New Years Goals: Start Now!

Warning: This post contains tough love & some bold flavors

Goal setting is one of my favorite topics and I get a little passionate about it. I've made so many mistakes in striving for goals, but also had several successes. I learn from it all and love to inspire others to move toward their personal goals. Here's your pre-January "inspiration" on goal setting.

In my world, the term "New Years Resolution" is a four-letter word. It's become a joke in our society, and almost an expectation that if you set a resolution, you are going to fail. This is crazy. Why as Americans do we start the year, setting ourselves up to fail on NY resolutions? Truly, I don't know the answer to that, but I do know the solution.

It's all about the set-up, the action/play, and the follow through. In other words, It's planning, preparing yourself for success, going after your goal with the right action, and keeping up with it.

The Set-up: Ask yourself these questions:

1. What do you want?
Be specific.  If you truly don't know, sit down in a quiet room with a piece of paper (yes, real paper!), and write down everything you can think of that you want, even if you start small. Write down material things, intangible things, goals, dreams, let yourself go with it. Then look at the list and picture 1-3 things that you want too accomplish or get in 2014, and put aside the rest of the list (just for now)

2. Why do you want what you want?
This is the most important step, because it determines whether or not you will get what you want. If you don't know why you want something, and you don't keep that in front of you, you will not hit your goals, because you will not stay consistent. It's so key.

If you don't have a true why toward a goal that you have set, then seek out finding a why or change your goal to something that does have a why behind it. This is vital.

3. Put your goals in front of you. 

On a white board, on index cards, as your phone/tablet background, on your bathroom mirror, at your desk, on your fridge. Do any and all of these. Trust me, do not skip this step. Put up both the what and the why. Use words & pictures. Both!

Do not put your goals in a drawer and open it next year. This is the silliest thing you can do (and we've all done it!), because you won't remember in a week what your goals were and then you will definitely not accomplish them at the end of next year ;-)

Then, if you want extra credit, read Imagine Big by Terri Savelle Foy. This is the best book I have ever read on dreaming big, accomplishing goals, and doing it with expectation and joy. This book changed my personal training business positively in 2013 and I plan to apply it even more boldly in 2014.

The Action: 

With each of your goals, what do you need to do daily, weekly, monthly to move toward accomplishing your goal. If you don't know or you've never accomplished the goal, you are aiming for, don't do this part alone. Find someone who has hit that goal and ask them to help you figure out what to do. Most of the time, we know what we need to do to move forward with our lives, or what habits we need to change. Having a mentor (who is further along than you in a particular area), to keep you accountable and to check up with on your actions & progress is vital. Be sure to share your goals with someone who has what you want, not someone is struggling with what you are struggling with, unless they are on a positive path to change it too and have already had success moving forward. About 30 days ago, I met with one of my mentors to talk about a financial goal. I have an appointment on Jan. 30 to talk with him again and report my progress...I do not want to have not made progress, so it motivates me, as I make decisions daily.

Create a system for yourself to remind you of your daily/weekly/monthly actions. I have a big white board that lists mine, so I see it all the time when I am home. Everyone has a different way of keeping organized, figure out what works for you.

The Follow Through:

Consistency is key, in anything. Don't expect to take one right action and all of a sudden arrive at your goal. That's silly. You may or may not see immediate results when you start pushing toward a goal. If your goal is to lose 50 pounds in 2014, you have 12 months to hit this goal or 365 days. Don't quit after day 3, when you don't see results. Keep those goals in front of you-- If you start to breeze by and not read your goals, change the picture, not the goals. Don't put them away. If I start to do that, I erase my dry erase board and re-write the goals in different colors or larger print, or I find new picture to add, whatever it takes.

Expect to make mistakes. Gosh, I dislike this one, but it's true. You are not going to be perfect all year, so don't focus on that. Focus on what you do right, not what you didn't do. I bet you do more good toward your goals (if you follow the above initiatives),  rather than bad. We naturally tend to remember the bad, so  you must focus on changing that thought process and work on remembering the good. Who cares what you did yesterday. You have today, you have right now, you have this moment to do something positive for your future. Go for it!

Focus on your strengths and you'll get stronger, focus on your weaknesses and you'll stay weak.

Evaluate yourself throughout the year--not with a critical, negative eye, but with a progression eye. If you get discouraged, look back and see what you've done to positively change yourself and move forward with your goals. You'll get excited about how far you've come and motivated to do more moving forward.

Start now. Like right now. It doesn't have to be Jan 1 to start working toward a goal. Do it now and you'll be thankful you did! I love the quote, "do something today that your future self will thank you for." Not sure who said this, but I see it on Pinterest & FB posts all the time :)

Figure out what you want & why, write it down, figure out what you need to do to get there, and get after it consistently.

Extra Credit: if you really want to change what you are doing and where you are, you have to change the way you think. You change the way you think by changing who you hang out with, what you read, and what you listen too. This trifecta will yield you amazing results, if you keep up with it. If you don't know what to read or listen too, ask me and I'll help you get started!

In health & prosperity,

Monica
thewellwithall