PROSPERITY PROJECT: How Much Money Do You Really Need?

During the course of the Prosperity Project exercise, in which we began with $1000 and every day had to spend $1000 more than the day before, we found that we very quickly ran out of things we wanted to buy.  After about four days, the amount of money we were expected to spend became ridiculously large.  When the game got to that point, many people stopped playing ...  I mean, we were clearly being forced to spend unrealistic sums of money, so why bother?  Those of us who stuck with it for the full 28 days -- in which we had to spend yet another $28,000 in one day after already having spent $27,000 the day before and $26,000 the day before that, after having already bought everything we've ever really wanted -- were forced to really stretch our imagination in order to complete our assignment. The exercise was not a pointless one, however, because we can't learn where our limits are if we never attempt to move beyond them (ask any teenager).  

Exactly what is a thought, anyway?

Thoughts are powerful things.  They can make us happy, make us sad, make us feel week or powerful, they can convince us we can do anything, or they can convince us to give up.  As Hamlet pointed out to his good buddies, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."  And Hamlet should know:  he spent so much time brooding on the negative that he worked himself into one humdinger of a depression.

In this series of posts we are exploring the Law of Attraction idea that if we want to change our results, we must first change our thinking.  So what exactly is a thought?  And how is it that they so easily lead us astray?

How the Mind Works: An Introduction

Where do our thoughts come from?  I'm not talking about our ideas, which can range from brilliant to "What in the world was I thinking?"  I'm talking about the chatter that constantly goes on in our mind.  What instigates those thoughts?  What is the catalyst that gets those thoughts started?  It seems to me that if we can understand the answer to that question, we can better control our thinking so that we can deliberately create the results we truly desire.

Before we can answer that question, we need to first understand what we mean by the term mind.  The classic model taught that our mind is synonymous with brain, but we are learning that that is nowhere close to the true picture.  The brain is a part of the mind, certainly, but the neural network that actually constitutes our mind extends to every part of our body.  Have you ever had a thought that made your heart race or tied your stomach up in a knot?  Have you ever had a feeling in the pit of your stomach that only eventually turned into a thought?  Whereas scientists and philosophers used to talk about how the mind can affect the body and the body can affect the mind, they now speak of a Mind/Body Connection, or just call it BodyMind or MindBody.  Turns out, our entire corporeal being is an information processing system.

What Do You Really Believe About Money? (It's Why You Might Not Have Any)

During last fall's Prosperity Project, we played a game in which we imagined ourselves spending large sums of money.  We began with $1000, and every day our goal was to imagine spending $1000 more than we spent the previous day.  The first few days were easy, because most of us have a backlog of things that we need and want.  By about Day 4, however, many of us had run out of things to buy.  Most of us who played that game have no real need for $28,000 a day (which works out to over $10 million in one year).  Yet there are some people on this planet who routinely spend that kind of money with no problem. 

Back to School

School started yesterday.  I miss school.  I always loved the anticipation of the first day of school.  My mother would take us shopping for new clothes, which I tolerated.  But she would also take us shopping for new school supplies, which I adored.  I got to choose the notebooks and pens and pencils that I would use in organizing all of the new knowledge I was about to soak in.  Even many years later, as a graduate student, I used to love getting the book list for the semester, and making the week-before-school trip to the bookstore to get all my supplies.