Quality not Quantity: Keys to a Successful LifeShift
By Andrew Ferguson
Quality not Quantity: Keys to a Successful LifeShift
In brief:
1. Don't be woolly! Stick ruthlessly to your definition of success.
2. Be enthusiastic. It’s catching.
3. Do the sums. Find 10 clients who’ll pay you to enjoy yourself.
4. Use your ears. The ratio of ears to mouths is significant!
5. Think self-employed. The dependency culture is dead.
6. Scare yourself! Life is not a rehearsal.
7. Take your medicine. You have just enrolled on a lifelong personal growth programme.
8. Be a go-giver. It’s your main promotional strategy.
9. Look good! Misery loves company!
10. Vision first. Only do what activates your vision.
So you’re thinking of going freelance! Where do you start? Not with a close study of the tax implications that’s for sure. And not with what sort of car you need either! Start with YOU. Get you into the right “space” - inspired yet realistic, simply organised, justifiably confident but without a trace of arrogance.
You are definitely not alone. Millions, even the “winners”, are disillusioned with the rat-race. They're opting for quality rather than just quantity - “LifeShift”.
Andrew Ferguson has supported some 8500 "LifeShifters" through this process since he founded The Breakthrough Network in 1988. Here he summarises very briefly the key moves to make when you decide to enhance your career and your life.
1. Don't be woolly! Life begins with vision and values. Decide what matters most to you. Define what you mean by success. Stop trying to achieve someone else's definition. Remove money from the equation by asking yourself "What's the money for?" That is the vision. The main reason people's lives are not rewarding is that their vision is not clear, is not their own or is constrained by others' limitations.
What's the why in your life?
2. Be enthusiastic. And find others who are even more inspired and enthusiastic about your vision than you are. Fulfilment arrives when you connect with your whole self and develop sensitivity to your environment. Unrealistic expectations and addictive levels of consumption distract you from this, but a vision that gives you joy attracts money and people to you. It is difficult to say No to someone who has Yes written all over them!
So what will make your heart sing and light up your life?
3. Do the sums. Review and severely prune your costs and long-term commitments. Divide your annual needs by 40 (not 52) to tell you what you need to earn per week. Then work out how many people giving you say £10 or £25 fulfils this target. It will probably be less than 0.1% of your local market. So 99.9% of them can hate it and you're still in clover!
Who are the next 10 people who'll help you ?
4. Use your ears. Listen…to the market out there and your “inner wisdom”, especially the bits you don't want to hear. Money too is a good feedback mechanism. When it's apparently not working, it's giving you information. Maybe your goals are unrealistic or you need to move on; maybe there's a block in your behaviour or attitude. That's your next challenge!
What are you most reluctant to hear? What are you most reluctant to let go? That's what's stopping you! Let it go!
5. Think self-employed. Nobody else will find you work or develop your talents. It's entirely up to you. So you need to make yourself irresistible! Develop excellence in 3 portable skills that are congruent with your vision. Become “The only...something”, and build alliances with other specialists. Self-employed people feed each other with work.
What are your 3 excellences?
6. Scare yourself! Exit the comfort zone and take risks. We all back-slide, back to our old addictions. The biggest risk is to give up your addictions - to stress, fame, money, security, pride.
What do you suspect you need to stop doing? When are you going to? Why not now?!
7. Take your medicine. When all’s going well, anyone can do this. To stay afloat long-term though, you need to respond positively to the rough as well as the smooth. For every stage of life there are distractions and pitfalls to avoid, attachments to release and lessons to learn. Working for yourself is a Personal Development Workshop 365 days a year! Overall you have to avoid being negative and over-busy and learn to put your true self out there.
What's the lesson you keep refusing to learn?
8. Be a go-giver. Offer yourself. Give your time. Support others and their visions and causes. Put yourself about helpfully. Join things. But beware of becoming a doormat martyr. You can do little for those who have not taken charge of their lives or whose approach to life conflicts with where you're taking yours. Your Yes only has value if you know how to say No. At the same time equip your allies and invite everyone on board (cf 3 above).
Who will receive what from you next?
9. Look good! When you feel good inside, it shows outside. And it’s far more effective than glitz and facade. Glow! The key to success is joy. Aim to be more joyful every day. Notice what makes you joyful and repeat it. Notice what makes you miserable and delete it.
When do you feel best about you? Why not feel like that all the time?
10. Vision first. Vision is the touchstone: it defines what your priorities are and what you do first from now on. For the next 12 hours you are not to do anything that is not a top priority step towards your vision! LifeShift can take time, so the sooner you start the better. Make a plan and activate it immediately. Repeat these 10 tasks until your vision shines out.
Are you prepared to invest 12 hours in you? Or don't you deserve a life?
The lesson of life is to discover yourself. It takes a whole life to do this.
The lesson of work and business is also that we discover ourselves.
Work is the place we each create in order to learn and grow.
• LifeShift by Andrew Ferguson is the definitive reference book on rebalancing work and life. It expands on these brief notes to help you create a life that works...and work that has life in it.
• The Breakthrough Network also helps by setting up connections with other LifeShifters and providing a steady stream of new ideas and inspirations.
• Andrew Ferguson is also available for personal LifeShift coaching/counselling at very affordable rates, face to face or over the phone.
Call Breakthrough for details: 020 7473 5544
www.lifeshift.co.uk
Andrew Ferguson - The Wise Old Owl
t: 020 7473 5544
e: info@thewiseoldowl.co.uk
www.thewiseoldowl.co.uk
www.lifeshift.co.uk
This article was posted by Andrew Ferguson
