Are you rushed off your feet? Tired, exhausted and overwhelmed from the demands of everyday life? Lacking in confidence and motivation to overcome procrastination, other people’s opinions, negative self-talk and a lack of self-belief? Here are some ideas for how you can create your ideal life, starting today.You can start living the life you truly want right now by:
✔ Identifying your personal and/or professional vision.
✔ Defining your personal values, strengths and passions.
✔ Increasing your motivation.
✔ Enhancing your confidence and self belief.
✔ Learning and applying positive habits daily.
Creating your ideal life provides you with a clearly defined process to guide you through your life and parenting journey – with your own personal ‘road map’. Your ‘life plan’ is meant to be reviewed, updating your vision and setting new goals as you grow, develop and change along the way.
By taking time out to reconnect with who you are, being authentic, and including your values, strengths and passions in your everyday life, you can build a strong personal foundation. With this in place, you’re able to establish, plan and design your life around your core values – what’s most important to you. This will provide you with focus and clarity, and improve your confidence, self-esteem and energy. It will help you identify any changes you want or need to make, support your personal growth, and provide incentive and momentum to move towards living the life you truly want and deserve.
Create your Vision
Are you living the life you want right now? Have you taken time to consider what your ideal life actually looks like, both short and long-term? Do you have a plan in place for how you will achieve your desired outcomes?
Your vision is designed to inspire, motivate, empower and help pull you towards achieving what you want in life. Having a clear picture of your vision and ideal life is important. Identifying and clarifying your vision is the first step towards turning your hopes, dreams and aspirations into reality.
A vision provides you with focus and clarity, enabling you to plan, set goals and take action towards achieving what you want. Too often we procrastinate, make excuses or talk ourselves down until we’ve been thinking about what we want for so long it can appear unachievable, unimportant or unrealistic. Some of us give up, stop trying or lose sight of what we wanted to achieve in the first place.
Make time to think about, visualise, review and write down details of your ideal life: what are you doing? Who are you being? What are your hopes, dreams and aspirations? What do you want to achieve in life and when? How do you want your life to be like? What do you see yourself doing in one, five or ten years’ time? Focus on positive thoughts and action. It’s your ideal life you’re visualising – the sky’s the limit.
Some examples of who you aspire to be or qualities you want to include in your life could include: ‘calm, happy, confident mother’; ‘loving partner’; ‘good friend’; ‘fit, healthy, gorgeous woman’, ‘successful businesswoman’; ‘financially independent’… the possibilities are endless.
When you reconnect with who you are and become clear on your vision, you will find that your goals (the steps you take to achieve your vision) will follow and become apparent.
It’s important to describe your vision using positive, future-tense language, as if you’re already there. When you begin with the end result in mind, you move towards your vision and who you aspire to be.
Get Motivated – Just Do it!
Our motivation often depends on and relates to our core values and personal beliefs. Ask yourself and write down: “What changes do I need to make to become the person I want to be and live the life I truly want?”
Take action – as Nike says: “Just do it!” Provide yourself with an incentive to get started, remain focused and motivated, and reward yourself upon achievement of a goal or completion of a task, or impose an undesirable consequence if not.
To help you get started, here are some ideas, thoughts and tips from other mothers on getting and keeping motivated:
✔ Identify what motivates you first and foremost.
✔ Be clear about your reasons for wanting to do or achieve a particular goal(s) – what’s in it for you?
✔ Set yourself a deadline and stick to it.
✔ Gain momentum from a sense of accomplishment.
✔ Satisfaction of a job completed or well done.
✔ Know you’ve done your best.
✔ Be passionate and fully present – give 100% time and effort.
✔ Acknowledgement and recognition (self, family and peers).
✔ Set and achieve goals (both short- and long-term) – something to aim for.
✔ Confidence from stepping out of your comfort zone and trying new ideas and experiences.
✔ Break down big or overwhelming tasks into realistic, smaller pieces.
✔ Be brave, courageous and willing to take risks or do things differently.
✔ Learn from mistakes.
✔ Overcome negative thoughts and habits.
✔ Rediscover unfulfilled passions and interests.
✔ Do something you love every day – reconnect with your passions, hobbies, interests.
✔ Gain by giving back or contributing to your community – get involved in volunteer work or committees.
✔ Group motivation – with friends, or in a class environment.
✔ Turn up or relax to music.
✔ Increased energy, confidence and momentum to achieve and do more.
✔ Take time-out to think, unwind and calm a busy mind.
✔ Get outdoors and clear your head, boosting your energy and motivation. Walking or running is great for the mind, body and soul, and it’s free!
✔ Variety is the spice of life – vary your routine and try different ways to keep motivated.
✔ Reward yourself. Relax and unwind with your favourite activity or use your renewed energy and motivation to do things you’ve been putting off!
Good luck! Today could be the day that you start to create your ideal life!
