We’ll begin this leg of our traveling along the Purposeful Path by looking more closely at where we ultimately intend to be by the end of the journey.

Of course, that will look different for each person, so take a few minutes now to begin to envision and imagine what it will be like for you. In other words, if you were to have a true BREAKTHROUGH in your relationship with money and finance, what would it look like and feel like?  What will be different about your life and what will be the same?  In what way will you be experiencing this transformation?

Speculate, imagine, create and choose a possible future that is consistent with your life purpose and that empowers and enhances life.  Have fun stretching your imagination as you write down your response.

The Source of True Prosperity & Abundance

Consider this:  We’ve misidentified the source of true prosperity and abundance.  

Having done so, we’ve lost much of our ability to create a truly prosperous life.

To look at this idea more closely, we’ll work with a popular coaching model entitled the Be – Do – Have Model

Collectively as a society, we’ve become overly involved and have spent most of our time operating in the two aspects of life that make up the physical part of our world – the Doing and Having arenas (Diagram 1).  That’s understandable because these two arenas of life are easy to access.  Because they make up our physical realm, we can easily experience them with our 5 physical senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling.

Since we spend most of our conscious awareness on these two aspects of life, we’ve misidentified them as the source of prosperity and abundance.  Most of us have figured out that the more we do the more we’re likely to have in the world, especially if we do the right things.  In the process, we’ve become caught in a vicious circle of doing more and more so that we can have more and more – what has become known by such names as the Great American Dream, the rat race, or keeping up with the Joneses.

But this “keeping-up-with-the-Joneses” lifestyle has one fatal flaw — such a lifestyle doesn’t guarantee our happiness. As modern-day spiritual sage, Bo Lozoff, cofounder of the Human Kindness Foundation points out in his book, Deep and Simple:

 “It’s time we notice that the Joneses are not happy. One of their kids is on drugs, the parents are in divorce court, Mr. Jones is $50,000 in debt, and Mrs. Jones is taking anti-depressant medication.”

An increasing number of people are discovering that something is missing in this vicious circle – a sense of true satisfaction and fulfillment that should come with living a prosperous and abundant life.  We’ve erroneously thought that by doing enough, we’d eventually have enough to feel truly prosperous, truly satisfied and fulfilled with our lives.

In many ways, it’s this missing element that drives the vicious circle.  We work hard to accomplish our goals so we can have the things that we think will give us a deep sense of satisfaction and fulfillment, and when they don’t, we figure it must mean that we’ve not acquired enough “stuff” yet to feel satisfied, so we work longer hours.  Meanwhile, if we stop long enough to look around, it appears that everyone else is working just as hard for the same reasons, so we figure we must be on the right track.

Before we know it, we feel like Alice in Wonderland who was told by the Red Queen: “…Here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

This vicious circle is evidenced by the response that J. D. Rockefeller was reported to have given when asked how much would be enough.  He replied, “Just a little bit more.” And similarly when Barbara Walters once asked Ted Turner, “What do you mean by success?  What, to you, is being successful?”  His response:  “Well, I think it’s kind of an empty bag, to tell the truth. To a large degree it is. But you have to get there to really know that. I mean, money doesn’t buy happiness and neither does honor or position and awards or trophies.”

Being caught in the vicious circle of doing and having is a little like eating junk food.  It doesn’t matter how much junk food you eat, it will never completely satisfy and nurture your body because it’s missing some key ingredients that your body needs.  The same is true when we stay trapped in the vicious circle of doing and having.   It’s like junk food for the soul.  We’ll never be truly satisfied and fulfilled because what we need at the level of our soul and spirit simply can’t be found in the vicious circle.

From the Purposeful Prosperity Process, one of our aims is to properly locate the source of true prosperity and abundance just like we might trace back to locate the source of a body of water.

In our next ezine issue we’ll begin a journey to locate the true source of prosperity. You may be surprised where we end up. In our next ezine issue we’ll begin a journey to locate the true source of prosperity. You may be surprised where we end up.

I’d love to hear your comments on this article. Let’s explore these strategies together either on the LOPI Facebook Page or via the On Purpose Blog.