Life Is a Do It Yourself Project!
Kent Jacobson, a.k.a. "Mr. Success"

If you have not realized it yet, no one is going to hand you
the golden platter with your life’s forward path laid out on it
for you to follow.  You are the only one that can take the steps
to improve your situation and life.  Change is difficult; I’m
here to help you take off. Get started with some very basic steps
that will allow you to gain confidence as you progress.

First let’s understand the three phases you are going to dive into;
the what, how and when.   

The *What* phase is digging into your self improvement psyche and
brainstorming a list of areas to improve about yourself.  This
list should include anything about you requiring improvement. Dig
deep and be honest.

The *How* phase is simply five steps that guide your through your
list created the *What* phase, to actions you will take. 
Examples may include  your desire to be a more creative  and
healthier cook at home, train for a 5k run, learn a foreign
language.… the key is list than all.   In this phase these five
steps help me get going on my self improvement journeys;
convince, create, categorize, prioritize and initiate.

1. Convince- you are the only person that can commit yourself to
this whole process, if you can not convince yourself no one else
can and you will fail. Why, because you will let distractions and
setbacks stop you. Any doubts at this point,  a close friend or
partner may be able to review what you are engaging in a give you
that push, I encourage you to talk with them as a way to convince
yourself, *I can do this*.
2. Create – write out your list of improvement items, at this point
put anything and everything you may think of on the list.  Include
areas specific to health, personal relationships, family, income,
your job, education, sports, family, communication, relationships…
the list is limitless as you can see.
3. Categorize – now that you have your list it is time to put the
lists in common categories that are manageable. These categories
should be such that some of the items may compliment each other.
For instance, cooking or eating may fall under improving your
health, walking, and swimming or running can fall under improve
physical activity and appearance. You get the idea, simplify.
4. Prioritize – Take you categories and review them critically,
pick out the top 3 or 4 ones that you seem the most interested in,
put the others aside for now, but do not throw any away, remember
this is a Life Long Journey. With your selection down to 3 or 4,
now pick only two … you guessed it … now pick one.  There may be
more than one item under this category so you need to repeat this
same prioritization exercise again until you have identified the
one!
5. Initiate – What are the resources you can tap to learn about
this subject, is it the internet, local continuing education,
on-line universities, seminars ... seek out subject matter experts.
This may take a little time a so be patient.  A good starting
point on the internet search is to identify key words regarding
your subject; these will expedite the search and give you greater
access to the resources that are available. I have found the
resources at on such on lin institution: Success University
to be among the best, here is a link for you -

http://start.successuniversity.com/specialoffer.aspx

For just a $2 charitable donation you have 14 days of unlimited
access, how great is that!

Next comes *When*, this phase creates milestones and a timeline
for measuring your achievement towards the self improvement
goals. Do not underestimate or overestimate the time it will take
you to achieve some of these life changing activities. Understand
and remember how long it took you to be where you are, it will
not be easy, but you can do it. Include in this milestone and
timeline chart, specific tasks required to get you towards your
ultimate achievement goal.  Keep this list with you and visible,
not only will this keep you focused.  If you are a visual person,
stick-up reminders everyplace you can on the specific task to be
accomplished as well as you ultimate goal. Many tools can be
helpful, calendars, day planners or PDAs are terrific.

You are in control; now just dedicate yourself to giving the 1st
project a try.