Change your life! Let next year be different. A career change, find the ideal partner, have more time for the things and the people that are important to you. I want to be thinner, fitter, more organised, more confident, happier, healthier…. the list is endless.
For many by the end of March those dreams have been dashed or simply given up on – but for some the story is very different. 
At this time of year I receive Christmas cards and emails from previous clients. Through this I get an insight into how these special people are getting on with turning their dreams and wishes into reality.
A Dream Come True
One email contained a link which redirected me to the Amazon website and to a book. I read the title and then I read the author’s name. Oh wow -my heart sang.
A few years ago she was a shy young journalist. She worked hard but she never seemed to get the recognition she deserved and never felt that she had the confidence to push herself forward at work or to go out and make new friends.
She had two dreams – to find an ideal partner and to write a book. Last year she told me about a new special man in her life and this year she published her first book.
New Business
Ellie (not her real name) tells me she has taken on a fourth member of staff. Her business is growing. This is wonderful news.
Two years ago Ellie was so unhappy in her job that she dreaded Monday mornings. She had been teaching for years and felt that she needed a change but as teaching was all that she felt she knew about, changing career seemed frightening and hopeless.
We worked on her confidence and the way she thought about things. We set about discovering the things she enjoyed doing.
Ellie now runs a business which provides interpreters and translators for small companies which are branching into business in Europe and Asia.
Life after Divorce
I don’t get to meet many of my clients in person. We often work over the telephone so it was lovely to get a photograph in my Christmas card. It was a picture of a slim happy woman with two smiling children.
The first time I spoke to this woman she was not happy. She had been divorced for six months and was finding it very hard to build a new life for herself and her children.
“I feel like a new person and am so much happier within myself. I have lost weight and made new friends and for the first time in a long time I feel I am in control of my own life.”
You can change your life too
New Year is a time when people think about changing their lives and finding more happiness and contentment. These people have and you can too. They are no different from you. They had enough of where they were and decided it was time to take control.
For them it was time to live life by design not default. It was time to stop whinging, complaining and hurting. It was time to live!
It does not need to be New Year to make changes but it is as good a time as any.
Take a small pause in your life – a time out or interval and ask yourself:-
If you knew you could be successful at anything you did – what would you choose to do?
What would your answer be?
- Be more confident
- Lose weight
- Start a new business
- Spend more time with the people you love
- Change your outlook on life
- Be more organised
- Get healthier
- Move out of a rut and start making the most of your life
How would it make you feel to achieve what you want? What would your life be like as a result? How good would you feel about yourself?
Perhaps the bigger question is:-
Are you willing to invest in yourself enough to make the effort or this time next year will you still be in the same excuse ridden rut?
What are you going to do in 2011?
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Marion,
Yet another wonderful posting that makes each of your readers stop and think. As you said, at this time of year resolutions are a plenty, but your observations help your readers put the whole “process” in perspective.
All the best to you for 2011!!
Michael
Hi Michael
Thank you for your lovely comment. Have a great New Year
Marion
Hi Marion,
That’s a nice and inspiring story that should be the image for many in similar situations and looking for changes in their lives. Thank you for your excellent posts; please have a wonderful 2011. I look forward to what you have in store for all of us this coming year
Raul
Thank you Raul
What an inspirational post. I have felt stuck in a rut for about 5 years. My boyfriend asked me to marry him, and I said yes, but we have been engaged for sooo long because I don’t have that feeling of “he’s the one”. I couldn’t tell him no, he is a great guy and the best I feel I will ever get. I just haven’t known where to go or what to do. It’s more complicated thatn just leaving him, too. Our families are close, we have a child, I depend on his income. I work fulltime, go to school fulltime and barely see him which makes it easier and I feel like such a failure of a girlfriend for it all. My smiles are a front, but I will never let anyone close enough to my heart. That is my true problem. I feel like those women in your stories.
Hi Jasmine
What would happen if you let yourself close to your heart and listened to what it told you?
We can’t live our lives for others. We can’t live our lives in such a way as to please others. Be brave and follow your heart Jasmine. That is exactly what the women in the post did.
You can too!
Marion,
Thanks so much for the inspiration. I can never have enough inspiration and motivation. You’re so right – many of us find that our new year resolutions have petered out by March. I’m going to do my best to make 2011 different!
Thanks Marion. You are truly inspirational. I am working on getting myself on my own 2 feet. I don’t feel like I will really know what I want or need until I can see clearly and depend on myself. And that’s what I am working on! I have my associates, working on my bachelors, then on to my masters and doctorates in veterinary medicine, specializing in large breeds. I want that more than anything and I am the only one who can accomplish my dreams, they won’t land in my lap. I feel stuck some days, but I just remind my self of how hard I am working and how I’ve strived to come this far. And the higher I take myself, the higher my children will start out.
Wow Jasmine – what a wonderful goal and what a lot of work to get there. I can imagine the pride you will feel in achieving your goal but also the joy you will have each day working in a job which inspires you and makes you happy. Good luck with this and please come back and tell me how you are progressing on your journey