How to get where you want to go

If you have been thinking that you’d like to make some changes and start moving in the right direction, then you are in the right place! Switching our focus toward where we might want to be going is the first step in getting where we want in our lives or our careers. It can be easy to just put our head down and plough on. Although that stoicism is admirable, it rarely leads to a sense of fulfilment. 

It can be difficult to even know where to begin if you are working on your own. That’s why a lot of people opt to work with a coach who can guide them through the process of change. Right from the beginning, asking the right question to spark the change, up to getting a plan together and actioning it - coaching can help give you the results you want. 

Here are three things you can do now, to help you get ahead of the game and raring to go this year!

3 tips to help you move forward

1. Look back, look forward, begin now

What have you been doing and what has been the result? What have you enjoyed, how did this happen and what did it give you? What have you avoided, was it intentional and what was the implication? What are your list of should haves, could haves and ought too’s? What is it that is missing from the picture of the year you have just had?

Now cast your mind forward. Wave that imaginary magic wand. If you could create anything, have things the way you want, what does it look like? What are you doing day to day? What time do you get up? What are you wearing? Where are you going and what does it feel like? 

Now match that future picture with the present and identify the gaps. Then one by one ask yourself what it would take to bridge each gap and what can you do today to begin the process of getting there. 

2. The elephant that wasn’t in the room

What did you need in the last year that you didn’t have? Unsurprisingly perhaps, people notice things that happened that didn’t work but they aren’t so good at spotting something they needed that was missing. The elephant that wasn’t in the room, if you like! Now double check with yourself what it would be like to have that element in your life. Now give yourself three ways to potentially get it. 

Next Look at what you are expecting this element to give you and write down three alternative ways that you might be able you get those things via a different route. What you are doing in this process is clarifying, deep in your thoughts, what you might really want and challenging your assumptions of how you might get there. Ask yourself how this journey can begin.

3. Face your fear of wanting

What is it that you daren’t even let yourself imagine happening – for fear that it might not happen at all? We often don’t realise how much we can keep ourselves ‘safely’ away from imagining having something, just in case we want it so bad that it would be unbearably hard to face up to not getting it.

We have all kinds of techniques for keeping these thoughts at bay – many of them involve negative self-talk. Telling ourselves things like ‘That’s never going to happen’, ‘Oh yeah right, as if!’ or ‘Don’t be so stupid just focus on what you need to do to get by, stop fantasising.’ However, what we need to realise is that it is those of us who allow ourselves to think big who achieve great things. 

When you think about it, it makes sense. When we think forward and put ourselves in a particular position in our mind’s eye, we actually start to prepare ourselves for how to be when the opportunity arises. A kind of mental rehearsal technique. In reality, that means that we are, A) More likely to succeed when we find ourselves in the position to make things happen and B) More likely to take advantage of potential inroads, because we believe that, however unlikely, one of them is going to come off. You will find many a successful person who has taken advantage of a chance encounter or opportunity, only to find that they’d been mentally preparing for years. They just ‘had that feeling’ that one day, it would happen!

If these ideas intrigue you, it may well be worth looking into what working with a coach might enable you to achieve. Having someone guide you through your journey, helping to capture and clarify your thoughts, and then putting them into action can be so beneficial. It's time to start turning those dreams into a reality.