We have covered 3 of the 4 phases in the Cycle of Change using the card game analogy as first taught to me by iPEC Coaching. These are: The Toss In Phase, The Shuffle Phase, and The Deal Phase. Now we’re going to cover The “Play the Game” Phase. Phase 3: Play the Game (Action!) “Play the Game” is an exciting and mostly positive time during the Cycle of Change when you are all in to live your dreams and reach new levels of success, fulfillment and well-being. Whereas in previous stages you were either reflecting on the past or imagining the future, this phase is the time to be fully in the moment. You are living the strategy and the plan you created in The Deal Phase. It is a time of action but the amount of action you will take in this phase is based on your personality, how clear you are on your goal, how feasible your plan is and how much support you have. That’s why The Deal Phase is so crucial to set you up for success in this phase, though most plans will work if you can only get out of your own way. What that means is in the Play the Game Phase it’s important to manage your inner critic, which always comes to life when you are doing something new, big or scary. This is where self-doubt can start to plague you and if you allow it too much power you will unconsciously begin to self-sabotage. Know that it is natural and normal for your inner critic to try to have a field day with you. Change the perspective that hearing your inner critic is a bad thing. Rather, hearing your inner critic means you are playing full out and that’s a great thing. Manage Yourself to Remain Flexible If you are able to manage your inner critic you will, for the most part, feel harmonious, optimistic, determined and fully alive. If you are able to remain flexible you will be able to pivot and adjust if things don’t go according to plan. Let’s face it, things rarely go exactly according to plan so it’s important not to get too attached to the plan or judge yourself and others too harshly for not expecting the unexpected. When I first planned to self-publish my book last year I was only going to release an eBook in Kindle. A few weeks before the publish date I interviewed Honoree Corder and in our post-interview chat she convinced me of the benefit of releasing a print version as well. What I didn’t realize was how different it would be to format a book for print versus a book for Kindle, and that last-minute realization ate up more than half a day. I was also launching a membership community with the release of my book. While the formatting mini-crisis was going on I also discovered the membership software was not playing nice with payment software. To add to the madness, unbeknownst to me my web developer became horribly ill that week and so didn’t get my messages for a couple of days. All I knew was that I needed her and she had gone radio silent. I had also failed to communicate to my Graphic Designer the exact date I intended to submit everything to Amazon and so mock ups and final approvals for the cover all happened within days. Then there were videos, copy and worksheets that needed to be created and uploaded to the membership portion of my website. However, in all of this, I was 100% in, feeling fully alive, and rolling with everything whether it was going according to plan or not. Play the Long Game to Always Get Better While this stage is usually associated with wins and success, it can also be the setting for disappointments, setbacks, and new challenges. You can probably look back on times in your life where the Play the Game Phase of the Cycle of Change did not go well. If this is happening to you right now it’s important again not to judge yourself too harshly. Look on what is happening as a valuable lesson that you can examine and learn from so you go into the next Cycle of Change stronger and wiser. Place your focus on what is working and what is not working without judgment and you’ll be able to make adjustments and pivot pretty eas