Answer the few questions listed below and see if you are living the live you really want:
- How satisfied are you with your career, relationships, health and finances?
- If you won twenty million dollars today, would you change anything or everything in your life?
- If you would immediately change almost everything in your life, if you won all that money, why are you not doing anything about it right now?
- Why are you allowing yourself to live an unfulfilled life of dissatisfaction?
If these questions have highlighted the fact that you are living a life, which is less than ideal, you are not alone. My experience has shown me that only a very small percentage of people actually get to live the life of their dreams. The rest, allow themselves to remain trapped in unhappy, empty lives, stuck on the hamster wheel of discontentment.
I speak from experience, as I lived the first 35 years of my life trapped in a cycle of unfulfilling careers, relationships and although I always managed to generate great income, I never really created any meaningful level of sustainable wealth. Even though, I have owned and operated a number of very successful, yet diverse businesses over the years, in many different sectors, from conferencing/tourism - engineering and manufacturing.
None of these careers offered me any real satisfaction; I was involved in all of them for the wrong reasons. It was only when I finally decided to begin following my dream to become a professional speaker that writes, researches and travels the planet, teaching and helping other people how to realise their full potential, that I began to feel fulfilled and content.
I want to offer you a few tools and techniques that I have learnt over the years, which will help you to make the shift necessary, to begin making the positive changes you need in your life, so that you too can start doing what you love. These tools and techniques are common sense and when applied in your life consistently, will allow you to gradually make the shift into a satisfying life, which excites and invigorates you.
Identify and Leverage your Strengths
Do you remember when you were at school and you were getting an A for English and a C for math? How your parents and teachers encouraged you to work really hard on your math and not on your English, so that you could improve on your weak areas. This concept of working on our weaknesses has stuck with us and although this is not the first time you are hearing that you should ignore your weaknesses and focus only on your strengths, I am sure that you are still focusing a whole lot of your energy on attempting to improve your weaknesses.
It is time to identify your unique skills, talents, advantages and abilities and to focus all your energy on improving these. Ignore your weaknesses and get people that play at what you struggle to do, to help you in your areas of weakness. The first step is to invest time into identifying your areas of strength and to begin the process of re-invention. Where you begin to move your life from unsatisfying and mediocre, to a place where you love who you are and you adore what you do.
Make the commitment today, to identify what it is you really want to do with the rest of your life and then begin the process of growing and improving your own special gifts every day, until you become the type of person that can live exactly that life.
Begin the process of re-invention by asking yourself these few questions:
- What do I do better than almost everyone I know?
- What do I really enjoy doing?
- What comes really easy and naturally to me?
- What attribute or skill do people often compliment me on?
- What skill or attribute do I possess that inspires me to practice?
Know what you want to do and what exhilarates and excites you
Have you ever asked the question," what really excites and exhilarates me, what is my passion"? The answer does not need to be earth shattering or revolutionary. More often than not the answer you will come up with will be simple and aligned with your unique skills abilities and talents.
When searching for the answer to this question ask yourself these few questions:
- What are the things you really enjoy to do in your life?
- What careers really excite you?
- What markets do you enjoy?
- What products do you enjoy?
- What industries do you like the most?
- What people excite you the most?
- What do you love to do the most?
- What are you doing when you feel most happy and content?
- What activities do you really enjoy?
Once you have found what you really want to do with the rest of your life, it is time to figure out how you are going to open the door to your new vocation. Take a really in-depth look at the supply chain, marketplace or industry where you want to build your vocation and answer these few questions:
- Who are the vendors or businesses involved and what products and services do they work with?
- Now look at the various options and see how you can align your unique skills and talents with building a career in that industry.
Once you have gone through this process you will have identified a perfect fit for yourself. Now all that is left to do, is for you to pull the trigger and to either form a business performing that function or for you to present yourself to a business, which needs your specific talents and skills. The secret to make this work for you is to be flexible, patient and teachable. Nothing worthwhile comes without effort and without paying a price for tuition. Accept that you may need to take a few steps back, but as you are playing to your strengths, you will very quickly acquire the necessary skill and talent, to excel in your new vocation.
The thought of any change frightens most people, so expect the people around you to criticise, your decision to re-invent yourself. As you radically re-invent yourself and begin to chase your dreams, everyone around you will try to stop you. One of the loudest voices will be your own; it will be really uncomfortable to step out of a place, where you may not be fulfilled or happy; into a completely new life. As long as you have gone through the entire process I have described above and you are certain that these changes are necessary. Feel the discomfort and go ahead and do it any way. The new fulfilling and complete life, you will get to live will most certainly be worth the short term discomfort.
You can make this process a lot less painful, if you build a great support team around you. Find mentors and a peer group that share your vision and ambition. These are people that will support you and act as your ally, as you embark on your new adventure, to live the life of your dreams. Commit to learn all you need to learn as you grow into your new life. Immerse yourself in the process and read as many books, watch as many DVD's, listen to every audio possible and attend as many seminars as you can, to support you and help you to build the skills you need.
Author: Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers
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