Top tips for Making and Achieving Goals in 2012

Want to make changes in the coming year? Your not alone, each year 40% - 45% of adults make one or more resolution or goal for themselves. Some research suggests that 75% make it past the first week, and 46% make it past 6 months. Okay so alot of us break our resolutions, but statistics on New Year's resolutions show that setting goals for yourself is still a good idea because you are 10 times more likely to attain your goal, rather than people who don't explicitly make goals.

8 Top Tips for NY Resolutions:

1. Write down your goals - this helps you get clear about what you want.
2. Be as detailed as possible with the resolution you make, rather than just a vague statement like "I want to lose weight", be specific and say exactly how much by when.
3. Writing your goal as though it has already been achieved is a porwerful way to trick your mind into acting accordingly.
4. Make sure your goals excite you - this may sound obvious, but if you are not motivated and excited by your goals you are very unlikely to achieve them.
5. Put a plan in place once you have written down your resolutions about how you are going to achieve them. Be specific..
6. Commit to mini goals along the way to celebrate your progress.
7. Don't become overwhelmed or use your goals as another way to undermine your self esteem if you don't reach them. Be kind yo yourself and make small changes that are sustainable.
8. Be clear about who you are making your NY Resolutions for and make them for you and not for the approval of others.

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day." - Edith Lovejoy Pierce

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL MY CLIENTS AND FRIENDS

Stay tuned for my 40 Day program which will help you stay on track with those resolutions!

A Quick Read About Feeling & Being Happier

10 Steps Toward Feeling Happier


An interesting article by psychotherapist Linda Laffey

1. Make the decision to be happy

Life will continue to challenge all of us with its bumps in the road some big, some small. It is your attitude and how you choose to negotiate those bumps that determine how you feel. Adopting an attitude of appreciation for everything you have, and recognizing that you always have a choice about how to respond to external circumstances can contribute significantly to feeling happier.

2. Cultivate a sense of connection

Examine the relationships in your life? at home, at work, and socially. Do you feel connected to the people in your life in a healthy and satisfying way? Do you feel connected to yourself? Through reading, taking a class, meditation, spiritual exploration, therapy, and communicating with others, you can deepen your sense of connection and well-being.


3. Focus on forgiveness of yourself and others
This can be very challenging at times; especially when you feel someone has done something that seems unforgivable. The forgiveness, however, is for you, not for them. It frees your mental and emotional energy to blissfully go forward in your life. There is a saying: 'Holding onto resentment is like letting someone else live rent-free in your head.'

4. Set short-term and long-term goals for making your dreams a reality

Goal-setting gives you something to look forward to, something to work toward, and creates structure in your day-to-day life. As each step along the way is completed, you experience a sense of pride and accomplishment.


5. Find fulfilling work
Having an occupation that you enjoy and has meaning for you gives you a sense of purpose and can be deeply satisfying. If the work you are currently involved in falls short of this criteria, you may want to look at the possibilities for making a change at some point. If changing jobs is not practical, perhaps you could find a volunteer position or hobby that would meet the same criteria.


6. Take care of yourself physically, mentally, and spiritually
The health of your body enormously impacts happiness. Proper nutrition, regular sleep, and daily exercise that you find enjoyable are essential. Stress reduction through conscious schedule planning, breathing exercises, and meditation can make a tremendous difference. If you already have a spiritual practice or affiliation, seek to deepen it. If you don?t have one, you may want to explore those that interest you to find one that fits for you. Remembering your spirit, feeding, nurturing, and satisfying your soul can greatly increase your feeling of happiness.

7. Be honest with yourself and others
Congruence is the agreement between who you are, what you think and say you want, and your actions. As you become more connected with yourself, your goals, and your self-care improves, chances are you will find it increasingly easier to be genuine and authentic with others. When you really know who you are, what you want, and you are being true to yourself with actions that match, your happiness quotient will go up dramatically.


8. Be open to learning, growing and creating.

Continually expanding your mind through learning can increase your sense of self-confidence. Minds are kept young and sharp by continual use, and mentally active people live longer. Learning is as important to your brain as exercise is to your body. The more you learn, the more aspects of life you can be aware of, appreciate, and enjoy.

9. Manage your money wisely

If you are not already doing so, you can improve your money management by disciplining yourself to save money, keeping expenses low, evaluating your budget regularly, and using extra caution to consider expenses involved prior to starting a family, buying a home or making other large purchases. The old saying, ‘Money can’t buy happiness’ is not entirely true. We need money to pay for food, housing, transportation, and all other necessities for survival and comfort. Financial security is defined as the point at which a person has enough savings or regular income to support a comfortable lifestyle. ‘Comfortable’ means different things to different people. There are two ways to experience being rich: To have great wealth or to be content with what you already have. Once the basics of survival and reasonable comfort have been satisfied, your attitude regarding money becomes much more important than the size of your financial portfolio. Those who know how to use money well in the promotion of happiness are way ahead of those who think they need more.


10. Step out of your comfort zone in the pursuit of pleasure
Most of us tend to become creatures of habit. We eat the foods we like over and over, watch the same television shows week after week, frequent the same restaurants and theatres, and even choose the same vacation spots each year. What we once loved becomes comfortable, familiar, and eventually boring. If you feel stuck in a rut, make a conscious effort to add variety to your life. Try a new restaurant, plan a new and adventurous vacation, visit a museum you’ve never been to, or sign up for that dance class you’ve been thinking about taking. The possibilities are endless, and so are the rewards.

Who is the Real YOU?

How do you view your real self? Is it in a way that you would not share with others openly or frankly or are there certain parts of you that you would not openly verbalise to anyone? In order to have the life you want you must get honest about the person you are and celebrate being you.

Get clear about what you really want, not what you think you should want or what others want, but what things come back to you again and again and will not be silenced unless you act on them. We all have a sense of what we would like our ideal lives to look like, but all to often this is where it stops and the excuses begin. Take a baby step today to living your ideal life and you will be surprised by how much better you feel just by doing something, rather than talking or thinking about it.

“Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.” Margaret Young

People, things and situations gradually unfold to guide us further along our path once we commit to honouring what we truly want and who we truly are. The well known humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers spoke about our real and ideal selves and said the greater the gap between the two the more suffering we will experience. Therefore it is imperative to be honest with yourself about your limitations and most importantly your potential. If you make disparging remarks about yourself, stop it. Whether it is in the form of self talk or how you describe yourself to others it is very damaging and works by reinforcing those feelings about yourself (that are often untrue). Start today by honouring who you are and start to try and embrace the parts of you which you have trouble liking. Go on, you are worth it.

It's Good to say NO!

If you are not particularly assertive you may have real trouble verbalising the little word 'no'. The word carries lots of unpleasant associations and can be emotionally loaded. That's why so many of us nice, friendly, people pleaser types struggle with this word, even when we know it needs to be said. In my experience the top ten reasons we may be afraid to say no include:

1. Bring rejected
2. Disappointing others
3. Being judged
4. An awkwardness that may arise
5. Scared of embarrassment
6. Triggering an uncomfortable exchange
7. Fearful
8. Not feel entitled to saying no
9. Feel unworthy
10. Feel selfish

I have experienced all of these feelings at one time or another and as a consequence not stood my ground when people have taken advantage. When you do not have the courage to say no, what you are really saying is the other person is more important and valuable than you. This simply is not so. You deserve to be heard and valued as much as anyone else. It may also be a way of feeling sorry for yourself and allowing you to avoid dealing with personal problems. In counselling psychology boundaries are spoken of often and what has been found is that many people with low self esteem do not set up healthy boundaries with those around them. They allow others to continually take from them, even though they have a niggling feeling that it is not right. Put simply a boundary is a system of limit setting that protects you from being a victim.

If this resonates with you and you know you need to learn to say no, then start today. Increase your awareness of things that you say yes to, when you really mean no. For example, you may be invited to something and on impulse you say yes, but afterwards you realise you don't want to go and you then spend unnecessary time thinking about how you will get out of atending. Successful people do not do this, so why should you. Next time you are invited to something, take your time to think it over rather than just saying yes because you don't want to disappoint the other person.

Once you starting saying no people around you begin to respect you far more than they did previously. As the saying goes if you don't love yourself, how can you expect someone else to. You may also want to pinpoint where your people pleasing behaviour originated. It can be from messages we picked up from our parents, teachers etc or our place of work. However, regardless of where it stems from, it can be changed in a relatively short space of time once you are mindful of it.

No Time? How Much TV Do You Watch?

You may recall in the '7 Ways Consume Less, Create More' blog entry I discussed turning off the television to get your creativity flowing. We often don’t realize how television eats away at our time. For example let's do the maths:

• If you watch 4 hours of tv a night (say you watch tv between 6pm & 10pm, which arguably many households do)


• Therefore in a week that amounts to 28 hours


• Not including the weekends where many people watch more sports etc or in the cold winter months when we tend to stay inside & tune into the box more


• On average in a month that is 121 hours of tv


• Therefore in a year that amounts to 1,452 hours


• Which equates to a staggering 60 days


• In other words you spend two months of each year watching tv..

Sounds hard to believe, but if you check the figures they are correct. When I discussed this with my partner he found it hard to swallow as he is often attached to the remote control.. Now don't get me wrong there are certain programs that I thoroughly enjoy and I am not suggesting that you ditch the telly completely, but I am hoping that by reading this it makes you aware of what you could achieve if you watched tv less.

Personally I have many plans in the coming year, most importantly to give birth to a healthy baby a the end of October, to work more on my business and establish my writing & speaking career. With a busy toddler in tow it is often tempting when he has finally fallen asleep to retreat to the lounge and mindlessly watch tv for a couple of hours. However, I often find when I do that I end up irritated and actually have trouble sleeping, unless it is 'Secret Millionaire' of course which I think should be compulsory viewing for all aspiring millionaires. I try to limit the amount of tv that I watch and will only watch programs that I can learn from or that I thoroughly enjoy.

Seriously though, next time you hear yourself saying 'I would like to do that, but I don't have the time', think about unlocking some of that valuable time by limiting the amount of tv you watch. The least you can do is press the mute button whilst the adverts are on so you don't expose yourself to promotions for things that you don't actually need. Use the three minute advert breaks to ponder on the things you would do if you did have the time...