HAROLD L LOWE

If you have succeeded in following and applying the information in these articles up to this point (or information similar to this), you will be amazed at the changes in your life that either are happening or will be happening in the near future that improves your capacity for saving for retirement. If you have not applied the information, that’s on you. You can never for the rest of your life, however, say that you have not been presented with suggestions as to how you can make your life, especially your financial life, better.

To once again review what we’ve covered:

• The vast majority of people, especially paycheck-to-paycheck employees, do not earn enough money to live the lives they desire while working and retire to the lives they desire as well.

• You can make changes in your life that lead you to the life you desire.

• To make change requires a process. One part of the process is to be clear about what you want. You can be clear about what you want once you identify what you do not want. You can make a “do no want” list, the opposite of which, item for item, becomes your “do want” list.

• Affirmations constructed using your “do want” list is a very effective way to plant new thoughts firmly in your mind.

• Tools you can use to keep items from the “do not want” list from continued dominance in your mind include EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), a rubber band, and the overwhelm technique.

• Since your consistent thoughts and images determine the physical circumstances in your life, making items from the “do want” list dominant in your mind using affirmations, will produce more circumstances of what you desire, including more money.

There is a price to be paid to bring about desired changes in your life. That price is persistence. The American Heritage Dictionary defines persistence as: “Holding firmly and steadfastly to a purpose or an undertaking despite obstacles, warnings, or setbacks.” With persistence, nearly any task will be accomplished.

You need to know here and now that challenges will come; seemingly, every naysayer in site will approach you; detractors will try to derail your efforts; family and friends will try to “protect” you from disappointment. It will seem like life is deliberately testing your resolve (to improve your capacity for saving for retirement, for example) to see if you really are committed to what you say you are, so it places all sorts of discouraging experiences before you.

There are some people, and you may be one of them, who know from experience the power of persistence. They have seen rain and/or wind wear down rock through persistence. They have witnessed the carcasses of large animals carted off by tiny ants over time through persistence. They somehow know that the discouragements previously mentioned are only temporary. They know that so long as they keep their focus on their goals and are always willing to take another step toward them, any apparent defeat will be changed to victory.

Without persistence, few important tasks are ever completed. Without persistence, you will be defeated even before you begin. So be persistent no matter how slowly you may at first have to start. With persistence you can increase your capacity to generate more income for saving for retirement. By persistently moving forward, success will come.

Remember, you do not have to live on less in retirement. No matter where you are right now financially, you can build and enjoy a Million Dollar Lifestyle Retirement.

———————————————————
Harold L Lowe
23852 Clayton Street
Hayward, CA 94541
Phone 510-409-3761
Email haroldllowe@haroldllowe.com
http://www.haroldllowe.com

If you have succeeded in following and applying the information in these articles up to this point (or information similar to this), you will be amazed at the changes in your life that either are happening or will be happening in the near future that improves your capacity for saving for retirement. If you have not applied the information, that’s on you. You can never for the rest of your life, however, say that you have not been presented with suggestions as to how you can make your life, especially your financial life, better.

To once again review what we’ve covered:

• The vast majority of people, especially paycheck-to-paycheck employees, do not earn enough money to live the lives they desire while working and retire to the lives they desire as well.

• You can make changes in your life that lead you to the life you desire.

• To make change requires a process. One part of the process is to be clear about what you want. You can be clear about what you want once you identify what you do not want. You can make a “do no want” list, the opposite of which, item for item, becomes your “do want” list.

• Affirmations constructed using your “do want” list is a very effective way to plant new thoughts firmly in your mind.

• Tools you can use to keep items from the “do not want” list from continued dominance in your mind include EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), a rubber band, and the overwhelm technique.

• Since your consistent thoughts and images determine the physical circumstances in your life, making items from the “do want” list dominant in your mind using affirmations, will produce more circumstances of what you desire, including more money.

There is a price to be paid to bring about desired changes in your life. That price is persistence. The American Heritage Dictionary defines persistence as: “Holding firmly and steadfastly to a purpose or an undertaking despite obstacles, warnings, or setbacks.” With persistence, nearly any task will be accomplished.

You need to know here and now that challenges will come; seemingly, every naysayer in site will approach you; detractors will try to derail your efforts; family and friends will try to “protect” you from disappointment. It will seem like life is deliberately testing your resolve (to improve your capacity for saving for retirement, for example) to see if you really are committed to what you say you are, so it places all sorts of discouraging experiences before you.

There are some people, and you may be one of them, who know from experience the power of persistence. They have seen rain and/or wind wear down rock through persistence. They have witnessed the carcasses of large animals carted off by tiny ants over time through persistence. They somehow know that the discouragements previously mentioned are only temporary. They know that so long as they keep their focus on their goals and are always willing to take another step toward them, any apparent defeat will be changed to victory.

Without persistence, few important tasks are ever completed. Without persistence, you will be defeated even before you begin. So be persistent no matter how slowly you may at first have to start. With persistence you can increase your capacity to generate more income for saving for retirement. By persistently moving forward, success will come.

Remember, you do not have to live on less in retirement. No matter where you are right now financially, you can build and enjoy a Million Dollar Lifestyle Retirement.

———————————————————
Harold L Lowe
23852 Clayton Street
Hayward, CA 94541
Phone 510-409-3761
Email haroldllowe@haroldllowe.com
http://www.haroldllowe.com

Even if you are saving for retirement there’s a good chance that the amount you’ve saved or are projecting to save before retirement does not put you into the financially independent category. There’s also a good chance that the amount you are contributing has not changed dramatically either. And there’s a good chance that the circumstances that are preventing you from saving more have not gone away.

Now when you consider these circumstances in relation to the effect of the part one of the Law of Inertia (A body at rest will remain at rest until put into motion by some force), they have probably been on auto-pilot in your life for some time. To bring about changes in these circumstances, more money to save for retirement, more money to move you to financial independence, and eliminate more of the limiting influences from your life, is going to take bringing a powerful force into the picture.

The powerful force I recommend is using affirmations along with the rubber band and overwhelm technique. Allow me to offer an illustration. The affirmation I am going to use in this example has “saving for retirement” as the objective. I will outline some suggestions for crafting effective affirmations in a subsequent article. The affirmation you repeat is: “Every day in every way, I have more and more money to save for retirement.”

Remember, an affirmation is simply a statement that is made and stated as if it is true. You will recall from the article on the Self-Image and the Ego that any new truth introduced to your mind that is incongruent and does not fit in with the presently stored information is going to be vigorously opposed. It is at that point that the Self-Image is going to unleash a stream of contrary thoughts that support its position that your affirmation is utter nonsense.

You will receive thoughts like, “You know you don’t have any more money coming in.” “Where is this new money coming from anyway?” “Even if more money were coming in, you have all of these other things that you need that additional money for”. “This affirmation stuff is just plain silly and a waste of your time.” These are the tail-enders that I mentioned in the earlier article.

As soon as you notice the presence of any of these or similar thoughts, snap the rubber band against your wrist and that slight sting will momentarily stop all thoughts. You should then politely but firmly inform the thought or thoughts mentioned in the previous paragraph that their services are no longer needed and they should depart from your mind right away. You should then immediately begin repeating the affirmation, “Every day in every way, I have more and more money to save for retirement.”

Repeat it as enthusiastically as you can for as long as you can each time. It is the act of regular and continued (and as long as you can each time) repetition of the affirmation that is the force that now moves your mind to focus on the outcome of the exercise more and more. It is by these acts that you overwhelm the negative thoughts and activate part two of the Law of Inertia: A body in motion will remain in motion until opposed by some force.

Psychologists say that repetition of affirmations in the above manner can establish that statement as a habit in 21 to 30 days. I recommend you stick with each affirmation for the 30 day period. In fact to make it easier, begin each new affirmation at the beginning of each month and continue throughout that month. Whether the month is 28, 29, 30, or 31 days, the number of days still falls within the 21 to 30 days psychologists suggest are needed to develop a new, habitual way of thinking related to saving for retirement.

Remember, you do not have to live on less in retirement. No matter where you are right now financially, you can build and enjoy a Million Dollar Lifestyle Retirement.

———————————————————
Harold L Lowe
23852 Clayton Street
Hayward, CA 94541
Phone 510-409-3761
Email haroldllowe@haroldllowe.com
http://www.haroldllowe.com

As you might recall, these articles began with the premise that paycheck-to-paycheck employees generally do not earn enough money to live the lives they desire while working and to retire to the lives they desire as well. Unfortunately, most employees don’t experience the lives they desire before nor during retirement because not earning enough money is really at the heart of not fully engaging in saving for retirement.

The second premise is that employees are conditioned very early in life to be “employee-minded” and to look to the paternalistic Corporate and Public Sector companies and agencies to provide jobs for them. Only a very few escape this conditioning and move themselves to financial independence.

As I wrote an earlier article entitled My Story, I grew up in a small farming town in Southeastern Arkansas. One of the things I grew to love was vegetable gardening. Beginning in early Spring and going into Fall, you can find me planting and/or cultivating something. This activity became a great learning tool for me as I began my journey to more of what I wanted from life. To me, gardening is analogous to saving for retirement.

First of all, I have to decide what vegetables I want to harvest from my garden. That decision dictates what kinds of seeds to purchase. I have to enter into negotiations with my wife to determine how much space I can allocate to the garden. I have to prepare the soil by removing unwanted weeds, grasses and debris; and adding appropriate nutrients and conditioners. I have to decide how much space to allow for each kind of vegetable. Finally I have to prepare the rows and plant the respective seeds.

You may remember in an earlier article I mentioned that many people, perhaps you are one of them, have difficulty determining what they want to improve in their lives. To help with this decision, I suggested the preparation of a “do not want” list; a list of things, people and conditions that are not wanted now nor in the future. That list might include “a shortage of money”, “critical and non-supportive people”, and “beliefs that are limiting”.

A “do want” list would be just the opposite, item by item, of the “do not want” list and would include such wants as “an abundance of money”, “people that are inspirational and supportive”, or “beliefs that are expansive and aligned with what you do want”.

Why not consciously plant a garden in your mind? The “do want” list should be used to determine the thought “seeds” to plant and care for in your mind and the harvest to expect in your experiences. I would hope that somewhere on the “do want” list is an increased capacity for saving for retirement and to live more of the life you want to live now.

The “do not want” list is synonymous with weeds, grasses, and debris that must be “removed” from the garden of your mind. In reality, “do not want” thoughts and images are never literally removed. Your job, as it were, is to switch your focus away from them to the “do want” thoughts and images.

As you continue directing your focus to “do want” thoughts and images, their influence on conditions you experience increases, and the “do not want” thoughts and images gradually lose their ability to influence what conditions you harvest. The cultivation of positive thoughts, images, feelings, and emotions are the nutrients and conditioners that foster a bountiful harvest; and since your mind has no barriers, you are free to plant as many seeds of as many varieties as you desire.

A major difference between a garden in the ground and a garden in the mind is the speed at which un-wanted weeds and grasses tend to return. In the soil, the return will usually take several days. In the garden of the mind, un-wanted thoughts and images can return in seconds to attempt to have you focus on them. Therefore, it is vitally important to continually have effective tools in your possession to help you switch from the un-wanted to the wanted thoughts and images.

When I’m asked which tool I would recommend to someone who is new to this kind of information, I hesitantly suggest a combination of the rubber band and overwhelm techniques. Even though I’ve had equal success with the all three tools I introduced in a previous article, I was recently reminded that there is a law of physics, The Law of Inertia, which is very much at work in human affairs.

To paraphrase, one part of this law states that a body at rest remains at rest until put into motion by some force. The other part of the law states that a body in motion remains in motion until opposed by some force. I’ll have more on this in my next article.

Remember, you do not have to live on less in retirement. No matter where you are right now financially, you can build and enjoy a Million Dollar Lifestyle Retirement.

———————————————————
Harold L Lowe
23852 Clayton Street
Hayward, CA 94541
Phone 510-409-3761
Email haroldllowe@haroldllowe.com
http://www.haroldllowe.com

As you might recall, these articles began with the premise that paycheck-to-paycheck employees generally do not earn enough money to live the lives they desire while working and to retire to the lives they desire as well. Unfortunately, most employees don’t experience the lives they desire before nor during retirement because not earning enough money is really at the heart of not fully engaging in saving for retirement.

The second premise is that employees are conditioned very early in life to be “employee-minded” and to look to the paternalistic Corporate and Public Sector companies and agencies to provide jobs for them. Only a very few escape this conditioning and move themselves to financial independence.

Premise number three is that over a person’s life, the conditioning (the consistent thoughts, images, and habits) he or she receives constructs that person’s Self-Image or Map of Reality.

Nearly all people unknowingly allow the Self-Image to take control of the routine affairs in their daily lives, including what thoughts, images, and habits are called upon, so much so that their lives are on “automatic pilot” most of the time. The Self-Image becomes so dominant that it will only allow in a new thought, image, or habit with which it has a very strong affinity. At some point a shift must take place in the Self-Image to increase your opportunity to earn more money.

Premise number four is that even if a person becomes dissatisfied enough with her or his financial situation to attempt making a change, there is about a 95% chance that she or he will “try” to improve only for a short time. Without knowledge of how the mind works and without awareness of the presence of the Self-Image, she or he will soon find herself/himself “defeated’ at every attempt to improve financially and will gradually return to her or his old “normal” life.

The fifth premise is that the use of affirmations is one of the most powerful ways to influence and change the Self-Image and condition the mind to attract more money into one’s life. The Self-Image will not give up it’s seat of power easily, however, and will release tail-enders to counter each of your well-intended affirmations. A person will need tools to succeed.

There are many tools available other than those I shared in the article entitled Saving for Retirement - Tools You Can Use. Most personal development authors, gurus, and life coaches offer tools including hypnosis, meditation, seminars, and retreats to name a few. Without tools to work with, bringing about a shift in the Self-Image is like climbing Mt. Everest; possible but not likely to happen.

The sixth premise is that the majority of paycheck-to-paycheck employees will have to live on retirement income that is significantly lower than their pre-retirement income.

Even though you earlier made a “do not want” list that you flushed out of your life (symbolically) and constructed a “do want” list which has become the things and conditions you now concentrate your focus on more, I want to introduce one more list. This list comes from a powerfully influential book called The Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker.

Mr. Eker basically divides the people of world into two groups, rich and poor. You might also remember my reference to Robert Kiyosaki’s rich dad defining the difference between rich and poor people by saying that their thinking is not only different but “opposite”. The following is a partial list of the ways Mr. Eker contrasted the thinking and actions between rich people and poor people.

“Rich people believe ‘I create my life.’ Poor people believe ‘Life happens to me.’”

“Rich people play the money game to win. Poor people play the money game to not lose.”

“Rich people are committed to being rich. Poor people wish they could be rich.”

“Rich people think big. Poor people think small.”

“Rich people focus on opportunities. Poor people focus on obstacles.”

“Rich people admire other rich and successful people. Poor people resent rich and successful people.”

“Rich people associate with positive, successful people. Poor people associate with negative or unsuccessful people.”

“Rich people are willing to promote themselves and their value. Poor people think negatively about selling and promotion.”

“Rich people always focus on the opportunities in their problems. Poor people always focus on their problems.”

“Rich people choose to get paid based on results. Poor people choose to get paid based on time.”

“Rich people focus on their net worth. Poor people focus on their working income.”

This is not the entire list, but I think you get the point. As you can see, the “poor people” statements are diametrically opposite the “rich people” statements. Here’s a quick test for you. Read the statements again and imagine for a moment that all of the statements about rich people apply to you.

Observe whether you feel any negative emotions, no matter how small, related to any of the statements. If you do, make a note to yourself that you had a negative reaction to whichever statement that applies.

Remember, you do not have to live on less in retirement. No matter where you are right now financially, you can build and enjoy a Million Dollar lifestyle retirement.

———————————————————
Harold L Lowe
23852 Clayton Street
Hayward, CA 94541
Phone 510-409-3761
Email haroldllowe@haroldllowe.com
http://www.haroldllowe.com

In this article, I will share with you the tools I used to subdue my tail-enders sufficiently to allow me to successfully move to what I wanted. I imagine that you are once again asking yourself: “When is this guy going to give me some tips on how to make more money? He’s told me I don’t earn enough. He’s told me that I’ve been conditioned to be an employee and to build someone else’s dream. Well now I’m interested in saving for retirement, so when is he going to tell me what to do to earn more so I can save more?”

I understand how you feel, and as with nearly everything in life, you have a choice. You can trust me on this and learn from my experiences, or search out the experiences of others and learn from them, or you can strike out on your own into, what may be for you, the un-chartered waters of wealth building. I leave that entirely up to you.

To immediately dash off to on a strategy or a program of wealth-building without some clear understanding of your self-image, how it was developed, and the incredible power it wields over your entire life is, in my opinion, like never starting at all.

As I’ve stated earlier, your mind runs on automatic pilot most of the time and while on automatic pilot, your self-image is not going to allow any new thoughts, images, or habits to enter with which it (your self-images) does not have a strong affinity. You must consciously introduce what you want, including more money, to your mind and you must consciously and diligent see to it that the new information gets past the self-image, and is accepted at the unconscious level of your mind.

I guarantee that without this life-changing knowledge, I would still be unhappily sitting around my house blaming anybody and everybody for getting booted out my six-figure job income and making everyone around me miserable.

Well, let me climb back down from my soap box once again and keep my promise to share with you the tools I used to subdue the tail-enders that challenged me. There are three tools: EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique, a rubber band, and the act of overwhelming the tail-ender. They have been listed in no particular order or preference. I’ve used each of them with equal success at various times on my journey.

Overwhelming the tail-ender or other negative thought was the first tool I used because it was the only one I knew at the time, and I actually stumbled upon it. I was reading an article on hypnosis and the author was talking about something called the Law of Reversed Effect. He stated that when an affirmation is accompanied by doubtful or negative thought (a tail-ender), the mind will usually react inversely to the intent of the suggestion.

He suggested that one should gently bring the affirmation before the mind again and again, in other words overwhelm them, and the doubtful or negative thought will gradually subside and fade into the background. I took overwhelm to the extreme. On some days, I’d repeat an affirmation over two hundred times a day, but I succeeded in driving the tail-enders out of conscious thought for the most part. Even when one re-appeared, I no longer felt “threatened” by it.

The use of a rubber band was a variation on the overwhelm technique. I would place a loose-fitting rubber band on my wrist. Whenever I became aware of that a tail-ender or a negative thought I was seeking to counter was present, I would quickly pull the rubber band about 4 inches away from my wrist and let go.

After getting over the shock of the sting of the rubber band slamming against my wrist, I would verbally or silently admonish the tail-ender or other negative thought for intruding into my day, telling it to leave and begin to immediately to repeat the appropriate affirmation in an overwhelm manner.

Over time I noticed that negative thoughts like tail-enders, were always accompanied by emotions, sometimes very strong emotions. The position of the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is that all negative emotions are caused by disruptions in the body’s energy system. The founder, Gary Craig, developed a system of tapping certain points on the body in a prescribed manner that gets rid of the disruption and brings the body’s energy system back into balance.

Once the disruption has been corrected, I freely proceed to repeat my affirmations, generally without the re-appearance of a tail-ender or other negative thought. You can learn more about this very powerful tool at the EFT website (www.emofree.com).

Remember, you do not have to live on less in retirement. No matter where you are right now financially, you can build and enjoy a Million Dollar lifestyle retirement.

———————————————————
Harold L Lowe
23852 Clayton Street
Hayward, CA 94541
Phone 510-409-3761
Email haroldllowe@haroldllowe.com
http://www.haroldllowe.com

After about a week of repeating your new affirmations, you’ve probably noticed something very interesting and a bit frustrating as well. You are probably having lots of fun with some affirmations.

There are others, however, that have a little silent internal backlash with them. In other words, immediately after you repeat your affirmation, that little voice inside your head lets loose with a barrage of the reverse of your affirmation. A version of a “do not want” thought or image that you flushed away earlier, has re-appeared with a vengeance! At other times though, it will slither back so quietly and unobtrusively as to almost be imperceptible. Its message is just as clear.

That negative response to an affirmation is called a “tail-ender”. I’ll give you an example. Let’s say you crafted the following affirmation, the end result is targeted at an increase in income so that the stress of saving for retirement is alleviated: “I am so happy and grateful now that I earn $10,000 a month in my online business from home and I dedicate $2,000 for my retirement fund.”

The tail-ender responds with: “Are you crazy? You know you’ve never earned more than $3,500 a month in you entire life and now you’re talking about $10,000, and online no less. What do you know about the internet? Nobody makes that much money from home. There are too many scams out there on that internet.” The tail-ender is your real affirmation. Successfully dealing with these incessant gremlins marks another, and I think your greatest, crossroad.

Even though we symbolically got rid of your “do not want” thoughts, images and habits in truth they never really go away. They recede below the conscious level and await an opportunity to interject them selves back into your consistent thinking. We are now at the heart of why most people do not successfully move from where they are to where they would like to be.

Many people have started a self-help program, including the use of affirmations only to give up a relatively short time later and resume their former lives. Many of these programs have systems of spaced repetition, in other words, selecting certain times of the day and/or night to repeat the affirmations. I know of a course that recommended 10 minutes of affirmations upon arising in the morning, 10 minutes at the noon hour, and 10 more just before retiring at night.

Assuming that a person gets 8 hours of sleep, 18 waking hours remain in the 24 hour day. A person is engaged in affirmations 30 minutes or slightly less than 3% of those available waking hours (1,080 minutes). It does not take very much imagination to guess what is happening in the person’s mind during the remaining 1,050 minutes.

Most of the unfortunate souls who start one of these kinds of programs either do not have a tool to deal with tail-enders or do not sufficiently recognize them in the first place. If tail-enders are not dealt with immediately, they can retard or reverse the progress of the best programs. The consistent “do not want” thoughts, images and habits can be relentless in attempting to ensure that they are consistently at center stage in your consistent thoughts, images and habits. I know it is a hard pill to swallow but lest you forget, they have been in charge of your mind nearly all of your life.

In the next article, I will share with you the tools I used to subdue my tail-enders sufficiently to allow me to successfully move to what I wanted. Remember, you do not have to live on less in retirement. No matter where you are right now financially, you can build and enjoy a Million Dollar lifestyle retirement.

———————————————————
Harold L Lowe
23852 Clayton Street
Hayward, CA 94541
Phone 510-409-3761
Email haroldllowe@haroldllowe.com
http://www.haroldllowe.com

Now that you’ve symbolically gotten rid of the “do not want” stuff from your life, and your focus has now turned to the items on you “do want” list, you are finding it very easy to keep your focus where you want it and keeping the “do not want” thoughts, images and habits at bay, right?

If that was all it took, I would not be writing these articles, you would not be motivated to read them, and a large percentage of paycheck-to-paycheck employees who are forced to live on less income in retirement would all be wealthy and not have to concern themselves with saving for retirement and other financial issues.

Here’s the real life scenario. Something in these or some other articles resonates within you and causes you to really think about your financial situation. The more you think about it the more you realize that you are not where you need or want to be financially. You might run some numbers through one of those online retirement calculators, and it confirms what you suspected.

Based on your present path, your retirement income is going to be reduced 30% from what you presently earn or what you are projected to earn over the years before you retire. You get excited about the possibility of improving your situation. You identify a process, make a commitment to yourself to make the necessary changes, and you get started!

A month later you look at your financial situation and nothing has measurably changed for you. Those discarded “do not want” thoughts seize the opportunity and come flowing back into your mind in what seems to be never ending streams. Your resolve begins to slip away, your commitment wanes, you soon give up even trying, and the entire old life slowly wraps itself comfortably around you like a warm blanket on a cool winter evening.

Even though the process is simple, those consistent “do not want” thoughts, images and habits are deeply entrenched. Rarely are they friendly toward your implementing a retirement plan or a saving plan. Many of them invaded your mind in childhood. They have presented themselves to you so repeatedly that they’ve convinced you that they are you.

Have you ever noticed how often you’ve said to someone: “Well that’s just the way I am”, or “That’s just me!” In some cases they’ve taken such complete control of your thinking that nearly your whole life experience is interpreted through them. They are your TRUTHS about your world.

They have formed what Dr. Maxwell Maltz, author of Psycho-Cybernetics, called your Self-Image and what Bill Harris, one of the experts featured on the DVD called The Secret and Founder of The Centerpointe Research Institute, calls your Map of Reality. Nothing new can come into your way of thinking unless it somehow gets the approval of this Self-Image (or Map of Reality) as long as your thinking is running on auto-pilot. To bring about positive change, you truly do have to consciously decide what different thoughts, images, and habits you are going to introduce into the unconscious sections of your mind. How?

I am a big fan of using affirmations. An affirmation is a statement that you make to yourself as if it were true in the present moment. Let’s say that your annual earnings are presently $45,000 a year and you want to earn $100,000 or more until you retire. You can craft an affirmation like this: “I am so happy and grateful now that I earn $100,000 or more each year”. Affirmations can be so much fun!

Remember, you do not have to live on less in retirement. No matter where you are right now financially, you can build and enjoy a Million Dollar lifestyle retirement.

———————————————————
Harold L Lowe
23852 Clayton Street
Hayward, CA 94541
Phone 510-409-3761
Email haroldllowe@haroldllowe.com
http://www.haroldllowe.com

Let’s take a moment to review what we’ve discussed so far.

• I’ve stated my position that the reason most paycheck-to-paycheck employees have such a difficult time saving for retirement is because paycheck-to-paycheck employees do not earn enough to live the lives they desire while working and retire to the lives they desire as well.

• Generally, it is not your fault.

• Even though the inability to adequately save is not your fault, it is up to you to either continue doing what you’re now doing or to take positive actions to improve your life outcomes including more money, if you choose.

• To bring about meaningful changes into your life requires a COMMITMENT TO CHANGE and a PROCESS.

• There are many processes available from the many books, audio CDs, and DVDs on the market created by personal development authors.

• If you have not chosen a process for change from one of those sources, feel free to adopt the one I recommend in these articles that has served me well. I call it The 180 Degree Life.

• If you have adopted this 180 degree life, you should have prepared two lists. One list consists of what you “do not want” in your life any longer, and the other will be a list of things you “do want”.

Now I suggest that you put each list onto a separate sheet of paper. Take the “do not want” list and shred it into very small pieces and flush them in small groups down the toilet, making sure that each group of shreds does not plug up the plumbing. You should now begin to focus your attention on your remaining “do want” list as much as you possible can.

Lest we forget, somewhere on that “do want” should be your desire of saving for retirement in ways and amounts that truly support the life you want. By the way, those “do not want” thoughts may initially rush into your mind in a volume you’ve never noticed before. It is as if they know you’re about to replace them, and they are determined not to give up their happy home.

Here is a word of warning, however. Do not fight nor resist them. Simply observe them briefly, mentally (or audibly) tell them they are no longer welcome, and gently move your focus to “do want” thoughts. Be determined but not confrontational with those “do not want” thoughts. I’ll have more about this later.

You’re probably asking yourself: “Do I really have to do that?” Of course you don’t! Here is what this silly little symbolic ceremony meant to me, however. It provided me with a reference point. Whenever one of those “do not want” thoughts crossed the screen of my mind, I would say to it: “You are no longer welcome here. Remember, I flushed you from my life.” I would then immediately begin focusing on its opposite “do want” thought.

If your “do want” list is anything like mine was, it is probably a fairly long list. I suggest that you take some time and prioritize it. Take your time. Do not rush. Honor yourself and your desires. The changes you make will be with you for the remainder of your life so give thoughtful consideration to the order of the list.

I think you will agree that nothing I’ve suggested or described so far is back-breaking, physical work, nor does this process produce mental stress. In fact it is quite easy to do, which was perhaps my greatest problem. As Jeff Olson said in his delightful book The Slight Edge, “Anything that is easy to do is also easy not to do.”

Remember, you do not have to live on less in retirement. No matter where you are right now financially, you can build and enjoy a Million Dollar lifestyle retirement.

———————————————————
Harold L Lowe
23852 Clayton Street
Hayward, CA 94541
Phone 510-409-3761
Email haroldllowe@haroldllowe.com
http://www.haroldllowe.com

I think I need to say something personal to you now. Improving your financial life and thus improve your opportunities for truly saving for retirement might not be something you wish to tackle. Saving for retirement might not be something that you believe you have power to do anything about. If you choose not commit to or not to use the process I’m outlining, thanks for reading my article, and you will not hurt my feelings. Also there are many, many books, CDs, DVDs, etc. with processes outlined in them.

You are certainly free to do nothing differently in your life. Your financial life is not likely to improve but the choice to do or not to do anything is yours to make. Even if you begin the journey to change and start to live the 180 Degree Life and you find yourself having drifted back to your previous life, don’t get down on yourself.

If you still feel the desire to change just start again with more determination to make the change, even if it means selecting a different process. Rare indeed is the person who decides to make change and then succeeds in walking a straight line to that change. I am no exception. If you saw a graph of my journey to this point, I guarantee you’d see lots of zigs and lots of zags.

Now, let’s get back to the exercise. Why, you might ask, do I begin by asking you to list beliefs, situations, habits and conditions that no longer benefit you? The main reason is your consistent thoughts, beliefs, and habits are the things that are producing the situations and conditions you’re presently getting in your life.

For you to have better outcomes or better results, the causes that produce those outcomes or results must change; namely your thoughts, beliefs, and habits. When I first began to make notes of my experiences with the 180 Degree Life, I knew what I wanted, but I would ask other people what they wanted from life and many times they would say they did not know or could not clearly articulate what they wanted. It gradually dawned upon me that by asking someone what he or she did not want, and then asking what was the opposite of what he or she had just said, what they did want was generally the answer. It is an exercise that has served me well.

Part two of the exercise is for you to now write what you do want on the right side of your list, directly opposite of what you don’t want. It may be a little difficult at first, but you will soon begin to realize more and more easily what it is that you do want. Once completed, there should be one “what I do want” for every “what I don’t want.”

If you used the categories I suggested earlier, what you do want will fall under those same categories. Review your list several times over the next few days. Make sure the “what I do want” list is clear. This is a list of things, conditions, or circumstances you really do want in your life, and the things on this list should be 180 degrees opposite of what you don’t want. If you find any ambiguities, work them out until you are clear, first in what you don’t want then in what you do want. Correct your list. Clarity and certainty are keys in this process.

Remember, you do not have to live on less in retirement. No matter where you are right now financially, you can build and enjoy a Million Dollar lifestyle retirement.

———————————————————
Harold L Lowe
23852 Clayton Street
Hayward, CA 94541
Phone 510-409-3761
Email haroldllowe@haroldllowe.com
http://www.haroldllowe.com