“Life is no straight and easy corridor along, which we travel free and unhampered, but a maze of passages, through which we must seek our way, lost and confused, now and again, checked in a blind alley. But always, if we have faith, a door will open for us, not perhaps one that we ourselves would have thought of, but one that will ultimately prove good for us.” - A. J. Cronin
What do you want to change in your life, what is most important to you?
Look at the list below, how important are each of these to you?
Try numbering the following from 1-12. 1 being very important to you and 12 being the least important.
What do you desire the most from this list, which if these do you really value in your life. It is important to know if you are currently heading in the right direction or if what you are doing at the moment is not in line with what you really want from life.
What could be the one thing that really changes it all for you? What would it be? In part one I discussed how location, job and money can all have dramatic affects on your life, in this article I will look at a new home, your health and a new you (personality).
New home
How much would a new home change your life? I guess for some people a new home could really change their lives for themselves and their families. A bigger home with a garden for the children to play in that is 10 minutes from the local school and 5 minutes to the shops could be something a lot of people would like to have. It would have a large impact on some people’s lives for sure, but there is much that wouldn’t change, especially on a personally level. Problems at work, financial issues and personal issues would still exist, however new your kitchen was.
Health
What about if you became fitter than you have even been before? What about if you lost weight, starting eating healthier food and stopped drinking? This will definitely affect your life, you will start to feel a lot better about yourself, and you will have more energy. Everybody knows that when you look good you feel good and this can have huge benefits both personally and professionally.
Of course the flip side to this coin is that you can develop health issues which affect you in a negative way and unfortunately this can happen to anyone, no one is immune to diseases and other life threatening disorders. When this happens it will affect your life in ways that may change you physically and mentally and not for the better. Health is something that we all take for granted most of the time and it is only when it is taken away from us that we realize how precious it really is. This is something we also have no real control over; illnesses can strike at any time, without warning and the impact can be huge both for the person involved and their family.
A New you
Working on yourself is a great way to initiate change in your life, changing your beliefs about yourself, your values, working on parts of your personality, building more confidence and self esteem will definitely change you and all in the positive. There are numerous ways to bring change into your life through self development, either through books or courses that you can attend and rarely will these have any adverse affects on you. When you start to challenge yourself and push your boundaries, you can start to see real and immediate changes in your behavior and it can really lift your spirits.
It is very empowering when you set a goal for yourself, something personal to you that you want to change and then you go ahead and achieve it. One of the great things about working on yourself is that you can start right away. A change in attitude via a course of self development can bring around a new way to look, behave and feel about yourself and your life.
What could be the one thing that really changes it all for you? Location, job, money, new home, health, a new you. All of the above have the potential to really change your life. For instance:
Location:
If you were to move away to a different country, I mean imagine going to sleep one day and the next waking up in the middle of one of Japan’s major cities, your life would certainly be very different to what it was before; at least it would be if you are not from Japan or Asia for that matter. You would be forced into a world that is totally different from the one you are used to.
Traveling can really change your life; it can really shake things up for you on so many levels, new country, new language, new people, new customs, different food, totally different culture.
But what about moving to a new town in your own country? How much would your life change then? Maybe into a nicer neighborhood than the one you were living in previously. How much would this really change things for you?
Different furniture, different neighbors, different journey to work, different view out of the window, different shops to go shopping in? Moving to a different town or city can have the potential to provide new prospects, a chance to reinvent yourself, to forget the past and move on in your life.
Job:
What about a new job? How much more different would your life be if you had a new job? Different set of routines, new people to talk to, new boss, new office or other type of work environment. A new job is a real chance to make a change in your life. As soon as you start a new job; you can forget all about any previous jobs you have had and concentrate on making the best of the new opportunity you have been given. Perhaps make a good impression on your boss and make friends with your new work colleagues.
What about going for a promotion in your current company or organization, or maybe even working for yourself (self employed) or starting your own business? When you start your own business you’ll have very little option but to change certain aspects of your personality. Starting your own business or becoming self employed has the potential to change your life very much. Moving away from salaried employment to being your own boss would be challenging and would certainly create a change in your life.
What about a whole new career? Doing something you have never done before? A chance to learn and develop skills you didn’t even know you had. An opportunity to have a go at something new, start fresh in a career you perhaps put on hold for one reason or another when you were younger. A totally new line of work can bring real change into your life, after all work is what we spend most of our time doing? (Apart from sleeping)
Money:
The obvious candidate for providing real change in anybody’s life, how much would be life changing for you? But just exactly how would you use it to implement change in your life? New location? Bigger house? New lifestyle? Maybe you would still live in the same area you live now? Would a bigger house really change your life that much? I guess it depends on how money we are talking about here? But isn’t money just the means to an end. People want money because of what they think it will provide for them. More freedom, more luxuries, and more time to enjoy whatever it is they want to enjoy.
A large lump sum would change most people’s lives, but even with money people can still end up being dissatisfied with themselves and leading unhappy lives. Even if you never had to work you would still need to find a purpose in life, something to get you out of bed each morning. Money is just a provider for a whole lot of other things, it won’t necessarily change who you are on the inside, it can change your surroundings and lifestyle for sure, and a large lump sum would more than likely change your perspective on life.
Also see part 2
If you could design your ideal life, what would you do? Where would you be? Who would be with you? How would you spend your day? Have you ever wondered what your life could be like? How different it could be to what it is now? What would it be like if you were told to sit down for a few moments and design the rest of your life? Forget the past, it will be no indication of what is to come. Your future can be totally different.
Imagine you have a blank canvas, a great big piece of paper with nothing on it, all that is required is that you be prepared to imagine a life with no limitations, no thoughts of what you have or haven’t done in the past, just visions of what you would like for yourself and others in the future.
Really use your imagination with this exercise. Have fun with it!
Isn’t it great to know that your past does not have anything to do with how your future will be, and that from this day onwards your life can be a distant relative to how it used to be. It doesn’t have to be like this, it can be different and it is entirely down to you how different it can be.
But like anything you won’t just drift into your ideal life, it has to be created first. And then it has to be worked on, one piece at a time.
What are your plans for this week, this month? Do you know what you have to do today? Plans are fundamental to success in life, without a plan you have no roadmap for your journey, consequently you have very little chance of arriving at the place you want to get to. I think for big goals in life, you need to make plans on a frequent basis, not just once every few months but every week. In fact really successful people would probably set goals and make plans each day. Writing out their plans for the week ahead perhaps on Sunday night and reviewing them each day, ticking off what has been done.
When you work for somebody else, plans are easily forgotten about. You just go in, do your job for 8 hours and come back home. That’s it, your plan which was all in your head was to get up at 7am, get the bus to work, do your job, leave at 6pm, get home and do wh
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