But we’ve all set resolutions with the best of intentions only to have them fall away by the wayside within a month. And for this reason, a lot of us have simply given up on them. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Resolutions aren’t about setting goals and then beating ourselves up when we can’t achieve them.
We’ve all of us set goals
“Lose 10 kgs in time for the annual beach vacation. Which is in, like, 2 months!”
Or thought about plans that we want to achieve
“Buy an island in Greece”
But how often have we thought about how we want to feel?
Eh?
Yeah. Think about it. Now, quick: How do you want to feel?Continue reading→
Answering the questions I posed last week would have helped you identify your current “big dreams.” These aren’t the next logical steps if you continue the way you are, but are the things that make your heart sing. There is something deeply satisfying about having a dream list that is close to your heart because it helps you peel back the layers and discover what you really want in your life.
Image by Squirmelia via Flickr
Bring out your paper now and read what you wrote down. Slowly. Listen to your feelings as you reach each sentence. If you feel excited, feel your heart fluttering, you’re on the right track. The things that leave you wondering why you wrote what you wrote may not be what you really want to do, but what you think you should do. Cross those off right away.
If you’re truthful with yourself, you’ve had those things on your to-do list since a while and have gotten nowhere with them. You also use that list to beat yourself up about being an under-achiever. So, do yourself a favour and just. let. them. go. really. You’ll feel better. I promise. Unless you’ve written something like take (insert health condition here) medication on time everyday and are about to cross that off. Come on! You should know better, right?
Anyhoo! Now that you’ve got your dream list ready, here’s what you gotta do.
Image via Wikipedia
Go through each section and for each, create one or two goals that really compel and excite you when you think about them from the material you wrote.
Then, write one goal at the top of a page, with a separate page for each goal. Set a timer for two minutes and write down why you want to achieve this goal.
Once you’ve done that, create a compelling argument to yourself on why you must do achieve this goal. If you can’t create a compelling argument that makes you ache to achieve the goal, you may need to choose a different one. After all, if you can’t convince yourself in an argument, you won’t have the drive to complete the goal!
Image by angietorres via Flickr
For each goal, write down three small steps you can take now that will help you achieve your goals. Initially, these will typically be “discovery” steps that will help you get more information about how to go about achieving your goal. If one of your goals is to learn a language or photography, one of your first steps might involve identifying classes that you can enrol for. Make sure that you aren’t setting yourself a huge target, take baby steps.
The key is to commit to something that you really, really want to do. Even if you can spend just one day a month working on that goal, it will change how you think and dramatically improve your life. Promise.
Image via Wikipedia
As you finish a step, cross it off your list. Doesn’t it make you feel great? For every step you cross off, add a new one. Rinse and repeat until you (gasp!) are well on your way to achieving your goal! Crossing off and adding new to-dos helps you keep your momentum going and gives you confidence in your own ability to achieve your dreams.
But what if the number of goals you’ve set yourself has you in overwhelm mode? Prioritize. How? Look at each goal and each argument, read it out loud if you need to, with feeling, and ask yourself if not achieving any of these would leave you with a hole in your heart or filled with regrets. The ones that will are the ones that you should pick up on priority. Easy-peasy!
Another thing that can lead to a slight sense of deflation is the knowledge that it may take you years to achieve some of your goals. But it is important to understand and accept this, and to press on anyway. After all, it’s the journey that matters. And just think of how proud you’ll feel every time you work towards it, and when you finally achieve it!
Also, if possible, enlist the help of family or friends to hold you accountable, someone with whom you can check in say once a month. Your accountability group will be your personal cheer leaders, help you brainstorm if you come up against a wall, give you a little (or a big) push if you find yourself getting complacent, and will totally rock your world when you achieve your dream!
There you have it – the blueprint to (finding and) achieving your most authentic dreams.
A while back I wrote about reclaiming a dream – a small dream it was, of having flowers in the living room at home. Of saying no, I wouldn’t just let my dreams die like that. But just saying no isn’t enough. You have to know what your dreams, and which dreams you are most passionate about. Not each item on your bucket list is as important as the others. While we may not mind letting go of some goals, not achieving others would fill us with regret and sadness.
The best way to determine what’s most important for you is to undertake a goal setting activity. If you already have a process you use and love, go for it. If not, carve out some time for yourself to sit down and evaluate each area of your life – career, home, health, spirituality, finances, relationships – and determine what are the things that you’re truly passionate about.
I identified the following areas of my life that I wanted to work on:
Learning/leisure
Soulfulness
Creativity
Health
Finances
Here are some of the questions I asked myself in each of these areas:
Image by nebbsen via Flickr
learning/leisure
What would you like to learn to do? It has to be something that really makes you excited. How would you learn – online, sign up for a class, etc.?
Where would you like to travel? Could be places in your own city or country, or abroad?
What would you like to do more of?
– read more?
– redecorate the house or office?
– get out of the house more?
soulfulness
What are your mediation goals? Every day? Every week? How much time will you set aside for it?
How can you live more soulfully – with more balance, less stress?
What do you need to do to feel that you have made a difference in your life?
creativity
Image by nimbu via Flickr
Which creative areas are you interested in – cooking, home decorating, photography, painting, etc.?
If money were no object, but you had to work, what would you be doing?
Do you have an idea or a dream you’d like to be living?
If you could live another person’s life (living or dead) who would it be, and why?
health/physical
What are your weight loss goals?
– How much weight do you want to lose?
– How much exercise would you be willing to commit to each week?
– What changes can you realistically make to your diet?
financial
Image via Wikipedia
What are your financial goals in terms of your needs and desires. For example, you might want to have enough money to pay your rent without stress, buy or lease a new car every four years, etc.
If you feel stress about money, what could you do right now to feel more in control?
Do you have any bad money habits? Like impulsive shopping? What are your triggers? Think of ways you can stop yourself.
putting it together
Use these questions as a starting point to reflect on what you want to achieve in these areas. These don’t have to be one sentence answers. They can be as long as you need them to be. Feel free to add on or leave questions you don’t like, or to hunt online for other goal setting exercises. But do work on writing down something.
Once you’re done, keep the paper safely away. Stepping away from your answers for a while will help you to know if you really connect with what you’ve written when you see them with a fresh mind.
Come back next week, when we’ll refine our dreams if we need to and draw up an action plan to achieve them!
I don’t know what’s come over me these days. While planning out my day at work, I also write up a list of to-dos that need to be done after work, but once I leave office, I think “Hell with it all. I’m just going home.” And kiss the to-dos goodbye. It’s not like I have anything pressing to do at home, either. Nor do I go home and get cracking on things that can be done around the house. Interesting stuff too, mind. Like experimenting with photography. Learning the tarot. Cleaning up my art table so I can make some art.
Instead, I go home, change into my sweats, and play Bubble Explode on my iPhone like my life depended on it. That game is evil, I tell you! It has me totally obsessed.
Seriously though, I don’t like this change that has crept upon me. And for the life of me, I can’t figure out why I have zero motivation. I know myself well enough to know it’s more than sheer laziness (not to say I’m not lazy, but I’m not this lazy!) So, what is it?
A lot of the things on my to-do list are related to long-term goals – like going for a walk and cooking evening supper minus carbs (to lose weight), doing 1 chapter from Learn the Tarot (to, of course, learn how to read the cards), clean the art table (so I can start creating art once again).
I know from experience that long-term goals can change sometimes, so the first thing I asked myself was if I still cared enough about said goals. I do!
Since it wasn’t as simple as sheer boredom with my goals, I knew I needed to dig deeper. Time to bring out a notebook and a steaming cup of tea.
Image by angietorres via Flickr
I listed each goal on a separate page, then wrote the words “I’m afraid I won’t be able to achieve this because” underneath, and without stopping to think or analyze, I wrote down all the thoughts that came to mind. For e.g., under the goal of losing weight, one of the things I listed out was that since working out regularly for 6 months gave me no tangible results, I was destined to stay overweight.
Once I had repeated the exercise for all three goals, I went back and confronted my demons head-on. To counter the fear of never being able to shed the excess weight, I checked my food diary from when I was exercising. Based on Gary Taube’s book Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It, I now see that I was eating too many carbs and hidden sugars back then. So it is worth my while to try out a course correction in my diet combined with a moderate workout to help me achieve my goal of slow, steady and permanent weight loss.
Finally, I asked myself if there were any other thought patterns that were pulling me back and keeping me de-motivated. Surprisingly, I found that I am actually overwhelming myself by over-thinking things. Take going for a walk, for instance. How hard is that? Not hard at all, right? Now, start thinking and imagining these steps – fight through traffic to get home, keep purse in its designated place, drink some water, maybe have a fruit, change into tracks and tee, find socks and wear running shoes, lock the house, go for a 30-45 min walk, come home, shower, change into sweats…Doesn’t the very thought of the entire process overwhelm you?
Note to self: Do NOT break down a simple walk into a thousand steps ‘cause it does not help! Instead, just think get home, go for walk. See, that’s so simple!
What about you? Ever felt like you were lacking motivation? What did you do to overcome it?
