7 Steps to Greater Life Adventures -- Part I

Recently I read a marketing expert's advice about the internet. He listed 7 laws of marketing success in his materials, and I've borrowed and changed them to apply to life transitions.

1. Live Life with a Cheerful Expectancy

When you ask someone how their work goes, they often reply "terrible." Rarely do people say "great!" This could be because our culture has no language for discussing success and achievement without it being considered boasting.

Often we expect the worst. We think we'll never get a new job or earn more money, and then we create that reality. Start expecting the best in your work and start expecting the results you want from it. That shift in mindset will do wonders for you and your work.

Try this: Write what you want in the present tense. For example: "I am running 5 times per week" or "I am eating healthy food every day."

Write your statement at least 20 times per day for a week and see what starts happening.

2. Take One Proactive Action Each Day

How many people have you heard say "I don't have enough time to [fill in the blank]?" Have they ever thought about what enough is? Often people don't make the time. If you're not making the time, is this activity something you really want to do? Oftentimes, it isn't.

It's easy to underestimate how much one action per day can help you achieve. With our "do-do-do" productive mindsets, it's challenging to slow down and perform only one action. Yet it's possible and can work wonders in moving us towards our goals.

The one proactive action could be working for one hour on your art, job search, garden, or new business per day. It could be reading one book per week or every two weeks. The exciting part is that you decide what works for you personally and change it as needed.

3. Review Your Goals and Values Daily

I often discuss values with my coaching clients, and values are a source of juicy discussion. Sometimes people discover they haven't been living in alignment with their values and doing so has caused them tension or unhappiness.

What are your values in your overall life? What are your goals? Take the time to make a list of your values. Some examples: security, family, friends, peace. Stick with no more than 3-4 values, because you want to list the ones that are most important to you. If you value security and feel insecure about your finances, you aren't living in alignment with your values. If you value friends and find you don't see them often, you might hear that little voice in your head telling you to make a change.

The power in taking the time to think about and write down your values is that they begin to happen for you. I know a writer who wrote down all the magazines where he wanted to publish his work. Over the years, those goals became a reality. Jim Carrey, in the early days of his acting career, carried a check for $10 million made out to himself "for acting services rendered." He took the time to think about what he wanted and then it happened. When you write down your goals and become clear about them, you increase the chances of them happening.

Try this: Write down your most important goals and post them where you can see them every day. Place them on the wall over your desk. Take 5-10 minutes and focus on them. If you meditate, you can get creative and incorporate your goals into your meditation. I am leaving my ideas a little loose so you can create something that works well for you.

4. Build Confidence in Your Work with Success

Maybe you think you're established in your career, so this isn't for you. I think you might be persuaded otherwise. We always have times when our confidence could use a boost, even if we don't admit it publicly. That need is a common human condition. Let's say you've been working on a project and having a hard time with it. Shift your focus and divide the larger project into smaller projects. Complete a few of the smaller projects. Doing this will help you achieve your overall goal while allowing you a sense of completion at the same time.

The remaining laws will appear in the June column...Stay tuned!

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