Forward Steps Blog

Eat an ‘elephant’ one piece at a time.

With the work load I have, I noticed I was dropping physical exercise from my days. I considered how I could incorporate some, regardless of the time constraint. So, I decide that in my 5 minute breaks, and during larger breaks, I’d do step ups onto an outdoor step. I calculated that, just this small daily action, adds 3 hours of exercise to my week. My legs are feeling it already, and my weight is coming down. What in your life could you tackle in a small way like that example?

Have big reasons for wanting to achieve the results you declare.

Make these reasons large enough and truly heartfelt, so that they ignite passion and strong emotion behind your dreams. You need to always be able to instantly get in touch with wonderfully powerful feelings about your dream goals. Those emotions will inspire consistent action and will inspire others around you. You will need those inspired friends on the days you feel a bit too flat for taking action.

Build on positive results.

Create some wins for yourself. Each time you win a little victory over yourself, you create impetus for moving forward even more. It helps you to grow, and become the person you must become, for having that dream live for you. There will be changes, this is inevitable when working toward a big dream and when growing into the person who is to fit such a large dream. Allow, accept and actively encourage that level of personal growth.

Never use time as your excuse.

Wedge dream projects into your current lifestyle, and commitments. Even if you crawl forward at ten minutes each day, do something every day toward that end goal. When you go to sleep each day, rest yourself in the knowledge that you have done something that day, to move you closer to your dream. At some time during every day, put one foot in front of the other toward that dream. Slow is better than never.

Build consistency into your daily actions.

Review the direction you are wanting to travel and then assess your regular activities to measure their alignment with your intentions. What do you need to take out of your days, and what needs to be included in your life, so that you are more on task and on track than ever before? Are your plans and actions in alignment with the path you want to take and the end results you seek to achieve? You’ll know when things are out of whack! It is at those times when you are feeling frustrated, guilty, tired, resentful, unsatisfied, or dissatisfied, and have an inkling that you really ought to be doing something else.

Practise operating more often from a place of not knowing.

Start thinking more often that you know nothing. Keep open your channels of curiosity and discovery. Particularly when it comes to relationships with other people. When a good friend calls, do you already “know” who they are and what they’re about to say? Notice if this shuts down the way that you listen to them. When the media describes a group of people, for example teenagers, do you take aboard those descriptors when you meet a young person, and listen to them through that filter of generalizations?

Let go of a need to control, and practise acceptance.

Accept that you can’t control everything, particularly with the current rate of change and new discoveries in our modern world. You will send yourself into a spin if you try to be everywhere at once, and try get a handle on everything. Get much more selective. Choose specific points of focus that are important to what you seek to accomplish in your lifetime. Get to know what you want to achieve within the scope of the life that you have been given.

Plug the holes where your life energy is escaping.

If you are at all feeling overwhelmed or becoming more fatigued, then it might be time to take a look around for your energy drains. It could be the people with who you associate often, that bill you haven’t yet paid, a project you haven’t touched for a while, or a shirt button that still needs sewing. Anything incomplete that’s hanging around in your life, are potential energy drainers. Either decide to be 100% OK with the way they are and let them go, or attend to them.

The past can be very useful and empowering.

As in the words of Paul Harvey – in times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.

Think back to the months before the media told you that times were bad.

Now, look at your life with some truth.

Have your personal circumstances truly changed, or is it simply that you are now living each day with a cloud of fear overhead? Fears of what might happen, rather than what is actually so, in this moment, now.

What could you do about that, if anything?

Get yourself a set of energy raising tools.

Do you have somewhere you can take your thoughts when you are surrounded in a negative conversation, so your energy is not dragged down? Do you have access to books, audios or videos you can visit when you’re feeling a little flat, so you can pick up high energy messages from others? Do you know what to do with your diet or leisure activities to elevate your feelings of personal power? It’s important to refresh yourself each day so you remain energized and to hold open your creativity and sense of fun.

Believe in yourself and what is possible for you.

It is easy to buy into the stories being presented all over out television screens and in our newspapers, when you are not vigilant. Go back to the dreams and ideas you have for yourself and look for the things you can do, right this minute, to continue on your journey toward their accomplishment. Distractions are just another handy excuse. In relation to ‘problems’, this video interview is worth a look.

Ninety percent of a task is the starting of it.

When you are confronted and gripped by fear or doubt, it is always a best remedy to simply take an action toward your desired outcome. Just decide, make a firm and determined decision, and then keep walking. If we are facing in the right direction, all we need to do is to keep walking. By the way, how are your New Year resolutions coming along?

Open up some of your restrictions.

You’re possibly well aware that the things holding you back are not often from external sources. Sure, we love to blame circumstances and people. However, take a closer, longer, and harder look. How much and how often are you holding back your own forward steps? So, which restrictions, that you’ve placed on yourself, could you now begin to release and open up?