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How to Be Wildly Successful with New Year’s Resolutions

Coffee cup on napkin with words A Goal Without a Plan is Just a Wish So, it’s time to make those New Year’s resolutions for 2021. Roughly 41% of people make New Year’s resolutions already. Unfortunately, only about 9% of those folks will have achieved them by year’s end. What is the secret in being wildly successful in achieving your goals this year?

Cause for New Year’s Resolution Problems

One of the biggest causes for these failures is the fact that folks make such huge goals that are virtually impossible to achieve. This is can because they are disappointed over failing to change their habits in the prior year, so people plan to kick butt in the upcoming year to make up for those shortcomings.

However, what people fail to anticipate is that it will take a huge effort to achieve those big goals. The stressful holiday season just ended and you are now busier than ever. Your reserves may be low, physically, mentally and spiritually. One way to combat these high rates of failure is to break those New Year’s resolutions into smaller goals that can be achieved along the way.

The Next Step

Breaking down large New Year’s resolutions into smaller goals will make you more likely to achieve these resolutions in the long term. This is because a smaller goal will be faster and easier to achieve. It will take less effort and less time to achieve this goal, thus making it more likely you’ll achieve this goal.

Once you achieve this goal, you’ll be more encouraged to stick on your path to achieving your goals. This “mini-success” will propel you with momentum to keep going in achieving your long-term resolutions.

Why Smaller Goals Work

Your smaller goals won’t require as much strain and commitment from you, helping you to consider the work and life commitments that kept you from achieving your goals in the prior year. Again, making it more likely you’ll achieve these smaller goals.

For example, say you want to lose 30 pounds in the upcoming year. You might want to lose that by the time beach season comes rolling around in late May or early June. The thing is, if you want to lose the 30 pounds by early summer pace yourself and be realistic about your goals. Add support from groups or friends that have the same goal. Accountability to others makes a goal much easier to achieve.

Shift Your Thinking

Take mindset of just small goals each week. Create habits to commit to each day to create greater accomplishments. Plus, it would also commit you to keep going during even your most stressful times. All of this enables you to get where you want to go with let stress and more success.

Conclusion

By setting smaller goals as part of your New Year’s resolutions, you are more likely to stick with what is necessary to achieve them and have the momentum and strength to achieve them.

Share with me below how you are being wildly successful with your New Year’s resolutions.

Procrastination: What Does It Really Mean to You?

I’ve written articles on procrastination in the past. And I’ve had my share of struggles with getting things finished in a timely manner. There are many statistics that talk about the effects of putting things off. As time goes on, I am beginning to see many different aspects on the art of taking a rain check on my to-do list. So I raised the question, what is procrastination really about?

Traditional Meaning

Traditionally, procrastination has a negative stigma. There are several different definitions, often referring to putting off something with less than stellar outcomes.

A goal might not be accomplished out of fear or lack of information. To-do lists can pile up which can lead to being unsure of what should be prioritized first.

Delaying action to a fault could be interpreted negatively as being lazy, unfocused or without discipline. You know, just not productive as defined by society or other measures. But let’s look at procrastination a different, more positive way.

A Working Definition

What if procrastination could be interpreted as simply putting off an action that could done today? Just as anything else, procrastination can be a habit that blocks us from moving from Point A to Point B. No judgment. It all comes down to choices and consequences.

Procrastination Words Collage Procrastination is habitually putting things off or a self-limiting belief that you can’t accomplish something. Not starting a project could boil down to living in a state of overwhelm, sitting at your desk with a blank stare and the feeling of an equally blank mind.

If we wait for motivation to give us a good swift kick in the behind there’s a chance of a harmful outcome. The harm could lead to overworking and not getting enough sleep. It could be missing an important deadline at work. Or just missing out on the joy of living itself.

Three Things that Stops Us From Completing a Task

I decided to step back and think about what could stop people from taking action.

I don’t know how.
I don’t know why.
I can’t see a clear path to the end of my goal.

I can’t help but think that action is really about prioritizing what’s most important to you. And developing the skills to move forward. It’s also about asking for help to get through those tough times along the way.

Where to Go from Here

Just Start. Take one step on something you are putting off. It doesn’t need to be a grand or earth-shattering action. Momentum doesn’t come to us. We have to create it. Let the action weaken the fear and strengthen you determination to better your life.

Know Your Why. The more reasons you have to take action, the more you empower yourself to get to your desired outcome. List at least five reasons why to want to do something and keep them with you. Pull the list out when you feel stuck. These reasons will keep you moving forward when you just want to give up.

Write your goals down. Make your goals living, breathing entities. They are meant to be used as guidelines for an end result. As you learn, grow and expand self-awareness your goals will grow too. Goals can always be changed along the way. Keep them to a minimum so you gain success.

Think about one thing that keeps you stuck and a step you can take toward action and making a difference in your life. You just might find that procrastination isn’t a block in your life after all.

Dealing with Challenges on the Way to Your Goals

Achieve Goals / January 13, 2014

“Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.” ~ Lou Holtz

Setting goals is only half the battle. The real work lies in achieving them. And as much as you and I would both love it if everything flowed smoothly on the way to our goals, we know that along the way there are bound to be some obstacles.

How you respond to those obstacles will, in large part, determine your success in achieving what you set out to achieve.

Here are a few tips to consider when dealing with challenges on your journey to success:

Look for the lesson

Within each challenge there is always a lesson; something you need to learn on the way to the next step. If you can find it, then something good will have come from what started as a negative situation. Keeping your thoughts positive will help you find the lesson and overcome the challenge that much quicker.

Try a new perspective

Sometimes when you’re dealing with challenges, you are too close and emotionally involved in the situation to really think it through. If you can look at the issue from another point of view, you may find another way around the obstacle in your path.

Don’t be afraid to change direction

Sometimes challenges will show you a new path or option for your future. Leave these doors open and see where life takes you. The challenge you went through might take you to a better place that you never expected.

Keep your options open

Too often I’ve seen people get too stressed out over their goals because they don’t leave enough time to achieve them. Always give yourself enough time and flexibility to achieve your goals! A lack of time and options can create challenges where there were none before, and you can avoid this with good planning and time management.

Accept that you will make mistakes along the way

Perfectionism can be a challenge in itself. If you accept that you are going to make a mistake or two along the way and give yourself permission to not be perfect, you’ll move through any other challenges you meet more easily. Do your best! We’re all figuring things out as we go… it’s part of the journey.

Make a decision and take action

One of the worst things you can do is over-analyze an obstacle. The best thing to do is look at each obstacle and an opportunity to learn something new, and take action. The faster you decide on a course of action, the faster you’ll be back on track to achieving your goals.

Ask for help when you need it

No one ever said you had to do it all yourself. When you are dealing with challenges and are in unfamiliar territory, ask for help. Sometimes all it takes is having someone to talk things over with for a solution to show itself.

Don’t beat yourself up

Challenges are a fact of life when you’re on the road to success. They’re not your fault… they just are. Don’t beat yourself up because you’ve hit a roadblock. Put your energy into finding a way around it instead.

Stay Positive!

Sometimes a positive attitude is all it takes to blow right by an obstacle. If you can stay positive, you’ll have a better chance of dealing with issues in a more stress-free manner.

Once you figure out how to deal with challenges along the road to success, achieving your goals pretty much becomes a sure thing. Use these tips as you need them, and you’ll find yourself living a more successful and stress-free life.

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Achieve Your Goals – Put Your Habits To Work FOR You!

Achieve Goals / January 6, 2014

When you are working on achieving your goals, one of the best things you can do is create habits that work to further that goal. Most of the time this means creating new habits, but sometimes it’s easier to re-tool your existing habits and put them to work for you.

Creating or reworking a habit doesn’t have to be as hard as people make it out to be. Yes, it takes time and repetitive action to get the habit to stick. The general rule of thumb is that it takes about twenty-one days for an action to become habit.

The mistake most often made is to try and do a huge change all at once instead of taking small actions and making sure they stick before adding the next piece. When you take a baby-step approach to working with your habits, it can be easier than you might think to create habits that work for you instead of against you.

Four Steps To Put Your Habits To Work For You

Step 1: Know which habits you need

Before you re-tool your habits or create new ones, you will need to figure out which habits will help you achieve your goals. For every goal you set, there are habits that can go a long way toward ensuring your success.

Here are a few things to consider when thinking about which habits to work on:

Look for daily habits. Habits you practice each day are much easier to put into place and keep than those that are less frequent.
Keep it simple. The more complex the task, the less likely you are to stick with it. If you really do need to implement a complex habit, start with a simpler version and then add more complexity later.
Be specific. It’s not enough to just specify what you’re going to do; include the how, when, and where as well. Time is always critical when creating a new habit. Be sure to specify a precise period of time in which you wish to implement the new actions.

Step 2: Prepare for challenges

When it comes to changing habits, there are usually a few challenges along the way. Your task is to figure out what these challenges might be, so that you can deal with them as early in the process as possible.

For example, if you’ve decided that you’re going to eat a healthy breakfast every day, get rid of all the breakfast junk food in your pantry and freezer. That junk food is an obstacle to successfully implementing your habit.

The obstacle might be time interference. Maybe your partner doesn’t usually leave you alone for 30 minutes every night so you can meditate, write, read, or whatever it is you want to do towards your goal. Simply let them know ahead of time that you need be undisturbed during this time.

Step 3: Develop new habits to support your existing ones

Once you know which habits you will need to focus on to achieve your goals, start looking for ways to create new habits that will reinforce these core ones.

For example, if one of your new habits is to make it to the gym every morning by 6:00 am, you can develop several supporting habits to help you establish this habit, such as:

Get out of bed by 5:15 am.
In order to get up at 5:15 am each day, you might need an additional habit of always being in bed by 10:00 pm.
Another supporting habit might be to pack your gym bag the night before.

They may not seem like much on their own, but supporting habits like these are important to your overall success.

Step 4: Enjoy Your Success

Use these tips to put your habits to work for you, and you will be well on your way to achieving your goals. When an action becomes a habit, and you do it automatically, without having stop and think about it you are one step closer to success. Make sure you take time to acknowledge and enjoy your success, and then move on to the next goal and the next habit!

Blonde woman in blue and white stripe shirt looking through binoculars

Get Clear on What You Want: Six Steps For Setting Goals You Can Achieve

Achieve Goals / December 30, 2013

“Your mind, while blessed with permanent memory, is cursed with lousy recall. Written goals provide clarity. By documenting your dreams, you must think about the process of achieving them.” ~ Gary Ryan Blair

Sometimes when we set goals, they don’t always turn out the way we’d hoped and planned for. When that happens it is easy to blame outside factors and say the universe just didn’t cooperate to bring us what we’ve asked for. What is often the case, though, is we were not clear enough in asking for what we wanted.

Clarity in setting goals is an absolute must. When you think about it, a goal is a lot like a compass. It helps you focus on where you want to go in life and make positive progress to get there. But if your directions are confusing, then no matter how good the compass is, it’s going to have a hard time helping you get to where you want to be.

The good news is, clarity can be learned. It may take some practice, but learning to write clear goals instead of abstract ideas will get you much closer to success. Not only will you have good directions to get you where you want to go, it will be easier to relax and enjoy the journey because you know where you are going.

Here are a few tips you can use to help you get clear on what you want to achieve:

1. Figure out your ultimate goal. What, exactly, do you want?

Instead of a goal like “I want to be successful,” get down to specifics, such as “I want to own my own business which brings in at least $10,000 per month.”

2. Don’t be afraid of detail. You make the ultimate decision on what you want. Just don’t be afraid to set the details. Avoid goals like “I want to be rich” because there is no detail.

How much money do you want to make?
Why? What will this money provide for you that you desire?
What lifestyle do you want? Cars, homes, ability to travel the world, philanthropy?
How do you want to earn this money?
When do you want this to happen?
How can you prepare for this?

3. Break up your goals. When you stare at the ultimate goal, it may seem intimidating and unattainable. It’s important to break up your main goal into smaller goals. Write out detailed plans about how you’ll reach each of the smaller goals.

For example, if you want to start your own business, a small goal would be to research your local and federal business laws and register a name.

4. Give yourself deadlines. It’s vital to give yourself deadlines so you know you’re making progress towards your goals. Each of your small goals should have an attainable deadline.

In the business example above, maybe you’d give yourself a week’s time in order to research different business structures and laws.

5. Keep track. Make detailed notes about what you have done so far. Keeping track of your progress will help you stay organized and on top of your goals.

6. Make alternate plans. Sometimes you won’t be able to make the deadline you have set out for yourself, or maybe you’ll be unable to follow through with a current plan entirely. It’s important to think of alternatives in case certain situations don’t work out in your favor. If you already have back up plans in place, you’ll save time if you run into snags on the way to your goals.

Once you have your goals and plans created, it’s important to organize them for easy implementation and review. A couple of ways you can do this are with mindmapping software, and by organizing all your detailed plans and journals in a binder for easy access to your various sets of notes.

Regardless of how you set things up, following these tips will help you get clear on what you want to achieve. Taking time to do this at the beginning of your journey will go a long way toward reducing any stress around the process, and will allow you to enjoy the view on your way to success.

Person with red sneakers walking up blue stairs

Take Another Step: Your Goals Are Closer Than You Think

Achieve Goals / December 16, 2013

If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy and inspires your hopes. ~ Andrew Carnegie

Whether you realize it or not, every day brings you closer to your goals and dreams. You may feel like you have a long way to go, but you’re closer than you think. Avoid giving up or getting discouraged. Keep moving forward. Every setback is a learning experience that brings you closer to your goal.

When people tell you all the reasons you’ll fail, or when you try to do something but receive a less than perfect outcome, avoid taking to heart. People always have opinions, and they can be – and usually are – wrong. Each failure can be a stepping-stone if you turn it into one. Even professional athletes and actors make mistakes. It’s okay to be human!

Your successful outcome may arrive next month, next week, or even today. When you stop before you complete your goal or dream, you lose the chance to see yourself completely fulfilled and reach the destiny that you were created for. You just might be hours away from your goals!

How to Keep Moving Forward

Moving forward is critical to reaching your goal, and you can find ways to keep going each and every day. When you look for ways to move ahead, you inch closer and closer to your goal. As you see it getting closer, you’ll put in a greater effort to reach it. That speeds up the process and it makes you happier and healthier, both mentally and spiritually.

The correct approach for you depends on how you work best. Thankfully, there are plenty of things you can do to stay on the right path until you reach the goal that you’ve set for yourself. You can:

Keep a journal so you can keep track of what you’ve accomplished every day.
Surround yourself with like-minded people who are also interested in achieving a common goal.
Remove negativity from your life by choosing to focus on happiness and joy.
Stay busy, instead of allowing yourself to just sit around and make excuses.

Reaching Goals Can Mean Significant Life Changes

Remember that reaching a goal can mean a dramatic change in your life. This is often a change for the better, however. With change comes uncertainty, and uncertainty is uncomfortable for many people. If you’re willing to leave your comfort zone, you can experience an abundant life of prosperity and joy that is filled with everything you’ve always dreamed about. Embrace the changes that lead to the future you deserve.

It’s important that you understand the value of change and accept that it can bring much good to your life. Certainly, there are unpleasant changes that can occur in your life. However, if you keep taking steps forward toward your dreams, most of the change you’ll experience will bring satisfaction to your heart and fulfillment to your soul.

Accept, enjoy, and celebrate the changes that come into your life. Learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, and you’ll be in the driver seat toward your destiny. If you confidently go after what you want, you can confidently expect that the changes you experience will be positive ones. Keep an open mind and a positive attitude. Expect success and you will attain that success!