Well. . .

If you can live without caffeine or nicotine;

If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains;

If you can resist complaining;

If you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you any time;

If you can take criticism and blame without resentment;

If you can ignore friends’ limited educations and never correct them;

If you can treat the rich and poor alike;

If you can face the world without lies or deceit;

If you can conquer tension without medical help;

If you can relax without liquor;

If you can sleep without the aid of drugs;

If you can have no prejudice against creed, color, religion, gender, sexual preference, or politics —

— then you have almost reached the same level of spiritual development as your dog.

Anonymous

The destination, or end-goal, I’m working on is to reach that place in my life where I can sell my belongings and buy a small, used sailboat and sail around the world. Completing a full circumnavigation is not as important to me as being a liveaboard cruiser and exploring what I can of this world by way of the sea. I want to experience the opportunity of having what I need with me self-contained and to make my way in this life in an uncommon way. I want closer contact with nature and to learn to live with the weather, seasons, and whatever storms might cross my path. To me that image reflects a simple life and in it lies the picture of freedom that I’ve carried with me for so long. That was the dream.

The wake up call occurred when a friend and faithful reader pointed out something in one of my personal posts. It might have come from, Another Mid-Life Crisis on my personal blog site. (Link opens in a new window.) The friend has known of this dream for some time but while she was reading the thought occurred to her, “Oh my gosh, he’s not going to do it!” That realization struck her pretty deeply. She wasn’t sure if she should tell me but I am grateful for knowing her thoughts. And to be honest she may have been right. It wasn’t a decision that I had consciously made to change my plans. Rather, what I think she picked up was an unconscious conversation I was having with my self that ran along the lines that I was doing it again: Dreaming and not Planning… Wishing and not doing.

What are you sending out?

What is the unspoken dialog you’ve been having for so long with yourself that you don’t really even hear it anymore? What are the words, pictures, and messages you’ve come to believe? For me, I was sending out my doubt about my dream. That doubt has been with me through most of my life and I’ll tell you this, it is tricky!

You see, I don’t doubt my ability to sail a boat or to be comfortable and happy underway, at anchor, or exploring new places. I don’t have any problem with all the things I’ll need to learn to accomplish this dream. New languages, engine repair and maintenance, navigation, storm handling, dealing with corrupt customs officials in countries different than the one I’m so used to. None of those things trip my doubt. I am comfortable with that picture of my dream. (I do need to work on envisioning it much stronger to help bring it closer to reality and I’ll be writing on that later.) For now, I want to talk about my true doubt in hopes that you might be able to relate it to your own unspoken fear, uncertainty, or disbelief.

What I’m sending out is my doubt about doing what it takes to make my dream happen. There is a place inside me where I’m not sure if I can really get out from under my debt or be able to generate enough money for the sailing kitty to bring this wish to fruition. Doing my dream? That’s easy! But doing what I need to do to get there? That’s another topic entirely and that is where JourneyWay’s 2-Step Process comes in. If I walk through these seemingly simple 2 steps with emotional honesty and mental clarity then there is truly nothing that can stop me from letting loose the lines and moving out of the harbor. Nothing. And I believe those 2 steps will work in nearly any endeavor you’re working on too.

Doing the Steps

This week’s quote says it well,

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ~  Mark Twain

While learning from my friend that I was sending out a different message than the one I thought I was offering, I was reminded of the course I’m working on for this website. JourneyWay’s vision is to help adults regain control in their lives, achieve success, and build self-confidence through web courses and coaching. As I was working on outlining the tasks under Step One I realized that I was stuck and have been for a long time. I was building a great system to teach others and wasn’t using it for myself. To me, my dream was about freedom. I had forgotten that of my coaches reminded me that one way to achieve freedom is through eliminating debt.

That’s when I remembered the book I’d just picked up: Suze Orman’s 2009 Action Plan. What I had been looking for was new financial information for 2009 that would take the changing market into account. Oprah invited Suze Orman onto her show to walk the audience through the Action Plan. During that show, the book was offered free through download from Oprah’s site. It will be available from both Oprah’s and Suze’s sites for a limited period of time. (The Oprah link is here. Click on the book photo for Suze’s link.)

Eliminating debt. Money. That was the one area that I hadn’t put any energy into; the one place in my life I’d systematically ignored. It took a friend who cared enough to mention my doubt and remembering my coach’s point about debt to wake up and see what I really needed to do in order to achieve my destination. And that’s when the click happened. I’m sure you couldn’t have heard it had you been standing next to me, but it came through loud and clear and I not only heard it in my head, I felt it all through my body. The switch had been tripped!

Throwing the Switch

When we finally choose to turn our dream into a plan–when we really choose inside and out–it’s as if a huge circuit breaker is thrown. All the energy from inside us swells and moves us into a new direction that is in alignment with what we most want to achieve. You’ve heard me say it before, if you don’t make different choices today than those you made yesterday then you will end up with a tomorrow that looks just like today. So let’s talk about dreams and plans.

• If you don’t write it down, it’s a dream
• If “doing” the steps that will get you closer to your desired destination aren’t important enough to do, it’s a dream
• If you’re not willing to make the difficult choices to change your life today for the one you most want tomorrow, it’s a dream
• If you can’t clearly describe the steps to get you there, it’s a dream
• If the goals needed to get you there aren’t in your calendar and tied to a timeline, it’s a dream

So, in my case I pulled out the 2009 Action Plan and began walking through the steps listed there. The first was to calculate my credit card debt. I needed to overcome the fear and really look at where I was financially. Knowing my debt did something positive for me even though the news didn’t look good. It gave me a clear picture of the most important mountain I needed to climb in order to achieve my plan: To sail away. Rather than beat myself up about where I was, I could see the steps I needed to take to get to where I most wanted to be.

Making the Plan Important

The switch had been been thrown, the energy was already moving and I began to see what I needed to do. I was feeling as if I was sending a different message out just by changing my focus. I had to answer the question: Is my current lifestyle more important than what I really want to accomplish? The answer was a clear and resounding, “No!”

So what did I do? I’ve begun making a list of all the things I have that I’m not really using that can be sold to reduce my debt. For example, the minute I thought about selling my favored dual-sport motorcycle I knew it would happen; even in this market. A quick email to the owner of Happy Trails in Boise and I learned that he would hold the bike on consignment and that one of their biggest open houses was occurring this weekend. When you truly make the real decision in your life, when the switch is thrown, things begin happening very quickly.

The West Wight Potter trailerable sail boat is going on the block along with whatever else can be scrounged up. While what I’m putting up for sale has meant a lot to me and is tied to good memories, it’s time to let this stuff go. All of it will bring happiness and joy to someone else; someone who has that thing tied to their own dream and plan. While writing this article that list of things I can let go continues to grow. The first step of this process is tied to that all important question: Am I willing to make changes in my life in order to reach what I want more than what I have today?

The 2-Step Process

I’ve written about the process that I’ll be releasing later this month. It is directly related to my belief that Life is a Journey. As such the process involves the 2-steps and included tasks that we each take when we plan a vacation, leave for a business trip, get on a flight, drive down the road, or sail out of the harbor. On the surface it sounds simple, yet underneath resides the power needed to help you truly reach the realistic destination you most dream about. I’ll write more about that process shortly.

What are your dreams? What have you hoped for? Have you quietly and imperceptively given up on those wishes, maybe without even noticing it? What are you sending out?

Don’t give up. Not even to yourself, even in private when you think no one can notice. Be aware of what you’re sending out. Grab your favorite journal or notepad and start making a list. Write down the long range dreams; what have you always hoped to see yourself doing? Include the more immediate topics. Do you need to get out of debt, find a job, mend or create a better relationship, change your education, or switch your environment. What do you most want?

Please feel welcome to leave a comment or make suggestions.

As always, Live your Best,

Zane Darner

What does tomorrow hold?

You’d have to be a fortune teller to figure that one out!

Really? I don’t think so. Well, sure, on stuff like the stock market or weather or sports scores, etc. But what about turning the question inward?

“What does tomorrow hold — for you?”

If you keep making the same choices and the same decisions I GUARANTEE that you will end up with the same outcomes. You have the freedom to make any choice you want, however that freedom requires the responsibility and accountability to accept the consequences for your actions.

I’ve made folks angry during workshops when I told them they have the power of choice in their lives. I was heckled about the importance of paying bills, keeping a roof over our heads, being the provider, etc. All that is true. I simply stated a truth: You have the power of choice in your life. Choice is a, well, a choice. It is yours, now. However it is also tied to its own universal law.

Exercising your will in making a choice sets the universe in motion. If you don’t go to work tomorrow, which is really something you CAN do, then you also get to accept the consequence of that choice. You might loose your job. You might find that you never liked that job and that you’d rather buy a small nursery and sell flowers for a living.

Our choices are fluid and flexible… only if we keep exercising them with mental and emotional clarity. If you continue to make choices in your life because that was “the way we did things” in our parents, grand-parents, and great grand-parents time then you are asking for the life they received. And please don’t misunderstand me. I am in no way saying that their life was any worse or any better than ours right now. I am saying though that if you continue to make the same choices today as you made yesterday then your tomorrow is destined to flow before you just as today did.

Do you want change in your life? Then you must have the courage to make changes, to alter the course of your life toward an ideal, a job, a day-to-day situation that more closely resembles the highest dreams you can imagine for yourself.

A great friend once told me to not allow the world to only see my potential. You see, I had created a chronic habit of not choosing. I didn’t take the high road or the low road; I just hunkered down at the fork in the road and stayed there. I always looked longingly at the path leading off toward the top of the mountain just as I gazed over the path that flowed down into the valley. Different paths, different desires and passions, different outcomes. Not choosing became my choice and with it I received exactly what I had chosen: Indecision.

I KNEW what was in my heart, but I had made stories that solidified over the years into an untruth: That I had to wait to begin living my life in the way I truly want my life to unfold. That I had to pay my dues like every other “respectable” member of society, family, church, and relationship circles. In short I didn’t want to hurt others or hurt myself so I sold everyone short.

We all do this to some degree. I had it mastered to such a level that I had become several separate and different people. Not split personalities, but a split person. Now I am deeply entrenched in the work and love involved in extricating myself from the damaging habits of waiting until it will be okay for me to do what I most want to do in my life.

So, what does tomorrow hold?

It rests on the sum result of today’s choices. Eat differently today for a better body tomorrow. Practice self care first, THEN care for others. Yes, I know, that sounds backwards from what we were taught. “Love your neighbors,” and all that jazz. However, the real scripture read, “Love your neighbors as yourself.”

Those last two words, AS YOURSELF, changes everything. Tomorrow holds how you treat yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually today. Tomorrow you will be living the choices of today. I watched my mom die of bladder cancer that had been brought on by a life spent smoking. She had the genealogy to have lived more than the 72 years she visited here. However, she is now in a different place.

Tomorrow holds today’s choices. What are you choosing today? I’m not saying to change anything if you are happy. But let’s chat in a week or so about what being happy really means. This is the time where you get to be selfish and TOTALLY honest with yourself. If you could have anything, do anything, see anything… what would you do? Seriously, get out a pad of paper and begin to list all the things you’d like to do in your life. I wrote on my list that I wanted to see the world as a traveler instead of as a tourist. I wanted to experience different cultures and I wanted to find a way to do it somewhat simply. That was a long time ago. As I started taking an honest look at my life I began to see that what I wanted to do was a wish, barely even a dream. Because I hadn’t invested any time or energy in changing that wish into a goal I’ve stayed in the same place.

One of the quote’s I’ve listed elsewhere on this site ties directly to this:

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.” ~ Ben Franklin

The primary focus of JourneyWay.com is to help adults through the process of regaining control in their lives. From the list you’ve begun to create pick one item and spend some time with it. Start asking yourself questions and remember that now is the time to be brutally honest with yourself. This is NOT the time to pick up past the past dialog of beating yourself up. The past has passed; while you can learn from it, you can (and should) leave it in the past. Take that one thing you want to do, accomplish, achieve and write it across the top of another piece of paper. Draw a line down the center of the page creating two columns. In one column begin listing all the reasons (valid and invalid) that you’ve not accomplished your wish. In the other column begin brainstorming steps you will need to take to make this happen for you. List big things and little things. What you’re doing is beginning to create a map that will change your wish into a goal. As you create the steps you’ll need to do remember the SMART acronym. The steps you use to achieve your goal need to have the following characteristics:

• Specific
• Measureable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Timeline based

Start making choices in that direction and you’ll see the thought in your head now turn in to a dream and then into reality.

For my own dream of seeing more of the world I’m walking through the same process. I will be using that process as an example on this and on another web site to help you see that accomplishing BIG dreams is possible. You’ve just got to decide whether what you want to accomplish is important enough for you to begin making changes in your life. In my case, is traveling the world more important to me than keeping my Direct TV subscription? Is it bigger than wanting a better car than I now have. More importantly, is my dream big enough to get me out of bed an hour earlier to work on it?

In taking this thought to practice in my own life I’ve changed the direction of JourneyWay.com. Those changes will be apparent in the next week or so. Ultimately, I’ve changed the structure of what I had been offering as courses. What had been courses are now going to be offered as ebooks that will be even more affordable (like more than 50% affordable!) There will be courses, but they will now be focused on teaching JourneyWay’s 3-Step Process to regaining control in your life. The ebooks will support the courses. There are a few back-end steps that need to occur before that material is available but we’re in the home stretch! Stay tuned and remember, you can achieve your dreams if your dreams are important enough to make changes for. Start working on your Wish List and begin the deeper work of figuring out why you haven’t been able to begin and what steps you need to start taking.

What does tomorrow hold for you? Everything!

As always, live your best!

Zane Darner
JourneyWay Coaching, LLC

All of those avenues mentioned above have proven to be successful, but something was missing that JourneyWay.com was created to fulfill: Affordable web courses for those who wanted to work more independently. One-on-one life coaching can be an expensive endeavor, so to help those of you who are motivated and want to regain control in their lives we’ve created a method for you to take the next step.

The first step is often the most difficult however remember Lao Tsu’s words:
A Journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

The way to begin is to download and complete our Intro Assessment. You can also download any or all of the material listed on our Free Tools page. These assessments, questionnaires, exercises, and articles will ask you tough questions and require you to take a fair and honest look at your life as it is right now. That is a tough step; we know because we work through this material regularly ourselves.

After you’ve moved through some of the free material you will reach a place where it’s time to make a decision: Whether to try to get where you most want to be by doing things the same way you’ve done them in the past or not? Of course another decision nestled there too: Whether or not to do anything at all? The simple fact that you’re here shows something that will answer that last question. Something in your life is pulling you toward positive change. Maybe you’re not happy with your current job, how you are in your relationships, or just unsure about where to go from here. Regardless, that call for something different is part of you and will continue to knock on your door until you do something about it.

That’s where the Web Courses come in. Every successful person has shared that you simply cannot reach your highest vision of who you are without the successful, step-by-step completion of goals. How are you with goal creation? And what’s all this about vision? Do you know the difference between a vision and a dream? How about the difference between planning and preparation? Do you know what your personal and professional distractions are and how they quietly keep you from moving forward? If not, look through the list of web courses and choose one that fits with your current situation.

We’re going to be covering time management from a very different point of view. You’ll learn why we believe that Attention Management is the key to letting time manage itself. We’ll give you tips and techniques you can put to use immediately.

So what’s keeping you from beginning? It can’t be the cost since the beginning involves using material that is provided without charge. And more importantly, the courses that do carry a cost do so at a level that is VERY affordable. One past client shared with us that she didn’t like web courses because she would buy them and never get around to doing them. We can help with that too through timed emails designed to help you remain accountable. And finally, if you need to talk to a real person you’ll find us available through email and through a new coaching line that will be implemented in the first quarter of 2009.

The Web Courses will be online before the end of January 2009. Until then please take advantage of the Free Tools section and begin working to regain control in your life.

You really can create the life you most want. We’ve found though that it’s impossible to do without a plan, without smart goals, without accountability partners. So join us and let us help you get from where you are to where you most want to be. We will help you create your own plan, we will help you create goals and learn how to stick with them, we will provide exercises, articles, and techniques that can improve how you experience life, and we will be your accountability partners. (We will also show you how to invite other accountability partners into your life for continued success.)

Instead of finding that you’ve fallen down again on your New Year’s Resolutions why not try something different this year? You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

It’s time to begin the next phase of your own personal Journey!

As always, Life your Best!

Zane Darner,

President, JourneyWay Coaching, LLC

I’m not trying to say that no work is needed to affect change, no way! What I am saying is that it is MUCH easier to get to a new place in your life by first understanding where you are.

Think of your life as a Journey!

You may have a vision for where you want your life to lead or you may not. You might be crystal clear on why you’re not happy or you are simply finding yourself in the same place year after year not really knowing where the time is going. Either way, if you want tomorrow to be different from today you must begin to make changes in the choices you’re making.

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.” –Albert Einstein

I’ve always loved that quote because it accurately reflects how most of us are living our lives. It’s been said that success is achieving one’s goals. At the same time, most know that we have to have smart goals in order to keep us true to our values, dreams, visions, and hopes for tomorrow but few of us actually create personal or professional goals and stick to them.

Journeyway.com offers proven, affordable resources to help adults regain control in their lives. We offer our services out of knowing that it is possible to reach incredible dreams. This post is named, “A Different Way Toward Happiness” for a reason. There are many resources, self-help experts, and methods we can use to help us along our own personal journey. At the same time though, many contradict each other leaving us unsure of how to begin, much less continue onto our goals.

We will help you walk through a process of discovery that can lead to lasting change. Part of the work involves building an accountability system to help keep you true to yourself along the way. As in doing anything new, the assessments, free tools, and available courses may seem clunky or confusing at first. That’s okay!

Most of us don’t ever go to the airport and hand over our credit card to the ticket agent and say, “book me a flight going anywhere!” While this can provide adventure in your life, most of us naturally plan and prepare a bit more before booking our flight. We should be doing the same thing when it comes to planning our life journey!

The choices you made in the past and those you continue to make either move you closer to the life you most want to live, keep you rooted in one place, or continue to keep you off-track or even moving further away from your dreams. Sometimes, this has been going on for so long that we’ve begun to believe in our own failure.

We’re here to walk through this part of your journey with you. To do that we’re going to re-introduce you to the Four Rooms of your Life: Mind, Body, Heart, and Spirit. We’re going to ask you to take an honest inventory of all the areas of your life through our Free Intro Assessment, and we’re going to walk through reigniting dreams or goals you’ve put on the back burner, creating a vision for the life you most want to live.

In doing this, we’re going to remember to remain true to our own strengths and weaknesses and we’re going to focus on a vision that we CAN achieve. I will be providing an example of a part of my own life vision and will share through example on what I’m doing to achieve the life I most want to live.

I believe this life is precious and that we’re here for several important reasons. Some of those reasons are for ourselves and the work we’re here to do and some of those reasons are for how we can help and be there for those around us.

Whether you simply want to pick an exercise and eating plan that you can remain true to, want to create a better relationship with yourself and others, or you want to finally reach for that Big Dream, there is possibility for you!

But because this takes commitment we will be talking about how to finally find a way to stay motivated to how you most want to live. Because this will take effort in your life we will support you along the way and show you that positive change is not only possible, it can really happen. But through it all we will remind you of your responsibility and accountability in the process.

This is your life–your journey. Isn’t it worth giving it your all? A great place to start is to peruse the Free Tools section located in the drop down menu at the top of the web site. They will definitely begin to move you toward the all important steps of discovery and self-inventory necessary to begin to change your path. From there we can move to the in-depth web courses available online.

The official launch date for this site will be January 18, 2009. However much will be available before that date and the Free Tools are already up and available for download. Take some time and work your way through the pages and posts, comment if you’re moved to do so, and feel welcome to send me an email if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions.

This site is for you to help you begin to regain control in your life enabling you to create the life you most want to live.

To your best!

Zane Darner
zane@journeyway.com

I recorded this from my journal on October 31, 2008. I felt that it held enough meaning to share with you here.

Flying from Lewiston, ID home to Boise, ID

I just lifted off from Lewiston en route Boise. It’s about 55-60 degrees and was raining hard as I boarded the flight. Prior to take off the rain lessened and a full, brilliant, double rainbow appeared off the port (left) side of the airplane

As we sped down the runway for takeoff I saw a miracle appear in my little seat-side window; a miracle at least to me. As we gained altitude the rainbow became a full circle! I could still see the full upper half—that we are all used to seeing—doubled, both in constant, clear, clarity. As we gained altitude though I could also see the bottom half of both rainbows… a full circle. And frankly, I was moved!

As we continued into the misty, rain-filled air I watched both rain circles fade away. The amazing feeling for me was that I knew that they were still there; it was only my perspective that had changed.

Now, if I reside primarily in the control room of my Mind I can recall with some accuracy the scientific explanation describing the formation of rainbows. I know about light bending, reflecting, and refracting off of water molecules in the damp air. I know these things.

However, another function of the Mind is Imagination. This side of our perception resides closer to our child-like nature, our Basic Self, as well as closer to the room of our Heart; our emotions.

From this place I can see through eyes of wonder and awe. I can feel the beauty of nature from something as simple, yet profound, a a double rain-circle. From here I can see the interplay of light and shadow on the cloud tops outside my airplane window to noticing the late Autumn’s first touch of snow on the mountain peaks beneath me.

For yet another, more inner, view I can move into the room of Spirit. From here, regardless of belief system, I can see how minuscule my place in life is as I watch the terrain change as we fly our way southward. I see lights in little towns as well as lights from very remote homes hidden in the hills.

Our human condition reminds us that we are more often than not just as deeply separated from those that live just down the street from us as we are from that lone person or family living away up in the mountains. Physical proximity never guarantees mental, emotional, or spiritual closeness to our neighbors.

In fact, the opposite is more often true… In rural populations where physical distance separates neighbors we often see closer community, respect, and support than we do in our urban subdivisions.

I am not hinting that one situation is better than another and I’m not romanticizing country living over the city experience. I am saying though that our place in this life begins with us.

“God gave us faces, we make
our own expressions.” –Anonymous

It begins with our own attitude about ourselves and it begins with the respect we either choose to allow or disallow each step we make in our own journey.

Side note: From the vantage point of my window seat I can also see the intelligence, ingenuity, and remarkable achievement we can make as humans. Rather than a 6+ hour drive home this airplane is going to get me there in about 45 minutes!

We are all at once small and large. Enjoy your own journey. Embrace it with the importance it deserves; grasp it with all your humor, strength, talent, and grace.

For more information in using the Four Room concept in your life please read the upcoming article, The Four Rooms; Being Fully Who You Are.

Additionally, the newly arriving courses will offer you a deeper, more self-paced method of moving from where you are to where you truly most want to be!

Keep checking in, and if you haven’t signed up for this site, please add your email address to the eNews and Updates box located in the upper right side of this site.

All the best,

Zane

Oh… as an interesting note. After writing this I picked up a Boise Weekly and read Rob Brezny’s Free Will Astrology article. It read:

Capricorn: This is the week of the Upside-Down rainbow. It’s a time when signs of good fortune are everywhere, but always with some odd twist or anomalous feature…

His article goes on  to remind me to pay attention to each moment. Did I get goose bumps when I saw the upside down rainbow reference. Yep. I did. And more so, I cried.

I felt reminded of all the things I’m working on and that they, and we, are truly all connected.

Thank you for reading this. I believe deeply in the idea that our journey is all-important, That we most often get lost in our day-to-day tasks.

Let’s use this site for all our good?

To regain control in our lives we must begin somewhere! Often, we feel out of control, unhappy, unfulfilled without really knowing why. If asked we could point to a few areas in our lives, details mainly, that illustrate that things aren’t going the way we want them to. But we’re still stuck.

To regain control in our lives we must first find our pain. Many of the affordable courses offered online at JourneyWay.Com can help us discover a starting place. There are even a few free tools that can be downloaded and worked on that will help act as a great starting place.

The most important thing to remember though… Is that we must be willing to really look at our pain. Often we are scared to look beneath the protective layer we all have to discover the true source of our discomfort. To regain control in your life you must begin somewhere.

Even if you have to begin, and begin, and begin it’s okay. Today, right now, is the time to stop procrastinating and feel safe enough to look under the covers to find just one thing that is keeping you from living the life you most want to live.

An easy way to begin is to think about the Four Rooms of Your Life: Mind, Body, Heart, and Spirit. What is the state or condition of those highly important facets of you?

Is your mind free and clear, easily churning away on the thinking and learning tasks of your life? Or, do you find it hard to concentrate, difficult to remember things, or just tiring doing mental work? Do you give your mind things to do? (i.e. card games, word puzzles, sudoku, etc.) What hobbies do you have that rely on the mind? Music, sewing or crafts, or even spending time working out the course of your life’s journey?

How about your body, heart, spirit? Many of the same questions apply. Are these areas of your life open and moving or closed and sluggish? How do you feel about your body? How are your relationships with others? How about your relationship with God?

By walking through the process of first finding our pain we can quickly begin to map out where to go next. There is an idea that if we take care of even a small road block in our life that very action allows us the space and energy to then begin work on another area. It is freeing move through this process.

For your to-do list, try this. Take four sheets of paper and label them Mind, Body, Heart, and Spirit respectively. Now fold those sheets in half lengthwise. In the left hand column of each page begin writing down what’s not working in that room of your life. In the right hand column of each page begin listing what is working okay in that room of your life. Be honest but be fair. You can work on all four at once or on one at a time. It’s simply important to begin!

Now, you have two really important chunks of information. 1) You have some pretty accurate lists of what’s holding you from the life your really desire. And, 2) you have a great collection of items you can begin to actively be grateful for. With the first list, pick one at a time and slowly start to create the change needed to either erase it from the left column or to be able to move it over to the right. With the second list, begin a gratitude journal or notebook. Each day, before you go to sleep, jot down a few things you’re grateful for that day. It can be one thing, or it can be five. Keep the number low–it’s not a contest. It is however an act of thankfulness that creates a different way of seeing yourself.

The Roadblocks Course will be available within the next month. It will take this concept and expand on it allowing you to truly look at every area of your life and begin to make postive, lasting change. To regain control in our lives we must begin with ourselves.

Let me know how this exercise works for you and feel free to post a comment here. Also, remember to sign up on the home page in the top right corner with your email address in the ENews and Updates box. I’ll keep you posted on changes here and on what’s coming around the corner.

All the best!

Zane Darner
www.journeyway.com
zane@journeyway.com

Helping adults regain control of their lives through affordable online courses, education, and coaching.