Everything will be OK (Part 3)

‘Keep giving me hope for a better day
Keep giving me love to find a way
Through this heaviness I feel
I just need someone to say, everything’s okay’

– Lenka –

After Parts 1 and 2 to this series, welcome to Part 3.

. . . . So, even though I was always earning, generally, whatever I earned, I spent. So I had a break even approach. And this approach fell down for me this year, because I didn’t earn, and therefore I had nothing to spend. A perfect way (although it didn’t seem so at the time) to learn that I needed to find a better way of managing money.

And during these last 7 months I read a fantastic book that has changed my life. Secrets of the Millionnaire Mind – Think Rich to Get Rich by T.Harv Eker is a book about money with a  whole bunch of awesome spiritual messages and philosophies trojan horsed into it. And despite its title, it’s a book as much about how to get your mindset in the right place in order to become a millionnaire, as it is about changing what he refers to as you ‘Money Blueprint’, which he believes we are all born with. He helps you to become aware of limiting beliefs that you might have around money and he gives you specific and practical exercises that you can do to start to shift and change them.

However, the MOST helpful piece of advice that he gave in the book that has helped to completely and utterly change my relationship with money is this.

For every amount of money that comes into your bank account, whether it is $10, $100, $1000, $10,000, $100,000 or $1,000,000, split that amount in 6 different ways.

50% goes into a necessities pot – this is for all the essential things in your life like rent, bills, food etc.

10% goes into a fun pot – this is for doing (funnily enough) fun things in life, anything from going to a gig, out to dinner with a friend or rock climbing

10% goes into an education pot – this is for furthering your personal education and development. It could contribute to training courses you’d like to do or books you’d like to read.

10% goes into a long term savings pot – this is pretty straightforward.

10% goes into a financial freedom pot – this pot is for investing. Ultimately, the investments that you make with this money will mean that your money is working for you, rather than you working for your money. Some good sound investments here could significantly change things in your life for the better.

10% goes into a giving pot – the idea of tithing has been around for a long time, and put simply, it is the act of giving 10% of what you earn to a good cause.

I started doing this in July when I read the book. You can do it with as little as $10, but it has completely and utterly changed how I am interacting with and dealing with money. I even went to the extent of setting up separate savings accounts with my bank, so that I could separate my money into each of the pots.

To read the last instalment of this 4 part blog post series, tune in tomorrow.

Here’s a beautiful song called ‘Everything’s OK‘ to make you feel good today by the lovely Lenka.

Sending you love, hugs and light,

Kat x x x

Learn more

Read Everything will be OK – Part 1

Read Everything will be OK – Part 2

Buy the book Secrets of the Millionnaire Mind – T. Harv Eker

Download the book from Apple iBooks or for your Kindle.

What we see, is what we look for

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our Attitudes.”

– Charles R. Swindoll –

I have two of my beautiful friends to thank for the inspiration for my blog post today. Firstly, Sasha for sharing such an inspirational post on Facebook this morning, which is sitting just above these few sentences.

And my wonderful friend Pia, for sharing the video that you can watch below. It has just the most lovely sentiment and sweetly and succinctly communicates a very simple message, and one that I live by, every day.

What we see, is what we look for.

‘Finding Love’ by Hailey Bartholomew from You Can’t Be Serious.

I spent a lot of my life in a very cynical space. I sometimes struggled to see the good in people, things and situations. Sometimes I was fearful that something bad was going to happen or someone was going to screw me over. Of course, I wasn’t always in this space, and when I wasn’t, I was occupied by how fantastic life was, and how brilliant and amazing people are.

In the last 12 months though, I have decided that I want to occupy my time, thoughts, feelings and energy on the positives in life. I have decided to see the good in everything in everyone, and that change has needed to start with myself and come from within.

When we learn to stop judging ourselves, we can stop judging others. When we understand that there is no right or wrong, nor good or bad, we can allow things just to simply be. When we decide to concern ourselves with living our own lives from a place of love and truth, it no longer matters what other people think or say.

So, my question for you today is, what would you like to experience more of in your life, and therefore what do you need to start to look for more of?

For me? I choose peace, love, truth, wisdom and abundance.

Sending you lots of love, hugs and light,

Kat x x x

Inspiration for this post

My beautiful friend Sasha

My beautiful friend Pia

‘Finding Love’ video by Hailey Bartholomew from You Can’t Be Serious.

The 3 most important questions to ask yourself

“Set your intentions and change your life.”

– Kat Kinnie –

I have just watched a great video about goal setting and I wanted to share it with you.

Goal setting is something that I have vacillated about over the last few months. Especially with my intention to be as present as I can in every moment.

How do you live in the present and still goal set? Isn’t that living in the future? And the answer is, it’s easy.

All you need to do is get clear on how you would like your life to be. Set an intention around that, without any time frames or expectations, start to take action around the intentions that you have set, and let The Universe do it’s work.

And how do you set your intentions? Easy again, by using three guiding lights.

1. Experience – what would you like to experience during your life?
2. Growth – how would you like to grow during your life?
3. Contribution – how would you like to contribute to the planet during your life?

To learn more and understand why these three areas of your life are the only things you need to be clear about, and how to do it, just watch this short 7 minute video from a beautiful guy called Vishen Lakhiani who runs a company called Mind Valley who’s soul intention is to revolutionise the Global Education System by teaching people how to culture hack and in turn making the world a better place by touching 1 billion lives by 2050.

And you can go to this page and download a pdf to print and fill out while you watch the video if you like.

I did this today and have already shared it with some of my dear friends and it is really helpful in gaining clarity about what you’d like to experience in life.

Sending you lots of love, hugs and light,

Kat x x x

P.S.

Please help me make my blog even better by filling out this short and sweet 5 question survey.

Inspiration for this post

The 3 Most Important Questions to Ask Yourself – 7 minute You Tube video

Learn more

Follow Vishen Lakhiani on Facebook

Like Mind Valley on Facebook

Visit Mind Valley’s website – mindvalley.com

There is no good or bad

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

– Shakespeare, Hamlet –

As I’ve mentioned before in previous posts (like Take responsibility for your life), we are in complete and utter control of our lives. What we think, we become and depending on what we choose to focus on, good or bad, will determine what we create in our lives.

For some people this is a little confronting, as they perhaps believe that we are not indeed in control of our own destinies, but I can promise you, that we are.

So, if there is something in your life that you’re not happy with, stop focussing on what you don’t want, and start to focus on what you do want. Stop focussing on what you don’t have, otherwise you will continue to be given more of it, and rather decide what you would like to have. For example, a new more fulfilling job, a happier, loving relationship with your partner, friend or family member, a trip out to the countryside, taking up a new hobby, the list is endless . . . .

Quite simply, every experience in life is neutral, we just decide in every single moment whether we want it to be good or bad, based on the thoughts that we think. And as quickly as we can decide that something is rubbish, perhaps it’s started raining, or you’ve missed your bus. In that same moment, you can choose to see the silver lining and turn the situation into something good. For example, you can choose to throw on some wellies (or gum boots for the Aussies and Kiwis) and jump around in the puddles, or by missing a bus it might mean that you can have a nice conversation with a stranger while you wait for the next one.

One thing that I sometimes do if I am getting overwhelmed by things in my life that seem to be bad, is make a list of them and number each one. And then for every thing that is bothering me, I will find a silver lining or solution to each of them, so I can resolve them or let them go completely. After all, there is no good or bad, only thinking makes it so. All you have to decide is what you want to look for.

Inspiration for this post

Shakespeare’s Hamlet

The Gumboots Song – You Tube video

Be the change

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”

– Andy Warhol –

I went on a fantastic road trip today down to a beautiful part of NSW called Kangaroo Valley with a girlfriend to go and do a recce for the festival that we working on at the moment.

We had some amazing chats throughout the trip, all 4 hours of it (it should have been 2 and a half – don’t ask why it took so long, but it involved a sat nav that thought it’d be funny to play around with us and an important pit stop along the way for a bacon and egg roll).

Anyway, the central theme of our chats was about change, and why we as human beings sometimes resist change and what we can do to overcome it.

The main reasons that we came up with was fear, nervousness, anxiety and worry. And it’s funny how paralysing fear can be, especially when you are wanting to do something that you’d really like to do.

The other thing we were chatting about was the fact that we are all reflections of one another, and the fact that if you find something in someone else that annoys you, angers you, bugs you, bothers you, etc. in order to overcome that, all you need to do is resolve whatever that thing is in yourself and you will see it resolved in others.

For example, I have always been bothered by people who are control freaks. It has annoyed me for pretty much my entire life, until I realised recently that it was because, in part, I was a control freak myself! And when I started to let go, relax and go with the flow a little more, I started to see that all the people who had once annoyed me with their controlling ways, had started to chill out too.

Now I’m not saying I’m 100% perfect and that I don’t ever slip up every now and then, but the fact is that I’m conscious of this trait in me, and I do my very best not to try to control people or situations and trust that everything will always be OK and work out.

Which leads me nicely to the conclusion of todays post. If you’re trying to change people in you life to be better versions of themselves, mop up annoying traits or habits, have a good look in the mirror. And when you do this, ask what you can do yourself to be a better example? And then set about making those changes in you and in your own life, and see how things start to transform. Very simply, and as Gandi very eloquently put it:

 

Inspiration for this post

Gandi

Just say YES

“Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.”

– Dalai Lama –

We watched Yes Man last night, and I had forgotten what an awesome film it is.

I got halfway through Danny Wallace’s book halfway through the 2000’s, but never finished it for some reason. If only I had been able to read my blog post JFDI back then. 🙂

Anyway, it’s a great book and film, mainly because of the sentiment.

The premise is that a guy starts to turn his unhappy life around by starting to say Yes to questions, rather than No, and karmically, good things begin to happen to him. And most importantly, after a few interesting experiences, he realises that he needs to be selective about the things that he says Yes to. He needs to follow his heart and say Yes to the things that really matter to him, when he perhaps once might have said No.

The Universe wants us to be happy. It wants us to live a life full of peace, joy and love and it is constantly giving us opportunities to experience these things. All we need to do is be willing to allow these experiences into our lives, so they can happen.

So, what do you need to say Yes to, that you have been saying No to, for too long? I promise you, you’ll be rewarded as a result.

Inspiration for this post

Yes Man the film

Yes Man the book by Danny Wallace

What we think, we become

“Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draws it.
Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.”

– Buddha –

It’s a pretty simple one today. It’s very easy to fill our heads with bad things, worry, sadness, fear, anxiety, nervousness, anger, pain and hatred, especially as a result of watching or reading the news everyday or scanning our day for all the bad things happening in the world and around us.

It is equally as easy to fill our heads with peace, love, joy, happiness, warmth, kindness, compassion and empathy. Essentially it boils down to what we want to think and feel in every moment.

I choose to look for the silver linings, to have a glass that is not only half full, but overflowing  with water, and I choose to see love in as many things and people as possible. So much so, I tattooed it onto my body as a constant reminder.

You can watch this fantastic clip from ‘What the Bleep Do We (K)now!?’ about an experiment that was done with water, and what affects its molecular structure. The question posed at the end of the clip asks ‘If thoughts do that to water, imagine what our thoughts can do to us’.

So I guess the question for today is, what would you like to be, and are you thinking the right thoughts in order to achieve that in your life?

Inspiration for this post

The film What the Bleep Do We (K)now!?

Do what you love (Part 1)

‘If you fill your life with the things that you love, you will live in abundance’ 

– Kat Kinnie –

We had a really fantastic housewarming party this weekend. I was very humbled by how many people came to celebrate Darren and I moving in together. Our little flat was packed full of beautiful, lovely, happy people. One big love fest.

Amongst all of the drunken merriment, there was one thing in particular that stood out to me, and at the time (in a slightly boozy haze) I promised myself that I would write a blog post on it, so that’s what I’m doing. 🙂

There are two lists of things that I have written and stuck to my fridge to remind me of what I need to fill my life with. One is a ‘Do what you love’ list and another is a kind of ‘Design for an awesome life’ list. Today is all about ‘Do what you love’, and I’ll save the ‘Design for an awesome life’ list for another day, maybe even tomorrow.

Anyway, both lists, for some reason were getting a fair amount of attention, especially considering how many people were going in and out of the fridge throughout the night to get to their booze.

And when asked about said list, I told people who I wanted a constant reminder of the things that I love, so I remember to fill my life with them.

I think, too easily do we forget to do the things that we really love. Maybe because we feel guilty, perhaps because we feel that we don’t have enough time or money. Surely, it can’t be that easy or simple to do what you love in life? Well, the good news is, it is.

And my promise to myself to ensure that I do at least 5 things that I love a day. Whatever they are. Yesterday for example, I wrote my blog post (Love no. 1 – writing).

I made myself a delicious hangover cure bacon, egg and avo roll (Love no. 2 – cooking) and read some of an awesome book I’m reading at the moment ‘The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’ (Love no. 3 – Reading).

And then I went out for a drive (Love no. 4 – Driving) up to Bilgola Beach on the Northern Beaches (Love no. 5 – The beach) and took my camera (Love no. 6 – Photography).

So I actually smashed my target of 5 things that I love. And the day before was filled with many things that I loved too, including painting a great big black sheet of fabric with neon fabric paints for one wall of our apartment, so we could shine a black light on it (Love – Painting). See the photo at the top of this post for how it came out.

So, here’s my list of things that I love as a constant reminder of the things that I want to fill my life with that make me truly happy.

Why not write your own and stick it on your fridge.

Inspiration for this post

My ‘Do what you love’ list for the fridge

Read more on this subject

Do what you love (Part 2)

Fill your life with things you love

Want to know how to be happier in life? Easy, change something

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” 

– Aristotle –

I’m going to keep this one short and sweet today as it’s getting late and I’d like to sit down and watch a movie with my lovely boyfriend.

However, I would like to share a video with you that I think is particularly inspiring. Watch this especially if you are having Sunday ‘I don’t want to go to work tomorrow’ Blues.

It’s very easy to complain about all of the things that you aren’t happy about in your life, it’s a lot harder to decide to do something about them. 2 and a half years ago I was so miserable, depressed and unfulfilled I didn’t want to get out of bed. So I decided that things needed to change.

I broke up with my boyfriend on my 30th birthday, left the job that I hated and went travelling.

2 and a half years later I now live in a country where the sun nearly always shines, I run my own business that I love and have sponsored myself to stay in said country, and I live with the most beautiful, loving, caring and peaceful man I have ever met. Most importantly, I am in control of my own destiny.

I am living, breathing proof that you can tip the contents of your life upside down and set about replacing and rebuilding everything, exactly as you would like.

Too easy, as the Aussies would say. Happy Sunday everyone. x x x

Inspiration for this post

You Tube video – Your words and thoughts have physical power – Will Smith 

Life is for living

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive, to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”

– Marcus Aurelius –

I’m on a roll with TED talks at the moment, and I saw a really fantastic one yesterday, so I wanted to share it with you today.

First and foremost it is short and sweet. Most TED talks last around 15 minutes, but this one is just over 5. It is by a guy called Ric Elias who had a front-row seat on Flight 1549, the plane that crash-landed in the Hudson River in New York in January 2009.

He tells the story of what went through his mind as the plane went down and explains quite simply, the 3 things that he learned in those seemingly doomed moments.

1. It all changes in an instant – he realised that he no longer wants to postpone anything in life.

2. I regret the time I wasted on things that didn’t matter with people who did matter – he has decided the eliminate negative energy from his life, has let go of his ego, no longer tries to be right and hasn’t had an argument with his wife in 2 years.

3. The only goal I have in life is to be a great Dad

So the question is, what would you change in your life, if you escaped from a plane crash? What would you do differently? How would you change the way you interact with others? What would you do that you’ve been putting off for ages? After all, we only get one life, so we might as well make the very best of it.

Inspiration for this post 

Ric Elias’ TED talk – 3 things I learned while my plane crashed