We are already into the second week of 2011 and I’m wondering how many of you set New Year resolutions? If you did, how many of you have broken them already and decided to give up?! To be resolute is to be determined, bold, not vacillating or shrinking – yet I wonder how many of us really understand this when making a New Year Resolution. Instead entering into it out of ‘tradition’. If you really want to set goals/targets for the year that work – read on.
I was one of those people who would make one or several New Year resolutions and rarely would they last the year. However, I have come across a couple of processes over recent years that have had more meaning for me and really helped me think about what I want from the year ahead. They have become a bit of a ritual for me between Christmas and New Year and more often than not I stick with them. What I've learned from putting this ritual into practice is that INTENTION is extremely powerful. Resolutions are fine, but they are often motivated by what you should do and therefore remain in our heads as just that. So the key to making this work is to have a very clear intention of making them happen.
Other critical elements to making these work and achieve what you set out to do are:
CLARITY: Be really clear about what it is that you want to the point where you get a very clear picture in your own mind as to what it looks like and how it will feel to have it. When you are unclear it’s hard to create the outcomes you desire. This does not mean you need to know the how of getting it. So the clarity of your intention is the first step.
CONGRUENCE: Another way of looking at this is to be truly authentic to who you are. This means doing it because it’s what you want not what someone else thinks you should be doing, or because everyone else seems to be doing it.
COMMITMENT: This is about pledging or promising to yourself to take action to get what you want. This is not about planning out every detail. This often leads to frustration and people giving up before they have even begun. It is about taking the first steps and then to keep going, being open to opportunities that come your way. If you have the clarity of your intention and it’s congruent for you you are more likely to commit to action around it.
So having set the scene let me give you an overview of the two processes.
Your Best Year Ever
I first came across this through the Performance Partnership.
1. Identify the areas of your life that you want to set goals for e.g. career, family, health and fitness.
2. Write some SMART objectives against these. It’s important here to ensure they are written as if you already have them and are simple and as specific as they need to be for you. Give some real thought to what it is you want and once you have written your goal review it and ask yourself are they clear to me, do I know what it will look and feel like to have this? Is it congruent with who I am? Am I really committed to achieving this?
3. Apply the creating your future process® to put them into your future.
Word of the Year
This process comes from Christine Kane.
1. Identify the word (or words) that you are choosing for the coming year. Choose a word that has real meaning for you e.g. Creativity, Pioneer, Courage. Be clear about how you need to be in ‘living’ this word and how you will embody it.
2. What old patterns or unhelpful beliefs have you been living that have stopped you from ‘living’ this word. Identify what triggers these and what you want to do/be instead.
3. List at least 5 goals you’d like to accomplish based on this word.
With both of these processes this is simply the start, remembering that once established you have to take action so be clear about what the first step is. If you find you are not taking action, or lapsing into old behaviours ask yourself what you need to do to get back on track. I find this a much better approach than beating yourself up over it.
So Good Luck! I trust you will get all you set out to achieve in 2011.
"It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things."
Leonardo da Vinci
