There are two types of people in the world. The ones that are in control of their lives, the leaders, and then there are the group of victims, the followers, where life controls them.
In which group do you think you fall?
The problem, when we are controlled by our circumstances, is that we are always on the back foot, always reacting.
Do you want to live your life like that? No sane person would.
Why then do we find that most people, maybe including us, are stuck in their lives?
I recently stumbled across a book by Napolean Hill titled Outwitting the Devil. The manuscript for this book has been hidden away for more than 72 years. Why? It has been carefully hidden away because it exposes a very powerful message. A message the educational and religious leaders want to keep a secret. In the book Hills says that 98 out of 100 people are drifters or what we previously called followers.
There are quite a few reasons people become followers. We are conditioned from the day we are born to be amenable. Think about school. School taught us how to be obedient to the person that holds the highest authority. This sickens me by the way, but I digress.
Being conditioned into submissive children meant that a lot of us grew up to be submissive adults.
The irony though, is that we are born with an innate desire to create our own lives. That is why some of those 98 people are getting itchy because they realize that they are stuck. They don’t get fulfillment out of their lives anymore.
And so the search begins on some grand mission to answer life’s greatest questions.
If only we knew a shortcut to get more fulfillment out of our lives! If only we knew how to create a kick-ass attitude and create change that will lead to a fantastic life.
Luckily we live in the age of knowledge and we can design strategies to change our lives.
A few words on expectations are needed. Applying these strategies can help us only if we are committed to applying them. We don’t always have control over the tragedies in our life like death, sickness or natural disasters. However we can use these strategies to create the mind-set we need to be leaders of our lives and create change that sticks.
3 keys to create lasting change and become leaders of our own life
Get out of victimhood
As long as we are in victimhood nothing good can happen. We need to realize that we are the only reason why we are, where we are, in our life.
Take stock of where you are now and take responsibility.
One way of taking stock is to use the wheel of life as a measurement tool. The wheel of life was developed by the thought leaders in NLP.
The areas that you want to measure are the following:
- Work
- Health
- Fun, me time or friends – we all need ME time
- Family
- Finances
- Personal or Spiritual development
- Physical environment – your house, car and other comforts
- Romance
You can use a rating of 1 – 10.
1 = there’s not much happening in that area of your life or you haven’t reached your goals yet and feel stuck.
10 = you are where you want to be in this area of your life and don’t feel stuck.
Here’s an example:
This shows you the state of your life and where to focus your attention on. In this case “Fun, Me time” doesn’t get much attention.
Now that you know the state of affairs, you need to take responsibility. You are the only reason why your wheel of life looks like this.
The perfect picture
Now that we have taken responsibility for the state of our life we need to take it up a notch.
Imagine what it would look like to live the life you want. What is it exactly that you want? Amazingly, most people don’t know what they want. Ask the following question to find out what you want.
- What is it that makes your blood curl with excitement and turns you on?
- If you had all the money in the world and didn’t have to work what would you do with your time?
- If you knew you would die next month what would you do with your remaining time?
Now that you have the pieces to the puzzle you can start to create the perfect picture. The following might sound like mumbo jumbo but it works.
Make a mental picture of how this perfect life will look like. This is not day-dreaming or thinking positive. Why not? Because it is based on your wheel of life and the questions you asked yourself. It is based on real stuff!
In order to make the picture real you need to make it as vivid as possible.
Real change needs real actions
So you have a picture of where you want to go and the picture are linked to your deepest passions.
It’s time, as a leader, to put real actions in place. These actions will catapult you into your perfect picture.
How to create real actions?
- Be specific, like really specific. Example, Start meditating for ten minutes a day
- Make it measurable
- Make it time-bound
- Factor in time to review your plan
To create lasting change and become leaders of our own life is the only way to break the conditioning.
If you feel that you are stuck or that you need to change your life then it is important to become the leader of your own life.
You not only need to lead your own life but also deserve it.
