Taking Control

INTRODUCTION

Regaining control

Do you sometimes feel as though your life is out of control, but you don’t know what to do to get on top of things again? At times your life may feel just too much to handle, but you don’t know what to do to change it...

If you do, you are not alone. This is one of the most common complaints of the times we live in. People feel overwhelmed by all the demands on their lives, and they don’t know where to start to get things back under control. There are so many urgent things that they must do, that they can’t afford to focus on the important things in life that they want to do. Their life is not how they envisioned it or wanted it to be, but they don’t know how to turn things around or where to start to sort things out. They would like some help to regain control, but don’t have the time or money to go on an extensive course or hire a life coach. They may therefore turn to the self-help section of their local bookshop or library or use the internet. Once there, they realise that there are so many good books on various aspects of life, that they still don’t know where to start. When they surf the internet it is especially difficult to know what to read first from the masses of information. So, they feel even more out of control! Since we live in the information age, obtaining information is not the problem, the problem is not knowing where to start to process all the information you are flooded with. You probably feel that you need a system that will help you to understand how everything fits together, establish what you have to work on first, ensure that you do not miss out on the important areas in life while focussing too much on the urgent things, and then use a simple process to sort out the areas of your life that are out of control. If you have ever felt like this, then this book is for you.

This book is written for everyone who wants to live a fulfilled and happy life, but don’t know where to start. It is for everyone who feels out of control or stuck in their current circumstances. This book will help you to think about your life as a whole, and to consider those aspects of your life which are important as well as those that are urgent. It will assist you in finding a starting point and then guide you through the steps that are required to regain control of your life. This book is not written to give you all the answers or to flood you with more information. It is written to give you a system to sort out all the information and improve the quality of your life. It has also been written for everybody who wants to make the most of every moment, yet are concerned that they may be missing out on some vital aspect of their lives. This book will ensure that you consider all the dimensions of your life and determine where to start to regain control. This is done by using a system called the Gears of Life™. What sets the Gears of Life™ apart is that it does not focus only on one or two aspects of your life, but will allow you to view your life holistically. You can then decide for yourself what you need to work on first to get your life under control and live a more fulfilled and happier life. In the hope of regaining control, people would sometimes divide their lives into a few categories and then focus exclusively on one or two parts. However, when you break your life into compartments, without keeping the whole picture in mind, you may say things like: “My life is in chaos and not fulfilled at all,” without considering that it may only be one aspect such as your private life which is in chaos, whilst your professional life is not affected. Although you will also look at various parts of your life when you use the Gears of Life™, this does not happen in isolation from other areas. This system will allow you to view all aspects of your life: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual, thereby assisting you to look at your life as a whole. The Gears of Life™ will thus aid you in thinking and working through each area one by one in order to make it easier for you to locate the specific part or parts that need some work, while keeping in mind that all the parts are inter-connected and can never be isolated from the rest. When you change one area of your life, you may find that it will create momentum and several areas of your life may change and improve as a result. The sum of the different parts of your life will always be more than the different parts on their own. For this reason this system is called the Gears of Life™: it operates like a set of gears where one gear will influence the other gears in a system. If one gear does not operate as it should, the whole system will be affected. Therefore, working on the different parts or “gears” of your life aims to help you increase your overall awareness and improve your whole life, not just a part of it. The end goal is always to have more control over your life and living a more fulfilled life, not only to be more in control of your career or to have a more fulfilled family life. In order to help you consider your life as a whole while establishing exactly what part of your life you need to focus on first to regain control, the Gears of Life™ can be divided into two main parts.