Whatever you want to achieve - today, this year, in life; whatever your priorities are; whatever specific or immediate objectives you might have... write it down. Hand write it down. The hand-eye coordination required of handwriting focuses the mind and, quite literally, locks your sights on what you write.

So, write it down. Write often and read what you've written regularly.

One day might just change your life. I don't say that lightly - but many of my clients have, indeed, said just that. You'll find their testimonials here.

And, if you're interested, you'll find more details of all my forthcoming workshops here...

Too many people that I talk to are caught up, no, completely immersed, in the problems in their lives to the extent that they have forzen, rabbit-like, in life's headlights. Too often, enormous amounts of energy are wasted worry about or discussing things over which they have absolutely no influence and even less control. Too often their problems are perceived as insurmountable, something that they're going to have to live with.

With an attitude like that, you'll always have a life like that. Cast your eye to the left, to what Stephen Hawking said last Wednesday night in London. Life's problems, big and small are the ebb and flow of the very experience of living. The problem is, with the way our minds are wired, we don't experience living, we only experience the problem. As a result, we end up stressed out or, even worse, depressed. The World Health Organization, which is already on record in stating their belief that stress will kill more people this century than anything else, have published the statistics that prove that:

More life-years in midlife were lost to death or disability through clinical levels of depression than through any other source of physical or mental disease or accident.

And, when I look at the American Psychiatric Association's depression criteria, it's not too much of a leap to say that a growing number of ordinary people, having subjected themselves to long-term chronic stress, are displaying symptoms of depression. And, yet, depression is defined as a state rather than an illness.

So, here's the key question: what state are you in? States don't just creep up on you and mug you. States are not the product of what's going on around you. States are not something that you're born with. The state in which you find yourself is of your own choosing - albeit that, for most people, the choice is a default one, made subconsciously.

However, you can choose - you must choose - the quality of your life depends upon it. Choose to be focused, choose to know what you want out of life, today, now. Choose to be present. Choose to devote time, each day, to developing your ability to pay attention to your five senses. Choose life. The alternative, though prevalent, is unthinkable.