Almost 10 years ago, the book and movie The Secret was an overnight success. The Secret is based on the Law of Attraction and claims that positive thinking can create life-changing results. Whether we realize it or not – we have all been using The Law of Attraction to get what we have in our lives today.
In a recent Blog Post (Halfway), I mentioned the system that I use to design my ideal life. I want to share that with you today.
Step 1 – Get clarity on where you are NOW.
We are going to take a quick inventory on the important areas of your life. With this, we can establish a baseline, with no judgment.
We’re going to start with “The Wheel of Life”. Take a couple of moments and rank your wheel of life. For each of the 8 categories in the below wheel (you can change categories to priorities that are important for you), determine how happy you are with that area in your life. The center of the circle represents – 0, not happy at all – the outer circle represents 10 – this area of my life could not get any better. Imagine a scale from 0 to 10 on each line. Draw a line for each category depending on how you would rank from 0 through 10. Now look at your wheel, if this was a wheel on a car, how well would your car travel?
Step 2 – Get clarity on where you want to go
Now we are going to write the story of your future. Here are the rules, you are going to write about all the things you want and love – sky’s the limit. You cannot let your limiting beliefs or thoughts come into play (you know the chatter – I’d love to have that but there is no way as I don’t have a degree, I’m not smart enough, I’m not good enough, I don’t know the right people, live in the right place, etc. etc.).
We’re going to do a 1-3-5 Year Plan. Start with 5 Years and start writing Your Ideal Life – using all the categories from your Wheel of Life – NO LIMITATIONS. WHAT DO YOU WANT?
- Physical Environment – Where do you want to live in five years? What does your house look like, how is it decorated, how does it make you feel? Do you have a view? How does it make you fell?
- Friends & Family – Who are you spending time with? What activities are you doing? What are the sights, smells, sounds, and feelings? What are the characteristics about these people that you like? Do these relationships lift you up or bring you down?
- Money & Career — How much money do you have and what are you doing in your career? What contributions are you making? How it is touching/impacting your life? What is your “WHY” for making money and building wealth? Keep digging, keep asking WHY. A good friend of mine recently shared a saying I love, “Your WHY will make you CRY”. When you get clear on your WHY – you’ll be able to move mountains.
- Health – How is your health? What are you doing to take great care of yourself?
- Significant Other, Romance – what is your perfect relationships? How are you spending times together? Are you taking trips? What special things do you do for each other?
- Spirituality/Personal Growth – what are you doing to grow YOU? How are you filling your soul? Are you investing in your personal growth?
- Fun/Recreation –What are you doing for fun? Is it travel? Is it a hobby? What makes your heart sing?
Don’t sell yourself short – take some time with this process. After you’ve finished your 5 Year Plan, start on the 3 Year Plan. What needs to happen by Year 3 to make sure you’re on track for your 5 Year Plan. Then your 1 Year Plan – what needs to happen in 1 Year to be on track?
Most people don’t achieve what they want because they lack the clarity. Get crystal clear on what you want and it is amazing how the Universe steps up to help you achieve it.
Step 3 – Feel as though you already have it
There are a couple of things you can do for this step.
- Vision Board – Get a poster board and find pictures/sayings/words in magazines of all the things that you want. Paste these images onto your board and hang it in a place you’ll see it every day. Crystal clarity – turn your vision into something you can see.
- Visualization – Spend a few minutes each day in silent meditation. This is a great time to clear your mind, practice breathing and visualize all the things that you want. See yourself living and having your hearts desire, feel the excitement, gratitude, pride, happiness. If you’re busy – spend just 3 minutes each day.
Step 4 – Take action – baby steps every day
For your 1-year plan, start breaking the categories down into bite-size pieces of things you can do. When we look at the big picture – it can be overwhelming. I don’t know about you – but when I focus on everything to get to the end result – I get stuck. So we’re going to eat the elephant one bite at a time. Create realistic, easy things you can do everyday to get to your goals.
About 8 years ago I created a vision board that had a picture of a woman, sitting by this beautiful, serene pool. I no longer have that board – but I can see it still – the picture was in the bottom, right corner. She was reading a book. I was always drawn to that picture and just thought that “space” was heaven – so relaxing and inviting. At that time our backyard was filled with cedar trees – we really didn’t have a back yard; we had a forest. We knew we wanted our house to feel like a retreat, but at that time we didn’t have any clarity. The interesting thing when I created that vision board – the thought of putting a swimming pool in our backyard hadn’t even crossed my mind.
A year later, we decided to do some remodeling work on our house – and started thinking about a pool. It was all so effortless and just came together with ease. We had the vision, finding pictures to help us get clarity and our amazing construction team was able to put it together.
WHAT DO YOU WANT? For me, the only thing ever standing in my way is MYSELF. Happy creating – I’d love to hear your creation stories!
Adventure Toward Freedom 