 In today’s fast paced society of instant gratification and living life to the fullest how many of us feel we are truly in control of our lives and our futures?
Here is a 10 Step plan to truly give you back the control you’re looking for.
1. Face your demons! It’s easy to bury your head in the sand and ignore a challenging situation, whether it’s the credit card debt, that horrible noise your car is making, the discipline issue with the kids or a relationship that’s simply not working. Recognise the challenge you’re dealing with.
2. Pose a great question. Once you’ve recognised the challenge, you need to ask yourself the right question. The question needs to be worded so that when you get the answer, it will solve your problems and give you the insight you need to move forward. Once you have found the question you need to answer, write it down and leave if for a while. Allow your unconscious mind some time to sit on it. At this point you need to set a time frame for answering your question and resolving this issue. Is it a couple of hours, or will it take months. Set the date to have it resolved and make a commitment to resolve it!
3. Research alternatives. Once you come back to your key question, start looking at your options and alternatives for answering it. Ask friends or associates that may have faced this challenge before how they coped with it and what advice they can offer. Check out chat rooms and blogs about it. The Internet has forums on everything; it’s a great way to get a fresh perspective on your challenge.
4. List every Alternative. After you have spent some time researching your challenge and finding possible answers to your question, list all your alternatives out on paper. This is a great way to look at your options and make sure you put everything down. Even the ones that seem ludicrous, often they come in to play… Particularly in the corporate world! Getting to these alternatives is a big step to finding the answer to your question.
 5. Keep in mind the big picture. Know the outcome your working towards, get clear on what you want in the long run. Is it early retirement? Peace of mind? Health and Happiness? What are you really working towards? Once you have that picture clear it’s much easier to make key decisions. When you’re looking at each alternative try to think how it will fit into your plan for the future.
6. Make a decision! This is the most critical step, and if you’re finding it a bigger challenge than you expected, take all your information and alternatives with your question, and talk to a professional, a mentor or a friend about it. The key is to make a decision and be committed to following it through by your given time frame.
 7. Tell someone about it. Let someone close to you know what you’re intending to do and enlist their help if possible, even if it’s just for moral support. This will keep you accountable and also provide much needed encouragement, assuming you choose the right person.
8. Take massive action. You have made the decision, have a friend to keep you accountable, there’s no more to do but take action on it. Regardless of how large or small, you must take action next! This not only gets you closer to your goal of resolving the issue, it also builds on your personal successes and confidence to take on future challenges.
9. Review your decision. Once you have taken the course of action you decided on review how it all panned out. Was your challenge solved? Did you make the correct decision? Would you do it differently if you did it again? What can you learn from the experience? This is critical for personal growth and a key factor in exceptionally successful people.
 10. Celebrate or change track. There are only two possible outcomes. 1. You made a great decision and can now celebrate the outcome and the fact that you have moved closer to creating your ‘bigger picture’. Or 2. The decision you chose wasn’t fantastic or didn’t lead you to an outcome that improved the situation. In this case simply change track. Go through the process again and pose another question, find alternatives and make another decision. Either way you are closer to solving the challenge, you have more experience and knowledge around your alternatives and you are moving towards the life you choose!
If you’re really ready to step up and start living life and need a little assistance to get started, please give me a call on 0409 224 303 for a complimentary coaching session and we can work on it together. | 
