Retirement is something that most people look forward to. The chance to take a break, to have all the time for yourself, to enjoy life after many years of hard work is indeed a very inviting prospect. However, financial instability makes the future of retirement a little bleak.

The Bleak Reality of Retirement

For many retirees, having an investment and savings can make a big difference when retirement arrives. In fact, recent surveys show that retirees today are only counting on their personal savings for support. Although the government gives Social Security, not all companies or employers provide traditional pensions for their employees. According to the Boston College Center for Retirement Research, in 2003 there were only 19% of workers who have traditional pensions to support them. This percentage continues to decline as more and more employers cut back pension plans for their employees.

Faced with this reality, it is clearly important to make the necessary preparations early in life to have reliable personal savings in the future. Investing in insurance, dividend-paying stocks, government bonds, corporate bonds, real estate, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), immediate fixed annuities and retirement plans are great options on saving funds. This way, a retiree can have assurance that he will have the financial support he can rely on with or without a traditional pension.

Simple Living

Another thing that retirees need to carefully consider is the fact that they need to watch out their spending. Without a regular source of income and only their savings to support them, it would be very difficult if this support system will fall short. Thus, tempting as it may be to splurge or buy expensive things, this habit should be avoided. Simple living is the key. A retiree has to realize that having the necessities for daily living should be enough and there’s no need to live extravagantly even when he seems to have the resources.

Does this mean that retirees cannot earn a living anymore? Certainly not. Being an employee isn’t the only way to earn a living. There are other things that retirees can do, even in the comfort of their homes to give them additional budget. For example, freelance writing is a popular profession these days. With all their experiences in life, they can share so much through their writing and get paid at the same time. Other options can be vegetable gardening, making art works or crafts, or turning any hobby that they enjoy doing into a small business. Aside from getting extra income, doing activities that they enjoy can give them the sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.

Keeping A Positive Spirit

Financial matters are not the only important things in life. Of course, there’s nothing more important than our health and well-being. Retirees are prone to an inactive lifestyle and depression. That is why adequate exercise and a healthy diet are crucial. It is a proven fact that people who eat well and who have enough physical activity are more resistant against sickness and depression.

Keeping a positive spirit is also a tremendous help not only for the mind but for the body as well. Cultivate your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being will keep you happy as you enjoy the fruit of your labor on your retirement.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/motivational-articles/the-keys-to-a-happy-retirement-183907.html

About the Author:
Liz Roberts is a loan consultant with NewHorizon Finance and has been providing consumers and business owners with home loans financing since 1989. For years she has helped people with home loan problems especially pertaining to home mortgage loans and bad credit home loans.
Copyright 2007
http://www.loanhunt.com

Deal With Conflict

Here are some quick tips to deal with conflict when it occurs in you life:

1. Avoidance:
If conflict can be avoided in anyway, go for it. Unfortunately sometimes it is the only way to improve a situation with someone who is hurting you or doing you wrong.

2. Accommodation:
Are you the reason for the conflict? Are you being bull-headed or asinine? Try to be more accommodating to the other person’s needs and wants. Why stand in the way of progress? It’s great to fight for what you believe in, just be reasonable.

3. Compromise:
When you compromise, both parties win. You may not get all that you were fighting for, but it sure beats the hell out of being party to a grievous situation.

4. Problem solving:
Problem solving will always be an important part of solving conflict. Try to be objective about the situation and see it from both angles. Having a cool head and knowing when to bend will help the conflict come to a positive resolution.

5. Confrontation:
Sometimes conflict happens over the phone or over the net. If you confront the person in a none-hostile way, face to face, the conflict can be brought to a faster resolution. Small people often use the net and phones as a way to act like a jerk with little to no consequences.

6. Don’t go looking for trouble:
Don’t start a conflict for no reason. Make sure the reasons for the conflict are well thought out and have solid reasoning behind them. If you truly believe that what you are fighting over is worth the grief, then just try to be reasonable about what you want out of the conflict.

7. Involve another party.
This only works if the third party is objective. Sometimes it takes another point of view to realize that you are conflicting over nothing.

Conflict can also be resolved by taking a deep breath, relaxing and taking a moment to think things through. Ask yourself: ‘is it really worth this aggravation just to get what I want?’

Just be reasonable, rational and open minded and a mutually acceptable solution will be found.

Making the decision to have a baby could be the most important decision you ever make. The decision should be based on responsibility, maturity, a loving marriage, and the ability to make sacrifices.

No one should ever go into being a parent half-heartedly. Children must be an all-or-nothing decision and if you aren’t sure you are ready, please give it some thought first.

But, if you are in a loving, committed relationship and think you are ready to have a child together, here are some things to consider before you make that final decision:

1.    What kinds of sacrifices are you willing to make to be able to afford having a baby?
Babies and children have needs that can be expensive? Are you financially prepared for a baby at this time in your life?

2.    Is your marriage strong enough to withstand the stress of rearing children?
Raising a child can put added stress on a marriage. Make sure you and your partner are both committed 100% to this idea and to each other.

3.    Will you put parenting first?
Are you a giver or a taker? Your baby will need you to give your all and then some, especially in the beginning.

4.    Are you a good example?
Are you someone you child could look up to? Do you exude respect and responsibility?

5.    Can you discipline with a loving heart?
Discipline is so important to raising a child. Decide how you wish to approach discipline before you have to give it?

6.    Do you own a home?
This is something to consider. If you are not in a financial position to own your own home are you in a financial position to have a child?  Maybe you are choosing to rent or have not made the leap, but it may also be because your financial world is a mess.  Make sure you know before you leap into parenthood.

7.    Do you have reliable incomes?
Unless you have a steady income, you might want to think again. A child needs to be raised in a home with financial security because a lack of financial security leads to stress.

8.    Are you a positive people?
Will you be raising your child in a positive, loving environment?

9.    Is adoption an option?
If you can’t have children of your own, would you be willing to raise one who needs a loving set of parents? Could you raise someone else’s child?

10.    Is there something about you that makes you believe you will be a great parent?

Are you loving and tender? Caring and thoughtful?

11.    Is there something about you that makes you think you might struggle as a parent?
Each of us has our negative points and no one is a perfect parent.  Be aware of the negative aspects of your personality and how you cope with the world because you might pass these on to your child.

12.    Are you ready for children?
This is the big one, are you ready? Have you really taken the time to fully understand the responsibilities involved in raising a child and a family?

It is important to fully understand all the consequences and responsibilities involved with having a child.  When you are able to do this, you run a better chance of bringing a happy healthy child into this world.
And a lot more love.

Who on earth has succeeded at the first attempt?!

A common misconception is the fact that people actually reach success overnight.  It never happens – not even sometimes.  It’s possible that some  may become famous overnight – but that hardly makes them successful. Most successful people faced a lot of failures before they reached what others call “the overnight success”.

But what is the secret behind the overnight success? How do successful people react when they fail? To reveal this secret let me ask you one question:

Why do you fail to reach your goals? Do you even know what the ONLY reason is behind your failure to achieve your goals?

You may have  hundreds of excuses… I know I did. But if you look deeply inside yourself, you will only find ONE reason behind your failure.

Simply, you fail to reach your goals because you decide not to try again!!! Yes, it all comes down to this ONE reason. All successful people faced a lot of challenges and blocks and they failed too many times until they achieve their aims.

But what separates successful people from failures is that successful people try again if at first they don’t succeed. They persist until they get what they want – it really is that simple.

You ONLY fail when you quit. As long as you are still in the game, you have another chance to succeed.

To sum up, the main secret to goal achievement is the TRY AGAIN concept.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try again.” – W.C Fields

It is that simple and that powerful.

If you have a burning desire to achieve your goals and dreams, then don’t ever give up. Let your desire and passion fire your soul and give you the power to stay in the game until you win.

Try again, try again and you one day you will have an overnight success!

There’s a condition that holds a lot of people back from progressing towards their goals. I’ve been guilty of suffering from this condition on some occasions, and maybe you have too.

It’s been called ‘analysis paralysis’, and is a form of perfectionism. Here’s how it looks: you have an idea. It could be a project that would generate extra income if you pulled it off. It makes sense. It sounds feasible. Heck, it even sounds easy and straightforward.

But days pass, weeks pass, months pass and you still haven’t taken the first step towards making that project a reality. Rather, you’re still thinking about how you’re going to solve every problem before you get started. You’re analyzing the idea to death, literally.

You want it to be perfect before you launch.

As a result, you never launch. All you have is an idea. Possibly a very good one at that.

While you’re dilly-dallying, someone else comes along with the same idea, launches the project with faults here and there and starts making a lot of money with it (as a result of the benefit it’s bringing to lots of people). You then feel like kicking yourself, thinking ‘if only I’d acted when I had the idea, I would be the one enjoying all this success…’

~*~SIDEBAR~*~ If this has ever happened to you, you may be interested to know how come someone else got the same idea and ran with it. You see, thoughts and ideas are all around us. They are living vibrant things, each seeking a vessel of expression. When a thought finds its way into your consciousness, you have the power and right to decide what to do with it. This has many consequences and implications, but for the context of this article we’ll stick to one.

If the idea in question is, for example, an idea for a book that you could write, and you sit on the idea, analyzing it from every possible angle, that thought is not going to stay waiting for you to wake up and put it into expression. It will, having left its seed in your consciousness, leave and seek a more willing and proactive vessel. It continues travelling through the ‘ether’ in this way until it lands in the consciousness of someone who starts writing that book the day the idea arrives in his mind.

~*~END OF SIDEBAR~*~

Of course it’s not perfect when you get started, but get started all the same. In doing so, you send out a message to God that you beleive this project will end the way it was intended when the idea was planted in your mind. This act of faith gets rewarded, as long as you persist in acting on the idea.

What idea(s) are you sitting on? Are you concerned about what others may think of your idea? Are you worried that you might look clumsy or silly? Are you scared that you might fail?

What others think is not a valid reason not to take action now. Your looking clumsy or silly is not a valid reason not to take action now. Fear of failure is not a valid reason not to take action. Truth be told, you’ve got no valid reason not to act on your idea right now.

Can you imagine if a baby, once he got the idea that he ought to start walking, got so bothered by the fact that he hadn’t perfected the skill yet that he refused to take the first step?

That sounds ludicrous doesn’t it?

Yet that’s what many of us do sometimes.

My challenge to you today is what Nike exhorts you to do: ‘Just do it!’ Take one little baby step towards it. Focus on that one step for now. You can think about the next baby step once it’s time to take it.

The way I see it is this: if you’re going to ‘fail’ at the project, get that part of the process over and done with in a hurry, so that you can get onto the next part.

Be like the baby learning to walk. Know that no matter what project you undertake, you’ll make mistakes along the way. Each mistake is a learning process, not a failure to discourage you. Expect and embrace these experiences when they happen. Learn from them and move on.

Don’t let that idea be taken from you and given to someone else who’s proactive with their life.

Be bold. Take action today.

Aricle by Dr Kem Thompson
Dr Kem Thompson is a Success Coach and Trainer who can help you you achieve breakthroughs in your finances, health and relationships. Get FREE gifts when you sign up for FREE ezines: ‘Days of Success’ – http://www.successeminars.com ‘Weekly Success Tips For Women’ – http://www.success-seminars.org

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