Have you taken the time to set a powerful intention for what you want 2018 to be? I’m not referring to New Year’s resolutions – rather tangible goals that will catapult yourself, your family and/or career into a deeper and more meaningful level.
This is something I do for myself every year, and it really aligns my focus and commitment. At the end of each year I can look back at my notes and smile seeing the advances I have made.
So many of us set New Year’s resolutions that are soon forgotten after a few weeks into the year. Why is that? If you are in that boat, what in your mind prevents you from continuing to pursue what you really desire for the year?
What I have noticed in working with people over the years is that we set goals with the intention to succeed from day one. For example: this year I will exercise every day; I will not eat sugar or wheat or dairy; I will have R100,000 in my bank account etc. But then life happens, and we have not gone to the gym or exercised daily, we have resorted back to comfort-eating, and savings have gone out of the window. I think this causes a lot of us to give up and resign.
Where I feel we can succeed is when we follow the following steps:
• Take the pressure off the need to succeed from day one, and allow the goal to manifest by the end of the year, so it becomes a pursuit to change behaviour, slowly and gradually, but then with sustainable results;
• You may really want to lose weight but on a real level losing weight as a goal is not inspiring to you. Shift how you state your outcome to be, for example: This year is about me feeling happy in my own skin, or this year is about me learning to love and honour my body by avoiding the foods that is not giving me the energy I need;
• You might have felt life has been too serious for a while, and you want to connect to your joy again, you might devote your year to Living Loving and Laughing more. You might feel that you aren’t heard, and your voice is constantly over ridden – so this year, you may devote energy to finding your voice again and learning to speak up and from the heart. All of these are examples of sharing your goal in terms of the outcome you truly seek, which takes the pressure off from daily promises. This in turn will create a context for you to apply more and more which allows you to acknowledge the small wins consistently over time;
• Remember, things happen over time, and with deeply entrenched habits, they also take time to shift. Be willing to surrender the outcome and feel trust in the process knowing if you just remain committed to the outcome that makes your soul smile, then the urgency to get daily results is gone as you enter a deeper inquiry in how to achieve this;
• Create reminders in your calendar to review your goals every 3 months, so you can assess how you are doing, and get back on track;
• It is also useful to create a support group where you and some friends create and share your goals together. Quarterly get-togethers will remind you to stay accountable as well as give you the opportunity to share experiences, hardships and victories with like-minded friends that you know will support you on your journey.
I’d like to encourage you to get a beautiful journal so that you can review your goals, comment as your journey goes along and be able to see progress as you go along.
Dr Seuss said: “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose”. And that is my wish for you this year – that your choices will lead you to be real, be true, be you.
