7 Steps to Create Your Dream

(The talk posted on Sunday January 17 , 2010on www.RelevantSpirituality.com

This time of year television and the internet are full of handy-dandy "tools" for accomplishing your New Year's Resolutions. Whether you want to lose weight, stop smoking, exercise, finish that novel, or find a new job; there is a long-lost secret, a proven plan, a magic talisman, or a sure-fire cure that will get 'er done! Trouble is, most of them, although they may have a little information, or a "free trial" up front, ultimately have a target in mind - and the target is your credit card. Once you've given them 16 numbers and an expiration date, you're pretty much on your own.

Here's a different plan. No up-front costs; in fact no cost at all except the time and energy you are willing to invest in your own life. And you don't have to go it alone. With this plan you create support in the physical world as well as the spiritual realm. With God and a few friends on your side, what could you accomplish?

So here's the plan: 7 Steps to Create a New Life; or a new body, or a new relationship, or a new job. You decide what you want, and know that the only thing that can stop you is not following the steps.

1. Design A Workable Plan: Sit down and write out what you want to accomplish. Be very specific about your goals. If you want to lose weight, how much? by what date? If you want a new job, doing what? what salary do you require? If you want or need to get an education to further your career, what is your game plan? Who do you need to contact? How long is it going to take? Lay out all of the details so that you can see what needs to be done and can be realistic about doing it. If you need more information, this would be the time to get it.

2. When your plan is clear, sum it up in one short , present-tense sentence, as though it is already a done deal. "I am ten pounds thinner." "I am well paid in my new job." "I am a healthy, happy, former-smoker." Consider this your new mantra. Make the phrase as catchy as you'd like, it is intended to be repeated freely and frequently and should not only remind you of your intention, but motivate you to accomplish it.

3. Create a support team. Who do you need on your side? Your family? Your local gym? An educational counselor? Your health practitioner? It is challenging enough doing what you need to do to change your life, get other people on board. Tell your family what you are doing - and tell them you are going to do it, with or without their support, but you'd prefer to have them pulling for you. Enlist a friend or two who are willing to be part of your pep squad.

4. Accept spiritual support. The Universe really is on your side: allow it to help you create your heaven-on-earth. Pray, ask for prayer support, know that, in addition to the visible, you have invisible means of support as well. Stop arguing with Life and simply accept the good it has to offer.

5. Commit to a test period. Set a specific time frame for Stage 1. Three weeks, 21 days is a good start. Promise yourself you will not go off-plan, nor will you expect unreasonable results during that time. What can you reasonably accomplish in 21 days? Commit to that goal and measure your progress at that time. Reassess your plan in 21 days, adjust if necessary, then commit for the next 21 days. Repeat until your dream is a reality.

6. Exercise your plan daily. Just like exercising your body, exercising your plan (which is the key to accomplishing your dreams) must become a daily practice. Do not let a day go by without doing at least one thing that will bring you closer to the accomplishment of your dream.

7. Choose your dream anew every day. Make the accomplishment of your new reality a top priority. Every morning look in the mirror and recommit to the dream of that person looking back at you. Consciously choose to be the greatest supporter and the hero, or heroine, of your dreams. A new life is not created by wishing it were so, but by the choices you make moment to moment, one conscious day at a time.

Over the next couple of months I'll go into more detail about each of the steps and if you have questions, please feel free to contact me. But don't wait for all of the answers, get started, the beauty of a plan that includes the spiritual is this: in the perfect time, all will be revealed.

Love, Marlene