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All of my clients want to improve their life in some way and they often ask me “How can I make the time to work on improving my life when I have so much to do already? How do I make a plan and stick to it? How can I stay focused and motivated when there are so many demands on my time already?”.

It’s true that we all have busy lives; we have so much to do and so many demands on our time. There are things that we keep putting off and some don’t even get on our ‘to do list’ such as going to the gym, spending time with our friends and family, reading that business book and developing our knowledge. So why should we take time to sit and think about our future when we are already so busy? If we truly want to create a great life and focus more on the things we want to achieve, then we need to take a little time to think about what that is and have a way of achieving it. When we spend more of our time focusing on the things that will move us forward not only do we achieve more, we feel better about life and have more energy to do more.

You can get started right now by following 5 simple steps that will help you stay focused on creating a great life. You don’t need to use will power; this is about using the natural mechanisms of your unconscious and conscious mind to work for you. This will create a sense of passion in your life and help you maintain a balance while creating the life you want and deserve. You will find that you have more time to do the things you want to do and you will be more successful in every area of your life, both at work and at home. This may seem like a big claim however it works. Just follow the 5 steps to a great life and see for yourself; you have nothing to lose.

Create a vision

1Create a clear and compelling vision for each area of your life. It’s difficult to stay focused when you don’t know what direction you are heading in and what you want to focus on. A compelling vision is a powerful description of how you want your life to be. Each of us has several roles in life that we fulfill, for example someone may be a husband, a father, a tennis player, a football coach, a salesman and a leader. When you define your role, rather than simply naming it use an adjective to describe its quality, for example ‘husband’ could be ‘loving husband’, ‘salesman’ could be ‘top salesman’, ‘leader’ could be ‘charismatic leader’. Creating a compelling vision for each of your roles will help you to focus on improving that area of your life and help you to maintain balance in your life.

When you write your compelling vision, imagine what it will be like when you are completely satisfied with each of your roles and everything is running the way you want it to. Write it in the current tense and describe any achievements in the past tense. Be as creative as you can be, the richer the description and the more exciting you make it, the more motivating and easier it will be for you to achieve it. The purpose of this is to naturally focus your mind. Your vision doesn’t need to be long, it can be just a short paragraph. To begin with, all you need is just enough of a description for you to feel excited and passionate. You will probably want to go back and refine your vision when you notice how this is working for you.

Plan your route

2Once you have a clear vision for each area, think about the big goals: the outcomes you want or need to achieve on the way to fulfilling your vision. I call these ‘Vision Level Outcomes’. They may be short, medium or long term, however they will all be big and exciting achievements. Decide what date you want to have achieved these outcomes by and schedule them into your plan for the next few years.

Outcomes should be described in the positive. Describe what you will see, hear and feel when you achieve the outcome. Ask yourself, “What result do I want?” and “How will I know I have achieved it?”. This will help you to stay focused on the direction you want to go in rather than where you don’t want to end up. When you read your outcome you should feel a sense of excitement and determination.

Set your intention

3Now it’s time to fill in the details and make a plan towards achieving your ultimate success. At the start of each week take some time to plan your week. Think about the areas you want to focus on. Rather than try to focus on all areas each week, focus on a few areas at a time changing them from week to week to maintain balance.

For each area you choose to work on pick one or two of the Vision Level Outcomes to work towards. Think about what will drive you towards your vision and what outcomes and actions will make the biggest difference? Set your intention on achieving these outcomes this week and schedule them into your diary, visualising yourself successfully achieving each one. Make a commitment to yourself and take the first step, no matter how small.

Focus your attention

4Keep your attention on achieving your desired outcomes for the week by looking at your outcomes several times a day. Simply read through each one and allow your mind to focus all of your attention on it for a moment.

When the time comes to work on your scheduled outcome, if you need to motivate yourself read your Compelling Vision and Vision Level Outcome. This will help you to get into a resourceful state and to stay focused even if things get tough.

Track your progress

5At the end of the week review your progress. Think about your success and take the time to feel good about yourself, congratulating yourself for the things you did well. If there are areas where you didn’t succeed, think about what you could have done differently. Learn from the experience, and rather than thinking that you failed, realise that you have just learned how not to do it next time. Repeat step 3 and feed this forward into the plan for next week. This feed-forward and feedback loop will help you to detect the necessary adjustments you need to make in order to stay on track.