Charting your course in life is very much like making a journey in a sailboat. Here are some steps for making the trip smooth and fulfilling.
PREPARE TO SET SAIL:
The ocean of life is full of opinions and options. In this age of information overload, it becomes increasingly difficult and time consuming to choose a direction to head in. It leaves many drained and confused. How do you make your way?
First, determine that YOU are the Captain. No one else is allowed to steer your ship. Allow no one to make final decisions for you. You are the one who is ultimately responsible for YOUR happiness and has to live with the choices made.
Do a thorough check of your ship’s hull to be sure it is in order. It’s design affects the stresses your ship will be able to endure and the cargo you can carry. This foundation is your beliefs and values defined by your world view. Each person’s understanding of how the world works is shaped by a combination of personal experiences, observations, and the teaching they have received throughout their lives. Your world view includes your assumptions about life, love, marriage, children, career, and health, etc.
Once you know the overall structure of your ship, you can focus on its rudder and sails. Your ship will be steered through the experiences set by your life goals. Life goals define the ultimate destination you desire. They describe the kind of person you hope you will grow to be and the experiences you will have. The basic structure of the vessel is likely to remain constant. In contrast, the rudder and sails will adjust in response to storms and fluctuating currents. Similarly, life goals will need to change as your development reveals your strengths, talents, and interests and as you gain new experiences or new information.
You must also consider the passenger list. How many passengers do you have? Who are they? Are they children, family, friends, acquaintences? What makes each one unique? Do they add value to your journey or do they just take up space on your ship?
The next step is choosing your crew and cargo. Who is on the crew to assist you with the journey? You will need to choose members that possess strengths and knowledge you do not. The crew is also there to take care of duties that you do not have time to do as the captain. For example, an accountant to do your taxes, a coach to guide you, a housekeeper to clean your home, a babysitter to watch your children, a fitness trainer to help keep you in shape. The cargo your ship will carry is the resources you have available. These include money, assets, your home, the environment you live in and the people around you.
Your final step before setting sail is charting the actual course. Long- and short-term goals will help define your course. Long-term goals are like a compass that provides overall direction and purpose for your journey. Short-term goals are the “ports of call” along the way and help measure your progress towards your desired destination. These goals should be reflected in your daily, weekly, and monthly tasks and activities. They will be affected by the strengths and weaknesses of your crew, passengers, time constraints, travel schedules, illness, etc.
SET SAIL:
When you have identified your beliefs, values and world view, considered the uniqueness of your passengers, crew and cargo, determined your goals, selected a destination, and gathered resources, you are ready to confidently set sail to a life you love!
As your voyage unfolds, you will have the ability to adjust the rudder and sails to make course corrections.
Many course corrections will be needed throughout your journey as the winds and currents shift. Periodic review of your short- and long-term goals will be necessary to keep up with these changes. New information, new resources, and even new living conditions will impact your decisions. In the sailing world, if a ship gets off course even one or two degrees and does not correct it will veer out at an entirely different angle on the compass. Over time, it will end up very far from the destination intended. Conversely, to get back on course it may only takes a few minor shifts in degrees to correct. In a panic, people will “overcorrect” when they notice they aren’t going in the direction they desire. They turn the ship’s wheel too sharply and end up capsizing their ship.
As the Captain, be confident are are prepared and well equipped to weather any storm in life. Remember to enjoy the journey and the “ports of call” since you never really know when you will reach your destination.
I know you think you are too busy to sit down and plan where you will be in 10 years. But if you don’t take the time to think about it, what you really want may never happen.
This Motherhood Redefined event rocked the lives of the moms who attended. I was lucky enough to speak at and attend this cool event in Scottsdale, AZ. Check out more at Motherhood Redefined. Future events coming next year!
Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 – July 25, 2008) gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving presentation, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals.
Daily OM Horoscope – Unique daily horoscopes that give you inspirational insights based on your astrological sign every day.
Beliefnet – Inspiration, Spirituality, Faith. – many newsletters to choose from.
Lime – Info and resources to help you to live a healthier, greener lifestyle.
SparkPeople – Health & fitness tips, recipes and motivation for a healthier lifestyle.
A Course In Miracles – Register at Oprah.com and sign up. Marianne Williamson guides you through A Course in Miracles every day.
Peter Walsh Clutter Crew – Register at Oprah.com and each month Peter Walsh will send you his exclusive step-by-step projects to help you create the home you’ve always dreamed of.
Somedays, even I get tired of being so Pollyanna-Positive, so I thought I would balance it out with my top Hate Your Life tips. These tips are tried and true from my clients (and a few of my own foibles). I guarantee that if you follow these 6 pointers, you will hate your life in no time!
Procrastinate everything important on your To Do list. Don’t pay your taxes on time so you incur fines, miss deadlines at work so you get passed up for promotions and raises, and forget birthdays and anniversaries so your loved ones feel neglected and resentful of you.
Have no structure or routine and always be late. Just live by the seat of your pants with no plan, never complete tasks, and only do stuff when you “feel” like it. This way you will never form good habits and people in your life will feel disrespected and avoid you like the plague.
Lie, avoid conflict and never admit when you are wrong. Pretend to be someone you aren’t, never share your true feelings, never speak your truth and ask for what you want. And if you screw up, be sure to blame someone else.
Live beyond your means. Buy whatever you want, don’t follow a budget, charge your credit cards to their limits and then open some more, and spend your days avoiding creditor telephone calls.
Eat whatever the hell you want and never exercise. Your clothes will be too tight, your self-esteem will plummet, your cortisol levels will rise helping you to hold onto the fat, your blood pressure will rise, and a lack of seratonin will make you even more depressed — need I go on?
Wear a thick, stuffed duck costume on a hot summer’s day.
Have you ever been swimming in a fresh water lake? It is often bone-chilling cold. Think for a moment about how you would decide to enter the lake. Most people do one of 2 things…
A) Jump In – At first it is shocking. But once you jump in and get over the initial shock, you acclimate to the temperature and before you know it… you are enjoying a swim and want to swim all day. or B) Dip a Toe – These Toe Dipper people test the waters, decide it is too cold and retreat back to the blanket on the beach.
Many people are Toe Dippers in life. A Toe Dipper is someone who does EVERYTHING but change. They never change because they only dip a toe in, decide it is too cold, hard, or scary and never fully commit to the change. They give themselves reasons to back out and justify in their mind so well why they retreated back to the beach. But all the while, their heart wishes they were in the lake.
My blog and website gets a lot of Toe Dipping visitors. They think, research, dream, journal, and complain about the life they want but never pull the trigger. Toe Dippers surf around the internet, read a ton of articles and self-help books, peruse my coaching facts page, think about how nice it would be to SOMEDAY quit the job they hate, leave the relationship that drains them, get their office organized or seek expert help.
Sometimes when a BIG change is needed, the best way is make it is to just JUMP in. It is either SINK or SWIM – there is no turning back. Odds are in favor of that you will learn to swim, acclimate and make the best of the situation.
Jumping in, at first, will shock the hell out of you, make your squirm in your skin, and scream like a little school girl!!! But before you know it, the change feels good, refreshing and comfortable.
If you just dip a toe in, you often get scared off and retreat.
My Coaching Advice to Toe Dippers:
Go within your heart and ask yourself what you really, really, really want.
Write it down. Now ask yourself why you don’t have it.
Notice the excuses you come up with.
Write those down. Notice now silly and unreasonable some of those excuses are. Ask your self if that is really true. For a great process on how to change your limiting beliefs, check out Byron Katie’s The Work Turnaround Process.
Now tell yourself you are going to make the change anyway because you know in your heart it is what you want.
Also ask yourself how you will feel 10 years from now if you don’t make the change and your life is still the same. If the answer is “pretty crappy or regretful” then go directly to #7 and follow the instructions.
Then JUMP into the lake or contact me to push you into the lake.
I teach a workshop entitled, Life Design. Often times the participants are resistant to the fact that they could actually create a new life and design all the elements down to the very last detail of the color of the slippers in their closet. It is possible, but it takes a new way of thinking. Sometimes when a thought is just too big to comprehend or believe, it is necessary to break it into small, manageable, and in this case, believable thoughts.
I suggest if you can’t imagine an ideal day 10, 5, or even 1 year from now, then start with today. In the movie, What the Bleep Do We Know!?”, there is a clip where Dr. Joe Dispenza describes how he creates his day. Here is an excerpt of what he says:
‘I’m taking this time to create my day and I’m infecting the quantum field. Now if (it) is in fact the observer’s watching me the whole time that I’m doing this and there is a spiritual aspect to myself, then show me a sign today that you paid attention to any one of these things that I created, and bring them in a way that I won’t expect, so I’m as surprised at my ability to be able to experience these things. And make it so that I have no doubt that it’s come from you,’ and so I live my life, in a sense, all day long thinking about being a genius or thinking about being the glory and the power of God or thinking about being unconditional love.’
When you want to make changes in your life, begin by changing one thing and focus on that. Once you prove to yourself that you have the power to change, then you can begin thinking bigger.
Creating your ideal life begins by envisioning it first. Here is a fantastic exercise from my mentor, Martha Beck, to get you started.
Take out a sheet of paper and write at the top: “MY IDEAL DAY. Today is (write in the date one year from today).”
Begin writing your ideal day one year from now in the present tense. This is a normal day in your life. Begin by waking up in the morning until you go to sleep at night. Be specific as to what you are doing, what you see, smell, and hear, who you are with, what you are wearing, what your body looks and feels like, how you spend your time, and the emotions you are feeling. Consider all the aspects of your life: physical environment, career, finances, health, relationships, and hobbies. This is your fantasy, it doesn’t have to be realistic and you do not have to know how to make it happen. But it should be a day in the life that you want to live. Write as if anything is possible. Don’t limit yourself by what you think is realistic or what others would approve of.
Read your Ideal Day description every morning and focus on doing small tasks that work you to the end in mind.
Create a vision board of images that reflect that day and post in a place where you can see if often throughout the day. This can be done easily by pasting your favorite photos or images cut from magazines on a posterboard.
I have always kept images and pictures of my desires where I can see them daily. And magically, those things almost always come into my life!
If you are more technically inclined, there is visionboard site that will guide you in the process of creating an online visionboard. You can customize your board by choosing from thousands of images, music and affirmations or upload your own. Check it out! I made one and it’s so energizing to see my goals come to life in moving images.
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