Do you want to change your life?
Are you fed up and restless, wanting a better life but not knowing how to make it happen? If so, read on and I hope you’ll find some tools and inspiration to help you spring clean your life and polish up the you you want to be.
Whatever time of year it is, you can spring clean your life, free yourself of everything that’s weighing you down and getting in your way. If you’re reading this, you’re ready for change, so don’t put it off but get started straight away! It doesn’t have to be overwhelming; just one step at a time will take you, slowly but surely, along the path to the life you want.
Complete the free questionnaires to find out where your problem areas are
On this website, we look at eight different areas of your life and see where you’re up to with each of them. If you’re happy with that area, that’s great. If you want to make changes in this area, the questionnaire will help you to identify what’s wrong and point you in the direction of improvement.
The combined scores of the eight questionnaires do not add up to 100; it’s not a matter of calculating percentages of happiness/unhappiness. The number of questions in a section does not necessarily reflect its relative importance in life and there is no fixed target score for each section. This questionnaire is merely a tool to help you to assess where you are.
If the question is not relevant to you and there is no issue for you, tick the box. The point is to identify areas that are problems for you.
If a particular area contains some challenges for you, you can print a second copy of the questionnaire and come back to it when you’ve achieved some of your goals. This will give you added encouragement as you transform your life into the one you want and deserve.
Goal-setting
Use the questionnaires to focus some goals for yourself. Write down your goals and beside them write the date by which you will have reached them. Don’t be overambitious or you’re just setting yourself up for failure. Start with some small things you know you can do and that will encourage you to go for the bigger goals.
Goals must be clear. If you set yourself something vague, such as to make more money, how will you know when you’ve achieved it?
Goals must have a deadline. If you don’t give yourself a deadline, this is not a goal but a wish. The difference between a wish and a goal is that a wish remains wistfully out there, while a goal is something you make happen.
Goals must be realistic. If you set yourself the task of winning next week’s marathon when you’ve never run in your life, this can only end badly. A huge goal such as winning a marathon has to be broken down into smaller stage-goals. Start with, for example, In 3 months’ time (=by X date), I’ll be able to run 5 miles without feeling wiped out. You’ll also need to add in reading up on training and athletes’ diets and so on. Be realistic about yourself and the timescale and you can make practically anything happen.
Goals must be positive. A negative goal, such as to stop smoking or to spend less time watching television, is focusing you on the wrong aspect. If you set yourself the goal of being able to run up the stairs without wheezing (in 3 months’ time), stopping smoking will be part of this but you’re focused on a positive achievement.
Goals should be written down. Research suggests that writing down your goals gives you a much greater chance of success. Perhaps this is because committing them to paper gives them a form of reality before you even start; perhaps it’s because you can stick them on your desk or fridge and keep reminding yourself of them. (If you’re interested, there’s an excellent book called Write It Down, Make It Happen, which explores this theme.) Whatever the reason, it works: write down your goals.
Help with achieving your goals
On each page you’ll find advice and suggestions for how to change that area of your life for the better. There are many, many little improvements you can make, which will add up to a much better life for you. There are also big improvements you can make, as soon as you can muster the courage to do so. I’ll help to give you a push.
As you can read in the About section, I am a woman in her early 40s who has recently begun a major spring clean of her life. I’ve written this website to offer you the benefit of my experience. Please take whatever is useful to you from the advice on offer and discard the rest. What’s on this site is designed to make you think and to spur you to action, not to prescribe exactly what you should do.
Extra help with achieving your goals
If you feel you need personalised help to make the changes you want to in your life, you could consider hiring a life coach to guide and motivate you.
Or you could be your own life coach, with the driving force of one of Britain’s most successful life coaches behind you:
Be Your Own Life Coach: How to Take Control of Your Life and Achieve Your Wildest Dreams
by Fiona Harrold
A brisk, no-nonsense, highly effective book.
Read more about Be Your Own Life Coach.