Step 7 : Committing to a Plan to Live your Life on Purpose

Its been 8 months since you started the 7 Step Plan to Live your Life on Purpose.

In that time you have figured out how your past has shaped the person you are today (Step 1). You have identified your strengths (Step 2), beliefs, values and drivers (Step 3). You have a great “user manual” reminding you how you operate at your best (Step 4). You have challenged yourself to uncover blind spots and other patterns of behaviour that might be getting in the way of you becoming your best self (Step 5). Finally you have composed a Statement of Success (Step 6) that identifies what it will look like when you have lived your life on purpose.

We are in a new year, and now at Step 7, this is where the real work begins. If you are lucky you may already be living your life today in a way that matches your Statement of Success. However more often than not this is not the case.

Take my client, Michael. One part of his Statement of Success was to have a relationship with his daughter in 10 years time where she would want to spend time with him rather than feeling obliged to do so. His daughter (Muriel) is currently 12 years old. Michael travels extensively for his work and does not spend any quality time with his daughter. Even when he is physically present at home, he is often overly tired or distracted and therefore not really paying attention to his daughters interests and needs. He has not spent any father/daughter time with Muriel in the past 6 months and feels he doesn’t know how to talk to her anymore.

The reality is, unless he chooses to spend his time differently and changes the way he is approaching his relationship with his daughter, there is a real risk that he will end up with the relationship he fears with Muriel rather than the one he seeks. Therefore Michael needed a specific plan about what he could do over the coming weeks and months to change the dynamics of his relationship with Muriel. It took real courage and persistence on his part to change the dynamics.

One good way to assess whether or not you need to make changes to various aspects of your life is to use the “Wheel of Life”.

You put each of your Statement of Success topics into a “segment” of the Wheel and on a scale from 1 – 10 note how important each aspect of the Statement is to you. For Michael achieving his desired relationship with Muriel scored “8”. Next, do a “current state assessment”. Michael assessed how satisfied he was with the current state of his relationship with Muriel and, if he were to do nothing, how likely could he achieve his desired state. Michael assessed his “current state” as “2”. This means that he needed to take significant action if he wanted to achieve his desired state.

For Michael, he would be happy with a relationship where his daughter, when she was at university, would be in touch with him every couple of weeks and would want to come home and spend time with him over Christmas/New Year.

The commitment that Michael made was, once a month to do an activity that Muriel wanted to do (just Michael and Muriel together) and that Michael would turn his phone off whilst they were together. Once he had made this commitment to himself and to Muriel, it was critical that he kept his promises and made it a priority even if there were other pressures that he faced.

At first Muriel was a bit hesitant about spending one-on-one time with her Dad but over the years she grew to really love the special time they spent together. She is 16 now and although it is not guaranteed that she will want to keep in touch regularly once she is at university, it is much more likely that she will do so now that she and Michael have formed a closer connection with each other.

Turning your “Living Life on Purpose” Plan into action is critical. If it just remains words on a page or thoughts in your head then you are not on the path to Living your Life on Purpose.

Having the courage to do what it takes to make conscious choices and changes to your life is the key. Having someone who believes in you and supports you on the journey can help a lot. However ultimately it is down to you. Do you want to Lead the Life that you choose or are you going to end up with the Life that is a product of choices that others have made for you or that you have drifted into?

What one commitment can you make today that means that you are taking control of your Life choices. Just start with one thing that is linked to your Statement of Success and stick with it. Once you have nailed that, add one more thing. This is a life’s journey and you choose the path step by step.

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If you would like to learn more about Living Life on Purpose or about Annemarie’s coaching practice contact her through her LinkedIn profile or via her website.