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By Phil, November 17, 2009 2:54 pm

Before we start, thanks for reading Less Ordinary Living and I hope you find some inspiration.  I’m Thinking Big to get 1,000 subscribers for Less Ordinary Living (currently 72), please click here and subscribe to never miss a post.  Thanks to every one of you for reading. Enjoy!

Reading time: 3 minutes and 2 seconds

We’re all human and change can be tough.  Its easy for us to get stuck in a rut, or in our comfort zone – and this can lead to our good intentions and Big Thinking dying on the vine.  Nasty things like fear and emotion can sometimes block us from action.

Getting unstuck and out of a rut is challenging.   I always start out by taking baby steps.  For example, looking at my personal vision and goals, my first step is to identify my most urgent goal.  Currently this is getting more involved in my community and building out my network of friends.  My goal in 5 years time is to be a leader of a community organisation, and to be an active member of a two other groups focused on areas of personal interest.  The next question is – what can I do this week to move forward with this?

I’ve learned that to successfully achieve goals like this I need to take two parallel tracks – taking actions in the world around me, and working on what goes on between my two ears in my internal world.  To achieve my goal I came up with the following plan that covers both areas:

1. Actions in the outside world – I’ve already researched community groups that interest me on the internet and identified an organisation called Slow Down London and a local running club.  I’ll commit to calling a representative of Slow Down London to find out more about how I can be involved.  I’ll also commit to going to the running club next week to see how I enjoy it.  Making these real life commitments and keeping them moves me towards my goal and vision.
2. Actions in my inner world – Although I’m a sociable and outgoing person, I have always avoided joining groups and societies.  Something inside me has held me back from this for all of my adult life.  I’ve been meaning to attend this running club for nearly a year now and haven’t done it.  To successfully achieve the goal in a sustainable way, I need to understand more about this and overcome this issue, or the initial actions I take will probably quickly fade away.  I’ll commit to observing the thoughts and emotions that come up this week as I take my first steps.  Perhaps I’ll identify a fear of rejection if I turn up to the running club and no-one talks to me the first time.  I know that I have a tendency to think I can do things better than anyone else (I’m wrong of course), and get frustrated in group situations, so I’ll look out for that feeling.  I’ll record the thoughts, emotions and stories I’m telling myself about groups, and spend time analysing them to see what is working for me and what isn’t.  I’ll come up with different ways to think about clubs and different stories to tell.  If I commit to this and work hard at it, it should make it easier for me to happily commit to clubs and societies in the future.

I know that joining a new group is hard for me and the physical action of doing so will help.  However, unless I can get my head straight, it will never get any easier.  So taking the first step, actually involves taking two steps and each is vital.  At the beginning, I said that making change is hard for us, and this explains why.

So how can you take your first step?  Follow this simple process to design your actions this week:

1)   Identify your most pressing challenge or area that you want to work on (for me, my community)

2)   Identify the specific area for development (for me, involvement in community groups)

3)   Design some specific actions to take that are realistic over the next week.  Remember that great journeys start with a single step, so don’t overdo it

4)   Think about how your thoughts, emotions, fears, beliefs and stories might be impacting your ability to be successful.  Determine to observe these over the next week without judgment and write these things down.  When did you feel fear and what was behind that?  What stories did you tell about yourself (I’m not good with new people) that might stop you in your tracks.  Consider which thoughts might be holding you back and analyse them – is that story, fear or emotion realistic?  How could you think in a different way or tell a different story that would be more helpful in achieving your goals?

This approach was difficult and frustrating when I first tried it, however over time and with practice it has become more instinctive.  If you can stick with it, you’ll find it gets easier to take the actions in the external world as you remove the mental and emotional blocks you’ve built up.  Week by week you’ll start to get unstuck and make steady progress towards living your vision and achieving your goals.

So now you have the three steps that I use to think big and make it happen– creating a vision, setting a 5 year plan, and taking external and internal steps to achieve this.  The world is your oyster, so think big and make the most of your life!

For the rest of this year, Less Ordinary Living will focus on making the most of 2010, so please subscribe to make sure you don’t miss a post!

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By Phil, November 10, 2009 3:11 pm

Reading Time: 2 minutes and 53 seconds – Value: Priceless

Find your vision

The next three posts on Less Ordinary Living, are about Thinking Big and creating a powerful, clear vision for the next decade (and beyond).  At the end you’ll have a no-holds barred plan for the future, which will help you make the most of your personal and professional potential, and feel happier and more confident.  Please take part over the next three posts and encourage all your friends and family to do the same.

I’ve been trying to think big over the last few weeks and the biggest challenges I’ve faced are my own thoughts and emotions.  I’ll suggest a big dream like running a marathon and raising money for charity and… BOOM – I start thinking about how hard the training will be.. POW – I feel afraid that I might fail and let all my sponsors down.  It’s easy to think ourselves out of the life we’d like or to get afraid of failing.

A technique I’ve found particularly helpful in overcoming these challenges is to create a vision of the future.  Most of us like to daydream and start imagining what life could be like.  We create an image of a life where we are fabulous happy and have time to do all the things we’ve always wanted to.  I’ve found that if I can grant myself permission to dream for half an hour without any critical thoughts I can really start to think big.

Visualisation is an incredibly powerful tool in preparing for the future.  Professional sportspeople use visualisation to prepare for a big race or tournament.  Neurological studies have found that the same parts of the brain fire in the sportsperson’s brain when they visualise as when they actually compete.  So visualising helps us practice the future and train our minds to focus on what we want to achieve.  I’m trying to take time to visualise my vision as much as possible and finding it helps to quieten some of the negative thinking and fear that arises.

One exercise I’ve found particularly helpful for this process is the Party.

In this exercise you find somewhere comfortable and set aside 30 minutes.

• First, you make an agreement with yourself that you’ll allow yourself to dream without judgment or fear.
• Now close your eyes and start to imagine that you are at your 90^th birthday party and are surrounded by the most important people in your life.
• Everyone has gathered together to celebrate your life (so far!) and to talk about you.
• Start to imagine who is at the party, where it is being held and take a minute or two to walk around and just soak it all in.  Don’t worry if it takes a while to see it – that is natural.
• Once you are ready, let the toasts begin, as the most important people in your life talk about you
• Some people might talk about the amazing things that you’ve done in your life – how you travelled the world, gave your time to a charity, were a loving family member or parent.
• Others might recall some of the great times they spent with you – the parties, the holidays, the projects, the businesses they worked on with you, or just the quiet times.
• Others will talk more about the kind of person you are – your best qualities – kindness, love, compassion, dynamism, sense of humour.
• Take some time to enjoy the party and listen to what everyone is saying – what are the most important things that are coming through about you.
• Once you’ve heard everything you need to hear, call the party to an end by thanking all the guests and being grateful for their role in your life.
• Now take a little time to write down the key ideas in a notebook or journal – think about some of the key achievements, the good times and importantly how you applied your best qualities.

This exercise helped me to really get an understanding of the vision for my life.  It clarified my priorities, identified a few really key things that I’d like to do, and helped me to work out what kind of person I’d like to be today.  I’ve used it several times to firm up my vision and to get a clear picture of the life I’d like to lead.

So, step one of the Thinking Big process is to create your vision of the future.  Don’t feel you need to get out your crystal ball and get every detail right – and don’t feel that this will tie you to achieving the exact vision you create.  The vision is guide for how to act each day and the direction to take – but just a guide.  Often life will create opportunities we couldn’t even have dreamt of.   As your vision develops, spend time with it and learn to quieten the doubts and any negative emotions that arise.

Congratulations – you have taken the first step to creating your vision for the future.  Next time, we’ll look at how to plan for the next five years.  Take a minute to subscribe by clicking here to make sure you don’t miss the next two parts.