Ten Things to Change Your Life in 2011

Ten Things to Change Your Life in 2011

Written by Andrew Wilkin

Background

At this time of year several things happen that cause people to re-evaluate their life. For example people meet family and friends they may not have seen for a while, reminding them that they have not moved on or taken action since they last met. It could be the big family get together over the Christmas dinner table, that feeling of being trapped and bringing back those painful childhood memories that had been locked away. Perhaps it is the break from the rat race and the realisation that this is not the real world, and another year of life has passed by.

Taking Steps to Change Your Life

Sometimes it is just the fact that you are trapped in a cycle of inaction that overwhelms us, but realise this sitting around moping about it will not change your life for the better. It amazes me how people listen to their negative self talk and that it colours everything in the world around us. If I'm in a negative state of mind, then my interpretations of the things around me will serve to reinforce this.

There is an interesting thought, for a moment just accept it to be true, as we act in a certain way our actions will eventually become us on the inside. For example being happy on the outside for long enough, having a good time with friends, eventually your inner state will come to match your outside. So take the ten things to change your life in 2011 below, you can choose to do as many or as few as you want, and realise that if you don't change you can't expect things around you to either.

As Albert Einstein once said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

#1 - Set Your Goals

Buy yourself a copy of Goals! by Brian Tracy and learn about what makes you tick and what you are trying to achieve in life. You may be surprised that you are spending your energies chasing something that is not what you really want to achieve, and if you got it there would be a big anti-climax.

You may be sabotaging yourself in attaining things because subconciously it is not something that you really want or the goals are contradictory (congurent) with other things that are important to you. One technique that Brian Tracy suggests doing is writing out your top 10 goals on a 5x3 piece of card, do this action daily for 30 days without looking at your previous day's card. By the end of the 30 days if your goals have settled down then you will find you have probably got a better idea of what is important to you.

#2 - Realise That Limitations Are Mainly In Your Head

This is generally hard for people to accept, but the majority of limitations are not real but exist only in your head. These self limiting beliefs mean that people choose not to take action as they have convinced themselves it will not work for them or they cannot do it. By changing your mindset you can achieve so much more, moving yourself from this stuck state.

Rather than thinking about the reasons why you can't do something, think of all the reasons why you can. Give this a go next time you find yourself saying to yourself 'I can't do that because...', say to yourself 'If this were not a problem, what steps could I take now to achieve this'. There are a whole number of techniques to tackle this, one way you can learn some really cool techniques for addressing this is by taking an NLP course. One of my favourite trainers here in the UK is Jamie Smart, almost like the maverick counter-exampler of NLP.

#3 - Stop Blaming Others

I know a number of people that spend much of their life blaming others for the situation that they find themselves at any point in time. In someways this is linked to the limitations issue described above. This is a very corrosive state of mind to be in, by constantly blaming others for things tht happen to us is defeatest. It is to say that we are victims of things around us, and have a lack of control.

Be accpeting of others, and instead of blaming others of where you find yourself or what has happened or is happening to you, it is better to ask yourself what the best thing you can do now to be in a better place. You see now here's the thing, it has to be stated in the positive as well. It is believed that our unconcious mind acts far better in this frame of mind.

By the way, I do no endorse the happy clappy positive mental attitude movement, however in general there is still something to be drawn from this. It is generally better to be positive than negative in state of mind, and by no longer looking to apportion blame you are less likely to slip into an unhelpful negative state.

#4 - Meet New People

There are many many other people out there in the world that are fun and interesting, but we will not get to know them by sitting on our sofa in front of Eastenders or by randomly connecting to people on Facebook. Likewise where you choose to meet new people will have a profound effect on the value of your network and your life. It is unlikely a new acquaintance from a night club is going to have the same impact on your life as a meeting with some people who are successful in what they do.

As the saying goes, if you want to be successful, surround yourself by successful people. In order to do this you need to go where the successful people go in order to meet the people that are going to help you change your life in 2011.

#5 - Learn Something New

If you're going to meet new people, with the right attitude, you might as well do something that is going to add to your repetoir of skills and knowledge. For some of you reading this the last time you formally learnt something was from school or university, and have resisted doing anything ever since. Unlike back then, realise that you can now choose to learn subject areas that really add to your life.

Take for example you want to learn how to be a better public speaker, or increased confidence in doing so, why not do so by investing in yourself by going to Toastmasters. You'll meet people that want to further their lives and help others, and learn new skills in the process.

If you're going to learn something new, do it with the right intentions, don't just look for a formal qualification. For me when I did my MBA, I did it for the knowledge and not the three letters after my name, which if I'm honest I have never resorted to using.

#6 - Increase Your Income

To paraphrase Richard Bandler, 'One choice is no choice, two choices is better, three choices and now we're finally starting to get somewhere'. Money is one of the great enablers, if gives us options which leads to better choices. While you don't have enough money to pay the bills or to live our lives differently, our choices are restricted.

Look for ways in 2011 to generate an additional income over and above what you earn in your regular day job. When you find this way of making additional income, use the money you make to reduce your short term debt burden. As Robert Kiyosaki suggests, you need to get bigger than your problems, and if you need to pay off debt or feather the nest you should look for means that will give you a chance to achieve this.

What do I mean by this, well there is no point taking a job paying minimum wage at the weekends to supplement your income in your normal day job, unless you get the opportunity to increase your skillsets to further your earnings or the possibility to rise the ranks. What do I mean by this, well lets say you earn for simplicity sake you earn £6 an hour, worked for 8 hours on a Saturday. If you had a credit card debt of £5k it would take you probably betwen 2 and 3 years to repay it through these means.

Wouldn't it be better to choose something where you can increase your hourly rate accross all of your working time, even during the week? By choosing what you do to earn your additional income carefully you will be in a far better place to not only repay your debts but actually spend money on thngs that you want to such as a holiday in the sun (if of course you can get a flight that takes off with recent weather).

#7 - Apply the 80:20 Rule To Your Life

The rule states that 80% of something is caused by 20% of something else. For example 80% of the wealth in the world is owned by 20% of the people, or 80% of the success in your life and your career comes from 20% of your actions. The reality is that this may be more like the 90:10 rule...

So isn't it strange then that if your success comes from just 10% of your actions, if you just concentrated more effort on the 10% of your actions you would increase your levels of success. If you say you simply don't have the time to do this, either get better with your time planning and organisation, or give up doing things that will never get you there.

Companies practice this regularly at this time of year by implementing zero based budgeting, the reason why they do this is that they do not fall into the mental trap of sunk costs or efforts. You should look to do the same, if you worked hard at something for the past few years, but it got you nowhere, then evaluate if you really think it will in 2011...

#8 - Take Advice From the Right People

I am always amazed by people that seek counsel and heed advice from people that are more screwed up then them. You probably should not take financial advice from someone who is living on the street, nor should you take health advice from your mothers friends without a large pinch of low sodium salt.

This is true in network marketing arena too, many people get put off by others that have no knowlHave edge of it and call it a pyramid, or say that you cannot succeed in it because they did not do so when they joined that opportunity some years back when they treated it like a get rich quick scheme.

So when taking advice from someone, weight it with the credibility that it is due. Likewise if you are seeking advice that will help you take the right course of action then seek out someone that is not only likely to understand your situation and the subject but has actually got an ability to pass that knowledge to you. As there is no point finding someone that knows the subject well but cannot help you or guide you to take action.

#9 - Stop Looking For the Acceptance of Others

Many of us go through life looking for reassurance of us, like we are constantly sending out sonar echoes and waiting for the responses of others. This is probably something we have carried forth from our childhood into our adult lives. Realise this, we all take into the world the baggage from our past we have been unable or unwilling to shed, and the acceptance given to us by others is also coloured by their baggage.

This is similar to taking advice from people, however this tends to happen at a deeper level. When you tie up so much energy in trying to win the acceptance of others, we lose sight of what we are trying to achieve, and tone down our actions or get caught in action. Now I'm not saying you set out to cause offence to others, just that you need to realise you can't be like Muttley from the Wacky Races wanting to get a medal for everything you do.

As Tom Hopkins says, as you climb the ladder of success to the top, don't be surprised if others choose to pull you down rather than climb the ladder too.

#10 - There Is No such Thing As Mistakes, Only Feedback

Things can and do go wrong, it's part of life. If you spend all your efforts focusing on what wrong, you can lose site of what went right. This NLP presupposition basically says that every thing that went wrong gives you an opportunity to learn from it, and rather than beating yourself up about it, use it to move yourself forward. By this, don't come out of something that went wrong and say I'm nver doing that again.

Now some people say to me, 'Andy but this was a really expensive mistake how can that be a learning experience', well I have been there too and trust me I have paid over the odds for some of my learning experiences, but it is about having the right frame of mind that allows you not to get caught in the mental trap the spirals downwards into a pit of despair, rather something that is going to help you move forward in your life faster than you have done before.

Adopting this attitude takes some getting used to, and is not always easy, but it is certainly more positive than wallowing in defeat. Napolean Hill in Think and Grow Rich talks at length about the need to dust yourself down and learn, and think of Thomas Edison with the 1000 attempts to make a lightbulb. My twist on this, is to seek advice from the appropriate counsel to help you make the most from this feedback where you can.

Take Steps

An ancient proverb said that every journey of a thousand miles begins with that first step. One of the great ways of taking a large number of the steps above to improving your life in 2011 is by joining a network marketing opportunity, because by joining the right opportunity and team you will:

Meet new people, who are positive and motivated to further themselves and others
Learn a whole bunch of new skills that will further your life
Be mentored by people that already have coaching and business skills to help you achieve success
Add to your income by generating a second income
Guided through setting your goals and determining what you want

If something here resonates with you, then why not take the next step and register to join our team and get a great head start in 2011.