Don't Be A Slave To Your Things

Do you have things like a bicycle, jetski, or swimming pool that sit unused? Is it that you don't have time to use them because you have to work so much just to pay for them? Sometimes it seems like all the things we own somehow own us.
The bad news is that it's often true. We have to arrange our lives around our things. You get a new truck that can go anywhere, but you're too busy working to go there. Someone is out fishing while you are putting in overtime to pay for your fishing boat. You use your large-screen television a lot, but does it sufficiently reduce the debt-stress that came with it?

Break The Chains!

The good news is that there's a better way. Actually, there are three better ways. First, know what you really value. Second, use cash instead of debt. Third, learn how to look at costs and benefits.

Will you really enjoy that $2,000 mountain bicycle enough? Maybe. This isn't about right or wrong desires. It's a question of truly seeing your own values. Think back to things you've bought but not used, or not used enough. What truly enjoyable things could you do with that money if you had it now? You've got to be self aware and honest.

Cash is king. The price may seem the same, but put those things on a credit card and, with interest, you'll pay a lot more. Cash means you have to save and wait a little for things, but you can buy more and have less stress. Credit cards provide the illusion of a richer life. Escaping debt gives you the reality.

Finally, learn to understand costs and benefits. A friend once came to the realization, using pen and paper, that his jetski cost him $300 for every hour he used it the first year. Loan interest, gas, insurance, depreciation, repairs, licenses - these things add up. And he thought it was too expensive to pay $100 per day to rent one! Consider the real costs of things, and look for a cheaper way, or at least make an honest decision that it's worth $300 per hour to you.

Your things should be making your life better. If they aren't, you need to start looking at them differently. Don't let your things own you. Change your approach.

In Bliss,
Coach Sandy

Sandy Kiaizadeh
Find Your Bliss Coaching

Four Common Sense Tips For The Telephone Interview

Here’s a phone interview tip worth considering: smile. A smile is a magic thing, and in addition to being seen in person it can be felt from a distance. When doing a phone interview, don’t think that because the person on the other end of the phone can’t see you that smiling and other positive body gestures are not important. The best interview tip that anyone was ever given was to smile and make positive gestures. In fact, many people talk with their hands. If you do, consider a telephone head set to free your hands up.


Another tip that will be worth its weight in gold is to have a good quality telephone. It may seem silly to even mention it, but the better quality phone you use, the better your voice will sound. Years ago everyone rented his or her telephones from the local utility phone company. These days people own their own phones, and while many people use good quality phones, many use the ten and fifteen-dollar phones they’ve found in the local dollar store or discount mart. Those phones are fine for talking to your spouse perhaps, but for business use make a good business impression, and use a good phone. Add this tip to the mix as well: use a landline with a cord, and not a cell phone or cordless phone. Dead batteries, crackling sounds, bad cell sites, and weather interference can make you sound bad at the other end, and you may not even know it. When doing your phone interview you want to be clear and make a good impression. Take this tip to heart and use a good quality landline.

I once received a tip from a headhunter who specialized in finding people jobs. While it seemed like common sense, I realized that it was a tip of value, and recommend it to people to this day. Do your homework on the company before your phone interview. Do a search on the Internet using Yahoo, Google, MSN, Dogpile or any of the major search engines.



The last tip to keep in mind is to be yourself, and be comfortable. One of the best ways to be yourself, and maintain comfort during your phone interview is to practice the interview. Ask a friend to play the part of the boss. Call your friend on the phone and go through a mock interview, answering all of the questions that you think the interviewer is likely to ask. Mock trials help lawyers, and rehearsals help musicians. It only makes sense that a practice interview will help an interviewer. While it may seem silly, this is a phone interview tip you should take to heart.

In Bliss,
Coach Sandy

Sandy Kiaizadeh
Find Your Bliss Coaching

Success: The Right Mental Attitude

You must develop the right mental attitude on your road to success. Without being overly simplistic, think of “The Little Train Who Could.” Instead of having an “I Can’t” attitude, replace it with an “I Can!” attitude.

A positive outlook is necessary to see change coming, to be able to work with the change, and to make the most of whatever change comes down the pike in your life. If you expect change (but not from a vending machine!), you’ll be in a better position to accept it and make the most of it.

A fabulous book regarding change and positive attitude is “Who Moved My Cheese?” by Spencer Johnson, MD.

In order to gain right thinking (being positive), you must decide to look at the bright side of life. Instead of seeing the cloud, see the silver lining in the cloud. Instead of seeing downsizing as a horrible thing that will plummet you in to bankruptcy and homelessness, consider it an opportunity to look for a better job and a chance to try new skills and career paths that you wouldn’t have had the opportunity to try before. Don’t be Pollyannaish, but do consider all sides of a situation before you adopt a negative perspective.

In order to maintain a positive outlook, you must also be realistic. For example, if you’ve gained 30 pounds in the last 3 years, it would be highly unrealistic to expect to drop those 30 pounds in 3 weeks. If you take an honest and realistic assessment of your skills and goals, you’re much more likely to find success in whatever field or career best suits you.

Maintain a cautious optimism as you seek success, not be blindly optimistic about every situation. There are some situations in which positive thinking cannot overcome the situation you’re faced with.

Consider Tom Brady, quarterback for the New England Patriots; he’s a man who’s in excellent shape. But if he decided to trade in his helmet and pads for ballet toe shoes, he likely wouldn’t make it, despite his physique. Blind optimism also puts you at the mercy of con men and charlatans—your optimism must be tempered by context and relevance.

No matter what your abilities are (and they are fabulous!), using them realistically will get you much farther than not. Your right thinking, paired with your abilities, put you on a course for success—no matter what field you’re in!

In Bliss,
Coach Sandy

Sandy Kiaizadeh
Find Your Bliss Coaching

A Time To Rest, A Time To Heal

Life is not always a pleasant walk down the garden path.Who has not known pain and anguish? Who has not suffered the wounds of a relationship discord? Problems are challenges life casts our way. We navigate through the detours and face dead-ends in our journey. We set sail, aware of the possibility of stormy weather that can develop overnight. But we are determined to ride out the storm and not get lost in it.

At times, we take more than we can handle. We are caught up in giving ourselves to the call of duty. We tend to justify the demands on our time and energy.We forget that the world will go on, with or without us. Life goes in cycles - sometimes the cycle is up, then it goes down, like the spokes of a wheel. Sorrow and grief comes to everyone sooner or later.

A grieving heart affects the mind, body and spirit deeply. Sometimes the pain is buried so deeply where no one can reach it, much less touch it. Frustrations, failures, relationship issues, career and family concerns, financial issues, health problems and having too much on the plate all add up to stress. Do you listen to the signs your body sends to slow down or take a much needed rest ? There is only so much pain or suffering one can bear.There is a limit to human endurance. Peace becomes elusive. Perspective is not as sharp, there is too much clutter in the mind.

It helps to get away from the source of conflict to gain a better perspective and to re-group your thoughts. Take a vacation. If this is not feasible, a day away from it all will probably do. But take a breather. This is not running away, woes are still hovering over and waiting. Taking a respite from it all paves the way to healing the accumulated emotional and mental stress. Anxiety and worry cloud anyone’s judgment. Perhaps, there is a need to cut some slack for now. What would you change if you were faced with the same situation?
Take the time to re-evaluate and re-assess your priorities. It is a time to step back and look after your needs. Relax, catch your breath, even for a short time, because you have to take the next step. The battle is not over.

Plan the next stage; life’s problems do not dissipate into thin air . Pull yourself together, empower yourself so that your thoughts and actions are in harmony with your highest truth of who you are. Validate your beliefs. Deep wounds need healing and this takes time. Retreat is a good start- retreat from all that is worrisome, confusing and aggravating. Quiet time and time alone to reflect is a good way to get energized and prepare to move on.

This is the time to recharge your energies. It is a time to heal mind, body and soul. It is a time to recognize the chaos and confusion that can cause illusions or delusions and make peace elusive. Forgive what needs to be forgiven. Forgiveness can be liberating.

Healing takes time, allow yourself that. Remember: time is a great healer, if you let it.

In Bliss,
Coach Sandy

Sandy Kiaizadeh
Find Your Bliss Coaching

5 Tips To Achieve All Your Goals Successfully

Why do some people seem to succeed in all they do, but others flounder along at the rear? Mostly it’s because the successful people have set goals and taken steps to successfully achieve them. So how do they always seem to achieve their goals?

Here are five strategies that will help you successfully achieve your goals:

1. Start with a long-term goal, write it down, taking into account when you are going to achieve the goal and why it’s important. Try and be as visual as possible, explaining how the achievement of this goal will change your life for the better. Once this long-term goal has been documented, break the goal into tangible steps that need to be taken to achieve the goal.

2. Make sure that you really want the goal. Ask yourself "How will this goal give me a better life?" Answering this and other similar types of questions will give you more drive to achieve your goal.

3. Speak up! You should not keep your goals to yourself. Sharing your goals can help you get the support you may need from others. Some people are concerned with telling others about their goals because they are worried they will fail. However, telling others means that you are more likely to achieve your goals, either with their support or in-spite of them.

4. Write down your goals. This strategy is advisable for those who have a long list of goals. After writing them down, review them regularly. You may also want to keep them handy to keep you motivated. You have to discipline yourself to stick to what you have written. Do not just write them and tuck them away somewhere ‘safe’. Its better to keep them where you will see them, try sticking them to the refrigerator. Personally, I'm a big fan of creating vision boards and placing them in the most high-traffic of rooms in my house.

5. Stay on track and do not give up. Reviewing your goals will help open your mind to see if you are on the right track. While on track, you may have to face challenges that might change the way you see yourself. Never be discouraged. Encountering obstacles is just a test to see how dedicated you are to achieve the goals you’ve set. It will all boil down to you preparing yourself to face anything, and doing everything to get to the goal that you have set for yourself.

Only you can make it happen. Nothing can stop you if you have set your mind to it and commit to taking action.

In Bliss,
Coach Sandy

Sandy Kiaizadeh
Find Your Bliss Coaching

1st Step to Manifesting Life

Do you know at least one person who seems to make the most of out every situation? Someone who has great success at the act of manifestation (the act or product of bringing about change through the direction of consciousness)?
You may even have felt a little jealous of the person because it appears they have everything, seemingly getting these things with minimal effort as though they were born ‘lucky’. Well, it is probably time you understand that the power of manifestation lies within each of us and it is up to you to learn more about it.

Attracting abundance is knowledge. Just like any other skill people have, manifesting is no different. Skills like playing a musical instrument or making gourmet meals require time and commitment to learn and practice. So does the skill of manifesting. How good you get, depends on how well you learn the skill and how well you apply it.

Even though some of us are better at certain skills, that doesn't mean the rest of us, with practice, can't improve or even surpass the talent expressed by another. Some seem to have learned it so well that they oftentimes don't even realize how they do it. Manifesting abundance now comes to them so readily it appears ‘natural’ just as a well trained pianist seems to play the piano without thought or effort. They learn to believe whole-heartedly that they simply deserve something; it is now part of their reality. Those are the ones that seem to be born ‘lucky’. But luck is not how they got there!

So, how can you start on your journey towards manifesting great things for yourself and those you love? Here is the first step – a basic understanding of the ‘Law of Attraction’:

Gaining a good understanding of how the "law of attraction" works is the first step in bringing abundance into your life. You can create our own reality. You can attract riches, opportunities and happiness, etc., in our life when you learn to focus or attract yourself on them. In order to do this, you must learn to believe and think in a positive way towards those things you seek. You probably also know at least one person (hopefully not you!), who dwells on the negative and truly will focus on having less. They are attracted to ‘less’ not ‘having more’. When you focus on "I hate my current employment" then you will never notice the aspects of your employment that might be satisfying. You must understand that just wanting something isn't going to bring that to you if you continue to focus on the ‘not having’ of that something. You may have personally experienced that "not having" attitude and learned that it blocked your true desires.

You must learn to focus on a particular item or scenario rather than on vague goals like ‘more cash’ or ‘winning money’. Focusing on winning the lottery, for example, is a fruitless event. Although, through luck, some win lotteries, focusing on winning the lottery is kind of like focusing on "not having." Oddly enough, many who focus on winning naturally dream of what they could do to help others, even though many of those dreams could actually already be done with their current incomes on a smaller scale, but they don't. This is probably because they focus on what they perceive as their ‘not having’ or ‘having so little’. With this attitude, they end up believing that those dreams are only possible by winning the lottery. They are literally afraid to act on their dreams for fear that they do not currently ‘have enough’ to offer.

For example, I know several decently paid professionals who repeatedly tell me that they too would really love to sponsor a foster child in another country and they would if they won the lottery. They are afraid that they cannot currently afford $1 a day as that might leave them short of cash in case of an emergency like an unexpected auto repair. Their focus is on "not enough" rather than being focused on sponsoring a needy child. When they are focused on "not enough", it won't ever matter how much money they have, it will never be enough. Just talking about sponsoring a child brought their fears out into the open. It would be great if they could trust that helping a needy third world child would not put them at financial risk.

So what I would tell these professionals, who would like to sponsor a child but feel they just cannot, is that they focus on visualizing a starving child being fed by their contribution and perhaps a wonderful letter from that child, complete with a photo to be proudly placed along side other family pictures. This would be a positive image/thought to get that picture to become a reality. Perhaps talk it over with the rest of the family to see what they could do without to create that $1 a day. This is the first step in learning how to manifest their lives. This same first step will work for all aspects of life from healthy, happy relationships to personal wealth.

Is it your turn to make the most of out every situation? Is it your turn for others to see you as ‘lucky’? Does your lack of ability to manifest life leave your soul wounded or lacking? Would you like to learn all the steps to manifest life? You deserve it and it is time to take action!

In Bliss,
Coach Sandy

Sandy Kiaizadeh
Find Your Bliss Coaching

3 Ways to Advance Your Goals

"The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never scoring." -Bill Copeland

1. WORK WITH THE END IN MIND- OR FOCUS ON SUCCESS
Beginning with the end in mind is the endowment of imagination . If you are the programmer, write the program, says goal expert- Stephen R. Covey.

Goals help us to focus, and the quality of our attention is enhanced by a having a project so cool and interesting that we can’t help but make a leap. Let’s say, you want to organize your workspace so that everyone is inspired to do their best work. The in-between steps: like ergonomic concerns & planning comfortable lighting, in-and-of itself can seem mundane, but joined together they name a bigger accomplishment and by doing so, asks us to spice up our expectations & upgrade who we are. Focus on success & keep in mind how you want things to end up--And you’ll soon enough be successful.
-- name the accomplishment
-- give your project a title
-- what needs to be done by when
-- how would you like things to end up
-- identify upbeat reasons for pursuing the goal

2. RAISE THE BAR-OR SHOOT FOR THE MOON
Define greatness, challenge the limits, double the goal, or try something new...These are just some of the sentiments that put our plans into action and move us towards revolutionary results. Look around and witness the very essence of commonplace activities being tested and re-imagined... such as schools re-defining Physical Education by bringing in activities ranging from kickboxing to more esoteric offerings like tai chi and yoga. And with the introduction of Blogs, an international conversation is in full swing with millions of links and a central clearing house inspired by immediacy, intrigue and tension. Raising the bar on a project can simply mean taking one extra step, having an allegiance to a weird idea, or devoting to a regular practice.

Commit to a goal in a meaningful way, personalize it & make it your own, and then watch an otherwise sleepy project wake up and give way to a new found energy, creativity and distinction .Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."
-- double the goal
-- challenge the limits
-- create a regular practice
-- raise your standards,values or beliefs
-- make it a game

3. GO THE PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE-OR SHOW ME THE SHORTCUT
Sometimes a goal deserves a break. Time Magazine reported that after 8 hours of sleep, you'd be more than twice as likely to find a shortcut for solving a problem. This suggests that taking it easy is good for the brain, and what’s good for the brain is good for the overall psyche and soul. Are you doing too much, not getting nourished and being exhausted? Well, perhaps its time to consider another path. Don’t re-invent the wheel. Pick up a book written by an expert, join a group that's geared around your project, sign up for an informational newsletter , or ask someone to buddy up & help. For instance, if I was writing a screenplay and struggling with a self imposed deadline, I could simplify my project just by signing up for a writing class. What with weekly writing tasks & in-class exercises this alone would expedite the development of my script. Another overlooked shortcut is to consider smaller steps. The smaller the increments, the easier the goal. Deng Ming-Dao, writes in EVERYDAY TAO, An inch in one direction, then an inch in another already makes a span of 2 inches. Gradually we can improve on that. Go the path of least resistance, it’s a gift of energy.
-- don’t reinvent the wheel-find someone who’s done it before
-- slow down or change the pace
-- keep to minimum daily standards
-- write everything down--loose ideas vs. lost ideas
-- the smaller the increments the easier the goal

In Bliss,
Coach Sandy

Sandy Kiaizadeh
Find Your Bliss Coaching