“3 Steps to Outlining Your Ultimate Lifestyle Vision (and Business)”

1164948_potsOver the course of the last 3-4 years in my business, I’ve invested heavily in coaches, mentors, workshops, mastermind groups and kicking my own learning up a BIG notch. I did this not only to advance my own business but to help grow my client’s businesses too.

I wanted to create a better life for myself. I wanted more freedom to be able to be with family, travel and to speak and inspire other entrepreneurs.

When I first set out on this quest of business development, I didn’t realize I’d also be making a huge transformation in my self and personal development as well!

What I learned is that no amount of marketing, planning or goal setting would make me as successful as I wanted to be without the right mindset around TWO THINGS: Love & Money.

What I also learned is that in order to truly attain the lifestyle, the business and the life that you ultimately want you have to do 3 main things (and do them regularly mind you):

1. First, you have to develop your overall vision. What do you want your life to look like?

o Do you want quarterly vacations?

o Do you want a 7 figure income?

o Do you want to only work Tues-Thurs, 5 hours a day?

o Do you see yourself volunteering, giving back or doing something towards some other worthy cause?

o Whatever this looks like for you, you need to claim it! You need to really give this some deep thought, not just a fleeting idea. You also want to be on the same page in your visioning as your significant other (that helps).

o Helpful Tips to Keep Your Vision Top of Mind at All Times:

Create a vision board and hang it in your office – cut out magazine pictures or words, use photos of things you want, etc. to make a colorful collage of what your ULTIMATE VISION looks like.

Create a vision video, something short with motivating pictures, words and songs that capture what your ULTIMATE VISION looks like for you and then you can watch it every morning like my friend Kelly.

Develop vision statements, sort of like a mission statement, and then write them on sticky notes or signs around your office, car and home.

2. Second, you want to outline specific and timely goals that you want to attain in a specific time period. You can post these on your vision board too, I do. I make up about 8 goals for the year – big, lofty ones like publish my book, hold my first 4 day event, be a speaker at a big annual conference, etc.

I don’t worry about posting all the little details that go with each goal or writing down HOW I plan to accomplish them because that would be too daunting of a task.

o You just want to write enough to throw it out into the Universe what you plan to accomplish.

o Plus, when you write simple, quick goals like this you can actually take them and post them in your office, by your bedside, in your wallet, car or other significant place where they will ALWAYS be on the top of your mind.

o Then of course you have to BELIEVE and have complete FAITH that you WILL attain them. (that’s the hard part)

3. Thirdly, you need to take a look at your environment and your relationships.

o Are they serving you?

o Are you being supported?

o Are you being encouraged (at all times no matter what crazy ideas you come up with)?

o Are you completely and utterly happy? Because if you’re not, what’s the point?

o Take a deep look at your environment, your relationships with loved ones, co-workers and anyone around you or anyTHING around you that could be bringing you down. You have to keep your mind OUT of the negative AT ALL TIMES – this is CRUCIAL to your success!!!

Hopefully I’ve given you something to think about as far as how you can redesign your life or business (There’s always room for improvement!).


(c) Copyright 2009 K. Sawa Marketing International. Katrina Sawa is an Award-Winning Relationship Marketing Coach who’s helped hundreds of small business owners take dramatic steps in their businesses to get them to the next level in business, revenues and life. She offers one-on-one coaching, group coaching and do-it-yourself marketing planning products. Go online now to get started with her Free Report and Free Audio at http://www.jumpstartyourmarketing.com

Coaching – The Power to Transform

1177634_tulipan“Transformation” – overworked perhaps, yet, nevertheless, a term with which I feel a rather powerful connection.

A few years ago, in the final stages of my twenty-seven year stint in corporate life, I was appointed to the ‘Transformation Directorate’ of the IT division of one of the world’s largest companies.

As corporates are inclined to do, with frustrating regularity, our company had embarked on a cycle of major restructuring. The IT division, suffering from post ‘bubble-burst’ syndrome, had been challenged to halve its annual operating costs (running at nearly $0.5bn) within a mere three years!

In a refreshing and innovative approach to cost cutting, the Directorate agreed to institute a programme of workshops aimed at helping the global staff compliment of many thousands, understand, deal with and – by designing solutions – contribute to the challenge

The workshops were unlike any I had experienced before.


The conventional approach was only too familiar… A few large ‘town hall’ style meetings with designated senior executives addressing fearful audiences of hundreds of staff to inform them, with the bare minimum of detail, of the need for job cuts, and to plead for co-operation while the process – with its top-down design – was set in motion.

This, however, was very different. Staff were encouraged to gather in work teams – small groups of no more than twenty at a time, with trained coaches facilitating discussions. These ‘transformation coaches’ allowed time and space for letting off steam, then offered up simple models of change and practical tools and advice for dealing with it, both in the workspace and the personal capacity.

The words “opportunity” and “possibility” were frequently and repeatedly used. Creative juices were stimulated by relaxing boundaries and staff were given the headroom to put forward their own blueprints for the future ‘half-cost’ environment. The results were quite astounding.

A plethora of practical strategies for sustainably reducing costs were devised, so effective that that the need for job reductions was rendered minimal. Even then, the ‘victims’ were restricted to those who had seen the opportunity in volunteering to leave. Target cost reductions were successfully achieved in just 30 months.

I didn’t appreciate it at the time but it’s clear to me now that the astute use of personal and group coaching methods was the catalyst for a hugely successful transformation.

As I reflect back on that experience – and relate it to the life coaching industry, of which I am now proudly part, I believe the key to transformation lies in gradually shifting people’s focus…

…From the axis of resistance and worst fears, fuelled by limiting beliefs, to the axis of opportunity, fuelled by creative thought (and self confidence derived from past achievements) and ultimately, to the axis of commitment to a new future, fuelled by the desire to change.

Coaching is so much more than a service. Coaching is the power to transform lives.

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Bill Burridge is a South African entrepreneur with 27 years of corporate experience. His company, New Insights Africa, is dedicated to developing a network of high quality, independent life coaches, inspired to bring personal freedom, confidence and growth to people from all walks of life in South Africa. The company’s core product is a unique, high quality, home study certification program in life coaching. http://www.life-coach-training-sa.com

Photo:  Milan Jurek