4 Easy Steps to Take Back Control of Your Life

Are you a driver or a drifter? DRIVERS are driving their life, they know exactly what they want and are doing everything they can to steer towards their desired outcome.
Of course there are often nasty twists and turns that come along and knock us off track, it could be a redundancy, illness or even worse.
Drivers work out how to get back on track as soon as they can though and set off towards their destination again.
DRIFTERS on the other hand could be knocked off course by something big or it may be something small that means the course is changed ever so slightly.
BUT that initially small deviation off course becomes bigger and bigger as time goes on.
Eventually the journey (your life) is going in a totally different direction, you're lost and you no longer know where you want to go, never mind how to get there.
You might not realise straight away that your life is going off track.
Sometimes the realisation sneaks up on us and hits us over the head.
When this happens you're likely to feel just plain STUCK on how to move forward.
Anthony Robbins said "Identify your problems but give your power and energy to solutions" Great advise but what if you have no idea what the solution is?Here are 4 steps go from stuck to solution: Step 1.
Get all of those thoughts out of your head and down on to paper so that you can step back and look at the problem.
Take a sheet of paper or blank word document and title it SITUATION.
Simply writing things down helps you look more objectively at the situation.
It doesn't matter whether you write a 10 page essay, a page of bullet points or even do a mind map, whatever works for you but just get the problem / issue / challenge down on to paper.
Step 2.
Take a second piece of paper titled THOUGHTS, FEELINGS & BELIEFS and answer the following:

• What have I tried to do so far to improve this situation?
• What is within my control regarding this situation?
• What is not within my control regarding this situation?

Then write down all of your thoughts, feelings and beliefs regarding the situation.
Spend plenty of time on this step; make sure you get ALL of your thoughts, feeling and beliefs because these are the things that are keeping you stuck.
Keep asking yourself "what else?" Eg:

• I can't A...
  
• I don't know how to B...
  
• I have to C...
  
• I feel D...
  
• What else?

Step 3.
Take a third piece of paper and title it OPTIONS.
Make a list of everything that you COULD do to take a step forward.
Be creative, this isn't what you are going to do this is just to get your mind to stop being stuck and open up to new ideas.
Ask yourself:

• What's the easiest thing I could do?
• What's the bravest thing I could do?
• What's the stupidest thing I could do?
• What would my best friend tell me to do?

Now challenge the things you wrote down in the last step by asking:

• What could I do if I didn't believe that I couldn't A?
• What could I do if I did know how to B?
• What if I didn't have to C?
• What would I do if it didn't feel D?
• What else could I do?

Step 4.
If you spent enough time on step 3 you will have generated some options that you hadn't previously considered, so now it's time to commit to what you WILL do next.
Take a look at the OPTIONS you wrote down in step 3 and ask yourself which one (or more) of those options would take you just one step closer to improving the situation you documented in step 1.
Depending on your circumstances or the situation it could be a big step or a very small step, but you know Rome wasn't built in a day and taking some sort of proactive action WILL make you feel better and more in control of the situation So...

• What will you do?
• When will you do it?
• What have you learned by working through these steps?