Be Realistic

One way that life can get in way is through sheer overwhelm: you may feel overwhelmed by sheer size of each category when you do break each big goal from your life plan down into smaller ones. It is really important that you keep motivated and don’t ask too much of yourself. If you are asking yourself to do 4 hours worth of work when you only have 30 minutes a day, don’t be disheartened, be realistic. You may find that if you set yourself one thing a day to do, and get that done faster than you think then you can get another one done and get ahead of plan.

Be Flexible

Another way that life can be annoying? is through unexpected twists: this is where keeping your plan flexible comes into play. Depending on what life has thrown at you, there are different ways of doing this. Firstly, you need to keep in control of your plan rather than letting it control you. Monthly, Quarterly and Annual Reviews are very useful ways of making sure your plan fits in with what is really happening in your life and this kind of prevention system can help you anticipate and handle unexpected situations in best way for you.

Be Willing to Reconsider

What if you change your mind about sections of plan? No problem - you can redesign your plan as many times as is necessary because it is YOUR plan. Just go back to drawing board and rethink - you may realise that one change in your plan may impact more areas than one area you want to alter. It is important to remember here that it is your life and anything is possible, so if prospect of replanning is daunting, just imagine where you want to be and start taking some action!

Be Honest with Yourself

It is important to know that whatever you plan it must be right for you - if your goal involves actions that you are either not capable of or actions you are not willing to do, you must review what you want and be honest about likelihood of you actually completing actions you set yourself.

Contemplate a Coach

What if life keeps getting in way and you get disheartened about ever having life you want? Or if you don’t have a clue what you want as every situation you try on in your head just doesn’t feel right? Here you may have to address your more basic needs and real situation you’re living in. It may be case that you would benefit from having a coach to help you out in sorting through top layers of life to real you underneath - one which you have hidden away and ignored. A coach can help you realise what your true values are and help you figure out how you can translate this to your current life.

If you do decide to hire a coach, do try a few out to see what different styles are available - most coaches offer a free consultation where you can get to know personality of coach and their coaching style before deciding whether it is for you. Prices vary greatly, so this is where trying out many possible coaches can be extremely useful as you can decide whether service you have just tried is worth asking price.

Proactive & Adaptable

Life is all about change. How you adapt to that change and how proactive you are in chasing your ideal are what really makes difference in having a fulfilled life. Having a plan can help you in being prepared for whatever life decides to throw at you while keeping you on track to achieving your dreams.

Communication Part 2: Responding

The first thing to learn in this part is that you will find communication much easier if you are speaking in same way (tone, tempo and rhythm) as your correspondent: if you usually speak fast, find someone who speaks slowly (or vice versa) and match their tempo when you are talking with them, and then measure how successful that conversation was in comparison to a conversation with them which was entirely on your natural tempo. Be sure you are matching all three (tone, tempo and rhythm) though as most people who say that this doesn’t work are not matching all three correctly! Usually this sort of thing is natural: if you’ve ever been to US, you may have noticed that you started ending sentences on an upward inflection automatically: not a typically British way of speaking. You just picked it up from others and naturally matched it. But if you are to be a highly successful communicator you need to be aware of what actually works rather than just stabbing in dark and going with what comes out of your mouth without you thinking about it.

Use Positive Directions

The second thing that is most important to learn about responding to others is to use positive sentences - I don’t mean being nice to people, although that is all to good, but by expressing your purpose in a specific way: "do this" rather than "do not do this". The brain works extra hard to create representation of thing not to be done and superimposes some kind of negative - and in all brain processing that happens afterwards negative frequently gets lost so leaving an extra strong impression of thing not to be done - without its negative. For example: if I were to say, "Do NOT think of a bright red cat", what are you thinking of? Most of you will honestly admit to having had some kind of representation of a red cat flash across mind, furthermore this representation of a red cat will be something you remember more readily than something I say in positive sense. Also, there is whole contrary nature of mind to contend with: there is always fascination and compulsion with what we are told not to do, why else does negative psychology work so well with teenagers?

Take a Meta-View

The last important thing to learn about communication skills is goal of communication: you must keep this in mind when entering into any communication for you to be able to measure it’s success and thus moderate your future attempts to achieve your goals through communication. If your goal is to cheer up a friend, you will be able to tell if you have been successful by comparing tone of friend at beginning and at end of conversation. Or if your goal is to build a relationship more solidly, then you can compare your correspondent’s mood before and after each communication: and attitude with which they receive you. If they are happy to see you all better, but you can tell something is wrong if they are consistently displeased to see you. For positive proof you need several communications to base your conclusion on: there are other factors at work as well, such as your correspondent’s internal mood state - which frequently has very little to do with you - take a "meta-view" stance and see what overall picture is before coming to any conclusions about your communication skills.