Learning is a beautiful thing!

Dear blog readers,  I apologize for not posting a January 15 blog.  I haven’t in the least given up on this blog and continue to be excited about the future of it.  I had 5 severe sinus infections and kept thinking I’d post something in another day or two but I lost an incredible amount of energy and had severe headaches.  The good news is I am now feeling much better and am ready to get on with the future of this blog.  I may be making some changes to the format of this blog and the organization and approach, and I may wait till I switch to WordPress to do.  I have many thoughts and plans for this blog going on and I am glad to be back writing it again.

Today I would like to talk about how learning to manage money is learning a new skill and can be compared to learning in a school classroom or learning any new skill.  It is a common experience for people to experience guilt, shame and a lot of negative energy when they haven’t fine tuned their money management skills as far as they liked.  I certainly have.  It also is common for people to experience lower self esteem when they aren’t far enough along in their own eyes in their money management journey; however, having low self esteem or feeling guilty doesn’t help you manage money better.  Feeling bad about yourself could affect your immune system, physical health, mental health and spiritual health and will make it more difficult to learn a new skill, not easier.

Our culture sometimes tells up to criticize ourselves for our mistakes instead of celebrate the wonderful things we have learned from them and celebrate that we are now closer to success because of the valuable education we experienced from making a mistake.  

Money management is a skill and learning to manage money is something we learn, not that different from taking a class in a classroom.  There are literal classes in money management and books and articles on the topic, but if you aren’t in a literal class,  I challenge you to think of your informal learnings from books, articles and valuable experiences (the value from experiences is ofter overlooked) as being similar to a class.  As you put together what you learned from experience with what you have read in a book or online, it is not that different than putting together stuff for a paper or studying for an exam.

The difference lies in that we don’t think of our experiences being as valuable and educational as they are.  Also, if you didn’t get a concept right away in a class, you might not criticize yourself the way you do if you don’t learn from a life lesson right away.  Learning in life isn’t that different from learning in a class, and there is no need to criticize yourself, put guilt or shame on yourself, because your learning process took longer.  Learning is a beautiful thing no matter how long it takes.  Education is always valuable and good.

Let’s stay positive and upbeat about all our learnings in a class or in life because they are all good!

Copyright, Sandie Edwards, January 31, 2023.

New Year's Goals

 

Hi everyone!  I am sorry this post is about a day late!  I was so busy doing my own goal setting and goal program that I didn’t get around to writing this post on goal setting.  This year I did Learning Strategies: Clear Mind ~ Bright Future program. I thought it was an awesome program and very helpful in getting the new year off to a great start.

Anyway, New Years is a great time of year to evaluate where we are and where we want to be.  Some people know exactly what their goals are and want great strategies to achieve them.  Others may not have created goals.  If you are in the later category, it is a natural time of year to think about what you really want in your life, what would make you happier or your life easier or more fun or rewarding.  Out of the blue it may be hard to know what you want so I suggest you consider the below categories:

·        Career or volunteering

·        Relationships

o   Friendships

o   Significant other

o   Support team of support groups, therapists, coaches, doctors, ministers, nutritionist, mentor, mastermind group, etc.

·        Money, abundance, Prosperity, general finances, saving money for a goal

·        Education

o   Career advancement

o   Personal pleasure or a hobby or lessons or personal study

·        Spirituality

o   Do you want to be more kind or generous or develop another quality?

o   Do you want to develop or improve your prayer or meditation practice?

·        Health

o   Exercise

o   Weight loss

o   Financial health, spiritual health or emotional/mental health (there are a lot of different ways to look at health).

·        Home Decorating or remodeling

·        Self-improvement

These are just some general categories that come to mind.  You may have a goal or project in a category I didn’t list.

        Some questions to answer:

·        What would make me happier?

·        If I could change one thing in my life, what would it be?

·        What is one thing I could do for fun regularly that would improve the quality of my life?

·        What do I want from life?

If you come up with an answer to any of the above questions, set a goal around that idea. If you are not sure what to do or how to get started, email me at selfhelpwithsandie57@gmail.com.  I will email you back my ideas or if you would like to be featured in a future blog post, let me know that and I will do that.  The basic approach is to ask yourself what you want, then brainstorm and list as many ideas as you can, without judging or editing your ideas, just listing your ideas as to how you might get what you want or achieve it.  If you have difficulty coming up with ideas, come back another day or once a week and jot down ideas later or if the idea comes while you are at the grocery store, jot it down on a notepad on your phone.  Give yourself time to come up with ideas and ask a friend if she or he has any ideas.  Eventually you will come up with a goal and how to achieve it and be on your way to improving your life.

Copyright, Sandie Edwards, January 2, 2023.