At one time, you had hopes, dreams and plans for a great future. But circumstances, events and the trials of life, have caused you to put your plans on hold. But, a little while has become a long time. So you figured, why bother. It’s too late for anything to come of it anyway.

But still, now and then, you wonder how it might have been. Instead of living in regret, why not re-open your dream. A lady recently graduated from college, at 86 years old. It is not too late. Many people realize their dreams at all stages of life.

If you’re like most people, your plan was to someday run your own business, be your own boss, make it on your own. To make your fortune, so that you could live well and retire before you got too burned out to enjoy life. That sounds like a pretty good plan, to me.

Don’t let your dream die. Young, old or middle aged. Your age doesn’t matter. Neither does your financial status. Not even your educational level. Determination and motivation have more to do with success than education, anyway.

Whether it is in business or in everyday life, determination and motivation are key factors in obtaining goals of any kind. Determination is overcoming challenges. Whenever an obstacle gets in your way, you will find a way around it. Motivation is the reason behind your determination. What is the reason for starting your business? Is the reason respect, independence or self-esteem? These are all very good motivators.

But, it’s been a while. Where do you turn? Things are a little different now. You have sort of lost sight of what to do.

Maybe you should consult with counselors. In this aspect, counseling is simply mentoring or coaching. These are people who will help you with thoughts and ideas for starting your business. They will help you with such things as motivation, self-esteem, leadership, goals, putting together a business plan, and so much more.

Their coaching staff will help you to think through some ideas for starting a new business, as well as to refer you to people who can offer assistance if you need start-up capital, business insurance, or have any other business financial requirements.

Go online, and in the search box, type in either counselors, coaching or mentoring. Any of these will give you some very good options. Search through some of the various Web sites that appear, until you have found someone that you feel comfortable working with. By all means, check them over thoroughly before you indulge very deep with them. Make sure that you can trust them.

Now, perhaps you might be more ambitious than most people, and I hope you are, and you are not content with just being self-employed. Instead, you are thinking more of an all out career. If this is your case, I highly recommend tutoring. Just type tutoring in the search box, instead.

Tutoring is a little different than coaching or mentoring. With coaching and mentoring, you will be given help with ideas for business, self-esteem, motivation, and steps for achieving goals. We could all use a little push in every one of these areas. With tutoring you will receive all of this and so much more.

With tutoring, you will also receive technical training in the field that you have chosen. But along with training, they will teach you how to market your business. Every business needs customers to survive. Tutoring will teach you how to both market offline and to market online, in order to attract customers, which in turn will attract business.

Don’t give up on your dreams. If you give up on your dreams, then you given up on yourself. Don’t do this. You can do it. It takes effort to dream. If it is worth the effort to dream it, then, it is worth the effort to live it. Go, realize your dream.

Dreams are great, but reality is better. Far better. Go to http://www.MoneyMaverickDaily.com And live your dreams. Richard Vennes enjoys seeing people move ahead in life.

You can read all the relationship advice you like, but it’s a waste of time unless you work on the core of the problem.

The core of the problem is you.

Not the you that you think you are, but the you that you have been ‘miseducated’ into being; the you that society wants you to be; the you that you never thought you would be. That is who you have to work on. That is the you that thinks reading a book or flicking through a magazine will give you the instant answer, the instant solution – unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way; and nor do you. Most of these books are too one dimensional to make much of a difference; most of the articles are too shallow to get to the core of the problem, they only address the superficial details.

Re-programming oneself is not an easy task, it requires a radical re-organization of old habits; both emotional habits and physical habits, but if you refuse to do this, then you have little hope of changing the path your life is on, the path that was chosen for you, or the path that you fell into by virtue of the people you were surrounded by; probably a path that you didn’t think about much; possibly a path you regret; a path you can change if you want to.

Although the task may not be easy, it is not complicated, it is based on simplicity, on refuting the ‘miseducation’ of the past and on seeing how the world really works, how humans truly behave, how situations usually play out. Essentially it requires honesty, with yourself and with those around you. Once you decide to strip your opinions down to the core, to the bare bones of right and wrong, then you can begin to work on building a solid foundation based on the truth you see not on the fairy tale you were sold.

Building a foundation on your own dreams and ideals is essential if you are ever going to be successful physically and emotionally – do not build a dream on the ideals that you were given or the stories you were told; it is only when you make opinions based on your own experiences and on what you actually see that you can begin to know who you are and how you truly feel. It is all very well to believe what you are told, but it doesn’t do you much good when you are told lies, exaggerations and falsehoods that don’t work out in real life; and after all, real life is where you live, not in a movie, a book or a pop song. There is no happily ever after in real life.

Allow me to generalize a little…

Most of us have been taught to always look for a solution to our problems outside of ourselves; we are guided towards thinking that an animal, a partner, friends or a child will make it all better, that God has a greater plan for us than the one we see, or that the Universe will lead us to a better place; we are rendered helpless by our belief that there is a greater force at work, an organizing energy that will work things out for us in the end just so long as we behave as we see correct, just so long as we do as we are told. This is a falsehood, a lie, a fairy tale that conveniently places the blame elsewhere, and inconveniently takes away our sense-of-self so that we are always cursing ourselves or thanking something else depending on how the situation goes. Living this way negates our core and shrouds our truth in misconceptions and impossibilities.

Whenever someone mentions God or the Universe as the omnipotent force in their lives I will always question them; I will point out the self-centered nature of their belief, (their importance becomes inordinately magnificent because God or the Universe cares about them so much as to interfere with their path on a moment by moment basis); I will argue that the second you place the responsibility of your life on an outside force then you immediately negate free will, for the moment something else has the final say, the moment there are ‘no coincidences’, is the moment that we are being controlled by that force down to the last millisecond otherwise nothing would work out as ‘it’ intended, therefore, these people deny free will as a possibility (even if they think they have it)… And usually, after a little bit of defensiveness, these people will argue themselves into saying something like, “No, I mean that God is inside me, he is energy…” – did you just say “he”??!! Did you just change your argument to suit your position right now??!! Did you just make no sense whatsoever??!! I hope you see my point – let go of the external beliefs and convenient scape goats and start looking at what is really in front of you.

Until we confront who we are and what we actually experience, until we actually take responsibility for ourselves, our lives and our situation, then we are never going to progress as well as we should, we are never going to find balance or peace; we have to let go of the crutches we have been bred to believe in and we have to get to the core, to the essence of who we are. It is only then that we can reject the ‘miseducation’ and see what really happens around us rather than sugar coating life and letting our wishes complicate the truth.

Now the truth is not always pretty, but it’s here, and in order to create the best possible version of ourself we need to be open minded, we need to be able to re-shuffle what we were taught and re-think what we were told, we have to objective rather than subjective about our actions and reactions. What we were sold is not what really happens – what we see is what really happens; in order to see the truth we have to keep our eyes open, our ears alert and our minds active, we have to take into account our own actions and thoughts and we have to analyze the bigger picture as well as the smaller details; if we can do these things then we can begin to create a solid foundation and the basis for a strong core; if we can strip away the fluff and fantasy then we can find the core to ourselves and we can see the core of what is in front of us.

Avoidance is our biggest problem.

Because the truth is sometimes ugly, we have been programmed to hide from that truth, to deny that truth and to invent another truth that makes us all feel a little bit better about the cruel, mean, vicious world we actually inhabit. If we continue on this path of avoidance then we will never get to the core of the problem and we will continue to exist in lives that make no sense, lives that are riddled with disappointment and lives that follow the failed path of those that went before us.

The core of the problem is clear to see if we are prepared to be honest about life, about human nature, about the world. If we exist in reality, if we observe the workings of the world, if we are clear in our own minds about the way we truly are, then we can begin to learn from what we see, and hopefully when we read and when we teach we will do so with truth and honesty, we will make decisions based on sound principles and we will eradicate the core problem that creates so many repetitive problems.

(Do not blame your weight problem on outside forces – do something about it in a practical and sensible way. Do not blame others for your relationship issues – look at who you are and choose people that suit you better; learn to be alone and begin to grow. Do not expect the failed systems of the past to work in your favor – think for yourself and do what works for you. Remember, nobody cares about you as much as you do, so do something about you.)

If we can get to the core of the problem, if we accept the truth about human nature and the (often disastrous) role of nurture, if we have the strength of character to stand up to the ‘miseducation’, then we can create lives and loves that will last, situations built on integrity and not fantasy, relationships with real possibilities and children with a mind of their own.

Get to the core of the problem. You.

Guy Blews

How do you define a successful life? Is it becoming a millionaire or a sports champion? Is it finding the cure for an illness? Or is it raising happy, well adjusted children?

Luck is not the factor that determines our success. Success is the realization of your goals. Ask any successful person what they want to achieve in their life and they can tell you exactly what that is.

It is Bill Gates dream that everyone has a computer at home. He became an extremely wealthy man in the process but it is not the money that makes him successful. He has virtually realized his dream.

In fact, if you look at a lot of people that we consider successful, very few were motivated purely by the money. People who are successful usually get a lot of material rewards, which are hard not to be attached to, even when they weren’t the original reasons for them striving for success.

Roger Bannister didn’t break the four minute mile for money, but to prove it could be done. Mount Everest was the mountain Edmund Hilary wanted to conquer.

Mother Theresa wanted to help the poor but she probably never dreamt she would start a charitable organization responsible for helping millions of unfortunate people worldwide. Although she died poor, it was the general opinion that she had been successful in life.

If you are spoiled and lazy, can you be successful? In fact, I would disagree; I would say that dedication, resilience and hard work are the real secrets to success. You need the ability to pick yourself up and start over when things don’t go according to plan.

People who are successful see setbacks as opportunities. To have a successful life, firstly you need to look at what success means to you personally.

Forget about other people’s definition and find your own. You need to be committed to making this work. This may mean putting in longer hours than anyone else. It may mean studying and working at the same time. No matter what you have to do, the commitment and energy to achieve it will be there for you.

It is only when you know exactly what you want to achieve and make that your goal, will you recognize opportunities being offered to you to help you get to your destination.

If you don’t know what you want, how will you recognize when life is giving you a chance? To be successful you need to use a guide and it’s just like using a map to reach a new destination.

Know your destination, how to get there and be determined to do anything to make it.

Whether you are successful or not in life is not your parents’ fault, the fault of your genes or your third grade teacher. Accepting total responsibility for your results in life so far will help you create the life you want.

If you think you can or think you can’t, you are usually right! Henry Ford (1863-1947).