Make Your S.H.I.F.T. - Book Review

An excellent guide for individuals, those changing places of employment, getting a new job, getting a better handle on your finances, learning new skills, losing weight, going to college, starting a business. ..................... Avenues to learning new skills: visit the library and read books and magazines that interest you, take a class or hire a coach. ............................ Define and list your obstacles. .............................. Have a Plan "B." ............................... Define and set your goals - Financial, Spiritual, Family, etc. .................. Place your goals, dreams, plans, and desired outcomes in writing. ................ Stakeholders are people in our lives who can play a role to help us, or thwart us as we make our shift. ..................................... Brainstorm - List all ideas, or things that come to your mind. (Now I have not seen this word in a book since 1992, when I was in college in night school. Now I do not have a degree but the time I spent in night school was most rewarding). ............ Be grateful for what you have, no matter how much you have or don't have. BE thankful that you are still alive. .................................. Be confident in yourself, and understand your strengths and weaknesses. ............. Be positive. Stop focusing on your shortcomings. ................................. Beware of Naysayers. Do not share your plans or ideas when you are trying to accomplish a task, because some might not be supportive of your goals or dreams. .... Stop the cycle of generational dysfunction. ............................... Learn to listen, be silent. It takes two to argue. .......................... Keep your plan, goals, or dreams realistic. ................................. Our approach to change is personal and individual. ............................... Human beings are responsible for change, whether it is change in their personal or their professional life. Change requires the motivation to keep up a sustained effort, and a commitment to getting to the desired place. ...................... In the past twenty-five years, Mrs. Flaxington have been on many roles, in business and in working with individuals as a hypnotherapist, that have allowed her to observed many individuals intent on achieving personal change. She is, and have been, a hypnotherapist, a corporate consultant, a senior-level executive, a college professor, and a professional coach. ..................... The S.H.I.F.T. Model@ ................... Specify the desired outcome. ............................ Highlight obstacles and categorize ................................. Identify the human factor. ..................................... Find alternatives. ................................... Take disciplined action. ..................................... Being able to specific what you want and even more to the point, identifying something that you actually want to achieve, requires a very focused effort. ....... It always starts with defining exactly what you want to achieve in your life, and very importantly, why you want to achieve it. ............................... Depending on your goals and where you're starting from, these obstacles could include things like family, relationships, money, work, and even more internal issues, such as your own confidence and ability to believe in yourself. ....................... You will find out there are three types of obstacles: ones we can control, one we cannot control but can influence, and ones that are out of our control. ........... Among other things, this step looks at behavioral style, how we tend to take a different approach to problem solving and communication, and how these different approaches can hamper our ability to connect and work together most effectively. .... This step looks at the issues you might have within yourself and within your network of relationships. It looks at factors such as toxic friendships or poor self-esteem that might hold you back. Other things, like a supportive spouse or good self-confidence, might give an advantage in a particular area. ............................ In a kind of business sense, this is where skills like project-management skills, time-management skills, and resource-management skills come into play. ........... It is not enough to hate your 9-5 job and decide to start a home-based business. You have to know what skills you have, what impact it will have on your family, etc. ... Unless you have virtually unlimited resources, you can't just wake up one morning and pull a business idea out of a hat deciding to take it upon yourself to start that type of business for yourself. You need to think about the type of business that is right for you, even perhaps especially, if you are the only person who is going to be involved in it on a daily basis. ............................... We have a desire, we set the goal, and then we put steps in place in order to help us meet that goal. ............................... What is your personal desired outcome over the next year or few years? ............. We've read stories of people who made it rich and it ruined their lives, because a singular focus on wealth sometimes bring unintended consequences. ............... You have to think what you want your life to look like once you have made your shift and achieved the goals you are striving toward. .......................... Instead of "start your own business," you might have revised your goal to something like: "Find something you enjoy doing that you can make a business out of where you work from home three home three days a week have more time to spend with your family." .............................. What are you good at? What do you love to do and why do you love it? ....................... If we value something enough, we'll find a way to walk around the obstacle. ....... Take the time now to brainstorm and identify obstacles that have held you back, or that you fear may hold you back on the way to reaching your desired outcome. ........ Internal factors are anything you have accumulated throughout your life that either get in your way or help you to succeed. ....................................... External factors are all of the people in our lives who may affect our decision to shift in one way or another. ........................................... Our change sometimes threatens others, while some people can be great advocates and give us real help. We need to know who might be involved, for better or worse, to understand how to consider them as we create our plan for shifting. ............... Think about all of the people who may have some sort of stake in the people who may have some sort of stake in the process, if not now, then at some future point. ...... It is honestly better to consider everyone, even if you end up leaving him or her out of your change process, than to miss someone or some group that holds an important stake. It is not wise to assume you have support, or assume you can ignore someone because he doesn't seem to care or have power. ................... As you put a plan in place you may have to choose something that meets only some of your criteria, so you'll want to be aware of the most critical criteria for you. .... Now that you have created a list of what matters, you can begin the brainstorming process. The important thing is to have your desired outcome written down and documented, and then find ways to keep it in front of you, literally, so you can focus on it with clarity. ............................................. When Mrs. Flaxington decided to write her book, she had to sit down and list all the components in the process, it entailed everything from obtaining an ISBN, to getting a cover design, to finding a qualified editor, to every step in the marketing process and beyond. .................................... Life definitely intervenes and sometimes we have to make a mid-course correction or go down another road to get to our desired outcome. ......................... Each of our styles is different; our values are different, so we can't assume that because one person knows what to do in in detail at a given step, everyone else does. ............................... Having a "buddy" works well for some people. Your buddy a roommate, spouse, or friend, or it could be someone online you keep in contact with through social media sites. ............................................... Mrs. Flaxington husband is a big fan of the "Getting Things Done" (GTD) approach by David Allen, and everything he commits to goes into his GTD system. He uses that software and his outlook calendar to remind him of dates and commitments. ............ Mrs. Flaxington have color-coded folders for different projects (clients, books, marketing, financial information), and she can create a separate folder for each specific project. ................... Becoming very good at time management can be useful, and in her experience those who are good at managing their time always have some sort of system they use to keep them on track. .......................... The law of attraction is a theory that suggest we draw things in to our lives according to what we focus our energies on. Our thoughts are the most powerful tools we have. ................................. To achieve goals that are meaningful to you, however, it is important to understand and appreciate your talents and strengths, because this will let you become more confident and centered in your life and thus better able to see what will be, for you, a beneficial and valuable change. ............................. Stress comes in many forms. There is so-called "good stress" that motivates us and drives us to reach new heights, and then there is "bad stress" that consumes us and makes us less effective in our day-to-day activities. .................... Do not ignore the warning signs of stress until you find yourself sick or unable to cope because you didn't act on the warning signs. ..................... Another important way to alleviate stress is to take breaks throughout the day. ..... When Mrs. Flaxington was 19 years old she read a story, by Zig Ziglar, the late famous motivational speaker. He quoted the writer David Mamet who said, "Worry is interest paid in advance on a debt that never comes due." ........................ Another important skill is effective goal setting and creating an effective shift is to break through any destructive patterns that emerge in life. ..................... You can't fix the past, so it is most useful to just forgive yourself and focus on achieving a more positive, confident future. ................................ Remember that even Albert Einstein said, "It is not that I'm so smart, it is just that I stay with problems longer." ........................................... Research shows that people learn, change, and improve the most in those areas of the brain that already have the strongest synaptic connections. You learn new things and achieve more by working from your strengths. .................................. As a certified behavioral analyst, Mrs. Flaxington uses the DISC tool in her work. DISC identifies four facets to communication: how we deal with problems and challenges, how we interact with people, how we handle steady pace and work environment, and how we deal with rules and procedures specifically set by others. ... The DISC (D for Dominance, the Problems scale; I for Influencing the People scale; S for Steadiness, the Pace scale; C for Compliance, The Procedures and Rule scale) formula has been around for well over 30 years. DISC allows us to categorize types of behavioral styles. ............................. The sometimes uncomfortable truth is that we tend to like people who are like us, it is much easier for us to communicate with someone, for example, if we share similarities "click" easily because they "get" me. .................. Mrs. Beverly D. Flaxington is an accomplished business consultant, corporate coach, trainer, facilitator, behavioral expert, hypnotherapist, college professor, and business development expert. ..................... She is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA). ......................................... Articles about her and her views have appeared in: The Boston Globe, Reader's Digest, Selling Power Magazine, Opposing Views with Mike McNulty, Fox News, and ABC News to name a few places. ......................... She is a frequent contributor in the media and has been featured on: Lifetime Television Balancing Act, with Jordan Rich on WBZ Radio; WVOL 1470 AM, Nashville, Tennessee: "Differences" with Denice Barnes; "Morning News Weekend": CVBT (Central Valley Business Times): with Doug Caldwell to name a few places.