Step out of your comfort zone to chart new growth path

Anyone can build future success from past experience, but a positive mind-set is crucial in this process.

All too often we reflect on the “woulda, coulda, shoulda” aspects of our lives instead of zeroing in on all that we’ve been able to accomplish and enjoy.

By focusing on what could have been, you limit your foresight; and by limiting your foresight, you limit yourself.

The more clearly you understand your strengths and how they enabled you to get to this point, the more effectively you can leverage them into a bright and fulfilling future.

By digging deeply into the past, you can build a solid and effective foundation for the future.

It’s important not to regret the past. Instead, you must appreciate all of your positive experiences and find a way to learn from the negative ones.

Success can be enjoyed by anyone. But one reason it eludes so many people is that they simply don’t know what success really is.

By defining the parameters of personal success and creating a dynamic and detailed vision of that success, you create a clearly defined target to aim for.

The reality is that if you want to hit a specific target, you need a specific target to hit.

Another thing that sometimes comes between the life we lead and the life we really want is comfort.

Being comfortable is a basic human need, and just about everybody wants to experience comfort. But being comfortable might actually come between you and your goals.

Like the thermostat that shuts down the heater when the temperature gets comfortable, people often shut down their passion and drive when their lives get comfortable.

Never mind that there are still more things they want to accomplish.

Your mind-set and how you use it to put a positive spin on everything about your business and your daily activities is undoubtedly the most important ingredient for your long-term success.

Regardless of whether you want to make major changes in your life or simply want to tweak it a little, getting your head on straight can make all of the difference in the world.

Here are the steps to follow to change your life and your future.

Take Stock of Your Situation

Remove the blinders and see your life for what it is. Many people go through life making decisions based on assumptions or faulty perceptions.

They see the world through a personal filter that often doesn’t reflect reality.

Another problem is that people get so caught up in the daily grind and in their closed circle of business associates, friends and family that they don’t see what’s actually going on around them.

You must force yourself to take off the blinders and step outside of your comfort zone if you are to make any sort of progress going forward.

Honestly assess your present state of affairs

The worst thing you can do when trying to change your life and your situation is to lie to yourself, but it happens all the time.

Unless you can be honest with yourself in assessing the way your life really is, you will never be able to change it.

The reason people don’t deal with reality honestly is that sometimes the truth hurts. But only by accepting reality for what it is can you have any hope of actually changing it.

Face the facts and deal with them head on, and you will be able to begin implementing change.

Identify your personal glass ceiling Unless you are self-employed or are a successful entrepreneur at the head of a large company, you invariably face at least one glass ceiling that is limiting your ability to achieve the life you seek.

The key to shattering that glass ceiling is to first identify it. Regardless of what causes it, your personal glass ceiling must be identified—and destroyed.

Face your discontent head on and harness the energy. It’s not uncommon for someone to be extremely unhappy with his or her life and yet be completely unwilling to do anything about it.

This is because people tend to get comfortable—even if they’re not happy—and resist change because of it.

Change is never easy, so forcing change invariably takes one out of the comfort zone.

And since leaving the comfort zone is by definition uncomfortable, people take the easy way out and cling to what they know.

The solution is to acknowledge personal discontent, focus it, and then use it for motivation to change. There is tremendous potential energy in discontent.

Make a decision to create change

We sometimes forget that when it comes to our lives, we have complete control--the power of free will.

We can do anything we want to do, as long as we truly want to do it and then decide to accomplish it.

And that is the secret to success in every endeavour you choose to undertake--deciding.

As obvious as it may seem, we often need to remind ourselves of this simple fact: Making a decision to do something and then following through on it is the only way we can achieve anything.

Understand the need to control your own destiny

It’s critically important to understand that you control your own life--as long as you choose to.

Far too many people either don’t control their life or totally lose control over it, because they would rather let someone else do it for them.

If you are dissatisfied with where you are and where you are going, taking back control is hyper-critical.

Clearly decide what you want from life

Once you’ve committed to change, the key question is to determine how you define the success that you seek.

If you have no idea what you want from life, you will need to resign yourself to taking whatever comes your way.

On the other hand, by defining what you really want and relentlessly going after it, success becomes much more likely.

By getting clear-- crystal clear--on what you are seeking and what you want to achieve, realising your dream becomes possible.

Newman is the creator of the Experience Mapping concept and the book by the same name.

By taking the power of past experiences and mapping them to a bright future, Karen learned how to take back control of her life and to create a new powerful reality.