The Japanese employed this concept of constant improvement after the second world war to great effect. They believed in small constant and never ending improvements to everything they did. The results might be small day to day but over time the results would be huge. They managed to take Japan to a economic powerhouse in relatively short order. The Japanese call this concept of constant improvement “Kaizen”. It has now been embraced here in the west as a powerful management technique.

We have all been around people who just seem to have that Midas touch. Whatever they seem to do they just can’t fail. They always appear to be at the right place at the right time, they have things seemingly fall into place in their lives and they would appear to be happy and successful in life. Then you have the other type of people who no matter their potential they have never been able to rise above mediocrity. They encounter obstacles and failure at every turn. No matter how well intentioned they are they just can’t seem to get things together and they lack any real success or happiness.

They say if you want more you need to give more. It seems quite a contrarian kind of thought but its amazing how true it is. It seems that those who live in scarcity have a mindset of scarcity. They tend to then act out that sense of not enough by controlling, withholding and holding on to what little they have. This might be material possessions, money or it could be their time. We all have seen people who live with this scarcity mentality, they penny pinch. They save and live frugally. However what is strange is that these very people on the whole are never really living in any financial abundance. It would seem that the very lifestyle they are embracing is the very lifestyle that locks them into the lack and scarcity.

Most people know or have heard about at least one person who seems to have everything they want. Not just wealth, but an abundance of wealth. Not just happiness, but an abundance of happiness; and not just love, but an abundance of love. How does a person get that lucky? Were they born with a “silver spoon in their mouth”? Were they in the right place at the right time? Was it dumb luck or hard work? Maybe it’s none of those things. Maybe that person has learned how to visualize their success and happiness by tapping into the universal Law of Attraction.

Is that possible? Can we be happy with what we have right now? Isn’t there always something missing that we have yet to achieve or acquire? Of course there is. Up until the moment of death there is always something left to achieve; something else to acquire; some purpose as yet unfulfilled. But that’s not what having a joyful life is about. As Sheryl Crow so wisely sings: “It’s not having what you want. It’s wanting what you’ve got.”