It’s so lovely to see you! In this blog post I am going to share with you a free lesson from the ‘Find Your Best You’ online program that I host several times per year. In this free lesson I’m going to encourage you to consider and explore all of the areas that make up a balanced lifestyle through a series of activities. These activities are best when you have time to stop, think and reflect. I know this can be hard but I need you to give yourself permission to do so. Ask your friend or sitter to care for the kids for an hour or so. Ask your partner to take care of dinner while you take some time out for yourself. You need to do this for you.

You got this.

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Find Your Best You – Online Program

In the program we work together to take an objective look at what is going on in your life right now and make a change or achieve a goal that is long lasting. In the program I give you the skills so you can assess your life and discover what could be stopping you from achieving your goals. I give you the skills to develop and follow an achievable action plan that will lead you to achieving your success.

Throughout the program we cover:

Exploring life balance and what may be missing
Figuring out your why
Deciding what to work on first
Visualising your success
Exploring reality
Discovering what is stopping you
Discovering your strengths and resources
Creating an action plan that leads to success
Assessing your progress

I am launching the first round of ‘Find Your Best You’ in April 2018. To take advantage of the early bird price and secure your spot, click here.

Grab a hot drink, sit down with your pen, paper and worksheets and lets get started.

Lesson 1: Exploring Your Life Balance and What may be Missing

Just a bit of a Back Story

I have a story that I’d like to share with you. It’s a story about my personal experience, the importance of living a balanced life and what could happen when things become unbalanced. I bet you have had one of these moments, so I’m not telling you anything new. We all experience them at different times. I hope that you can use the skills that I teach you this week and throughout this program when you experience one of these moments in the future.
Not too long ago I was obsessed with keeping busy and I was determined to get out of the ‘traditional’ working lifestyle. I would keep busy by working. I’d work 8am to 4pm Monday to Friday at my day job and each day I would come home to work on my side hustle business, keeping busy. On weekends I wouldn’t be doing the things that I should have been doing. You know, those things such as catching up on housework or relaxing and spending time with special people. you would find me in the spare room of our home working on my side hustle or focused on my phone ‘marketing’. This same pattern of my week went on for 18 months or so.

I started to notice things were changing. My side hustle business was becoming more important than my relationship with my husband. The things that I once really like doing was becoming a chore. The things that were not stressful before were turning into the biggest stressors of my life. It felt like I was carrying a heavy weight on my shoulders. There was no living. I was ‘existing’.

I recall a significant wake up call for me. It was a Sunday night and my husband had gone to the bathroom. I was sitting on the couch watching mindless television as I always do when I prepare myself for the work week ahead. All of a sudden I felt like I could not breath. I felt like I was suffocating. I felt so lost and confused. I felt overwhelmed and anxious. I felt like my body was full of toxic energy. I felt like I was having a crisis an I couldn’t control it. It was at that critical moment that I knew that things needed to change.

My life had become incredibly unbalanced and I was determined to make a change. I was determined to eliminate those things in my life that were making me feel toxic and I was determine to live that positive, fulfilling life that I have always dreamed of.

I’m here to teach you how to do the same. Making a change is hard and achieving a goal can be tedious, but it’s not impossible. It requires hard work, dedication, motivation and an achievable action plan. I’m here to teach you how you can look at what is happening in your life and make a change that is long lasting.

I’m here to help you find your best you.

Are you ready?

Life Balance Activity

In this activity you’re going to explore different aspects of your life, from your health to your career and everything in between. All of these areas contribute to that fulfilling life that you crave and I’m going to encourage you to consider and reflect upon each area listed.

Think about what each area looks like to you right now? If you’re looking at finances it could be that you’d like to purchase property one day, it could be getting control of your finances and paying off those long overdue debts or it could be that you want to save money and save up for that holiday that you have always wanted. Write these down on the worksheet provided if you wish.

As you consider each area of your life I want you to rate them a number between one and ten. Think of one being very dissatisfied about where this is at right now and 10 being that you’re so satisfied with this right now that nothing needs to be different at this point in time.

The thing about this activity is that it will very often change at different times of your life. Some things may become more important than others. I like to do this activity several times a year to see how each area is different and what has progressed.

As you work your way around the wheel I encourage you to explore and reflect upon each area further by answering the questions on the worksheets provided. There are no right or wrong answers here.

Once you’ve finished I’d like to hear about your biggest learning from this week’s lesson. I understand that this can be an overwhelming process. I am here to support you if needed. Please contact me via the form below.

Here’s to finding your best you,

Ashleigh x

Find Your Best You - Free Lesson - 3

In this blog post I share with you a goal setting strategy that you can use to help you determine and prioritise what the most important thing is to work on when it feels like you want to achieve so much all at once and that you feel like everything is equally important. If you like you can join my free email course where I can help and support you every step of the way.

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It can be really tough when it there is so much that you want to do and it feels like there is so much going on inside your head. If you’re anything like me, once I start to focus on one thing another half a dozen other things come up that I also want to do and I become easily distracted. When this happens things can quickly become confusing, overwhelming and stressful and that is when you can run the risk of losing complete focus and can become stuck.

I’m here to share with you a technique that you can use to avoid becoming confused, overwhelmed and stressed when you have many ideas inside your head or when there is many things that you want to achieve. You can join my free email course where I can help and support you every step of the way.

The Benefits of Prioritising

Prioritising tasks and goals is important, especially when at face value, everything seems to be equally important and there are competing demands. Knowing what to work on first can affect your success in achieving the task at hand and achieving your overall outcome.

Not every task or goal is equally important.

Learning and knowing how to prioritise tasks and goals can help to teach you that not everything is as equally important as what they first appear to be. There are things that are super important that need to be done TODAY, and there are other things that, although they are still important, they can be put off for another day. I’ll teach you how to do this further down.

Avoid wasting time and achieve more.

Knowing what to work on first can help you to avoid wasting precious time and increase your ability to achieve more. There is nothing worse than knowing that you have a deadline, but realising that you have been wasting time doing meaningless things such as scrolling on Facebook (I’m guilty!) or watching the latest episode of that must see television show (also guilty!). This is called procrastination and can lead to that last minute panic and can cause unnecessary stress. I’ll teach you how to beat procrastination another time.

Conserves your energy and attention.

As I mentioned in the point above, knowing what to work on first can help you to conserve your energy and maintain your focus and attention on things that really need your focus and attention.

Ensures that deadlines are met.

Learning the skill of determining whether things are as important as what they need to be and prioritising helps you in the planning process and ensures that those important deadlines are met and that you don’t have some serious explaining to do.

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Learning How to Prioritise in 7 Easy Steps

Below are the seven steps that you can take to prioritise and decide what you need to work on next. Join my free email course where I can help and support you every step of the way.

1. The Brainstorm

I call this process an ‘action log’, which is basically a brainstorm or a brain dump of all the things that you want to do, all of the ideas in your head and all of the goals that you want to achieve. This is one of my favourite steps to do in the planning process and you can read more about the specific steps here. You’ll find writing everything down helpful as all of those fluffy ideas will become more concrete.

I strongly encourage you to set a time frame for your action log. For example, is this action log a brainstorm of all the things you want to do in the next month, the next 12 months or the next five or ten years. This will help you to put your action log into perspective.

2. Short Term and Long Term

From this list of ideas have a look at what you want to achieve in the short term and what you want to achieve in the long term. It may seem like you need to do everything RIGHT NOW, but honestly, some things need to wait and they can wait.

3. What is important

Take a look at what you want to do in the short term. There might be one thing listed here or there may be several. If there is one thing listed you may like to start this process again and use this same process to break that task, idea or goal down into small, manageable steps. If there is more than one thing listed, you need to determine what is the most important. You can do this by using a high, medium and low importance colour coding or numbering system. By doing this you will begin to have a clearer picture about what needs to be done immediately and what things can be done at another time.

4. What needs doing RIGHT NOW

From here you need to determine what you need to do RIGHT NOW, based on what you considered to be of high importance. When you’re determining what you need to do immediately also consider:

how long it is going to take to achieve it
any upcoming deadlines
and the difficulty.

Often the things that are the most difficult or the hardest to accomplish are the things that we should be doing first.

What do you need to do right now?

5. Write that list in order

By now you should have a list full of scribbles, colour codes and numbers. Its time to take that list and put it in order from what you’ve discovered to be most important that needs to be done urgently to what you discovered to be least important.

Include this list on your vision board, up on your wall or in your bullet journal so it is always visible. You can read more about putting together your own vision board here. Having a constant visual reminder will keep you motivated and will prompt you to actually get things done.

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6. Is there anything that anyone else can do?

Often we want to be miracle workers or super women and do everything ourselves, but realistically, having this mindset can reduce your success, cause unnecessary stress or make things take a lot longer than what they need to be. It’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to pull your resources together and use them to get the job done. Pulling your resources together and asking for help will free up your time to do the things that you want to do and will help you to get to your outcome quicker.

7. One thing at a time

Its time to start working and crossing things off that list. It can be tempting to do bits and pieces of each goal or task, but I would encourage you to spend your time, energy, focus and attention working on one thing at a time. When you begin to cross things off your list you’re going to feel refreshed and motivated. Imagine how empowered you’re going to feel when you realise that you’re one step closer to achieving your dream.

How do you work out what is the most important thing to work on first? Comment below.

Here’s to finding your best you.