I suppose I should have expected it, but when I first started teaching the methods in Do It Tomorrow one effect took me by surprise. I started to find that people to whom I had taught the methods suddenly seemed to become much clearer about what they wanted out of life. They got a new confidence and things which had appeared as only unattainable dreams started to enter the realm of the possible. What's more, not only did their goals and vision for the future become much clearer but also their enjoyment of the work and the energy they were putting into it increased as well.

As I said, I guess I should have expected it. The reason why I should have expected it was because that was exactly what happened to me once I had finished developing the methods and started to use them myself. Within what seemed a matter of weeks I had completely changed the way I ran my coaching, taken on more than twice as many clients as I used to have, started a programme of time management seminars and more than doubled my monthly income. What's more I had done it in a way which made it as simple as possible for me to maintain. So simple in fact that I quite frequently take the afternoon off just because I have run out of work!

My own experience coupled with what I was seeing of other people's experience led me to think that the most important factor in moving our lives forward is not so much a strong vision (though that definitely helps!) but confidence that we can deal with the day- to-day demands that our vision imposes on us. If we don't have that confidence we will have great difficulty committing ourselves and maintaining that commitment.

And where did the energy come from? Well, I think the truth is that we have energy for just about anything that we feel on top of - think how much more energy you would have for your daily work if you had absolutely no backlogs!

(The original version of this article appeared in the January 2005 issue of my newsletter)