Presuming
– you know what you want in life
– you’ve taken the time to think things through
– come up with a “roles and goals” statement
– designed the life of your dreams
– made a written plan for aforesaid life
– and a plan to implement the plan
– kept your journal
– created accountability checkpoints along the way
– found a support group
– and listed a series of small steps and micro-victories to power you on your path…

What next? Not there yet? Ah, life!

There are three common stumbling blocks:

1. Energy drainers: Any source of emotional drain: friends “hooked on the neg,” disarray at home, lack of exercise, bad diet, happy-hour habit, couch-potato evenings, listening to your internal critic, renting space in your head to your competition, and on and on.

2. Fears: Known and unknown, acknowledged and unacknowledged, are a major source of procrastination.

3. Unmet core needs: Key areas of your life that you are lacking support or fulfillment or the prospect of meaningful progress.

Solutions:

1. Sit down and identify what is getting in your way.

2. Evaluate and rank: Count the cost of each. Which are worth dealing with? Some are just gnats and should be ignored, the normal ebb and flow of life that should just be accepted. Others need to be dealt with, some immediately and others in good time.

3. Create plan(s): Is there a way you can use any of these problems to your advantage? Is there anything good or useful about these obstacles? Is the way you perceive the situation a part of the problem? Is there anyone else on the planet who would see the situation differently? Can you become that person? Are you giving away your personal power in any way?

4. Implement, observe, re-evaluate, respond, repeat.

Closing quotes:

“What you resist, persists.”

“He who angers you controls you.”

“When a man finds no peace within himself, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.” — François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld

“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” — from “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho