Final Tools to Your Best Self
Well done, to make it to our final Lenten post this year!
We’ve looked at 7 areas of our lives from Best Self – Be You, Only Better, by life coach, Mike Bayer and assessed what changes would make us better people. We know what we’d like to improve, but perhaps we’ve tried before and failed. That’s okay. Today we will add some tools to our tactics that will help us grow into our Best Selves.
Assembling Your Best Team
Mike Bayer says, “The richness, depth, and complexity of our time here on earth is, in fact, defined by how we relate to others, by the connections we make with one another. We are all in this together […] We can achieve so much more together than we can alone.”
To enhance our chance of success at making changes for the better, we need to assemble a team. They will be people you’ve chosen because they inspire you to be your Best Self, and your relationship with them is positive. Look at the people in your life. Ideally you would have people who support you in each of the 7 spheres of your life: social, physical, health, education, relationships, employment, and spirituality. Some will be supportive in several areas, some in only one. Your team may change over time. It may include your spouse, your family, friends, health care providers, hair stylists, ministers, advisors, coworkers, teachers—anyone who shares your values and enhances any part of you. It might be helpful to make a list of each sphere now, and who is on your team in that area, or who you’d like to have on your team. Do you need more expert help in an area? More positive input than you are getting? Is there someone you need to gently move out of an area where they are influencing you negatively? Remember you should be reciprocating and helping on other people’s teams, too.
Once you have your ideal team ready to help and know what you’d like to improve in each category, it’s time to tackle some changes! Here’s your game plan:
Seven Steps for Acquiring Your Best Goals
1.Define your goal in terms of specific events or behaviors. Don’t be vague.
2. Express your goal in terms that can be measured. For example, 10 pounds lost, or $500 saved, or exercise 5 days a week for 30 minutes.
3. Choose a goal you can control – Your goal can’t rely on anyone else’s behavior.
4. Plan and program a strategy that will get you to your goal – Don’t rely on willpower! If dieting, remove offending foods from your home. Avoid temptation or triggers!
5. Define your goal in terms of steps – What needs to be done first? Next? Next?
6. Assign a timeline for your goal – Deadlines are motivational, and timelines help get you there.
7. Create accountability for progress toward your goal – Tell your plans to someone on your team and ask them to help you stay accountable. Give them periodic reports.
Bayer says, “Grow or go. Choose to grow and life will open up to you in ways you can’t yet imagine. Find the highest and best use for your life by getting in touch with the best version of yourself you can be. For now, and forever.”
And to sum things up for our final email, here are the main points from Matthew Kelly’s Perfectly Yourself – Discovering God’s Dream for You
- Celebrate your progress
- Just do the next right thing
- Put Character First
- Find what you love and do it
- Live what you believe
- Be disciplined
- Simplify
- Focus on what you are here to give
- Patiently See the Good in Everyone and Everything
Thank you for being open to growth, four minutes at a time! May you have a wonderful Easter and continue to find ways to become the person God intended you to be.
April 19, 2019 9:19 am