I have to be honest – I’ve been struggling with my finances for years. And, it’s a little scary for me to actually share this  - what will people think of me – I like to live a life as if all is well but in reality I expected for myself to be so much further along than I am.

It’s not for lack of earnings – since we (my husband & I) moved to Melbourne almost 11 years ago, our incomings have increased but so has our debt. There have been a variety of out of the ordinary things that have contributed to that debt, but to be truthful, it’s just a reflection of an underlying pattern that needs to be eliminated for a permanent change to take place. Don’t get me wrong, we live a nice life, we’ve lived in great houses, we’ve travelled, we have nice furniture in our home and we eat at fantastic restaurants from time to time. I really just want our finances to change from spending more than we earn to spending less we earn while still enjoying a great lifestyle (and even more).

There has also been no lack of information consumed – books, seminars, blogs, from a variety of authors and “experts”. After a while all the information blurs together and starts to sound the same. I implement one plan and we seem to make headway for a while but then it all falls over and we revert to our old habits again.

Years ago I came across a book by T. Harv Eker called “Secrets of The Millionaire Mind” (I actually purchased the audio book) and I implemented some of the ideas from the book (how to divide up your income into various categories) and again, while it worked well for a little while, I think I was overly optimistic in how tight I could cut our living expenses and this eventually caused a rebound back to spending.

When you read the book (or listen to it) T. Harv does say his ideas shared in the book are a cut-down version and it’s really best to attend the “Millionaire Mind Intensive” Seminar. Unfortunately up until now, these seminars have only been held in Canada and the United States (and more recently in Hong Kong and Singapore). However, just recently I received an email to say that this seminar will be held in Melbourne and Sydney in September this year.

I’m quietly excited about attending – T. Harv promises that when you attend the seminar you will uncover your “money blueprint” and my desire is that once this is exposed, the tools throughout the course of the weekend will change that blueprint to one that will finally put my on the right path to financial success.

“It all comes down to this: if your subconscious “financial blueprint” is not ‘set’ for success, nothing you learn, nothing you know, and nothing you do will make much of a difference.”

- Harv Eker

So if your finances aren’t living up to how you want them to be, come with me to the Millionaire Mind Intensive Seminar – I’m always eager to hear about other success stories

Here is what I extracted from the email:

This is called the Perfect Day Exercise. It’s a preparation for living your life according to your highest heavenly vision.

If you could have an entire day filled with nothing but your most inspiring activities and dreams, what would it look like? Sit down with your journal and write out your perfect day exactly as you would most love it to be.

Schedule an entire 24 hours from the moment you wake up, whether it be 4am or noon. Have the sleep you want, see the sunrise or sunset from some beautiful place, eat the perfect breakfast, meditate, run, swim, exercise, study, have a massage, garden, dance, write, sing, travel, teach, serve, work, consult, speak, make love, dream, play …. this is your day. Whatever that perfect day is for you, map it out, pick a date, commit to doing it, and then go fulfil it.

First plan it for once a year, and once you’ve done that and realized it’s possible, raise the number to four times a year – once a season. Then go to once a month, and then work toward having a perfect day every single week. Increase the frequency until eventually almost every day of your life is lived in accord with your dreams.

Let yourself go with this exercise. It’s an amazing opportunity to think about what you love doing, and then to find out you have the capacity to make it happen. This is a day dedicated to doing exactly what your heart would love. If you don’t schedule it, who will?

That last sentence is spot on – “If you don’t schedule it, who will?” Every time I have opened up my notepad files, this exercise has been staring me in the face & every time and have pushed it aside thinking I didn’t have the time to put into it.

Then a few weeks ago I listened to a teleseminar with Wayne Dyer where he said that each day he swims, meditates, goes for a walk on the beach, does Bikram Yoga and writes – that sounded fantastic and I seeings I had a holiday in Byron Bay coming up, I thought that would be the perfect time to implement my “Perfect Day”

Well with one week down & only one to go before I leave Byron Bay, I still haven’t written out my vision of my Perfect Day – it’s almost as if I don’t feel like I deserve to have a full day to myself exactly the way I want it and other things (seemingly more important things) are getting in the way of writing it all down & then living it.

Even this afternoon when I had the opportunity to think about just this exercise, my mind was having a hard time staying on the task of creating my perfect day – flitting about, thinking about other things I needed to be doing. Even when I was maintaining some semblance of focus on the exercise, it was then a case of “what was the ‘perfect’ order of things to do for that day. Somehow I think I had missed the point – rather than thinking about what were the “right” things to be doing, I needed to think about what I really wanted to do. Is this just me? Or is it a “mum” thing – where we put everyone else first & have forgotten what it’s like to just think about what we would like to do?

Then other variables arise – my ideal day would be different depending on:

Where I am living

The time of year (season)

my level of health & wellbeing

my financial status

and, there are some things that I wouldn’t do every day, maybe only once a week – so then do I create an “ideal week”?

Aaargh – I think that I am “thinking it through” too much & need to just start on the exercise and make this day happen before my holiday is over.

So what is your “Perfect Day”?

Another 6.30am training session this morning – all was ok when I got out of bed (apart from extreme tiredness after only 5 hours of sleep), but when I got outside (my personal training sessions are at my local park) it was only 7°C – very cold. It helps to keep visualising the amazing body I’m going to have in the coming months – my perfect beach body (what’s perfect for me – not anyone else).

With the cold weather starting already, it’s reminding me of my goal to move somewhere warm and sunny by the beach. I think the weather really has a big impact on my moods and how I’m feeling. When the sun is shining and it’s warm, all is good. As soon as the sun disappears behind the clouds, and the temperature falls, so does the mood. I’m going to write this off to a post-baby hormonal imbalance because I don’t recall being affected to this extent by the weather.

Over the last month since coming up with the idea to move, I have done a little pendulum swing between yes let’s go and no let’s stay here. Have you ever experienced this when you’ve set a goal? There are days when all I see are the obstacles in the way and how it all seems too hard and easier just to stay in my “comfort zone”. Except that now the wintry weather has really set in, the “comfort zone” is not so comfortable now. And that’s a good thing because I really do want to live by the beach with lots of warm sunshine.

When the desire is born, right away you start counting yourselves a failure, because you’ve got this desire that hasn’t been satisfied. Know that you never get it done! And since you never get it done, it’s time to stop being unhappy about what’s undone, because most of it is undone! You are an eternal being. Most of it is undone. Instead of taking score about what’s been achieved — we want you to start feeling anticipation about what is still to arrive…

Jerry and Esther Hicks

Then there are other days where I’m focused and can see the target very clearly – these are the days I want to hang on to, one, because I feel great on those days and two, because the obstacles seem trivial and very easy to overcome. And as in the quote above, when I see the target clearly, I really do enjoy feeling that anticipation of living on a warm, sunny beach.

All I need to do is keep picturing that beach.

This is the first time since my baby Daniel was born (May 2008) that I have made the opportunity for myself to have some time on my own to come to a cafe and sit and write. You may notice the choice of words there – “made the opportunity”. I have to admit, I’ve been a bit whiny about not having time for myself now that I have a baby and waiting for someone else (e.g. my husband or my mum) to push me out the door while they look after Daniel – this hasn’t happened & I realised that if I didn’t make it a priority for myself it, no-one else was going to do it for me.

So a couple of days ago, my Mum decided she wants to walk more often and what better person to do that with than her grandson in the pram – perfect. My goal is three mornings a week, I will drop Daniel off with my mum so she can take him for a walk and I will come to Chadstone (Melbournes’ fashion capital) and pick a cafe to spend time writing in. I’m so excited by this, because it means my personal blog (this one) and my business blog (http://dzyneweb.com) will get some much needed attention – focused, concentrated attention. I almost feel a bit like Carrie from Sex and the City, sitting in a cafe with my Mac laptop writing. Now if only I could make enough money from this writing to be able to afford to buy the beautiful clothes and shoes .

Is there something you’ve been wanting to do for yourself, but thought you didn’t have the time to do it, or were waiting for someone else to give you permission to do it?

Take the leap – it feels great.

The lead up to the “shakeup”

The lease on our townhouse finishes at the end of June (2009). We received a letter from the real estate agent a few weeks ago asking if we were planning to renew for six or twelve months. Warren and I had a quick chat about it and decided we would go ahead with the full twelve months – even though we were thinking of a six month escape to perhaps New York – we could house swap, or just have someone house sit while we were away. The only thing about this is it seems absurd to be paying rent here in Melbourne and then having to pay for accommodation somewhere else as well. So the idea got relegated to the back burner – as often happens.

Then out of the blue, one of our neighbours tells us they’ve been served with a rent increase for their next twelve months – we’ve got our 9 month inspection on the 31st of March and in all likelihood, we’ll be asked to pay more rent as well.

For some reason, the thought of paying more rent for a place that isn’t my ideal place all of a sudden seems intolerable. Yes, we’ve had a few niggles with the place but it’s also a really nice place to live – very spacious, a great family home. Deep down inside though, I really want to live near the beach and we just haven’t found the right place for the right price here in Melbourne.

Now I know some of you purists would say that Melbourne doesn’t have beaches as such because we are situated on a bay – I sort of agree, but all my family is here and I don’t really want to move away from them.

Well, it’s now time to take that leap and have a bit of an adventure in a beautiful, warm, beachside location – which means somewhere other than Melbourne.

The “Leap of Faith”

It’s the leap of faith or stepping into the unknown that is really freaking me out. You know that scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Harrison Ford is at the edge of the cliff and has to get acros that huge gaping chasm – that’s how I feel at the moment. Logically I can tell myself that I just need to take that first step and then the next step and so on and it will be ok. But I’ve never done this before – will it really work out for me the way I want it to? And now I have all these quotes popping up in my head like “Do the thing and you’ll have the courage to do the thing”, “You’ll see it when you believe it”.

Warren and I made a rough plan late last year that in around June/July this year he would take a six month break from his IT consulting and we would work on our own business and share trading. The proviso for this was that we would have accumulated a lump sum of money that would be our financial backing while we built up other streams of income.

Well clearly our plan wasn’t concrete enough because the lump sum isn’t quite there yet and July is fast approaching. And now with the threat of a a rent increase, we are seriously contemplating ending the lease, putting all our belongings into storage and heading up north to Byron Bay or Kingscliff to live for 6 months and do something we’ve been dreaming of doing for years.

The question is “If not now, then when?”. It’s too easy to put off our dreams waiting for “the right time”. Does that right time ever come, or do we make the decision that it’s going to be right and then make it happen?

Have you ever wanted to make a change in your life but didn’t know where to start?

If you’re feeling like this right now then join the club, because I am itching to make some big changes in my life and while ever I stay where I am, I feel frustrated, and sometimes even angry, that I’m not achieving the things I know I truly could. The not so good thing about feeling this way is that I’m venting this anger and frustration at people around me (e.g. my husband, my Mum), and after the frustration subsides, I know it’s not them specifically that I’m upset at, it’s me.

Now when I really stop and look at my life, I have a lot to be grateful for, and I really do mean a lot, so why do I want to go and shake everything up?

I think when my Mum was in her late 30′s (as I am now), this would have been called a “mid-life crisis”. I shudder when I hear this term, because it conjures up images of being half way through my life already, and that shock-horror – menopause may be just over the horizon.

So maybe this is a “mid-life crisis”, although at 37, I don’t think I’m anywhere near the middle of my life (I’ve still got a huge list of things I want to do – my “Bucket List” if you like). And I also don’t think this is something that is peculiar to any particular age bracket. It just depends on how long you can put up with the discomfort that comes with not following the voice inside urging you to do what you really want. For some, it may come early, for others it may be later, for me, it’s hitting me hard now and because it’s hitting me, I’m also noticing it in others around my age as well.

A benefit of this discomfort is that it is getting to a point (or it may already be there) where the pain of not doing what I really want is becoming greater than the fear of actually getting out there and doing it.

So stay tuned for more updates on the changes I’ll be making.