11 steps to success – Steps 1 to 3

We are delighted to share with you Alan Wilson’s 11 Steps to Success.  Alan is a Life Coach who has set up Develop your Child and Every Family Matters.  For 15 years he coached companies in business-to-business markets to develop a differential but for the last 12 years Alan’s vision has been to create programs and resources to provide sustainable personal empowerment and self-responsibility. His next step is to create a whole school coaching ethos where teachers, students and parents are working together to create a learning environment they own, with the ‘Ethos of Empowerment’ program.

Alan’s 11 Steps to Success is a great introduction if you have never really looked at goal-setting for yourself before.

Today we are looking at Steps 1 to 3.  Over the next week we will be sharing the next steps but we wanted to break it down into easy chunks.  We know how manic life is and after an Easter break, many of us are exhausted.

11 steps to success [01]You’ve got this far, so we know there’s a part of your life you want to change. If the change were easy, you’d have done it by now.

However provided you are prepared to stick with it, we can help you overcome the difficulties and create a better life for yourself.

You may need to consider changing your current habits and look at creating new ones. After all, if you keep doing what you’re doing – you’ll just keep getting what you’re getting now! Just by committing to making one small improvement each day can make all the difference.

It can be as easy as that. In reality it is not always easy, so if you seriously want to make a change in your life and are ready to work at it, then let’s start to get you on the path to success.

Step 1 – Preparation

Before you start each exercise in this course get into an energised and positive frame of mind to get yourself motivated. Think about what makes you feel good and do it for a few minutes!

  • take a brisk walk
  • play some music loudly and sing along to it
  • stand up and have a big stretch
  • jump up and down ten times
  • stand outside and take some deep breaths of fresh air
  • think of something you enjoy and breathe deeply
  • think about the best your life could be – where are you? what are you doing? who are you with? etc

If you haven’t read our “Treat yourself” and our “Bounce Back” posts, then read them now as they have lots of suggestions about feeling good and things that make you smile.

 Step 2 – What I do well

Don’t fall into the trap of just looking at what’s wrong or what you feel you don’t do well.  Start noticing – and take time to reflect on – what you do well. Go one step further and make a list to keep near you as a reminder. This can provide a great boost to your confidence and self-esteem which really can help you to push through barriers and move you forward towards what you want.

So, are you ready to make a commitment to yourself?

Write that list – what do you do well?

Step 3 – What’s good in my life right now?

Eliminate the word ‘failure’ from your vocabulary – it can be quite a liberating experience!

Starting thinking of failure as just a different outcome or result to what you had expected.

Some of your greatest learnings will come from these different outcomes so don’t deny or ignore them. Rather, celebrate the experience and the learning you have gained. Also make a note of what’s good in your life right now. We can sometimes be so focused on what’s not good that not only can we miss valuable opportunities but we miss the good stuff that’s actually happening around us!

Write that list – What’s good in your life right now

What next?

We will be taking you through the next steps in stages so give yourself time to think about what you do well and what is good at the moment.
Your gifts/skills/talents may not be something you consider as something you are good at, so ask a few friends what they think you are good at.  It may be listening, it may be you can always be objective, it may be that you have a talent for writing or maybe you make people laugh with your quick humour.
As for what is good in your life, this can be difficult when you are facing a tribunal, fighting to get a child out of an ATU, desperate to get an EHC Plan but think about it, have you got friends supporting you (that’s good), does your child make you laugh out loud (that’s good), have you got people to turn to for advice (that’s good).  We know that in the middle of chaos, it can be really hard to find any positives but there will be a few there, they may be hiding or maybe something we just take for granted, so give it some thought and write them down.

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Debs Aspland

Mum to three great kids, each with a different SEN. Transplanted from the NW to the SE. Co-founder and Director of Bringing Us Together

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