You start your quest in getting your life together by figuring out what it is that would make your life feel more complete. Do you want to be happier? Do you want to be more satisfied? Are you looking for more contentment in your life? If you don’t know where you stand right now, then you certainly won’t be able to figure out what you need to do in order to reach the happiness, satisfaction, or contentment you crave.

WHY CHANGE NOW?

Getting your life in order can entail many different things. Maybe your finances feel out of control, but your physical health is great. Perhaps you have the highest degree you can possibly attain, but your house is so full of clutter you can’t see the floor. Whatever has led you to decide to get your life in order, there is no harm in making positive changes in every aspect of your life…even the ones that you didn’t necessarily think needed improvement.

READINESS

Have you had your “a-ha” moment?What has led you to decide to get your life together? Obviously there has to be something going on that makes you feel as though your life is not in order if you have made the decision to make some changes. Did you wake up one morning and make the bold proclamation that today is your day to change your life? Or did you receive another delinquency notice in the mail to add to a growing stack? Maybe you broke off a relationship with your romantic partner and you’re ready for a fresh start. If you know your motivation, you are more likely to attack the task at hand and begin down the path of changing your life with full vigor.

Are you just sick of your current life? Sometimes there isn’t a big, defining moment that leads people to want to change their lives. Instead, it may be a series of events that shed light on the fact that it is time to get their life together. Many people simply realize for no particular reason that the life they are living is just not the life they had envisioned for themselves, and if this is the case for you, there is still great motivation to change your life for the better. Examine all the things you do not like about your current situation so you can fashion a new life that will make you happier.

You decide when you’re really ready. Your parents or other loved ones may have been harping on you for some time to get a better job, go back to school, stop eating junk food, or whatever else needs changing in your life. The decision ultimately rests with you, however, and until you are personally ready to make all the necessary changes, you probably won’t have the dedication needed to see real results. Don’t do something just because someone else tells you that you need to…do it because you want to, and because you are also ready to take on the responsibility of getting your life together.

Don’t change your life to mirror someone else’s.Maybe you were going along enjoying life when you met someone who really seemed to have his or her life together, and it made you feel a little inferior. Perhaps you decided at that point that you were going to make big changes and get your life together in order to be more like this person. Beware of making big changes just because you get the impression from someone else that they have some sort of better life than you do. The decision to change your life should rest in a conscious decision on your part that life just isn’t working out the way you would like it to, and now is the time to make the necessary changes to get everything in order. You should also realize that the side of people that is public, in other words the side of people that you actually see, is oftentimes not a true representation of what is going on in their lives. The person you know who seems so well put together and in control of things, might actually be crying themselves to sleep every night because they are so miserable. So yes, there is always room for improvement in people’s lives, but the decision to get your life together should be a decision you make on your own, regardless of what other people say or do. Don’t allow yourself to be convinced that your life is unhappy or out of control when in fact it isn’t all that bad.

WILLINGNESS

Some changes aren’t easy.If you have some serious issues in your life that need to be addressed, such as addiction or destructive relationships, you are going to have to work mighty hard to get your life in order. If you have always gone out on Friday nights with your friends, and then decide that you need to get your life together and stop drinking, you may find it harder than you thought to turn down their invitation when Friday night rolls around. Even small changes are sometimes difficult; someone who starts each morning with a flavored coffee drink on the way to work, may find it hard to break the habit after he or she decides to try to end unnecessary expenses in an effort to become more financially secure. The question as to whether you are truly ready to take on all the challenges associated with getting your life together is a question that can only be answered by you.

How gung-ho are you?It is one thing to decide that you need to change your life, but it is another thing entirely to take the necessary steps in order to do so. Just recognizing all the different aspects of your life that need improvement can be exhausting, let alone implementing all the essential steps for change. If you feel ready to attack the aspects of your life that you don’t like, then move full speed ahead. You may find that, as you begin to make changes and notice differences, your motivation will increase exponentially. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. If your friend hands you a book about getting your life together and suggests to you that your time has come to fix your life, you probably will be less willing to analyze your life as you might have been if you had come to the conclusion yourself. The person who makes the decision that your life needs a little more order is you, and nobody else.

ABILITY Sometimes, getting your life together will entail things like paying down debt or paying for occupational training. If this sort of thing sounds out of your financial league, you should recognize that where there is a will, there is a way. There are many people who are, at this very moment, delivering newspapers or moonlighting as kitchen staff to get the necessary funds to pay for the things they desire. The opportunity to make extra money is all over the place; you just need to be willing to seek it out and work a little harder than usual to obtain it.

If you don’t have the resources, create them.

It’s up to you…mostly.Yes, the responsibility of getting your life together rests squarely on your shoulders. This does not mean that other people cannot assist you along the way. You never know who might have just the advice you need in order to move forward, and sometimes it comes from the most unexpected places. Maybe you have worked next to someone for years and never knew that they were once in a position that you would love to be in, such as a professional singer or perhaps a teacher. While you are attempting to figure out ways to get your life together, it would be wise to chat with other people about their various life experiences. You really never know what sort of valuable information you might discover about someone and additionally might be able to apply to your own life.

You can do it, really.Some goals seem so incredibly unattainable that many folks won’t even bother trying to reach them. If you wistfully dream about someday being out of debt, what is stopping you from starting to pay your debt down slowly this very day? If you dream of losing weight, why not go for a walk? Little changes can make a big difference, and you need to stop looking towards a quick fix. The more you work towards a goal, the easier it’s going to get. Consider the beginning of your efforts as a sort of initiation period that everyone needs to go through before efficiently getting their lives together. You may look back on these days in amusement someday, with a sort of fond admiration for your willingness to move forward. “I remember struggling to get up the nerve to enroll in college,” you might hear yourself say in the future, as you look on to your classroom full of students. “If I could do it, so can you!”

What sorts of changes are ahead?This book emphasizes four main categories of change for people who are looking to get their lives together: emotional, physical, financial, and spiritual. A person cannot hope to have their life in order if they are an emotional wreck. Emotional problems, whether minor or major, have such an enormous affect on a person’s daily dealings that nobody can have a smooth life without working through whatever emotional problems he or she might have. Physical health also has a tremendous influence on how together someone’s life is. Inside, a person may feel like a million bucks and be ready to conquer the world, but if they can’t walk up a flight of stairs without panting and sweating, they are not living life to its full potential. Financial issues are a big problem for many people. Even if every other aspect of a person’s life is in order, financial problems can cause someone to feel quite anxious and out of control. Finally, spirituality is brought up as a major aspect of getting a life together for a few reasons. Real solace can be found in spirituality for many people, but even if someone decides to denounce all religions, they should do so after making an informed decision. Spirituality is just another section of people’s lives that always has room for improvement and reflection. Other topics are mentioned, and are all worthy of consideration by someone who is looking to get his or her life in order: attention is given to things like occupational satisfaction, educational goals, and the idea of starting a whole new life somewhere new, complete with a different home, job, and friends. There are countless other topics that should be brought into consideration when getting your life together, and just because something isn’t covered here, it doesn’t mean it’s not an important and valid topic that deserves attention. You are the only person who truly knows what you need to change in order to get your life together, but the hope is that the topics discussed in this book will work as an outline for making great things happen for you.

Change can be awful scary and intimidating.Your current life, although it is perhaps not what you truly want, is what you are used to, and for this reason alone, you may be reluctant to try to switch things up. But you’ll never know what might have been if you don’t give changing a try. It may be that someday you look back on the day you decided to get your life together and breathe a sigh of relief that you were willing to take the first step.

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Stress management wouldn’t seem like something that would be a part of setting goals but it could be the difference between you achieving them and not achieving them.

There is positive stress and negative stress. Positive stress adds anticipation and excitement to life, and we all thrive under a certain amount of stress. Deadlines, competitions, confrontations, and even our frustrations and sorrows add depth and enrichment to our lives.

Our goal is not to eliminate stress but to learn how to manage it and how to use it to help you achieve your goals. Insufficient stress acts as a depressant and may leave you feeling bored or dejected; on the other hand, excessive stress may leave you feeling all mixed up inside.

What you need to do is find the optimal level of stress which will individually motivate but not overwhelm each of us.

How Can I Tell what is Optimal Stress for Me?
There is no single level of stress that is optimal for every person. We are all individual creatures with unique requirements. As such, what is distressing to one may be a joy to another.
And even when we agree that a particular event is distressing, we are likely to differ in our physiological and psychological responses to it. That’s just human nature. The person who loves to arbitrate disputes and moves from job site to job site would be stressed in a job that was stable and routine, whereas the person who thrives under stable conditions would very likely be stressed on a job where duties were highly varied.
Also, our personal stress requirements and the amount which we can tolerate before we become distressed changes with our ages. It has been found that most illnesses are related to unrelieved stress; for example, anxiety disorders, bowel disorders etc.

If you are experiencing stress symptoms, you have gone beyond your optimal stress level; you need to reduce the stress in your life and/or improve your ability to manage it.

Stress symptoms include, but are not limited to:
Anxiety attacks
Headaches
Fatigue
Loss of appetite
Increase of appetite

How Can I Manage Stress Better?
Identifying unrelieved stress and being aware of its effect on our lives is not sufficient for reducing its harmful effects. Just as there are many sources of stress, there are many possibilities for its management.
However, all require work in order to be effective. Changing the source of stress and/or changing your reaction to it. So you might be wondering how do you do it? Let me show you.

1. Become aware of your stressors and your emotional and physical
reactions.
Notice your stress and its beginnings. Don’t ignore it. Don’t gloss over
your problems.
Determine what events stress you out. How much do these events mean
to you?
Determine how your body responds to the stress. Do you become nervous
or physically upset? If so, in what specific ways?

2. Recognize what you can change.
Can you change your stressors by avoiding or eliminating them
completely?
Can you reduce their intensity over time?
Can you shorten your exposure to stress by taking a break, or leaving the
physical premises?
Can you devote the time and energy necessary to making a change (goal
setting, time management techniques, and delayed gratification
strategies may be helpful here)?

3. Reduce the intensity of your emotional reactions to stress.
The stress reaction is triggered by your perception of danger and/or fears
physical danger or emotional danger, and fears of failure etc.
Are you viewing your stressors in exaggerated terms and/or taking a
difficult situation and making it a disaster?
Are you expecting to please everyone because I’m telling you that you
can’t?
Are you overreacting and viewing things as absolutely critical and urgent
all the time? Do you feel you must always come out the winner in every
situation?
Work at adopting more moderate views; try to see the stress as
something you can cope with rather than something that overpowers
you.
Try to temper your excess emotions. Put the situation in perspective. Do
not labor on the negative aspects of everything find a positive in them if
you can
Take personal time to evaluate your surroundings clearly
Take a deep breath when overly stressed and count backwards from 10
Exercise a little bit or take a walk daily

4. Build your physical reserves.
Eat well-balanced, nutritious meals.
Maintain your ideal weight or appearance.
Avoid nicotine, excessive caffeine, and alcohol.
Mix leisure with work. Take breaks and get away when you can.
Get enough sleep. Be as consistent with your sleep schedule as possible.

5. Maintain your emotional reserves.
Develop some mutually supportive friendships/relationships.
Pursue realistic goals which are meaningful to you, rather than goals
others have for you that you do not share because they won’t succeed.
Expect some frustrations, failures, and sorrows and let them go.
Always be kind and gentle with yourself be your own best friend.

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Procrastination is the end to your time. It is that because once you begin to procrastinate, it is likely that you will face a long road to getting back on track.

Procrastination is the means of putting off something for another day even though you have the ability and the time to obtain those goals right now.

If you are someone that is known for waiting until the last minute to get the work done, this could be causing you a variety of problems that can be wrecking your day and your time. The fact is, though, most people go through the process of procrastination, in different amounts every day.

When you procrastinate, you are actually not getting to achieve what you are capable of achieving and that can cause you to miss out on many opportunities for success in many ways. Procrastination can ruin your career because it may be the one thing that shows others that you are unable to achieve your goals.

How in the world can you actually get around this problem, then? Start with learning what is happening and knowing how to react when you begin to procrastinate. When you realize that you are procrastinating or about to, you can recognize this, stop it and get back on track to better managing your time.

It is also important for you to understand why people procrastinate and in doing so you will be in a better position to avoid allowing it to happen to you, over and over again.

Finally, you need to take the right steps to managing your time so that you can manage the outcomes of your time by learning how to deal with procrastination. It’s a mind set that you can not afford with the limited amount of time that you actually have.

Why Do You Procrastinate?
Procrastination is something that many people, if not all people, actually deal with. You should not believe that this is something that only you go through. Yet, it is something that you need to take care of as quickly as you can so that you can take back the time you are losing.

Procrastination is defined as putting off doing something that you should be putting your attention onto right now.

Usually, people do this when they want to do something else that is favorable, a bit more fun or even just easier.

Is this you? Do you spend long days working hard at what you are trying to accomplish but you are investing your time in accomplishing the easy tasks instead of taking on the larger, more important tasks?

A common problem here is that many people can not see the difference between priorities in tasks. For example, you have an important task to complete. You also have an urgent task to complete. Which do you go to first? You should accomplish the important task because it is just that, important!

Far too many people look towards accomplish the things that they think are necessary to complete right now, forgo the important task and then need to find a way or a time to balance the ball in their favor. Here are some common examples of this.

Let’s say you are working at your desk and in walks your boss. They need you to handle an important client. The phone rings, it is another employee, struggling to accomplish his task and wants your help. You get back to work. The other employee calls again. They need you. Which task do you do; the important client or the employee that will keep calling until you help?

The task here that you should be completing is that which is important, the one that needs your full attention and that will get you the most bang for the buck.

Unfortunately, far too many people strive to accomplish that other task because that person has complained, called and got into their head and they now are the loudest voice there telling them what to do.

But, when you react to that person, you change the way that the day is flowing. Now you need to deal with the important client, when you are stressed and overwhelmed. You’ll also have to explain to the boss why you made the client wait, why the task was not completed soon enough and in the end why the job was not done completely right (because you could not concentrate, of course.)

Other times when this can happen include when you think you are doing the right thing by asking fast. Or, perhaps you did not even think about which is the best task to complete and just jumped on board. That isn’t going to serve you well down the road when you need the help the most.

Are You Overwhelmed Yet?
One of the other reasons that many people struggle with procrastination does not have to do with any of these other situations. It has to do with the feeling of being so overwhelmed that you feel like you just can not do it.

For example, you have a large and important project on your desk. There are many steps to accomplishing it and it will take time to go through the project, organize and accomplish it.

The instant feeling of being overwhelmed attacks. You can feel it in your shoulders, in your head and all of a sudden, you just can no longer focus on the process and you end up facing the fact that today just got very long and complicated.

Perhaps you are not sure where you should start the project. You may even feel as if the task is so large or so hard that you do not have the skills or the ability to complete it or complete all of it. Perhaps you do not think you have all of the information and tools to get the job done right. Instead of accomplishing the task, then, you put it off to the side, for another day.

Why would you do that? Most people do this form of procrastination because it feels easier to accomplish something that they can do and know that they can do. They feel that the big project is just too hard.

Whether you have the intention of going back and completing the project or not, you have now sidestepped the job so that you can gain the comfort and the benefit of completing a job that is easier for you to do.

Since that was an important job, you realize at the last minute that you need to complete it and the overwhelming worry starts up all over a gain except; now there is more problem to deal with. Now, time is limited which means less focus and less ability to complete the job with the same quality that you could have done beforehand even though you think you could not have done so.

Important jobs and projects that are larger and harder do not just go away. They can not be shoved under the carpet until the next day, week or whenever you get to it. If you do that, you are likely to never be able to complete the project like you could complete it if you did it today, with your full attention and the time to do it right.

Procrastination can cause all types of negative situations for you. For example, some additional reasons that you may procrastinate include not being able to organize your thoughts and your needs, fearing that you will fail at the task, and waiting for the right time to start on your project. No matter what, it is still procrastination!

Many people need to work on improving their situations so that they can improve the overall need that they have for achieving time management skills. For some, being a perfectionist may be the reason that they do not step forward to complete the important tasks. For others, making decisions is not something that they know how to do correctly and thoroughly, which leads to not making any decision at all.

All of these signs of procrastination are just that: signs for you to stop doing them and to start taking back control of your time and your life. Understanding why it happens is the first step. Examine your life and the tasks that you are procrastinating right now. Why are you really putting off doing something that you could be doing today?

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Abundant World is part of a vast network of quality and affordable lifestyle ebooks and audios.. Miz Helena is an avid writer of self-improvement and lifestyle articles and is co-owner of Abundant World