“You are responsible for your life.” Oprah Winfrey – TRANSFERED

Have you ever thought that you just lived the same year twice? Noticing that you are in the same place today as you were last year or the year before? You are responsible for your life
I have, I had repeated the same problems, my challenges hadn’t changed, my thought process was the same. Total deja-vu, everything was-the-same… I had been working like crazy, putting in a crazy amount of hours but nothing was different than it was the year before. There was no growth and nothing had improved.

When I realized this, in that pivotal moment, I realized that it wasn’t that I was not working hard enough but because I had not been taking 100% responsibility for my life.

It’s a powerful lesson that Oprah says she learned at an early age. If you want to move forward in life, only you can make it happen by taking responsibility. Watch below as Oprah shares her story.

[Tweet “”Only you have the power to take the responsibility to move your life forward. The sooner you get that, the sooner your life gets into gear.” Oprah Winfrey”]

TVS has launched the Inspired Action Mastermind!

A premium mastermind for mission-driven, service-based women entrepreneurs who are ready and willing to put in the work it takes to reach the next level!

Inside the Inspired Action Mastermind, we are an intimate group of entrepreneurs, all of which are committed to the success of one another’s businesses. It is a mastermind that provides the support and guidance you need to help you move your business forward. Because, when you’re in the right mastermind group, you can start to see your business and yourself through someone else’s eyes as you support one another and leverage each other’s experiences.

If you are ready and willing to shift your mindset and tackle all the hard questions to accomplish your dreams, then join us.

Learn about the Inspired Action Mastermind

You are responsible for your life

How to stop drowning in personal debt.

When your finances seem to be heading down the wrong path and your debt is getting out of control, be wise and take stock of the direction you are going in. There are steps you can take to prevent you from getting into further debt and to help you eliminate some of what you are currently dealing with. Use these tips to help you begin moving in the right direction financially, they really helped me.

Put Your Credit Card in a Drawer at Home

If you have a difficult time saying no to purchases, I know I do, take your credit card out of your wallet and put it into a safe place at home. Before micro-chip cards, I used to put mine in a bowl of water in the freezer… Wherever you put yours, make the decision that you will leave it there and will only take it out when absolutely necessary. This alone will help force you to be more cautious in your spending.

Cancel Any Retail Credit Cards

Retails credit cards typically have a high-interest rate. They also make it that much easier to spend on because “It isn’t a Visa, right?” and even easier to spend on when you feel like you have several options as to where the money will come from. Get rid of these cards and keep only one main credit card, which is hopefully the one you have taken from your wallet and placed in a safe place at home.

Creatively Find as Many Ways to Save as Possible

Look for every way possible to save money. Whether that is by clipping coupons or shopping only during sales, you can make it work. There are other ways to save in other areas, such as your electricity bill. Be vigilant about turning lights off when you leave the room, unplug appliances that are not in use, hang dry your laundry, put on slippers instead of cranking the heat.

Stop ordering in and no more Timmies! If you must, buy a Timmie’s tin and make a coffee at home before you leave for work. Also, wait 24 hours prior to any purchase, because you may not need it tomorrow.

And, finally:

Pay Back Your Debt with Dave Ramsey’s Snowball Method

List your debts smallest to largest with the payment information next to them. Make your minimum payments on ALL of your debts, except for the smallest one. On this, you will be paying the minimum PLUS extra money every month.

Once the smallest debt is paid off, you roll over the payment you were making on that debt as the added money towards the next smallest debt. This continues until you are debt free!

For example, let’s say you have three debts to pay. Your car loan, Visa and your Walmart Store card as charted below.

Debtor
Visa:
Car Loan:
Walmart Card:

Amount Owed
$500.00 + 13% interest
$1000.00 + 4% interest
$2000.00 + 19% interest

Min Payment
$15.00
$25.00
$50.00

Every month you have to pay out a total of $90.00 but will need to pay more to get out of debt. So you are going to pay an additional $100, on top of the minimum payment, to put toward your principal debt. This will be a total of $190 per month.

What most people do is breakdown that additional $100 into 3 payments of $33 per debt, which is why we feel like we are always paying and not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. Because for the next 18 months you know you have three debtors watching over your shoulder.

Using the snowball method it looks like this.

Visa: minimum + max principal payment = $115/month
After 4 months, this debt is gone and not weighing on you.
Car Loan: minimum = $25/month, for 4 months.
Walmart Card: minimum = $50/month, for 4 months.

On the 5th month your payment plan will now look like this:
Carloan: minimum + previous Visa payment= $140/month
After 8 months, this debt is gone and not weighing on you.
Walmart Card: minimum = $50/month, for 7 months.

Finally, on month 8, your payment plan will look like this:
Walmart Card: minimum + previous Car loan payment= $190/month,
10 months from here you are TOTALLY debt free!

With the snowball method, you are paying all the same amounts, only everything is paid off one by one. They are paid off faster individually, saving you a LOT of interest. You can find a break-down of the snowball method on Dave Ramsey’s blog, it is worth the read!

Learning to be smarter with money is not easy, but gets easier as time goes on. It might seem like a chore at first, but the benefits outweigh the anxiety. You will become a more creative person and save your hard-earned money and start to see that living debt free is possible. What better benefits could there possibly be than that?

It is time to stop comparing yourself to others.

Do you ever find yourself comparing yourself to others? Viewing their success as only a way to make yourself look bad? If so, you are not alone. If so, it is time to stop comparing yourself to others. For some, the success of others equates to highlight their own failures.

If you are anything like me, you’ve done it, you’ve compared yourself to others and felt horrible after. The good news is that people out there compare themselves to you and the not-so-good news is that it is a fixed mindset we need to get out of.

Comparing ourselves is part of human nature. It’s how we grow, it’s how we strive, but sometimes, unfortunately, it’s an excuse to give up.

This is something that has to change, today!

Stop Comparing Yourself

Stuck in the Fixed Mindset

If we don’t have something to compare ourselves to, you might reason, then how will we learn to achieve and grow? When we compare ourselves to others, we have something to gauge our success and failure with and, therefore, a measure of where we can do better and achieve more.

Unfortunately, for those with a fixed mindset, this does not occur at all. There is actually a backwards way of thinking. That reverse method tells us since we are not as good as the other person, we might as well just quit. That doesn’t work in the world of intelligence, however. Not to mention, it is ineffective.

We have it in our minds that the other person as being luckier or having it easy. Another excuse is to say everything just falls on that person’s lap or, even worse, use their success to highlight some other unrelated shortcoming. It is that fixed way of thinking that does not propel us forward and keeps us from our own success. But – what if it is only a matter of re-training your brain to adopt a mindset of growth?

Adopt a Mindset of Growth

On the opposite end of the spectrum is a growth mindset. Where we give ourselves the opportunity to change and grow over time, as we learn to re-train our brain into a mindset of growth. By viewing someone else’s success as a way to strive harder, do more, and work harder, we will be re-training our brain to view this not as an excuse to stay status quo, but as a reason to thrive.

Once we choose the thought patterns that intelligence can be developed, we can most certainly train our ourselves to reach higher heights. Then, and only then will we see a radical change in our lives.

A stepping stone to success.

Once you understand that your self-image has nothing to do with failing at something and that this failure is actually a path to higher learning, you will be at ease in your own skin.

Wouldn’t that be nice to be at ease in your own skin? If you change your mind, you can re-train your brain to view failure as a stepping-stone to new successes. You will begin to understand failure as a learning tool and not as a way to define your image.

So, the next time you want to compare yourself to someone else, stop and ask yourself if their success can highlight inspiration for you. Maybe they put a tremendous amount of effort into the realization of dreams and all that hard work paid off. This could be a learning tool for you rather than something viewed as an enemy.

Other people’s success should be a way and a means for you to learn, grow, and, most importantly, be inspired. This is just one more way to empower your entrepreneurial mind.

Now I’d love to hear from you. Where will you find motivation for growth and be inspired where you did not see it before? Join us inside the Studio’s Study Hall and let us know what your passion is or something you don’t like to do – but love when it is done! The group is a community of supportive women, where you will find business-focused training and support for female entrepreneurs.

It is time to stop comparing yourself to others.