Take Steps to Make Your Life Happen

Today is about mental fitness and getting where you want to be.  

Have you ever woke up and thought, “This cannot be my life?” Dragging yourself to a job you hate. Working all day for what seems like mere pennies in your pocket. Ultimately living to work, working to survive.

If so, I feel your pain. I recently went under construction in my own life. Long story short: Hated what I was doing, hated my living situation and furthermore, hated paying up the ying yang for it.

No time to do anything I wanted or dreamed of doing. Basically, my morning mantra was please, not another day of this. So I decided to revamp everything. Changed everything about my life. Sacrificed a lot to move ahead and create a more positive, mentally healthy life.

Bottom line, I wanted to make some stuff happen! What stuff? Still figuring that out. Do I want to focus more on training or nutrition with clients? Do I want to travel, educate myself and others or simply put my life on hold and live a little?

I don’t know. But you can bet your last dollar I’m not waiting around for something to happen. My ears are perked, my head is on a swivel and my eyes are open. There’s no hiding in the corner (’cause nobody puts baby, or me, in a corner), I’m center stage, looking for new people to meet, new avenues to take and new opportunities to seize.

In order to create a new life, it’s a must. In fact, because my new plan of action, which you’ll learn for yourself by the end of this column, I’ve been making things happen. So far, I have traveled to Utah with New Balance shoes, working one of the biggest trade shows of the year. I shook a lot of babies and kissed a lot of hands—or something like that.

On another occasion while pirating Wi-Fi at a San Diego coffee house, I ran into and introduced myself to Drew Canole, the founder of fitlife.tv. After discussing shoes, juice and my blog, I have become a part of his elite team of health advocates.

The last and probably most bizarre thing to happen, I now work at the hippest, friendliest, awesomest and most-talked-about bakery/bar/cupcake haven: Babycakes. This happened while I was accidentally, on purpose, listening in on an interview some other kid was horribly failing.

No shower and sweaty clothes, I explained how I would be a good candidate for the position. That was apparently my first interview, nailed the second and was offered a job on the third. Is it a career choice? No, but it makes me money and makes me happy. Plus, you never know who you’ll meet next, right?

So that’s the stuff that’s been happening lately.   

But enough about me, let's talk about you.

What’s your stuff? What do you want to change, add to, take away from your life? Come on, think about it. Everyone has something they want: strength, love, happiness, money. Everyone has something they don’t want: stress, bad relationship, crappy job, bratty kids (good luck with that one).

Whatever it is, you’ll need a plan, a map, a how-to guide ensuring you aren’t just floating in space with desire, but making proactive decisions based on making stuff happen. This plan works for everything!

Guide To Making Your Life Come True

No. 1 Set Your Goals
How will you get there if you don’t know where you are going? Make a list of exactly what you want. Pretty simple and yet, often overlooked. Duh! 

No. 2 Attack Those Goals
Look at each goal on your list and form a plan of how to reach each one. What will it take to get there? I like to work backward. Start with the end result.

Example: I’m rich! I made $15,000 per month. That means I had “x” number of clients, that I charged “x” amount. I did “these” things to market and advertise. I supplemented with “x,y,z.”

Think of it as a paint by numbers. Don’t overcomplicate things, just know where you are going. K.I.S.S—Keep it simple stupid.  

No. 3 Be a Politician
Get your butt outside your comfort zone and talk to people. Smile, shake hands, talk to strangers, go to events, go to parties and say yes more. You may not be trying to gain support of the voting party, but everyone needs to be in contact with the right person, the right situation, at the right time.

Consider this: You talk to the right person who knows of a job opening at a place you’ve been thinking about applying for work. Or maybe you’re in a black hole of depression and the right person with the right words comes along and gives you a glimpse of hope and light. A simple compliment from a total stranger might be enough to give you that needed boost to ditch that loser bf/gf—good thing you were smiling.  

No. 4 Keep Yourself Accountable
Just like anything else, accountability creates success. Why? Nobody wants to be looked upon as a loser. Find someone—a mentor, a friend, a business consultant or even Facebook. Tell someone what you want to do. Maybe they can help, maybe it’s just a way to drive you forward.

Go make your life happen the way you want!