How to take control of your Life

Do you ever wish you could really get motivated and do the things you promise yourself you will (like getting fit, for example), but end up frustrated and cranky with yourself for not following through on your promises?

And so many of us do it.

How often do we threaten at the beginning of the year (ah, good old January) that we’ll turn ‘over a new leaf’, start again and really swing into action this year?  You say to yourself ‘Yip, this is my year.  This new start will give me the chance to get fit, lose weight, gain weight, improve my relationship, practise more patience’ … or whatever it is you threaten to do and promise yourself you will.  But never seem to.

Wellness programs talk about getting healthy in various ways – good mental health, becoming physically fit, spiritually well and emotionally strong.  And we all know these things are important if we want to live well, but so few of us really concentrate on taking control of our life in many ways.

One of the parts of my job is speaking at conferences and forums to large audiences.  Often, I’ll ask the audience how often they exercise each week.  We know that we should be exercising 3 to 4 times a week (30 – 40 minutes a time) to be fit and well,  we’ve heard it all before.

Without fail less than 10 percent of people in any audience I ask that question to, do so.

The point is that we know what is good for us, but we just don’t do it.  We have dreams about what we want to do, but never quite get there.  We promise (yet again) that this January we’ll be kinder to our partner, lose weight, clean up the yard, go on that long-promised holiday or whatever it is.

Take the new year’s ‘gym resolution’ for example. For some, we start off the year with zest, buying the new gym shoes (after all, they’ll keep us energised, right?), comfortable (stretch?) gear that we can sweat in and we eagerly pay our 6 months membership.  We are taking control of our life.

We go to gym six times in week one (maybe even week two) but by mid-March, we may get there once every two weeks, if we’re lucky. In May, what gym?

You see, to take control of your life, to achieve what you want to, you must ACT.  You must DO something to achieve what you want to achieve out of life.  It’s not going to fall into your lap and it needs goals, plans and strategies to get to where you want to.  Not simply talk, which is cheap and gets us nowhere.

Why women so often feel out of control

I hear so many women feeling disappointed in themselves for not doing what they promise or want to.  And I see many reasons why they don’t.

First up, women are busy.  We carry the world.  We have the children, work in and out of the home (more women are in the workforce now than ever before), we cook, clean, nurture, taxi people around, look after our aging parents (and hope our kids will do the same for us one day), act as confidante and mentor to our children or distressed friends, volunteer at the canteen or the homeless shelter……… should I go on?

The many roles we play make most of us exhausted and leave us little, if any, time for ourselves.  What’s worse, some women I talk to tell me they feel GUILTY if they take time out for themselves.  They have got so used to helping others and being there for their families, they have no time for themselves.

In short, many women have no time for themselves in their own lives and they feel out of control. No wonder. So, what can we do about this?

5 simple steps to start gaining control back

  1. Look at your life and assess if you have any time at all for you.  This means at least an hour a day (more over the weekend) when you can rejuvenate and rest.
  2. Work out what goals you want to achieve.  Keep it simple and stick to 2 at a time.  Write them down and put them on the fridge in the kitchen.  Display them. Include dates that you want to achieve them by.
  3. Next to each goal, write how a strategy of HOW you will achieve this.  Will it be to save $20 a week to put money away for the holiday or will you swap with the neighbour next door to look after each other’s children when you go to the gym.  If you want to lose weight, as your goal, so what will you do and how?  You may need help to do so, so getting it is part of your goal.
  4. Tell others around you about your plan and show the what you want to achieve and how you are going to do it. Make yourself accountable.
  5. Stick to it.  No matter what, don’t deviate.  Stick to your guns and keep your promises to yourself.

The point is that you can go on any wellness program, join the best gym or hope to go on the most divine holiday, but if you fail to plan (and stick to it) you plan to fail.  It’s time to swing into action.  Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Go get it.

Stage 1 of the Be Unstoppable online women’s empowerment program is all about personal empowerment – making good decisions and choices, having control over what you do and making wise choices.  Learn how to take charge of your everyday life by become more empowered, focussing on what makes you happy and being in control of you and in control of your life.  And this Stage of the 9 stage online Program is absolutely free.

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Find out more on www.empoweringwomentothrive.com

If you’d like to discuss any concerns or ideas you have about taking control of your life, book a free discussion on https://my.timetrade.com/book/QGY21 today!

Photo by Yoann Boyer on Unsplash

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