7 Steps For Creating Solutions by Nicki McCosker-Dell

Is there something that is holding you back from realising your unique goals and dreams, or from overcoming your challenges?  Are there pieces of the puzzle that you are missing, and that you need to address so that you can feel clearer and more energised to move forwards?  To help you with this, in this short article I’m going to share with you a simple strategy that I’ve created and that I call 7 Steps.  

These 7 steps are designed to empower you to embrace your goals and your dreams, and to transform your challenges. You can go through all 7 steps anytime you feel overwhelmed by a challenge, stressed by a goal or when a new goal starts to blossom in your mind and heart.  Or your awareness may bring you to a particular step that you need to focus on right now.  You will see that the 7 steps can be used for both realising your dreams or transforming your challenges, you just need to decide which one you are going to focus on before you begin.

Step 1. Take a deep breath, bring yourself into the present moment, and ask yourself, ‘How am I going to respond to this goal/challenge?’. This helps to ground you, get the oxygen flowing, shut down a racing mind and step into taking full responsibility for how exactly you are going to respond to your situation. This also helps to put you into the right flow for creatively facing this goal/challenge. 

Step 2.  Write down in detail, with all layers and aspects, exactly what your goal/challenge is, and exactly how you feel about it.  This provides opportunity to vent how you feel, express it in all its honest or perhaps messy and distressing glory, and helps to take some of the charge out of it.  It also enables you to express and get off your chest the full story behind why you are feeling stuck or not able to move forward.  This can also greatly help to illuminate pieces of the puzzle that have been sitting out of your awareness but need your attention.

Step 3.  Establish the things that you can work toward changing (create a list of these).  Next contemplate and determine if there is anything that can’t be changed, and therefore that you can eventually work toward accepting.  The things that you can’t change but also feel that you can’t accept or do anything about can greatly hold you back from believing that you are able to move forwards. 

Step 4.  Now, using the work you’ve done in the first three steps, write down and describe in full and rich detail what your new desired outcome is.

Step 5.  Write down a rich and comprehensive list of small, specific actions you can take toward achieving your desired outcome.  If you feel completely stuck, write down your next one, specific, small action and work on that.

Step 6.  Focus your energies on taking these actions that you wrote down in Step 5.  Contemplate also, if you need to; 

a) Return to your list & readjust or add a new action or action steps 

b) Take a specific action today 

c) Seek specific support for a specific aspect of your goal/challenge 

d) Perceive this situation differently by giving it a different meaning, viewing it through a different lens or recognising that there are hidden opportunities, or lessons here for creating new strengths, talents or inner growth

Step 7.  Choose to take a deep breath and actively let go of any stressful or unhelpful thoughts in relation to your goal/challenge.  This may in reality prove difficult, if there is still something you need to resolve in order to let go of the worry or stress.  You may need to return to one of the above steps to address this concern, so that the thoughts don’t keep returning.  Also, this previous Holistic Bliss Magazine article of mine can help you with a strategy for letting go of stressful or unhelpful thoughts. 

Throughout the process of using 7 Steps, your inner guidance, your heart, your contemplation and your honesty with yourself can help you to work out the pieces of the puzzle that may be holding you back or blocking you from moving forward in your life.  I wish you all the luck in the world with creating clarity and moving forward with creating solutions for your goals and your challenges.  If you find you need further help or support, please reach out – you can find my contact details on my website listed below. 

Nicki is a Mentor and Holistic Counsellor.  She has trained in many modalities so that she can empower families and people from all walks of life.  Nicki has created and presented dozens of resilience workshops with Griffith University and The Relaxation Centre, and provides her Flourishing Teen Mentoring Program, Parent and Teen Mentoring, ​Resilience Coaching, Holistic Counselling, Trauma Healing, and Kinesiology Sessions all on-line.  See www.theinspirationcouch.com for bookings or more details.