Alter the course of your life in an evening!

Here are two simple exercises you can do at home, by yourself; that can alter your life right now!
• Clarifying your core values
• Clarifying your vision

When you start to make choices from your values and vision you will awaken your creativity and passion. Your experience of life will transform. You will experience power and freedom at work, in your relationships (especially the one with yourself), and all other areas of your life.

Unless you have a vision for your future, for how you want your life to look it is likely that you are living a life with little joy. Having a vision for your life will compel you to make decisions that reference the future rather than what you know from the past. Without a vision your future will most likely look much like your past.

So spend a couple of hours with your self, turn off your phone and give yourself the gift of these two exercises. Find a place where you will be undisturbed.

Exercise #1: Clarifying your core values:

1. List 3-4 peak experiences from your past that have given you a sense of deep fulfillment. Maybe you stepped up for a friend, threw yourself into a position of leadership, received a diploma or a partnership………
2. For each one of these experiences list the Qualities, Skills, and Values that were present in that moment. This does not need to look a certain way just write.
3. Now, find the common threads that link these experiences. It could be leadership, love, power, clarity………what ever it is list the 5 or 6 common threads. These are your core values.

If you look into the environments of your life (job/career, business, network, family/friends, hobbies, spiritual, money, leisure, personal development) you will find these values present in those areas where you are passionate; and missing in the areas you are not. How do you think your life would look if your values were there in all areas of your life?

Exercise #2: Your Vision

1. Start with your 5-6 core values
2. Write out in present tense the date 1 year out from today i.e., “It is December 20, 2009 and”…..
3. You are going to describe, in present tense what you want your life to look like. Who is there with you, what are you feeling, what are others experiencing? This could look like this…
4. “It is December 20, 2009 and I have achieved my goal of adding 4 clients to my coaching practice, leveraging my brokerage business, and making $175,000 this year while working a mere 30 hours per week. I am in peak health, my energy has taken a 50% upswing, I weigh 200# and am working out 7 hours per week. My spiritual practice has become a blessing and I continue to heal my heart and integrate my past. I had 3 ski vacations this year and taught two “skiing and being” workshops and am totally fulfilled in this area. My family is amazing. The drama and separations of the past have worked themselves out and there is no more isolation. My one weekend per month with my granddaughters is a gift and they are such beautiful, spirited human beings and we enjoy ourselves immensely as do their parents and me. I am touching everyone I come in contact with on a deep level, from family to my clients and customers. I am aware of the love, leadership, and affinity I am living life with……
5. I wrote this in about 10 minutes. It will take you longer than that but just do it. There is no right or wrong way just write.….in present tense…..what you want your life to look like…..don’t concern yourself with how this will happen, that is another conversation…..just design write.
6. Now re-write it until it is similar to my example
7. This is the vision for your life 1 year from now.
8. Use this as well as your core values as the light at the end of the tunnel that pulls you forward. Make your choices from Values/Vision and watch your world transform.

As always I encourage you to hire and work with a coach. One who has done their own work not just gotten certified and is now a technician. You deserve to work with an artist. Interview prospective coaches, if they are not receptive to that run for the hills. Interview me, if we are not a match I have several huge hearted coaches I can recommend.

Godspeed,

Darby Barclay
For SelfGrowth.com
December 20, 2008