Some people really do put their lives on hold, waiting to live the life of their dreams.  True happiness eludes them.  And so, some people discover, too late, that life has passed them by.  You can live the life of your dreams – not next year or in five years - but Today!

The amazing part is, living your dreams today does not require wealth, connections, or a genius IQ.  It’s fun, it’s free and it’s right here, right now!

“The best way to live the life of your dreams is to start living the life of your dreams Today, in every little way that you possibly can.”
– Mike Dooley, Inspirational Quotes from Today Is That Day

Click here to view the embedded video.

Don’t Ruminate About The Past Or Dream Of The Perfect Future

Some people become mired in the past, thinking about regrets or missed opportunities.  They believe their dreams would have come true if only they had finished college or if only they had come from a wealthy family.  Others wait to really live their lives until they have achieved their goals.  They dream of how perfect life will be sometime in the future.  They believe they will be happy as soon as they buy that house, or as soon as they find Mr. Right.  Living in the past or idealizing the future only prevents you from living life in the present.  When you focus on the past or the future, you fail to enjoy the Now.  Forget the past and don’t worry about the future.  As Master Oogway once told Po, the panda, in Kung Fu Panda:

“Quit, don’t quit.  Noodles, don’t noodles. You are too concerned about what was and what will be.  There is a saying:  yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery,  but today is a gift.  That is why it is called the ‘present.’ “

Live Life In The Present

Enjoy life by living in the present.  Don’t wait to start enjoying your life  someday – Today is that Day!   Start living a part of your dreams now.  You can do this by doing little things everyday that make you feel as if you are already living your dream.  Enjoy a cup of coffee in that luxury hotel in which you’ve dreamed of staying.  Go to the dealership and sit in the Mercedes you want to buy.  Buy the outfit that makes you feel like a top executive.   Save money every day so that you can literally visualize your Financial Freedom.  When you start doing little things like this every day, you will feel as if you are presently living your dream.  You will begin to feel the abundance of living in the present.  You will feel the great feeling of gratitude for what you have now.   Living in the present will help you live the life of your dreams now.

Live Your Dreams Now

You don’t have to live your life thinking you would be happy “if only”  your dreams would come true.  When you visualize yourself living your dreams everyday and take every small step possible toward actualizing your dreams every single day, you will be living your dreams now.  You will enjoy the experience of staying in the luxury hotel.  You will feel as great as if you really owned that Mercedes.  You will feel as confident as a top executive.    You will watch your money grow and enjoy the feeling of Financial Freedom.  Living your dreams - now and everyday – is the best and quickest way to live the life of your dreams.  Give yourself the gift of the present by starting to live your dreams today.

What do you do everyday to live your dreams?  Let us know!

If you’ve seen these posts before, then go ahead and revisit them – most of what I write is timeless. If you haven’t, then here is a chance to see some great content from the past that you missed the first time around. Enjoy!

• Everybody’s been the dog… – How do you turn science fiction into a lesson about your own infinite potential? Read the post to find out!
• 50 First Dates… - A life lesson about living in the moment learned from watching a very funny and entertaining movie with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore.
• How was your Day? – How much difference can a single 24-hour day make in your long-term success? How about all of the difference in the world?
• Did you feel that Tapping? – For you die-hard people who think that having a plan is the “end all, be all” of success, this post might make you think twice about living by that philosophy.

This carnival is dedicated to the concept of stepping outside of the box and living our lives in ways beyond the “norm”!

Whether you want to learn unique ways to think or act differently, or if you want to share your own unique ideas, this carnival is for you!

This will be the final edition of the Doing it Differently blog carnival hosted at Today is that Day, so I have made this edition the most information packed edition yet!

Enjoy all of this great content, and if you like this carnival or if you are one of the authors featured in this edition, be sure to add this post to Stumbleupon, Digg, or your favorite social bookmarking site!

Self Improvement/Personal Growth

Stephen Martile – Great Friends

Sabrina Jefferson – Building Confidence By Doing

Personal Development by an INTJ – How To Solve Problems By Changing Your Frame Or Perspective

The Happy and Prosperous Blog – Self-Esteeming – Creating Self-Esteem

Never the Same River Twice – Are You Working With an Old Reality? How to Change Paradigms

Arun’s Daily Remedy – Conflicting Desires

Energies of Creation – Are You Trapped in a Brain Closet?

Relationships

Makeitbetter’s Weblog – I Hate Weddings

The Incurable Romantic – When the Lights Go Out

Conscious Flex – The Purpose of Human Relationships

Systems Thinker – Choosing Intimate Partners: To Repeat or Not to Repeat?

Parenting

David B. Bohl – How to Talk to Children

The Next 45 Years – Confessions from a Recovering Father

Homework. Dinner. Life. – Let Your Kids Stay In the Room While You Do It

Parenting Squad – Why Stay-At-Home-Dads Are Good For Families

Business/Success

Internet Business and Life at ProcessToProfits – How Are You Dividing Your Attention?

Bootstrapper – How to Telecommute Successfully: 50 Tips and Resources

Yes to Me – Are You Afraid To Express Yourself In Business?

Internet Business Coaching by Terry Dean – 7 Make Money Online Myths

Mark Riffey’s Business is Personal – Blocking time improves small business owner productivity

Don D. Morrison – Do You Have True Personal & Financial Freedom?

Get International Clients – How Information Products Sold In Foreign Markets Can Save Your Business When Your Economy Is Slow

Internet Business Guide – How To Save 2 Hours Per Day

Lee McIntyre’s Internet Marketing Blog – Low Cost Way to Get 1,000 Workers Today

Law of Attraction/Conscious Creation

Law of Attraction for Beginners – Cooking with Thought Energy

Good to Feel Good – A Secret Meditation for Law of Attraction Followers

The Environment

Phil for Humanity – Stop Watering Your Lawn

That wraps up the 18th and final edition of the Doing it Differently Blog Carnival! Many thanks to all of the most recent authors, as well as to all of the authors who have contributed in the past! I’m certain that the readers of this carnival have gotten great value from your content, so please accept my sincerest gratitude for all that you have shared!

First up is the 6-week teleconference that Edward Mills is about to launch entitled Basic Energy Awareness Skills for Deliberate Creators. Ed is one of my mastermind partners, which means, quite frankly, that I don’t cut him much slack. When he tells me about something he is working on, I look at it from the consumer’s point of view, and I grill him with those types of questions:

• What are people getting out of this?
• Is this going to be something that people can actually do?
• Is there plenty of content for the price?
• Is there enough value?

In this case, Ed has definitely brought some great stuff to the table, and in a format that will be both understandable by “regular” people, and also delivered in multiple formats so that people can take it in using whatever systems work best for them. Definitely worth taking a look at, and here’s the link:

Basic Energy Awareness Skills for Deliberate Creators

Next up is a reminder about the very cool Conscious Creation Retreat that Debra Moorhead is holding on May 30th in Maysville, KY. I wrote up an informative post about her retreat back in March, and the event is definitely something worth looking into.

Debra is a stand up gal, and I have no doubt that anything she takes the reigns of will be worth taking a look at. Check it all out over at her blog:

Conscious Creation Retreat

And finally, James Arthur Ray has come out with a new book called Harmonic Wealth that has been getting some great reviews.

I haven’t read it yet myself, but I am a fan of James’ philosophies, and he has been talking about ‘Harmonic Wealth’ as a concept for quite a long time. I’m sure his recent experiences since starring in The Secret have added to his teachings quite a bit, so the book should be worth checking out. There is also a a DVD edition that (at the time of this writing) is out of stock, but for those of you who don’t like or want to read, that is another option for you:

Harmonic Wealth – Book ~ Harmonic Wealth – The Movie

That’s it for now! Enjoy your Conscious Creation efforts and create something worthy of you!

Ed has the recording up from the first seminar, and it is available for free, and the 2nd teleseminar on Wednesday will also be free. I found out about this one a bit sooner, so hopefully more of you will be able to grab a seat this time around with a bit more notice.

Ed’s experience with the energetics of the human body as well as his history with the Law of Attraction make him the perfect man for this type of project, and I’m sure he’ll deliver more than enough information to make it worth your time.

Check it all out over at Ed’s site, and enjoy!

Energetics of Attraction Teleseminar

In fact, unlike many bloggers, Ed actually shares his wisdom “offline” as well as on the ‘net, and he has been coaching people one-on-one about the Law of Attraction concepts for a long time. I have personally had the privilege of talking to Ed on the phone many times, and his character and integrity are even more evident in real time than they are on the Internet.

Edward Mills
Creator of The Energetics of AttractionEd’s latest project is a teleseminar series called the Energetics of Attraction. In short, the Energetics of Attraction combines a person’s individual energy patterns with classic Law of Attraction practices, and the end result is a level of control over your life that the Law of Attraction alone has trouble delivering for a lot of people.

After all, how many times can you be told to visualize, say affirmations, and just generally feel good about life? Yes, those things work, but the Energetics of Attraction takes it to a level that standard Law of Attraction teachings don’t deliver.

The teleclass is 100% free of charge, but it is also coming up quick, so if you want to get a slot, cruise on over to register right now: Energetics of Attraction

On the call, Ed promises to deliver all of the following:

• How to simply AND easily separate your personal energy from other people’s energy (OPE). This one simple technique can literally change your life overnight.
• Why sending your intentions “out to the Universe” is not enough and how to GROUND those intentions into the physical Earth!
• How to instantly shift your perspective and increase your personal vibration. 

Overall, it sounds like great stuff, and it doesn’t cost a dime, so why not check it out and see what Ed has to offer?

There are certainly people who want to believe that they can use the power of positive thinking to manifest some cold hard cash, and having a positive attitude is certainly a step in the right direction.

However, positive thinking alone will not manifest financial success, nor will the Law of Attraction.

Let’s compare the Law of Attraction to the Law of Gravity.

If you stand on top of a tall building and drop a rock over the edge, that rock will surely fall to the ground. However, did the Law of Gravity make you drop the rock to begin with?

The answer, of course, is No. The Law of Gravity is simply the tool that you used to get your rock from the top of the building down to the ground.

The Law of Attraction works the same way when it comes to making money. Let’s rephrase that same question, inputting our money and LOA variables:

If you properly use the principles of conscious creation to manifest the circumstances needed to attain financial success, you will certainly attain said success.

However, the Law of Attraction did not create the financial success for you.

The Law of Attraction in this instance is simply a tool, like the Law of Gravity was a tool in the previous example.

Using the LOA as a tool for attaining financial success means just that – using it as a tool. In this case, you are using the tool to manifest the circumstances that will create the wealth, not the wealth itself.

People who think that they can magically manifest piles of cash by simply sitting around thinking about it will quickly find themselves in the poor house.

Your ticket out of that poor house is not to focus on the green stuff and then just sit around and wait. Rather, your ticket to success is to focus on what you want and then be on the lookout for the circumstances that you manifested as a result of that focus.

Normally this will come in the form of a burst of inspiration for you to take some sort of action. That action might be something obvious like making a wise financial investment, or it may be something that seems completely unrelated to your financial goal.

Perhaps you will be inspired to attend a social event that you otherwise might not have gone to, and at the event you end up hooking up with a new business partner, or a mentor who helps you get from the poor house to the rich house.

You might be inspired to take up a hobby that will actually cost you money up front, but then eventually snowballs into a wildly successful business. Don’t believe me? There are people right now making large sums of money off of making purses and clothing out of recycled juice boxes and other containers. Anything is possible!

How to Make Money with the Law of Attraction

Okay, so you are willing to believe that it is at least possible to make money with the Law of Attraction, but how does one go about doing it?

The same way that one goes about doing anything else with the Law of Attraction – with feeling!

It is always about consciously creating the feeling of having the success that you want to have. If you focus on trying to come up with a plan or a scheme for getting rich, you might be waiting for awhile.

However, by simply focusing on already feeling like you have attained success, that is when you will find the inspired action that was discussed earlier. I’ll give you an example straight from my own life:

I have several primary goals, and I can tell you right now that they aren’t cheap. To attain my goals in life, I need cash, and a lot of it. Not because money makes me happy, because it doesn’t. However, money buys me freedom, which does make me happy.

So, in order to manifest that money, I focus on a daily basis on the feelings of already having achieved the success that I want to achieve:

• I visualize my goals, and all the while I am visualizing them as if they have already happened, and I am simply standing there in a glow of perpetual happiness and success.
• I affirm my success daily by using phrases such as “Money comes to me easily and frequently,” and “Since I live on the beach, I can…”
• I am true to who I am as an individual, and I experience an inordinate amount of pleasure on a daily basis just by doing so!

Do any of those systems cause financial success to land on my desktop in one lump sum, causing me to instantly grab my horse and ride off into the sunset, living happily ever after? Nope!

However, the cumulative effect of doing all of those things on a daily basis causes me to feel good, to feel happy, and to feel successful.

As a result, I literally have more ideas for making money come to me than I could possibly take action on. I use EverNote to keep track of all of the ideas that I manifest, and let’s just say that my copy of EverNote is in need of a vacation…

Now, again with a show of hands, how many people have succeeded in doing so?

Hmmmm…I don’t see a lot of hands going up. Why is that, do you think?

Well, for starters, you can’t use the laws of the universe to work “magic”. Yes, it may seem like magic when the synchronicities and “coincidences” are piling up left and right, but it’s not magic, and you can’t use it to put a spell on anyone.

Sorry.

There was one part where the psychologist is saying that Reese is crazy, and that his belief in the Terminators being from the future is the perfect fantasy because it doesn’t require a shred of evidence.

The Law of Attraction is just like that!

Whether you are a believer or a non-believer there is absolutely no way to prove that you are right – or that you are wrong.

Much like the concept of religion, you see what you want to see when it comes to the Law of Attraction.

Believers will tell you that everything they manifested was a direct result of them properly following the LOA principles.

However, non-believers will try some of the techniques, not see astounding results, and exclaim (if I may borrow James Arthur Ray’s comments):

To once again compare conscious creation to religion, most people will say that having faith or belief is the key to invoking the almighty powers that be.

However, just like religion, if you see (or don’t see) results when using the Law of Attraction it is quite impossible to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the LOA was responsible for your results – or lack thereof.

This becomes even more apparent (and non-believers will love this) when the acquisition of dreams by people who use the LOA always and only end up coming about as the result of very down-to-earth and explainable events.

Believers will say that those events would never have happened if it hadn’t been for their faith and proper application of the methods, while non-believers will say that the whole thing is a bunch of nonsense.

Who is right?

What if someone were to come up to you and ask you for irrefutable evidence that your faith in and proper practice of your religion was responsible for some amazing turn of events in your life?

Could you prove scientifically that your religion was the direct and only cause for that turn of events?

And before someone calls out the dogs and wants to burn me at the stake for sacrilege, I am not saying that people should not honor their religious beliefs.Quite to the contrary, actually.

If your belief in your religion and your faith in your deity is what allows you to believe that you need to make a conscious effort to live a proper lifestyle, and that you will be rewarded for doing so, then by all means, please keep the faith.

After all, that is exactly what is expected of LOA believers. There are methods and systems for properly and deliberately creating the life that you want to live, and if you fail to honor those guidelines, you don’t get what you wanted.

So, is the whole Law of Attraction thing just a scam that is being pulled on the world at large just to line the pockets of a few choice individuals?

Or maybe it is just a belief system that provides a guideline for how to live a prosperous and wonderful life.

There is no way to know, because as I mentioned before, the entire thing – whether you believe it or not – does not require a shred of scientific evidence.

You know. Just like religion.