Are you living on 'Someday Isle'?

Leading author, coach and speaker, Brian Tracy talks of a place known as Someday Isle. It's a unique place with its own culture and language. The Someday Isle phrase book includes the familiar exchanges:

'Someday I'll...travel the world'
'Someday I'll...make the time to follow my dreams'
'Someday I'll...start living my own life instead of living it for everyone else'

Someday Islanders have a limitless number of reasons for failing to do the things that they desire most. It's an uninspiring place, albeit a safe one and we've all been there at some stage in our lives. Occasionally an islander summons the courage to leave and follow their dreams. The island culture is such that this move may be met with resistance and disdain. Typical islander responses might include:

'You're mad!'
'On your own...?!'
'But what about...?'

The islanders might experience a flash of jealousy but would quickly gain support from each other by validating their cultural view that some things are just not possible right now.

So how do you book a flight off Someday Isle?

Step 1 - Dare to Dream

Imagine you only had 6 months of healthy life left.

How would you spend your remaining time?
Where would you go?
Who would you see?
What would you do?
Would you really be rushing back to the office to finish that last email?

Imagine you are at your 80th birthday party.

How would you want people to describe your life?
Rich, joyous, loving and filled with great experiences or...
...that you were really good at keeping on top of your To Do list?
What would you regret the most if you didn't do it?

Step 2 – Write it down

Only 10% of the population set goals and of those just 3% actually write them down. Yet research has shown that writing down your goals increases your chance of success tenfold (from 4% to 44%). Even if you do nothing else, write down your dreams and you might be surprised at how quickly you leave Someday Isle.

At this point the typical islander response is to ask 'What if it doesn't work?' They're missing the point – what if it DOES?! What have you got to lose apart from a piece of paper and a little time?

Step 3 – Visualise and think about your dream

If you want to increase your chances of success then fuel your dream with thoughts, visualisations and list all the reasons why it is important to you. A strange phenomenon is that of the Law of Attraction – whatever you are thinking most about you will attract from the outside. Your super-conscious mind will look for opportunities that your conscious mind hasn't even registered. Many people have been surprised by how many opportunities come to them in a seemingly magical way when they truly believe that something is possible.

A powerful visual tool is to create an inspirational scrap book, or poster, filled with images of places that you want to see, activities that you want to undertake, people that inspire you or that you'd love to meet. (It's also great to fall back on when the road gets bumpy or hard and you're trying to remember why you are making certain sacrifices).

Step 4 – Make a plan

Whilst writing and thinking about your goals will help to make them happen, there is a way to fly 1st Class away from Someday Isle and that's to make a plan:

Set a deadline and remember that there is no such thing as an unrealistic goal, only unrealistic deadlines. Everything is possible given time.
Determine the obstacles that you will need to overcome. What is the constraint? Why haven't I already achieved my goal? Ask what it is that is holding you back (80% of the reasons are typically within oneself).
Focus all of your attention on removing the obstacles. What's the biggest one? Keep asking yourself how you can overcome it. If you feel blocked at this point (and many people do) a good life coach can help you to creatively explore new options.
Constantly ask yourself ‘How can I make this happen?', and don't allow yourself to eliminate any ideas, however silly they sound. Your subconscious needs permission to be as creative as it can be and it doesn't cope well with rejection. So allow your mind to explore every possibility and then simply pick the ones that appeal the most to start you off. Some of the ideas may never happen. So what? Leaving them on the list means that you are keeping your mind open searching for the answers.

Step 5 – Do something towards your goal every day

The momentum principle of success means that it is easier to do something every day. If you stop you have to regain the momentum and possibly motivation each time. When a child learns to walk they take lots of small steps and you will find this a much easier way to achieve your goal than setting yourself tasks that feel overwhelming.

Step 6 – Persist

It is a sad truism that many people give up just as they are about to make a major break-through. Surround yourself with other island ex-pats who can encourage you on your journey and help you to maintain motivation. Don't allow yourself to be dragged back to Someday Isle by the doubters.

Step 7 – Sit back, relax and enjoy your flight to freedom!

This article was written by Kate Nelson. Kate Nelson is a Career Break Coach – specialising in booking one way flights off Someday Isle.