CHANGE YOUR LIFE IN 60 SEC

 

Today’s Topic: Decision Time

Welcome 

Some of you may be here because you think it impossible to change your life. Rubbish! You can change any aspect of your life you just can’t see it yet. Some people never get past this and it’s such a shame. Life can be hard and it takes guts to make the decision to change your life, but you can change it. You simple need to know what you want, know the steps you have to take and then change it.

Change your life in a minute! How many books have your read on personal development? How many seminars have you attended? How many podcasts have you listened to? and how many blogs have you read to change your life? My guess would be that you’ve spent hours reading, watching and listening for ways to change your life for the better.  I know I have, I am a self help junkie and was forever searching for that elusive book that would change me forever.  I was looking externally for a lesson that would change me.  It took years to learn that my life was not going to change from a book or a seminar or a podcast or a blog.

Your life literally changes within the space of 60 seconds. Some of you will know exactly what I am talking about here and some of you might be thinking ‘what is the clown talking about!’ so read on.

Deciding to change

This might sound a bit too simplistic.  You might think this step is a given and that of course you want to change or you wouldn’t be investing all that time reading and listening to self help articles and seminars etc.  However ask yourself have you really thought about it?

Changing might involve changing your life totally, depending on your circumstances. I know people who have literally change the country they live, they’ve changed their friends, they’ve changed their house, and they’ve literally changed their surroundings which show a huge commitment. 

I firmly believe that to change a long standing habit in your life you have to remove yourself totally your habits surroundings.  I think a classic example of this is drug users. The ones, I have seen, come off the drugs quicker and more successfully are the ones who have literally removed themselves from their friends, their family, and their normal surroundings.  They have re-invented themselves elsewhere.  It’s like having one of those fairground machines where the mechanical arm picks up the teddy and you win the prize, it’s been taken out of its normal surroundings and given a new life.

Knowing what you might have to sacrifice in order to become a better you will it be worth it? If your answer is still yes and you have really thought about it and are willing to sacrifice then you have decided to change.

Knowing who you are

You know yourself very well and you know your feelings and thoughts about the world.  Maybe you’re wrong, maybe you have a skewed perception of yourself, maybe you’re comparing yourself to people you shouldn’t be.  When I was younger I used to try and be like Tom Cruise in the films Top Gun, Days of Thunder and Cocktail.  I wanted to be a confident, funny, go get them sort of person. It took me years to realise I wasn’t that person; I was quiet, confident, liked my own space and preferred to develop my intelligence rather than my list of conquests.

Who are you comparing yourself to? What do you think other people think about you?  Ask your friends how they see you and what type of person they see you as.  You have to be prepared for what you hear so don’t ask the question if you are not prepared for the answers. When you know who you really are and you still want to change aspects of your life. then you’re ready for the last step a changing.

Who do you want to be? You wouldn’t go to a strange place without first having a route map to find it.  So it is with life.  you have to know what and where you want to be in life before you can actually go there. You will know deep down if you really want to change.  You will know generally who you really are and you will probably know what you want to change.  Looking at these three aspects of change should only take you 60 seconds initially.

Who and where do you want to be next year?

Asking the right questions to change your life is vital. Personal development means absolutely nothing unless we are ready to change. We can read a hundred books, attend a hundred seminars, read a million blogs but it still won’t change us unless we are ready to change. A lot of us are looking for answers but we still haven’t formulated a question. Questions are key to solving anything whether it be a mathematical problem or your own life.

James Dyson asked the question; How could I get rid of the bag in the hoover without losing suction? Richard Branson asked the question: How can I compete with the big airlines? Robert Scoble asked the question: How can I change Microsoft’s public image? Darren Rowse asked the question: How can I make money blogging

Once you’ve formulated your question how do you know it’s the right question? The answer to that is: when it moves you toward a positive outcome for the good of yourself and harms no other. I have a friend who has been trying to get out of his current job for 2 years. The benefits and salary are the key things that hold him there. I have asked him several times ‘If you left your job just now, what would you want to do?’, to this day he still doesn’t know what he wants to do. He knows if he seriously asks himself this question it will be a step closer to making a decision and leaving the company. So if he doesn’t ask the question he can go on with his life and complain about his job.

It takes balls to ask the right question. There are many people in the situation I described above and many people who have still not asked the right questions and deep down don’t want to. Questions drive us forward, right questions change our lives. Think about this scenario and the questions we could ask:

You’re fat and you want to lose weight. You’ve lost a few pounds and are quite pleased with yourself and your progress. You are looking in the cupboards one day and see that packet of biscuits that the kids have not seen (rarely ever happens, but it could). What questions do you ask? Will one biscuit really do any harm? It’s only got 100 calories, surely that’s not going to harm me? I’ve done so well I should have some reward?

Are these the right questions to ask. Any overweight person knows, deep down, they are not. The right questions to ask in this situation could be: If I have this biscuit will it disrupt my program? Will this one biscuit throw out all the good work I’ve done? Will this one biscuit lead to another one? I’ve done so well, it’s crazy to stop now isn’t it?

Asking the right questions takes guts. If you are stuck in a situation and you have been asking yourself questions which are not driving you forward in some way try asking a different set of questions. As an example I have written about ‘paying off my mortgage to become a professional blogger’. I have an agreement with my wife that if I can pay off our mortgage I can give up my full time job and become a professional blogger. I like working however I want to work for myself but not have to worry about money whilst I am doing it. So I came up with paying off the mortgage.

Now my first questions were: How can I make money to pay off the mortgage? How can I get $75,000 ? What can I do to make that much money? When these questions are asked I felt doomed to fail, I felt this is an unreachable target. Then I realised I was asking the wrong questions. I started asking

What can I do to earn $1000  (If I can do $1000, I can replicate it 75 times) What service could I offer to help people who would pay me? What skills do I have that I could convert into money? What would be a win situation whereby people are getting something for paying me to do something?

So I came up with this blog, not the best way to make $75,000 but it offers readers an easy way to read the articles on my blog whilst helping me toward my goal.  There are also a few other things I have in mind. All this from changing my questions. I feel energised to really go for this goal and get to the target.

How to change your questions to change your life

If you have big goals, break them down. For example if your goal is to lose 30 pounds, start asking how you could lose 2 pounds. Do this 15 times and you have reached your goal. Sound too simple, that’s because it is, its our thinking that makes it hard.

Think of 5 questions for each problem

We often ask ourselves the same question over and over again. Ask 5 different questions to a problem you might be stuck with and start answering them all. This was you might have 5 different solutions.

Ask questions all the time

Ask yourself questions in every area of your life. How can I make my kids happier? How can I free up more time for myself? How can a work smarter? How could this process be improved? How can I become more organised? why have…..

When you ask questions in all areas of your life, you will gradually learn to ask good questions and filter out the bad questions. Practice is the key to changing your life and asking questions is a great skill to have.

What do you want to change in your life today?  Ask yourself this question often as we often get stuck in our life and stop thinking about what would make it better.