When you want to revitalize a community that once prospered, you come together with the stake holders, put a plan together and get the process moving. Before you know it property values are soaring, commerce is humming and schools are producing championship teams. The whole place has appreciated!

The same is true with each of us!

What do you do to start the “Steps of Appreciation” in your life?

Step1. Find a trusted, non-judgmental Coach who will ask the right questions.

Life Coaches ask the questions that help identify objectives, plan action steps and focus regular activity. Coaches do not offer their own solutions or judgments. They are involved to help their client build the success habits that can be used for life.

At Optimize My Life there are two alternatives:

• Use the online Self-Coaching system in collaboration with the other on/ offline tools and materials. It is less expensive and very flexible in that it can be accessed 24/7 from anyplace on the planet. This approach often creates a comfortable transition to working with a personal coach.
  
• Schedule regular sessions with a personal, certified and experienced coach that uses the on / offline support materials.

Step2. Plug into an environment that uses words and actions of appreciation.

The “Language of Appreciation” is like learning any new language, the more you hang out, read and work with it, the more it becomes your native tongue. The old language that devalues us becomes a foreign language and uncomfortable to use on regular bases.

• Begin a reading program from the suggested reading list.
  
• Seek out and spend time with people who reinforce and stimulate such interchange.

Often times, people who are “growing” will find them saying, how “negative” the people around themselves are, the news is so one sided and sitcoms are boring. Faith based environments become attractive and new activities are inviting rather than threatening.

Step3. Get a vision, set goals and act on an enterprise that helps others.

Your enterprise may be starting a small business that serves clients or customers, volunteering at your kid’s school, holding babies at a hospital, going on a mission trip, becoming an involved board member at a charity, advising people in your field of expertise for free, coaching a team etc. The work should put you in contact with others that will be better because of your efforts. Over and over you will hear people say “Thank You”! In their eyes, body language, hugs they will say they appreciate you. This will build your desire to do more, which will lead to more appreciation.

The age old adage holds true: “You find yourself, when you lose yourself in service to others”

• Sign into “My Goals” and begin to build the map that will take you to your destination.
  
• Identify the obstacles that stand in your way and discover the solutions.
  
• Build your dreams daily and speak as if they are a reality – “I am…”
  
• Start a “Huddle” with someone close who is on the same wave length. Communicate together, in the morning, identify the 5 priority actions to be done that day that are inline with your goals. Before going to sleep at night discuss the results of those 5 actions. Repeat each day going forward. An online Journal can suffice as well.
  
• Build a list of simple “Rewards” to match your hitting of your short term accomplishments like: going to a movie, buying a new CD, having lunch with a friend etc., that’ll keep growing stays fun.

These steps are like the legs in a “three legged stool”, they’ll support you, the new and improved, you!