

The Law of Attraction say that "Similar things are attracted to each other". In a nutshell, Law of Attraction manages what happens in the universe. There is no such thing as a random event; everything that happens does so according to the Law of Attraction. Everything.

An easy way to look at this is to consider yourself as a radio transmitter and receiver. Your thoughts are the signal that you broadcast, and law of attraction causes similar thoughts to come back to you. If you could set your radio tuner to ‘prosperous, healthy, happy, living a life of ease, surrounded by wonderful people, then you would attract those thoughts and eventually those conditions into your life.

Most people dismiss the notion as rubbish, mainly because they have never tried to focus their thoughts purposefully in directions that they want, and then looked for evidence that the world reflects back things of the same essence. It doesnt help either that we are trained as youngsters to stop daydreaming and ‘pay attention to reality’.

Well, if you do that, you will get more of the same. This is good if things are going well, otherwise not so good. Reality is constantly changing to match your thoughts and the vibe you give off about the various subjects in your life ranging from money to love. The problem is, if you observe ‘reality’, it is changing, but just changing to the same thing, over and over again.

Taken on a grand scale, it is easy to see how things like recession and war occur, as the masses observe things getting worse, and feel increasingly poor, or vulnerable and then angry, the situation continues to change to match their thoughts and feelings. It may be that people are creating individually, but when millions create similarly according to the reality presented by a negatively oriented press, then it becomes a much bigger problem, and people observe it and it becomes a bigger problem, and people observe it and it becomes a bigger problem etc etc etc.

The good news for you is that it doesn’t matter what anyone else has chosen to think about, and therefore live in their life. There are as many realities being lived as there are perceivers of reality. You create your own, so make a decision about what you want and start focussing upon it. You can thrive enormously well in a recession with an attitude of determined focus on things that you want to happen in your life.

You will start to see evidence of other people thriving, you will attract people and circumstances that will give you the ideas and the means to the success in the things that you want. You have the power to affect how the world relates to you, on your terms, and there are no limits to what you can achieve but your imagination. Your limitations are self imposed. You may argue for them if you want, but they are your limitations.

All negative emotion is caused by a feeling of powerlessness. When you realise that you have total control over your life, then you stop blaming others and start living life the way you want. You see how the world responds to your focussed thoughts, and the feeling of powerlessness vanishes and your true understanding of your self empowerment returns. Oh, and you feel good too.

In essence all of the above can be summed up in a single line.

Get happy by whatever means possible, and do whatever you can to stay there

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