We lose ourselves in societal scripting leaving us numb, medicated, and angry. For our sanity we need to retreat from the dull, agonizing clamor society calls progress to connect with life. Ceremony is the stepping out of the pattern of everyday life making a special time and place for celebration.

It is being in the moment and paying attention to the greatest attraction in a given space. In surrender we become a part of life. We do not control life; we are one with life. Ceremony allows us to experience this in every cell of our being.

We let go of beliefs that no longer serve us to reveal our passionate, creative, powerful self. Realization that we are responsible for our own life choices and our own happiness allow us to take flight. We understand that who we are defines our career, not vice versa. Ceremony is about taking back our power to make a difference in life.

It is a realization that all of our fears and doubts are illusions and that if we stay in the present moment we can step into them and shatter the hold they have on us. Achieving work life balance is all about embracing our connection to all of life.

A powerful, simple ceremony is to go out in nature and find a quiet spot with not a lot of traffic that resonates with you. Journal about what attracts your attention – a twisted tree trunk, a small pale flower, waves on the lake, a chirping bird. How is this a mirror of you or your life? Listen with your heart, not with your head. What do you feel? What does this moment teach you about balancing work and family life?

The choice of action is the second of the “big three” (attitude, action, accountability) life choices that form the foundation of achievement. But just like attitude, action is a choice. Your choice of actions and activities, whether effective or ineffective, will impact your level of achievement and require your consistent, daily management. 

How can you determine whether an action is effective or ineffective? Simply by the end result – effective actions always deliver desirable results! In my experiences working with high achievers, I find a common misconception regarding the choice of action. Many high achievers overwhelm themselves with more than they can do and then “beat themselves up” for not getting it all done.

What they really need to focus on is this:

It’s not how much you do, but the effectiveness of what you do that really counts!

That means balancing the effective activities – those that support the accomplishment of your goals – with the ineffective ones – those that need to be done but are not directly related to your achievement. For example, the dishwasher needs emptying and the car needs to be washed, but neither will advance your future vision of financial independence.

Be prepared to fight your natural instincts on this, though. If your choice of action is left unmanaged, your natural tendency is to allow your day to be managed by your fears and comfort zones. This mindset leads you to believe that the necessary items on your to-do list are just as important as the necessary effective actions that help you reach your goals, and nothing could be further from the truth! 

Admittedly, the most effective actions are usually not the most comfortable activities. But don’t let that stop you from doing them. The underlying foundation of achievement is the consistency of your daily, effective actions. Now read that sentence again and really let it sink in. 

So how do you keep yourself from falling into comfort zones that will just serve to keep you where you are? 

Your first step in managing effective daily actions is to identify the KPIs (key performance indicators) for your given field. For example, the KPIs for a salesman at a car dealership would be effective advertising, call lists, developing call lists into interested buyers, developing interested buyers into qualified prospects, and appointments to show cars to qualified prospects. 

If these five KPIs are performed effectively in sufficient numbers, the end result will be car sales. This, of course, is a simplified example for the purpose of demonstration, but any achievement goal can be broken into the key indicators of performance using this same system. When you know the right things (KPIs) that define goal-directed effectiveness, it is easier to manage your effective actions. 

You can now design your daily actions around the KPIs in sufficient numbers to hit your desired goals.

As you know, achievement is the process of doing the right things consistently over a sustained period of time. In other words, with KPIs in mind, achievement happens moment by moment, one day at a time! 

If you are ready to achieve,

1)      identify the key performance indicators for your goals

2)      design your daily actions around those KPIs

3)      keep doing this everyday!

When you know the right things to do, and you have identified the key performance indicators, simply exercise your power of choice and consistently do the right things. Sounds simple, but it works. 

It has worked for my clients time and time again, and it will work for you – get ready to achieve!

How proactive are you when it comes to how you choose to live your life?

Stephen Covey, in his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, says the first habit is be proactive. I read that book in 1989 and that principle still resonates with me. Many people live lives of default. They wake up in the morning and life just happens to them. They do not make choices. Instead they spend a lot of time trying to get out of things that happen to them. They invest their time and energy reacting instead of being proactive.

Each of us has to choose to change our mindset to be more proactive instead of reactive. It takes awareness and a desire to really improve the way your life is, in order to make these changes effectively.

These days, we seem to have lost our capacity to revel in “choice.” We are overwhelmed with choices and we end up not making any choice at all. Or, if we make a choice, we have escalated expectations and if the choice does not feed our expectations, then we feel we are responsible for making the wrong choice. And then, we shy away from making choices. So we do not make the wrong choice.

Psychologist, Barry Schwartz spoke on the Power of Choice at The Technology, Entertainment and Design Conference. He said when he was growing up, you bought one type of jeans and you wore them and washed them several times and then they fit perfectly. These days, you have the choice of slim fit, wide legs, low riders, regular riders and when you buy one and take it home, if it does not fit, it becomes your fault, because you made the wrong choice. Well, the truth is, the clearer we are about what we actually want, the clearer we are about the choices that we make.  

When you proactively and deliberately make choices, you are signifying to everyone around you and to the Universe at large that your life is worth living.

This may sound like a bizarre question but do you live your life as if it is worth living?

Being proactive and being clear about your choices will help you live your life fully and exceptionally.

Being clear on who you are will help you be clear about your choices.  In my law practice and in my coaching practice, I have discovered that most people are just not aware of the value of their lives.

This is part of what is going on when you hit midlife and your parents die, or your body betrays you and you realize you have spent most of your life trying to attain an elusive goal and you have not spent enough time just enjoying the small things. You realize that you have not spent enough time just being happy and just having a plain old good time.  

The point is this, no one is going to come into your life and tell you how valuable and wonderful you are. That is a job for you. You have to do that for yourself. You have to remind yourself every single day that you have a phenomenal life worth living. This is critical if you actually want to reinvent your life.

This is where affirmations come in. You may not feel as if you have a phenomenal life but you do. With all the scientific breakthroughs, the fact is no one can create life. Life itself is a mysterious. So use affirmations to direct your thoughts and focus on where you want to go.

Here is how you use affirmations. You want it to be close to what you want. Take the time to discover the hidden desires behind what you want. So for example, if you want a new car, what is the want behind that? You probably want the reliability and dependability of a new car. You are  looking forward to the clean car smell and you may even have in mind a high end car that would signify your level of success.  

The perfect affirmation for this would be: I enjoy a reliable and dependable new car. Affirm this to yourself all the time. In addition, envision what you want and experience the emotions of what you want now.

Use these tools to help you to help you deliberately choose how you want to live and reinvent your life.  

This article is part of a 40 page report by the author on “How to Reinvent Yourself at Midlife and Maintain Your Sanity.” If you would like a free copy of the full report, please visit http://www.CoachIyabo.com/reinvent

In the quiet, empty, ageless spaces of remote canyons, you can often get clearer answers to your spiritual or practical questions than through traditional sitting meditation. For

thousands of years, people have used the vision quest as an active, moving meditation through which the soul gives guidance using the mirror of the external, physical world.

The quest can act as a rite of passage marking an important transition or time in a person’s life. It can also act as a rite of renewal, of soul healing or rebirth, or of strengthening understanding and connection to Self and to the Earth. In addition, the quest can be a rite of dedication or a celebration of life purpose and passion.

There are as many different types of quests—from rigorous to gentle, in settings from mountain peaks to deep canyons—as there are visions. They all explore the alchemical,

transformative power of Nature.

Cool, shaded paths along lush, rushing streams are very relaxing and conducive to receiving the helpful messages from our souls delivered by birds, animals and stones. High on towering cliffs eagles speak, the wind caresses, and you taste new realizations. You drink from the well of the deep blue of the sky. Plants advise you. Rocks give strength. You listen. You heal. You transform.

People experience a vision quest as an ever-changing river, bubbling past obstacles, washing away what is no longer needed, carving out new niches, flowing into expanded territory, and providing life-enhancing energy.

Returning from the quest is a time of great exuberance and joy, celebrating the healing and wholeness that you have found. You re-enter your life, bringing your unique, re discovered gifts and opened heart back to family, friends, community and work.

You create permanent breakthroughs in abundance, health, career and life purpose.

There is not any really big secret to life mentoring. It just requires that the mentor has experience and effective coaching skills and techniques. It may be someone in a business field with years of experience in sales and he or she is instructing new business people in the tricks of the trade. The mentor uses practical advice, experience and leadership in the role he or she is playing.

Perhaps it is better to call these individuals motivational speakers rather than life mentors because they are trying to help people achieve goals on their own. They want to share their past experiences that have shaped them into better people. Take for example someone like Lance Armstrong.

He survived cancer and wants to let the world know that you do not have to let cancer beat you. It is possible to achieve great things even when life is attempting to wear you down. Another example is a youth pastor who wants to share his or her own life choices and experiences. He or she wants to be a good example for their group of kids.

The goal of coaching people is to motivate them. It is about being a good lifestyle coach so that you can lead by example. It would not do any good for a drug dealer to expound upon the evils of using drugs when he or she is pedaling narcotics. It takes living the life of a good person in order to show others how to live that same motivated lifestyle.

Life mentoring can be a rewarding career. You have the ability to help out those who are having trouble in their own lives. You are helping them achieve personal goals and make a better quality of life for themselves. Coaching people is something that many people want to do because it gives them a sense of purpose and a way to show others that impossible situations can be overcome. There is hope and triumph that can be had from any experience.

Occupational therapists are concerned with human occupation in its widest sense. They believe that people have an intrinsic drive to be active and express themselves via occupations and activities. Occupational therapists understand that occupations contribute to a person’s sense of identity and place in society. Take a moment to have a think about all the roles and occupations that make up your life, you may be a parent, or partner, you may be studying at college or working your way up the career ladder, you may be into exercising and keeping fit or you may be leading a hippy lifestyle!

Whatever, your life choices, it is likely that these roles and occupations give your life direction. For example, think about the range of activities that you do in any week, you will find that most of what you do, is related to your life roles and choice of occupations. This is because we do what is meaningful to us and what is necessary (ironing is likely to fall into the latter category!).

It is activity that keeps the mind and body functioning. Through what you do, you learn new skills and how to adapt, get to interact with other people and your environment, meet human needs and develop who you are. Activities are the things we do to work towards our goals. They are the framework of everyday life.

It is understood that if your routines are disrupted or you are deprived of occupation because of illness, stress or other problems your health and well-being will suffer. Occupational therapists help people whose usual and important routines are disrupted because of illness, stress or social problems. Their aim is to enable people to achieve as much as they can for themselves, so they get the most out of life. Occupational therapists work on any occupational difficulties and in this way are experienced life coaches. When people cannot do things which are important to them – such as getting dressed, giving a presentation at work, having a shower, working, socializing, feeling confident to go out into the community or undertaking a favorite hobby – an occupational therapist can help them in many ways, based on each individual person’s needs and lifestyle.

Occupational therapy can help you to maintain a personally satisfying routine of activities. Occupational therapy, life coaching is available privately in Aldbury in Hertfordshire. I am an NHS experienced occupational therapist and have worked with people with mental-health difficulties of all types, using a range of mental health therapy techniques. Occupational therapists are skilled at empowering individuals with depression, anxiety and stress to become re-engaged with life and to feel confident again. Life-coaching in Hertfordshire will involve a combination of occupational therapy, NLP, hypnotherapy, and CBT techniques.

“If you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams, ” said Henry David Thoreau, “and endeavor to live the life you have imagined, you will meet with unexpected success.”

Finding your right work can improve your life. Considerably. When you cut to the chase, focus on the essentials, and do work that is both satisfying to you and fulfilling to the world, you will feel your precious life going somewhere.

The key to a life that you may never have dared imagine before is finding satisfaction in work.

How do you move in this direction, shrugging off the work that you have taken on out of desperation or necessity and beginning the work that expresses who you are in the world?

It takes inner work to make the transition. Focus on your creative mind, reflect on what work you like to do, and contemplate on your skills and talents. Think back on what you have learned from both good and bad past experiences. What works and what does not work for you?

Each of us is different. Each of us has a unique purpose. Each of us is unique in our talents. Each of us is exceptionally qualified to do some things better than almost everyone around us. We come into this world with gifts, and when we do work other than what we are talented to do, we feel immense discomfort.

Our gifts call to us to express them. When we deny this call, when we pretend to be somebody we are not and do things that we have little or no interest in, then we feel the weight of our own self-betrayal.

You may have to look for your right work. Or it may be obvious to you. The Latin word for work is “vocation.” It means, “calling.” Calling, in turn, is related to your voice. Thus, the right work for you is one where you can express your own voice.

In Letters to My Son, Kent Nerburn expresses this idea in an eloquent way. He says:

“Think of work as ‘vocation.’ It should be something you want to do, and it should be something that gives voice to who you are and what you want to say to the world. It is something that you choose because of what it allows you to say with your life. It is, above all else, something that lets you love.”

Simple questions will help you make the right choices, those that lead to an architecture of a fulfilling life. Here are some questions you can ask to get clear on your vocation:

How am I creative?

How am I unique?

What is my greatest fantasy?

What things do I like having?

What kind of career life have I had to date?

What life skills can I use to make money?

How does my work match my life purpose?

What do I need to do to start changing my life?

What kind of life planning am I prepared to do?

What have been my best life choices?

What things do I like doing?

What kind of person do I want to be?

If I could be someone else for a day, who would I choose to be?

How does the right work fulfill my spiritual life?

What makes me frustrated with my current situation?

What do I have to do to feel inner peace?

When I look back on this adventure of my life, what do I hope to see?