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The Power of Positive Thinking : Life is too short to wake up with regrets.

You only get one life. So your choices matter. Pursue what brings you happiness and joy.

During a marathon, when one nears the end, it’s no time to quit or look back; it’s time to want victory more than ever. Making your dreams a reality or achieving your goals doesn’t have to be difficult. It only requires a few things:

• Believing in yourself.
• Mapping your dreams.
• And taking small action steps every day.

In this post, I’ll talk about tools you can use to achieve your dreams.  It doesn’t matter how many years have gone by, how many months have gone by without you taking any action towards achieving your dreams. What matters is that you take the first step. Some of the topics covered include: creating a life list, vision map, and how to start loving life now.

You only get one life. So your choices matter. Pursue what brings you happiness and joy.

1. Create A Life List

“Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder…” ~Thoreau

Have you ever wanted to take a sabbatical? Work from any location in the world? Or remove yourself from the work-watch-spend treadmill? Then I would encourage you to start a life list. Write down everything you’ve dreamed of doing in your life. Your life list is a place to record your dreams; a place where you can be accountable to yourself.

Once I created my life list, something magical happened. I started to make my dreams a reality by completing once small task every day. There is something powerful about the act of writing down your dreams on paper. They feel more tangible and real.

Micro-action: Write down your dreams. Don’t stifle your voice, let all of your dreams flow onto a piece of paper. Once you have your life list in place, start taking a small step every day to accomplish your dreams.

Think about what you want to do with the short life you’ve been given?

2. Turn Dreams into Reality

“Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.” ~ W. H. Murray

Let’s use leaving my day job and starting my own small business as an example. Making such a big moved required getting out of debt and saving more. So I slowly began paying off my debt every month and saved a little bit of extra money too. Re-evaluating my finances was a key part of making that dream a reality.

Anything is possible, you just have to make it a priority.

Micro-action: As you write your life list, think about small steps you can take everyday to achieve your goal. For example, if you want to leave your day job start saving more and spending less. Or start acquiring new skills or networking.

3. Make A Vision Map

“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.” ~Eckhart Tolle              

 A vision map is one way to help define and visualize what you want your future to look like. It’s one way to make your dreams and goals tangible. Take magazines, newspapers, cut out pictures of what you want in your life and paste them on a poster board. Having constant visualization of what you want programs your subconscious and brings what you want to pass.

4. Focus on Daily Intentions

Gwen Bell inspired me to start writing down a list of daily intentions. My intentions include three items that I can accomplish everyday. Last year, my to-do lists were super long and a lot of the tasks were not completed.

By narrowing down your to-do list (or Killing it all together) you can accomplish a lot. This is a simple and easy way to increase your productivity and embrace your creative genius. By focusing on a few small steps everyday, you’ll get closer to accomplishing the tasks on your life list. Remember to focus on activities that make you happy.

Micro-action: Begin writing down your daily intentions.

5. Start Loving Life Now

Working on your life list, vision map and daily intentions is a lot of fun. Setting goals and making plans is a positive activity. However it’s essential to live mindfully.  Sometimes goals won’t be accomplished and that’s okay. I think we all have a tendency to get wrapped up in future plans. It’s easy to forget how amazing life is. Micro-action: Be mindful of the beauty in your everyday life.

6. Take Action

We must, if we care about our lives, and if we care about the life of the planet begin to remember how to think critically, how to think for ourselves. ~Derrick Jensen

It’s my hope the tools in this post will inspire you to take action. Go out into the world and make your dreams a reality. It’s scary to think about making big life changes, but worth it in the long-run.

If you lost everything today, who would you be? If you couldn’t do the work you love, what would you be known for? Are you happy with what you have and the life you are leading? Or are you looking to make a change?

Be happy. Pursue your dreams. And question everything. (yes Question everything).

Life is too short to wake up with regrets.
So love the people who treat you right.
Forget about the ones who don't.
Believe everything happens for a reason.. If you
get a second chance, grab it with both hands. If it
changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy,
they just promised it would be worth it.

Join me, Dr. Sithembile Stem Mahlatini this Saturday October 29 during the Motivational Movement for a memorable motivational moment, “THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING” at www.visionsfm.com  9-11GMT 4-6pm USA Eastern Standard