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Simplify Your Life

Posted on: Tuesday, 3 January 2006, 18:00 CST

How many goals did you set yourself last night? And how many of them will still be on course by the end of the month? There's always a sense of excitement in being able to start the year with a clean slate and an enticing vision of the perfect new you - but if you make too many resolutions, you'll end up not keeping any of them.

This three-step plan from the Mind Gym, whose workshops and bestselling books use psychological techniques to transform people's lives, will help you achieve your ambitions by focusing on the things that really matter in 2006

STEP 1 Envisage how you'd like life to be a year from now The reason life sometimes seems such a challenge is that you try to tackle it as one unwieldly mess. You need a loft conversion, but the garden needs repaving too. You need to book a family holiday, but your diary is full of work commitments. Everything interferes with everything else. The trick is to tease it out into separate strands, then tackle the problem areas one at a time in small, manageable stages.

Below are the seven key 'life strands' that the Mind Gym has identified.

Your aim is to narrow these down to the three that you are most worried about, so you can start to make progress where it matters. Once you start concentrating on the areas where you can make a real difference, you are more likely to achieve your aims.

Find an hour when you won't be disturbed, sit down with a notebook and look at all seven strands to see which three require most work. The trick is to envisage yourself a year from now. What problems will have been solved, what bad habits overcome, what positive elements maintained? When you know how you want things to be, it's far easier to see how you can make them happen.

1 BODY

How do you imagine the ideal 'you' looking and feeling physically a year from now? Think about your shape, your fitness, your general appearance. How much will you be exercising? Have you changed your diet and cut down on alcohol?

Are you drinking more water and eating more fruit and veg? Have you managed to stop smoking or kick your addiction to chocolate? Have you found your perfect haircut or got round to having your teeth fixed?

2 MIND

What will the ideal 'you' be able to do in a year's time that you can't now?

Speak Spanish? Play the piano? Win arguments more effectively or express your opinions more confidently in your book group? Think about the subjects and activities that inspire you. What would you like to do more of? Do you envisage yourself going to concerts and exhibitions?

Seeing more films? Do you know inspiring people you'd like to spend more time with?

3 SOCIAL LIFE

How do you envisage your ideal social life? Which friends are you seeing more of and which ones are you seeing less of? Have you made new friends or joined any clubs? How many times a week are you going out and where are you going? Have you managed to clear your diary of unnecessary commitments to make time for the friends that matter?

And what do those friends contribute to your life?

4 CAREER

Imagine what you'll be doing a year from now. Is it the same job or something completely different?

How many hours will you ideally be working and how flexible are these?

Is it a Monday to Friday routine or have you gone part-time or ditched the day job altogether and taken the freelance route? How are you managing your work/life balance?

Are you working in an office? At home? In the open air? And have you achieved any specific successes you're really proud of?

5 MONEY

Picture the financial situation you'd realistically like to be in this time next year (assuming you haven't won the Lottery by then). How much will you be earning and how much do you owe? How in control do you feel of your savings and cashflow? How much will you have in the bank, and what other assets will you own house, car, share in a business? How much are you using your credit card?

Are you spending more or less than a year ago and are you spending on different things?

6 FAMILY

How would you like your relationship with your family to be a year from now?

Will you have spent more time, or less, with them over the past 12 months? Is there an argument you hope to have resolved, or a split mended? How do you feel you rate as a parent? As a sister? As a daughter? How well do you get on with your family as a whole, and are there any specific relationships within it you have changed for the better? If so, how?

7 RELATIONSHIPS

Picture how you'd like your romantic life to be this time next year?

Are you in a relationship? Is it the same one you're in now? What does the other person think of you and what are your feelings for them? What will you be getting from the relationship and what are you giving to it? How much time will you be spending together, and are you also making space for time alone? Would you like to be married or do you dream of regaining your independence? What is your idea of a fulfilling relationship, physically, emotionally and practically?

STEP 2 Identify three key priorities

If you've been honest about your 'year from now' notes, then it should be obvious which three areas you need to concentrate on. If your ideal image more or less matches your current situation, then things are OK. If there's a big gap between them, this is where you need to focus.

For each of your three priority strands decide on a single goal for 12 months' time.

Keep this specific, so that you can make definite progress (eg, 'learn to play tennis' is more useful than 'get fit'). It helps to set a few smaller goals along the way, too. If the big challenge feels daunting (redecorate the whole house), then concentrate on one objective at a time (give the bathroom a facelift). And if even sorting out the chaos in your kitchen seems beyond you, start by promising yourself you'll defrost the fridge.

Then decide what specific steps are needed to get you started (book tennis lessons, find plumber) and what support you will want (someone to practise tennis with, a friend whose bathroom you can borrow while yours is out of action).

So for each of your three priorities you should have decided on: a goal for the next 12 months;

mini-goals to chart your progress towards it;

the emotional or practical support you are going to need.

how to get started;

STEP 3 Commit to your goals and get started

Now is the time to make sure the priorities you have selected are the ones you want to invest time and energy in. Are you excited by the possibilities offered by changes in these areas? And a little bit terrified? Then they are probably the right things for you to tackle.

Don't be put off by fear: when we are about to make a significant decision we tend to create what psychologists call 'catastrophic fantasies' in which we imagine the worst possible outcome. (We decide to change career, it doesn't work out, we lose the new job, no one else will offer us work, our partner leaves us, we end up living in a cardboard box.) Review your fears, eliminate the irrational ones and accept that a certain level of anxiety is inevitable if you want to make a real difference to your future.

File your goals somewhere safe or pin them on the wall where you can't forget them. Then get started your new, simplified life is about to begin.

HOW TO MAKE RESOLUTIONS YOU'LL STICK TO

1 Pick one thing that has been preying on your mind. It doesn't have to be huge, as long as you know you'll really benefit from the reduced worry factor once it's sorted.

2 Imagine the good feelings you will have when you achieve your goal. Pride, confidence, satisfaction, relief. Every time you waver, remember those good feelings and hang on to the resolution that will make them happen.

3 Think about the challenge as fun or enlightening - an adventure rather than a burden. If you want to lose weight, focus on the compliments you'll get at next year's Christmas party, not the hours you'll have to put in on the treadmill.

4 Don't be put off by past failures - they simply make you wiser and better prepared to succeed this time. Heroes aren't defeated by mistakes: they build on them.

5 Don't give up at the first hurdle. One slip up doesn't mean you've failed.

Accept that there has been a temporary interruption, then carry on towards your goal.

6 Tell people what you're planning to do. Once you've gone public, you have an incentive to honour the commitment. The more people who know, the more likely you are to achieve your goal.

The Mind Gym's new book, The Mind Gym: Give Me Time, is published tomorrow by Time Warner (Pounds 12.99).

To order a copy with free pp, call the YOU Bookshop on 0870 162 5006, or visit www.you-bookshop.co.uk For more information on Mind Gym workshops, tel: 020 7376 0626; www.themindgym.com

HOW WE GOT OUR LIVES IN FOCUS

ABI MCCAHON, 31, is married and works full time for an IT services supplier based in Nottingham.

I had a lot of things mulling around in the back of my mind, and the Mind Gym programme helped me clarify what I want to do.

I'd been moaning that we don't have a lot a friends in Nottingham since we moved here three years ago, so one of the life strands I decided to concentrate on was 'social life'. The goal I have set is to have a network of local friends. I love dancing - I met my husband at a dance class - so my first mini-goal is to organise for us to go with some friends to a rock 'n' roll class.

My second priority is the 'family' strand - I really want to see more of my family, and I've decided that a measurable goal will be to have them all here for Christmas next year. That means doing some redecorating and making sure I have enough beds for everyone, so I'll have plenty of mini-goals during the year.

Thirdly, there's the 'mind' strand: I want to learn Italian. My goal is to take Italian GCSE in 2007 (so a holiday in Italy will, obviously, be an essential part of the preparation).

Getting it all down on paper was a great way of crystallising my thoughts.

It gives me something concrete to work at and I like the idea of being able to check what I've achieved. I now believe I can make these three goals happen.

BARBARA BOTTRILL, 35, is married with a seven-week-old daughter, Daisy. She lives and works in Swansea, but also travels overseas.

This has sorted out all the mumbo jumbo whirling around in my head and turned it into a few simple priorities. It may look basic, but it is very effective and lets you concentrate on small goals that you can actually achieve.

My goal for the 'body' strand is simply to drink a pint of water every morning when I wake up.

My goal for 'social life' is to have two weekends a month with nothing planned, instead of getting them all booked up months in advance. But it also got me thinking about areas of my life that I hadn't given much attention to before - such as family and relationships. I am now going to spend time learning about my family history so that I can pass it on to the next generation.

I always get frustrated because there is so much I want to do. Tackling my wish list this way made it easy to identify a few practical priorities. It has also been a chance to snatch some 'me' time. I never get a whole hour to myself, so I did it in ten-minute chunks. This worked really well, as it meant I could make plans while I was walking the dog or waiting at the dentist.

I am going to put my goals on my office wall at home as a reminder of what I want to do most. I now feel I've got the space to make them come true.

Source: Mail on Sunday; London (UK)

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