As we move towards the end of the year, as well as preparing to enjoy the festive period, you may be busy seeking to complete the goals you set for this year.
Your mind might be contemplating how you would like things to be next year and the goals and aspirations that you will have for your personal and professional lives.
Have you had some great personal goals in the past that you didn’t accomplish? It might be that you set off with good intentions to achieve them, pursued them for a bit but then lost focus and motivation and didn’t persevere. Sadly that’s the story for many people.
Unfortunately, in the busyness of modern life, we can all get overwhelmed and lose focus on our personal priorities. It’s easy to fall into the trap of getting distracted by many competing priorities, trying to do too much and spreading ourselves too thin.
In this eventuality, you may run hard to stand still. It may be that you have an internal frustration that you haven’t kept a commitment to yourself and let a goal slip through your fingers.
In this scenario when you looking to wipe the slate clean and embark on pursuing some new goals my advice is always the same. That advice is to simplify the number of goals and commitments that you have. Less truly is more! It’s important to create some space by releasing the old and outdated to make room for the new.
A good question to ask yourself at this time of year is “What would I like to be different next year?” This helps to identify things you may like to change and ensure that you get clarity on any new habits you will need to adopt in order to align with your goals and revised interests.
When you look to set some goals, I believe that there are 3 C’s that are important to bear in mind.
These are clarity, consistency and commitment.
Clarity
It’s important to establish a clear sense of direction on where you are heading to avoid using vital energy on distractions. Having clarity on what you want and why you want it is imperative. I think having clear goals can be likened to having a sat nav for any car journey that you undertake.
Before setting off on the journey, you will key in the destination. The sat nav will then calculate the quickest way to get there. When travelling you may encounter some challenges which require you to take a detour. You therefore need to have some flexibility in your plans. That said the ultimate destination remains the same throughout the journey. Therefore you can easily track progress.
So the first step is to establish specific clear goal goals with a deadline, so you can form plans to achieve them.
Consistency
Once the goals have been established and you are clear on your motivation and reason for wanting to pursue them it’s time for consistent action. Knowing why you are motivated to pursue the goal is so important because if the going gets tough you will be able to remind yourself of your motivation to want to achieve it in the first place.
Consistent action helps for plans to become reality over time. I am big believer that small consistent actions lead to extraordinary results. For instance, if you would like to write a book and commit to writing 500 words a day 3 times a week, by the end of the year you will have written 78,000 which is enough words for a decent sized book. The same principles can apply to health and fitness goals.
Given that 90% of what we do each day is habit, it’s good to be consistent with actions and behaviours to enable good healthy habits to be formed to help the goals to be accomplished.
Commitment
Once you have determined what your goals are, it’s important to be 100% committed. I always ask clients when they come up with actions how committed (on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being high) they are to the action plan they have developed. If they don’t give it 10 out of 10 for commitment, I ask them to work out what needs to change for them to give it a 10 and 100% commitment.
The reason for this is that if people aren’t 100% committed they will not accomplish what they are capable of. By giving themselves an 8 or 9 out of 10 for commitment they are giving themselves an opportunity to cop out and stop pursuing the goal further down the line.
Until there is total commitment hesitancy and doubt will be present and could prevent a goal being achieved. So it’s important once a goal has been set for a no exception rule to be applied.
What I mean by this is that mentally you tell yourself that once you have made a commitment to yourself you will honour it and there will be no exceptions to this personal rule. This stops any internal chatter about whether to quit or not and reserves energy to pursue the goal.
This week, why not take a few moments to consider what action you can take to ensure that you successfully achieve goals that you set. What changes to your approach do you need to take to enjoy more success?
This week’s quotation:
“The secret of change is to focus all your energy, not fighting the old, but on building the new.” Socrates.
To arrange a free no obligation consultation, please contact Stephen Pauley via the contact form or by e mail: Stephen@befirstclass.co.uk