FINALLY: The secret to a fulfilling life. It's not only in changing your context, rather than just changing what you do. Neither is it more money, nor even to have more time. Nor does it lie in having outstanding relationships - although all of these are indeed important.

A fulfilling life is deceptively simple: - achieve what you really want. Although you probably have many areas that need attention, this is a great place to start. Here's why it's vital for you to ...

Improve Your Context!

The man's voice was friendly, "Can we have more time? it's not done yet" he asked. It was the Channel Islands bank. The phone call was unexpected, although I had been waiting a long time for their reply.

"You've written to us about being overcharged, and I've now been asked to investigate the matter," he said. "We are looking into it, but today is your deadline, and it's not done yet."

"It's Friday lunchtime," he continued. "I was hoping to leave work on time this afternoon for the weekend. But doing a thorough job will take several hours, I would actually need to stay late. May I do it next week instead?"

The bank had seriously overcharged me, so I'd written a while ago. They'd ignored it. They'd also ignored my second letter. So my third said that if I didn't hear from them, I'd write to their Chairman. Perhaps a properly motivated deadline would get this important matter resolved.

I was very angry, even incensed. First at being over-charged. Then at the Bank ignoring my two previous letters. And lastly they had so far ignored my generous deadline, even though they'd had plenty of time, over a month, to deal with it. So I said no!

The manager then had to stay late that afternoon to investigate the matter. I spoilt his day by being inflexible and not acceding to his very reasonable request.

Early the next week, I received his report. It found that the bank had not overcharged me, their charges were perfectly reasonable!

Looking back at this incident, I'm amazed at how blind I had been. I totally ignored where he was coming from and the impact of saying no - which upset his plans for the weekend.

Ignoring where he was coming from when he wrote the report dramatically affected the outcome. If I'd been more conscious of his needs, and less insistent on being right, I imagine that he would have approached the investigation more sympathetically.

This decision cost me perhaps a thousand dollars. But was it his or the bank's fault? Not really, although my mind did initially give me this thought. Actually, it was my mistake in ignoring his context that cost me a thousand dollars.

The Importance of Context

Robert Kiyosaki is world famous, Rich Dad, Poor Dad has been on the best-seller lists for years. It's about becoming wealthy! He's a prolific writer and teacher on how to create wealth.

Yet his fifth book, Retire Young, Retire Rich, says very little about what to do. It's mostly about the importance of context, and says:


On the other hand, if you prefer to look at things more spiritually, then Neale Donald Walsch says, in Conversations with God:


What you do is content. Content is your knowledge, what you know how to do, your know-how. Whereas your context is where you come from when you do what you do - a good way to understand wisdom.

Our Very Different Focus

There's a deceptive obviousness in that wonderful saying:


So the focus at Life Strategies is on the future. We don't spend much time on your past, nor on questioning what you do today to accomplish your present goals. Life Strategies deeply understands the amazing truth in that powerful realization -


If this doesn't make much sense to you right now, reflect on it deeply. Have you ever found that a situation repeats itself, though often with different players. We all laugh at the irony when we realize someone has married their mother or their father.

Such things happens when you don't change your context and overcome your self-sabotage. You need to learn the different perspective which can resolve rather than just help you endure a situation. Without changing within, how can your feelings about anything change?

There's a dilemma here, although only an apparent one! Your life is not about what you do, and yet life is all about moving on from where you are - which always involves doing!

Enjoy those Aha moments

Changing context - increasing wisdom rather than knowledge - is the focus at Life Strategies. So our goal is to educate rather than teach. Education comes from the Latin educare - 'to draw forth from within.'

With each discussion of context, our aim to bring you to an aha moment. To get you to see things differently, so that you can say:


Then that new perspective - that change of context - becomes your truth, rather than just our truth.

Many if not most people have built their lives on the unquestioned belief that they cannot be happy without things. Money, power, a 'good job' or your own business, love, the approval of others, friends, control over (fill in the blank), whatever… What's your individual combination?

The problem is that you've been taught to believe. And believing gives your power away - to things and/or situations or other people. You were taught by your parents, friends, elders, your education, religion, society, the government, people you look up to... But there's no power in believing, so we believe in real knowing instead.

Life often doesn't give you what you're convinced you cannot be happy without. And then you're doomed to a life of frustration, anxiety and insecurity. You worry about tomorrow in an ever-changing world that refuses to submit quietly to your control.

Why Focus on What You Should Do?

The deceptive start from 'Where do you want to get to?' is often one of the first questions in coaching. This is NOT to say that setting goals doesn't produce genuine results.

Yet having described her goals in detail for her coach, an associate Anna then described her subsequent experience with coaching as 'professional butt-kicking'.

Wouldn't you rather explore what really would fulfill you and what's stopping you achieving that? Hence you'll find few questions about what to do here.

Aren't you better off deciding where to get to once you know who you really are - in contrast to who you think you are? If your answer to this important question is yes!, then you need to improve your context - your understanding of where and who you are.

Life Strategies Unique Approach -
Very Different to Coaching

Coaching originated last century and mostly focus on the present, on what to do today so you can move on. The numerous coaching schools seem to emphasize the Socratic method - asking questions and eliciting answers to determine truth.

One of the problems here is that questions and answers generally focus on what to do, either now or in the short-term, to achieve specific goals. Although doing what you need to do to achieve your goals is indeed very important.

Writing for other coaches in 'Decisions, Decisions...', Stephen Fairley says,


He defines coaching as a


But there's that wonderful French saying, "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose." The more things change, the more they stay the same!

Although the faces and circumstances of any particular situation do usually vary, your challenge often remains unchanged. If you have been focussing on the present, on what to do, you probably already know how true this is for you.

Life Strategies' unique experiential methodology originated in the dying years of the twentieth century. This cutting-edge, revolutionary technology explains why you need to focus on your context, which is your power to create your future.

To make real change you need to increase your inner strength. This means changes, often cognitive, to your context. These improve your ability, your personal power, to become whatever you choose to be. Whatever that is.

It's not a Substitute for Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy originated in the nineteenth century. Much of it seems to focus on the past, on how to fix an individual's past so they can move on. Whilst successful for many troubled individuals, it can often take quite a long while. And in every moment you create more past!

Yet no matter how much some practitioners would like therapy to be all things to all men, the tremendous growth in coaching suggests otherwise.

The need for assistance with creating the future seems little addressed by therapy. Thus some psychologists and psychotherapists also look to be trained in coaching and other more modern disciplines.

Changing context is challenging, so Life Strategies is only for well people. If you are not well, or have any psychological issues, please go to a medical professional! The less open-minded you are to new perspectives, the more stressful you will find changing context to be.

In fact, our view of stress is that it's often created by the gap between reality, the truth, and what you think should be happening. If you were totally happy with reality as it is right now, with what is, then you would be totally happy. So how stressed would you be?

Your Dilemma

The mind resists change, so it'll try and tell you that it's important to keep doing what you're doing now, or what you know how to do. But If what you already know is not giving you the results you want, it's time you tried something new.

Since your context powerfully influences the mistakes you make, changing context is vital. Yet the mind resists change, especially internal improvements. It sees change as an admission of being wrong, which makes it difficult to insist that it's right - and it really likes being right!

Notice how true this is for you. Then realize that even though you've now seen how much this happens, and you've overcome your internal resistance to acknowledging it - you're still alive. The sky has not fallen in, and no disaster has struck!

How often does the “I-know” mind pretend that all you need to do is change what you do? Despite all the misleading evidence to the contrary, if you keep your focus just on what to do, you'll find it tough getting to where you really want to be.

At Life Strategies, you learn to understand these empowering distinctions. Learning the value of a different perspective is a crucial step towards success. How to tell when your context is the problem will save you the costly consequence of many mistakes.

Yet if this wasn't already abundantly clear to you, self-sabotage has obviously stopped you reaching this conclusion!

But I Know All This, some say

Are you one of the many who believe they know "All This", despite your current experience? But if what you think you know is not bringing you the results you want then how can you know? You cannot be doing what works.

Your experience will tell you whether you really do or not. No matter what you say, reality knows the truth!

Much of the human race lives in denial. And this doesn't mean on the river in Egypt! Our society says we want:

• to care for the Earth, yet we chop down her rain-forests and plunder her resources as unlimited
  
  
• a society free of rage and violence, then we entertain ourselves - and our children - with TV programs of graphic rage and violence
  

• our young ones to be responsible, yet our school "Zero-Tolerance" laws take that responsibility away by mandating totally disproportionate, often dysfunctional responses
  

• the truth, yet we follow Adolf Hitler's strategy of lying whenever we think it expedient. After all - doesn't The End Justify The Means? (What's your answer to this vital question? Mine is no - never!)
  

Do any of these strategies work to create the society we want? Aren't these mistakes obvious? Isn't there sufficient evidence of their inevitable consequences right in front of your eyes?

If you don't have the results you really want - which means you live a stress-free life while choosing how to spend your time as well as your money - then you cannot really know "All This." You’ll find your experience will change when you change your perspective.

If you're finding that any of this speaks to your heart, then you know that truth has its own beauty. The elegance of truth gladdens the heart. If you continue exploring these truths, they will bring amazing joy into your life.

The difference between just changing what you do, and changing your context, is crucial. It makes a world of difference. What could have kept this realization from you? :-)

Stop your Self-Sabotage

Achieving what you really want means learning how to overcome your self-sabotage mechanism. Everyone has one, and it operates all the time.

The self-sabotage mechanism generally operates through context, rather than content. What's the difference?

• your context is where you come from when you do what you do
  
  
• your content is what you do, how you handle your affairs
  

So manage your context and stop your self-sabotage. Learn the wisdom of doing what works, and not doing what doesn't work. Achieve more while saving both time and energy with this ground-breaking, twenty-first century, Life Strategies e-book program and action plan.

Why Invest in Improving Your Capabilities?

An investment has a return, and your return in stopping your self-sabotage is enormous. There's no bigger return than in improving your capabilities, in becoming more effective. Life Strategies clients report becoming at least 20% more effective, and one client recently enjoyed an increase of ninety percent after just one year.

In the long run, your increase in effectiveness will increase your earnings by at least the same amount. And the increase is permanent. As Benjamin Franklin famously observed,


How much will a twenty percent increase in earnings amount to in dollars over the rest of your lifetime?

Work this out right now. Don't allow yourself to procrastinate - a very common self-sabotage strategy. Take all the time you need to answer this crucial question this very moment. The answer will change your life!

The result of your calculations will prove to you beyond doubt that your increase in earnings will pay for your investment in your further education many, many times over.

Yet, just like heat from a fire, results are never instantaneous. You first have to buy the logs, then you need to put some kindling in the stove before putting in the wood. Only then can you light and look after the fire, which after a delay will give you heat.

Enjoy a big 25% discount - as well as some very special bonuses - if you act today. What better way to improve your life and enjoy more time than by stopping your self-sabotage with...

Your results are guaranteed, and so is your investment! We eliminate all and any risk with your 100%, no-questions-asked, more-than-you-paid, two-way, 365-day unconditional guarantee.

Food for Thought