Skyline Coaching Blog: The Best Things in Life Are FREE!

Many of us spend our lives trying to make money (and therein lies our first mistake, more on this another time) without realising that we were born rich and that the best things in life are FREE.

When the singer, Robbie Williams, got his first major recording contract worth £8 million he exclaimed:

"I'm rich beyond my wildest dreams!"

In reality we could all be saying those exact words for we are indeed rich though many of us just don't realise it.

Our greatest riches lie in the things that we were given free. It is as Earl Nightingale in The Strangest Secret said,

"Our mind comes as standard equipment at birth. It is free and things that are given to us for nothing we place little value on. Things that we pay money for we value. The paradox is that exactly the reverse is true. Everything that is really worthwhile in life came to us free - our minds, our souls, our bodies, our hopes, our dreams, our ambitions intelligence, our love of family and children and friends and country - all these priceless possessions are free but the things that cost us money are really very cheap and can be replaced at any time."

Imagine being given a plot of fertile land so rich that whatever you plant in it will grow. Take my mother for example, a multi-talented and very industrious woman who, among other things, could be described as a farmer. Over the years she has grown hot peppers, sweet peppers, carrots, pumpkins, lettuce, thyme, marjoram, sweet potatoes and I could go on and on. Nowadays she focuses primarily on orchids. My point is that whatever she planted grew and she learnt to take care of the plants to maximise their quality and yield.

What if she just left the land to its own devices? Well plants would still grow. In fact, she would often remark that weeds seemed to grow more rampantly than crops. Some of the plants would be beneficial; some not. One thing you can be certain of is that what would grow would be a random and haphazard affair with no consistency regarding produce or yield.

Our minds are just like fertile soil. Whatever we sow in our minds we will reap. However, although we are all born with this magnificent gift, it comes with seeds already sown in it. These seeds are a result of genetics. Also, as we grow there is a period of time where we do not have control over what is planted in our fertile minds. Our environment plants seeds in our mind, further conditioning it - just like my mother has no little control over the airborne seeds that land in her garden.

However, there comes a point when our awareness grows sufficiently that we can start to question and analyse what our senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch) have been telling us. We start to use our intellectual faculties – perception, reason, will, memory, intuition and imagination – however, our environment will again play a role in determining how well we develop our intellect. In many cases our intellectual faculties such as our imagination and ability to reason can be stamped right out of us.

These are priceless gifts but we don't appreciate them. We yearn instead for the physical things that have the price tag on them. The higher the price tag the more we tend to want it and more disillusioned and frustrated we become when we don't get it. What many fail to realise is that there is a link between these things and our mind. After all, it is our minds that created these things in the first place.

Physical items cars, houses, boats, etc. are cheap, replaceable and can be destroyed in an instant whereas the intangible things such as love, joy and happiness are ours to have in an infinite supply and no one but ourselves can deny us of these things. These things and more are our birthright. We are indeed born rich.

Let's go back to the material things that many yearn for – the things that cost money. This is partly how money gets a bad rap. We want something but an apparent lack of money stands in our way of having it on the physical plane and so we build this love/hate relationship with money. The truth is that whatever you are seeking is seeking you and so the next step after asking for what you want is to accept it on the mental plane of existence. I know that this may appear to be airy-fairy but the Universe operates by laws and it through understanding and applying these laws that we live fulfilled lives.

There are many reasons why we don't get what we say we want:

i. We simply don't believe we can have it so we don't plant the seeds necessary for what we want to manifest itself.
ii. We may have the seeds but, for one reason or another, we think that they will not grow and so they remain forgotten in a jar and out of contact with the conditions that would allow them to germinate.
iii. We may plant the seeds but think that they are taking too long to grow and bear fruit and so we uproot the young plants.
iv. We may plant them but again neglect the seedlings so that they end up being choked by other plants or so starved of nourishment that they wither and die.
v. We fail to protect our seeds/plants from 'predators' and creatures that would trample our plants.
vi. We fail to plant enough seeds to take into account the ones that might fail to germinate or might otherwise be lost.
vii. We may plant our seeds too close together so that they compete with each other and none have sufficient nutrients to grow properly.

When a farmer plants his crops he doesn't just leave them to their own devices. He has to remove the weeds, protect the plants from pests and adverse weather conditions. He waters the plants and provides them with fertiliser. However, before he does any of this a good farmer will analyse his soil to discover the best plants for that soil. This can be likened to you finding your passion. Likewise, when you plant an idea in your mind you also have to nourish and nurture it so that it grows to fruition.

Once you recognise just how rich and abundant your life is you will find that the path to achieving even more riches is easier than you think. However, whatever path you take, the route to your greatest desires will always be through your greatest treasure – your mind. And best of all it's free!