Читать книгу Transform Your Life: 10 Steps to Real Results - Carole Gaskell - Страница 9
ОглавлениеFor easy reference the 10-step process is in two parts:
Part 1: Preparing your Launch Pad, Steps 1–5, focuses on helping you to build firm foundations from which you can lift off and transform your life. You’ll be looking at who you are, who you want to be and what’s important to you.
Part 2: Real Results, Steps 6–10, will take you through an effective action plan, enabling you to achieve the real results you want in your life.
Part 1: Preparing your Launch Pad
Step 1: See the Bigger Picture will set you up for success by helping you to see your life from a new perspective, encouraging you to develop invaluable qualities to take your life to the next level and reminding you of the importance of picturing the results you want at the beginning.
Step 2: Build the Right Foundations will ensure you establish a strong power base from which to launch the next phase of your life. You’ll be inspired to take good care of yourself, create an inspiring environment and develop a powerful framework of support around you.
Step 3: Spring Clean your Life will empower you to de-sludge and de-clutter, streamlining your life so that you gain more energy, space and clarity. You’ll be encouraged to remove any distractions and obstacles likely to block your way ahead.
Step 4: Value your True Essence will get you to focus on your achievements and strengths, delegate your weaknesses and connect with your own special essence.
Step 5: Focus on What Really Matters is the final element of your launch pad. Here you’ll learn how to identify your values, be encouraged to set well-defined boundaries and high personal standards and clarify what is truly important to you.
Step 6: Clarify your Vision and Goals will encourage you to ‘think big’ as you create your vision, connect with your dreams, clarify your intentions and define your goals.
Step 7: Make Time Work for You will see you starting to plan ahead. You’ll learn how to manage yourself superbly so you achieve more in less time.
Step 8: Shape Up your Finances gets you to look at your money situation, strengthen your financial foundations and establish ways of propel ling yourself forward financially.
Step 9: Attract the Relationships You Want will help you to determine what relationships you want, understand your needs and how to get them met, improve your powers of communication and become more attractive to yourself and others so that you can harness the power of synergy in your life.
Step 10: Get into the Flow inspires you to pull the whole process together and gives you the confidence to live in the land of opportunity. Connecting your powerful foundations with your big vision and your small steps will enable you to take action to bring your plans into reality, create momentum and get into the flow of transforming your life!
There is a huge difference between understanding the theory and putting it into practice. The real value in coaching is the role it plays in empowering you to take action to do what you say you want to do. But once you’ve taken the first few steps you’ll find that you (and your life) will start to gather momentum. It may take time to fully integrate all the elements of transformation, but the more steps you take, the more you’ll find yourself ‘in the flow’ and the sooner you’ll start enjoying the life you really want.
The Format of Each Step
For ease of reference, each step follows the same pattern. Every chapter begins with a brief Overview of the step and a clear indication of the results you’re likely to achieve when you’ve completed it. If you can picture the end result at the beginning, you’ll have a greater chance of bringing it into reality!
Next comes the Personal Reward section where I ask you to write down how you’ll reward yourself when you’ve finished the step. The completion of each step is a significant milestone along your path of transformation and I want you to recognize it as such. Acknowledging your progress to date is a valuable lesson in itself! As you go through a process of change it’s very easy to drive yourself forward, focus on what’s next and overlook what you’ve already achieved. It’s important to give yourself rewards as you go. Treats could include a night out with friends, a massage, a box of chocolates, a long walk, a trip to a health club – you decide. Celebrate the little wins as well as the big ones and enjoy your transformation process.
This is followed by a Quick Transformation Quiz of 20 questions. Note your score as you begin each step and again when you’ve completed it. The maximum score on each quiz is 40 points. My challenge is for you to score a minimum of 32 points on every quiz once you’ve completed the book!
Each step then features Five Sections, each represented by a star. These include a combination of information, quotes, questions and assignments. As you complete each section, colour in your step by step progress tracker.
Then there are Key Insights Gained from the Step, where you can list the five most valuable insights you’ve learned from each step. Doing this will help you to commit these core elements to memory. Just write down key words or even draw a picture to remind yourself of the important points.
As well as insights, in Quick Wins Gained from the Step you can list breakthroughs and changes you’ve already started to make to enhance your life, and in The Action Steps You Now Agree to Take you can list the actions you’re now willing to take to transform your life.
Finally, for each step there are Real Results – some life histories to inspire you!
Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
Martin Luther King
Getting the Most out of the 10 Steps
Just by reading, absorbing the information and following the exercises, you’ll begin to actually experience the benefits of lifecoaching. You are the creator of your life, no one else, so the more effort you put into answering the quizzes and questions and taking action on the assignments, the more results you’re likely to achieve. Why not start now? It’s never too early (or too late) to start to transform your life!
Familiarize Yourself with the Process
Before you start going through the steps in detail, you might find it useful to quickly skim over the chapters to familiarize yourself with the process. The steps themselves can be followed in sequence or you may prefer to focus on the sections that appeal to you the most. Go with whatever works best for you. Some people find that following two steps in parallel can work very well. (You may be tempted to skip over the steps in Part 1, but I would strongly advise against this, as you’ll find the insights you gain from Steps 1 to 5 will strengthen you and save you time in the long run.)
Like anything in life, some concepts in the book will work brilliantly for you while others may have little value. We all respond to things in different ways. If you find yourself stuck on a step, making no headway, leave it. Take what works for you and leave the rest. But stay open-minded and give yourself the opportunity to see things afresh. You could be pleasantly surprised by the results!
As life is constantly changing and moving in cycles, you may find you want to revisit a step several times. The process can provide the structure for a regular review that you can return to year after year as you perfect different elements of your life.
Progress at your own Pace
Remember, there’s no rush. Whether the changes you are making are fast or slow, subtle or fundamental, it’s up to you. But even small changes can have a significant impact over the long term!
Make Yourself Accountable to Someone
No man is an island and one of the great benefits of lifecoaching is the synergy between the coach and client. People can often achieve a lot more by pooling their resources and supporting each other – two heads can be better than one. Bearing this in mind, I suggest you get the support of someone – perhaps a friend, family member, work colleague or even a coach – as you work through this book. You’ll derive great benefits from sharing your thoughts and insights with another person.
Any process of change will, at some point, bring you face to face with thoughts or issues that you would perhaps prefer not to look at and your support person may also be able to help you with these ‘growing pains’.
Your helper will act as a constant reminder of who you want to be and what you want to achieve. You need someone who will stand by you through thick and thin, someone you can trust to support you, hold you to your commitments, and keep you on track.
I want to make myself accountable to:
Allow Yourself ‘Quiet Time’ to Think Things Through
When working through the 10 steps, after reading a specific section you might want to stop and ponder for a while. I actively encourage you to do this. Sometimes it’s during the gaps between our thoughts that we gain the real answers to our life’s questions.
To do this, I suggest that you take yourself to a quiet inspirational place in your home. You might want to play your favourite music, sit in your favourite chair, light a candle, look at your favourite view – do whatever is necessary for you to fully access your thoughts. If you prefer, a visit to your local café or park or a drive in your car might spark your imagination and give you the answers you’re looking for. Remember, the answers are inside you, so the more comfortable and ‘at one’ you feel with your environment, the easier you’ll find it to open yourself up, increase your awareness and draw the answers to you.
Keep your insights in a Journal or Notebook
As you work through this programme you’ll probably want to make notes or jot down your answers to some of the questions. You’ll find it useful to keep all your thoughts, insights and action plans together in a journal or notebook – so why not treat yourself to one now, before you begin?
Here’s to the first day of the rest of your life!
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain
Step by Step Progress Tracker
As you work through the steps track your progress by colouring in each star section as you complete it.
Part One: Preparing your Launch Pad
Part Two: Real Results
