The other day someone asked me what advice would I give to a person who is looking to change her life around quickly. Based on what I have personally found to be effective for my own self improvement and what I have seen to work for my life coaching clients, I have come up with four bits of advice.

 

1. Know where you want to go

If you want to change your life, you must know where it is you want to end up when you are done. The best way to do this that I know of is to create a detailed personal development plan. Your plan will act as the guiding blueprint for the life you want to build for yourself. It will give you direction and focus as well as a way to track and measure your progress. Without your personal development plan you are likely to be lost, taking only the opportunities that pass your way. With your plan, you are empowered to seek out the opportunities that align with where you want to go. You will have direction and focus which speeds up the process and gets you there quicker.

 

2. Make choices not excuses

Make sure that everything you do is a conscious choice – no excuses – conscious choice only. If you don’t want to do something, don’t sit there feeling guilty about it, choose not to do it and get on with your life.

 

3. Be choosy with how you spend your time

Everything you do should move you towards your achieving a part of personal development plan. If something you do is not linked with your plan, then don’t do it or, modify your plan so that what you really want to do is included – it’s your plan, your life and your choice!

This might mean that you stop hanging out with some people, that you spend less hours at a 9:00-5:00 job, that you stop going to school, that you watch less T.V. or that you stop any of million other habits you currently have but don’t need. When you have a clear plan, time wasters become really clear. Be sure to loose all the time wasters you don’t really and truly want in your life.

 

4. Take action each week in each area of your life

Do a little something each week that moves you forward in each of the 8 main life areas. When you look back on a year of doing this you will be amazed at how much you have achieved.

 

If you are ready to kick-start to your personal development I hope you’ll give these ideas a try and let me know how you go.