CREATING OUR LIFE DAY BY DAY

I once read that rather than always dreaming about going on holidays we should create a life we don’t feel we have to run away from. This comment really had an impact on me. We allow ourselves to get into such a position in life sometimes – the ‘daily grind’, working for someone else’s dream and we come home briefly almost before dark to run around doing daily chores, making meals, we sit down for a while to watch tv and then fall into bed, to do it all over again. Our weekends are spent trying to relax before we have to go back to work again. It’s no wonder we want to escape that kind of life and go on holidays.

Something really hit me today:

I AM creating my life….right now….every single day. 

It’s not something that’s years off – when I create a huge income, or when I get the dream home, but right now. 

Today was a great day. This afternoon Michael (hubby) and I went for a walk on the beach and then stopped in at the cafe across the road from the beach for a cuppa. We spent some time on the laptop looking at dream houses – somewhere we might like to live in the future as part of our visualisation. We came back to the lovely home we are living in and I made a yummy meal for us. We made the decision recently to do our exercise right on the beach as we live so close. I felt such a sense of happiness, of contentment and joy today.

Working through my list of things to achieve each day is helping me become so much more organised. I am achieving things each day that I had planned. I feel that I’m on an upward spiral of achieving things, of positivity, and of personal growth and empowerment. It really is an exciting time when you can feel things shift in your life.

I am just jumping out of my skin with how awesome this year is going to be – for all of us!

EMAIL: practice simple disciplines every day

One of my favourite personal development author's Jim Rohn once said that the formula for success is a few simple disciplines practiced every day.

Last year I felt swamped with emails.  I was subscribed to so many various newsletters, and getting daily offers from various companies that sometimes my inbox would have several thousand emails waiting for my attention.

I have unsubscribed from a lot, but there are some genuinely good newsletters there that I still want to receive.

This year I have made a commitment to spend just 15 mins a day (can even be while I'm watching tv) to give attention to my emails.  I am absolutely blown away by how easy it is to manage my emails now.

In just 1 week of putting this into practice I am on top of everything and have a mere 13 emails sitting in my inbox which I have read but are flagged for action for this Friday, so will stay there until they are completed.

I am really loving this new goal-achieving process I am working on of setting out my action steps each week in my diary and the ticking them off each day.  I can feel that 2015 is going to be on purpose with me taking a higher level of personal responsibility for achieving my goals.


Susan Dorrington
Lifestyle Mentor
Executive Income Specialist
Leadership Development Business Consultant
www.nolimitsbiz.info
_______________________________________________
remember, if working for yourself no longer works for you
... hire yourself!   www.hireyourself.com.au

WHAT ARE YOUR TOP 3 GOALS FOR THE YEAR?

Whether we have taken stock at the end of the year and have set new goals, or if we are just continuing with goals we have already had previously set, it’s a great topic to think and talk about. Do you keep your goals to yourself, or do you share them? True some goals may be personal and not to be shared. But do you find that sharing your main goals with others helps with your accountability? Once a goal is out there it becomes more compelling to follow through on your word.

I’m pretty excited about starting this year out with a set of 15 goals for 2015. What makes it so exciting for me is that I have full belief that I can achieve them.

Here are 3 of my top goals for the year:

1. Health: To lose 30 kg by 30 June 2015 (I also have a set of exercise and nutrition goals that support this).
2. Development – to do my Beyond Freedom Evolution program daily and to read a minimum of 12 inspiring books.
3. Business – to consistently do a 3-Plan and earn $150K this year.

So, what are your Top 3 Goal for the year? I’d love for you to share them here.

WHAT MAKES THIS YEAR ANY DIFFERENT?

It was the 1st Jan and I was working on my Action List and this thought popped into my head (obviously the Monkey chatter/doubting voice). It asked me (is a very doubtful tone): 

“What makes you think this year is going to be any different than last year…or the year before that”? 

My very first mental response was:

“ME! I’m different, so my year will be different”!

I love the growth we have here with our Beyond Freedom Evolution curriculum. It is continually opening my mind to new thoughts and concepts. It is always pushing me to grow and improve. It’s lifting me higher and higher every day. 

Before Beyond Freedom Evolution I felt broken, shattered and battered by all that life had thrown at me to that point. I felt this chasm inside of me like something was missing. But bit by bit I’ve been piecing myself back together. 

I feel whole now – I have all within me that I need. I love and respect and approve of myself. I have love and joy in my life. I have grown in my understanding of myself and don’t allow other’s bad or poor attitudes to become my own. I am very grateful for what I have learned and am continuing to learn each and every day.  What do you say to squash the Monkey Chatter when it starts in your mind?

PREPARING FOR A YEAR OF AWESOMENESS

We all know the saying “If you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail!” I look at the previous couple of years and my planning has left a lot to be desired. I have a diary/planner that I enter our Polaris training calls so I don’t miss any, I tick off my 6 daily steps to success when I do them and I write any times I have arranged to call someone for follow up, but that was about it. The last few months my diary/planner has evolved. It has become more about Action Lists and achieving what I set out to. If I complete a mini-goal for the day then I get a sticker in the diary (you know those ones we had as kids that said ‘well done’ or ‘great effort’ or just a smiley sticker or flower sticker – something that’s a bit silly and a bit fun and helps me celebrate the win.

Well, today I have taken it one step further. Yesterday I made a list of my top goals for 2015. 15 FOR 15! Yeah, I’ve got 15 goals on that list (thought the number was kind of appropriate!). I then examined each goal and planned out the steps I want to take to move towards achieving that goal…one small step at time. I planned which days I would take the action and charted it on a calendar. So now, I’ve got some real strategy involved – something to really work on.

I’ve just mapped out my first 4 days of the new year and what actions I will take on each of those days. That takes me up to Sunday when I’ve allocated an hour to do some ‘Strategic Planning’ and plan for the following week. For me, allocating a specific time to do these doesn’t work for me. Being a carer for my husband Michael I have to be quite flexible. And that’s the beauty of our Polaris Businesses – having the flexibility to work when and how we want to.
What I have done is create a daily Action List. I do love my lists – always have done, and it works for me, so having an Action List to check off each day is perfect. When I looked at all of my goals on the list and then printed off charts and calendars it seems a little overwhelming and thoughts of ‘how on earth am I going to get all that done’ came to mind. But once I wrote it all in the diary it actually looks so achievable that I’m excited to get stuck into it.

So, my goals are not just airy fairy dreams or ideas of what I want, but real concrete actionable items that I have strategies in place to actually achieve. Oh yeah…2015 is going to be AWESOME!

ANCHOR YOURSELF TO AVOID THE DRIFT

One of my favourite Jim Rohn quotes is: The formula for success is “a few simple disciplines practiced every day”. This reinforces how important following the 6 daily steps to success is.

I was standing in front of my bookcase today and picked up Jim Rohn’s book The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle. I was flicking through the pages and found the turned page corner with that very quote. I flicked back a couple of pages and found the formula for failure. I found this really interesting. We hear all the time – you only fail if you give up. But what leads up to that point where someone would give up? This is where the drift comes into play. Are you drifting? Or are you the captain of your own ship, in control, and steering your life where you want to go – towards your goals? Am I? In this book, it makes the point that failure’s most dangerous attribute is it’s subtlety. Little errors – in judgement, lack of action, in thoughts – these thing accumulate every day. We do something (or fail to do something), there does not seem to be any immediate consequence, the sky didn’t fall in, so we repeat that action…over and over and over, and before you know it time has gone by, we have drifted so far off course without even realising it. What we must wake up to is the consequences of not taking corrective action. For example, if our pattern was to eat the wrong foods on a daily basis, if not corrected this would result in health problems in the future. The pain and regret of our errors in judgement has just been delayed for a future time.

How can we turn this around? By following the quote mentioned at the start of this post – practice a few simple disciplines every day! You don’t have to make a grand gesture to renounce your former action and turn your life around. All it takes is small but consistent steps – every single day. It’s all about creating a new pattern or habit for yourself.

One of my current goals is: ‘to be balanced…in work, exercise, nutrition and fun’. So for me, this is a perfect time to assess and course correct those ‘simple disciplines’ in my life. One such discipline that I have been implementing into my life is to ensure that I make time every day to work on myself with our Beyond Freedom Evolution curriculum. It doesn’t have to be this big thing that I spend hours each day on – just 10-20 mins a day can make a huge difference, and it has been making a big difference for me. I have learned so much about how to be the best version of me, how to get what I want in life, and to really live with purpose. I have a lot to work on, but day by day I’m improving, growing into my skin, learning how to do this thing called life, and its giving me so much joy to have that sense of moving onward and upwards – all thanks to Beyond Freedom Evolution.

So how about you? What is one small discipline you can add to your daily method of operation?

Working for Someone Else vs Working from Home

What is the difference between having a job 

and working for yourself from home? 

Here are a few things that come to mind:

Trading Time for $$$

You go off to work - in an office or building or to a location where you do your work and you receive a salary at the end of the week/fortnight or month. Your salary is based on your job, your age, your experience and even on your sex.  (Men are paid more than women in the majority of positions even to this day).

In a home-business you are trading effort for dollars - you receive a profit from whatever you sell or for whatever service you provide. The beautiful thing about that is - there is no salary cap!  You can earn any amount of money based on your business model or fee structure and depending on the amount of time and effort you are willing to put into your business.

Finishing the Job

In a job you often only have to take care of your set of tasks - you may never see the end result.  You do your little part and then someone else takes over and does their bit. In fact I was told that it wasn't my job to do more.  I found over my career in corporate admin positions that this is quite common and very discouraging when you really want to go above and beyond on delivering good customer service.  It really dampened any enthusiasm I had for the 'process'.

As an entrepreneur it falls on your shoulders from start to finish!  It's a huge responsibility, but also a great buzz to finish the job - to see something through and to be the one who gets the results.

Rewarding Work

Are you enthusiastic about your job? Do you do your job well, really focus and get your work done quickly, only to be rewarded with - yeah, you got it - more work!  And then, because you are getting through your work quickly, you are forever more expected to work to that level.  You might find yourself getting burnt out, stressed, sick and not able to keep up with what is expected of you.  I've found myself in just that very situation in the past.  Work can be rewarding, but you need to pace yourself and slow down a little so you can achieve a little bit of balance.  But slowing down to an average level can put you to sleep, can rob you of your enthusiasm and can make you feel like a mindless drone.

For entrepreneurs it is exciting that you can get stuck into your work with as much enthusiasm as you can muster.  You can do all of your work in the morning if that is what you want and then you have the rest of the day to play!

Work/Life Balance

One of the greatest draw-cards for people looking to leave the rat race and work from home is the idea of having a work/life balance.  Working 8:30am to 5:30pm no longer works for most people.  Families have kids to collect after school, new Mum's find it heartbreaking to leave their little ones to go back to work.









Many single people just want more to do what they want and have fun rather than be tied down to working all the time. Then there are the people who love to travel but don't want to sacrifice having a regular income to do it.






The idea that you can work from anywhere with a laptop and a phone is very attractive and very flexible for many wanting a different lifestyle.

So, Job vs Business - which is better?  

Well, I can't answer that - only you can.  Think about what you really want, and if it is different than what you currently are doing, ask yourself "Am I prepared to do what it takes to do it".

Whatever your choice I wish you much happiness in life, love and career!


Susan Dorrington
Lifestyle Mentor
Executive Income Specialist
Leadership Development Business Consultant
_______________________________________________
remember, if working for yourself no longer works for you
... hire yourself!   www.hireyourself.com.au