Kind Pointers to Info Streams

I have just returned from my twelve year old step-daughters parents evening. It was an interesting hour and I believe my daughter has learnt quite a lot from the experience. The teachers gave her some important life coaching advice which I will write about in this article.

My step-daughters name is Taryn and she is basically a very bright and well behaved child. One of her faults however is that she just does enough, she is not naughty at school but does not give one hundred percent to her studies.

Before we attended the parents evening we had the opportunity to read her school report. Taryn thought this report was very good as she was above average in her year, this was certainly borne out in her recent examination results. What annoyed both me and her mother was the regular comments that Taryn does not ask enough questions, that she does not contribute enough in classroom discussions and that her homework seems rushed.

We were also aware that even though the exam results were good, that they could have been even better as she did not do any revision. We told her that even though she was above average that we were not happy with some of the comments made which suggested that she could and should have done even better. Taryn was not happy by this and had quite a big strop thinking that we were just being cruel.

Taryn loves to play sport and has been a regular in the netball and athletic teams. The first teacher she took us to see was her sports teacher who Taryn assumed would be very happy with her. This teacher first asked how we as her parents thought Taryn was getting on, in general at school. We voiced our concerns and the teacher agreed as she had read the whole report and was also not that pleased with it. She looked at Taryn and told her that in sport she always gave one hundred percent and asked her why she did not have the same attitude in Maths and English. Taryn did not know what to say and seemed quite shocked. The teacher stated that even though sport is important, the other subjects should come first and that if she did not see a marked improvement over the next few months, that she would drop her from the netball and athletics team.

Next was the English teacher. He told all of us that Taryn was very clever but that she needed to take more of a pride in her work. She needs to check what she has completed before she hands it in, as the only real errors she makes are just silly mistakes.
He believed that even though Taryn was in the top thirty percent that she should be in the top ten percent.

All of the teachers we met gave Taryn the same message. Do not accept second best, always give one hundred percent, spend less time on the computer and more time reading and revising.

By the end of the evening poor old Taryn looked shell shocked. She now understands what to do and certainly does not want to be kicked out of the sports teams.

I was more than pleased with the schools attitude and believe that Taryn has been given some important life coaching advice.

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Desire

How bad do you want to beat Edgewater!! my high school football coach screamed in my face as he caught me going a little too easy one day in practice. That one has stayed with me because he was right, the amount of desire I had that day was showing up in the actions I was choosing to take. Desire is reflected in your actions. Desire with little or no action is not worth much. So ask your self frequently, “how much do I want this?”

Disgust

Not typically an emotion associated with positive change. Or is it? Have you ever been disgusted with a situation, a relationship or yourself. Most of us have, of course. But have you ever been so disgusted that you were motivated to change no matter what? Being sick and tired of being sick and tired with a situation can be a fantastic motivator for change when you decide “no more, not again, not ever!”

Decision

The root word for decision is incision, which means to cut. So when you decide, I mean really decide, that something will be different in your life, you “cut off” any other possibility. And it’s reflected in your view of and attitude toward life. Bill Marriot, of Marriot Hotels said, “Failure? I’ve never encountered it. I just stumbled over a few temporary setbacks.” That’s decision in motion.

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The other day I was late for something. Not very late. In fact, I was actually on time but an angry voice berated me anyway, saying, “You are late! There will be no seats left. You wouldn’t run late if you were more organized!” It was a terrible feeling, especially because the voice was partially right.

Who was this voice yelling at me? It was my nemesis - the Shrew who lives in my head.

We all get annoyed at ourselves from time to time; it is only natural. But for some of us, it can become an unrelenting bother. There can be no contentment when the Shrew is on the scene!

Some call it a gremlin, others an inner critic, others negative self-talk. I call her the Shrew. No matter what you call yours, you know who I mean. She’s fierce, she’s damning and she’s quick to pounce on every mistake you make, turning them into capital offenses. The Shrew exaggerates our flaws, smashes our self-esteem, ruins our confidence, distracts us from what we are doing and makes us miserable.

I am choosing not to live with it anymore! I invite you to do the same. There is a force which can tame the Shrew: The Buddha in Your Back Pocket*.

Think of a time when you witnessed a stranger being scolded and felt badly for them. Perhaps it was a worker being accused by an angry boss of “screwing things up” for something you knew wasn’t their fault. Did you wish you could go up to that worker and say, “Don’t pay any attention to them. I saw what happened and I know you are a doing a good job!”

This softer side of you is the anti-Shrew. It is empathy and compassion. The Shrew is afraid of it because she fears you might offer it to yourself. It is a skill to learn to apply this loving, tender, supportive side of ourselves to ourselves. Many of us, me included, are not in the habit of it.

The morning I was late, Ms. Shrew was in full force. But, before she could ruin my day, I was able to ward her off by pulling out the Buddha in My Back Pocket. It felt a bit like Luke Skywalker yielding a light saber against Darth Vader. “Luke, use the force!”

I let the powerful voice of the Buddha in My Back Pocket counter the accusations of the Shrew. He asked, “What were your reasons for making the choices you did this morning?” and “Would you make these same choices again?” Then he reminded me of two universal truths: “You are doing the best you can” and “Growth involves observing one’s actions and then learning from them.” Under this influence of love and a genuine intention to seek understanding, I was able to temporarily silence the Shrew, objectively analyze my “lateness” and gain valuable personal insight. Within a few minutes, I felt relieved, re-engaged in life and able to peacefully continue with the rest of my day.

Unfortunately, we can’t eradicate the Shrew completely. But we can learn to access this equalizing force: the pursuit of empathetic understanding - a loving friend that takes your side and helps you learn about yourself in a safe and protected way. The Buddha in your Back Pocket is always with you to calm your mind, forgive your errs, and remind you of the growth in your life. As you cultivate your relationship with the Buddha in your Back Pocket, you will experience more self-love, confidence and peace.

Life is too short to spend time unnecessarily berating ourselves with critical self-talk! Go forth into your day and bring the Buddha in Your Back Pocket with you. You never know when you might need it!

*I do not wish to offend anyone by using the title Buddha. I have the utmost respect for the Buddhist tradition. In this article, I refer to Buddha as a representation of an enlightened teacher offering guidance to those who chose to listen.

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When was the last time you did some dedicated physical exercise?

Many people have realised that our busy and stressful lives need some balance. They are flocking in droves to gymnasiums all over the country. Others are even engaging Personal Trainers who, themselves, are experiencing boom times in the international quest for fitness.

It seems that people everywhere are becoming increasingly conscious of their physical condition. Everybody wants to feel younger and look younger. But what about mental conditioning? Sadly, too many people do not have time to build mental muscles by educating themselves. Sure, Joe and Jane Citizen read newspapers, watch television and listen to radio programs. But is that education? It could be argued that these media are a form of negative education. You see, most of the news flowing through to us is full of doom and gloom.

Negative sells. Editors know this. They also understand that most people are negatively tuned. That is why they skew their editorials with a negative disposition. We see glaring headlines like “Car Crash Kills Six” or “Fourteen People Die in Suicide Bombing.”

For most people, doom and gloom is eminently believable. The more they are fed, the more they believe.

Try this little test:

Assume somebody called you and informed you that you had just won a big lottery prize. Then, directly after, somebody else called you saying you were the subject of a tax audit. Which story would you be inclined to believe?

Let’s now qualify this a little more. What if you knew absolutely that you had bought that lottery ticket from an outlet that has a history of selling winning tickets, and you also knew absolutely that your tax return had been filed by a highly competent tax accountant? What would your instinct tell you to believe?

Understand this - the power of negative is far more powerful than the power of positive. It is so easy to let that little self-talk gremlin inside your head influence you in a negative manner.

Many years ago I read a wonderful book which dealt with this very matter. It was called “What to Say When You Talk to Yourself” by Shad Helmstetter. If you want to know more about what you tell yourself then I highly recommend that you read this book. In it Helmstetter tells us that “as much as seventy-seven percent of everything we think is negative, counter-productive, and works against us”. He also states that “programming the brain with a more successful new picture of yourself is the most sensible” way to success.

Any good book store will be able to supply a copy of this book for you. If you have any difficulty tracking it down then you can always quote its unique identity code. (Here it is: ISBN 0 7225 2511 7)

Giving yourself a mental “check up from the neck up” will certainly make you aware of the dangers of allowing too much negative news to permeate and influence your thoughts. Think about it. We are constantly bombarded with negative messages from the moment we arise in the morning to the minute we fall asleep at night. Still don’t believe me? Here’s another little test:

Get this morning’s newspaper. Open it to the first three pages (these are the pages that the Editor of the newspaper considers are the most important). Find a red crayon and a blue crayon. Put a red border around all the bad news. Then take your blue crayon and do the same for any good news stories (if you can find any). Now compare the area bounded in red by the area bounded in blue. What do you find?

You need to be aware of this constant battle between positive and negative. There is a competition between the two for the space each occupies in your mind and thought processes.

The more positive thoughts you can put into your brain the less you will be influenced by the army of doom-sayers.

When you believe in the power of positive, a strange thing begins to happen. You start to attract good things into your life like a magnet! Read Dr Helmstetter’s excellent book “What to Say When You Talk to Yourself” and give yourself that “check up from the neck up.”

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About the author: Gary Simpson is the author of eight books covering a diverse range of subjects such as self esteem, affirmations, self defense, finance and much more. His articles appear all over the web. Gary’s email address is budo@iinet.net.au. Click here to go to his Motivation & Self Esteem for Success website where you can receive his “Zenspirational Thoughts” plus an immediate FREE copy of his highly acclaimed, life-changing e-book “The Power of Choice.”

Direct Answers - Column for the week of July 29, 2002

A few months after my divorce I started seeing a friend of my ex-wife. She told me I really needed a person that would appreciate me. We had a great sex life, and she told me anytime was fine. I told her I never heard that before, but she said she was different.

After a year she asked when we were going to buy a house. I said, “If you want to, we will.” I used my money to buy the house, and our sex life changed as soon as we moved in. Her life is now centered around her young son from a previous marriage, and when he goes to bed, she goes to bed.

This has been going on since we bought the house four years ago. We never would have bought the house if our relationship was like this before.

Kennan

Kennan, you knew how important a vital sexual relationship was for you. Some part of you sensed it was too good to be true. When you questioned her, she allayed your fears, but those fears have come to pass.

Time complicated the situation. After four years your girlfriend is likely to feel nothing but anger when you confront her, but confront her you must.

What really is the issue? Is it sex, or is there not enough love between the two of you for physical intimacy to be a natural part of your relationship? If there isn’t a connection which allows intimacy, there isn’t a connection which allows this relationship to continue.

Tamara

Breaking With Tradition

I have a problem with my husband’s grandmother. From the beginning, I welcomed and accepted his grandmother openly. I did not question her motives and accepted her for who she is.

The problem is this woman is the source of gossip in the family and dwells on pitting my husband and his brother against each other in petty competitions. This carries over and includes the wives.

I am a born-again Christian and the peacemaker in the family, and I am tired of it. I am tired of petty competitions like who gave the best birthday present. I told each and every woman the gossip must stop!

Life is too short to spend on negative issues and fighting. How can I teach my children healthy conflict resolution if this woman continually hurts us and starts fights? She is in her 70s and too late to change I guess.

Josee

Josee, your desire to teach your children healthy conflict resolution is excellent. It is a much needed skill, but it assumes at least a minimal willingness on the part of the other person to play. Sometimes that just isn’t the case.

So it is with your husband’s grandmother. She has been doing damage to her family for decades, and barring some profound event like a near-death experience, she isn’t likely to change.

Dealing effectively with her is more like housebreaking a puppy than conflict resolution. A behavioral approach is what is called for. Behaviorism has strong overtones of manipulation which we don’t approve of, but with intractable behavior it can be the only answer.

Perhaps you will choose to praise her when she makes positive comments, and remain silent and ignore negative comments. Or perhaps you will simply let her know you and your children will promptly leave in the presence of infighting or negative comparisons.

Whatever you decide, keep to your plan as faithfully as if housebreaking a puppy. You might also look for a book on behavioral analysis, especially one dealing with the rules for shaping behavior.

Many people marry into toxic families. Spending less time with them and more time with people who value what you value will make your life more enjoyable. Even more importantly, it will give your children the opportunity to see the difference between productive, mature behavior and its opposite.

Wayne & Tamara

About The Author

Authors and columnists Wayne and Tamara Mitchell can be reached at www.WayneAndTamara.com.

Send letters to: Direct Answers, PO Box 964, Springfield, MO 65801 or email: DirectAnswers@WayneAndTamara.com.

Are you missing your “spark”? The “thing” that makes you want to get up in the morning and sing? Why is that? What is it that’s getting in the way?

The answer is probably DRAINS. One of the definitions of drain is to exhaust physically or emotionally. Does this sound like what you are feeling? Do you lack the energy, drive, or ambition that you would like to have in one or more areas of your life? If so, it’s time to recognize where your drains are so they can be properly exorcised.

How do you identify energy drains? They are the things that leave you felling unfulfilled, depressed, discouraged, exhausted, hopeless, or passionless. They can occur as a result of employment woes, too many demands, educational pursuits, relationships, health issues, or any other thing or person that touches your life. A very important point to remember is that energy drains are incredibly personal and unique. Something that is a serious drain to one person could be the ultimate passion of another. Take Helen and Naomi as prime examples of this point.

Helen is a working mom. She gets up at six in the morning, gets herself dressed and carries her sleeping son into her babysitters home by seven, so that she can begin her forty-five minute commute to work each morning. She thinks about Kyle often throughout the day, and sometimes has to fight tears as she envisions the things that the babysitter gets to see him do, that she ends up missing. She had hoped that by now she would be used to being a career mom, but she hasnt. She can hardly believe that she’s been doing this for two years.

Naomi is a stay at home mom. She left a very lucrative career to stay at home with her daughter. it’s been nine months and she is miserable. Katie is so demanding that Naomi barely manages to get dressed most days, and never seems to be able to get anything accomplished around the house until after Katie goes to bed at night. Naomi feels isolated because she was used to the hustler and bustle of her office, but shies away from spending time with other stay at home moms because they seem to enjoy the life that she loathes.

It seems as though Helen and Naomi would each find their passion and eliminate their drains, if they could switch places. Short of this ideal situation, lets see what other things they could do to alleviate their drains. Helen is unhappy because she spends so much time away from her son. If Helen had to keep a full-time job, she could be home for most of her sons waking hours if she found a second shift job working three until eleven. If she could make due on a part-time wage her flexibility would be even greater and perhaps she could work solely during bedtime hours. If Naomi felt strongly about being home with her daughter, she could start a home-based business and have someone on-hand to provide childcare if it were the type of business that did not allow for distractions. She could also contact her previous employer to see if there is anyway that she could still remain involved with the company in a home-based capacity. This way, she does not have to develop new business relationships, and will be able to be on-hand for her daughter. In order to change the things that were draining them, in each case, these women had to determine what the problem was, be willing to say NO to the things that were draining them, and decide what solution they wanted to say YES to in it’s place.

Unfortunately, there are times when we are unwilling or unable to say NO. So, what then? Thats when you need to decide how to change your perspective so that you are okay with things the way they are. For example, if you decide that you wanted to eat healthier and exercise for weight loss, but each time you put yourself on a regiment your plan completely fell apart, leaving you feeling drained. This might be an ideal situation to determine that you are OKAY with not doing the healthier eating and weight loss program at this time. Perhaps shelving the plan until a later date, or reducing the number of days that you plan on exercising, etc. There are many situations like this in life, don’t let them drain you needlessly.

Ultimately, you are the Captain of your ship. Only you can determine exactly what you can and cannot tolerate. Have you identified your drains? Once you do, you must put plans into action to make your energy drains go down the drain! Be willing to say NO to the things/circumstances/people that drain you and replace them with what you do want. Get rid of your drains today and recharge your batteries for a passion filled existence.

Eva Gregory, master coach, speaker and author of The Feel Good Guide To Prosperity, http://www.feelgoodguide.com, has instructed thousands on the Laws of Attraction in person, on the radio and in dozens of teleconference training seminars and programs. She is the author of several books and e-books and has co-developed several telephone-based and internet-based training courses on the Laws of Attraction. Her most popular program to date is her Leading Edge Living One Year Success Program. (http://www.leadingedgecoaching.com/Living/index.shtml) Eva is regularly featured on radio and in the media and is a recognized authority on the Laws of Attraction. To learn more about her products and services, visit Leading Edge Coaching, http://www.leadingedgecoching.com NOTE: You’re welcome to “reprint” this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the “about the author” info at the end), and you send a copy of your reprint to eva@coacheva.com

David Bowie once sang, “Ch-ch-changes, tryin’ to face the strain.”

There are times in life when trying to change can be a strain. If you are like most folks, you have tried to change something in your life. And, like most folks, may have found yourself frustrated when you were unable to change. Perhaps it was a habit, an attitude, or some part of an important relationship. Whatever the issue, try as you might, you were not able to get the changes you wanted.

Welcome to the club, it’s a big one.

Here’s the really good news - you can get the changes you want! And it doesn’t have to take years and years and cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, two of the more common myths about the process of change.

Here’s a question - have you ever tried to open a ketchup bottle with a lizard? Of course not. The reason behind that rather odd question is to illustrate how frustrating and silly it is to try to do a job without the proper tools. My job in this column, and as a counselor, is simply to give you some of the tools that I have found useful in helping people get the changes they want in their lives.

Today we will look at three key tools for getting the changes you want, whether it’s at work or home.

Focus on what you want, not what you don’t want

What do the following statements have in common; “I want to stop smoking”, “I want to stop yelling at my kids”, “I’ve gotta stop working so hard”, “I need to stop neglecting my marriage.” One thing they have in common is they are all statements from clients, in the first session, when I ask them what they would like to be different about their lives. Another thing these statements have in common is that they all focus on what they don’t want.

Why is that important? Well, think about it for a moment. When you first learned how to throw a ball, were you taught where to throw it to or where to not throw it? Another silly question, really. Of course you were taught to focus on where you wanted the ball to go.

In the same way, to achieve the changes you want, focus on what you want, not what you don’t want. It’s really not that difficult. In the examples above, all we need is a change in wording, which brings a change in focus.

Here’s a sample of what I mean -

“I want to stop smoking” becomes “I want to be smoke free.”

“I want to stop yelling at my kids” becomes “I want to manage my kids (and myself) better.”

“I’ve gotta stop working so hard” becomes “I want to work smarter, not harder, and enjoy life more.”

“I need to stop neglecting my marriage” becomes “I need to make my marriage a priority.”

And so on.

Focus on one change at a time

Trying to change too many things at once dooms you to frustration at best, and failure at worst. You can end up like the side show at the circus. You know the one, where the guy is spinning several plates on a stick, and has to run around to keep them all spinning at once. Eventually, you wear out, quit, and all the plates come tumbling down.

When working on changes, especially at first, focus on one area of change at a time. As you get your “psychological feet” under you in one area, move on the next, and then the next, etc.

In this way, if you worked on one change a week for a year, that’s 50 things you could change in a year, with two weeks off for vacation.

Aim for progress, not perfection.

Let’s say you want to quit smok- oops, I mean become smoke free, for instance. You make it for six days, and then smoke one cigarette. It’s important to remember that six days smoke free is progress. Go for six more and then build from there.

What you don’t want to do is focus on the slip-up, and then give up in frustration. So many times we expect perfection from ourselves when we want to change. That’s a sure set-up for failure.

Focus on the progress, even if it’s one step up and two steps back. Keep going, and eventually you can get to 100 steps up and an occasional step back.

Focus on what you want, one change at a time, aim for progress. That’s a three part prescription for successful change.

Thanks for reading, and keep the change.

Visit SecretsofGreatRelationships.com for tips and tools for creating and growing a great relationship. You can also subscribe to our f*r*e*e 10 day e-program on how to enrich your relationship today, from relationship coach and expert Jeff Herring.

Listen to the salutation to the dawn, Look to this day for it is life, the very life of life. In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of our existence. ,

The bliss of growth, the splendor of beauty, For yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow is only a vision, But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well therefore to this day. Such is the salutation to the dawn. ~Kalidisa, Sanskrit text

It is Monday morning, for many the start of a new work week. Take the time this Monday, and for the next few Mondays, to keep a record of how many “I hate Monday” type statements you hear.

How do you feel about Monday?

Reflect for a moment. Do that many “bad” things really happen on Monday? I would be willing to bet your answer is “No”. If your answer happens to be “Yes”, then you need to start looking at your attitude and expectations. Life has a funny way of living up or down to our expectations. No matter the date or day of the week the calendar says it is, start each day expecting it to be your greatest day ever.

Yesterday, Tomorrow and Today in Perspective

It is very important to understand the relationship between yesterday, tomorrow and today.

Yesterday

We cannot go back in time and change or redo yesterday, but here are three things you can do with your past; First, reflect on your past successes. Relive them with as much clarity and emotion as you can. Use these memories to build your self-confidence, self-esteem and to create an “I Can” attitude. Second, learn from your past mistakes and failures. Take full responsibility for them, and be grateful for them. Yes, I said to be grateful for your failures. You cannot know which way up is, unless you know which way is down is. Third, release and let go all negative emotional baggage from your past. This is the toughest of the three to do, and the most important to work on. Carrying this weight will, at the very least, slow you down, and it can stop you completely.

Tomorrow

The future is where all your dreams, hopes and goals live. Your potential lies ahead of you, not behind you. Tomorrow you have a clean slate, an unblemished record, a brand new beginning. Take care when building your vision of the future, it is where you will spend the rest of your life. Most importantly, by creating your vision of tomorrow, by having dreams and goals to reach for, you give meaning and purpose to today.

Today

Today is the most important day of your life! Yesterday is gone. By the time tomorrow arrives it will be today. Today you are creating yesterday’s memories. Today you are laying the foundation for tomorrow.

Everything you do, you do now. Everything else is either something you did do, or something you are going to do. Everything you do either takes you closer to your dreams and goals or it moves you away from them. Every day counts.

Make a habit of taking positive daily actions. Take steps daily that will move you closer to your dreams and goals. Plan your day based on your principles, values and what matters most to you, and then work your plan. Don’t sit by and wait to “have” a great day, take action to “make” it a great day. Take care of today. If you do this, yesterday and tomorrow will take care of themselves.

Make Every Day a Great Day

‘Tis the season once again for parties, champagne, noisemakers…and of course, New Year’s resolutions. Every year, millions of people go through the same ritual of making optimistic resolutions for the coming year - many of which are destined to be swept up into the dustbin with the remains of the confetti and party favors.

But what if you could make this year different? What if you could revolutionize the way you approach resolutions so that they actually work for you, rather than against you?

Although there are many excuses for why resolutions fail, the real reason for “resolution dissolution” is not that you are weak or that your hopes and dreams are merely wishful thinking. It’s that in many cases the things you swear to give up or take on every year are merely surface indicators of deeper problems. Unfortunately, like covering acne with makeup or paying the Visa bill with the MasterCard, making such resolutions simply covers up the problem without addressing the real cause - setting you up for failure, while allowing the original problem to grow worse through neglect.

This year, instead of metaphorically slapping a new paint job on a rusty old lemon, why not go beneath the surface flaws and fix the real problems once and for all? Of course, uprooting deep-seated issues and self-destructive habits isn’t nearly as easy or as much fun as making out a list of socially approved itches to ritually scratch for a few weeks before returning to your warm and comfy rut. But in the long run, if you aim at the heart of the matter over the heat of the moment, you may end up with way more than a Happy New Year - you may just get a whole new life!

Here are some tips to help you get to the real source of the problems:

1. Decide what’s not working in your life, and then figure out why you’re keeping it around

Every behavior humans engage in results in one of two alternatives. Either you get something you want and you keep doing it, or you get something you don’t want and you quit doing it. It’s just that simple.

Even obviously self-destructive behaviors offer some reward, however tenuous, or people wouldn’t keep doing them. It could be the avoidance of some greater or more frightening pain or discomfort, the allowance of special attention or excuse from unpleasant activity, or perhaps a payoff of some other emotional power, manipulation or hold over others. And no matter how strong the urge to engage in such behaviors feels to you, unless you are seriously mentally ill (and I do mean seriously) you can stop yourself, given sufficient motivation.

Spend some time digging out what reward your bad behavior is getting you. Once you find that, you can more objectively decide if you really want that payoff bad enough to keep the behavior - and all of its attending consequences.

2. Think like the “last man/woman on earth”

Before engaging in self destructive or risky behaviors, such as spending money you can’t spare on a new toy or showing off in a dangerous manner, ask yourself the following question: “If I was the last person left alive and there was no one else left on earth to see me have or do this, would I still go to this much trouble or risk to do so?”

If the answer is no, then chances are good that your real motivation is the attention, reaction or approval/disapproval of others and not your own intrinsic needs, wants or desires. Use that knowledge to make better decisions and to learn more about who you are and why you do what you do in the process.

3. Get oriented.

You wouldn’t set out on a trip without consulting a map, nor would you buy into a financial investment without tracking past behavior and getting sound predictions on future growth. Yet many people live their lives without ever knowing where they are going, and invest themselves heavily in decisions and resolutions made on a whim, with no real guidance or direction.

Spend some time figuring out what your long-term goals, needs and dreams really are, and then weigh each future decision based on whether or not it takes you closer to these targets.

If you find yourself continually drawn to activities that do not further your stated goals and needs, then it’s time to re-examine both. Either your stated goals aren’t your real desires or the activity yields some hidden reward you’re reluctant to pass up. You can’t expect to make real and lasting change until you sort these issues out.

One thing you must understand and acknowledge is that creating real and lasting change in your life (as opposed to making short-term, feel-good gestures of dubious value) is not only hard, it can be downright frightening. I know of at least one would-be quitter that gave up using stop-smoking patches, not because they weren’t working but because they were! The lesson here is that when many people say that they want to change, what they really want is to have changed - to get where they want to be without all the work and upset of actually going through the changes. But even when we desperately do want real change, what’s familiar and comforting now (even if it is painful and limiting) can be a much stronger draw than what’s better for us in the distant and possibly risky future.

But by getting to the core of the matter and by using the tips above to help you set a firm foundation to build upon, you can provide yourself with stronger ammunition to ward off your demons and strip away the illusions that glamorize your self-destructive behaviors and make it easier to give in to them. Once you’ve seen why you do what you do, it’s much easier to respond to events and make sound choices, rather than reacting out of habit and making seat-of-the-pants decisions.

This year, instead of fighting another losing battle with half-hearted and ineffective resolutions, why not spend the holiday season doing something truly revolutionary: creating a life so well-tuned to your values, needs and loves that you can kiss New Year’s resolutions goodbye - forever!

(c) Soni Pitts

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Soni Pitts is the Chief Visionary Butt-Kicker of SoniPitts.Com. She specializes in helping others reclaim “soul proprietorship” in their lives and to begin living the life their Creator always intended for them.

She is the author of the free e-book “50 Ways To Reach Your Goals” and over 100 self-help and inspirational articles, as well as other products and resources designed to facilitate this process of personal growth and spiritual development.

We often hear the old saying that Failing to Plan is planning to Fail. Planning is indeed critical if we are to achieve what we truly want in our lives. For me there are a number of stages to creating a Plan:

The Vision

What I quite often refer to as the “Mountain Top View.” Imagine that you are stood on top of a mountain and as you look around you everything you want in your life, in say five years time, is in place. Five years is probably as far as you should go and more often people feel more comfortable thinking about three years in the future. So as you look around you what do you see? Now don’t go putting barriers in the way because remember you have achieved what you wanted to achieve, you have climbed the mountain! Everything from where you are stood now is what you wanted to be able to see.

Now for me in five years time we will have stopped working in someone else’s box/business. We will instead be working in our own business, which will be based online, but have lots of real contact with people. We will be earning sufficient to maintain our lifestyle living in a wing of a large old Country House (of which there is a picture sat beside my computer monitor.) We will also be earning sufficient to keep us in the style we want to live long into the future when we move to live in Italy.

When I have worked with others in the past and when you are doing this part for yourself you should be able to say what colour Front Door your house or apartment will have etc in other words really paint the picture that you can see from the top of the mountain.

Boulder Avoidance.

This is where you look back down the mountain and try to spot the boulders you have overcome on your way to the top of the mountain. What were they? Were there some big boulders and some little ones? Make sure that you have a clear view of the things that tried to stop you getting to the top of the mountain so that when you sit down and work out your objectives over the medium and short term you know what you have got to overcome.

Now to give you an example probably the biggest boulder in our way at the moment is generating the income from our online activities and knowing which of the activities will generate what we need and which will not contribute to what we want to achieve. So here we are starting to think about where we need to focus our activities and are asking questions. Are there online activities which are taking up a large percentage of our time but contributing little to what we want to achieve?

It may be that there are some that you want to continue to take up a large amount of time without them contributing. However, you need to consciously be aware of that rather than bemoaning the fact that you are not achieving what you say you want to. If you are serious about running an online business and want to move full time online your mindset needs to change from “hobby” to “business”.

Now I will turn to the specifics of creating your Plan. The two elements I have mentioned so far are the parts which people normally miss out. However, they are critical if the detailed part of your planning is to have a context and an aim.

Detailed Planning

In terms of the detail of the Plan you create it needs to have a focus on the Vision and be constructed in the Long Term (9 months plus), Medium Term (1 to 3 months) and the Short Term ( the next month). You need to have a very clear focus on what you want to achieve in those time frames. In order to do that I work with SMART Objectives:

Specific - what exactly do I want to achieve? Measurable - what numbers or other measurable element do I want? Achievable - is what I am proposing achievable? Relevant - is what I am proposing to do relevant to enabling me to achieve my Vision? Time bound - so I will achieve by xx/xx/06

SMART has always worked for me and if you combine it with PDR (Plan, Do and then Review) it’s a surefire way of focusing you on what you need to achieve.

I will finish by simply saying that you should always keep asking yourself “have I done today what I planned to do and has it contributed to achieving my Vision?”