1. Write down what you want to achieve – your goal
2. Establish where you are now
3. Write down the very first thing you need to do to start moving towards the goal
4. Then map out a time line of small milestones – the steps on your path and ACT
5. Review your path and goal
6. Get the help you need to achieve this goal and go for it one step at a time!

Don’t forget to review that you are still heading on the right path for you and celebrate each and every step along the way because remember it’s the journey that is often the most fun. Then before you know it you’ll be there!

For more information
Contact : Jacqueline Pigdon
Tel No   : +61 (0) 404 362 379
Email    : jacqueline@jinalife.com

Do you have work/life balance? This is a very common question now especially amongst executives and if you are one of them you might like to take some time to look a little more closely at your life to answer this. One often relates work/life balance to the amount of hours you spend at each but what I’d like to focus on here is how ‘effort balance’ is important to your work/life balance. Do you apply the same amount of dedication and thus effort to all of the other areas of your life like you apply to your work if you’re a hard dedicated and long hour’s worker? Often work and careers are shown a lot of dedication because so many people see you at work, you ‘have’ to go to work and not many people see what you do in other areas of your life. Are you often measured there! And due to these factors your efforts can very quickly and easily become out of work/life balance.

Sometimes you may want to and need to sacrifice time at home for time at work, time with your partner, family, children, friends, health, holidays etc. But what are you like when you get there? Do you dedicate the same amount of effort and energy into the other areas of your life once you get there such as when you’re with your partner, exercising, children, family, friends, health, holidays? If you answer no to at least one of these then you might want to start setting some goals in this/these areas for effort. For without 100% effort there is not 100% attainment and therefore you are not reaching your potential in that area, are neglecting that area and therefore simply out of work/life and effort balance.

Working on your work life balance is just as important as a business owner working on their business not only in their business. It’s easy to live our lives and forgot to work on our lives and where we want to go. Work/life balance requires planning, control, effort and sticking to your plan without ‘allowing’ another area of your life to get in its way!

Without work life balance and 100% equal effort in all areas of your life you can feel out of control and balancing requires control… Just as much as too much of one thing is bad, not enough of some things are when things are going to give. Life can be like a juggling act!! Managing all these things can become overwhelming and sometimes make you feel like it’s just too much and anxiety and stress hit you head on! If this sounds familiar here are 7 steps to help you gain more work/life balance in your life:

• Group together the different areas in your life such as work, family, relationship, hobbies, health & fitness, personal time etc.
• Next to each area write down how much effort you apply to each on a scale of 0% -100% and if not 100% write one point that would make this % increase.
• Write down the number of hours you spend each week on that area.
• See if your life looks in balance to you.
• If not, decide on areas that you can reduce time and give to something else and point out those that you are simply being lazy in and could provide more effort.
• Commit to the points that would increase your effort that you wrote down in point 2
• Then assess your results, if you’re applying 100% effort in all areas of your life and everything looks in balance then well done! If not, focus on applying more effort to the areas lacking in the next month and watch the results, your satisfaction and enthusiasm grow!

For more information
Contact : Jacqueline Pigdon
Tel No   : +61 (0) 404 362 379
Email    : jacqueline@jinalife.com

When you have a decision to make and don’t make it you are making a decision in itself – to put it off! Delaying decisions often puts you at risk of someone or something else making the decision for you. When you’re the decision maker and say leader of your corporate company or executive team and you’re not making the decision then to put it simply you’re not doing your job. The thing is once you have decided not to make a decision then it can become too late for you to decide. Usually when this happens it’s not the decision that you really wanted and you’re at a loss sometimes a very big loss. Then blame usually comes in that it wasn’t your fault or your choice and many people do this so they can’t be blamed for making the decision in case it turns out to be the wrong one. But then the question is; who is directing and taking responsibility for your decisions both at work and in your personal life? You or everyone and everything else?

We all make millions of decisions every day, at home and work, when out shopping etc and just one of them could be the difference between happiness and unhappiness, success and failure, life and death… People often think that their choices and thus decisions in life don’t really matter but where you are today is the direct result of all the decisions you have made to date.

When you actually start making decisions you start to feel much more in control of your life, not so stressed about making decisions and it enables you to move forwards with speed and momentum compared to staying still wondering which way you should or shouldn’t go and thus often allowing life to pass you by or following decisions other people have made for you.

So don’t delay a minute longer! Here are 10 Top Tips to help you make the decisions you need to be making:

1. Sometimes you have to think on your feet so be prepared look ahead to what decisions may arise in the future. Doing this in a relaxed and clear state of mind can help a lot for when in the moment you can be negatively influenced or become stressed that you have to make it right now and then have no idea on what the right decision is.
2. Work out the pros and cons of each outcome; get advice if and when you need it.
3. Ask yourself if I don’t make a decision now what could that result in? Regret that you didn’t take action when you could have? Or happy that you thought about it decided for yourself?
4. You may have already decided but have you acted upon that decision? For without action what good is the decision in itself?
5. Get advice from only trusted sources that have the same values and beliefs as you do. Don’t fall victim to asking absolutely everyone or someone who you don’t like the decisions they make for themselves.
6. Don’t make rash decisions especially if you have in the past and they’ve always failed. Look at your history when, how and what made you make your best and worst decisions in your life?
7. Ask yourself why are you REALLY putting off making a decision?
8. If you’ve made the wrong decision first acknowledge that you have for if you don’t you’ll just keep making the same ones. Quickly do whatever you can to rectify it.
9. Listen to your instinct, if you find you are telling yourself all the reasons why it won’t work out this can often be driven by fear. In comparison having to convince and justify why you should, could result in the wrong decision that you look back and ‘knew’ deep down it was wrong.

10.  Remember sometimes the decision itself isn’t as important than actually just making one.

For more information
Contact : Jacqueline Pigdon
Tel No   : +61 (0) 404 362 379
Email    : jacqueline@jinalife.com