It’s important for you to know and understand that we change with our experiences and what makes us happy.

This isn’t just about our lives, careers or even business. At times the change is brought about because of external circumstances and sometimes from within.

It could be you’re not experiencing job satisfaction or want to do something else. Perhaps a career change is on the horizon?

In business, especially for coaches and consultants, we grow with our business. The goal then is to pivot or to start exploring new ways to make our business match where we are in our own personal journey.

I’m going through something similar with my beloved Karmic Ally Coaching.

It’s still my vehicle to create the change I want to see in the world and that won’t change. The way I want to achieve more self-actualization will undergo a change.

The journey from Point A to Point B is not the end of the journey

I couldn’t understand why after 25 years of being a top performer, having a high functioning group, and yet things didn’t work right anymore.

I wasn’t ready to address the elephant in the room.

My wakeup call that things had to change started with a suspected angina attack while driving home from work late at night on the highway. I was working for 2 toxic bosses in a toxic workplace. The referring cardiologist told me to decide if I wanted to live or die.

I choose to live.

I realized the fulfillment I used to get in my job no longer existed. All my previous employers were great. This employer was a good paymaster, but I needed more.

I wanted to do something more with my life.

That’s when I used the art of creative visualization to create Karmic Ally Coaching.

But it wasn’t overnight. I had to first align with the fact that one life was ending, and another one was starting.

I needed to align myself with the excitement of what I was learning and move into a new phase of my life.

With acceptance, the actions I took brought me back into alignment. I knew I was back to being in high vibration when the new business started bringing in wonderful clients and sales of my products.

13 years into it, the professional who started the business is a different person. Even the world is different!

What was in alignment then might not be alignment now.

That’s why I keep inviting subscribers and visitors to my blog to talk to me. Not to get you on a call for some high-pressure sales tactic but to understand where you’re at and what needs to change in your life to make your heart sing.

Satisfaction is so underrated!

Here’s the hard truth.

Everything in your life, what you feel, what you see, what you eat and drink, the people you talk to, the pets you love, all have vibrations of energy.

High vibrations attract more high vibrations, and low vibrations attract more low vibrations.

If you feel high vibrational energy, where you are happy, light, and go about your life knowing everything is working out, you are in alignment with the universe. Things in your life are going as they are meant to.

When it comes to manifesting, your vibration needs to be an energetic match.

That’s what alignment is all about.

For example, in October 2020 when my late pet Miss Coco had to have surgery for a mammary gland tumor. It had already been delayed due to the lockdown and was going to be high risk given the pet’s age.

The vet had already told me that the 10-day post-surgery period would require complete dedication and devotion to Miss Coco’s recovery. Full recovery would require 6 weeks.

Miss Coco was an integral member of my family and had seen us through the worst period of the first wave of the pandemic. There was no second guessing or thinking. She deserved a fighting chance, and we went with it.

I worked on ensuring that I was aligned to see her through her surgery and 6-week recovery period. I used the skill of creative visualization to create what I wanted – her coming through the surgery.

I’d used this skill with success before to pass my Chartered Accountancy exams before and also to manifest a new computer once, so I was confident it would work to support a living being.

And so, it was. The surgery on the 12-year-old dog was successful and the vet marveled at how well she had taken the anesthetic.

This is an example of being in extreme high vibration mode, but it can’t be sustained long term.

To continue my story, I was happy but completely exhausted when the recovery period was over.

Then an unfortunate event happened when a contractor used a jackhammer drill on the top floor of our apartment complex. This drill is not meant to be used inside buildings but is meant for breaking roads.

The vibrations and noise were intense and before I could do anything, she had a seizure. The next 18 days were spent trying to save her life without success.

Having expended our physical, mental and emotional energy, neither the pet nor I were a vibrational match for this situation. We were out of alignment. Despite the best medical treatment, Miss Coco left for the Rainbow Bridge.

If you’re a pet lover, you can read her story in my Kindle tribute, Miss Coco: the Princess Pup who changed my life forever.

There are more stories about her and how the universe responded providing support when we used the Law of Attraction. We manifested miracles.

Let’s talk about you now. What if you are out of alignment?

That is what I want to help you with.

Not sure that you are currently in alignment with the universe?

Tell-tale signs you need to better align with what you want

You don’t have gratitude for what you already have. Manifesting anything in your life begins with gratitude. You already have so many blessings in your life, no matter who you are or what life you are living. Be grateful for what you have each and every day, thanking the universe continuously.

You have mostly negative thoughts. Do you find that most of your thoughts and feelings are negative? When you journal, pay attention to your mood and your mindset. If everything you write about is a rant or vent, then that is definitely lowering your vibration.

Bad things keep happening to you. Do you ever say you are just unlucky and feel like no matter what you do, bad things always keep happening? What if someone told you that YOU were the reason this keeps happening? Remember like attracts like – if you want to be in alignment, you have to let this go, and instead focus on what you WANT out of life.

You feel lost or confused about your purpose. Sometimes, your vibrational energy gets low because you are a little lost. You don’t know what you want or what direction to go in next. This might be a sign that it is time for some self-reflection.

3 Things you can do right now to get back in alignment

Now that you know whether or not you are in alignment, here are some tips for balancing out your thoughts, desires, feelings, and actions so the universe knows what you are trying to attract:

Live As If. Start by living as if what you want has already happened. If you want to lose weight and get your ideal body, think how you would live if you already lost the weight. How would your daily life be different? What would you eat? What activities would you do?

Express Gratitude. Be thankful to the universe, to the blessings in your life, and the people and pets who bring you joy. Do this often.

Be in the Moment. Try to be more mindful of your life and your experiences. Don’t just think about what you are trying to manifest but enjoy your life right now. This goes far with raising your vibration and aligning with the universe.

Try 7 more practical ways to raise your vibration here. 

Final Words and encouragement

When practicing alignment for manifestation, you need to practice from a place of detachment. Don’t worry about the How part, focus on the What part and take action.

But for the big-ticket items in your life, you need to build more momentum.

While you don’t have to achieve some perfect state of being to manifest what you want, you do need to be feeling good more than feeling badly. That means being in alignment.

To be honest, I didn’t believe in the Law of Attraction until I started receiving from the Universe!

I was first introduced to the Law of Attraction and other Universal Laws while studying to become a Master SPIRIT Life Coach more than a decade ago.

Practicing what I was being taught, I discovered this Law works!

It’s not some woo-thing but a method of aligning our desires with focused attention and deliberate action to manifest what our heart truly desires.

I suggest you give it a shot too. That’s where the Law of Attraction Essentials for the Real World tools will support you. Use the ones that resonate most with you right now and start getting results.

Prefer to read? Here’s the transcript with resources.

Even if we don’t realize it, right from childhood, we’ve all been taught the value and practice of gratitude.

It’s the thank you we said when we got a gift and it’s the grace we said before our meals. Sometimes if we were being difficult or throwing tantrums, our parents might have even yelled out the command to be grateful!

Hi. I’m Vatsala Shukla from Karmic Ally Coaching and today, I’m going to delve deeper into the role of gratitude in strengthening our emotional intelligence with some tips to cultivate gratitude.

In recent years, giving gratitude has been seen as a practice associated with visualizations, law of attraction and as part of manifestation rituals.

It’s actually a lot more than that. We think of gratitude as a simple emotion but it’s a gift that we can give others. It can also strengthen our skill of emotional intelligence.

Allow me to elaborate on both points.

Giving the Gift of Gratitude

Now, when was the last time you were on the receiving end of someone’s gratitude? Not just a casual, “Thanks!” but an honest, heartfelt, deeply appreciative, “Thank you for ______________.”

It felt good, didn’t it?

If it was someone who really knows how to say thank you, you were probably acknowledged for some sacrifice you’d made, and the way your gift or action made them feel…and your heart warmed, and your face smiled.

Gratitude is such a simple gift to give, so powerful, and yet so easy to forget.

In a world where everything has to be done 5 minutes ago, and rapid forward movement is the only way to not get left behind gratitude and appreciation all too often fall by the wayside.

Yet, as you know, saying thank you is one of the easiest ways to bless others and lift them up. Gratitude makes the receiver feel seen, recognized and appreciated…and it can all be done well in less than 30 seconds.

30 seconds. That’s only 0.05% of your total waking hours.

It takes longer than that to brush your teeth!

When we feel seen and appreciated, we perform better at work. We get less angry. We share our gifts more easily. We love stronger. When you’re seen and appreciated for who you are and what you do, it makes you strive to be a better human.

If you were to spend 30 seconds sharing your gratitude every day, you would be investing .05% of your waking life to make someone else’s day at least 30% better.

Now talk about return on investment, right?

Plus, when you take the time to offer others a sincere thank you, you also become a model for others. You become an inspiration, quietly encouraging others to express their gratitude.

In short, by simply giving the gift of your appreciation, you instantly become a respected leader at home, at work, and everywhere else…all while making the world a better place.

And that feels good, doesn’t it?

Now about Gratitude as a way to develop Emotional Intelligence

During the pandemic, I discovered that my morning gratitude ritual provided me with resilience to face the uncertainty of the days ahead.

Being grateful for the gift of a new day, the safety and health of my loved ones or even gratitude that I had not run out of pet food during lockdown made it easier to cope with the stress of a situation for which my mind did not have any prior experience to refer back to. It was uncharted territory for all of us.

Practicing gratitude didn’t mean I was denying the reports of record infections or becoming immune to the negative reports of deaths among our circle of friends, loss of jobs or worrying when I could get a vaccine.

It simply meant shifting my focus from negative and painful experiences and finding hope. It provided my brain with support to process the difficult experience and was a protective response to support my well-being during that challenging time.

That’s when I started to wonder if there was more to gratitude than I had previously realized.

Apparently, I wasn’t alone in my thoughts and there has been research on the role of gratitude in building emotional resilience and strengthening emotional intelligence.

Research indicates that there are 2 parts to gratitude. Firstly, it is an affirmation of goodness and acknowledging that there are good things in the world. This is what we practice in our gratitude ritual.

In the second part of gratitude, we recognize that the sources of this goodness are outside of ourselves, and we acknowledge that other people give us many gifts to help us achieve the goodness in our lives.

To demonstrate high emotional intelligence, we need to develop our emotional resilience first. Gratitude enables us to strengthen our skills in the domains of self-awareness and self-management as well as social awareness and social management.

Ongoing research in gratitude shows evidence in building positive relationships and increasing empathy.

Practicing gratitude creates a heightened awareness of your emotions, values, strengths, and a greater understanding of others. Heightening your emotional intelligence through gratitude allows for reflecting on your feelings, emotions and motivators, and perceiving those of others.

Cultivating a grateful mindset also allows us to recognize unhealthy emotions and reframe our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This deepens our emotional intelligence capacity. With greater emotional intelligence awareness, you have a choice – a choice in how you interact with and join in the experiences of others.

You don’t need to take a course on learning how to be grateful. You can integrate it into your life until it becomes second nature. I’ve got some recommendations to develop your attitude to gratitude.

And here are the 5 Ways You Can Cultivate Your Gratitude

It’s a fact that most of us lead busy lives these days. It might feel like a waste of time to think about the things in your life that you can be grateful for. But doing this is essential, as you will derive some incredible benefits from being grateful for what you have in your life right now. Try these simple yet powerful actions to cultivate your gratitude every day.

The first one is to stop what you are doing and take a look around you

Make a commitment to pause at different times during the day and ask yourself the question “what can I be truly grateful for in my life?” You can also ask yourself “who are the most important people in my life and why am I grateful to them?”

When you ask yourself these questions your mind or rather your subconscious mind will come up with a number of answers for you. Take these answers and assess why the people or things are so important for you and you express your gratitude for having them in your life. This won’t take you long to do each day and will get you into the habit of looking for things to be grateful for.

Have a good look at the qualities you possess

Being grateful for the qualities you possess is a very powerful way to cultivate your gratitude and increase your self-esteem. Think about what you have achieved recently and the problems that you had to overcome. You can go back into your past for some good examples of this as well.

You can look beyond the things that you have achieved as well.

What other traits do you possess that you are proud of?

Do you provide acts of kindness to others? Do you have good empathy skills? Do you have a lot of love for your partner, your family and your friends? Or your pet?

There are always lots of things that you can come up with about yourself.

Also, what things do you take for granted?

When people are starting out on their attitude of gratitude journey, they will usually think about the bigger things in their life to be grateful for but don’t limit yourself to this. The smaller things in your life are just as important to you.

Just open your eyes and take a look around you. If you are at home, then notice the wonderful things that surround you to make your life easier and more enjoyable. Take a walk outside and notice the beauty of nature as well.

A fifth way is to Have a Morning and Evening ritual

I touched upon this earlier when I spoke about my gratitude ritual during the pandemic.

It is easy to forget about expressing your gratitude in modern life. I highly recommend you create a new routine where you will think about things to be grateful for in the morning when you wake up and before you go to bed at night.

Think about 3 things that you can be grateful for at these times. It does not matter if they are big or small things. In the morning it could be the simple fact that you are grateful for a new day ahead.

Write down the 3 things in the morning and evening in a gratitude journal so that you can reflect on these later on.

Final Words – Show your Gratitude to others

Cultivating the attitude or habit of gratitude isn’t difficult and worth the effort because it also strengthens our emotional intelligence. This skill is important if you are aspiring for a leadership position.

So, take every opportunity that you can to express your gratitude to others. When you do this the recipient will be very appreciative and this will give you a warm glow inside. In turn this will make you feel a lot happier to see the smiles on their faces and hear their words of appreciation. And if you need more help, I’ve got a couple of resources listed here. Have a look and take what works for you.

This is Vatsala Shukla for Karmic Ally Coaching signing off. Bye for now.

Additional Resources for developing Gratitude

Are You Practicing the Power of Appreciation?

Do you dare to cherish Everyone?

How to Develop Emotional Intelligence with Ease

Emotional Intelligence Traits Checklist

Gratitude Mastery Bundle – a simple yet unique Way to raise your vibrations every day.

You will be directed to Karmic Ally Coaching’s Success Solutions portal and the entire transaction will be done over a secure line.

Since Karmic Ally Coaching is offering non-tangible irrevocable goods, we do not issue refunds once the order is accomplished and access is granted to the product. As a customer, you are responsible for understanding this upon purchasing any item from this website.

Please note all digital products are non-refundable once payment is processed. This digital product is yours forever. If you have any questions or concerns, please ask in advance of purchase at vatsala(at)karmicallycoaching(dot)com.

Have you decided what you want to achieve during the New Year?

Having a sound strategy coupled with the right intentions works. Help from the Universe using the Law of Attraction might just make it your best year yet.

I’ve written about the technique of using Creative Visualization for Crisis Management as well as combining it with the law of attraction to achieve career success before.

Yet there are times when we don’t hit the bull’s eye.

There are finer points we need to cover and not just chant mantras and affirmations thinking we will manifest what we want.

Let’s take a deeper look.

How and Why to Set Your Intentions

Setting intentions allows you to describe not just what you want, but what you intend to do.

In the post ‘Are You Intent on Intending’, we used intentions to do better time management.

With the Law of Attraction, you’re asking the universe for what you want. You do this by saying what you are trying to attract and how you want things to go.

It is similar to setting any intentions in your life, but you want to write them down using the method of scripting. Meaning, you write as if they have already happened.

Why Set Intentions?

With intentions, you aren’t just thinking a random thought about what you might want. You’re specifically asking the universe for something you deeply desire. There might even be a goal in sight that you want to achieve.

The intention takes it to the next level, where you have made the decision, asked the universe, and begin the process of manifesting it.

Intentions are very powerful when they are done correctly. As with any skill that we want to master, it helps to start small and build your Intention Muscle.

Choose Different Types of Intentions

Remember that there are different ways to set intentions, including different times to do it. You might have daily intentions, weekly or monthly, or even longer than that, such as your yearly intentions.

Try first with simple daily intentions. Think about what you need to get done today. Not the meaningless tasks, but the tasks that get you closer to your goals.

Write down your intentions, visualize yourself completing them, and then go on with your day.

You can try this whenever you have new intentions, whether it is something for the week, the month, what you want to manifest this year. Anything you can think of that you want to attract in your life.

Think About What You’re Manifesting

When you’re beginning to write out your intentions, you want to do so in a scripting method – where it is in the present tense. Write about it as if it has already happened. Try to visualize what you are trying to manifest when writing them down.

First, write down what you want to manifest. Just one word or phrase that describes what it is. Then close your eyes and visualize having that thing.

It could be money, wealth, status, fame, a house or car, a relationship, big group of friends, or traveling to a dream destination.

With it in your mind, open your eyes and set your intentions. Write down in a journal what your dream was, in vivid detail, with as much feeling and emotion as you can muster.

One of the best examples that I know of was shared by Rev. Anne Presuel in her Divinely Intuitive Business Group that I was a member of a few years back.

When she was ready to manifest her true-life partner after a failed marriage, she scripted what she wanted in great detail.

Amazingly, Mr. Right not only came into her life, but she married one of the most amazing men in the world who matched everything she had asked for.

Read her book to learn more about this method.

Be Specific

Intentions are short, but also specific. Generalizations won’t work so say exactly what your intentions are. This can be in list form, scripting, or in the form of affirmations that you repeat to yourself every day.

Your Feelings Are Stronger Than Your Thoughts

I personally believe this is the secret sauce to a successful manifestation.

Among the different misconceptions about the law of attraction and manifesting, is one in particular – the universe does not recognize thoughts, it recognizes feelings.

The reason visualization is so powerful in the law of attraction isn’t because you are thinking about what you want, but because it helps you actually feel it.

It’s like the time I manifested the new laptop during a holiday as well as a new internet connection. You can read the story here.

My feelings were intense and even though my computer guy was out of town, he managed to arrange what I needed.

Here are the 2 factors that come into play.

Like Attracts Like

This is something you will hear and read over and over again when you study the law of attraction.

It goes back to the first influencers of the law of attraction, where they said like attracts like.

If you spend your time visualizing what you want and feeling it, you are going to attract more of those good feelings.

But if you spend all your time thinking about your limiting beliefs and why you think it could never happen, then the universe is going to make sure you keep feeling that.

This means you want to focus your time, attention, and energy on what you want instead of what you don’t want, even if it has to do with ending your current situation.

Don’t think about how right now you can’t pay your bills – spend your time thinking about when you are able to pay your bills. This is what like attracts like comes down to.

Tips for Focusing More on Your Feelings

Manifesting what you want does begin with asking the universe what you want, but it doesn’t stop with your thoughts. You really need to tap into your feelings if you want this to work.

To focus more on your feelings, here are a few tips:

Use detailed visualizations. When you visualize, start by putting the vision in first person perspective. You want to see what you are dreaming of from your point of view.

Not like someone watching you in movie, but you actually living that life. If you want a house with a pool, think about swimming in that pool, right down to the feeling of the water on your skin, your fingers pruning, splashing in the water. Sense everything you can during your visualizations.

Try meditating. If you struggle with your thoughts and fears taking over your mind, try meditating for a few minutes a day.

Scripting works miracles. Literally! When you script what you want to manifest, you go beyond just thinking about what you want and actually put yourself in the place where you already have it.

Write your intentions and your manifestations, but as if they already exist. Instead of “I want to buy my dream home”, you would write “I am so thankful after purchasing my dream home!” and get as specific as you can.

You could go further and add details, like “I am lucky to have a garden with my dream home. Each of the three bedrooms has an attached bathroom.” And more.

Let’s look at scripting in detail.

The ‘I Am’ Rule in Scripting

Scripting is an extremely powerful way to use the Law of Attraction. Instead of asking the universe what you want as if you don’t have it now, which is going to attract more lack of that thing, you ask in a way that you already have it.

Since like attracts like, you always want to ask in present tense, as if what you are asking for has already happened. This is where the “I Am” rule comes in.

What is the I Am Rule?

The I Am rule says that when you are scripting in your journal about what you are trying to manifest, you always write “I am”, instead of “I want to” or “I will”.

You’re writing in present tense as you will find out in the next paragraph, so make sure you start each sentence with phrases like:

I am

I do

I have

It is really easy to change any negative statement into a positive one.

For example, if you find yourself writing “I want to”, your focus is visualizing on the lack of something, not as if you already have it.

Change that to “I have” or “I am” and it completely changes your perspective to a feeling of abundance.

Scripting is done in present tense, always, no exceptions

This is a way to ask the universe for what you want but write it down as if it has already happened. You are thanking the Universe for bringing this into your life.

Not sure how this works? Think about what you want or what you are trying to manifest.

Now imagine you already have that thing or are living that life. Then write as if it is in the future when you have that dream already, and what you might say.

For example, if you are trying to manifest a new car, don’t think about what you have to do to get it or that you don’t have it now.

Write as if you have that car, and how you feel about it. How excited you are to drive it and thank the universe for bringing this new car to you.

Tips for Changing Your Mindset

In the beginning, it is hard to get past the old way of journaling, where you are talking more about what you don’t want, instead of what you do want.

Scripting is all about acting as if, being in the future when you have what you are trying to manifest.

If you find yourself writing about lack or what you want, not as if you already have it, take each sentence, cross off the words that point to lack, and replace them with words that represent abundance.

How to Recognize Signs from the Universe

As you begin manifesting, and using various methods in the Law of Attraction, you may get to a point where you are a little confused as to what direction you are meant to take next, in order to make your desires a reality.

The Universe tends to send you signs in many different forms about the path you are on, helping you to see when what you manifested is coming true for you.

If you are concerned about missing these signs, here are some things to look for.

Look for Patterns in Everything You Come Across

If you want to look for signs for the universe, it helps to first know what you’re looking for.

One way to see signs is in different patterns.

This might be seeing the same symbol over and over again, like a peace sign or a certain shape, or you may see number sequence like 555 or 11:11 over and over again.

Another thing people often notice is that they keep seeing the same kind of bird before something great happens.

Pay More Attention Outward

The reason people often miss signs from the Universe is because they aren’t paying attention.

Start noticing other things in the world, paying attention to everything around you.

When you go outside to walk your dogs or for a stroll, notice any smells or sights you experience. Don’t just watch your dogs but watch the birds in the sky. Notice how tall the grass is, what sounds you might hear, what seems to be out of place. Or something you never noticed in that area before.

Not only will you often see signs in these simple things, but it helps to open up your mind. You’ll become a more observational person in general.

This is a really important trait to have when you have to notice signs the Universe may be sending you.

Listen to and Trust Your Intuition

Your intuition is telling you a lot, even when you aren’t listening.

Do you ever just get this weird feeling?

Maybe you suddenly start thinking about a person just before they call, or you have a song playing in your head before it plays on the radio.

Sometimes, when you meet someone, you have immediate good or bad feelings, or you get this overwhelming feeling of joy before going to an event.

This is your intuition talking to you, sending you vital signals.

The more you pay attention to it, the more you can read your own intuition and listen to your gut. This can also be a powerful way the universe sends you important signs.

May you achieve all that your heart desires in the New Year!

Law of Attraction Essentials for the Real World Bundle

This bundle of resources will help you apply the Law of Attraction to manifest your intentions while improving your life and reaching your goals.

Click here for full details!

The bundle includes 3 planners and short reports to enable you to make any year your year of manifesting the best!

Practicing mindfulness benefits the practitioner both in their personal and professional life and especially when they are trying to demonstrate their leadership ability.

I’ve had professionals tell me about the free trainings in their company for learning mindfulness meditation so I know it’s quite popular.

But do you understand what is meant by mindfulness?

I have my own version of mindfulness in the blog post meditation for mindful leadership but there is a simpler one for the purposes of this post which I found on Mindful.Org.

“Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.

Mindfulness is a quality that every human being already possesses, it’s not something you have to conjure up, you just have to learn how to access it.”

Prefer to read? Here’s the Video Transcript

Mindfulness Meditation is a well-known technique of meditation and one which is used by many leaders. But have you ever wondered how you could actually successfully master this skill of mindfulness without meditating?

Hi, I’m Vatsala Shukla, Chief Encouragement Officer of Karmic Ally Coaching and in this video, I’m going to actually show you how you can do it if you are not keen on meditation.

But first, just so that we are all on the same page, what’s mindfulness meditation?

The way I’d like to describe it is that it is the combination of meditation with the practice of mindfulness where we’re focusing on the present, we’re acknowledging and accepting our thoughts, feelings and sensations from a place of non-judgment.

Now that we’ve got this definition out of the way, let’s address the question that I had started with.

And that is, what if meditation isn’t your cup of tea or coffee?

Meditation doesn’t suit everyone and while meditation may be the most effective way to achieve mindfulness, there are other options that you can try because in my experience, there are people who have difficulty practicing traditional seated contemplation.

Or they find it challenging to sit in meditation for long periods of time. Their feet may fall asleep or they may have a back problem and they find that difficult or it’s in your nature and temperament that you’re seeking a shorter version which has more active participation from the other senses.

Now if any of that sounds familiar to you or sounds like you, then I’ve got some good news for you today. You can still find more happiness and peace of mind through a variety of physical and mental practices.

And I’m going to be sharing 9 of them. In fact you may find that these activities are beneficial on their own or they may strengthen your ability and interest in meditating.

But whatever path you follow, do try one or all of these 9 ideas for becoming fully present.

Physical Practices to improve mindfulness

So the first one is breathe deeply.

Engaging with your breath is a practice that you can do anywhere. And here what you’re going to do is you’re going to pay attention to each inhalation and each exhalation.

You’re going to feel calmer and stronger. And remember, at least in this one, to sit with a straight back in order to get the full benefit.

To allow inhalations and exhalations to fill up your lungs and empty it out. And when you do that you do become more aware of what’s going on around you.

In fact I’ve got a blog post which can show you how to do this, even better as well as provide you with more stimuli, external stimuli in order to engage you in it.

The next one is a very simple one and many of you would be aware of it and that is to do yoga. Because yoga connects your mind, body, and breath.

And as a bonus, if you do the down dog and other poses that will open up your hips you would be able to sit more comfortably if you do decide to meditate later sitting down.

The third one, which I don’t think you actually expected me to say is to do creative flower arrangements.

Now this actually does engage your mind because you know you’re observing the flowers, you’re thinking about how to present them.

And one of my favorites is Ikebana which was originally used to create shrine offerings, but you can use it to connect with nature and as a tool of self-expression.

In fact I recommend that you either take a live class or an online class if that is not possible or even pick up a book at the library to learn about the various techniques.

I actually studied the Ohara school of Ikebana when I was still in school. I was participating in the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme and the hobby I had to take up was Ikebana.

And I can tell you that even to this day doing creative flower arrangements does make me more aware of nature and of what I’m actually doing. And it is a must try.

Then the next one is to learn martial arts and you know, Karate and other martial arts involves a lot more than just fighting.

Regardless of what you’ve seen in the movies, building your character is more important than just chopping of blocks of wood by hand.

So, you try to remember Enter the Dragon with Bruce Lee in it and you’d notice he was doing a lot more in it than Kung Fu and just hitting people. Or remember the Karate Kid movie where it all comes down to developing that mindset and the child becoming, the little hero, becoming more aware of what he was doing and the confidence that it brought. So this is not to be laughed at or put aside.

And the fifth one is one that I’m sure you’re going to love and that is to drink tea.

And make it even better than just, you know, glugging down a mug of Tea but to actually hold a tea ceremony which is another tradition to encourage mindfulness.

And if you’re doing this at home, then try giving your full attention to any food or drink that you’re having. Savor that cup of tea or even coffee for that matter, smell the aroma, feel the warmth in your hand, enjoy the taste.

And the same thing goes for the food. In fact when His Holiness the Dalai Lama tells us to do mindful eating and to chew our food 16 times before swallowing it down, it’s not that he’s teaching you how to chew food but by doing that ritual, you’re actually getting a full sense of what you’re eating.

You’re mindful of what you’re putting in your mouth. You’re getting the taste, the aroma and the textures as you chew and swallow.

Okay, so these were 5 ways that you can actually develop the skill of mindfulness without even a bit of meditation but what about some inner or mental practices.

I’ve got 4 for you.

Mental or Inner Mindfulness Practices

The first one is to slow down. Now you might remember the saying that you know, you have to slow down in order to go fast.

What this basically means is, that you know, slow down, do deliberate movements, think before you move. Consider each step that you’re taking and that way when you slow down, you do become more mindful because you know what you’re doing.

The second one is Focus and by focus what we mean is give your attention completely to what you’re doing, to the task at hand.

Now in a home setting what it means is that when you do sit down to mealtime, please put your mobile phone on silent mode, ask everybody to in fact to put it on silent mode, enjoy the food, observe your family, talk to them.

Focus on them and give them the quality time that they need. When it comes to doing a piece of work, even though everybody loves to say that they are multi-taskers, you don’t really get much done.

In this case, become a mono-tasker. Put your attention on a particular task at hand, complete it and then move on to the next.

Or if there’s a case where you need to do a couple of tasks at the same time which are slightly different at the same time, then put a timer for say 15-20 minutes or for however long it’s going to take for each task and during that time, just focus on that particular task.

The third practice that you can use in order to master the skill of mindfulness is to simply let go of judgments. And here what I mean is, you know, don’t always judge others. Don’t judge yourself. Try to keep a clean perception of things.

Don’t add to a situation or put in an interpretation. You may be right, you may be wrong. But the point is this, that a mindful person actually observes what is and then accepts the reality. They don’t start judging or putting or looking at a situation with rose colored lenses.

And then, the last one is, to live in the present. What it means is that stop living in the past, stop every time something good is happening to you in the present, stop thinking about what happened in the past.

Stop trying to think of what’s going to happen in the future. Don’t start future pacing thinking oh my God, I’ve done this now something’s going to go wrong or something ‘this will happen, something that will happen’.

It doesn’t work like that. Live in the present, enjoy the moment. If you’re out in the garden, just look up at the sky, enjoy that clear blue sky. You see a bird on a branch, enjoy that. Live in the present.

And if you’re in the company of people, be with them, be with them in the moment. You’re with your little dog wants to play, play with that dog. It will help you to develop your skill of mindfulness and to become more aware of things that might miss you otherwise.

And that is something that I myself had discovered during the lockdown last year when Miss Coco and I used to go to the garden in the afternoons. Now we were doing Nature Walking Meditation. I’ll share a link to that practice with you.

But when the two of us used to be sitting in the garden and the whole world was in lockdown we were actually able to hear the chirping of the birds. We actually noticed a couple of squirrels playing tag near us. We used to enjoy the breeze.

We were present in the moment and those are memories that are priceless. I cannot even articulate and tell you how good those memories were. But we enjoyed our moment of mindfulness and it was a kind of meditation.

So, now that I’ve shared the 9 ways that you can actually master the skill of mindfulness without meditating, what about if you suddenly decide, that Vatsala, I would like to meditate but how do I make it easier?

How to make Meditation easier

Now here are my 3 tips for you, especially if you’re a beginner.

The first is keep it brief.

You don’t have to sit for 20 minutes doing Transcendental Meditation or 20-15 minutes or half an hour doing any kind of meditation. Keep it brief and then build it up.

Sometimes just sitting quietly for a minute or 2 minutes, you know, in your self, ignoring the outside world and just listening to your own mind, that helps you to build up the concept of, practice of meditation.

And as you feel more confident and don’t get distracted, build it up to longer periods of time.

The other way that I would suggest is to walk and stretch.

Now not all meditation involves sitting with your fingers in different mudras poses and your chanting away. Now I had already mentioned the Nature Walking Meditation to you.

Sometimes simply walking is a form of meditation. The thing is that then focus on the walking. Be aware of the movement or even if you’re in the house pottering about, just engross yourself in that activity. That too is a form of meditation.

Doing gardening is a form of meditation. What is more required is that you’re completely focused on the object on which you’re working and to the exclusion of all others.

Need more ideas? Read this post on exercising for health here.

And then also manage stress.

Now there are various ways that you can try to manage stress. Normally you might find that if you do sit down to meditate, that instead of reaching the stillness of the mind, all sorts of crazy thoughts start to come out.

And this is going to happen because as you go deeper, things that are buried in your subconsciousness are going to start floating above. And what I suggest is, acknowledge the thing and let it go.

Don’t distract yourself by starting to think about what is and what isn’t and what you have to do. At that moment just focus on going deeper and acknowledge it, whatever issue is coming up and let it go for the time being and you can always deal with it later.

And if you want more exercises to help you build up your mindfulness practice, then I offer you Karmic Ally Coaching’s Stress Management with Chakra Balancing Exercises.

A link is given below in which I’m going to show you different exercises that you can do for each Chakra.

There are also some meditations which do not require you to meditate with the mindfulness meditation and I have these one minute tools that help you to manage your stress which in themselves become mini meditations.

And of course they help you build up your mindfulness. And along with that, there are 3 bonuses. There’s the Chakra Chart, in case you’re really interested in pursuing more information about Chakras.

I also have a little ebook with the gemstones and crystals for chakra meditation and also simple stress relief magic which is hidden in your fingers.

And that will also help you with mindfulness though it doesn’t require you to sit down and meditate.

So my final words to you are that you don’t really have to miss out on the benefits of mindfulness just because you’re uncomfortable sitting for long periods or troubled by disturbing thoughts.

It all comes down to developing your ability to focus and absorb what’s going on around you from a heightened sense of awareness to improve clarity and your decision making skills.

And now, I have a question for you and I would love to have you answer it in the comments.

The question is, which method will you try first? Will it be one or will you give all of them a shot and see which one works for you. Let me know. So that’s all from me.

This is Vatsala Shukla from Karmic Ally Coaching signing off. See you next time. Bye for now.

For those visitors who are new to Karmic Ally Coaching’s blog, Miss Coco is my beloved fur baby who passed away on 5^th January 2021. She continues to motivate and inspire me.

This post is a little different from my normal posting how to, educational and professional development posts.

Yet, Miss Coco is integral to my business blog. She was my Muse for my early blog posts and has appeared from time to time in different posts including one on empathy.

Losing her 18 days after a contractor used a drill meant only for demolishing buildings or roads inside our apartment building creating noise at high decibel levels that led to the first of many seizures and later loss of life will always be a personal tragedy for me.

Despite my efforts, I couldn’t get her justice and that has been painful.

That’s when close friends and well-wishers suggested I write about her and when I was ready to put pen to paper, the words started to flow.

When I found it difficult to write, I recorded my memories and edited the transcripts.

7 months later, I published Miss Coco: The story of a Princess Pup who changed my life forever on Amazon.

This Kindle ebook is a labour of love with no plans to commercialize it and no marketing plan.

I was thrilled to find it started to rank in the Hot New Releases category both in Amazon USA and Amazon India.

Click here to visit Amazon India

Background to Miss Coco’s Kindle ebook

This is the story of my beloved Miss Coco Chanel Shukla, who was my friend, companion, pet kid and a lot more than I can articulate.

She was, as my mother lovingly called her, a Princess Pup.

Miss Coco was a gift to my mother when the last of our miniature brown dachshunds, Bruno passed away 5 months short of his 18^th birthday leaving a void that was unbearable.

It’s another thing that Miss Coco and I forged a deep bond quite similar to that of a mother and her child. My mother became more of a grandmother to this delightful little dog whose passion for life, strong willpower, headstrong in the most lovable way.

Her deep compassion for humans and animals alike has left an indelible mark on my soul.

We were lucky Bruno lived as long as he did because he was our emotional support system after we lost my father. When he died after an aneurysm, it was a double loss for us.

He had buffered my father’s death for us and suddenly it was just Mummy and me and no Bruno.

The arrival of Miss Coco was a blessing and she carved her own special place in our home and our hearts.

If Bruno had helped us cope with our grief, then Coco was the furry pet child who showed us how to move forward.

Losing her the way we did hurts. All I ever wanted was for her to have a happy old age.

That didn’t happen as this book will tell you. I want the world to know what a special dog she was . Especially how she reached out from beyond the veil to help me in my grieving process.

This book is my humble tribute to a furry family member who gave me many happy memories before becoming a memory.

The Princess Pup becomes a Celebrity Pup!

Miss Coco was already a celebrity having appeared in Dogs & Pups magazine numerous times including an article.

Her celebrity status was given the final stamp when Cindy Kochis of Pen to Paper Press invited me to do a podcast interview. We spoke about Miss Coco, the book and a lot more about writing a book.

I am grateful to Cindy for giving me this opportunity.

I invite you to listen in to Episode #043 titled The Best-Selling Author and the Princess Pup below or at the Pen to Paper Press website.

When you hear the words abundance, prosperity and success, what’s the first thought that comes to your mind?

If you think of money, wealth and finances, then know that’s okay. We’re conditioned to think about moolah and tangible items as hallmarks. Let’s accept it, money definitely has a powerful charge.

In fact, when I did my series on money, my post on attracting abundance by raising one’s money set point based on my own practices, it made it to my popular post section.

You can read the post at this link . Also check out additional resources in that post to attract more money into your life.

But there’s more to abundance than a pot of gold.

You don’t have to wait for special occasions or moments in the day to manifest abundance. With a few simple behavioural changes, you can attract more good abundance into your life as a whole.

It can feel like a daunting task but it’s actually very simple. Ultimately it comes down to certain actions you can take and thoughts you can enforce to improve your quality of life by attracting and manifesting exactly what you want.

By making an effort to manifest your dreams and aspirations, you’ll find yourself reshaping your perspective on life and connecting with your desires.

In this post, I’m sharing 5 simple and easy examples of behaviours you can incorporate into your daily life for lasting results.

In fact, when you embrace these behaviours, you raise your own vibration. This in turn helps the Universe to send you more of what you desire.

In other words, the Law of Attraction starts to work in your favour too!

Change the lens -alter your Mindset

This is an important behaviour and one where I often spend time with my coaching clients – mindset.

Often the reason people don’t accomplish their dreams and aspirations is because their subconscious mind holding them back. Your mind can be your best friend or your greatest enemy, but luckily that is in your control.

Instead of thinking about your possibilities and taking risks, people who aren’t attracting abundance are most likely afraid of failure and hold themselves back due to protection and safety.

When you can build up a positive mentality and are willing to step out of your comfort zone, you will realize that the possibilities are endless.

I’d go as far as to state that when we change the lens with which we see the world, then we attract more of what we want.

Dump your Excuses

It can be very easy to make excuses for why you are unable to accomplish your goals and dreams, but letting go of these excuses will determine the success of your future.

By constantly making excuses, you are leading yourself through a trail of bad habits that will prevent you from achieving abundance in any aspect of your life.

These excuses are a sign of a victim mentality and you’re distancing yourself from the responsibility of achieving those goals and targets that will get you closer to your desired state of prosperity and abundance.

By training your mind to be strong and building up a strong sense of willpower to make yourself unstoppable, you will feel more productive and inclined to accomplish your goals.

The more you strengthen your mind, the more you will attract the desired abundance.

Feel Empowered

You create your reality based on your thoughts, opinions, and reactions to situations. It may not seem like it, but the way you feel about yourself reflects directly on those around you and their feelings towards you.

When you are confident and feel empowered, the people who you talk to will feel like they can trust you and will make decisions that will most likely benefit you.

For example, when I started Karmic Ally Coaching, I was making a complete change in career from finance to professional and executive coaching. My first few clients came from referrals from former colleagues and friends.

Why? Because while they wanted to help me, the prospective client could tell I was passionate about my work and confident to deliver results (which I did of course!). They signed up without negotiating my price.

Whether you realize it or not, the confidence you have within reflects on your situations nearly every day. By feeling courageous and empowered, you will attract abundance from a personal, professional, and financial perspective.

Be Supportive of Others

By adding value to the quality of others’ lives, you will attract abundance at the most important times.

When you realize and accept that there is an unlimited amount of knowledge, money, and recognition to go around, you will no longer be afraid of lifting others.

Supporting others has plenty of benefits that will impact your own life. For example, if you teach someone or help them out when they need something, they will feel more inclined to trust you and help you out.

People whom I had supported wanted to support me get Karmic Ally Coaching off to a good start. I didn’t have any expectations of reciprocity but there was an abundance of goodwill to help me.

Create Goals and Commit to Them

Specific Goals, whether short-term or long-term are the most important way to achieve your dreams and aspirations.

These specific goals help you to understand your values in life and make you feel productive. Goals help you to align your “why” with your surroundings and ways you can improve your life.

You stop making excuses because the goals become strong and you are motivated to achieve them.

3 Steps to make these behaviours help you manifest what you want

In the continuing chaos caused by second waves of COVID-19, lockdowns, unlocks, work from home, return to office, go back to work from home, have you taken time out to reflect on what you want out of 2021? Will it still be possible?

That’s the question that was on my mind this last weekend as I realized we’re entering the last month of Q2 2021. I took stock of where I was and what I wanted to achieve.

Are we on the same wavelength?

I believe we need to go with the flow and stay resilient in the face of challenge.

I also believe that we can have whatever we want from our life and our careers if we’re willing to see problems and challenges as opportunities for growth and transformation.

In other words, we can live an abundant life provided we embrace the right mindset.

Everything we desire and need is available to us but we need to take action to manifest it.

Today I want to encourage you to use your latent powers of manifestation to create your best year yet. I’ve already outlined the 5 behavior changes you need to make. Now it’s time to take more action.

Here are 3 steps that I always apply and so do my successful clients.

By applying these steps, you will increase your ability to access the abundance that surrounds you and also allow you to manifest what you desire in your life.

I used it to manifest 2 Covishield vaccine shots, one for my Mom and the other for myself at a time when the COWIN app was crashing. There was also a massive shortage of the vaccine in New Delhi.

Step 1: Define What You Want Clearly

Knowing what you want is important to the manifestation process. It is practically impossible for the universe to give you what you want if you don’t know what you want!

People who know exactly what they want can manifest their desires. It’s sometimes easier to identify what we want by focusing on a feeling.

For example, you know you don’t want to be tied financially because you need to feel financial freedom. That feeling is important. The more that feeling is present in your life, the more you will work towards your desired state.

To define what you want, simply start with the following statement: “I want…” That will stop you from describing what you don’t want.

Step 2: Identify Actions You Can Take

Once you’ve identified what you want more in your life, start brainstorming a list of small actions. Abundance doesn’t happen overnight.

Most people who live an abundant life will tell you that they work at it every day. On a daily basis, they are accomplishing small actions that aligns them with what they want in life.

These small actions will get you closer to your desire. For example, when we know we desire financial freedom, we can ask ourselves questions like:

What can bring me financial freedom?

Maybe the answer could be to pay off any credit card debt to feel a sense of financial freedom.

The next question would be

What action can I take right now to pay my credit card debt?

Then make a list of actions like the following:

• Pay the full monthly bill instead of just the minimum monthly payment to avoid incurring high rates of interest on the outstanding balance
• Cut my card so that I never use it again (Dame Maggie Thatcher did it and so can you!)
• Sell items that are no longer used by me, are causing clutter and use the money to pay my credit card.

Step 3: Act Now

Pick an action that is the most realistic for you and apply it today. Let’s be honest, only actions will lead you to what you desire.

And if you want a systematic plan as well as a mindset upgrade, then check out

The Abundance Mindset: The Ultimate Guide to Living an Abundant, Unlimited, Successful and Content Life by clicking here or on the image below

Who doesn’t want to achieve a successful career?

You know, the one where you’re acknowledged for your work and sent on leadership development programs?

The salary increments and annual bonuses justifying working those 80-hour work weeks, loss of work life balance worth it because you are a success.

It’s another thing that after a point, the Law of Diminishing Returns sets in.

The monetary compensation, business class travel and staying in plush 5-star hotels is not attractive enough because the rest of your life is in complete shambles.

Your boss dangles the carrot of a fast track to a top leadership role but you the work horse don’t want a juicy bite or worse start wondering about your next step.

So, am I telling you to drop it all? Not in the least.

What I am telling you is to go after what would really define career success for you and not what is the cultural norm in the corporate world. Use the power of visualization to make it happen.

Manifesting that dream job or career requires a new way of thinking

Before you think I’m going to tell you to chant mantras and affirmations to manifest that dream job or career, the one where all your criterion of a happy work life balance appear overnight, let’s pause to think about it.

Manifestation is somewhat of a buzzword in society today.

Everyone seems to be talking about it, writing about it, practicing it, or trying to implement, but what is it?

It’s the idea that what you put out into the universe, whether actions, words, or energy, will come back to you eventually.

A good example is provided by Katherine Hurst in her book The Secret Law of Attraction where she looks at applying for jobs but never being called in for interviews. She asks the reader to consider their mindset around the time this event was happening.

Did the reader believe they could achieve their goal?

Even if they believed it, was there an underlying sense of fear? Or even a stronger, more forceful voice in their head saying that disaster was going to strike?

When we want something, our limiting beliefs come out of the woodwork to produce frightening thoughts and images representing our failure. The resulting negativity only attracts more negativity; this is the Law of Attraction working in precisely the way you don’t want it to work.

In order to be on the receiving end of good things we need to be thinking and doing good things.

So how does manifestation benefit us and how do we incorporate it into our lives, especially when it comes to one’s career?

Here’s the big reveal.

Manifestation is already at work in our lives, but most of us are unaware of this fact. Thus, many of us are manifesting negative things and outcomes simply because our thoughts and actions are more negative than positive.

For manifestation to work more in our favor we have to be intentional about changing our thoughts and subsequently aligning our actions so that we can begin to manifest good in our lives.

Back in time when I was studying for my Chartered Accountancy qualification in London, I discovered a book by Kaz, a British psychic that talked of magic and many other interesting topics around divination and fortune telling.

It belonged to a friend who had bought it in a book shop sale for 50 pence but didn’t like it too much so when she saw my curiosity, she gifted it to me on the spot. The book is now out of print.

I still remember the opening pages – the book will find its way to the right reader.

There was a small chapter on manifestation with an exercise that is similar to the one I am going to share below.

At the time, I was about to take the first level examinations which were very competitive and of course as a young student I was nervous. Passing the exams would take me one step closer to realizing a dream I had since my school days.

I was burning the midnight oil, doing well in the training center tests but needed that extra bit of magic – the mindset that I could achieve anything I put my heart to.

Knowing I was putting in the work, I thought, why not give a shot to the simple exercise?

So every morning I would look at myself in the mirror and greet the person who had passed the exams with awesome marks. I’d do it every time I passed the mirror and do the complete exercise right up to the day the results were published.

Guess what?

I had clear passes in all my papers and had cleared Level One!

Okay, now for the exercise!

Visualize

The first step of manifestation is visualizing what you want for yourself. Whether it’s good health, success, or love, you have to first get clear about what you want. Then you can begin visualizing what your life would be like with that thing in it.

Visualization moves you from simply desiring something to actively assessing how having that thing will impact your life. Many people use vision boards as a tangible way to practice this concept.

By consistently seeing the things you want in life and the impact those things will have on your life, you increase your level of expectation.

Believe

Once you have a vision of what you want and how your life would improve as a result, you have to believe that it can happen. It’s one thing to want something, it’s another thing to fully expect that something can come into your life (Bernstein, G. 2016, December 13, The Five Principles For Manifesting Your Desires).

More than that, one should consider moving from a thought process that believes it can happen, into a thought process that believes it will in fact happen for you. It is with this confidence that you can then attract those things you desire.

Operate

A final key to manifesting the things you want in life is to operate as though those things have/will happen. You might be able to visualize and believe, but it can be a challenge for people to operate as though the thing they want will actually happen.

More often than not, people do visualize and believe, yet they still make decisions that demonstrate they have doubt. Operating as though the thing has happened or will happen demonstrates a level of confidence that is more likely to attract what you want in your life.

Through the principles of manifestation you can attract a host of positives for the mind, body, and spirit.

Active practice of manifestation can be linked to improved mental & physical health, positive friend & romantic relationships, and even success & financial prosperity.

You can read about the exact steps I take in my blog post How to benefit from Creative Visualization when you need to resolve a crisis.

Because manifestation is primarily about shifting of the mindset and aligning of actions and behaviors to match that more positive mindset, there is truly no limit to what you can manifest.

Develop a practical way to incorporate manifestation in your daily life and see what good comes unto you.

Now that we’ve covered the mindset part with an exercise that is really worth trying out, let’s look for some more practical methods to apply visualization.

Keeping Your Eyes Open for Opportunities

In my exam result story and the one I share in my Creative Visualization post, there is a slight difference.

In one case, I got exactly what I wanted while in the other, I got even more than I had wanted which was good of course.

When we need to attract something into our life using the visualization process, what we desire, or need might not come in the ways that we expect.

Unfortunately, visualization isn’t always as straight-forward as it can seem. We will never just wake up one day to find what we want is there in the manner we want it.

The way that visualization works is through the law of attraction; which allows the things we need in order to realize our goals to reach us.

Mantras and affirmations are good practices to support our visualization efforts but we still need to be active and may need to keep our eyes open for opportunities.

If you want to be more visible in the workplace and get juicy assignments, it’s not going to come out of nowhere.

We still need to look out for the opportunities that are presented to us in our lives to help us to create the situations that we most desire.

Some of these situations are going to take some action. If we are not proactive then we may miss the chance that the universe has sent us to seize the thing we have been visualizing. We will miss out on all of it.

There are a few very important things to keep in mind when using visualization to achieve your goals.

First of all, are you doing everything in your power to make sure that you will see an opportunity when it comes to you?

Are you talking to the people who will support your vision for yourself, or are you staying stuck in toxic relationships that will not help you achieve your goals?

Getting to know colleagues in different departments keeps you in the loop of developments within your organization. You never know who might know of an opening which is a match for your skills or where you would perform better.

If the company intranet advertises positions within the company, you are perfectly placed to apply and even be considered.

Another thing to consider is whether or not you are open to new opportunities.

If you tell yourself that everything in your life is stuck and will never change, you are already challenging the visualization process.

If you partly believe that things can’t change and then an opportunity comes knocking, you might not even notice that it is a new opportunity for you that could help you get to the place where you want to be! Don’t let that happen to you.

Overall, make sure that you keep your mind open to the possibilities that are surrounding you.

It can be difficult to look away from your routine and see things that may be opening up to you that never have before. The most important thing you can do for yourself is to remember that your visualization practices will come back to you in ways you may not expect. So stay alert!

Visualization works. But it is up to us to do the work that needs to be done to get there.

Remember, we alone are the masters of our destiny. It is our choice whether or not we seize a new opportunity that can change our lives or let it pass us by.

Evaluating the Tools in Place to Ensure Your Success

The road to success is never linear and definitely not your career path. As you reach each level of progression, there will be new challenges, new duties, new responsibilities and the need to acquire new skills.

So being good at your job as an Executive in your team and sound technical skills will definitely get you noticed. But if you’re eyeing a Team Leader role or becoming a Manager, you need to upgrade your people and other soft skills to manage rather than execute the work.

You also need to identify your unique strengths and skills that set you apart from the rest of your competitors.

In the bigger scheme of things, everything you want in life has a pathway to get there. Everyone has the potential to go after what it is they want the most and to become the embodiment of success that they visualize.

The trick to this is to make sure that you are staying true to yourself and allowing the law of attraction to come to you and allow you to reap its blessings.

But you must never become complacent. Nobody who wants something remarkable is going to accomplish it by sitting at home all day long waiting for a miracle to occur.

Visualization works, but only if you are taking the steps you need to take in order to allow it to work and manifest in your life.

That means keeping an eye open for all of the things that you already have at your disposal to help you to achieve your goals.

Many of us overlook the resources that we have in our lives already that can help us succeed. We may not think about how our own work ethic may come into play, or think much about how the people we know may help us to network and make our way up the ladder.

But these are things that are important for us to think about if we are going to manifest the greatest solution to our problems and rise above the life we found ourselves handed.

To carve our destinies, we need to keep an open mind and keep a sharp eye out for the tools and opportunities that are present around us.

Visualization helps us to train our brains to spot these opportunities so that we know what we should pursue in order to make our goals into a reality.

If we aren’t actively seeking out the things in our lives that we already have access to that can help us to move along our paths, then we are becoming complacent in our realities. Basically, telling ourselves, and the universe at large, that we are content with staying where we are. And so that’s exactly what we do.

But we don’t have to stay stuck. Stop and really think about the things in your life that can help you to gain more opportunities.

Do you have internet access?

Can you seek out free resources that will help you to do your work better or more efficiently?

Do you know of family or friends in a field where you could somehow connect with them and get your feet off the ground to start a new aspect of your project?

What do you already know, and what are you good at? How can you begin to use these skills to your advantage?

There is nothing wrong with asking for help sometimes, and it is important for us to see where we can make connections to get the ball rolling. Nobody is powerless, so open your eyes to the tools at your disposal today!

Final words to give you that extra little boost to go for career success

Visualization is a powerful tool to help you achieve career progression provided it is used properly. You must not go down the complacency route.

In a nutshell, here’s how I would approach it

1. Write down a list of your skills and abilities. Research those jobs and positions where these skills would be useful but also narrow down your choices to those which you would enjoy most. This will help make your visualization practice more effective.
2. Imagine already having that promotion or dream job using the technique I outline above. Bring all your 5 senses into the visualization using the steps in my blog post on Creative Visualization. This will make your brain think the scenario is real. When you start to falter, think about the bigger why behind your goal and the difference it will make to your life.
3. Act as if you have that desired promotion or dream job. The change in body language and thoughts will help attract your desired outcome.
4. Keep up the positive reinforcement with sticky notes that affirm you have it or create a Vision Board to remind you what you want to achieve.
5. Take actual steps toward obtaining your dream position or job. For example, if you know you want to reach the next level of your department chart, check if there is a lack of skills required and fill that deficiency. Ask your Manager to send you on the relevant courses or invest in improving your skills yourself. Attend seminars related to your field to meet managers and business owners who can hire you. Network with professionals who can show you how to get the position you’re after.

The world really is your oyster but you have to put in the work to get it. Are you ready?

You’ve definitely heard about viewing life as a half full or half empty glass but how deeply have you thought about it?

It’s not only about being an optimist or pessimist; it also reflects the difference between an abundance or scarcity mindset and how we live our lives.

It’s our mindset that makes the biggest difference when a coveted assignment that we’ve worked hard to land goes to another colleague.

Do we start bitching about that colleague and think the person must have used other tactics or feel happy for them and then aim for another juicier assignment that is guaranteed to demonstrate our worth and take us up the next rung of the corporate ladder?

Take another scenario that often plays out in the corporate world.  A new hire is made at a senior level that throws others at the same level into a tizzy.

Everything is done to make the new person’s settling into their job as difficult as possible or even complaining about the new person’s work habits and other things instead of focusing on their own work and demonstrating they deserve to take the next step up the corporate ladder.

It’s called dirty politics and those who play this game are certified practitioners of the Scarcity Mindset.

Let’s be honest. Living a life of abundance is not a simple task by any means.

It’s not a case of simply staking our claim to an abundant life and then chanting and doing affirmations (although it does help in a different way) and expecting the Universe to shower us with benefice.

It takes grit, challenging activities, and personal growth. People who are able to achieve abundance within their lives find themselves reaping the benefits of a relaxing and rewarding lifestyle.

Then what’s really stopping us?

3 Ways People Struggle in Attracting True Abundance

I can think of a number of reasons that depend on the situation but the biggest one by far is our belief system that often restricts us and prevents us from taking the very actions that can liberate us.

Facing these limitations is the first step to overcoming them.

Having Low Self-Worth

Does that internal voice encourage you to do what is best for you or does it constantly seek to break you down? Something might have happened in the past and while you might not recall the exact event, it has affected you adversely and you now second guess your own abilities and experience low self-worth.

The sub-conscious defense mechanism that earlier protected you is now creating a problem because it is now stopping you from taking chances and risks and questions your ability to handle your life.

It can come up when your boss gives you a task that is outside your comfort zone or new to you like doing a new client presentation and you start wondering if you can really do it.

If you think of it clearly, your boss wouldn’t give it to you if he or she didn’t think you could do it. Then why are you second guessing your ability?

You’re emotional well-being is dependent on others

In other words, you’re unable to take responsibility for your own feelings or separate your own feelings of happiness or unhappiness from those of a significant other, parent, sibling, or even a friend.

If your emotional well-being is dependent on another human being, then you may never achieve true happiness. The truth is that we are capable of being empathetic without sacrificing our own happiness because of another person’s discord.

The same can be said for yourself. Take responsibility for your emotional well-being so that you do not drag others down with you.

People who are intertwined with others struggle to have their own identity. This goes hand in hand with low self-esteem and you are not likely to improve one without improving the other.

You’re overly anxious about Change and Challenge

If you struggle to embrace change or challenge, then you’re not likely to adopt an abundant lifestyle. Adopting the abundant lifestyle involves a great deal of personal growth. Through personal growth, a lot of change will come about in your life.

The same can be said about the challenges you may face in achieving abundance. If you let your anxieties keep you from trying new things, applying for a great job, or experiencing something new, then you are holding yourself back from achieving abundance.

People who resist change are adept at talking themselves out of seeking new opportunities. They shy away from opportunities where they may find a challenge or a struggle in favor of seeking less challenging situations.

However, this is a serious issue in personal growth as refusing to see the value in a challenging situation can hold you back in a major way.

On the other hand, people who embrace these new situations are faced with abundant situations frequently. They are able to fill themselves with accomplishments which in turn builds up their willingness to embrace another challenge in the future.

How to use positive Thoughts to attract Abundance into your life

Our thoughts essentially create our reality. The best way to attract abundance into your life is to alter your mindset to commit to specific goals and opening up your mind to endless possibilities.

There are many ways to shift your mind to be more positive and willing. Changing our thoughts will change your perspective on your potential and success.

Here are some specific examples of thoughts to add plenty of abundance into your daily life. Try one to start with and build more positive abundant thoughts as you go along.

“I am grateful for…”

This one is a personal favourite. Start the day by writing down 3 things you are grateful for each day to complete the sentence. Find that difficult? How about starting with 1 and then working your way up?

This will jumpstart positivity for the rest of the day and allow your mind to shift into a constant feeling of gratitude by recognizing the small things that make you happy.

Then end the day with at least 1 thing you are grateful for to come full circle.

Gratitude is one of the best ways to attract abundance into your life and naturally improve your mental health.

By focusing on positive thoughts that will lift you and allow you to prosper, you will save yourself the effort that goes into negative thinking. You will feel more confident and joyful which is why gratitude impacts your success.

“I can…”

This one can be tricky if you’re used to copping out the minute you feel uncomfortable or hesitant and are eager to avoid certain situations that can allow you to go further and prosper.

Public speaking, cold calling or even following up with interviewers and clients are examples of seemingly daunting tasks that we try to escape.

Replacing negative thoughts that make you feel like you aren’t enough with thoughts that assure you of your capabilities makes you attract the abundance that you may be holding back from.

This allows you to increase your confidence and step out of your comfort zone, which are crucial aspects to achieving abundance.

“I learn from my mistakes”

One of the best ways to realize your full potential and achieve abundance is to never stop because of failure. In fact, sometimes failure can be good for you.

According to a Forbes article Why Failure is Essential to Success by William Arruda, failure is a crucial ingredient for success and nearly every successful person has gone through some sort of failure. The article argues that failing is the way to get to success, which is why it is important to make mistakes and even have ‘routine failing’.

Rather than stopping and giving up as soon as you are approached with some type of mistake, learning from them and improving based on them is the best way to achieve abundance.

You will no longer feel stuck in your comfort zone and realize that your possibilities are endless.

“I possess the qualities I need to succeed”

This one is a mantra to be chanted every time you feel fear in doing what you know needs to be done.

By convincing yourself of your capabilities, you will no longer doubt yourself or hesitate in important situations. Many times, our minds are what stops us from reaching our success and aspirations, so we must train our minds to be filled with confidence.

When you are confident in your qualities and abilities, you will feel more inclined to step out of your comfort zone and take risks that will lead you to abundance in all aspects of your life. You will feel self-assured in any situation, regardless of the people you are around, allowing you to accomplish your goals and be more productive.

Attracting true abundance becomes easier when we change our thoughts and thus our mindset.

By repeating these thoughts every day and replacing negative thoughts with killer thoughts like these, you will be empowered to take on daunting tasks.

The tasks that used to seem fearful and impossible will be a lot easier than you think and you will be assured that you have the capabilities you need. The more confidence you possess, the more abundance you will attract throughout every aspect of your life.

Let go of your fear and scarcity mindset and embrace one of abundance that will give you the courage to step out and stake your claim to true success.

Additional Resource to groom your Abundance Mindset

Developing your Abundance Mindset requires support, guidance and a road map.

You can access this through Karmic Ally Coaching’s The Abundance Mindset Bundle that has everything you need to shift your mindset and experience true success. Click here or on the below image to learn more.

Update 1 October 2023 – When I wrote this post back in 2013, my focus was on sharing my experience with the reader and how forgiving others benefits us mentally, emotionally and spiritually. The tools I shared were of a metaphysical nature.

There is another benefit of learning to forgive – improving our Emotional Intelligence and raising our Emotional Quotient (EQ). I address this further in the post.

The journey of forgiving unknown people.

In my post How to break free of limiting beliefs created by others without cutting off relationships, I mentioned the nightmare that ensued after my website had been hacked. I also mentioned receiving support and recognized the role of the Universe and Gratitude in my life.

What I did not mention was a tweet that caught my eye on Bucket Lists.

Or my on the spur reply that my Bucket List included someday forgiving the Hacker who made a mess of things for me. I needed the power of forgiving to heal. My reply was favourited by the Tweep.

Since then, I have ticked off that item from my list and forgiven the hacker. I also pray that it does not happen again and affirm that All Is Well.

I have taken control of my situation and am doing what is required to keep myself and restore the sanctity of my website/blog.

On a Good Friday afternoon, I started to reflect on what had happened and remembered a book I had read by Johann Christoph Arnold about a year ago titled ‘Why Forgive?’.

The book makes a lot more sense now. Whether it is how I felt or how any reader who has ever found themselves in a place where they have to forgive a wrong done to them.

What Forgiving has taught me

By forgiving, I have opened the door to peace and can focus on things and people that matter more to me. I have time to be grateful for the friends and colleagues who helped me, the internet friends who shared their stories and gave me priceless tips.

In forgiving, we are not belittling the hurt and pain that has been inflicted on us. Rather, we are shielding ourselves from being drawn into the dark place where bitterness resides.

It allows us to acknowledge and accept the fact that a wrong has been done to us without the need to retaliate or take out our frustrations on other people.

We rise above ourselves and from a place of objectivity, try to restore what is ours and if it cannot be restored, then accept and move on.

We also take the first step to healing.

Such is the power of forgiving.

It is easy, so very easy to give in to bitterness. Maintain a calm countenance and then let a small unrelated incident make us erupt like a volcano.

If we get away with it because family and friends understand, we might fall into the false sense that we can get away with it as and when we please.

It would not be too long before we would spiral into self-destructive behavior instead of stopping to smell the flowers and count the things that are good in life.

There may also be moments when our anger turns inwards on ourselves with the mind- game of reruns of how we allowed ourselves to be hurt.  When these thoughts start to invade, forgive yourself.

Use an affirmation that acknowledges that you have been hurt and proceed to forgive the perpetrator of the hurt and yourself. It does not have to be very complicated. Just a simple “In forgiving you, I forgive myself” can also work.

The book I referred to has a passage where it quotes the Gospel and the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus Christ says to bless our enemies and those who persecute us.  Who does not remember the famous words– “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”?

From a coaching perspective, my suggestion is to focus on those actions that are in your control. If it is anger or frustration at events or people, then acknowledge your hurt or pain and take the steps within your control to protect yourself. Use the powerful tool of forgiveness to retain your dignity and control of your life.

Emotional Intelligence and Forgiving

Nowadays Emotional Intelligence is being valued as much if not higher than knowledge, skills or even IQ.  People with high Emotional Intelligence have certain traits and skills.

One’s social skills are important and the level of competence in this affects our level of Emotional Intelligence.

Forgiveness is one such social skill the lack of which, as pointed out by psychologists is an indication of low Emotional Intelligence.

Forgiveness is not only good for your health but it also helps us to avoid release frustration, anger and resentment. Internalize these and I can guarantee your blood pressure will shoot up which is definitely not good for your heart.

The way I see it, having high Emotional Intelligence helps us to forgive easily BUT, when we learn to forgive, we raise our EI too!

It comes down to the first quadrant of Daniel Coleman’s Emotional Intelligence Model – Self Awareness that I showed in my post on empathy and EI.

Self-Awareness starts with knowing yourself and the triggers that lead to an action or reaction.

Coming back to my story, it meant I accepted and acknowledged that I had been hurt. I even gave myself permission to cry and feel my pain and shock at the sight of a messed-up website.

Once the emotions were out of the way, I accepted the situation and explored how I wanted to deal with it.

I knew I had a choice. I could have shut down the website and wallowed in misery. Or I could choose to clear myself of resentment and anger at an unknown person or persons by forgiving them. And do what was required to bring my website back in order.

The deed was done and even though I chose the latter course of action, it was not easy working once again with my website developer to fix things and then employing another expert to check for back-doors and plug potential loopholes while also servicing clients and a workshop that I was running at the time.

It wasn’t just the unnecessary expenditure but the time crunch and having to wear a hat that I need not have but for this event that.

I later learned it was part of a brute force attack at the time and I wasn’t the only person who got affected.

Yet something good came out of this harrowing experience.

I developed empathy for other business owners who in later years have had similar experiences. The experience put me in a position to help them cope with the indignation and outrage they were experiencing. Nobody likes the desecration of their online home where visitors are welcome but not intruders who mess up the home.

Forgiving helps lessen the impact of the action that has hurt us enabling us to move ahead.

We never forget what happened, but we remember it as a simple chapter in our life as we write new and better chapters.

Have you ever needed to forgive someone you did not know but who had caused you pain?

How did you cope with it? Did you demonstrate emotionally intelligent traits?

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The book ‘Why Forgive?‘ by the famous author Johann Christoph Arnold is available on Amazon in both paper back and Kindle form. The edition that I am referring to is 2009 which has since been updated in May 2014. I’m providing a preview below of this must read book. Please remember to view my Privacy Policy should you choose to purchase this book.

Written by: Vatsala Shukla

December sees a surge in goal setting & planning webinars and class invitations, whether online or offline hitting our email box.

The one’s that won’t stop until you sign up. Then the next surge of offers and promises that their program will help you achieve all your dreams in the coming year.

Some of them are promoted by affiliates with stories of how they were drowning but now going with the flow. Apparently, that’s why you should enroll in a program (like yesterday) and offer their own bonuses.

There’s nothing wrong with that because we can all use good information and guidance. If an affiliate earns extra cash at year-end, then that’s good Karma.

Who’s the Elephant in the Room?

Except I find most of these sessions ignore or don’t address the actual elephant in the room. Or if they do, it’s done in such a light manner that the participant doesn’t note it.

It’s called Mindset.

You can have the best personal and professional development plan, the best sales and marketing plan, the best any kind of plan.

You can have all the skills it takes to make those plans work but guess what?

It’s all just writing on the paper or typing on the Word document if you don’t take care of your Inner Game.

You also need to make sure you have what it takes to create Change if required.

Access the quiz and mini-ecourse with my compliments by clicking here.

How to tell if you have a Mindset Issue?

You don’t need anyone to tell you the How part. You know you have an issue if:

• You start the year on full steam and then peter out by the month end, or
• Have a “stop-start” pattern, or
• You’re on track and then hear about some new method or technique and run after it. You don’t think or assess if your current method or technique is actually working better for you. (BTW, that’s shiny object syndrome)

I believe Mindset is the number one problem and one of the top reasons why people don’t generate the kind of success they deserve or desire.

That’s why every year, in the second week of December, I send my subscribers tips and resources to work on their Mindset. This helps them prepare for the coming year with the promise of new beginnings.

Choosing a Theme Word for the Year brings to the fore how we want to feel and experience the year.

Knowing what we want is brought out with the Contrast Clarity exercise which I also use in my Career Needs  course.

Of course, there is a goal setting part too. But first we need to get clear about what we really want and how we’ll keep ourselves motivated.

Then and only then can we take action on a daily basis, recording our intentions, actions taken and adjust to ensure a Growth Mindset throughout the year.

Handling Mindset issues created by Society

This elephant in the room is also affected by Society.

Society can condition an individual’s intellect leading them to believe they have limited strength to achieve their purposes.

The individual’s sense of personal existence is a conditioned belief of society’s lack of awareness of the true Self-Being. This conditioning breaks the link of the individual with his Higher Self. The person believes they are the Doer and alone in this life.

In order to break free from these often-self-imposed restrictions, it is important to realize that there is a Power and Presence of God.

This is often referred to as the Source of Power, a Life Energy within each of us. When we allow it, this can guide us to do all manner of good in our life.

Using Affirmations to wipe out conditioned beliefs

In essence, if you were to remove the error of your conditioned belief of your own sense of personal existence, you could use your mind and body to serve as a vehicle and channel for your God-Mind.

This requires that you must first synthesize your mind to the Mind, Presence and Perfection of God as your True Self.

You do this by practicing repetitively synthesizing affirmations to create a Oneness with the God-Power in your mind. Then you channel affirmations to enable the God-Power to flow through you and into your daily activities.

An easy synthesizing affirmation could be “I am One with the Divine Light of God’s Being within me”.

My favorite channeling affirmation which works for any faith is “God directs my footsteps and direction each day.”

This success secret has been known to Christ and other mystics through the ages.

The synthesizing technique uses the power of the Word to influence our conscious and subconscious thoughts. In turn, this has the power to direct and attract good and positive energy to help us to achieve our best.

The concept is clearly seen in the opening images in the Bhagavad Gita (the Celestial Song). The narration tells us about Arjuna the warrior sits in his chariot conversing with his charioteer Lord Krishna.

The Katha Upanishad, one of the four sacred texts of Hinduism throws light on this imagery which is similar to considering ourselves as God’s Vehicle.

Do you use affirmations to develop your Mindset and connect with your Higher Self? I’d love to read about it!

Written By: Vatsala Shukla