New Year Resolutions and Goals

Around this time millions of us around the globe will be making New Year Resolutions, setting goals – and millions more will simply be wishing and hoping for the year ahead. More often than not those goals to stop smoking, change career, cut out drinking, lose weight, adopt new habits, improve relationships have often fallen by the wayside within weeks. Often this is because we do not set goals holistically, strategically, sustainably, meaningfully and with the support and mindset that’s needed.

5 Step Guide to goals / New Years Resolutions that work

1) Making space: 

One of the first things I do when working with many clients is about making space. This is very simple – you may already have a busy life and busy mind and you cannot pour more water into a full cup without causing a spillage. You need to create space in order to make headway.

2) Strategic / holistic / meaningful: 

Step one is to set goals that are strategic and holistic. Too often we set isolated goals to stop this or stop that without looking at your life as a whole. If you are going to set goals, it’s wise to set goals in the context of your entire life and the key areas within it:

a)  yourself personally and your health / well being

b) your career or business

c) your relationships / home / social life.

You will also need to be strategic, as if you are setting challenging personal, professional or health goals you’ll probably need a plan of action, and it’s wise if that plan is flexible as there may be internal and external factors that may scupper a plan that is too fixed that you may be unaware of when you start.

Don’t set the goals that everyone else is  or that friends, family, magazines or well-meaning others say that you should set. You need to step back and ask yourself what is most important to you. You are the captain of your ship. Things will progress once you are really committed to them and once you take full responsibility for your life, career and relationships. Depending on your scope, scale and nature of goal it may be wiser that you set a 2, 3 or 5 year goal rather than just a year one.

3) Sustainable / manageable steps: 

You’ll hear lots of talk about achieving this or that within a week, month or a few days. It’s no surprise that a plan that you make to achieve something within a week or month will unravel within a few weeks or months. You need to be committed to your goals for the long run. Especially if you are setting things like health, relationship and career goals – these things require constant work and attention. It’s also important that you break those goals into simple steps and break tasks into manageable chunks. The bigger the goal the more important you break it into small steps. It’s also wise that you try and make the steps specific and that your track, review and measure your progress along the way.

4) Support: 

No one is an Island and if you’re struggling in life it may be that you don’t have the support, expertise or encouragement that you need. Know yourself: are you resourceful and a self starter? If so then maybe you can achieve your health, career and relationship goals by yourself. If you’re not it may be that you may want or benefit with working on your goals with a friend, expert advisor, mentor, fitness instructor, nutritionist, business partner, colleague, contact, boss, mentor  or all the above and more depending on your goal(s).

5) Mindset / resourcefulness: 

Without the right mindset you are unlikely to succeed or ever to believe that it is worth trying. You will need to be mindful, believe in yourself, be open minded and yet focused at the same time. You will need to be resourceful and resilient. If you feel that you do not have these qualities, then it will probably be even more important that you get experienced or expert support to help you get started and help you along the way. You also need to be flexible. Life is not linear. It is important to know within this that life holds no guarantees. There are all sorts of internal and external factors that will impact on your success and progress. Life will not always deliver to you what you want, when and how you want it.

From Goals to Growth….

Life is not simply about goals, dreams and aspirations. Some dreams will come true and some will not. This would be the case even if you are a top athlete at your peak.There will be races that you win and some that you lose. The magic and real growth in life comes from understanding and appreciating this and using all of life’s ups and downs to truly grow.