Like most people, you probably want a more stress-free, fulfilling and passion-filled life—but are you aware of how to make this dream a reality?

If you could uncover what keeps you from the life you desire and figure out how to obtain it, what difference would it make to your work, your family and you over the next year? The next 10 years?

As many people know, it is not what you know, but rather what you don’t know that can hurt you. From my years in corporate America and through my coaching practice, I’ve seen smart, highly motivated professionals become bored, confused, unfulfilled and frustrated, because they don’t know what is keeping them from living their best life despite how hard they work at it.

From these experiences I have sifted out the seven biggest mistakes smart, busy and highly motivated individuals make, and I have provided effective time-proven tools to overcome them.

This week I’m giving you the first of them.

Mistake #1 Having vague, blurry vision and desires

“The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want.” -Ben Stein

One of the biggest mistakes many professionals make is not being clear on where they are going or what they really want. No doubt about it, not being clear on what you want will guarantee you’ll never receive it. If your desires are vague, your focus will be blurred.

Many of us know what we don’t want but we aren’t as clear on what we do want. It is important to get really clear. If you’re blocked or confused about what you truly want, honestly assess what’s missing in your life. Is there anything specific you’re waiting for? Is there anything you aren’t noticing because it’s so obvious you overlooked it?

If you don’t know what you want, begin by exploring the following questions:

1. List all your greatest achievements from birth through the present as a way of acknowledging your power in action.

2. What gives you energy when you do it?

3. What part of your passion do you already have in your life today?

4. What do you desire now? Do not block, judge or censor the answer. Write it down.

5. If you had a magic wand and could choose exactly what you desired to be, do and have, what would you choose?

6. If money were not a consideration, what would you do in this world?

7. What comes so naturally to you that it doesn’t seem like “work”?

8. What talent of yours are you often complemented for?

9. If you could be rich doing exactly what you love, what would you choose?

10. What do you really want in your heart? Think big. Now think bigger.

Grab a pen. Spend some time on this exercise. Note: You can’t do this in your head. Writing it down increases its power by ten.

I’ll be back next week with the second classic mistake that costs high-achieving professionals in their financial, emotional, relationship, and spiritual bank accounts.

Do you have a map to create your hot marriage, career change, more profitable business, fit tummy, healthy family, or increased well-being?

We all need maps to get from where we are to where we want to be. You wouldn’t start driving to Idaho without one. Why then would you consider being without a map for your more significant desired outcomes and dreams?

After all, if you had a map, confusion, indecision and frustration would no longer pepper your day. Overwhelm would be virtually eliminated.

Overwhelm occurs because we don’t have one clear focus.

A map, like the one my clients and I have used and that I give you below, provide that focus you need to take clear action. In turn, your life moves from struggle to ease.

This quick hot tool can be used for any goal you set. I used it for the first time over 12 years ago when I decided I wanted to get married. Today I use it for creating a thriving home with my husband and three children and for building my clients businesses and lives.

Here’s what you do.

1. Take a sheet of 8 ½ x 11” paper. Turn it on its side.
2. Draw a vertical line one inch from the left side of the paper. Draw a second vertical line one inch from the right side of the paper. These are the banks of your river.
3. Draw a stick figure on the left river bank and under it write “me.”
4. On the right river bank write your goal, that is, what you want when you make it to the other side. The river is the area between the two banks.
5. Fill the river with rocks designated by circles. In each circle write an action to help you get to the other side.

For example, in my first map I created years ago when I wanted to create a relationship the rocks included: make eye contact, be open to men that do not fit my current profile, change my career to one I enjoy, take a trip, get a coach, change my routine daily, ask a guy to a concert, etc.

Each time I completed one task, I simply went back to look at my next. Oh yes, you have to act! But taking action is easier when you have that next step right before you.

I attribute this tool and other game-changing perspectives to me being engaged to my soul mate 18-months later. You can see why I have passion for having a map!

Here are a few rules to remember in creating your map.

1. The map does not need and should not be in order.
2. You can always go back to add other rocks or action steps. In fact, I encourage it.
3. Consider filling in the rocks like a brainstorming exercise, not a precise prescription. (You will need to use your inner voice to guide you along the way too.)

You’ve heard me say it before: HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY! Focus and consistent action are. Having a map keeps you focused on both!

<

“If you don’t design your life, someone else will design it for you.” ~ Nigel Marsh

I’ve made some mistakes since I graduated college. One of the biggest was letting a well-meaning corporation design my life for me. I gave it permission. I own the mistake. Thankfully, I’ve learned the painful lesson.

Nigel Marsh, best-selling author and performance coach, gets at what he calls the “nub” of this issue as he discusses making work-life balance work. This funny Aussie does so in a humorous and spot-on video below. (You may want to watch it twice as you can’t help but laugh while you learn.)

If you are in corporate America or even if you own your own business, and you’re stressed-out and overwhelmed by the demands of the workplace, trying to figure out how to put the spark back in your marriage, have more meaningful moments with your kids and get to your exercise club, while you practice your daily spiritual rituals, this video is worth the 13 minutes it takes to view.

Here’s what I’ve learned since my time playing victim by allowing others to determine my life: Know what’s important to you. Design your life. Have boundaries, and get started.

Nigel says, start small. It takes a minor 3mm change in your swing to change the trajectory and placement of a golf ball. The same goes for your life.

What 3mm change can you make to bring balance into your day?

Perhaps you put the smart phone away as you dine with your family, ask your kid about the favorite part of his day, schedule and plan the details of a date with your spouse, mark your calendar for a lunch appointment with yourself to exercise or read your favorite novel.

Bottom line: Don’t put off everything when you can do something. And never leave your life in the hands of even a well-meaning corporation.

It’s neither their expertise nor job to know and do what’s best for you.

That’s an ‘inside’ job. Always has been. Always will be.

Watch this spot-on video now. Then let me know what you do to make work-life balance work for you.

>> WATCH: How to make work-life balance work | Nigel Marsh <<

Make your own sparks fly like the Fourth of July!
Rita

Read more

Lately I’ve heard a lot of people concerned about their finances and money. They are worried and afraid. This fear is generating a horrible stench of desperation which is further destroying actual financial security or the possibility of it.

What perhaps is most interesting to me (yet not surprising) is that the numbers in these worried people’s bank accounts vary from $176.32 to over $20 million.

Despite my thinking in my youth that there was a magic number I could hit that would make me forever financially secure, I was wrong. For as I have seen through my years of coaching individuals, even those who if they didn’t make any money for the next ten years would not be effected, can and often do choose to be worried.

One such young self-made business owner recently sat in my office rationalizing with me that despite having a very sizable bank account and a few million dollars of paid off properties, he would not feel “free” or financially secure until he paid off a relatively small amount on one of his last five commercial properties.

This was a man who had not been to college and at one time played guitar in bars for money. As we talked, he kept trying to prove he wasn’t financially secure yet and that the resulting stress was negatively affecting his marriage. (The latter part, I believed.)

After a few minutes of his one-way conversation, with no persuading by me, he recognized the failure in his logic and started sobbing. In a ‘light bulb moment’ he said, “I already am free.”

He pointed out, “I can sit outside of my workplace in the middle of the day with ideas in my head and the ability to make more money whenever I want it. And I know I can make more money if I need it.”

What he realized was that the number in his bank account never affected his financial security. It had and would always come from his awareness that he can get more money whenever he wants it. This is the same perspective shift necessary for anyone who really wants financial security and well-being.

Why is this perspective change so important? Because, when it comes to money, nearly all of us have learned to protect and motivate ourselves by creating feelings of worry, doubt, fear and even desperation. The problem with this perspective is that it nearly always limits our visions and cuts off our creativity for new means to creating more of it.

Right now the biggest mistake and worst approach with regards to money is “If I worry enough then I will stay safe and keep myself in line to move forward.”

Your internal logic may continue, “If I punish myself regularly for the past, focus on what I did wrong and what I don’t have, the self-flagellation might motivate me.”

Honestly how inspired do you feel to do anything after you have given yourself a healthy dose of criticism?

The problem is that in this space there is little room for creativity or inspiration to create more money or experience true peace.

If you operate with this approach you are also likely seeing the toll it takes not only on your bank account but on your health, happiness and relationships with your family and loved ones.

Many of you might be thinking, “Well I am not a millionaire and I have real bills, kids to put through college, aging parents who need care and a mortgage under water that needs to be paid.”

If you do, I imagine you have at least two or three months before you are without a home. If so, then you have enough time to find your way to add value and make money for doing so.

Here’s the real deal. In order to create true wealth you must master the art of providing service. Identify how you can add value in your current place of employment, your business, or strike out in a new direction to do so.

In summary, financial security doesn’t come from the amount in your bank account. It comes from your ability to get more of it when you want it.

Remember, what got you here is not going to get you there. In other words, continuing to come from your current perspective and approach is not going to transform your life and finances.

Here are four steps to change your relationship to money and to access immediate peace and power regardless of the number in your bank account today.

1. Add value. Wherever you can add value and make a difference in people’s lives, there is money to be made. Find your natural and most fun way to contribute and you’ll secure your financial security.

2. See the abundance that is already around you. If you have five cents in your pocket, be thankful for it rather than putting your focus on what you do not have. Where focus goes, energy flows. Therefore, be specific about where you are putting your focus. It makes a difference on your bottom line.

3. Stay inspired to create more money versus moving into fear and worry about not having it. (It’s amazing the strategies and creative solutions that come from inspiration versus desperation.)

4. Ask the question: “If I knew for a fact, I could create (fill in the amount) in the next three months, what value would I create and where would I exchange it?” Then lean in and begin! Progress is made by engaging not by thinking about it.

The bonus to this shift is that you don’t need the money, but it is fun to have the unique feeling of calm and peace in your life knowing you can get more when you want it!