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.8 Live Within A Budget

To live within a budget, first you're going to have to make one. So get out the notebook, the old bills, the cancled checks, the calculator,and the pencils. To determine where you can save, you need to find out how you have been spending.

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.7 Keep A Journal

You'll be surprised how constructive this can be. Think of your journal as a place to have conversations with yourself- on any topic. A simple notebook will do, but how about treating yourself to one of those beautiful blank books sold at bookstores and stationers? Then select an elegant pen and discipline yourself to write in your book regularly. At then end of a year, you may find your journal is one of the most captivating reads you've come across in a long time- and you'll probably learn some interesting things about yourself that you never knew before.

To get out of the "Dear Diary" mode, include:

• reviews of the movies you see
• poems
• favorite quotes you come across
• letters too angry or to intimate to actually send
• your plan for a better mousetrap
• progress reports on your goals
• doodles and drawings (all books need pictures!)

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.6 Look For The Positive

That's the message to needlepoint on your thro pillow! No goal is ever achieved by concentrating on negatives; that will only lead to failure. Sure, you've got to be realistic about obstacles and setbacks, but you've also got to be realistic about what works- what is in your favour. Tackle those nagatives as they come up, not before. As the literary genius Samuel Johnson once said, "Nothing will ever be attempted if al possible objections must be first overcome."

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.5 Spend Quality Time With Yourself

I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

- Henry David Thoreau

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.4 Accept Criticism Gracefully-

Despense It Sparingly