If you could have absolutely anything your heart desired, what would be your ideal present?  What immediately springs to mind?  Are you finding it hard to think of something?  The truth is, what is ideal today is going to going to change tomorrow.  If you have children you will be all too familiar with this concept.  If you don't have children, think back to a time when you were one yourself.  If you are out shopping right now for Christmas gifts, how do you decide what the ideal present will be for you to give this Christmas.  Do you take time to carefully research what your loved one or friends will actually want or do buy based on your own preferences and hope that they will like it? 

Often the greatest results can be achieved from 'standing' in that person's shoes and imagining what is important to them.  What would be an ideal present for them?  What would they attach value to?  If you run a business or you sell in any capacity, this is a strategy that you would do well to master.  I can recommend a brilliant book called 'Influence, Science & Practise' by Dr Robert Cialdini.  If you are interested in finding out what influences people's decisions, then this book is fascinating.

Are you happy where you are right now?  This is another kind of ideal present - the 'here and now'.  I know a number of people who pack so much activity into their day, they never really get the chance to experience the present because they are forever planning for the future.  I like to make an important distinction between human beings and human doings.  We are of course beings, yet we so often forget the being part.  We are locked into doing.  If you don't spend much time in the present, how will you ever know if it is idea or not (apart from the times when you take a long overdue holiday and you experience lying in the sun and feeling the warmth on your body).  If you don't like your present and it is far from ideal, then you need to do something to change it.  If you don't then you have to be responsible for the consequences of putting up with something that is not idea. 

Give yourself an ideal present this Christmas and write down some goals for the year ahead and get into the mindset of actually having the the thing, person, opportunity, windfall or job that you want.