Make your own personal plan to get through the tough time we face in 2009.  Do a quick assessment on yourself now, where you would like to be in the future and how you are going to get there; this could be in regard to your finances, your personality, your career, your health or anything you choose.  These 5 tips can help improve your personal situation.

The economic recession is here but how can you stop yourself getting on the spiraling train to nowhere fast?  Stop your own personal recession and turn a negative into a positive.  As the state of the economy continues to decline, where are all the leaders?  With a widespread decline in the GDP and employment on downward slide it seems that everywhere we turn we hear more personal stories of doom and gloom.  Yet another round of redundancies, more depleted super nest eggs, retirees postponing retirement, banks foreclosing and people having to sell their homes in order to survive – how can you be different?

When difficult times abound people begin to look within and reflect on where they are in their own personal journey of life.   Most people are either glass half full or glass half empty – which are you?  Where are you?  Do you love your job?  Do you have enough time to spend with your family and friends?  If you could choose the life you really want, how many hours a week would you work?  Would you surround yourself with more positive and successful people?  Can you see yourself clearly five years from now? What will you be doing, earning, seeing, and being?  These and so many more questions will arise as adverse times surround us and we battle to move forward into the unknown.  The catch here is to make the unknown known.

So, let us focus on the positive.  So many people are looking for positive leaders to show them the way and if they don’t find them or they let them down then despair can set in.  In order to survive difficult times we must first assess who and where we are and then or course who and where we would like to be.  Here are the tips to not just survive this recession but to flourish.

1. Know yourself - you are in charge.

Give yourself a quick reality check and tap into both your conscious mind and your sub conscious mind – don’t be afraid to think outside the square.  Ask yourself the following questions: 

• What do I stand for? 
• Do I like who I am?
• What areas would I like to improve? 
• What makes me tick? 
• How can you become a better person?
• If I could be anything at all what would I be?

2. Know your environment

What is around me that is positive and what is around me that is negative?  Do a quick audit to limit the negativity in your life and expand the positive influences.  Take stock of where you live, the work you do, the people you associate with and ask yourself if they are positive or negative influences on you.  If someone tells a child enough times over that they are “bad” the child will grow up believing they are “bad”.  Similarly if someone tells you as an adult that “We are in a recession and likely to lose our jobs and houses.” then we will naturally start to believe this to be inevitable.

3. Plan your course

Plan to change or limit the negative influences in your life and improve and grow the positive influences.  Surround yourself with people who like you and believe in you.  If your plan is to keep your job then surround yourself with people who believe and reinforce that you will keep your job.  Also plan how you will keep your job.  Do you need to affect more sales or support your Manager more or be happier in the workplace?  Actually set yourself some tangible challenges and complete them.  The satisfaction you will get from writing down these mini goals and then achieving them will actually send out more positive vibrations to yourself and others around you creating more positively.

4. Use your resources

Be aware of who and what is around you to help you improve your situation and achieve your goals.  If you have a mentor at work, use him/her to help you achieve your goals at work.  Be inspired.  If you’re a Mum, use your mother’s group, friends or family to help achieve the goals you set for yourself as a Mum.  Also don’t underestimate the power of the pen.  It costs you nothing to sit down and write out a plan of what you want to achieve and how you are going to get there.  Do you need to complete a course of further study in order to get that promotion?  If so, write it down and then when you have completed it tick it off your list and celebrate the achievement.  If you aim to be a better husband then talk to your wife about what she would like you to do.  Talking, writing and communicating are free resources at your fingertips so don’t underestimate them.

5. Manage the risk

Minor changes are often easier to achieve than major changes.  So don’t quit your job as a nurse to open your own café.  Decide what you want to do, plan it, devise a strategy to achieve it and surround yourself with positive people who believe you can do it.  Take baby steps as this way you will also feel more success and achievement along the way and that in itself will have you espousing optimism.

So take stock of your situation and if you’re happy with it keep doing what you’re doing but if you’re not then take stock, believe in yourself, initiate change and develop your own personal success track to satisfaction.  You can and will survive the recession and actually come out on top.

Pernille Cavanough is a Master of Business Administration, Recruitment & HR Consultant, journalist and entrepreneur.  She is also a Director of Marvellous Millions, a company that assists people all over the work to change their behaviours to create wealth, freedom and success.