Jacqui Thomas - Live your life your way

Even the most loving of families can be stressful with they get together in a confined space.

A common issue of family dynamics is feeling like a child again in your parents’ home. It can be really frustrating to be treated like a kid again when you’re a successful, independent adult with your own life. No matter how old you are, you will always be your parent’s daughter / son. I have even heard people in their fifties and sixties talk about this same challenge. You have several choices here, and it really depends how severe the issue actually is.

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It’s that time of the year when things get busy: everyone is trying to get things finished before the end of the year, there are social functions, school functions and general Christmas festivities to fit in, plus there’s the shopping and general preparations for what is arguably the most prominent event on our annual calendar – Christmas. So when things go wrong at this time of year, it can easily be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and send a normally sane person into a complete meltdown.

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Are you the sort of person who sets the same New Year’s resolutions year after year and never actually makes them happen?  Maybe you set yourself goals with the best intentions but run out of enthusiasm halfway, or maybe you never even manage to get started?

One of the big secrets to successful goal setting is to set goals that you want to achieve.  That might sound like its too easy, but who said it had to be difficult?  Sure achieving your goals will require some effort from you, but you’re much more likely to commit to making that effort if you are working towards something that you really want for yourself.  So that means sorting out the ‘want to’ goals from the ‘should” goals.

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This project started back in 1999 through my own frustrations as a newly self-employed writer.  After completing a journalism course by correspondence I’d decided I didn’t want to go and work for a newspaper or a magazine - I wanted to freelance.  This seemed easy enough and I was sure it was the answer to my dreams of freedom.  I started writing and soon I had a few regular contracts and I was surviving, but only just.  The hardest part was not the writing but the business side of it - knowing what to charge for my work, getting agreements from people, sorting out taxes and accounting procedures.  I bluffed my way through blindly for months not wanting to ask anybody for help for fear of confirming to them that I really didnít know what I was doing!

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Many clients come to me in despair with problems and issues that actually belong to other people – partners, children, friends, family members, work colleagues.  Often they’ve tried to get these people to change their offending behaviour and failed.  And therein lies the problem.  We can’t change other people, nor do we have any right to.  People will change if and when they want to and not a moment sooner.

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I was reminded the other day of a story I was told a few years ago.  It was about a speaker who pulled a crisp, fresh $100 note out of his pocket and offered it to his audience.  “who would like this $100 note?” he asked.  Of course nearly everyone was keen to accept it with hands waving madly in the air.  “What about this $100 note?” he asked offering a more worn, dirtier looking note, instead.  Still the same people responded, happy to accept the money.  Then he took the worn, dirty note, screwed it up in a ball and stood on it, squashing it into the ground.  When he picked it up, the $100 was barely recognisable but still he offered it to the crowd and still he was met with the same enthusiastic response.  No matter what he did to that piece of paper, it still held it’s same true value, it was still worth $100.

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