Financial literacy is not taught in school. I graduated college without anyone teaching me about budget, getting rid of debt, savings and investing. That’s why whenever I have an opportunity to educate myself about personal finance, I’m sure to be there. Seminars, lectures, books, videos, even pamphlets, I’ll grab it. In fact, my first financial lesson came from a Citibank flyer. Since then, I keep educating myself whenever I have a chance.

One of the best books on financial literacy for me, is Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. This is a very old book, published in 1937 but I can say it is the king of all the books on personal finance.  It had sold more than 100 million copies worldwide and is listed in John Maxwell’s a Lifetime Must Read Book List. I thought I would share with you Napoleon Hill’s method for turning your financial desires to financial equivalent. This will help you set your financial goals and make it a reality. Let’s begin.

FIX YOUR MIND TO THE EXACT AMOUNT YOU WANT

Napoleon Hill says, it’s not enough to say, I want plenty of money. You have to be exact on this. Without a definite amount, you can’t set a definite plan. Goals should be measurable. You’ll never know if you are achieving it or not if you don’t have a target amount. How much is rich for you? For some, 1 million dollars is enough, to some its 20 million. Do the Math and be clear to yourself how much is your target financial goal.

DETERMINE EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT TO DO IN RETURN

There is no such thing as something for nothing. You must give something in return. People love thinking about having money, but not on what he intends to do to earn it. Know what is your goose that laid the golden eggs. Do you have a product to sell? Is it your skills or profession? Is it your talent? You have to be exact about it. When you find it, nurture it, improve it and take care of it. If it’s a product, keep on innovating. If it’s your skills or profession, keep on adding value to yourself by continuing education and practice. If it’s your talent, keep on improving.

ESTABLISH A DEFINITE DATE

It is important that your goal is time bound. When do you plan to retire? Five, ten, fifteen years from now? You have to think about this carefully. I remember, there was a point in my life, I said I want to retire five years from now. Too ambitious but why not, I told myself. But the reason behind this timeline is the article I’ve read about a lady who did it. When I came to my senses, I realized that by then, my son is just seven years old, he’s just starting in elementary school and who knows, since I’m praying for more children, I may have a toddler or two by then. Lesson learned, don’t just copy other’s goals. Take time to think through it.

Personally, one of the best ways to plan the definite date is to create a time line. In a piece of paper, number it from 1 to 10, each number represents a year.  Next to it, write down your age, adding 1 year as the year goes. So if you are 30 years old by the year 1, then you are 40 years old by the year 10.  If you have a partner and kids, write down their age too. Now, write down life milestones. An example is my story above, by year 5 my son will be 7 years old and might be entering elementary school. This will incur additional cost for our family, so I have to plan about it. Same goes when he goes to college. With this, you can totally see your timeline and decide your dates for retirement.  

CREATE A DEFINITE PLAN

Now that you have an exact amount in mind, you know what to give to achieve it and you have a timeline in place, it’s time to create a plan. This will take a lot of planning, but since you have decided on the important things, you can definitely create this one. What’s important is to begin at once, whether you are ready or not, to put this plan into action.

WRITE OUR CLEAR AND CONCISE STATEMENT OF YOUR GOAL

Write out a clear, concise statement of the amount you intend to gain, name the time limit to achieve it, state what you intend to give in return and describe clearly the plan through which you intend to accumulate it.

READ IT TWICE DAILY

Read it first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Napoleon Hill suggested to read it aloud and as you read – see and feel and believe yourself already in possession of the money.

These steps are nothing without Faith. I love when he said that Faith is the starting point of all accumulation of riches. All thoughts which have been emotionalized and mixed with Faith, begin immediately to translate themselves into their physical equivalent.

Have you heard people saying, “I decided to do this because this is what God told me”, and wonder how these people hear from God? One of my life groupmates asked this and I thought this is a valid question. Who knows, people are saying this just to justify their decisions or appear spiritual. So today, I thought I would share with you my personal thoughts on how to hear from God. A little bit disclaimer, this is based on what I’ve learned and what I’ve personally experienced.

CONFIRMATION

One way of hearing from God is through hearing the same message again and again. There are times when Sunday preaching is about courage, your current devotional is about courage and your Christian friend unexpectedly shared something about courage too! Coincidence? Maybe not. When this happens, take time to reflect. It can be God’s way of confirming His personal message for you.

SPECIFIC WORD

This is one of my favorite, but to be honest, this is the rarest way of hearing from God. There are times when you are asking God for something and you open your bible and literally, God’s answer is in front of you.  Last year, there was a point when I was in doubt about our move to Japan. As I do my daily journal, the verse Jeremiah 29:7 speaks to me “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you (into exile). Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper”. Because of this, the sadness was gone, I received peace and I once again believed that this is part of God’s plan.  However, as mentioned, this doesn’t happen all the time. If only God, answers prayers with emails! But the Bible says, keep asking, keep seeking and then you will receive, you will find. Pray to receive a specific word for your specific needs.

DAILY BIBLE READING

I’ve been a Christian for about ten years now. One thing that I learned over the years, that has become part of my life until now is Bible reading. The Bible is the word of God. It is His way to speak to us. It tells everything we wanted to know about. By reading the Bible, you get to understand God, yourself and His purpose for you. At first, it will not make sense. But as you keep on reading, you’ll eventually understand. I remember before, I only read my bible because I’m required to do so. In one of the church training, we have a notebook that we need to fill out with our daily reflection of our Bible reading. Of course, I don’t want to be that bad student who doesn’t do her homework! Eventually, this became a habit for me and even though I had finished with the training. I get used to it and keep on doing it until now. Reading the Bible constantly, builds faith and understanding of God’s way. When the times comes to make decisions, it’s easy to identify which decision is God approved. Being familiar with the Bible is like being familiar with God’s voice. It’s like building an archived of God’s perspectives in your brain, ready for use any time.

That’s about it. Bottom line, hearing from God is all about being in His presence. I remember ten years ago, I was a new believer of God, I was in college and a very grade conscious student. In fact, I’m hoping to graduate cum laude, but it was gone when I received a low grade in one of my subjects. I get the list of verses I usually hear from church and all I can see that is applicable to me is the verse “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). I talked with my churchmates and they say the same thing. I thought, well, it’s a safe verse to say, so why not? But I certainly put that verse in to action. When I reached my house, I locked myself in the room and cried. I cried and complain to God, asking him why. I remember myself saying things like, “I used to be by myself and I’m doing good, now that you came into my life, you ruined my dreams!”. I complained, blamed and yelled God. When I got too exhausted to cry and complain, I stopped and tell myself that I’m just wasting my time because no matter what I say, it will not change the fact that he is God. That moment, the very words I said bounce back to me, as if God is telling me, “no matter what people say, no matter what happened, it will not change who you are”.

I hope this helps you hear more from God. See you in my next post. 

I'm pretty much an optimistic person. But there are still times when no matter how I try to motivate myself, I'm still overwhelmed with negative emotions such as worries, doubts and feeling of failure. Finally, I understand where all these negative emotions are coming from, what’s its purpose and how to handle it.

First, understand that thinking negatively is actually a human nature. That's how our brain is wired. Our mind’s game plan is survival. Its main purpose is to protect us by eliminating change and keeping us in comfort zone. It’s called Cognitive Bias. In the past, it helped our ancestor to survive. Whenever they hear an unfamiliar sound, the mind thinks of threat so the body can prepare to defend. See? our negative thoughts are not a bad thing at all. It protects us, keep us safe and helps us survive. But sometimes it goes overboard, that these negative thoughts cause stress, hinder us from going big and scare us from change.

The truth is negative thoughts are inevitable. It’s always there, popping in your mind whenever it wants. But the good news is you can handle it. And no, it’s not by thinking positive thoughts. In fact, if you try to think contrary to the thought, you might amplify it even more. It’s like your brain will tell you, “See, you are trying to push the negative thought away because you know it’s true”.

All it takes is acceptance. Acknowledge the thought. This way, you are removing the tension and this will allow you to get your brain on board in overcoming the negative thoughts. Simply put, it’s like telling your brain “hey, I get this. You are right to say that this thing is worth worrying, the doubt is valid that it might be a wrong decision, I might fail and its scary to try new things. However, we will never really know until we get there. Besides, I can learn from this experience and it will make me a better person no matter what the result is. With this, you acknowledge the negative thought that its true but tolerable and you are willing to deal with whatever result it might have.

It also helps to keep an archived of exemplary examples. Sometimes, our mind tends to give us negative thoughts because it’s tapping in to the things we have in mind. We could be keeping an archived of negative experience we experience ourselves or we see from other people. We might have accepted negative thoughts relayed by our parents, teachers, friends and other people we spoke with. So, it’s best to reprogram our memory bank. Recall your own success stories. Find exemplary people who overcome their own negative thoughts. Feed your mind with empowering thoughts. As they said, garbage in garbage out; positive thoughts in, positive thoughts out. Don’t wait until you’re feeling down before you look for positive thoughts or exemplary examples. Keep a habit of keeping your thoughts in good or positive shape.

Personally, I feed myself with positive thoughts daily by journaling. I usually read a passage or two from the Bible, meditate on it and see how I can apply it in my personal life. On days I feel uninspired, I read back my old journals and it usually put me back on track.

Finally, take action. Get up on our feet and do something.  Instead of wasting your time and energy dwelling on your thoughts, start focusing on the solution. Even if you are loaded with positive thoughts or exemplary examples, it’s no use until you put it in to actions. Let’s not confuse inspiration to getting things done. So yeah, just do it.

That’s about it. I hope this short post will send a ray of sunshine to someone who needs it.