How can you be “not here” when you are “here”? All will be revealed. What are the nine important foundation questions that together will give you a vehicle to live Your Best Life – a vehicle that can take you to a better life from where you are right now?

Have you heard this proverb – A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush? This means that what you have is twice as valuable as what you haven’t got. So how well do you know what you have got? Let’s start with some definitions.

Check this out – ”Lord, Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.” Why is this such a powerful prayer?

Most people know of the Boy Scouts, but do you know their motto? It is “Be Prepared”. Before discussing the elements of Your Current Circumstances, I want to show you how to Be Prepared for whatever those circumstances might be.

The story of “The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg” teaches that both production (the Golden Egg) and also your ability to produce (the Goose) are important. Today, let’s examine your ability to act – your skills / and competencies and what they mean.

Armed with our bag of tricks – the resources we need to survive, to be stable, to succeed or to be significant – we are now ready to proceed in earnest. So here is your task: Describe, or picture, your current circumstances. You have 10 minutes. Go.

What is the purpose of life? One answer consists of five L’s, reflecting five parts of our being: To Live (physical), to Laugh (emotional), to Love (social), to Learn (mental) and to Leave a Lasting Legacy (spiritual). What would these five answers mean to a 20 year old? A 50 year old? An 80 year…

We have explored a number of aspects associated with Your Current Circumstances over the past 7 weeks. Now it is time to bring everything together using Your Six S’s. The only new concept concerns Your States – Normal, Sub-normal and Optimal.

Before we leave Your Current Circumstances, i.e. the first section of the CAR framework we are using for these articles, I wish to complete this section of our Your Best Life journey by using myself as an example and describe My Current Circumstances. Make sure you do the same for yourself.

Let us complete Your Current Circumstances with a summary – Your Seven Colours, also known as Your Seven Days. Then we launch Ready, Set, Go! – into Action, but not just any action, prepared, targeted and purposeful Action.

Now that we have a handle on – a perception of, an understanding of – Your Current Circumstances let us examine the first of our next set of questions i.e. “How do you feel about that?” Let’s get ourselves ready for Action.

Another way to Prepare for Action, is to ask ourselves, “What role will I play?” Will I be a spectator? Will I be a participant – a player? Will I be a supporter or a coach? Will I do the first thing that comes into mind? or will I think carefully and make the best…

The first of the three Action steps is what I have called Preparation to Act, and Stephen R. Covey would call Be Proactive – or Habit 1. It is now time to move onto Habit 2, the second Action step, which is Begin with the End in Mind. Let’s know what our target is.

It is time to get very specific about what Results you want. Even though we are in the middle of the Action step it is important as part of that Action to look ahead and consider the Results we want. Let us examine the three questions we originally set that relate to our desired Results.

The A (Action) step of the CAR Framework consists of three parts. We could label these parts Ready, Set, Go or Stephen R. Covey’s Habits 1, 2 and 3. Either way part two is about knowing where you are going. This is where we are.

At any point of time you have the creative capacity to imagine Your Best Life. But where do you get the ideas of a “normal life”, a “worst life” and a “best life”? Do those ideas come from your own experience? From the experience of your parents, teachers or religious leaders? From the media, advertising,…

Given that you have thought about and selected some elements, if not a holistic view, of Your Best Life, it is now time to look at making that life happen. Having begun with the end in mind (Covey’s Habit 2) it is now time to Put First Things First (Covey’s Habit 3).

What are some other Ideas that can help with your Time Management? Stephen Covey introduced the four quadrants of Time Management, the perspective of the week and rocks in a jar. After Stephen Covey came David Allen as the next Time Management guru and his GTD (Getting Things Done) principles.

We have now come full circle – to the R of CAR – Results. These Results are a new set of Current Circumstances. The difference is that this time around we have already defined our Desired results (in the middle part of A for Action).

We are coming to the end of our 20 articles on Your Best Life. The interesting thing is that not only have we and our whole life changed incrementally from when we started but also our (subconscious) sense of our Best Life has also changed. So why not plan another cycle towards Your Best Life?