Motive Force and Traction to Put Your Personal Power to the Ground.
Step 1. Turn That Truck Into A Transformer.
You have chosen to earn a living in a truck, but now you may feel like you don’t enjoy your job and life as much as you think you should. It isn’t like you first imagined years, months, or even weeks ago. It is not like being a tourist in a truck, or, maybe you can’t put your finger on the causes for your dissatisfaction. This is not a bad thing. This can be transformed in to the start of a new and exciting phase of your life and career.
The trucking lifestyle can leave you with what seems like little time to do anything to improve yourself and your life. This can result in feeling overwhelmed and powerless, joyless and unfulfilled.
Using practical principles and some healthy imagination, we will help you find greater satisfaction in your job and create balance and fulfillment in all of the important aspects of your life. We will find ways to make the ELD a tool in your personal power toolbox instead of a box of circuits running your life and telling you when to live. You will be in control of your life instead of the ELD, DOT, and others pushing your buttons.
Your Certified Life Coach Gregory, (himself an OTR driver) will provide Intake Questionnaires and engage you in guided conversation to help you bring out your needs and wants that are not being met, and work with you to start down the highway to a more fulfilling life. It will not be instant or easy, but together with your coach you will take the first steps of a life-long journey of accomplishment and growth.
As the road becomes your fitness center and learning “library” you will begin to see opportunities all around you to improve in the most important aspects of life. When your Reticular Cortex is tuned to see a curb as a stepper exercise platform and a handrail as a push up bar, you will gradually become stronger and more disciplined. When you begin to train your mind to see simple math exercises at every mile marker or word puzzles in advertising signs, you will make new neural network connections and strengthen your brain and mind. When you begin to see crappy drivers as people just doing the best they can with the capabilities they possess, your blood pressure may subside some and the veins in your neck may deflate just a bit.
Step 2. Mandatory Pre-Trip Inspection
You thoroughly inspect your truck before you drive to be safe for yourself and others. Is your life not worth a thorough inspection? Perhaps every day like your truck? How well do you really know your Self? What are those whispers of discontent that you hear inside your head from time to time? If you discover your weaknesses and nagging little deficiencies you will know what needs to be corrected just like if you find a burned out light or bad tire on the truck.
You may find that your fitness is not at a level to enjoy the activities you truly want to take part in. Or, that you are not on track to finance a major purchase or fund your retirement. Perhaps there is a void in your emotional or spiritual life that leaves you feeling low. Don’t despair! Discovery is the start of life improvement and you will soon know what you want to improve and we will figure out the best ways to do so.
You and your Certified Life Coach will work through this discovery process and put together a program to correct deficiencies and get you in tune to the road of life and in the Hammer Lane to a more fulfilling future.
Using the resources in the Drive to Thrive program and calls with your coach, you will begin to see many daily activities as platforms for improvement. For example; as you approach your truck you will see the running boards as a platform for light squats to strengthen your legs and your pre-trip as a chance to move around and stretch to gain joint mobility. You might walk past the sodas and chips at the entrances of the truck stops and head to the fruit cups and yogurt.
Step 3. Leave the Parking Lot.
You can’t get anywhere parked in a spot you have been in for months or years. Do the nagging little chores that feel like they are holding you back from accomplishing bigger things – because they are. Start in low gear and work up through the gears as you gain momentum.
When you begin taking care of the little things you have put off, you will set patterns of getting stuff done that will carry over into the big things you and your coach are working on together.
You and your coach will set a schedule for getting things done. Your coach will be a non-judgmental figure that is there to encourage you, but also expect you to do your part to accomplish daily and weekly tasks that will lead to accomplishment and fulfillment.
Pay unpaid bills before buying more toys or bling for the truck. Get to the doctor and dentist if needed. File taxes, etc. Just get stuff done and clean up the past.
Step 4. Pick Up Your Load.
You previously washed out the emotional trailer of nagging little “to do’s”, now let’s set new, invigorating goals. These may feel like a burden at times, but are the actual payload – the things that, while working at them, will help you feel like you can accomplish anything you want to do and will help you feel great about life.
When worthy goals are achieved in the important aspects of life, you will feel the joy of balance. Written (and tracked) goals are far more powerful than intentions only. Indeed, unless written and tracked, intentions are little more than wishes.
You and your Certified Life Coach will work through a (customized for you) goal setting and tracking workshop that will help you bring out the true desires you have for your future. Your coach will provide you with motivational and tracking forms to keep you hauling your life payload effectively and reasonably swiftly. Working with your coach you will find means and methods of accomplishing your worthy goals and aspirations.
How many times have you made New Years resolutions in your head, then promptly neglected or forgotten these resolutions? Writing them down (at any time of the year – like right now) and planning steps to achieve them makes them goals and provides a feasible – if not always easy – way to accomplish things that may seem too difficult right now.
Step 5. Get It Down the Road
Drive your Life – don’t let life drive you. Take control of the vehicle (You) and negotiate the twists and turns, uphill and downhill grades, and, momentum. Distractions like dwelling on past mistakes or perceived wrongs done to you sap your energy due to stress chemicals and past hardwiring in your brain (we will working on rewiring).
A key principle in a life lived well is that of responding to events rather than reacting to them. A measured, thought out, response to any incident is far superior to reacting emotionally in the heat of the moment. Many events and conditions are out of your control – but the way you respond and think about them is entirely up to you.
You and your coach will develop, or, find and use appropriate (to you as an individual) spoken and written programs by some of the major authors modern, historic, and Biblical to help you develop response oriented thinking and acting vs. emotional reaction.
Example: A four-wheeler cuts you off and you miss your exit to avoid running over him. You can get upset, flood your body with cortisol, and be on edge for hours while your body dissipates the stress hormone, or, you can accept the responsibility of responding to the event by telling yourself the driver of the four-wheeler had to get home right now to get his wife to the hospital to give birth and is doing his best under his current circumstances.
Step 6. Drop Your Load
As each step of a given goal is put behind you, feel the emotional muscle “burn” of well-placed effort – but also feel the warm glow of accomplishment. Feel the gradually increasing lightness of leaving some of the drops at interim destinations along the road to your desired outcomes.
Small steps taken lead to a more fulfilling career and life and keep you strong and motivated even though the ultimate goal is still just out of reach. Keep it up, and keep the end results you desire in view even when it seems foggy and you need special light to see the way ahead.
By this time in your Drive to Thrive Program, you have developed mental muscles to keep driving you toward your Dream Life – wait, correction – your Real Life of accomplishments and rewards.
You now see your world in a totally different way from when you began (and from the lives of many around you who go through life without making changes and taking action).
Step 7. Settlement For the Trip
Bask in the warmth of accomplishment and savor the rewards of your newly generated momentum by congratulating yourself, giving yourself something nice, then setting some new more challenging goals. If you are not growing, you are dying. That is the way of Nature and Life.
Your newfound desire and ability to keep improving all aspects of your life is now a part of you. A lifestyle that no longer requires discipline or “sacrifice”.
You have the resources within and without to do anything you want to do within certain boundaries – e.g., if you are 60 years old, you probably won’t be starting from scratch and becoming a movie star (though it is possible). Or, if you have painful arthritis you probably won’t be running a marathon (but you can walk in charity walks to benefit your favorite cause, yes?)
Now, look back and give yourself a High Five, then Keep On Truckin’ Thriver.
Gregory Unck
Mobile Phone 385-977-1792
