ARE YOU READY TO GET BACK UP and FINISH THIS YEAR ON TOP?
First steps…
1. Recommit Yourself. Review your goals & choose to focus on those that still really matter.
2. Go back and Handwrite Your Goals you most care about (and know your WHY)
For those of you science geeks, here are some fun facts that show us how physically writing out our goals makes it more likely that you will accomplish them:
- According to the Dominican University of California, “People who write down their goals, shared them with others, and maintained accountability for their goals were 33% more likely to achieve them versus those who just formulated them in their heads.”
- According to Virginia Berninger, at the University of Washington, as our hand executes each stroke of each letter, as we commit thought to paper, we are activating a much larger part of our brain’s thinking, language and “working memory” regions than if we type the words out.
- Your unconscious and conscious brain help you remember when you write down your goals. When we write things down, our unconscious brain registers the info as important to us. The Reticular Activating System in our brain – the part that wakes us up when we start falling asleep at the wheel, is stimulated when we write. When we write, our brain is literally being alerted to “wake up!” and “pay attention!
- And, just as Simon Sinek taught us that highly successful companies “know their WHY”, when writing goals for ourselves, we need to know our WHY. Why does achieving this particular thing really matter- or not??? Our WHY is how we maintain our passion & stay motivated to the finish line.
3. Create a map that you can return to when life gives you a detour. Just like when you are driving down the road and all of a sudden you come to a place where the road just ends…it is blocked with sawhorses and no signs of detour and you think “What the heck???” When we can pull up a map and remind ourselves of where we are trying to go, we can fairly easily figure out how to get back on track. Having the steps to our goals mapped out allows us to pick up and keep moving forward, even after some of life’s most challenging detours.
4. Mind your Mindset. You’ve heard this so many times before but it’s so easy to forget when we are going through a rough spell. Watch your thoughts so you don’t end up telling yourself a victim story that will hold you back and keep you small. It’s often helpful to have someone in your life who will 1) call you out when they hear you slipping into old, negative tapes and 2) hold a mirror up for you to see that which others see (in you) that you don’t…of course, make sure this person is trustworthy and not out to shame you. We need compassionate witnesses for this journey!
5. Have a strong accountability partner. Just like someone to help you mind your mind, make sure you have an accountability partner who is both compassionate (nonjudgmental) yet just as invested in seeing you do well as they are in themselves (challenging). Choose someone who is more disciplined than you and will help you stay positive and motivated when things get tough. Good accountability partners are not looking for you to slip up or condemn you if you don’t meet your goal, they are there to challenge you to live with integrity.
6. Take small, steady action instead of efforting. I know, “efforting” is not a word as evidenced by the 5 times my Mac just changed my typing back to “effecting”. But somehow I relate to that word. I was always taught to “work HARD”. I had a father of German heritage, go figure. It seemed that if something was to pay off, it had to feel like a huge EFFORT. Hard Work. But what I’ve learned is that EFFORTING, or putting great amounts of effort into something by spending long hours until I can’t keep my eyes open and my brain is mush, rarely produces the results I am looking for. Oh, I get things DONE but the results aren’t nearly as good as when I take small, steady turtle steps toward my goal…or work when I’m in FLOW. When I listen to the truest version of myself, I eat lunch, I take bathroom breaks (I seriously used to get UTI’s from not taking the time to go to the bathroom while working at the hospital…because I told myself that I didn’t have time; that what I was working on had to get finished. Talk about painful epiphanies!) So, break your goals into small steps that can be assigned to specific time periods for completion. If you tend to be resistant or procrastinate, find the smallest possible action toward your goal. Want to write a book? Write a paragraph. Or write for 10 minutes. Either way, take a small action and do it consistently.
7. Celebrate EVERY success…especially the small ones! Take small steady action and then PAR-TAY!!! Or, well, at least DANCE! Do the Macarena or jump up and down while yelling, “I did it!” repeatedly and pointing at the ceiling. When we not only take time but make celebrating a priority...even if it means just standing up from your cubicle and yelling ‘WAHOO!!!’ so that everyone arounds you prairie dogs to see just what lottery you won…celebrating small accomplishments reminds us of our ultimate goal and encourages us to keep focused on achieving it. Celebrating is also an exercise in gratitude – being grateful for what we’ve accomplished. And as we know, when we focus on gratitude, we are given even more to be grateful for! Celebrating is fun and feels good…and heaven knows, we deserve to feel good….right now AND when we reach the end of this year!
Now go get started! I am here for you along the entire journey!
Ann
P.S. A great way to move your dreams to reality and watch your goals be conquered is through my Passionate Program. Learn more about the Passionate Program here.
