Liane Carmi

This is one of my favorite representations of the wheel of life.

Every time I do goal-setting -
Every time I start to feel a little lost -
Every time I just need some forward movement -

I look this thing up in Google images and go through it.

Here’s how to use it (or, here’s how I use it):

1. Print out the wheel (or re-create it on a blank piece of paper) with all its categories. The categories are:

-Physical Environment
-Business / Career
-Finances
-Health
-Family & Friends
-Romance
-Personal Growth
-Fun & Recreation

2. Without putting too much thought into it, just allowing your intuition to do some work, draw a line in each section that represents how you feel you are doing in that section of your life, from 1-10.

So if you’re feeling pretty bad about your romance, for example, you might put a 2 or 3 in there. And if you’re feeling pretty good about your health, you could put a 7, 8, maybe even a 10 there. Whatever your hand gravitates towards for that category.

Once you’re done, for effect, fill in the areas you’ve marked. The goal here is to have a nice, round wheel – but what USUALLY happens is…something a little more ‘rough’.

And what I often find is that when one area is especially low, it tends to pull all the other areas down with it.

Once I get a quick feel of how I’m doing, I like to write down some basic goals for each area. Nothing fancy – I just place a few “perfect” situations next to each category. Here’s what would make the family & friends category perfect. Here’s what would make ‘romance’ perfect. Get it?

Now, I’m the ‘semantic map’ type – so I like to draw lines coming out from each category, and to enter my thoughts there…but you might prefer to actually write down the categories in an outline. It doesn’t matter how you do it, as long as you’re able to interact with it.

As an example, I might draw a line out of the ‘family & friends’ category and write “visit my sister at least twice a month.” For health, I’ve put things like, “do a free-standing handstand” and “drink green juice at least 3x per week.”

Your ideal situations might be very different (probably should be – I don’t know many other people who like blended greens and care whether or not they’ll ever do a handstand)…

So the thing is, your life always goes towards balance, and it’s a sort of wave. It’s not 100% balanced all the time; instead, things go up and down. As an example, I might focus on my business for a month and really get my finances in great shape…but in the meantime, I ignore my family and that category goes down. So the following month I make an effort to focus more on my family…

A wave.

And even if you’re not doing this exercise, even if you’re not manipulating your balance – you’re naturally going to get more balanced – just in a very rough way.

Someone whose health might be at a 3 or below…will eventually get into a situation (i.e., heart attack) that FORCES them to stop, relax, take a break from work, eat better, spend more time with family…and for them it’s more like one of those huge roller coasters.

I get sick on roller coasters and prefer the kiddie rides

And if you think about it, someone whose life is very well balanced – who has, say, an accident of some sort and ends up in the hospital…they’ll have an easier time getting well because of their existing health, support system of family and friends…and the ability to afford the hospital bills!

So…that’s pretty much it.

Print yourself a copy of the wheel of life, mark down where you feel you are at in each category (quickly, no thinking!)…then decide what would make each of the categories a perfect ’10′.

What’s next? Well, work towards that 10. You can write down a list of milestones you’d need to reach in order to get to the goal…or you might just keep them in mind. Sometimes, that’s all it takes to get you moving in the right direction.

And remember – one really low category pulls the others down…and the opposite is true as well – one really high category can help pull the others up.

When you find yourself looking at an especially low number…do what it takes to improve it. You’ll likely notice improvement everywhere else as well.

…So instead of worrying about whether I’m going to get work done this week while I’m vacationing in Kauai, Hawaii – I’m just going to soak it all in, practice yoga every morning, snorkel every day, go hiking, explore, relax…and build up my ‘recreation’, ‘health’, ‘family’ and ‘romance’ categories.

And when I get back next week…I’m sure all the other categories will naturally rise up one level as well.

After you try the exercise, leave a quick comment here – did you notice anything interesting? Learn anything about yourself?

Here’s to balance!

Liane

 

I recently delivered a live webinar for my list on how to start an online business from scratch.

On the webinar, I went over many different ways to make money online – and what you need to do to create YOUR perfect online business.

(Here, imagine the sound of a record scratching – like they do in the movies when something
doesn’t go exactly as expected…like…when a bunch of teenagers are having a party and the parents
suddenly walk in. Got the image?

Got that record-scratching sound? Okay, continue reading).

Yeah, that’s right – I said CREATE. I know that’s a bad word in internet marketing…
Here, it’s all about discovering, and finding out secrets…being one of the few allowed to sneak a peek at some new incredible money-making machine…

It’s all about free money for free, and people are paying for it by the thousands on a daily basis.

I mean, it’s true – there are literally HUNDREDS of ways to make money online…

And yes, you can discover each one. And pay $47 for some, $1997 for others…$5-$10,000
for high level coaching…

And I’m willing to bet that 95% of them are legitimate, and possible…and that SOMEONE -
or several people – have made fortunes with them.

But you know what the problem is?
Read this a few times:

Just because something worked for someone else online doesn’t mean it will work for you.

Read that again.

Right.

You can copy what someone did. You can make money just like they did. But if that method
does not match up with your personality…

You’re doomed to fail.

Because there is NO WAY you will be able to sustain. Not a chance.

How do I know? Just a few months ago, I began feeling completely frazzled.
I was making good money online (better than most), but I was feeling ragged.

Worn out. Ready to quit and get a J.O.B. – just so I could breathe again.

Okay, maybe not that far. Knowing what I know, I don’t think I’ll ever be employable again..

But fact is, I had had just about as much as I could take.
(I got rescued by an amazing coach – but more about that next time).

For now, just think – why do you want to own your own online business?

You could say it’s for the money, but I don’t think so.
I think the money is just a tool – a tool to give you a good life,
to make you healthier
to give you more time to do what YOU want to do…

To spend time with your family,
to feel PRIDE in your success.

So how can anyone have a good, rewarding life if they’re doing something
they hate?

Anyway, back to online business…

The truth is that there is ONE BASIC FORCE that creates online income for everyone.

And as long as you can plug into a tiny piece of that force – you can have a profitable
online business.

What is that force?

Simple. It’s an exchange of money. Someone buys something. Ka’ching!

The thing is…as I explain in the video…you don’t have to be the salesman, or the merchant
to get that money.

You just have to be somewhere in the path of that exchange – in between the person
doing their search on Google (or any other location on the web, for that matter),
and the final sale.

It gets a little more complicated than that, but I’ll leave that to the webinar.

Anyway, here’s the deal.

I’m going to teach you how to make money online, YOUR WAY.

The way that makes you happy.

It’s not “instant millionaire” or some top secret hidden method.

It’s out there, and you can find it in many other places…
but it’ll probably be a few thousand dollars and several years before you piece it all together.

How about I just give it to you?

It’s all about the BASIC SYSTEM. And once you know this system, you can do anything online, and make money doing it.

Something that matches your skills, your personality…
Something that gets you excited to wake up in the morning.

You get the idea, right? YOUR perfect business, making you money while you
ENJOY yourself.

Now that’s life.

So the only thing left for you to consider is this…

Where do you want to learn this skill of making money online?

Watch the webinar.

If you like my teaching style, go ahead and sign up.

Be ready to WORK. Be ready to immerse yourself in the process.
Be ready to take action and see the magic.

I’ll tell you myself: it’s SO worth it!

(comments welcome below)

I got an email today from one of my list members asking a question about how to improve his time management.  He’s a Doctoral student and finds himself procrastinating a whole lot, which causes him to have less-than-stellar results in his research and studies.

Normally, I would just respond and leave it at that, but I thought other people could benefit from this answer.

Remember to leave a comment below and let me know if this is useful to you!

ALI’S QUESTION:

Right now I am a researcher in university and I will start my PhD here on Sept.
I’m addicted to internet and checking my emails and doing some unnecessary issues in internet.

Therefore I couldn’t spend enough time to read the books. I just collect the needed information without referring them to read.so, at the last seconds I do all tasks in mediocre and finally, I have mediocre results.

My results are not bad but I know that It could be better and better.
I don’t know how can I change my bad manners.

Regards
Ali

MY RESPONSE:

Hey Ali,

An easy way to remedy this is to set goals, and milestones.

Pick a goal for your studies.  Then, cut it into milestones, or separate tasks that would get you to your goal.  Finally, determine how long it takes to do each task, and plan accordingly.

As an example:

Goal: write 20-page research paper on topic X
Milestones:
1. Collect pertinent research on topic X. Review research and write up 5 possible theses.
2. Begin to organize chapters.
3. Write chapter 1…
4. Write chapter 2…
(all chapters)
5. Select final thesis, write intro.
6. Re-read and revise.
7. Edit & publish.

Time to complete each task:
1. 5 hours
2. 2 hours
3. 2 hours
4. 3 hours
5. 2 hours
6. 1 hour
7. 2 hours

TOTAL: 17 hours.

Today’s date: June 21, 2010
Due date: July 30, 2010
Weeks left: 6
# hours needed on a weekly basis: 17/6 = approximately 2.8, or 3 hours.
Doesn’t seem like much, does it?

That’s it!  Then you only need to set aside 3 hours per week to focus on this work.  You can do that every Monday from 3-6, every Wednesday, or whenever you just want to sit down and focus.  Get it done before anything else, and then continue to do fun things, like surfing the net or checking your emails.

You can use this for anything. For instance, I use this method for my online business.  I set goals for different projects, and I make sure I can reach them by separating big things into little tasks that can actually be completed in a few hours.  Sure makes things easier to deal with, and gets rid of the overwhelm you often get with large projects that causes you to procrastinate.

Hope that helps!!

Liane

Oh – found this hilarious-yet-true procrastination flow chart…is this you? (Click to see it larger…)

Remember to leave your comments below…