When you set a goal, that’s just the beginning.

What is it you need to do next to have your vision happen?

Decide on your goal - work out a plan - then move forward.

Way One – The Planning: Do you have to write a plan? Pick up the phone and ask someone for help? Find a mentor?  Is there a book you need to read? A website you need to go to? A product you need to buy? Help you need to enlist?

Make a list of all the steps and make a start. Then proceed.

But it’s not just what you need to do…

Way Two – Take note of the things that cause you discomfort or the things you usually leave undone. It’s madness that we do that kind of thing, but we do!

Why do we do it? We do it because we actually don’t like change much. And why would we? After all, we just spent our who life getting this way, so why would we want it to be any different?

For me, too often in the past I left details undone, so it tripped me up. I didn’t tidy up the little snags. For you, you might notice other things you do that trip you up.

These things that trip you up are things that cause a disconnect with a prospective client or customer, so you have to resolve these snags.

Way Three - When you notice you are doing something that stops you from achieving your goal, you find a solution.

There are other things that can stop you from getting the results you want.

Some people might know they need to make sales calls, but shy away from it. But remember, just because your business needs sales calls made, doesn’t mean you have to make them.

Like with all business problems (and life) you just need to find your way around the problem… over the problem or through the problem.

From there all you do is keep checking on what might stop you. Doing this closes the gap between what you want and where you are.

Happy results!
Neil

Leave a comment and tell us what you do to get results!

Neil Fellowes shows conscious entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and complementary therapists how to make a difference AND a profit. Visit his website at http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

When I met Jo in 2002, she asked if I fancied playing a mind game with her.

Now I’ve experienced mind-games in relationships before (haven’t we all), but I’d never been “invited” by my girlfriend to take part in one… they usually sort of just evolved.

So you can understand why I might have been intrigued.

This mind game involved writing down what you most wanted and then visualisation for 10 days, first thing in the morning, and last thing at night.

We took it all lightly and just had fun, especially when things we wanted materialised. We then shared the game with four friends and we all took part. Enjoying the outcomes.

While many things happened quickly, some took longer – one in particular took two years.

We had both been imagining our ideal homes. I wanted to live by the coast, Jo wanted rolling countryside. I wanted a suburban house, Jo wanted animals. And as time passed and I continued to visualise I began to think actually… you know what… by the coast is nice, but rolling hillside sounds nice too and animals sound nice, but what about cleaning them out and feeding them. I wasn’t sure if I wanted all that.

And I imagined it was 5th November and I was on the beach at Christchurch in England and I was facing the Isle of Wight, running sand through my hands having signed the papers for a new house the day before.

Two years later a friend invited us to stay at his house with him. While we were there he asked us if we’d like to go for a trip. It was a lovely day so we said okay. Now we were all interested in how we use the subconscious mind to get what we want. And we were talking about how that comes about as we walked.

And as it happens we were on a beach, and I was down in the sand, collecting bottle tops for a charity appeal. And there I was running sand through my fingers and I looked up and there right in front of me was the Isle of Wight. And I looked behind me and there right behind me was the spot I’d imagined I’d be when I had signed for my house, which is exactly the way it had worked out. The date was 31st October, so 5 days early.

And you know the funny thing… where we live is in rolling countryside. The front of our house looks like a suburban cul-de-sac, while the back of the house backs onto rolling countryside with paddocks and fields with horses and cows and sheep. From my kitchen window I can just see the sea. And my house is in a road called Cross Farm Road, built on old farm land.

So there is a perfect example of getting what you focus on.

What are you focussed on and who will you try this game with?

Best Wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

When you set up the vision for your business… when you’ve written down the goals and visualised it all as you want it to be… the next part – and  the part that most people struggle with is – getting out of your seat and making it happen.

YOU can make it happen!

In this article we’re going to look at how you address this…

A good place to start is with these questions: “What is it you need to do next to have your vision happen?” Do you need to write a business or marketing plan? Get a mentor? Pick up the phone and ask for help from a colleague? Is there a book you need to read? A website you need to go to. What do you have to do?

Make a list of all the steps and set a time aside. A mentor of mine once said, “If you make the first 90 minutes each day about your goal, it will happen.”

I want you to take note of the things that cause you a bit of discomfort. For me, I often left detail. I didn’t tidy up the little snags. I also haven’t always been as determined as I might be. For you, you might notice other things.

What I did is notice where the detail wasn’t tidied. For a time I went over it until it became perfect and until that perfection was no longer a pain but an absolute joy.

Of course another way is to outsource what you’re not good at, and I do more and more of that as time goes by… because I found that this was a faster way to joy!

And while we’re talking about overcoming pain and gaining pleasure I should mention self-sabotage. When we begin to do better than we’re comfortable with, we can have glitches.

Anyone who has weight problems will probably be able to tell you that maybe on a certain day, when they suddenly feel lighter or maybe on a day which was stressful, they hit the self-sabotage button and revert back to the old way.

It happens. Why does it happen?

Well, one of the reasons is we hit an upper limit of success – we hit the ceiling of what we can cope with for that moment. We’re unable to accept our self as something else… in other words, the success we once wanted now feels uncomfortable.

It’s important we know this happens and we take the time to handle this, or you might be hitting that self-destruct button… and you don’t want that.

Best Wishes
Neil

Neil Fellowes shows conscious entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and complementary therapists how to make a difference AND a profit. Visit his website at http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

We all have things we want to make a little better.

We all have challenges…

The challenges might come in relationships, at work, with our kids, with our health or something else. So there is always something we want to make a little better.

The first thing to do is the step so many miss. And yet this step really isn’t that profound. In fact it’s simple. It’s profoundly simple. So let me share what it is…

The first thing we have to do to is to make a decision to change things.

I “made” a decision to make my life better in 2002. And it doesn’t matter how good or bad life is, if you want something you don’t yet have, you have to make a decision. If you don’t, nothing changes.

There will be some people reading this article today, who have made a commitment to live life to the full and who will not turn back. These are people who will make a note and who will never look near them and there are people who are ready to make life different – however big or small the change.

In 2002 I was signed off work with a back injury, broke, obese and at this time 33 years old with two kids, and single again after 5 years of abuse. So I couldn’t really go anywhere or do anything much and… to be honest… even if I could… I’d probably have been so depressed no one would have hung out with me for long.

That left me with one focus. That focus was on what would make life better. Nothing else mattered for me at that point and there has been one question that has made a massive difference to me.

The question I ask is, “What is even better than this?”

To ask this question it doesn’t matter how good or bad life is. Asking this question can always make things just a little better.

One afternoon, after a satisfying day, I was laying on the sofa, grinning at the ceiling and I asked, what would make this even better, so I called Jo in for a hug, because sharing my good mood was better than keeping it to myself and it made the moment a bit more special.

Give the question a try…

Best wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

When I launched a novel I’d written in 2004, I had a hall filled with 100 people. I signed just under 300 copies that night as people bought multiple copies.

I was in the newspaper, on the radio, was having books delivered by the box load and it was all very exciting.

But some strange things happened that rocked me a little…

People who bought more than one copy were saying things such as one copy was for reading, one was for framing and one was a gift for a friend. I heard a story about one person who bought the book and stopped their spouses from reading it because they wanted the copy to stay in pristine condition.

I found it all bizarre. And coming 2 years after leaving an abusive relationship, and nursing low confidence and self-esteem, all the sudden attention had me reaching for the self-destruct button.

One thing I felt was a strange sense of loneliness that I felt that no one, or anything seemed to be able to fill. And I guess this is where a lot of musicians and film stars end up when they start taking drugs.

Thankfully, I didn’t go along that route and was self-aware enough to capture what was going on and shake myself out of this strange place.

Why am I telling you this story? I’m telling you this because I know many of the people reading this article want to be writers and public speakers. And it’ll be in your vision that you’re in front of people having an impact on their life – present and future. And that impact may well be quite profound.

Are people going to look up to you because you’re an author?

Quite probably they will, because being an author seems to have a certain mystique about it.

Some people who have “found you” might even worship almost every word you speak or write and they will adore you.

And that might feel strange when it happens.

My advice is to allow for this to happen when you visualise your success. Acknowledge how great you are and then see yourself responding with love and kindness and humour – knowing that the other person will get over their crush on you soon enough and you will be back amongst friends and family who will quite probably help you off the pedestal!

But these examples I’ve given you – I’m mentioning them because I want you to be aware that you may have gremlins or down days or painful moments. That succeeding with something really is lovely, but learning to handle it can seem strange.

Best Wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

“Ignorance is the night of the mind, a night without moon or star.” Confucius

Living on the outer edge of my comfort zone has helped me explore the mystery of life a little and I’d like to share some of the experience with you in the hope it provides an added source of inspiration to you.

Do you like to have a plan for the day?

When I used to wake up in the morning I wanted to feel certain about the day. I wanted to know where I had to be, how I would get there, how much everything cost, how much money I’d earn, even what I’d eat. I guess it was little wonder then that almost everyday began to follow a pattern, right down to turning off the TV news at bedtime.

After an horrific head injury in 1995 followed by a divorce, I came to understand that life had an impermanent quality and for several years I rebelled against much of the structure and certainties I’d previously created to feel secure.

It was then that I fell in step with a ‘What’s meant to be, will be’, philosophy.

After drifting for a time I began to wrestle with myself. My home was a mess, my car was in a state, my shoes had holes in them, my hair looked like the birds had been having an all night orgy in it. I was so overweight that my clothes were such a bad fit I looked like a sausage about to burst the skin!

In Honest Reflection…

My life reflected a lack of respect and gratitude for the comforts afforded to someone living within one of the most privileged cultures in the world. And here I was; not caring for my body – the vehicle gifted to me for my journey through this lifetime – and not keeping my home space a clutter-less void that left room for the magic of life, instead it was filled with the old and the battered.

But guess what I did?

Each day I made demands on the world, for more – more money, a better life, for unbounded success and love.

In my first novel Black Water, a Place of No Hope, the two main characters, a soldier and a missionary, are in the worst place on earth – a prison pen, held by terrorists, in a jungle full of cannibals on an island surrounded by sharks (and, before you ask, this place really does exist outside of my imagination). While the soldier is searching for an escape, the missionary is meditating, content she has all she needs in the world. The soldier finds her lack of attention on how to escape annoying and confronts her.

Yet she is focussed on the simplicities of life that are all too easily forgotten…

The missionary’s responds to him. She says she cannot ask God for more until she has honoured what she already has – in this case, air, water, sunlight and a few moments of peace from her captors.

From the small beginnings of honouring the simplicities of life, I have, a step at a time, learned to ‘return the favour’ for all I have, just by appreciating what I now have.

In reply for my gratitude I’ve been shown the world in greater wonder and realised I’ve been living an adventure.

When opportunity is put in my path – and sometimes this is quite scary – it somehow takes me to the edge of my comfort zone then flicks out a helping hand. If I want to hold my breath, take the hand and go with it, usually I’m blown away by what follows.

Life with a sort of plan…

These days when I wake up, I may have a few appointments or some work to get done, but I neither wake up to a regimented life or a ‘whatever will be’ attitude. These days I’ve found the balance – what “Might be and what is”.

Best wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

Do you believe the world is abundant and you can have pretty much anything you want?

Living in an abundant world, for me, doesn’t necessarily mean having more. Sometimes it’s having less and doing more with what you have.

I like to live lightly. I avoid hoarding things, tend not to be overly sentimental and am increasingly less likely to become attached to objects and outcomes. Other people are different, and that’s okay.

Recently, up in the attic, we reached a decision: that the kids old toys could be put to better use in other people’s homes. It was time to let go.

Rummaging through the boxes, I sat on the loft boards and took a deep breath. Did my kids value these objects?

Yes, for a few months at a time they probably treasured all of them. I reflected on the journey of the toys. The workers who managed the machines, the machines that did the work, the people who dug up the resources, the lorry drivers and the shippers who brought them here in containers…

An enlightened master I met two years ago said, “Love is wherever you see tenderness expressed”.

Looking at the toys, I felt grateful for all of the contributions that created toys for my children. And at the same time made a vow to make wiser choices about what I buy.

I took the children’s toys, with some of the things I no longer had use for to a car boot sale. Taking a break from my stall I took a wander around to the other 150 stalls and noticed something…

So many other people were selling the same or similar things.

Two days later my parents, who are selling up the family home of 32 years to move to a smaller place, delivered two beds they no longer had use for. These were better than the ones we already had, though our existing ones had plenty of bounce left in them!

We offered these through Freecycle to anyone who could collect them and had them taken off our hands within 6 hours. And it brought us a great deal of satisfaction to make the contribution to someone else.

In terms of being tender to the world, I had to ask a question to myself: do we need more stuff? New things can be nice, but when you look around the things that others are giving away, or selling off for next to nothing to make room for the next thing, you can really see the abundance in the world and the fact that you can have almost anything you want for next to nothing.

If you want something and having it new isn’t vital to you, why not get it for nothing at Freecycle. If you can’t get it there, what about asking a friend or going to a car boot sale.

Remember abundance isn’t about more… sometimes it’s having more with what you have.

Best wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

Andrea was 33 years old.

In 16 years she changed jobs nine times. She had two relationship break-ups during that time and was just starting to notice cracks in her third relationship.

She tried getting married once. She even had a baby. She had a nice home. She had a lovely car. She often went out for meals. She watched all the soaps on TV and even went on nice holidays.

But something was still missing…

She often woke up feeling empty. She sometimes felt that the day ahead had no meaning. She would often go for a long bath to try to get to the bottom of why her life felt like it had this void.

She wanted her life to have meaning and purpose…

And what about Tim…

Tim had stuck with the same company for more than a decade, working in a call centre for a bank. He’d been promoted a couple of times. He was married, semi-happy, but often arguing with his wife for no good reason and he felt a growing restlessness.
For almost 8 years, he had felt like life was passing him by. He described his life as a rut and at aged and 35, he knew it was time for life to change before it passed him by.

There are some things we all know…

We all know what we do for a living…

We know our exercise routine, hobbies, habits, things that list of things that needs our attention and even our behaviours.
These are the things that we “do” to try to give our life meaning and purpose.

But are they “who” we are?

Doing  is ‘man’s’ reality…

Doing a job in order to be comfortable in a chosen lifestyle…

Doing well at school so you can be told you are good and go on to University and then earns lots of money…

Doing in accordance with religious beliefs so you can be-long to a group of people..

Doing like your friends and peers so you can be accepted.

Doing so your spouse will be happy with you and continue to love you…

But there’s another reality and it seems to be the reality most people are really searching for…

This is the reality of being. If the words about the do always come before the be.

Below I’ve changed that round and it makes a subtle difference that makes a big difference.

We can Be a certain person or certain way so the job flows with comfort and ease…

Being conscientious so you do well in school; being your spiritual truth so you may do whatever action is of your highest; being who you really are and doing what we know benefits the world and the people who live in it.

We can choose to do our job tomorrow and do the gardening at the weekend or we can be at work during the day and be in the garden on our days off. The difference is subtle, but the change in our reality – in the way we perceive the world – is profound.

Here are a few things about being that I’ve observed:

• ‘Being’ sounds that bit more gentle, distinctively more pleasurable and a lot less like hard work than “doing”.

• Being is about living knowing we have the world inside ourselves and knowing we have the power to create what we want or destroy what we have

• Being is about allowing yourself to become an expression in the world rather than forcing a way

• Being recognises that we are responsible for creating everything in our world and changing what we don’t like

• Being allows us to co-create with God/Universe/Tao/(or what you like to call the greater force that joins everything together)

• Being allows us to exit from painful vicious circles and find solutions

By “being” first – taking the time to think, act and observe – we get the initial sense that life is slowing down. Yet when we look in more detail we see the most rapid movement of incidents and events all leading up to in the moment experiences. Access the information that comes in those in the moment experiences leads us to more desirable outcomes and a life more on purpose.

You can read more on discovering life purpose here:  http://www.communitysoul.co.uk/lifepurpose.htm

Good wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

Every successful entrepreneur holds a vision. It’s a vision of what they want their business to become. Because of that vision they can analyse what’s going on, play to their strengths and then work out what else is needed.

A vision also helps your team know if they should even begin the task or take on an opportunity.

If you contrast that with someone who is keen to succeed, but who doesn’t have a vision and fails to look at opportunities… they simply can’t look at the bigger picture, because they don’t have one.

When you have no vision, your main focus when an opportunity comes your way is: “Here’s an opportunity. I can make money from this?”

Today it might be network marketing, tomorrow it’s google adwords and an Internet sales page. It’s just chasing after opportunities, rather than holding an intention – like an arrow in – tension, aiming for the bullseye.

Sir Richard Branson says: “If you make your little decisions based on the big picture, at the very least you’re always heading in the right direction.”

And that’s sound advice. And we know this because Sir Richard Branson is someone who makes a difference through his business and makes a lot of money too, because he has a habit of getting things done.

An entrepreneur knows his biggest opportunity lays within his business, not  something someone is claiming is the latest hot product. Sure entrepreneurs know what else is available to them and when they need someone or some thing that will save time or money, market them more effectively, or create income streams, they use the service available… but it’s only ever in line with the goal… and more often than not, it’s all planned in advance.

What are the things you are doing right now that you think are opportunities, but that are actually off your vision?

What must you give up to get you back on vision?

What are the services and who are the people who can put your business or project into the flow faster?

Best wishes

Neil

It was 8.45am, on a spring morning during the school run, when I discovered a philosophy that’s served me well ever since. It came courtesy of a conflict between a lorry driver and someone running late for work.

At that time in my life, I was getting things back on track after 6 years of getting things ‘wrong’ and, as I was walking home, I caught one of those perfect, transformative moments.

In life, we create history in every moment. Imagine that right now you’re printing your beliefs, values, understanding, hopes and fears onto a tapestry. And also imagine that what you think and feel about all of those things will create the next moment you live and how you live it.

Point in case….

As the lorry driver turned into a depot in a narrow, village street that was a cut through for rush hour commuters, a car driver got out of his car and began to give the lorry driver a piece of his mind as he reversed his forty tonne vehicle.

It was as the swearing and gesturing mounted that I realised how good my life was. I wasn’t uptight about being late for work. I wasn’t sitting in traffic getting angry. I had no stress in my life.

I worked for myself. I loved what I did and I gained a new appreciation for the pace my life was moving at.

So as the beefy lorry driver gestured from his cab, I walked on, smiling.

That’s when I noted I had no tension. I liked this feeling, and as the months went by, I began to make ‘Dropping tension’ a practice, whenever I felt it in my body.

Back then I didn’t know how I was changing my future when I dropped the tension. I just knew I felt better – more at peace.

During this time I was learning something.

What I began to understand was that you can’t beat the world into the shape you want it to be. Logically, the world is too big for that. So here is what happened…

I began to see that I was at my best when I didn’t feel tense. I made better decisions. I was kinder to myself and others. I began to enjoy the feeling of peace that flowed through me and I wanted more of that feeling.

So my life went on: feel tense, let go; find peace and love, be at my best; feel tense, let it go, and so on…

Then I began to pause at set times of the day to check in with how I felt. I’d find myself in the middle of something and say “breathe”, or “relax” and suddenly I’d find that feeling I was looking for.

My practice taught me that you can’t rush nature. But it also taught me something else – something more profound!

As I became more peaceful I became more in love with life. When this happened the things I’d been struggling to make happen, began to unfold.

What did this tell me?

It told me that and the quickest way to gain what I wanted was to become calmer, more peaceful, more loving.

We can all make our demands in life, like the man who got out of his car and berated the lorry driver. But when we do that, life – like the lorry driver – will gesture back at us.

If we get angry we’ll create a historical path of anger and that anger will ripple out and find more anger and more reasons to be angry and our future will become a reflection of this anger.

Yet if we catch our temper before it snaps in the traffic, or at the kids, or at a customer or bank clerk or at the insurance company, and if we can learn to drop the tension, we create a happier path and a ripple that changes everything we come into contact with.

With good wishes
Neil

Neil Fellowes shows conscious entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and complementary therapists how to make a difference AND a profit. Visit his website at http://www.communitysoul.co.uk