Leverage Your Past for Greater Success in Your Future

2021-08-22 ~ adminlife

Life is easy if you get a little better each day at living it. Unfortunately, few of us make the small enhancements that could make our life more fulfilling. We tend to do things a certain way and stick with them.

Consider that, if you were to learn something each day that you could apply to tomorrow, your life would be much different. You would be different. You would be smarter, wiser, and looking forward to a bright future.

Your past is a goldmine of information about yourself and how life works. It would be a shame to allow this information to go to waste.

So, what if you did it a little differently? What if you learned from your experiences and made small adjustments along the way? Imagine how powerful you could become!

Use your past to your advantage with this process:

Review your life from the very beginning. Start with your earliest memories and work your way forward. Think about your family, friends, and schooling. What are your strongest memories? Pay particular attention to your fondest and worst memories. They will be the most important.
Review the pivotal points in your life. Pay particular attention to the most important decisions and transitions in your life so far.
- Did you go to college? Where? How did you make that decision? What was your major? How did you decide on that? What would have happened if you had chosen something different? If you didn’t go to college, how did that impact your life?
- Choosing a partner. Did you choose wisely? What was your criteria for choosing this person? Did you choose to be alone? Why?
- Choosing a job. How did you choose your first real job? In retrospect, was it a smart choice? What were the ramifications of choosing that career and job over the long term?

- Having children. If you have children, how have they impacted your life? Could you enhance your parenting skills? If you chose not to have kids, why did you decide this? Do you still agree with this decision? Why or why not?

What were your mistakes? After all of that pondering, what were your mistakes? What were the causes of those mistakes? Let’s consider a few examples.
- Maybe you chose accounting as your major and career, because you thought it was a path that led to stable employment. However, you don’t really like accounting. Your real interest was in botany. You now know it was a mistake, because you’re miserable.
- You might conclude that your mistake was placing too much importance on security, and too little importance on your natural likes and dislikes.
- Maybe you chose your partner because they were rich or incredibly good looking. But, now you’re unhappy. You might decide that there are other, more important, criteria for making this type of decision.
What were your successes? There’s more to your past than just your mistakes. There were successes, too. Consider why you were successful and apply that information consistently.
Examine your life in the present. What could you be doing differently based on what you learned from examining your past?
- Go through your current challenges and choices. Now, relate your present to your past mistakes and successes. Can you resolve a current challenge with a lesson from your past?
Make some changes to enhance your life. Make some new decisions that are based on your past experiences.

Continue this basic process for the rest of your life, only with one small change. Instead of reviewing your failures and successes from 20 years ago, stick to just the last week.

Choose a day where you look back over the last week and follow the above process. What did you do well? What did you do poorly? How can you learn from the past week and apply it to the present and future?

Leverage your past to create the future you desire. You already have all the information you need.

Book a 15-minute “Get to know you” call by clicking on the blue button below

and we can talk about how you can learn from your past to create the successful future you desire

To your success

Michael

P.S. if you have always thought that you should have a Life Coach on your personal team to help you create the best year of your life but were put off by the cost and the time requirement, I have created a Self-paced course that covers what we would do when working together.

While not the same as working one-on-one with a Life Coach, this self-paced course can help you to understand your present situation, how you got there and how to set goals that will move you forwards to success.

Click on the logo below to find out more about the course

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5 Steps to Overcome the Fear of Success

2021-08-15 ~ adminlife

Fear of success? Most people don’t believe they fear success, but most of them would be incorrect. Our lives rarely change because we become comfortable with our situation. We might not like it, but it’s comfortable. We know what to expect. We might be unhappy, but we know we can deal with it.

In a nutshell, we don’t like change. We also don’t like the prospect of failing or of standing out.

You might fear success if you:

Consistently make plans for your life, but fail to follow through on them. Whether it’s to start a business, read a book a month, or hit the gym five days a week, you just can’t seem to make it happen.
You leave projects uncompleted. This includes at work and in your personal life.
You’re all talk. You rarely take action.
You struggle to make decisions.
Your life never changes for the better.
You self-sabotage, especially when you’re nearing success.

This probably describes most of the people you know. Does it describe you accurately?

Use these strategies to defeat your fear of success and make real changes in your life:

Imagine being ultra successful. Imagine yourself being even more successful than you want to be. If your goal is to make $100,000 per year, imagine making $1 million. If you want to lose 25 pounds, imagine getting lean enough that you can see your abs. Do this each night and morning in bed.
- Make the visualization as vivid as possible. Include all of your senses. When it feels uncomfortable, stick with it and just relax.
- In time, it will feel natural. When that happens, achieving your goal will be much easier.
Practice standing out. Many of us fear success because we don’t want to stand out in any way. Somewhere along the way, we learned or decided that it’s better to keep our head down than to be noticed.
- There are a variety of ways you can practice standing out in your everyday life. You can dress differently. You might even put on a pair of pink mittens and walk around the mall in the middle of the summer. Or you could wear your best clothes to the store.
- You could go out in public with your hair dishevelled.
- You can do something in public that you’re either really good or really bad at, like bowling.
Reframe failure. Fear of success might actually be a fear of failure. Keep in mind that failure is just an undesired result. It says nothing about you. It simply means that you need more practice, more time, or a better approach. When you can view failure in this manner, there’s nothing to fear.
Focus on action over thought. We can’t fear success if we don’t think. If you need to send 100 cold emails to find clients for your business, just sit down and get busy. The longer you think about it, the harder it becomes. Just decide and take action.
Have a real vision for the future. Enough motivation can overcome any fear. Create a possible future in your mind that is worth overcoming any obstacle. Fear doesn’t matter if you have a very compelling future in mind.

Do you fear success? It seems counter-intuitive to fear success, but it’s a common obstacle to making sustained progress in life. Success brings attention, the unknown, and the possibility of failure.

Create a vision for the future that will pull you through any fears you might have. Learn to deal with discomfort. Remember, you only have one life to live. Avoid allowing fear to limit your life.

Book a 15-minute “Get to know you” call by clicking on the blue button below

and we can talk about how you can overcome your fear of success

To your success

Michael

Click on the logo below to find out more about the course

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Live Your Best Life in 6 Steps

2021-07-04 ~ adminlife

Everyone is different. It’s not reasonable to expect that everyone wants to live the same life. But, to step outside the options that society deems to be acceptable can be a little scary. Our need to impress and be accepted can be very strong.

Perhaps you’ve never really considered what your dream life would be. It’s hard to hit a target that you’ve never identified.

Follow these steps to imagine the best life you could possibly have and then live it:

Be true to yourself. You can’t live your best life if you’re pretending to be someone or something that you’re not. The first step in living your best life is to admit to yourself who you really are. Be honest about your likes, dislikes, and dreams.
- Maybe you would like to live in a cabin in the woods and grow all of your food.
- Or do you love the idea of minimalism and frugality?
- Do you prefer animals to people?
- Would you like to live in a commune?
- Do you love to play the accordion?
- Would you like to travel the world like a nomad without a home base?
- Do you want to spend all of your time and resources saving the planet?
- Does the idea of having children horrify you? Or would you like to try for 13 kids?
- Choose what appeals to Any admiration or scorn you receive from others won’t last long enough for your cup of coffee to get cold.
Make a plan. Relying on chance or luck is a losing game in the long run. If you want a specific life, it’s important to choose it and then make a plan to get there. Make a long-term plan that begins with something you can do today.
Execute your plan. Many people love to dream and plan. That’s the easy and fun part. Unfortunately, few people ever take the first step in their plan. They never get started.
- Take some sort of action each day outlined by your plan. You don’t have to do an amazing amount of work each day to make significant progress over time. A little each day eventually grows into substantial results.
- The hardest part is getting started, so ensure that you get started as soon as possible. There will never be a perfect time to begin. Begin now and make the best of it. Everything changes once you actually begin.
Learn from your mistakes. Neither you nor your plan is flawless. You will make mistakes and try things that don’t work. That should be expected. Decide that you’re going to learn from your mistakes, adjust your approach, and try again.
Keep your attention on those things that are relevant regarding your plans. Reject nearly everything else.
- Why are you gossiping about your coworkers or neighbours?
- Still upset about how your ex cheated on you 13 years ago?
- Annoyed by the price of gasoline?
- What do any of these sorts of things have to do with achieving your goals and attaining your dream life? (Nothing.)
You can’t live your best life if you give up on your quest to attain it. Keep going until you’ve arrived where you want to be.

Your best life is out there ready for you to claim it! Be completely honest with yourself, make a plan, and stick with it until you’ve arrived. The life you desire is attainable and within your reach. Do you have the courage to make it happen?

Take a chance on feeling happy and fulfilled. Chase after your dream life.

You need to move to make your dreams and your life better. Just having dreams isn’t enough.

Book a 15-minute “Get to know you” call by clicking on the blue button below

and we can talk about how you can move your dreams to reality and live the life you desire.

To your success

Michael

P.S. if you have always thought that you should have a Life Coach on your personal team to help you create the best year of your life but were put off by the cost and the time requirement, I have created a Self-paced course that covers what we would do when working together.

Click on the logo below to find out more about the course

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Learning To Cope With Things Out of Our Control

2021-04-05 ~ adminlife

At some point in your life, you’ve no doubt had to deal with a situation that was out of your control. Whether it’s a car accident, financial difficulties, or other challenge, these events cause stress and frustration, which negatively impact your health and mental outlook on life.

Learning how to cope with events you can’t control will help keep you in a positive frame of mind and alleviate your stress.

Consider the Serenity Prayer, written by Reinhold Niebuhr:

“God grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.”

The words of this prayer exemplify the solution to a problem that plagues all of us. Once you’ve come to terms with the fact that you can control only your own actions (and reactions), you can begin to find peace of mind.

What Can You Control?

Worrying about the people or events in your life that you can’t control can cause all kinds of stress-related health problems, such as angina, high blood pressure, and sleeping difficulties.

If you need to feel more in control of your life, focus on those things that you can physically change.

Who you decide to accept as your friends and spend your time with is something you can definitely control. It may not be easy to meet new friends, but the opportunities are plentiful if you look for them.

Being around negative people can drag your attitude down, since you adopt the mood of people around you.
If you have people in your life who aren’t encouraging you to fulfill your potential, find other people to surround yourself with.
Having the support of people who believe in you will propel you toward reaching your lifelong goals.

Live One Day at a Time

When you intentionally consider each day a gift, your struggles don’t seem as dire. While life does deal some bad hands, such as death, divorce, and financial challenges, how you cope during these hardships can make you stronger or break you.

When you purposely feel gratitude for the good moments within each day, you can genuinely start to accept your struggles as a path to a new beginning.

Coping with Financial Difficulties

One of the most stressful situations is coping with financial difficulties. Loss of a job often means having to give up things you’ve worked hard to acquire.

If you’re having a difficult time accepting that you have to cut expenses and give up the comfortable things in life, even temporarily, it helps to remember that it could be worse.
Be grateful for having your home and your health because there are many people in the world who have neither.
Once you know you can be happy with less, you can focus again on achieving your goals.

By accepting that you can’t change some things, you’ll become more powerful in changing the things that you do have control over. You’ll free yourself from the negative thoughts and emotions that can stifle you into sad complacence.

Use these tips to help you cope with things out of your control, and you’ll find peace, joy, and the passion to persevere through all challenges.

Being able to accept that you cannot control everything and that those things out of your control just have to be accepted or ignored moves you one step closer to being in control and empowered.

Book a 45-minute call on my calendar at:

https://calendly.com/michael-coach/focused-program-45-minute

to learn more about building up your empowerment level and to live a better life.

To your success

Michael

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Are you Focused on Making Progress or Maintaining the Status Quo?

2020-11-282020-11-29 ~ adminlife

Many people erroneously believe they’re making progress because they’re working hard. A good way to predict the direction of your life is to measure how much of your time you’re actually trying to enhance it. Then consider how much of your time is spent just maintaining the status quo.

Most people believe they want something better and are working hard to accomplish it. In most cases, they’re expending a lot of mental energy wishing, fantasizing, and worrying. None of these are reliable ways to enhance your life. What have you done this week that will take your life to the next level? If you’re like most people, you haven’t done much.

Change is challenging, because there’s uncertainty. Familiarity is comforting, even if you’re unhappy. Most people naturally gravitate toward the familiar even if they’re miserable. If you can become comfortable with the prospect of change, progress is easy.

Be brave enough to create the change you desire:

Working hard isn’t enough. If you’re working hard on the wrong things, you’ll never see any progress. Effort matters, but only if you’re spending your time wisely. If you want to see real change, it’s necessary to spend time doing constructive things above and beyond what is required to live your current life.
Have you learned anything new lately? Learning new information can help to create change, if you use the information. What are you doing instead of learning? Watching the same TV shows? You’re maintaining the status quo. New information leads to new understandings.
Are you spending time with anyone new? Hanging out with the same people each day is another good way to ensure that nothing changes. New people can change your perspective and introduce you to new ideas.
Are you doing anything new? The same gym workout repeated over and over again will ensure that you neither gain nor lose ground. The same behaviours deliver the same, reliable results.

- Going into the same job and providing the same efforts ensures the same paycheck.
- Thinking the same thoughts results in the same actions.
- Same hobbies? No changes coming.

What did you do today? At the end of each day, ask yourself two questions:

- If I lived this same day over and over for the next 20 years, what would my finances, health, social life, and relationships look like?
- Did I do anything today to take my life to the next level, or did I ensure that nothing will change in the future?
- Write your responses in a journal. You’ll tire of not having anything interesting to write. You’ll spend more time trying to make a difference in your life. The answer to these two questions can predict the future better than you think.

Do you have goals? Do you measure your progress? Goals are nothing more than desired changes. If you have goals and you’re making progress, you can expect to see progress in your life.

- You’re choosing to maintain the status quo if you don’t have concrete goals. Any changes you experience will be due to random chance.

Most people claim they want a better life, but few are doing anything to make it happen. It’s easier to wish than to face uncertainty.

If you’re working hard but failing to gain any ground, spend some time each day doing something that will give you the chance to accomplish something new in the future. The more time you spend this way, the more progress you’ll make toward the life you desire.

To really make changes to your life that last, you should engage with a Life Coach who can guide you through the process and also keep you motivated to move forward. To set up a 30-minute Primary Life Goals Discovery Session, where you will complete a discovery form with me, and receive it after the session, visit “Identify Your Primary Life Goal Discovery Session” to learn more and how to book a time with me. I am only taking 5 people every week for the sessions, so read the post and join now.

You are success

Michael

P.S. If you want to learn even more about being successful, making changes that last and developing confidence in yourself, you can join the Facebook Group Developing Confidence in Yourself or You Are success Life Coach

Michael G. Wilkovesky

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