Every year between Christmas and New Years I curl up on my office comfy chair with a nice hot mug of coffee, my laptop, and some soothing background music and spend some time reviewing my ideal life and aligning my rudder so that I can set up the year ahead to be the best yet for me, my family and my business.
Aligning my rudder is a process I thoroughly enjoy. I believe it is essential to staying aligned with what I truly want for my life.
It’s not only a once a year thing like most people’s new year’s resolutions. It contributes to living life consciously so ought to be looked at with some regularity, especially if things change in your world.
Annually I reconnect and adjust my big picture. I reset the map as needed. Then I set sail to act in alignment with my renewed map. I live my ideal life. Rather than waiting another year to reset the map and risk falling way off course I check in often through the year.
Smooth Sailing on the Ocean of My Ideal Life!
Small periodic adjustments of my life’s rudder allow me to continue to sail smoothly on the oceans of my ideal life. Small periodic adjustments enable me to easily handle the storms that occasionally come along. Next year at this time it will be a relatively small adjustment and evolution of my ideal life map, not a wholesale rebuild!
How To Begin Aligning Your Rudder
Begin now with your own annual review and your experience of your life will become very similar. Here’s a simple framework to follow.
I use three stages I call the 3R’s to set up the next year to be the best yet.
Phase 1: Reflect.
Begin by looking back over the past year. Looking back enables you to see what worked and what did not. It brings it to your conscious awareness. See the unhealthy patterns with your work and lifestyle that you fell into. Identify influences from your busy life that tended to get in the way or become excuses for falling off track. Connect with the stories you told yourself to rationalize a working pattern and a lifestyle you were not all that happy with.
Answer these two questions honestly and openly.
- What were my 3 greatest accomplishments related to my work and my 3 greatest accomplishments related to my life this past year.
- What were my 3 greatest challenges at work and my 3 greatest challenges in my life this past year.
Phase 2: Renew.
Embrace and celebrate the great choices you made for yourself last year. While it is easy to beat yourself up over the factors that knocked you off track shift to acknowledging the need for having those experiences so that you can now clearly see the lessons you were meant to learn from those challenges. Now in a positive light you are in a great position to shift your old patterns to ones that will support you. Renew your commitment to yourself in the year ahead by answering the following question.
What are my top 3 goals or experiences I want to create in being a high achiever in my business and my industry and what are the top 3 goals or experiences I want to create in living an active, healthy, and happy lifestyle, and in truly embracing life in the year ahead?
Phase 3: Rocket.
Rocket into action. Keep on doing and reinforcing the things that are working. Begin to evolve each of them so they support you more and more. Create a plan to break old unsupportive patterns and habits and replace them with positive actions. Prioritize the big game changers that must be addressed at work and away from it. You know, the ones that keep you awake at night. There’s your start.
Make a plan for addressing those first. Schedule it! Take baby steps so you don’t overwhelm yourself. Celebrate your successes. Don’t beat yourself up over slips. They happen to all of us. Instead stop, learn, and choose a different action. Take more baby steps. Then take bigger steps and even bigger ones. Let each of those steps take hold in your busy life before you add new ones.
Seek support in aligning your rudder and creating a plan. Support helps make it stick. Gradually you’ll be rocketing into the results you deserve and desire. If you need help with this process and in launching your process of change click here. If you also feel you need help in staying on track as you integrate your plan into your day to day life at work and at home click here.
Life’s too short to keep repeating a history you wish was different!
Beginning with a degree in exercise science and kinesiology, Brent Haydey has evolved over thirty years as an entrepreneur; building four businesses, and as a health, executive, and life coach.