It's been a big week for me already which, I might add, is absolutely awesome.  After yesterday's celebrating the new (and by the way I have decided to keep my new stuff to myself for now as it just seems more appropriate while the 'magic' happens) I spent time today at a workshop and got aha after aha moment which left me feeling energised and more alive than I have felt in a long time.  There was so much covered and I thought of so many inspiring things that I can share with you all that for the next week I'm going to pick one thing a day to share as part of the innovation challenge

Today's big learning opportunity and innovation challenge is related to something I'm calling the cost of action.  The reflection I invite you to take is to consider what the cost is for you to take action on your dreams.  It's action, with a good dose of strategy, that will make THE difference between wether your dreams stay dreams or become reality.  Beautiful, bold, exciting, motivating, inspiring, day in, day out, lived experience, reality!

What do I mean by the cost of action?  I mean what it will literally and figuratively cost you to take action.  Start by writing down a clear summary of the one dream you've been resisting.  It's the one thing that keeps coming up, time and time again.  The one that, no matter how much you try to ignore it, it keeps knocking at the door asking to be embraced and to become reality.  Yep..... it's THAT dream!

Next break it down into small steps.  Ask yourself, "What's the first step I could take to bring me one step closer to this dream of mine becoming reality?" and write down your answer

Then ask the question again but in a slightly different way, "What's the next step I could take, that stretches me a little from the previous step, and that brings me closer to my dream becoming reality?" and again write down your answer

Keep going until you have about 8-10 steps.  The next part is about looking at the costs you stand to incur.  Think about the costs in financial and emotional terms.  You could even create 2 columns and write your thoughts next to each step.  The really cool thing is that you may well discover (as I did when I looked at the costs of my 2012 visions) that there is no cost involved at all with many of the steps.  All there is in terms of a consequence is lots of wonderful gain.  That made me realise that I have nothing to hold me back.  There is nothing in the way of my taking action except me!

Truthfully, this process has the power to empower you to take action in a big, bold, daring way.  Once you know the cost of something and you can see clearly what lies before you it's hard to keep putting obstacles in the way and hold back and that is, quite simply, transformational

That was your innovation challenge for today!

Wishing you succulent, effortless success

Shannon