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Fulfilling Your Life Potential

by Anthony Aurelius(more info)

listed in mind matters, originally published in issue 82 - November 2002

Introduction

This is your life: your one and only life. Are you fulfilling your potential? Fulfilment is about being completely happy or satisfied with who you are and where you are in life and happiness is what we all strive for. So how can you fulfil your life potential?

As human beings we are multi-faceted creatures. For us to feel fulfilled we must have balance in all of the important areas of our lives. Balance can be achieved by looking at the important areas of our lives individually and as a whole at the same time.

The Wheel of Life
The Wheel of Life

The Wheel of Life

Use this exercise to re-evaluate your life at the moment. Take an honest look at where you are on 'The Wheel of Life' below. Use the centre of the wheel as a zero and the outer point of each spoke as a 10. Now, put a small cross as to where you feel you are at the moment on each spoke and then join up the crosses to get a sense of fulfilment in some of the important areas in your life.

By doing this exercise you will gain a clearer picture of how fulfilled or how unfulfilled your life currently is. Ultimately it will give you some idea of the areas you need to work on to create more fulfilment and satisfaction in your life.

By continually re-evaluating your life on an on-going basis you can be consciously moving forward to fulfil your life potential. Take the time to construct your own 'Wheel of life' with the areas of importance to you if you feel you have activities or interests that are not on the wheel of life above!

It is the little things you do in life that really will assist you in fulfilling your life potential! You can use this simple strategy effectively to create more productive days and weeks, which over time will lead you to great months and years and ultimately tofulfilling your life potential!

Planning

First you will need to make a small change in the way you do the little things in your life. Start by putting time aside and making a minor adjustment in the way you go about planning your week ahead. A simply strategy that could really assist you in fulfilling your life potential would be to put an hour a week aside to plan your week ahead with a 'Coach'.?

If you aspire to have a fulfilling life but you are not quite there yet, understand that you must plan to have more efficient and productive days. Great planning is essential for you to move forward and for you to create the kind of life you desire. Be aware that if you desire something, then that is a sure sign telling you that you do not have it yet.

Life is tough, but the moment you get tough on yourself, life really will get easier. It is a challenge to produce excellent work to submit to your boss and a challenge to keep fit and develop your relationship with your wife all in the same week. Creating a fulfilling life requires consistently working towards your goals, week in, week out, month in, month out. It will take drive, motivation, dedication, persistence and support to fulfil your life potential. Lazy people do not make it in life. The difference between winners and losers is: winners make it happen and losers let it happen.

Think about new year's day for a moment. The day when we usually say to ourselves "Right, this is going to be my year" (if you are not recovering from the night before)! We tell ourselves that we really are going to make this year, our best yet. We understand that we must decide and make a list of exactly what we hope to achieve this year and of course we must be committed to our plans. But just living out the next 365 days and wishfully thinking that our lives will go the way we desire will not get us very far at all. So, would it not be much more realistic and effective to plan for the week ahead, rather than for the whole year?

Imagine you want to get a raise at work. Would you knock on your boss' door without a specific plan of exactly what you wanted to say to him and just hope to get the raise you believe you deserve? Or, Would you sit down before your meeting, think about what you wanted to say and plan out your meeting, pointing out for how long you have been achieving your targets and how much the company will benefit from giving you a raise? Would you not have a line of questioning ready so that even if you did get your raise turned down, you are now in a better place to get the raise you feel you deserve at your next appraisal?

If you really want to have a fulfilling week you must do more than just show up to work or just show up on an unplanned date with your girlfriend. To create your fulfilling day or week you must put consistent effort in, you must set short-term goals in the areas of your life in which you want to be progressing. Be aware that in life, you are either moving towards or away from your goals as nothing in life stands still. You will need to constantly re-evaluate your performance in order to improve and to be the best you can be.

By planning to have a fulfilling week you will be using the simple strategy of doing the little things well to assist you in creating your fulfilling week. The reality is that when you fail to plan, you plan to fail! Planning is nothing new, but not only do you need to create a plan you need to create a specific plan, before you can take the necessary action to fulfil your life potential.

Setting Goals

A lot of people go through life and have a basic plan of where they are going and a rough idea of what they need to do to get there. Now how about if you were really good at planning out your life: would you not have short-term and long-term goals in all of the important areas of your life? Dynamic it may sound, but work with a Coach on a weekly basis and you will gain the clarity you need to perform at your best in all of the important areas of your life.

Get really specific on what the goals you need to create for your week ahead are. Work with a Coach who will really help you to focus. Why is it that so many people go through life without a really specific plan for what they want to achieve? The possible reason is because of fear of failure or because they have yet to discover the incredible impact that being specific can have on their week ahead and in turn how that would affect their progress for the whole years ahead. In life, it is the little things that you do that really will assist you to fulfill your life potential!

The truth that has been taught down through the ages is: the clearer you can be about exactly what you really want to accomplish, the better the opportunity you have of accomplishing it. Also, be sure to be tough enough on yourself, as the more you ask from yourself, the more you will achieve.

The reality is that everything in life requires effort so will implementing this new strategy to your life require an extra bit of effort? Yes, but the fact is that the small time you spend planning your life on a daily basis will create a big difference in your life as a whole. When you add up these little things you are doing, week after week, month after month, and year after year, be aware they will make a gigantic difference in your life! From this new understanding is it not worth investing the time and effort on a weekly basis to plan your days and week ahead so that you can take the necessary action you need to make your week ahead flow swiftly and easily?

Everyone can benefit from this approach no matter what level of success they are currently at. Maybe you really are progressing in your work but not really progressing in your hobbies. Maybe your relationship has lost its sparkle and you need to apply yourself to it a bit more. Maybe you are working too late and have neglected some of your friendships. Wherever you are, whoever you are, be sure that there is always another level of achievement you can go to. Don't settle for being very good, set your sights on becoming absolutely outstanding!

The quality of your life is totally up to you. You design and shape your life from one moment to the next. The choices you make now will ultimately bring you to your future. So be sure you design and shape your life the way you really want to, do not leave anything to chance if you can help it.

So, what would your ideal life look like? Creating a fulfiling life will depend on how much effort you put in, the support you have and the kind of goals you set for yourself.

You may have a goal to become the next Prime Minister, or you may have a goal to develop the relationship you have with your son further on your weekends. You may possibly want to build an empire, or you may want to get fitter and shed some extra pounds of fat that have been impossible to lose in the past. If you have struggled before then be aware your support structure was probably not adequate enough for you to attain your goal. All the great leaders preach: the grander the vision, the greater the support structure will need to be.

Do not believe in unworthy goals: By that I mean I if you feel your goal is important to you, then it is just that! Whatever you want to accomplish, a good Coach will have the intention to help you make your goals happen. The reality is you are going to have to plan and take action and not wish and hope!

The opportunities and possibilities are endless in life and when you are designing your life it is important to focus on what you really want. By that I do not mean what you think you want: I mean what you really want. By that I mean that society may dictate that you must have a sports car and that penthouse flat over looking the water to be successful. But it is really more important to look at what health, wealth, happiness and love mean to you rather than what you think will bring you happiness.

Tools

People use many different tools such as planners and journals to keep themselves on track. These are essential tools to perform at your best in today's high profile jobs and with the average pace of even a normal lifestyle these days they can be of benefit to almost everyone. Time management is essential to perform well and to reduce your stress. In fact any tool that enables you to function better or more efficiently is worth using. But writing down in a diary and journal is very, very effective because it will give you the opportunity to refer back and review your performance quickly and easily at a later date. The point I am trying to make is that by recording your progress you are going to be able to review your performance at a later stage, which is essential for you to keep on improving and to keep on growing.

Now, how about taking this planning a little further. How about thrashing out your week with a Coach and writing down your clear goals before you even start your week, instead of during your week. Meeting or exceeding your goals each week creates small victories. Small victories are something I learned from a great friend of mine who believes strongly in the power of small victories. It is so important for you to realize just how much these small victories will add up and bring you closer to fulfilling your life potential!

Make planning your week or day ahead a habit. You will soon improve your productivity and success with better specific planning and goal setting. You will be able to achieve more in less time which will in return create a better quality of life for yourself. If you work with a Coach to assist you in performing at your best you will never go back to achieving what you thought were productive days and weeks in the past. You will continue developing and growing, setting new standards for yourself in your business and personal life.

If you are really committed to fulfilling your life potential then you must review your performance on a consistent basis. Immediately after your current task has come to an end, whether it is a sales call or you have just finished reading your daughter her bedtime story, this is the best time to evaluate how you have performed. When your performance is fresh in your mind it is a great time to determine what you did well, so you can repeat what you did well the next time. At the same time I believe it is important to look at what you are not doing so well and think of ways you really can improve to do those things you are struggling with better and to make sure you do not repeat anything you really are not happy with doing again.

Working With a Coach

So will working with a Coach and all this planning make the process of life any more enjoyable? Your Coach will be aware that you will not stick with anything for too long if you are not enjoying what you are doing. So, he or she will recognize that your goals will need to get you excited and you will need to have fun in achieving them. When you set a goal and achieve that goal you will change as a person, you will grow and you will experience positive feelings, you will change. You will become more confident. You will become more. You can become all that you want to be. You can become all that you choose to be. Life really is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Almost all the motivational speakers or performance specialists preach 'know your outcome' or 'begin with the end in mind' so try to get into the habit of asking yourself exactly what you do want out of your life. Whatever goals you have whether they are short-term or long-term focus on the end result, then determine how you will accomplish your goal at hand.

Every time you communicate with people around you, take a moment to outline in your mind exactly what you want to accomplish during your time with them? How effective is doing the little things in life then? How much time would that take? Ten seconds? Thirty seconds? I am confident that using this strategy effectively will put you in a better place to get what you want and for them to get what they need from you. It is obvious that this strategy would not be used for every conversation that you enter into but would it not help you in the more important relationships that are going to play a part in the shaping of your life?

Set your targets and be sure to be really specific with what you want. After you have put in all that hard work, effort and time to set and achieve your goals, the time will come for you to celebrate your achievements! It is so important to set short-term and long-term goals on the rocky road to achievement and when you finally get to where you wanted to be, to congratulate yourself for all the hard work you have put in!

Take the small amount of time to fill in the date and to complete this exercise for your own benefit. Fulfil your life potential and attain the feelings you deserve from achieving all that you desire.

Fulfilling Your Life Potential – planning your year ahead!

1-Year Goals:
- Feelings Attained:
9-Month Goals:
6-Month Goals:
3-Month Goals:
1-Month Goals:
(Today's Date: / / )

Be very very specific with what you want!

The best way to predict your future is to create it!

Of course while it is possible to plan further ahead then a year. It is very difficult to really concentrate on long-term goals. Break your long-term goals down into short-term more manageable goals. A short-term goal would be between 3-12 months, while a long-term goal would be from 3-10 years.

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About Anthony Aurelius

Anthony Aurelius works as a Professional Life Coach and assists people internationally from all walks of life to fulfil their life potential! Professional Life Coaching is convenient for the client as it is done over the telephone, so you can work with a Coach from the comfort of your own home, from your desk at work or even from your hotel room before your meeting in Dubai! It does not deal with emotional trauma or past issues and is clearly very different from counselling. Professional Life Coaching is about fulfilling your life potential! Anthony Aurelius can be reached on Tel: 020 8889 3262; www.empowermentlifecoaching.com

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