As I mentioned a while ago, ten years after the event, my husband and I discovered House MD the series and loved it... for the first few seasons. Then there was a writers strike around Season 4 and the show derailed. What started out as an intelligent and insightful look at the foibles of human nature deteriorated into a vulgar and often ridiculous parody. Not only did the story lines become increasingly outrageous, the dialogue was inappropriate and downright offensive at times.

What fascinated my husband and I was that no one on set seemed to notice. None of the actors, writers, producers, crew or even the director stepped up to halt the degradation. It's intriguing to a Life Coach! How did this happen? Why did no one speak up? Did they even notice? Or do we slide into ignominy without realising?

The sad truth is most of us don't fall into disgrace, we slither. A joke in poor taste here, an overindulgence there and slowly we lose the plot. We don't gain 15 kilograms overnight, we pick up an extra kg here and then another and gradually it builds.

Sometimes we see someone we love starting to slide down a slippery slope and feel it is up to us to speak up. The problem is that when we do, we risk making them angry or defensive. When someone points out a fault of yours, what is your first reaction? “How dare they? Or, “Who do they think they are?' It's easy to feel so indignant that we never hear what the person is actually trying to say.

Thank goodness, there's an alternative. We need to become our own noisiest passenger! We must pay attention to the way we move through the world. How do we feel about ourselves, inside ourselves as well as the response we get from other people? If we notice we are going off the rails, we speak up, kindly and firmly, but we speak up and nudge ourselves back in the right direction.

No one is better equipped to keep you in line than you are. No one knows you better than you know yourself, your hidden aspirations, your secret dreams; you may be the only person who truly knows what's in your heart. You know how you want to live and who you want to be, so it's time to step up and take responsibility for your life. Trust yourself, you can do this!