The Top 10 Tips on Beginning Your Journey to Personal Success and Happiness

Originally Submitted on 1/4/00.

We often torture ourselves attempting to develop practices and rituals that will enable us to live fulfilling and peaceful lives.
In doing this, we overlook the simplicity of the messages and opportunities that surround us. Below are the TopTen practices that will get us focused on that inner peace and tranquility:

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risks.

Creating a great love life, one where you can be yourself and where you can let your hair down, involves risking vulnerability and letting the other person see who you really are. The same holds true for all great achievements, since dealing with people on a professional or business basis involves connecting with them as they are, and to do this you risk vulnerability as well. None of us achieve anything of value by ourselves.

2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

In remembering that everything in the universe is perfect, and that nothing happens without reason, it is important to remember that we never lose, if we take away the lesson of what the perceived failure is attempting to teach us. It is important to believe that when we fail, it is because there is a better way on the horizon for us.

3. Follow the 3 R's: Respect for Self, Respect for others, Responsibility for all your actions.

We cannot give to the universe what we ourselves do not have. Respect for yourself is key to acknowledging your talents, your abilities, and your contributions. It is in recognizing our sense of self-worth that we are able to respect others. It is in respecting others that we attract good things to ourselves; and taking responsibility for all of our actions connects us to the next level of success.

4. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

To remember that relationships come first, before outcomes, materialism, or the situation at hand is often difficult when we are emotionally-charged. It is in these vulnerable times that we can lose our perspective and say things that we otherwise are very careful to avoid. The Bible tells us not to sin in our anger. Once words are uttered in anger, we cannot take them back. Love IS having to say you're sorry.

5. Spend some time alone.

In our modern, busy lives it is difficult to give ourselves permission to be alone. But it is in spending time alone that we are able to hear the inner voice that gives us clarity, focus, and purpose. Spend at least 15 minutes by yourself each day getting in touch with yourself, your thoughts, and your dreams. Let the busyness out of your life for that time; you will reach a place of inner peace and tranquility that will energize your day, and your life.

6. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.

Change is inevitable; we must welcome it and let it work in our lives. It is likewise important to incorporate the change into our value system in order to reach inner peace. If change is embraced but incongruent with what we value and believe, we are out of sync with ourselves.

7. Share your knowledge, it's a way to achieve immortality.

Knowledge is power, but only if we use it, or allow others to use it. It is in sharing our thoughts, emotions, challenges, failures, and successes that we give to the universe back what it has given to us. We learn by the achievements and lessons of others as well as our own.

8. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

Impatience is our number one enemy in life; often we are too busy to wait. But this time of silence can sometimes be our best friend. It is in letting the universe's currents flow that we reach the point of clarity and purpose, and it is almost never wrong.

9. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.

Staying in the moment is as crucial during a challenging disagreement with a loved one as it is across the negotiating table in a board room. Ask yourself if what you are disagreeing about will matter tomorrow, next month or next year. Staying in the moment and with the issue at hand reveals respect for yourself and the other person. Let it go.

10. Call your mother.

Yes, mothers will always want to hear from you. You will always be their baby. S0...reach out and touch....

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