Over the past 20 years we’ve helped thousands of people appraise their lives, change direction and make a positive life change. It’s what we do. So here is a simple 6 step plan to help you change your life as well.
Never before have so many of us had our lives completely up ended, shaken up, trampled on and then put down somewhere else. In a normal year, 30% of the working population will change jobs. In a year that we’re all still staggering through this will double, which works out at an unprecedented 19 million of us in the UK alone. The Word CV template must be on fire.
Step 1 Start At The End
Rather than look back and attempt a grand appraisal, let’s reverse the process and just think about where you want to be. Let me ask you something; if money wasn’t a problem and all sense of practicality has melted away like a Dali surrealist painting, what would your perfect life be like, what would you be doing and where would you be living? This is a great starting point. Don’t move any further until this is firmly in your mind.
Step 2 How close can you get to your ideal?
Now let’s introduce the reality bit again. How close can we get to your ideal in the real world? Bearing in mind the constraints of time and money what do you need to do to get from where you are now to where you want to be. Think of it like a map, so there may well be more than one or two ways forward, or several solutions to one problem. Which way looks the best to you? What are your next moves?
Step 3 What will get in the way
Identify very clearly the barriers to changing your life. These can range from negative personal qualities, such as self doubt, lack of confidence/ self esteem and self sabotage, to hard practical problems such as living in the wrong place, or not having the right skill set or qualifications. Whatever they are, write down what you can see right now that will get in the way.
Step 4 The Plan
You’re now ready to write out the plan. It does actually help to write it out and be able to see it more clearly and a bit more objectively. Write your map however it makes sense to you, this maybe just a few notes, or a list, or a diagram or an actual map. However it suits you best, and whatever the plan is, whether its straight forward or complicated, write it down. After a day or two come back to it and see what it looks like. Tweak it where necessary, or if it seems right, start again. Make sure you don’t go any further until the plan is set and firmly in your mind.
Step 5 Importance and Confidence
There’s an interesting dynamic which predicts positive life changes, and this is, how important you feel the change is to you coupled with how confident you feel that the change will work out. Give yourself a score from 0 to 10 on both scales, and then ask yourself what you can do to increase these scores. So for example, if you scored yourself 5 out of 10 for confidence that your plan will work ask yourself what will help to move that score from 5 up to 6 or 7. It maybe something like enlisting the help and support of a friend, or finding out more hard information. Again write down the things that will increase your scores on both scales.
Step 6 Moving To Action
Finally, the last step, putting it all into practice. Often at this point things go wrong. We launch off too soon or we’re not quite ready. If this does happen, just go back to the plan, and make sure that you have covered everything that you need to first of all. Take one step at a time and stick to the plan. If you lack confidence at any stage, just think to yourself what will help to move that confidence score up a good few notches.
Many good life plans are difficult, and if you are experiencing difficulty, do give us a shout, we’ve been helping people make their life plans work for over 20 years.
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Thanks for reading.
Alex.
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