You deserve to live the kind of life you want.  While a perfect life might by impossible, you can begin to create a good life for yourself and your family by starting with a few simple changes.  

Like most challenges, it begins with taking the first step.

1. Taking Stock of Your Physical Environment

What prevents you from living the life you want?  Observe your home and work environment with a fresh perspective to see what may be causing you distress.  Do you need repairs, purging, maintenance, or cleaning?  Do you need organizational tools and support to help you accomplish your goals?  How do you feel in your present home or workplace?  How do you want to feel instead? 

2. Identify What Really Matters

What deserves your immediate time and attention?  In his best-selling book, First Things First, Stephen Covey divides life into 4 separate quadrants:

I - Urgent, important

II - Not urgent, important

III - Urgent, not important

IV - Not urgent, not important

How are you living your life?  Which quadrant are you living in most of the time, and what would you need to do to move to Quadrant II?

3. Drains

Identify the problems, distractions, stressors, toxic people, toxic relationships, clutter, overload, health issues, financial debt, family drama, or other things that are draining you of your energy, joy, and spirit.  

4. Fix or Address the Drains  

Delegate, let go of, hire, or just do it yourself.  Simplify, put on temporary hold, schedule an appointment, consult with a professional, do research, or ask for help. 

5. Priorities 

Identify your top three priorities for today, this week, this month, and this year for yourself and your family. 

6. Action Steps

Identify three action steps you can realistically do to honor your priorities and commitments.  

7. Sacred Space

Create a sacred space just for you.  Where will it be?  What will it look like, and how do you want to feel in your space?  

8. Say NO

Just say NO.  Stop saying "yes" when you really want to say "no."  Understand that you can still be a loving, caring, nurturing, and generous person and still say "NO."  Practice by taking baby steps with the little stuff that doesn't really matter in the scheme of things. 

9. Dream About Your New and Improved Life

Literally visualize what your new life looks like and feels like.  Take small steps to make your dream a reality. 

10. Honor Yourself 

Start erasing the negative tapes in your mind and replace them with more positive tapes.  If you wouldn't say these things to your child, then don't say them to yourself.  Stop being your own inner critic.  You can do this by taking one step at a time toward creating the life you want for yourself and your family.